Ultimate Home Theater Guide

[m4gicfour]

For people who plan to use their HTPC with a TV card and need to control a Cable or Satellite box, this may help.

Human_error's USB IR Reciever/remote guide

 

[freaksavior]

freeaksavior i want to thank you for the incredible guide. i now have all my movies installed, but what i did was send each to libraries>videos>my videos and made a new folder for each one, and i dont need the disc now to run any of the movies. however i didnt use any indexing program, i open media player, and the movies are listed alphabeticly. i figure thats good enough for me, i dont want to install an indexing program and possibly mess something up. i had no idea how many dvd's we had until i got finished and dont want to go through that install again. and many thanks!

Yeah, that would work too. You only did DVD though, i'm not sure 7mc will play blu ray without a program so you got half way there.

7mc will index the movies for you if you have them in the right location, so if you ripped the movies correctly, you could essentially skip 90% of my guide.

 

[Jetster]

Just an added suggestion for Media Center software. XBMC is the bomb. Will play anything but BR disks has many options and skins. Will serve media to the whole house. Also has literately hundreds of options for Internet TV. I cant believe its free

 

[TRWOV]

The HD4000 series cards have bitstream audio too, don't they? I'm thinking about getting a blu-ray drive for my HTPC but the HD4670 is the best card I can use.

And ty for the guide

 

[freaksavior]

The HD4000 series cards have bitstream audio too, don't they? I'm thinking about getting a blu-ray drive for my HTPC but the HD4670 is the best card I can use.

And ty for the guide

No they do not. 5 + do.

 

[TRWOV]

The ATI HD 5 and 6 Series- (Need to purchase Arcsoft)
these cards come with the option of bit streaming your sound, meaning your receiving will decode the audio.

What about nVidia cards? Do they support this?

 

[Jetster]

What about nVidia cards? Do they support this?

Yes NVidia GeForce 210 or newer support bitstreaming audio 5.1

For HD audio bitstreaming requires Nvidia 430 or newer

 

[TRWOV]

Sorry for the necroposting but I don't see the need for creating another thread: how far has the Intel HD Graphics gone in regards to HTPC use?

I'm considering using the next build for an HTPC:

- Gigabyte GA-C1007UN-D, NM70 chipset w/ Celeron Mobile Dual Core 1007U 1.5Ghz (Ivy Bridge)
- Intel HD Graphics (3rd Gen, 6 execution units w/o postprocessing) OCed to ~500Mhz (I think that's as much as the heatsink would allow)
- GA-630 miniITX case: http://www.g-alantic.com.tw/1088/ga630/
It can take a full size PCI card (tuner) and comes with a 120w DC-DC PSU
- 4GB DDR3-1600 CL9

I don't care about blu-ray 3D but I'd like DD/DTS passtrough at the very least. Does HD Graphics deliver in that regard?

 

[Jetster]

Sorry for the necroposting but I don't see the need for creating another thread: how far has the Intel HD Graphics gone in regards to HTPC use?

I'm considering using the next build for an HTPC:

- Gigabyte GA-C1007UN-D, NM70 chipset w/ Celeron Mobile Dual Core 1007U 1.5Ghz (Ivy Bridge)
- Intel HD Graphics (3rd Gen, 6 execution units w/o postprocessing) OCed to ~500Mhz (I think that's as much as the heatsink would allow)
- GA-630 miniITX case: http://www.g-alantic.com.tw/1088/ga630/
It can take a full size PCI card (tuner) and comes with a 120w DC-DC PSU
- 4GB DDR3-1600 CL9

I don't care about blu-ray 3D but I'd like DD/DTS passtrough at the very least. Does HD Graphics deliver in that regard?

Intel HD graphics work fine for DTS and DD. Ive built both and actually like the AMD A8 best. Just runs a little cleaner and smother as far a a HTPC. But ether is fine

 

[TRWOV]

Yeah, I was looking into an APU build but all the ITX FM2 boards have a PCIe slot. My tuner is PCI

iI found this Anandtech review of the Intel HD 4000 Graphics but it doesn't offer any information about the regular HD Graphics.

According to this the only HTPC centric stuff missing from HD Graphics compared to HD 2000 is Intel Clear Video (skin tone Enhancement, Total Color Control (tm), and adaptive contrast enhancement)

I guess that I should test it myself. I'll make sure to report back. Thanks.

 

[magibeg]

I feel like this thread needs to be updated. It was an excellent reference but it's looking a bit long in the tooth now.