Topic: Which Way To Go?

[frootloops]

You know what I noticed after the shoot-out? Parang andaming lumabas na followers ng hd rips. Does the hd rips really exceed the expectations of many people who where there?

How ironic that htpc lost in votes in this thread but the OP decided to build one.  Sir froot baka kapag nagkaroon na kayo ng htpc magdalawang isip na kayo bumili ng Egreat. 

If you were to look at my score during the shoot-out, it turned out that I ranked BD the highest, next is the PCH. But with the rate new NMT's are coming out now, this is still on my wishlist. It's getting better and easier to use. So a bit of wait pa. Akala ko kasi pwede na sa pj ko, kapos pala. :'(  So now upgrading my pj is a thing to consider pa. Dito ko kasi talaga gusto gamitin.

Why I decided to go HTPC now? since purely plug & play lang at naghihingalo na PC ko, eh bago, dadamihan ko na pogi points para bago dumating si Clondalkin, I maybe able to watch all the contents at ma-reformat na HDD ko.  dun muna ako sa plasma ni misis. 

So I think I found my way (for now  ) PC first, then PS3 or OPPO, finally NMT come Christmas. Everybody happy na tayo.

[ESi]

I guess the only down side with the Egreat vs the BD is the audio output. Can the Egreat output 5.1 Dolby or DTS Surround Sound?

YES it can! And since it is already HDMI 1.3 it IS ready to deliver Dolby Digital Plus, dolby TRUEHD and DTS MASTER AUDIO.

[alvinh]

YES it can! And since it is already HDMI 1.3 it IS ready to deliver Dolby Digital Plus, dolby TRUEHD and DTS MASTER AUDIO.

Mukhang masaya ang isang bata jan ah.

[stickfighter]

YES it can! And since it is already HDMI 1.3 it IS ready to deliver Dolby Digital Plus, dolby TRUEHD and DTS MASTER AUDIO.

Whoa! That's EGREAT news! Thanks for this info brader! This is definitely a machine to consider.

[Marl☆1]

Good evening Sir Marl! So, in your opinion, between BD and Egreat, the later is the better choice, in terms of PQ?

I can't say absolutely, but per the shootout results and my personal observations so far, it runs at least at par or even better (there are really crappy BD releases kse).  Conversely, there are also some kick-ass reference BDs in all their 50gig glory which can blow away any 8gig mkv rip any day.

HOWEVER, when you consider the extremely wide investment gap - there is no question which is the better choice. 

[Marl☆1]

YES it can! And since it is already HDMI 1.3 it IS ready to deliver Dolby Digital Plus, dolby TRUEHD and DTS MASTER AUDIO.

Correctamundo!!!  One can experience TrueHD with EG 31B (though I haven't verified it).  From what I gather (and correct me if I'm wrong), you just need to hook up your 1.3 capable EG to an HDMI AVR and play a TrueHD rip which runs to around 30 gig ata.  Check out 10,000 BC in the mkv titles - it has a TruHD option if I recall right...

[Marl☆1]

Whoa! That's EGREAT news! Thanks for this info brader! This is definitely a machine to consider.

haha... upak na bro! 
ang problema ata, magkaka-stock out na ng ilang 'components'!

[stickfighter]

Correctamundo!!!  One can experience TrueHD with EG 31B (though I haven't verified it).  From what I gather (and correct me if I'm wrong), you just need to hook up your 1.3 capable EG to an HDMI AVR and play a TrueHD rip which runs to around 30 gig ata.  Check out 10,000 BC in the mkv titles - it has a TruHD option if I recall right...

Ok...question, if I only have a regular AVR with no HDMI connection, can I still experience 5.1 surround sound while viewing film via the Egreat?

[streetsmart]

Ok...question, if I only have a regular AVR with no HDMI connection, can I still experience 5.1 surround sound while viewing film via the Egreat?

You don't need HDMI to get 5.1 surround. Just use your normal coax in --- wait, wait ... eGreat31b has optical out. PCH100 has coax out. You need to check compatibility with your AVR

[streetsmart]

Yesterday, I watched Ironman and Vantage Point on the egreat 31b. Both movies were 1080p and both were excellent! No stutters. No artifacts. No problems... except maybe the need to stop and exit first when you need subtitles. I will keep posting my experience as I watch other 1080p movies. Dami pa. 

