Do you use a PC to watch movies on your HD tv? Talk to me!
 

Ok... this is kind of a "wish list" thing, so bear with me and brainstorm!

I have a HUGE collection of DVDs, so I'd like to back them all up to a big hard drive and then watch them, on my 46" plasma, via the PC.

What I REALLY want to do is buy another pc... all it needs to do is store the files, send it to my tv via hdmi, and if I could surf the net on it as well that would be slick.

I'm also assuming I can configure a PC to deal with zones, like when I decide to run speakers outside or into the bathroom.

Anyone got any ideas? What type of setup should I get? How do I do this?

I have built one using an old box and MythTV. That was an adventure in setting up.

If you already have a PS3 or XBOX360, you already have what is pretty much better than any dedicated HTPC.

Another simple tool, if you use iTunes is the AppleTV. We have one of these too, but in hindsight, I should have just bought a Mac Mini and used that for the same purpose.

Fuck using a computer,

what you need is an up-converter DVD player (just a tiny bit more expensive than regular dvd players).

An up-converter can convert regular dvd's to hd format (1080p), plus you don't have to go buy blue ray dvd's.

I have a 50 inch plasma and a 42 inch plasma, one with an up-converter and one with blue ray, and honestly there is only a tiny percent of difference.

Which is why from here on out I will be buying regular dvd's and just using the up-converter instead of more blue ray's.

Hope this helps.

This what i do:

http://www.boxee.tv its a free open source program that runs off xbmc platform. but now you can play any kind of file there with a slick interface and it auto grabs the dvd covers for your files, avi, wmv. mkv etc.


They took off the windows version off the site till it's final release, but just get it from a torrent site. Join @ boxee.tv for an account (turn on privacy in your acct so others cant see what your viewing.)

They also have youtube,mtv, nbc, joost and many internet feeds already embedded in the program as well. and you can add rss feeds

It's great for a HTPC, running it myself @ 1280x720 & 1920x1080 on a 42inch LCD for my 1080p movies.

Planning on getting an Apple TV modding it and putting boxee on it as well so its small and convenient, and it also streams.

Gluck :)

Using the xbox 360 or DVD with an upconverter is cool, but it doesn't act as a storage device. I don't like fucking with the actual discs - I want to browse my collection onscreen and just choose the video.

It's so much easier to find answers when I know what questions to ask, thanks Persius. Off to google I go to research HTPC :thumbsup
Do you have surround sound? What video and audio cards are you using if so?

I also have XBOX360 but it sux for playing MKV files, as well as many various video formats. So I bought this small box:

http://www.wdc.com/global/images/pro...00/wdfWDTV.jpg

And I can say that WD TV is a very nice Linux-powered device :thumbsup

That is what I have also, it's fucking great! Apparently they are also doing some crazy mods to this box, if you fish around some of the audio/visual message boards I'm sure you can get some more info on it.

I have my PC in my office connected to the 57" in the living room via HDMI through the wall. Not only do I watch movies from the hard drive, but I bought a long range keyboard/mouse combo from iogear and I surf the web from my couch...I feel so free!!!!!!!

nice tip,thanks! :thumbsup

I will never go back after buying the WD HD TV media player.

I am using the xbox360 and streaming from my computer using it. But like others have said it won't play all file formats, if you are into downloading videos from the Internet that might come in a strange format.

There are a number of ways around that.

Here's another great tool for creating a Media Center PC.

http://xbmc.org/

I use the Antec Fusion 430 case to house a HTPC. It's got the LG hd-dvd/blu-ray combo drive in it. I use Vista Premium cause I had a free copy laying around that came with a motherboard combo package.

I've been using PowerDVD but having problems playing some of the newer Blu-ray movies, so I'm doing a trial of Arcsoft TotalMedia which has worked well so far.

I've got an ATI 2400 series card just for the HDMI output. If you would ever want to game I'd upgrade it. Also running 3 gigs of ram and a Core2Duo cpu.

I use a bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo to navigate and surf the web. At full resolution it's kinda hard to read some words from 14 ft away, so I'll usually bump the resolution down a bit if I'm surfing.

I've debating backing up movies instead of playing the physical discs and looked into unRAID and Windows Home Server networked to my HTPC. Both seemed like decent solutions and both had fans over at hardocp's storage and HTPC forums. For the storage I was just gonna buy a giant case and throw a buncha hard drives and fans with a beefy psu and minimal ram/cpu.

