Guidance Needed - Rebuilding my HTPC in an HDTV World

[greggerm]

Greetings all -

After years and years of successful and enjoyable use, my HTPC system bit the dust back in July. I haven't done anything to fix it, until now that is. I am shopping for an HDTV at this point in time - and I am going to take this opportunity to update the HTPC system too.

It will be a Core2Duo (2.8ghz) machine running 4 GB RAM and copious amounts of hard drive space. I am planning on an Intel G45 HDMI integrated motherboard, and I am planning on at least one, possibly two 2250's.

My questions are as follows:

• I am planning on purchasing a Bluray drive for the computer - what are the gotchas for HDTV/Bluray playback on an HTPC. Will Sage treat it just as it does DVD players, or will I be restricted to other media players for Bluray playback?
  
• I enjoy NOT swapping discs around - Has anyone ripped and encoded Bluray discs with any success? (any media playback concerns?)
  
• If I have multiple 2250's, can one be configured for OTA ATSC digital TV reception (and thus high-def), and the second be configured for standard NTSC analog cable - and can both be used simultaneously in that config? (As far as I read, you cannot use OTA/ATSC and Cable/NTSC at the same time on a single card - what about dual cards)
  
• Are there any little gotchas to watch out for going from a fairly basic standard def SageTV setup with ye olde PVR-250's and bouncing up to 2250's?

(The machine will obviously be fully reinstalled, likely with Windows XP. WHS or Vista are options, depending on the community's outlook)

Thanks for any feedback!

-Greg

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by greggerm

It will be a Core2Duo (2.8ghz) machine running 4 GB RAM and copious amounts of hard drive space. I am planning on an Intel G45 HDMI integrated motherboard, and I am planning on at least one, possibly two 2250's.

Have you considered a headless server and extender(s)?

My questions are as follows:

• I am planning on purchasing a Bluray drive for the computer - what are the gotchas for HDTV/Bluray playback on an HTPC.

Oh, where do I start. I guess first, it will probably cost you more to do it on a PC than to buy a (very good) standalone like the Panasonic BD55K. The software leaves a lot to be desired....

Will Sage treat it just as it does DVD players, or will I be restricted to other media players for Bluray playback?

Only PowerDVD Ultra, TotalMedia Theater, WinDVD 9 and Nero understand Blu-ray Discs. Blu-ray Discs are incompatible with directshow so you can't just install one of the above an use the codecs in other apps (Sage) like you can with DVD. TMT is probably the "ideal" solution since it's got a GUI that can "integrate" with Media Center, basically means it's got a 10-foot UI skin.

• I enjoy NOT swapping discs around - Has anyone ripped and encoded Bluray discs with any success? (any media playback concerns?)

That can be done, but you'll lose all the Blu-ray disc features, basically you've got to convert/remux into a "normal" video file. Sage has mentioned they're "looking" at the extenders supporting Blu-ray folder/ISO rips (though with limited functionality).

• If I have multiple 2250's, can one be configured for OTA ATSC digital TV reception (and thus high-def), and the second be configured for standard NTSC analog cable - and can both be used simultaneously in that config? (As far as I read, you cannot use OTA/ATSC and Cable/NTSC at the same time on a single card - what about dual cards)

Yup, you can do that.

• Are there any little gotchas to watch out for going from a fairly basic standard def SageTV setup with ye olde PVR-250's and bouncing up to 2250's?

I'd strongly recommend going with extenders vs trying to build a PC for playback. They're much less hassle, and overall just work better.

(The machine will obviously be fully reinstalled, likely with Windows XP. WHS or Vista are options, depending on the community's outlook)

If you're going to do playback on the machine, I'd consider Vista. It sounds like EVR is a nice improvement, also seems that some of the Blu-ray softwares work better in Vista.

[greggerm]

Thanks for the tips and ideas...

>I'd strongly recommend going with extenders vs trying to build a PC for playback. They're much less hassle, and overall just work better.

My HTPC system has historically been right next to the television with no real plans on moving it - I have no basement space to place a server, and no other TV's to connect to other than the primary (I do have the client software on my desktop computer, though). Given the location and placement, would I still be gaining benefits with an extender, or should I just simply tap into the computer?

