Thinking of building a HTPC with Windows Media Center, a few questions... (1 Viewer)

[Robert Ross]

I'm thinking of building a HTPC, only if I can get the setup exactly like I want. What I would like to do is be able to rip all of my cds and dvds to my hard drive (cds in a lossless format and dvds in Divx/Xvid), that way I'd never have to worry about switching out discs. Now I know Windows Media Center allows you to listen to music stored on your hard drive, and record tv shows, but does it make it easy to watch Divx-encoded movies? Like, is there an option that says My Movies, that lets me browse all the Divx files I have? I read in an article that when viewing tv with WMC it sorts all the movies playing on all the channels and shows cover art for each movie allowing easy browsing, and then allows you to record them all. I would love to have a system like this for the dvds I already own.

The other thing I have a question about is my tv. I have a widescreen HDTV RP CRT (1080i). If I get a videocard that has component outputs, will it display everything in the higher resolution of a PC and display it in the right aspect ratio (16:9)? I'm not too familiar with using a regular TV with a PC, so not sure how it would work out.

 

[Max Leung]

You should be able to do everything you listed in your post.

I'm not sure about passing 1080i from your PC to your TV, but it should work - although your desktop might look fuzzy but video should look ok.

Currently, I use TheaterTek or Zoomplayer to play my videos (DiVX, DVDs, ripped DVDs, etc.) - but MCE should do it all too. I just happen to prefer the picture quality and the tweaking flexibility of TT and ZP. It does make me wonder why I bothered with MCE2005 in the first place - I don't have a TV tuner card, just the MCE Remote Control.