HTPC MOBO ATI vs nVidia

[ruenigma]

sirjee thats what i am saying - i have done my research and hence putting in my advice to my fellow forum member. I am not a rich kid who would throw away money - i did my research and hence telling you.

ATI motherboards and graphics cards till 4770 are plagued by overscan/underscan with plasma/lcds - its a known fact - do a google on it. So is nvidia but the recent chipset drivers 15.26 has fixed it.

Myth #1: I am running my HTPC with a 4670 from last 3 months without a hitch. The display used is a panny 50pv80.

Why would i bother getting an DVI cable if HDMI itself can work right (and I am handling computers from a HW perspective since the last 12-13 years, setting it up for friends and sometimes for money and so I guess from that perspective I think I can give my WORD for it.

DVI = HDMI minus Audio.
Because HDMI is electrically compatible with the signals used by Digital Visual Interface (DVI), no signal conversion needs to take place nor is there a loss of video quality when a DVI to HDMI adapter is used.

Since its a HTPC - hence i suggested the M3N78EM - you have a HTPC - least you want is 8 channel lpcm to a receiver (i guess someone who is setting up a HTPC will have a basic receiver at least) - so in these days of HD DVDs and Bluerays - 2 channel LPCM simply wont do right?
did the OP mention a BD/HD-DVD drive?

All entry level receivers touting HDMI are capable of mere video switching. Strictly no audio decoding. Go get me a so called basic reciever which does 8 channel LPCM or DTS-HD (MA).

PS: No offence meant.

 

[gobble]

Why buy a rocket when you can cycle to work? Or why build a supercomputer to play music?

The atom 330 with Nvidia Ion is the way to go. The Oppo can upscale SD content effortlessly with a fanless ASIC. It does not need a 2ghz cpu for it. Build your device to do just one thing and do it well.

L2 cache means nothing to an htpc. There are no large data sets to crunch for an htpc and the instructions for playback/encoding can do very well with a small L1/L2 cache. The AMD cpus are architecturally optimized in a different fashion to have a great cache-hit ratio for instructions and data with lesser memory for L1/L2 than a comparable Intel.

Cheers

 

[suprateep]

Why buy a rocket when you can cycle to work? Or why build a supercomputer to play music?

The atom 330 with Nvidia Ion is the way to go. The Oppo can upscale SD content effortlessly with a fanless ASIC. It does not need a 2ghz cpu for it. Build your device to do just one thing and do it well.

L2 cache means nothing to an htpc. There are no large data sets to crunch for an htpc and the instructions for playback/encoding can do very well with a small L1/L2 cache. The AMD cpus are architecturally optimized in a different fashion to have a great cache-hit ratio for instructions and data with lesser memory for L1/L2 than a comparable Intel.

Cheers

+1 to that.

Actually this platform will be great after a year of so - let the GPU handle handle all deinterlacing, image filters etc. The problem is that these paly 1080ps well - but stutters on 1080p rips or 720p rips with ffdshows ettigns on. So a year is all this platform needs to be mature - just like the NMT segment. then again the NMT segment will face great threats from the NVIDIA ion platform HTPCs the size of NMTs

 

[venkatcr]

The problem is that these paly 1080ps well - but stutters on 1080p rips or 720p rips with ffdshows ettigns on.

I am a bit concerned about this fascination that many of us seem to have for ripped movies.

I have spent the last few weeks seeing ripped movies through my 983, through a 1 crore plus Meridian combo that has it own Mediamax software system, and a couple of other systems. My conclusion? Nothing but original DVD for me. You take a bad rip and scale it to 1080P, and even a system like the Meridian cannot help you. On the contrary, it only enhances the distortion.

An original movie is something close to 200GB. You compress it to 25GB for Blu-Ray and 5 GB for DVD. By ripping it, you are yet again compressing it to less than 1 GB. Does this make sense? Not to me.

All of us are so fastidious when it comes to music. We strain our ears to listen to nuances, hidden emotions, sound stage, clarity, etc, etc, etc. We talk about analogue being better than digital, and we spend hours fussing over our systems, and discovering exotic ways of cleaning our records, CDs, and ways of mounting our CD players so that there is no vibration. All for what? That extra bit of information that we believe is available in the song?

