Topic: Share your HTPC Setup

[nerveblocker]

Ano gamit mo connection between PJ & DVD player?
Meron ka ba gamit na specific software to manage resolution sa HTPC mo? like Powerstrips or equivalent?

Sir I use a VGA cable from my PC to the projector.  When I use my DVD player, I use component video to VGA cable.   Nope as of the moment I am not using any software yet to manage the resolution of my HTPC.  I'll try to download powerstrip and check the results.  I'll keep on posting. Thanks!

[nerveblocker]

Thanks Jay for the response.  I'll try to download powerstrip and try to tinker with the settings.   

[agmjr]

..., I use component video to VGA cable...

sir saan nyo nabili yung component to vga cable? ty po in advance

[Meridian-Audio]

sir saan nyo nabili yung component to vga cable? ty po in advance

hi ako nagbenta kay nerveblocker ng VGA to component cable.

[nerveblocker]

Tried using powerstrip to still try to upgrade to the highest possible resolution but my PJ can only accept refresh rate at 60Hz.  Higher resolutions running at 75Hz there is no display.  Oh well, can't have it all.  I am very much satisfied at its present resolution though. 

[nerveblocker]

Tried experimenting again with powerstrip and the highest resolution that my EMP-S3 projector can accept is 1280x960p  . The picture seems smaller with bigger black bars top and bottom but can still occupy the whole screen horizontally when watching dvds compared to the resolution I usually use which is 1280x768. Guess I rest my case.

Thanks jay for the help!  I really appreciate it 

[jpadua]

Tried experimenting again with powerstrip and the highest resolution that my EMP-S3 projector can accept is 1280x960p  . The picture seems smaller with bigger black bars top and bottom but can still occupy the whole screen horizontally when watching dvds compared to the resolution I usually use which is 1280x768. Guess I rest my case.

Thanks jay for the help!  I really appreciate it 

Mel, try to find out what the native resolution of your projector is.  The projector, just like an HDTV can scale images.  For best PQ you would want to have 1:1 pixel mapping.  That is matching the HTPCs output resolution to your projector's native resolution.  For example... the native resolution of my LCD monitor is 1280x720.  If I display anything other than that the text is a bit fuzzy... when I use 1280x720 as my resolution, text is extremely sharp compared to higher resolutions...thats why projectors that are 720p native or 1080p native are really really expensive...  Normally a projector in the 80-150k range, the native resolution might be 800x600. 

I have a file that can check your pixel mapping.  Download this, and make it your wallpaper, set it to centered or tiled but not streched.  Then if the dots are not clear (there is bleeding, a bit fuzzy) then that means you are not in 1:1 pixel mapping.  Try different resolutions till you get the sharpest definition.

http://www.m2systech.com/files/720x576.bmp

[nerveblocker]

Mel, try to find out what the native resolution of your projector is.  The projector, just like an HDTV can scale images.  For best PQ you would want to have 1:1 pixel mapping.  That is matching the HTPCs output resolution to your projector's native resolution.  For example... the native resolution of my LCD monitor is 1280x720.  If I display anything other than that the text is a bit fuzzy... when I use 1280x720 as my resolution, text is extremely sharp compared to higher resolutions...thats why projectors that are 720p native or 1080p native are really really expensive...  Normally a projector in the 80-150k range, the native resolution might be 800x600. 

I have a file that can check your pixel mapping.  Download this, and make it your wallpaper, set it to centered or tiled but not streched.  Then if the dots are not clear (there is bleeding, a bit fuzzy) then that means you are not in 1:1 pixel mapping.  Try different resolutions till you get the sharpest definition.