I stream from my PC that has a large RAID array to my Xbox360.

Can you please give me some URLs?

Yes i have surround sound via an optical to my 5.1 system. I bought a new motherboard which already supports 7.1 audio with optical inputs/outputs.

For my video card, on board motherboard do fine for HD movies. I use the HDMI out it already includes. Its a ATI HD onboard videocard.

Unless you want to play games or do crazy video rendering then buy a videocard. otherwise watching 1080p mkv files works fine for me :) (4GB ram btw)

i have gigabyte motherboard one of the high end ones *just bought it.

Someone above me posted a Antec Fusion 430 case That would be perfect to build a HTPC in, throw in BOXEE & XBMC and your set. With the option of being able to browse online and do everything with a pc. You can also get a wmc remote so you dont have to use a keyboard or mouse for browsing your media library.:thumbsup:thumbsup

heres how I do it I have lots of HD video on hard drives

old dual core pentium computer I no longer use, running playon and TVeristy Playon is all you really need it now has a plugin for playing local files

they send video to my PS3 (via the LAN) which does the upconversion or the H.264 decoding or whatever (thats the trick let your ps3 or xbox do the video decoding)

The added advantage is I can also watch hulu and my netflix instant queue on my HDTV in HD no less

I cancelled cable TV...no longer need it.

I like mythtv myself

It will if you use Tversity - http://www.tversity.com
audio, video, pictures from your pc
audio, videos, pictures from online
youtube etc..

Get a popcorn hour with a 1TB drive. Will cost you around $300 - $400 bucks. It's a streamer + bittorent + ssh + ftp. You can stream from your PC or put the movies on the popcorn.

Bullllllllshittttttttt. ;)

Nuh uhhh, no wayyyy

If that's the best way to go, I wouldn't be opposed to doing it... say you had to start from scratch, how do you build the whole thing?

1. Fusion case, link.
2. Hardware for the case?? Link??
3. Boxee
4. XMBC
5. WMC Remote? Link?
6. What else do I need?

I have a 46 Sharp Aquos, an XBOX 360, a Jamo 5.1 HD surround system, a Wii, a modded XBOX, and.......... a couple bags of chips.

http://b-rad.cc/wdlxtv

"a souped up firmware" :)

It supports a variety of things. I haven't played with it yet but apparently you can plug in a usb wifi dongle and play files over your network.

It works well, apart from one instance the other day when the remote seemed to not be working and it totally froze. Then next day when I switched it back on it had changed the background image - and was functional again LOL. Pretty odd.

Damn nice little box I must say. Have had it for a few months now and LOVE it!

why would anyone want to spend the time or money to back up a "large collection" of dvds to a hard drive?

christ... i'm up to 2,850 titles (that large enough?)... don't even know how many individual discs that encompasses..

could never imagine backing them all up... or how much space it would take...

with all due respect...yer an idiot

The PS3 is the fastest video hardware available at the moment for a home environment you dont believe it burn a 1080P H.264 file to a dvd....play it on whatever you think is faster then play it on the PS3

I don't have a ps3, just a Jamo DVD/HTS 5.1 system, an xbox360, and my flatscreen.

I'm still a little unsure which way to go.

Will my 360 upconvert vids for me?

Only if you have the optional/discontinued HDDVD player. If you don't you can find them on Ebay for about $20. I still buy up any HDDVD titles when I find them cheap too.

Its good for playing dvds but when you try to play other video formats it will constantly lock up, freeze and just act like a pos in general

what's this MKV file format about? why is it being used?

that is all too Hi-Tech for me... I just connect my laptop to the big lcd with a hdmi cable and I'm happy :)

If you are streaming files from your PC it will upconvert any signal from there to 1080P, even over component. The old Xbox360's will also upconvert regular DVD's over VGA.

And I'm pretty sure the new xbox360's that come standard with the HDMI output will also upconvert regular DVD's to 1080P. (only over HDMI)

I didn 't know that. Thanks for sharing.

