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  1. Matt Wright

    SATAII drive with SATA 150 interface?

    Yeah SATA2 should be backwards compatable, but not always if the vendor of your controller goofs up like VIA apparently did. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24910 I don't know the validity of that article. Some HDDs ship with a utility where you can change the interface spec down to...
  2. Matt Wright

    HTF REVIEW: Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

    I have dibs on 1.78:1 -- a. the show is made for HDTV in mind, not a movie theater, and so they want it to "fill the HDTV", which 2.35:1 wouldn't (slight letterboxing). b. 2.35:1 makes even larger bars then 16:9 when re-broadcast as 4:3 standard def TV, or at least more annoying to choose...
  3. Matt Wright

    IT'S TIME! I've Got Baloney In My Slacks...for Animaniacs! AND Pinky and the Brain!

    I am thriled at the news! Now I want Freakazoid and I'll be pretty much good.
  4. Matt Wright

    HTPC idea

    I've seen it done once or twice
  5. Matt Wright

    Looking for enclosure for custom HTPC case

    Well I know one thing you could do is get something similar made at a place like http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/ Have that custom made to graft on to a typical desktop PC case and people would never know ;)
  6. Matt Wright

    Need Video/Capture Cards Recommendations

    The terms are essentially synonymous. A PVR-150 will do just fine :) As for the graphics card a GeForce 6600 is the favorite for doing all things PVR, HD, and DVD.
  7. Matt Wright

    Best Vid Card (<$200) for HT PC to display on 50" Plasma

    Sorry recording directly from cable HD for all intents and purposes is not possible until CableCARD support arrives in late 2006 with Windows Vista. The HDTV tuner cards are effectively for over the air HD only. You can understand more about the complexity of the issues here...
  8. Matt Wright

    Best Vid Card (<$200) for HT PC to display on 50" Plasma

    You'll be happiest with the PVR-150 as it is more widely supported then the Leadtek alternative. As for the graphics card look for one of the passively cooled GeForce 6600 cards. Many (but not all) models offer component/s-video/composite or DVI output for connecting to your home theater...
  9. Matt Wright

    Need Video/Capture Cards Recommendations

    This should help with your Hauppauge confusion http://htpcnews.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1931
  10. Matt Wright

    HTF REVIEW: Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

    Yeah I agree the clone troopers turning on the Jedi was the stand out moment in ROTS for me. I am very anxious to get this DVD, especially for the reference image quality.
  11. Matt Wright

    Having problems installing Turtle Beach Montego DDL

    The Montego doesn't have the best reputation, but two things: 1. Go find your temp directories and clean them out, the InstallShield deposited files in one of them that are probably corrupted, everytime you re-run the installer it dumps more and often gets confused when it sees the same files...
  12. Matt Wright

    Video Card Question

    Not to rain on your parade but the 6200 is actually a bit crippled in the PureVideo department. http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html It is missing some of the best high-end features like the 3:2 pulldown correction. Also note the 6200 "TC" model uses system RAM for 3D textures...
  13. Matt Wright

    Windows Media HD video requirements?

    No it isn't you need to make sure you have the WMV-HD acceleration patch installed for WMP10: http://www.support.microsoft.com/def...b;en-us;888656 Note that at the bottom of the page is another hotfix you need to install first: http://www.support.microsoft.com/kb/891122/
  14. Matt Wright

    Need an external tv card.......

    So that means you want a standard software encoding TV tuner. Tuners that encode into MPEG2 in hardware incur a slight delay. I would say look at something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815116627
  15. Matt Wright

    A few HTPC concerns for a possible buyer

    Do you want to game? or just have a good feature set for TV-output? Just an FYI, the 6800 series does not have component output. If you want to game get a 7800GT, if you just want a nice card for general HTPC type uses get a GeForce 6600, look for one that has the component output dongle...
  16. Matt Wright

    help getting video card to control sat

    Controlling a set-top box via an IR blaster is very common setup. What PVR software were you going to use? I gather you mean you have an All-in-Wonder Radeon, while that isn't the most optimal of devices to use for PVR due to the fact all the heavy lifting of recording is done by your CPU it...
  17. Matt Wright