I watched "The Kingdom". 1080p. Perfect again!

I tried to be alert, watching for any possible flaws -video or audio. Wala ako makita.

[frootloops]

I watched "The Kingdom". 1080p. Perfect again!

I tried to be alert, watching for any possible flaws -video or audio. Wala ako makita.

So I think I found my way (for now  ) PC first, then PS3 or OPPO, finally NMT come Christmas. Everybody happy na tayo.

Hmmmm...let me rephrase that to PC-->NMT-->OPPO. 

[Clondalkin]

How about your Tokyo-Manila? Kindly email me (donnel111@yahoo) your info so we can discuss further. Yup, those dates you mentioned is heavy so let's better do it early.

And regarding sa babae, no problem at all, basta isoli mo lang ng buo. 

Btw, wala pa ba NMT dyan sa Japan? or bawal. I can imagine how easy to DL at your end, when I was at my friends house at Narita, I saw his unbelievable connection speed, parang naawa ako sa 999 plan ko sa PLDT. And when I say unbelievable, meron palang ganun talaga kabilis na connection. 

Hi Frootloops.  I sent you an email today.  I assumed that extension is yahoo.com and not yahoo.co.ph or yahoo.co.jp.

You can buy a Popcorn online through a Japanese dealer for nearly 30K yen so pareho rin halos price in Manila.  Havent checked about other NMT makers though.  NMTs are not popular in Japan because the preferred method of delivery (ika nga) right now in the home network is through the PS3 or, HDD recorders, or the PSP, or PCs connected to the HDTV, or standalone desktops with very very high quality high def monitors, or even directly through web enabled HDTV.  Besides, most Japanese need the Japanese subs which are not readily available in any of the popular overseas high def sites.  In many cases kase, BD release of certain titles in Japan is delayed by months compared to overseas.

[Clondalkin]

Hmmmm...let me rephrase that to PC-->NMT-->OPPO. 

Perhaps this is a better sequence

PC - NMT - PJ
NMT - PC - PJ

Do you really need an upscaler?  Your DVDs have served their purpose already, and they will always be watchable anyways using the cheapest players in the market.  Parang switch din yan from VHS, to C-VHS, to Video8, to Video Hi-8, to Mini DV, to high def in home video.  As long as the content is great, you'd live happily ever after.   Have you watched the Japanese movie Love Letters?   I'm praying hard that it would be released in any form of high def soon, but even in "lossy" DVD or avi format, my wife and I cant stop watching it again and again.

And once you start using a PC or NMT for high def viewing, sa dami ng laman ng hard drives, do you think you'd have sufficient time to re-watch your DVD collections?  Yung 100 Greatest Discoveries mo palang ubos na buong week mo diba?   

[frootloops]

Hi Frootloops.  I sent you an email today.  I assumed that extension is yahoo.com and not yahoo.co.ph or yahoo.co.jp.

Got the mail. Replied na.

PC - NMT - PJ

This is the better sequence for me. Happy na! 

I normally have a visitor almost every week, family members and friends who watch here. So sulit na rin sa akin ito. If you are to check my SD titles,  parang 50/50 kami ng mga bata, most of what's left of me are titles which I can rewatch over and over.  some are already on its way to the Marketplace.

Yung 100 Greatest Discoveries mo palang ubos na buong week mo diba?

The problem with this show is when you start watching, it's so hard to stop. Super ganda eh. I will be on-leave next week, yari sa akin ito.    Last weekend I watched the DRIFTING, and boy..sa desktop ko pa lang ang pogi na. 

[ricky]

Hmmmm...let me rephrase that to PC-->NMT-->OPPO. 

pssst froot how about this?
PJ-NMT-extreme-MAC


Pare next week ko na get yung mask ha short this week eh

[iiinas]

Ok...question, if I only have a regular AVR with no HDMI connection, can I still experience 5.1 surround sound while viewing film via the Egreat?

pwede, use hdmi to your panel directly, then coax/optical to your avr (almost all avrs have both audio outs anyway) so you get great video and great sound too. 