http://www.m2systech.com/files/720x576.bmp

Thanks for the reply.  My PJ has a native resolution of 800x600 and I can say that in terms of text, this is the most clear among the other resolutions (maybe because it has the biggest letters, I dunno).  But when it comes to video, the highest resolution which is 1280x960p which my PJ can accept is the most clear as compared to the 800x600 mode.  Well, this is subjective though.  So to reaffirm my observations,  I invited friends and relatives over to really compare the DVD video quality of the native and upscaled resolutions and they vouched for the latter as being more clear.  Why? As compared to the native 800x600, the higher resolution has more color separation.  I tested ANTZ for instance and the flying insects' closed up skin was more detailed on 1280x960p. In the 800x600 mode, there was just one shade of yellow (sort of a mixed blend) but on the higher resolution there were shades and contours which was more defined; edges were more sharp, colors have different gradations...more of HDTV-like already.  The difference was very evident.  So when I watch DVDs, I use 1280x768p (which has narrower black bars top and bottom of the screen but with superb video quality) and I just shift to a lower resolution when using the internet for a clearer text.

Just posting my observations.  I'll try to download what you've posted and also check it out.  Although I think the answer to this is already predictable.  Ciao!        

[nerveblocker]

Hi to all you guyz here, I'm just stumble on with this sound card over the net just want to hear comments from you about this card. Thankz!!! 





http://www.auzentech.com/products_xplosion.html#tour

Is this available locally?

[alvinthx2]

Thanks for the reply.  My PJ has a native resolution of 800x600 and I can say that in terms of text, this is the most clear among the other resolutions (maybe because it has the biggest letters, I dunno).  But when it comes to video, the highest resolution which is 1280x960p which my PJ can accept is the most clear as compared to the 800x600 mode.  Well, this is subjective though.  So to reaffirm my observations,  I invited friends and relatives over to really compare the DVD video quality of the native and upscaled resolutions and they vouched for the latter as being more clear.  Why? As compared to the native 800x600, the higher resolution has more color separation.  I tested ANTZ for instance and the flying insects' closed up skin was more detailed on 1280x960p. In the 800x600 mode, there was just one shade of yellow (sort of a mixed blend) but on the higher resolution there were shades and contours which was more defined; edges were more sharp, colors have different gradations...more of HDTV-like already.  The difference was very evident.  So when I watch DVDs, I use 1280x768p (which has narrower black bars top and bottom of the screen but with superb video quality) and I just shift to a lower resolution when using the internet for a clearer text.

Just posting my observations.  I'll try to download what you've posted and also check it out.  Although I think the answer to this is already predictable.  Ciao!        

I hope you don't take this negatively and I will be glad to be corrected if I am wrong. If this is the case, the scaler built in your PJ is better than your HTPC since  the built in scaler will downconvert the signal from your computer to its native resolution. Putting out 800*600 via HTPC is actually bypassing the scaler of your PJ. Any resolution other than 600*800 will trigger the scaler of the PJ whether up or downconvertion to its native resolution.

[wrAth]

How does the Xplosion compare with the Sound Blaster X-FI series?

[jpadua]

I hope you don't take this negatively and I will be glad to be corrected if I am wrong. If this is the case, the scaler built in your PJ is better than your HTPC since  the built in scaler will downconvert the signal from your computer to its native resolution. Putting out 800*600 via HTPC is actually bypassing the scaler of your PJ. Any resolution other than 600*800 will trigger the scaler of the PJ whether up or downconvertion to its native resolution.

The scaler is not exactly better than the HTPCs scaling abilities... if the projector can handle a higher native output then the HTPC can certainly supply the high quality scaling ability for the source material.  In this case though, lucky enough your PJ has good scaling ability.

You may also try using 800x600 to get 1:1 pixel mapping, then use Zoomplayer and FFDshow to resize your source to a higher resolution adding some sharpening, denoise filters to get better PQ.

DVD->Zoomplayer->ffdshow->apply filters->resize to higher res->hardware downscale to 800x600by videocard->PJ=1:1 pixel mapping with postprocessed output.

with my LCD, 1280x720 looks better than 1280x768, 1280x1024 even 1920x1080i.  I'm using 1:1 pixel mapping with ZP and resizing with filters using FFDSHOW.  from a good viewing distance regular DVDs look very close to HD, not the same but way better than regular DVD.

