Htpc / Hd Noob With A Few Hopefully Simple Questions About An Htpc Setup

[IMD]

Howdy

On the verge of buying one of the new 40" Samsungs to replace my gap on my TV display stand (just moved in country, didn't bring the old telly on grounds of rubbishness!).

I want to set up an HTPC to handle playing of normal DVD's (Not HD DVD's as i'm planning on getting an XBox360 and run my HD content through that). What's confusing me (and I can't seem to find straight answers on this anywhere) is what controls / limits the upscaling of regular DVD output in an HTPC - is it the DVD, the GFX card, the Main Processor, Memory ... er what?

I currently have 2 PC's kicking about for possible upgrade, nether with anything good in them GFX / DVD wise, so expect to replace these - one is a 1.2Ghz Athlon & one a 1.8GHz Athlon. Would either do my DVD's justice on this spanking new TV with the right new components, or are they simply too old?

Appreciate your knowledgable help....!

[glennb]

It depends on how much upscaling you are going to do. If the display is 720p, then your existing systems with a basic graphics card should do the job, but if it is 1080p, then you will probably need to upgrade the system. There is also the ability to use other software like FFDshow to upscale 1080p x 2 and clean up the image before downscaling it to 1080 again and sending it to the display, but to do this, you will need smoothely you will need the latest in bleeding edge HTPC's.

720p output = ~2Ghz processor and Graphics card (7600 or similar)

1080p output = ~3Ghz process and Graphics card (7900GT or similar)

1080p output + resizing with FFDshow = ~3Ghz Core 2 Duo + 8800GTS graphics card.

Memory doesn't make a big difference for this type of stuff and you'll get away with 512mb if you're only using 720p output, but otherwise 1 Gig would be the minimum.

[IMD]

Erk.. that makes me think my existing setup (PC as a jukebox, effectively) should stay as it is, and i'll just get an upscaling DVD player. Build the HTPC in a few years time when HD DVD roms (and all other components) are cheaper

Cheers!

[sold]

I want to set up an HTPC to handle playing of normal DVD's (Not HD DVD's as i'm planning on getting an XBox360 and run my HD content through that). What's confusing me (and I can't seem to find straight answers on this anywhere) is what controls / limits the upscaling of regular DVD output in an HTPC - is it the DVD, the GFX card, the Main Processor, Memory ... er what?

It depends on exactly how you do the 'upscaling'.

If all you want is to get the HTPC to output a 720p/1080i/1080p/whatever signal, then all you need to do is set the video card resolution to the appropriate value and load up something to play the DVDs. This shouldn't be too taxing on anything and the 1.8GHz Athlon should handle it fine.

If you want to do high quality upscaling/processing with FFDShow then you need something as fast as possible.

EDIT: Not owning a standalone upscaling DVD player, I'm curious as to how the quality compares to using the basic set output to 1080p/etc. on a computer method?

[IMD]

It depends on exactly how you do the 'upscaling'.

If all you want is to get the HTPC to output a 720p/1080i/1080p/whatever signal, then all you need to do is set the video card resolution to the appropriate value and load up something to play the DVDs. This shouldn't be too taxing on anything and the 1.8GHz Athlon should handle it fine.

If you want to do high quality upscaling/processing with FFDShow then you need something as fast as possible.

EDIT: Not owning a standalone upscaling DVD player, I'm curious as to how the quality compares to using the basic set output to 1080p/etc. on a computer method?

No, i'd want to go for quality upscaling. No sense spending over 3k on a 1080p HDTV and not trying to get the best out of it. Seems like the better option (financially speaking) for now is to get a good upscaling DVD player.

[sold]

No, i'd want to go for quality upscaling.

Fair enough, but to be honest I'm not sure (and hence my question) of what difference in quality there is between an upscaling DVD player and a PC outputting at 1080i/p.

[drubie]

Fair enough, but to be honest I'm not sure (and hence my question) of what difference in quality there is between an upscaling DVD player and a PC outputting at 1080i/p.

It depends a bit on your display. I don't have a native 1080p display, so anything that outputs that kind of resolution, regardless of the "qualtiy" of the scaling, pretty much looks the same (i.e. a bit soft). Having said that, upscaled DVD's definitely look better as the stair step effect on rubbish sources tends to be diminished so you don't notice it, and macroblocks and other rubbish tend to get softened out of the picture. In theory, it's better for a newer device to upscale and have your display downscale, as it's easier work for the display and the results should be better. My experience seems to confirm that theory.

Personal preference: an upscaling DVD or other hardware device (some of the network media players will upscale DVD to 1080i to very nice effect for example). The software in PC's is never as good to my eyes. All bets are off if you have a native 1080ii/p display.

[glennb]

My experience has only been with a native 720p Projector, not 1080 displays.

I have a HTPC and an upscaling DVD player (Pio DV696) and I generally find that the HTPC image is better. There isn't a lot in it though and the HTPC takes more mucking around to get right. Results using Theatertek and FFDshow are much better than the DVD player, but my HTPC isn't really powerful enough to any more than the basic upscaling and sharpening. I'm using a 2.3Ghz AMD XP processor and a 6600 graphics card.

At present i'm using PowerDVD 7 for playback and find that it is equal to the DVD player, and i'm not using any of the fancy processing & upscaling of FFDshow at present.

[glennb]

No, i'd want to go for quality upscaling. No sense spending over 3k on a 1080p HDTV and not trying to get the best out of it. Seems like the better option (financially speaking) for now is to get a good upscaling DVD player.

Totally agree with your position here, as 1080p displays will need a better HTPC than what you have at present, or a decent DVD player. If you had a 720p display, then one of your existing systems would probably have done the job.

[IanD1503559705]

On the verge of buying one of the new 40" Samsungs to replace my gap on my TV display stand (just moved in country, didn't bring the old telly on grounds of rubbishness!).

How good is the upscaling in the display? You might get similar results to an HTPC or upscaling DVD player if the display scaler is top notch and with far less hassle.

[IMD]

No idea... but then not entirely sure I understand the question!

Thanks for everyone's advice, much appreciated. Telly never used to be this confusing!

[glennb]

No idea... but then not entirely sure I understand the question!

Thanks for everyone's advice, much appreciated. Telly never used to be this confusing!

The output resolution of the display is set (1920x1080 in your case), so if you don't have an upscaling DVD player of any sort and just send the 720x576 (i think that is DVD Res?) image to the display, the TV will be doing the upscaling all by itself. On cheap LCD's & Plasmas this can be pretty **** and it was preferable to get the DVD player to do it. However, some of the newer displays have actually got very good quality upscaling chips in them and it might give a good result.

It's worth trying anyway.

[IMD]

It's worth trying anyway.

Interesting... well, i'll get the TV 1st and see how that pans out without anything extra, and just run it off the old DVD player, see how it behaves. I'll probably be so "wowed" i'll be happy with a basic set up!