Looks like the BluRay part is a little trickier than our tried and true DVD methods. What are the "features" which will get lost should I rip down any BluRay purchases? I did the same with all my DVDs and enjoyed having my collection at my fingertips, but since I would be starting over with high def, I'm curious. That, and they will undoubtedly take up much more space, so I am debating the worth of doing that.

Thanks again, and if anyone else has input, please share as well!

-Greg

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by greggerm

Thanks for the tips and ideas...

>I'd strongly recommend going with extenders vs trying to build a PC for playback. They're much less hassle, and overall just work better.

My HTPC system has historically been right next to the television with no real plans on moving it - I have no basement space to place a server, and no other TV's to connect to other than the primary (I do have the client software on my desktop computer, though). Given the location and placement, would I still be gaining benefits with an extender, or should I just simply tap into the computer?

Unless you want to do stuff like surfing, netflix, etc, there's no benefit to using the PC, and there's the drawbacks of codec/decoder issues vs an extender.

Looks like the BluRay part is a little trickier than our tried and true DVD methods. What are the "features" which will get lost should I rip down any BluRay purchases?

Well it really depends. Assuming ripping for extender or playback within the Sage UI, you loose Menus, chapters, audio track selection.

If you want to retain those, you can rip as an ISO/folder, but then you have to play them in PowerDVD/TMT.

If you're like me and ripped all your DVDs "movie only", then all you really lose is chapters.

[SWKerr]

There is little doubt that the extender would be a cheaper and probably easier way to deliver HD to your TV but I have found I like to use ABC HD, Hulu and Netfix quite a bit for general TV watching. It is not a lot percentage wise but I would miss it and would want at least one TV as and HTPC.

As for Blu-Ray I had no problems using the Cyberlink software that came with the Blu-Ray drive but I really don't use it anymore. First thing I do is rip the disk and make a mkv of the main movie. I use TSMuxerGUI and MeGUI to compress the m2ts file on the disk into a mkv file. I have experimented quite a bit and have found that I can't tell the difference between 720 and 1080 on my 46" and 42" sets but I am sure are some point it becomes apparent. I normally rip a movie and resize it to 1280x720 with a bitrate of 4000. An average movie is about 4GB.

Getting perfect playback on H.264 files (HD-PVR and Blu-Ray) in Sage took some effort but it was not that difficult.

Once you get used HD it is hard to go back. Original DVD quality is still acceptable but I found some of my original ripped divx movies didn't look acceptable on the HD big screen and had to be redone.

[greggerm]

I do expect to have to re-rip/encode my DVDs... or at least my favorite ones. They were originally encoded h.264 at 700-900kbps, which will certainly not look all that good on a larger, higher resolution display. (They were just fine for a 27" std. television, though). I don't own a single Blueray at all right now, but I know exactly which ones will be my first purchases, and I am salivating. Of course, I need to purchase the television too, but who's keeping track of that! (likely a 32" LCD, probably 720 due to the smaller size)

Considering the Sage server will be sitting right next to the television, I will probably go the direct-connect route. An extender to bridge the 4 feet to the display seems to be more of an unnecessary expense than a required piece. (Additional TVs, should they ever come online, would be tied in via extender though!) The codec issues I will try to muddle through - I've had relatively good luck with that over the years.

The Cyberlink software does seem to get a lot of press around the HTPC world, so I might lean towards that. Ripping a movie down to an h.264 file is very appealing to me, but I am sure that is a time consuming process!

Regarding high-def recordings - Does the Hauppaugue 2250 encode highdef television as uncompressed files, or is it compressed? If not, are there any built-in (inherent or via STV) utilities to squish down Sage recordings down to a next-gen compression scheme to save space?

Thanks for all the assistance everyone!

-Greg

[greggerm]

I'd like to thank the participants here in the thread, as well as those I contacted via PM. I have purchased my parts for the new HTPC and I am eagerly awaiting my end-of-year vacation to build up my new "G-Vo", as the friends and family have named it.

-Greg