Just a suggestion.

[nerveblocker]

alvinthx2- Thanks for the input.  Although my projector can accept signals higher than its native resolution which is 800x600, I know that what I am getting is not real high definition.  What do you expect from an entry level projector,  right?  But I am happy it is doing its job well in the downconversion.

jpadua- I'll try to experiment again.  I had a misadventure while toying with powerstrip.  I tried higher resolutions with higher frequencies until I didn't have any display with my PJ anymore.  Had to hook the HTPC to my bulky 21 inch monitor to fix the settings again.  There was a warning in the ATI videocard settings that if you force your monitor to a higher resolution with a refresh rate which your monitor can't handle, it may damage your monitor.  I thought my PJ was a goner.  That's why I am more cautious now with experimentation, I might not be able to revert back to the previous setting. 

[mheloy]

I believe there is a hot key in powerstrip para mag-display ng default resolution in case walang lumabas sa projector mo.

[alvinthx2]

I know that the experience of having a HTPC (when you get everything right) is a great experience. Counting all the hours I have spent configuring one, even in the wee hours of the morning, the picture is absolutely stunning. Its like having very expensive technology for free(almost). Everybody needs a computer at home, and being able to use it as a superb audio/video source for a dime is remarkable.

Having said that, the reason why I am frustrated with this approach is the fact that dvd drives are very picky. Honestly speaking, I buy a lot of p*****d dvd's for single session viewing. I have no problems with originals, they play flawlessly. The dvd's that don't work with my HTPC plays with my EAD Theatervision p and pioneer 969 players. I have tried drives from Asus, Sony, LG and the like but for some reason ,DVD drives are more picky than regular players. (That was 2 years ago, maybe drives have improved)

There is no question HTPC is very good but comparing it with the GEnnum VPX, ABT102,or HQV equip scalers, I have my doubts.

[slowhand]

alvin, don't you have the Toshiba HD DVD player? A friend says it's like an "HTPC without the hassle" in terms of its upscaling capabilities. Could you comment please? thanks.

[nerveblocker]

Yes you are right about Optical Drives being choosy in reading DVDs.  I bought an original LXG R3 and tried it on my HTPC and it just pixellated and froze.  Bought a new liteon combo drive and still I wasnt able to finish the movie.  So I just shifted on to my regular DVD player.

Another fix to this is to decrypt your hard to read DVDs to the HDD and extract the video from there.  It might work.

My DVD player and my HTPC is attached to a KVM switch so I do not have to tinker with the back of the PJ when I shift from DVD player to HTPC. 

[jpadua]

You know the funny irony...   we spend a lot of time tweaking and buying stuff to make the HTPC a good visual experience, and yet still buy cheap P*****d discs which we know are not good quality.  Well I guess thats why the 3K dvd players are out there.  I watch quality DVDs with the htpc and just watch the single viewing type movies with the elcheapo.

[jpadua]

alvin, don't you have the Toshiba HD DVD player? A friend says it's like an "HTPC without the hassle" in terms of its upscaling capabilities. Could you comment please? thanks.

Ive used an upscaling DVD player (720p and 1080i) even wrote a good review for T3 on it.  Honestly I dont see the difference... infact 1080i looks even worse than progressive since you can see the deinterlacing artifacts. The fact is, your source material is still 480p, yes the player scales it, so no scaling is done by your HDTV or PJ, but all you are looking at is a blown up 480p video, unlike real HD material that is encoded in 720p or 1080i.  With an HTPC, you can post process a DVD upscaling the source 720x480 to 1280x720. With the proper application of processing filters you can make the picture sharper, more vibrant, cleaner.

Its true that you can have the same quality output similar to an HTPC (video connection via DVI/HDMI) but you cant do any postprocessing which is actually night and day in comparison.