As for someone saying something about the PS3 playing choppy video during streaming. All that can be remedied with either the PS3 Media Server app or TVersity.

yes use playon as the media server its 40 bucks and really easy to use

Nonsense

Mine plays dvd, bluray, h.264, mpg1&2, wmv, mp4, divx all just fine

mkv isnt a file format its a container format

it usually contains an H.264 file, the diff with mkv is it allows you to add multiple language tracks, closed captioning, menus etc

I use to use xbox 360 and tvsersity but i hate the way my files look in a list .. doesnt look like a media library at all.. and it doesnt play my mkv files (blue ray rips)


get boxee on your htpc .. you wont have a problem with any file format

You're pretty adamant about boxee, I'm planning on taking a look at it.

Cheers!

Pretty funny one of my 360's got the 3 red rings tonight!

Second time it has happened to me. Would be nice if they would send me a newer one with HDMI in return, but I am sure I will probably get another old POS.

Glad to see it finally go though, since it is still under warranty, and it has been acting wonky for about 4 months now (once it warmed up games would just freeze after a while and give me a disc read error)

You dont need a pc , take a DVD player and enjoy

You're a reader, aintcha? :thumbsup

Went out and bought one of these the other day. This thing is slick, compact and very user friendly.

Hey wolfy,

Was just checking around and i feel that for HD movie Collection (library)

XBMC (http://www.xbmc.org) is even better than boxee!!!, in User interface, media library, fan art and even plays my 1080p faster & smoother. (FREE)

Altough boxee is still good for rss feeds and its media channels like joost, apple trailers and what not. (and its based of a XBMC source)

Here is what you do XBMC.org > available for PC,MAC,APPLE TV, everything.

Then i got this skin and it worked wonders:

http://teamrazorfish.co.uk/mediastream.html

Check out a screen below
http://tech-whiz.info/wp-content/plu...diaStream1.png

Very sick :thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

Auto scans your library at startup (select that option) and you will be set with a very awesome HTPC for media,music, pictures, and more.

HTPC + XBMC + BOXEE = the best damn HD media center :thumbsup

Hey Persius, that looks like exactly what I'm looking for!

If you were starting from scratch, what would you buy? (Hardware)

Some great stuff in this thread. I would love to do this with my dvd collection.

A friend of mine was doing the same thing as you so i gave him this link:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/maximum_tv

I just started from scratch as well but i had my old case (ANTEC bigger one)

I have this and I do just fine with HD movies:

CPU: AMD Athlon 7750 Dual Processor 2.7Ghz ($50) (amd always gives you more bang for your buck

MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-US2H ($99) includes integrated HDMI output using ATI3200 on board , Blu-ray playback supported by high quality 106dB SNR ALC889A HD audio onboard. Something with HDMI output and a quality brand name video card is ideal.

If you don't find onboard video you can always just get a ATI HD video card on newegg. ~80$

RAM: DDR2 1200+ i believe got 4GB for $30~ Frys

Powersupply: i went with a silent 500w 29$

FANS: Default on the amd cpu, works fine and low heat and its always on for me.
Case Fans i have 3 in my case but that's because it fits, all 80MM I believe and all silent.

Storage: I have 640GB Western Digital Sata drive + a 500GB WD external drive.

Network: Although the mobo has integrated NIC for your online, if your making it a htpc go wirefree and get a wirless card ($16)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16839121008

Drive: you can get a blueray internal drive + HD-DVD if you buy these discs in stores,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136133 ($109)

Case: As we saw above those falcon drives depending on your preference and price range:
you can see more here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...rde r=REVIEWS

I hope that answers all your questions :thumbsup

interesting thanks

Mr. Romance

Damn dude! Fricking awesome... I'll be pulling out my credit card shortly.

Quick question... my entertainment center is built into the wall and goes into my garage, I could easily put my box on the other side of the wall.

If you could do that, would you use a regular tower, or one of the HTPC cases?

Then it really doesn't matter how your box looks you can use a full tower one as well, (might even be cheaper that way)

the only reason for the smaller cases so it fits in your standard everyday under your tv w/your cable box and what not. (so you dont have a huge tower next to your living/family room lol)

Wouldn't change anything if.. anything you can get a better motherboard (standard size that have more options and room to play with then your usual micro atx motherboards)

But go read that article above to be sure that you can get some type of usb attachment to send from your garage to your room so you can easily use the remote.

yes i do

Oh, and I'm assuming I'll just drop Windows XP on the HDD, right?