HTPC whats needed 4 hd

[Squilliam]

What kind of P.C is required for a HTPC? I heard a hack at a computer store (Slightly more knowledgable than a hack I admit) Say that an HT PC would require between $1500-2000 and require a powerful P.C for HD content. I'm not so sure about this, I figured just a simple graphics card with a silent heat sink and a large diameter fan would suffice. This doesn't sound right to me but im not sure.

(Just a general Spec for a HTPC with two tuners) I was thrown back by someone saying you needed a high spec computer with a high spec graphics card etc.

 

[nutball]

Well, I doubt you'd need to spend anywhere near that much. Have a look round on SPCR there are plenty of folks reporting good HD playback on ~2.5GHz CPUs. The emphasis there is mostly about getting the most for the least so avoids some of the over-blown spec-freakery you'll find on other forums.

 

[Squilliam]

Sorry, I was tired. I was just curious. Say a general spec for a HTPC with dual HD tuners.

 

[Kaotik]

Depends a lot on if it's meant for all-around HTPC or specificly at BluRay/HD-DVD material for example.

For "all-around", one should go for fast Core2Duo or if possible, Q6600, some basic motherboard and AMD/ATI HD2400, 2600, 34x0 or 36x0 videocard. Add a good quality sound card to the lot if you need analog audio, and then as many HD-tuners as you need, shouldn't be too hard to calculate the price for those.

One might ask why powerful CPU? Well, simply because UVD isn't decoding the various .h264 files available, only blurays/hd-dvd's, and because powerful filters really can improve image quality of lower resolution videos a LOT, but some of them are damn heavy to use.

 

[Tahir2]

Is the 34x0 and 36x0 better than the 2400 Pro and XT?

I do remember reading somewhere that the 2400 Pro does not have the same image quality as its bigger brother 2600 series when it comes to video playback.

Here is the linkage: http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/12843/11

 

[Sxotty]

There are people saying with a new graphics card and a processor <1.5GHz they have smooth playback on HD DVD/ Blu ray. I doubt it though.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

There are people saying with a new graphics card and a processor <1.5GHz they have smooth playback on HD DVD/ Blu ray. I doubt it though.

Why doubt it? The majority of the workload is off-loaded from the CPU when using one of these HD-series cards (or equivalent NV card with VP) to playback HD content.

 

[Sxotty]

Why doubt it? The majority of the workload is off-loaded from the CPU when using one of these HD-series cards (or equivalent NV card with VP) to playback HD content.

I doubt it b/c I thought my computer was good enough to run such content at first when I got the XBox add on drive, but after watching further into King Kong I realized I was incorrect.

I have an x1900AIW that I bought at the time specifically so I could watch HD media later as it was touted as having that capability. It doesn't work though so I have been searching and found thousands of posts talking about the failure of AVIVO to function correctly on ATI cards from that generation.

There is plenty of other complaints for newer cards as well, but they seem honestly more about user error. Still from my experience with a 2GHz Opteron and the x1900 I am not real sure I can suggest that such a setup will function correctly.

 

[Kaotik]

I doubt it b/c I thought my computer was good enough to run such content at first when I got the XBox add on drive, but after watching further into King Kong I realized I was incorrect.

I have an x1900AIW that I bought at the time specifically so I could watch HD media later as it was touted as having that capability. It doesn't work though so I have been searching and found thousands of posts talking about the failure of AVIVO to function correctly on ATI cards from that generation.

There is plenty of other complaints for newer cards as well, but they seem honestly more about user error. Still from my experience with a 2GHz Opteron and the x1900 I am not real sure I can suggest that such a setup will function correctly.

It's not AVIVO, AVIVO was just some assistance for some codecs, UVD featured in HD-series (Excluding 2900) handles the decoding of h.264 and VC-1 (pretty much) completely on it's own, even with some weak Celeron the max CPU time the decoding h.264 or VC-1 it took was around 10-20% on Radeon HD.

nVidia's VP isn't quite as strong, but close, falling generally 5-10% behind in h.264 and a lot more in VC-1 due the fact that they offload only 3 of the 4 phases of VC-1 decoding to the GPU, leaving 1 phase for CPU
(excluding the G98 and possibly G94, they have full VC-1 too, but it's a bit weaker than UVD's, and it's h.264 decoding is even weaker than the earlier VP's h.264 decoding)

Here's a review with all 3 of them tested
http://en.expreview.com/2007/12/04/born-for-hd-first-review-of-g98-8400gs/

 

[Kaotik]

Is the 34x0 and 36x0 better than the 2400 Pro and XT?

I do remember reading somewhere that the 2400 Pro does not have the same image quality as its bigger brother 2600 series when it comes to video playback.

Here is the linkage: http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/12843/11

Must have been some driver flaw or something, as AFAIR all the other reviews at least recently have put all HD-series card on exactly same line.