I think its worth the hassle.. but thats just me :p

[Gubs]

Just would like to point out that with my current htpc set up ,I can upscale to 1080i (1440x1080i)with out any visible scan lines from about 5 feet viewing distance .Compared to a stand alone dvd player that is scaled to 960i automatically I can still see very fine scan lines on my super fine pitch wega. 480p produces even more visible fine scan lines.Upscaled to 1080i is as film like as I could get with my current tv.Also I like changing the aspect ratio of 2.35 films to 1:85 through power dvd which gives a little bigger picture without much resolution loss.

[alvinthx2]

With regards to the Toshiba HD A1, Yes it is just a repackaged HTPC using LInux. The thing is, hd-dvd's are mastered using vc-1 with a native resolution of 1080p, therefore there is really more information to work with. I myself uses 1080i because this is the output setting that works best. An output of 720p triggers the scaller to downconvert back to 480p and then 720p(quite silly I might say). With this 720p output, my upscaled regular DVD's looks better using the interlaced 480i output of my Pioneer 969 via the built in Gennum processor of my Anthem Avm50 at 720p. So far U571 and The LastSamurai looks best. There are no artifacts wharsoever. Even the horizontal panning are great without any motion judder. Colors are rich,vibrant and well defined. You can actually see details of faces that are not evident on regular DVD's.
I have upgraded it to firmware version 1.4 and some of the HDMI issues reported were solved. There are ocassional lockups and I have to restart play to get it going from the beginning. Overall, I am impressed and I have made a good descision buying one. Having true HD at home is great. Can't wait to get my hands on a a 1080p projector that I can afford.

I use my Pioneer 969 as a dedicated transport with no processing at all. The pure unprocessed 480i signal via HDMI is by far the best feed for my scaler.

I would invite anybody near my place  (Mabalacat, Pampanga) to see what I have done.

[alvinthx2]

To answer which is better HTPC or a Video processor(not upscaling dvd players), heres one response;

They don't. If you read past the marketing hype it's basically just hardware acceleration that they are talking about. If you really want the best picture out of an HTPC it means using ffdshow for quality scaling and sharpening (and possibly some NR). This means that all of the fancy hardware accleration is turned off. HW is only a part of the equation though. To fully render a DVD a PC uses a "filter graph" utilizing a lot of different software components and renderers. Microsoft's Renderless VMR9 is the best renderer at this time, but it's still a work in progress (check the archives in the HTPC forum about Renderless VMR9 issues compared to the older Overlay renderer and VMR7). Judder is still a big problem, HTPCs also have deinterlacing problems with non-standard cadences, they don't have the power to perform per-pixel MAD. The available sharpening and NR (ffdshow) isn't close to what an Algolith Mosquito can do. The list just goes on...

I don't see the balance shifting anytime soon because HTPC's are such a small segment of the PC market. nvidia and ATI are much more focused on gaming performance than something like judder reduction. While at the other end VP's have gained steam and are including more features and improved performance specifically for HT.

Don't get me wrong though, an HTPC still offers great performance and when it comes to bang for the buck it's untouchable. But it doesn't set the bar on performance anymore (if it ever did). It's forte is really in mixed media playback.

I probably sound like a VP zealot, but I have been using a HTPC exclusively for most of the past 7 or so years. It was after spending a lot of time dialing in a good picture with ffdshow and then seeing that there were products that do a better job with less artifacts that really got me to look hard at the new developments in VPs. Now that I've had the chance to use several VPs, an HTPC just doesn't cut it for me as far as top PQ. I see much less artifacts, judder and better colors on a VP even something as inexpensive as a DVDO Iscan HD+ than I do with my HTPC. My HTPC is still in my rack however and I don't have any plans on removing it. Its purpose has changed into being more of a swiss army knife than the PQ scalpel that it once was .