[iiinas]

I can't say absolutely, but per the shootout results and my personal observations so far, it runs at least at par or even better (there are really crappy BD releases kse).  Conversely, there are also some kick-ass reference BDs in all their 50gig glory which can blow away any 8gig mkv rip any day.

HOWEVER, when you consider the extremely wide investment gap - there is no question which is the better choice. 

very true sir marl! 

edit: took out some computations... 

[iiinas]

Correctamundo!!!  One can experience TrueHD with EG 31B (though I haven't verified it).  From what I gather (and correct me if I'm wrong), you just need to hook up your 1.3 capable EG to an HDMI AVR and play a TrueHD rip which runs to around 30 gig ata.  Check out 10,000 BC in the mkv titles - it has a TruHD option if I recall right...

30 gb for added tru hd mkvs. hmmm.... sayang ata yung hard disc space. pang 4 na 1080p movies na yan. or 6-7 720p movies. 

[Clondalkin]

very true sir marl, my computation is 60 pesos for 720p mkvs (5gb x 7 pesos = 35 pesos + 25 pesos for electricity and dsl time) vs. 800-1000 pesos for bds. 

I think we would be at the safe side of a very fine line if we would just mention that a hard disk drive costs x thousand pesos and other costs related to the use of the hard disk drive (if any) are incidental?   

[iiinas]

I think we would be at the safe side of a very fine line if we would just mention that a hard disk drive costs x thousand pesos and other costs related to the use of the hard disk drive (if any) are incidental?   

oo nga pala.... 

[Munskie]

30 gb for added tru hd mkvs. hmmm.... sayang ata yung hard disc space. pang 4 na 1080p movies na yan. or 6-7 720p movies. 

Sayang nga.  If I want a movie to have lossless sound, bilhin ko na lang yung BD copy nya.   Masyado matagal download ng 30-40gb na file.   Ok lang sana kung meron 10 mbps plan sa atin na mura yung fee, pwede pa.  Kaya lang medyo matagal pa tayo dun eh.

[Clondalkin]

Good evening Sir Marl! So, in your opinion, between BD and Egreat, the later is the better choice, in terms of PQ?

You have to consider that most mkvs are enhanced by the encoders.   So with proper knowledge about ripping and encoding, the right hardware and application and sufficient time, you can make a BD or HD DVD rip look any way you want.    But for practical purposes, why bother if some brilliant enthusiasts have already done the hard job well enough?

Even in extreme cases, sabi nga ng matatanda, ang pangit nakakasanayan in 3 days...ang maganda nakakasawaan in X months.     ------   paano na yung halos di mo ma-recognize ang difference under normal conditions?  

[Clondalkin]

Sayang nga.  If I want a movie to have lossless sound, bilhin ko na lang yung BD copy nya.   Masyado matagal download ng 30-40gb na file.   Ok lang sana kung meron 10 mbps plan sa atin na mura yung fee, pwede pa.  Kaya lang medyo matagal pa tayo dun eh.

Hypothetical question.  What if I already have those 25GB-40GB stuff with everything in it, any takers?   

Everytime I look at the link of some movies I really enjoyed, but show something like 30GB in size, my mind sings "Im caught between goodbye and I love you"   

[streetsmart]

Hypothetical question.  What if I already have those 25GB-40GB stuff with everything in it, any takers?   

Everytime I look at the link of some movies I really enjoyed, but show something like 30GB in size, my mind sings "Im caught between goodbye and I love you"   

My take:

Based on the results of the Blind Test and my own personal experience, I think its very difficult to detect the difference between lossless and legacy audio, unless you are watching reference concert material. For ordinary movies, including those with lots of effects, I believe that the difference is marginal.

Therefore, I would not waste my 30GB of hdd space on movies. All of the movies I have watched on NMT's have pretty good audio and sometimes, depending on the material, the audio has been pretty incredible, even if none of them were lossless.

On the other hand, if there is a concert with reference audio (which I like), I'd prefer to buy the BD version. Besides, parang kaunti lang naman ang concert rips.

[dyerds]

Sayang nga.  If I want a movie to have lossless sound, bilhin ko na lang yung BD copy nya.   Masyado matagal download ng 30-40gb na file.   Ok lang sana kung meron 10 mbps plan sa atin na mura yung fee, pwede pa.  Kaya lang medyo matagal pa tayo dun eh.