    1080p inputs at CEDIA: Information and Misinformation

    That HP seemed to get quite a favorable write-up from Sound and Vision Magazine. Is there a list of the other 1080p sets that can actually accept 1080p via HDMI? DLP tech doesn't really do it for me. I would prefer an LCoS set if I had to choose rear projection.
  18. Matt Wright

    1080p inputs at CEDIA: Information and Misinformation

    So the really uncertain part here is whether the electronics at the other end of the HDMI connector really can do 1080p or not. Perhaps [wishful thinking] some manufacturers are being careful and currently calling it "1080i only" until shipping next gen Hi-Def DVD players capable of real native...
  19. Matt Wright

    My initial observations...

    I agree about the 1080p DLP sets being only so-so and the LCoS counterparts looking better. The real bummer is that every vendor I talked to said their sets only took 1080i as input from HDMI which is just plain nutty if you ask me considering we are talking about 1080p sets. Are you positive...
  20. Matt Wright

    A few HTPC questions

    Yes that is due to the age. In older NVIDIA cards it was up to the to graphics card manufacturer to choose an extra 3rd party TV-out chip to drive the TV-output. It could be one of many vendors that were compatible with NVIDIA's GPUs; Some stunk, some were pretty good. Modern NVIDIA GPUs have...
  21. Matt Wright

    A few HTPC questions

    1. Yes 2. Don't bother with ATI's TV-out. NVIDIA's is quite a bit better. Most find NVIDIA's to be sharper and have more color detail. You could grab something like a good quality GeForce FX 5200 and you should be fine. 3. Harold Wazzu already mentioned a very good option. I don't see...
  22. Matt Wright

    WMCE MY Movies ?

    802.11g might be good enough, but wired is the best way to go. Sadly no, MCE extenders can't be used in the manner you want. MCE extenders are essentially "dumb" devices. They can stream recorded and live TV and thats about it. They do not have the capacity to play DVDs (ripped or otherwise)...
  23. Matt Wright

    WMCE MY Movies ?

    Yes it is, but you would need another MCE PC in the bedroom. MyMovies can be configured to look for it's database from a network share.
  24. Matt Wright

    Anybody here a guru with nvidia?

    What you are experiencing is completely normal. Let's talk about how the two different interfaces work. The notes here apply to all video cards from all vendors. Composite/S-video goes through a special grouping of circuitry that we normally just call "TV-out". TV-out circuitry actually...
  25. Matt Wright

    Allright, walk me through it like I'm 4 years old: I want an HTPC!

    The only way to get anything off of your cable box is to have a firewire port on it and try the user created plugin for Firewire recording for SageTV or the user created hack for MCE 2005. This sums things up nicely: http://htpcnews.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7678
  26. Matt Wright

    Allright, walk me through it like I'm 4 years old: I want an HTPC!

    That link doesn't work for me. Most pre-made HTPCs are junk made by large OEMs and/or gaming PC makers who don't know squat about cool and quiet components. AMD is still the way to go, an Athlon 64 based on the Venice core is a cool runing and very fast option. NVIDIA has totaly smacked...
  27. Matt Wright

    Sound Card to Reciever Cable

    Yeah it is possible. That mini-jack is simply Creative's proprietary coax S/PDIF port. All you need is a mono mini-jack to RCA adapter.
  28. Matt Wright

    New Battlestar Galactica series..Any news of a dvd release?

    Yeah I would love to see BSG be one of the premiere titles to come out in HD. However the whole HD-DVD vs. BluRay thing still looms and I sure don't want to double-dip simply because a format died in 4 or 5 years (if it even takes that long).
  29. Matt Wright

    New Battlestar Galactica series..Any news of a dvd release?

    Geeze where was I? I totaly missed that. :frowning:
  30. Matt Wright

    New Battlestar Galactica series..Any news of a dvd release?

    Hang on a sec.... Eric F, you said: Where in the heck have you seen BSG in High-Def? I would love to see it in HD. I assume it was on Universal HD. Man I gotta get me some of that :) Sadly Comcast doesn't carry Universal HD :frowning:
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