[jpadua]

To answer which is better HTPC or a Video processor(not upscaling dvd players), heres one response;

They don't. If you read past the marketing hype it's basically just hardware acceleration that they are talking about. If you really want the best picture out of an HTPC it means using ffdshow for quality scaling and sharpening (and possibly some NR). This means that all of the fancy hardware accleration is turned off. HW is only a part of the equation though. To fully render a DVD a PC uses a "filter graph" utilizing a lot of different software components and renderers. Microsoft's Renderless VMR9 is the best renderer at this time, but it's still a work in progress (check the archives in the HTPC forum about Renderless VMR9 issues compared to the older Overlay renderer and VMR7). Judder is still a big problem, HTPCs also have deinterlacing problems with non-standard cadences, they don't have the power to perform per-pixel MAD. The available sharpening and NR (ffdshow) isn't close to what an Algolith Mosquito can do. The list just goes on...

I don't see the balance shifting anytime soon because HTPC's are such a small segment of the PC market. nvidia and ATI are much more focused on gaming performance than something like judder reduction. While at the other end VP's have gained steam and are including more features and improved performance specifically for HT.

Don't get me wrong though, an HTPC still offers great performance and when it comes to bang for the buck it's untouchable. But it doesn't set the bar on performance anymore (if it ever did). It's forte is really in mixed media playback.

I probably sound like a VP zealot, but I have been using a HTPC exclusively for most of the past 7 or so years. It was after spending a lot of time dialing in a good picture with ffdshow and then seeing that there were products that do a better job with less artifacts that really got me to look hard at the new developments in VPs. Now that I've had the chance to use several VPs, an HTPC just doesn't cut it for me as far as top PQ. I see much less artifacts, judder and better colors on a VP even something as inexpensive as a DVDO Iscan HD+ than I do with my HTPC. My HTPC is still in my rack however and I don't have any plans on removing it. Its purpose has changed into being more of a swiss army knife than the PQ scalpel that it once was .

Hi Alvin!

woops! excuse my ignorance... heheh I thought you were talking about an upscaling DVD player.  Well then I should agree with you... hardware video processors are really better... no hassles. I wish I could afford one though hehehe... I totally agree with you, HTPCs are the swissknives.   Video cards are more geared towards gaming performance... but i do see the trend changing.  A lot of emphasis have been put to video quality on video cards lately especially with Nvidia 7 series cards and the new Sapphire ATI hdmi video cards with avivo.  I still think there is hope for the HTPC... really its a hobby...  despite all the hassles, its really the tweaking, building, making it look beautiful (HTPC cases) that makes it a hobby thats why HTPCs are not for everyone.  MS is doing a great deal of effort to get it into the mainstream though so I should applaud them for that too. 

Only if MS would support MCE locally (having it locally available, and having an automated program schedule for the philippines)

Jay

[Munskie]

I would invite anybody near my place  (Mabalacat, Pampanga) to see what I have done.

sir, i would love to do that, to preview the magic of hd-dvd....near lang ako...

[alvinthx2]

Sige, I am free mostly After 3pm but better yet sa evening, after 7pm. Just PM me .Sa Green Meadows lang ako, bago ka makarating nang Don Bosco

[Munskie]

thanks kong alvin...will pm you pota available ku rin....thanks pu..

[slowhand]

alvin, thanks for your response to my question.

jpadua and gubs, appreciate your responses as well.

I didn't mean to start a "vs" debate, just wanted to ask specifically about the Toshiba. D*mn the list of HD-titles is starting to look better all the time...

[jpadua]

alvin, thanks for your response to my question.

jpadua and gubs, appreciate your responses as well.

I didn't mean to start a "vs" debate, just wanted to ask specifically about the Toshiba. D*mn the list of HD-titles is starting to look better all the time...

Yeah and pretty soon, Dual HD-DVD/BD-Ray rom drives will be out, benq already has a demonstration unit, pretty soon, they will be out and prices will drop, by that time, we can all have HD-DVD and BDrays playin in our HTPCs... by the Way WinDVD8 will support HD-DVD and BD-ray also. It's just a matter of time.

[Munskie]

wow, advantage htpc dito, as theres no assurance na me lalabas na combo player...

[mheloy]

dagdag gastos ulit... HTPC...