Based on my experience it took me more than 15 days to download a 22-gig file (Spider-man 1,2 and 3). Saya di ba?  This is the largest file I downloaded siguro matagal na bago masundan ng ganito kalaki.     Of course I did not leave my pc open for 15 days, siguro an average of 6 hrs a day lang. Well I don't have enough time to watch all those movies naman on my rest day kaya okay lang din maghintay ng mga downloads. Dami pa rin naman nakapila hd-rips at dvd's. 

IMO, I wouldn't waste my time downloading a 30-40 gig movie because it's not worth it. As what sir street, posted pretty good naman audio ng mga 6-8 gigs ng mga rips. Beside, that's why we are into rips para makatipid di ba? 

[ninjababez®]

Clondalkin have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling your old codecs?
this worked for me when i experience delays in audio .. hope this helps cause i really cant believe your c2d system could not play it properly .. btw have you tried overclocking the processor?

[Clondalkin]

Clondalkin have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling your old codecs?
this worked for me when i experience delays in audio .. hope this helps cause i really cant believe your c2d system could not play it properly .. btw have you tried overclocking the processor?

Please try watching the problematic 1080p encodes I listed and kindly give feedback.  The ffdshow I installed was the latest version available when I got the C2D system in Oct 2007.  I havent touched it since.   Malamang marami na ngang updates.  Aside from Vista Home Premium (which is certainly heavier than XP), I'm also running Norton 2008 and all other sorts of background processes which could be contributing to the problem.  However, resource usage is still quite low when I experienced unrecoverable out of sync issues.   So I thought the problem was inherent in the encode until Jack Ryan posted that he plays the BOB 1080p with his eGreat greatly well. 

But it's no big deal really because 5 to 10 stuttery titles out of approx. 600 is easily acceptable.  Growing　up pains.  Besides, the newer encodes are almost always reliable.

Oh I know MPC is kinda smoother on the 1080p than KMP when I tested it on a Dell Pentium D.  I havent got the time to test it on C2D though.  Need to prioritize watching kase.   

Overclocking processor is no longer my cup of tea, because stability and reliability of PC　operation are tops in my personal situation.  I just like to add memory, hard drives and connect whatever external peripherals I got.

[milken]

Please try watching the problematic 1080p encodes I listed and kindly give feedback. 

I scanned through Ep 1 of Band of Brothers 1080p hV rip using Media Player Classic and ffdshow as codec.  No prob naman.  My processor is Intel E4300 not overclocked.  Which particular scene ang problematic?  Mas okay if you can indicate which particular episode and time.

[Clondalkin]

I scanned through Ep 1 of Band of Brothers 1080p hV rip using Media Player Classic and ffdshow as codec.  No prob naman.  My processor is Intel E4300 not overclocked.  Which particular scene ang problematic?  Mas okay if you can indicate which particular episode and time.

Start palang.  When the Airborne guys were anxiously waiting for weather.  Lots of out of synch scenes, tapos hahabol..tapos di na naman sabay..tapos hahabol.  Playback is very smooth actually, it's just that the audio wouldnt sync with the video in many cases and it gets irritating.  But it's Ok.  Jack Ryan verified that the issue is with my PC and not the content.  And I'm glad I havent thrown away the file yet.  I actually have 3 versions of BOB (the 25GB first release, the 45GB 720p HD DVD and the 50+GB 1080p HD DVD) so tsaka ko na iintindihan i-solve the issues of my PC once I've finished watching movies and TV shows and kung ano ano...too much backlog at the moment.   

Yeah I think MPC would solve it because it solved "some" when I tested 1080ps with my Wife's Pentium D in Manila.   Masubok nga tonight tutal pedeng mapuyat.

[frootloops]

pssst froot how about this?
PJ-NMT-extreme-MAC


Pare next week ko na get yung mask ha short this week eh

Ayan naman eh oh! Pero yang Extreme for 2,500ph, why not! pwede!!    At bakit nagkaron ng MAC? Wala ako pambili nyan.    Baligtarin na lang natin  Extreme-->NMT-->PJ-->MACdo (sagot na kita value meal). 

No problem at all re the mask.