Building Another HTPC

[mullet]

i might grab bd-rom within a week or so.

probably the lite-on since it is the cheapest


Cool, I will say I am very happy with the LG $20.00 diff. Plays both pretty good for the weak setup I have. $20.00 diff.

[nekrosoft13]

i have the LG GGW-H20L(burner) in my main system.

[mullet]

i have the LG GGW-H20L(burner) in my main system.

ooh ok, what TV do you have?

[nekrosoft13]

nothing great, crappy westy 1080p lcd monitor (not really HDTV)

in next 6-12 months on planing on getting something decent.

[six_storm]

Looks really good dude. Are you planing on getting a Blu-Ray rom?

Yeah at some point. The next thing I'm gonna get is a 500 GB HDD for storage and then I'll get a BD-ROM drive.

[nekrosoft13]

looks like Tiger has the lowest price
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4102818&CatId=3635

[six_storm]

So I worked at a client's house today and I had to take an external hard drive apart. The guy was a little frustrated at the 2 year old external hard drive and basically, the USB connector quit working (my USB to HDD tool worked just fine). So guess what? I get to come home with a free 500GB HDD!

Looks like I'll be transferring movies, music and misc stuff over to the HTPC some time this weekend. :D

[npras42]

Heh, that was lucky and good timing. :)

[six_storm]

Heh, that was lucky and good timing. :)

Yeah it was. Now I have some storage! :D

[nekrosoft13]

how can i get 5.1 and 7.1 out though digital optical out?

my mainboard only supports stereo output according to windows

[nekrosoft13]

anyone?

[CaptNKILL]

What kind of motherboard do you have and do you want 5.1 and 7.1 for games or just for movies?

[crainger]

anyone?

DDL or DTS Connect capable card.

If it's pre encoded material, your receiver should just pick it up. Depending on the software your using for playback.

[nekrosoft13]

just for movies/shows, it is HTPC after all

[crainger]

Well then you'll need a capable receiver, if the movie/show is stereo then you'll need to upmix. Vista has basic upmixing for most realtek cards built in. It wont be pretty, but it should suffice. Then again, I'm not even sure it works over optical. ::(:

[six_storm]

Here's an update on my HTPC, since I finally got some time to mess with it. I switched from Vista's Media Center to XBOX Media Center due to some really stupid issues. For example, when playing any AVI, video would become choppy for two minutes and the entire VMC would crash. No way. Also, you couldn't fast forward through any AVI!

So I switched and here's what I got (sorry for the large image):

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/7048/dscf0339fixedvr4.jpg

[mullet]

Nice setup dude looks great.

[six_storm]

Nice setup dude looks great.

Thanks. I have so much work to do on my HTPC now that I've switched MC programs. But hey, I'm getting married in a week so I doubt that will happen anytime soon lol.

[nekrosoft13]

very nice, i can't wait till they work out of all the bugs in XBMC. trully the best media center.

MS should learn from them

[six_storm]

very nice, i can't wait till they work out of all the bugs in XBMC. trully the best media center.

MS should learn from them

True that. I really wish XBMC dev team would hire the creator of the Aeon skin and make that as a default skin. PM3HD is ok, but it's nothing compared to Aeon.

XBMC finally froze my HTPC up . . . . :(

[mullet]

I going to order this in a month or so.

$76.99 ASUS M3A78-EM 780G (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131324)
$64.99 AMD Athlon X2 4850e 45W (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103255)
$40.99 G.SKILL 2GB DDR2 800 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231087)

Total $182.97

[nekrosoft13]

not bad. upgrading or building?

[mullet]

Upgrade to whats in my sig. The single core just isn't doing it.

[nekrosoft13]

looks good, have fun

[mullet]

Ok see ya later.

Edit: just ordered it, I have no patients.