 

[Sxotty]

It's not AVIVO, AVIVO was just some assistance for some codecs, UVD featured in HD-series (Excluding 2900) handles the decoding of h.264 and VC-1 (pretty much) completely on it's own, even with some weak Celeron the max CPU time the decoding h.264 or VC-1 it took was around 10-20% on Radeon HD.

nVidia's VP isn't quite as strong, but close, falling generally 5-10% behind in h.264 and a lot more in VC-1 due the fact that they offload only 3 of the 4 phases of VC-1 decoding to the GPU, leaving 1 phase for CPU
(excluding the G98 and possibly G94, they have full VC-1 too, but it's a bit weaker than UVD's, and it's h.264 decoding is even weaker than the earlier VP's h.264 decoding)

Here's a review with all 3 of them tested
http://en.expreview.com/2007/12/04/born-for-hd-first-review-of-g98-8400gs/

When ATI released the x1900 cards they said they would function to help decode HD media such as BLu Ray and HD DVD and they do note function in that manner. That I know. Perhaps the x2 series fares better.

 

[Kaotik]

When ATI released the x1900 cards they said they would function to help decode HD media such as BLu Ray and HD DVD and they do note function in that manner. That I know. Perhaps the x2 series fares better.

It doesn't just "fare better", it's proven by countless reviews AND users that they completely (as completely as possible in computer, of course) offload the decoding to the GPUs

 

[ShaidarHaran]

When ATI released the x1900 cards they said they would function to help decode HD media such as BLu Ray and HD DVD and they do note function in that manner. That I know. Perhaps the x2 series fares better.

The X1k series does have HD video decode, but it's not as good as the HD series. The HD series graphics cards feature UVD, which is actually a dedicated video decoding processor.

Here's the first link I found on Google which describes the differences between X1k decode capabilities and UVD. Link Basically UVD adds the Bitstream processing/Entropy decode phase of HD media decode. This phase is performed by the CPU in systems featuring X1k graphics cards.

edit: spelling

 

[Sxotty]

The X1k series does have HD video decode, but it's not as good as the HD series. The HD series graphics cards feature UVD, which is actually a dedicated video decoding processor.

Here's the first link I found on Google which describes the differences between X1k decode capabilities and UVD. Link Basically UVD adds the Bistream processing/Entropy decode phase of HD media decode. This phase is performed by the CPU in systems featuring X1k graphics cards.

No you misunderstand. The problem is that the X1k series hardware assist is broken in drivers. Not that the hardware is incapable. In my experience it does absolutely nothing. Looking at AVS forums like I said there are hundreds of similar posts, certain drivers and certain builds of certain programs seem to work, but it is very hit or miss.

Still looking at your link it says

the last generation X1000 series just support H.264 decoding and the VC-1 decoding was done by CPU completely.

So maybe I need to go borrow a disc from a friend and see if the card works for discs that are not in VC-1. That would be good at least and I would no longer feel as short shifted by ATI.

 

[LunchBox]

I don't think you need 2 grand for a decent htpc.

my friend made one using a core 2 duo @ 3.0 Ghz (E6850) with on board video (ge force 7150) and it works fine. haven't seen any dropped frames when viewing a blu ray movie.

 

[Kaotik]

I don't think you need 2 grand for a decent htpc.

my friend made one using a core 2 duo @ 3.0 Ghz (E6850) with on board video (ge force 7150) and it works fine. haven't seen any dropped frames when viewing a blu ray movie.

HD2400 hardly costs a lot, and offers hardware decoding

 

[LunchBox]

HD2400 hardly costs a lot, and offers hardware decoding

I know what you mean!
been trying to convince him but he says he doesn't need it!

 

[LunchBox]

Tom's hardware Article

pretty kewl article.

It's actually a review for an AMD board that has a built-in Radeon 3200 chip.

the article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/04/amd_780g_chipset/

the part where they talk about basic cost for an HTPC
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/04/amd_780g_chipset/page17.html

minimum CPU requirement for HD playback for this particular board:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/04/amd_780g_chipset/page3.html

I thought it was a pretty interesting article

not sure if this deserves its own thread but I'm just posting it here coz it seemed relevant to this thread's topic.

 

[Kaotik]

pretty kewl article.

It's actually a review for an AMD board that has a built-in Radeon 3200 chip.

the article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/04/amd_780g_chipset/

the part where they talk about basic cost for an HTPC
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/04/amd_780g_chipset/page17.html

minimum CPU requirement for HD playback for this particular board:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/04/amd_780g_chipset/page3.html

I thought it was a pretty interesting article

not sure if this deserves its own thread but I'm just posting it here coz it seemed relevant to this thread's topic.

There HAS TO be something wrong with those numbers, I mean, they've tested with slow Celerons (not even Core2 based IIRC) earlier HD2k's and gotten max of 20% or so CPU time used on playback

 

[Sxotty]

This is really cool in many ways.

I personally hope that Nvidia is prodded to release something better by this. (Competition and all that).

The reviews of this chipset though have been really glowing so far. Who knew integrated might not be the bane of everyone. I haven't even considered them for ages, but it might be a decent fix for my htpc.