But when it comes to our eyes, which is actually a more sensitive and immediate sensor, we are ready to abuse it? We will throw anything at it? We cringe when we hear a distorted song, but we will happily sit through 2 hours of noise on the screen and strain our eyes and brains to differentiate the colours and the tones?

Let us give our eyes some fair deals folks. Just like we walk away from a bad recording or distorted sound, let us not strain our eyes with distorted and badly formed images. Let us treat them to some pleasant colours, tones, contrasts, etc.

Long live our eyes. As we love to say in India for everything - 'Hamari Aankhen Zindabad'. Yuck! that sounds like a movie title.

My idea of an HTPC is to fit it with a Blu-Ray drive when I can afford it and use it for for both Blu-Ray discs and for regular DVDs.

Cheers

 

[anm]

gr8 writeup! I too like dvds - rented mostly.

 

[gap g j]

Hi

I found from one of the threads this MOBO

Tech2.com India > Asus Launches Mobos For HTPCs > News on Motherboards PCs & Laptops

There they have quoted

"Furthermore, the M4A78-HTPC supports DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC Technology for true high-definition home theater entertainment. "

Is there any advantage over m3a78 or m3n78 we were talking

Thanks
Gap G J

 

[moserw]

@gobble - I can understand what you are alluding to but why would anyone want to cycle to work in this day and age? I would prefer the car with the A/C any day but if I have to choose between a rocket and a cycle, well quite frankly a rocket any day and I'm sure anyone else too will choose the same. In this day and age everybody wants to make it easier on themselves and their family and not make it harder than it really needs to be. Everyone wants more and not less. I am at a loss to understand why would anyone knowingly choose the harder part or even hard work? That's what's going to happen with a cycle right? You will end up sweating and huffy and puffy and also late to work every day. Similarly an underpowered PC too is going to go that way sooner rather than later in this day and age.

Just my 2 cents (or rather my way of thinking)...

@gap g j - Like already explained the mobo is only the base. It's the processor, the RAM, the HDD, the soundcard, the graphics card and everything else that gets the work done. HTPC has become a selling phrase that's all. I mean there is no HTPC mobo. What does it even mean? If there were a HTPC mobo then it should function as a HTPC all by itself. It would not need a processor, RAM, HDD, and other things. HTPC cabinet, HTPC mobo, HTPC processor, etc. - all just marketing words/phrases to sell to people. Get a good mobo with adequate slots, get a powerful processor and the required HDD, soundcard, and other things that you need and you are all set. If you want something easier than a PC then get a Blu-Ray player or else start off with WDTV for now and look for a Blu-Ray player later on when it's cheaper.

In other words get a PC that works and will work for a number of years, not some underpowered crap in the name of HTPC that will only be good for playing movies and nothing else in a year's time because everything else in terms of software, codecs, hardware, etc. have overtaken it. Why waste money in the name of a HTPC only to play movies? Any DVDP at 3K or WDTV at 7K will do it right?

 

[mahiruha]

An original movie is something close to 200GB. You compress it to 25GB for Blu-Ray and 5 GB for DVD. By ripping it, you are yet again compressing it to less than 1 GB. Does this make sense? Not to me.
Cheers

Hello Venkat,
when you say a original movie is close to 200Gb I am wondering what is the native resolution in which all these movies were shot. When I see that they have released godfather bluray I am just wondering the time when they shot godfather did they have HD cameras. If they don't have HD cemras then how they are rendering HD resolution to those movies or its just a catch phrase to boost sales.
Thanks,
Mahiruha.

 

[venkatcr]

when you say a original movie is close to 200Gb I am wondering what is the native resolution in which all these movies were shot. ...... movies or its just a catch phrase to boost sales.

Even today most movies are shot on film.

On a rough scale, a standard movie film, depending upon the quality of the film, will have something like 6000x6000 pixels to 10000x10000 pixles. The digital equivalent is something like 6000p24 to 10000p24

There are two modern ways of transferring films to digital formats. One is done using what is called a Telecine equipment. Very simply, the film is projected onto a small screen and recaptured using a digital camera. The most popular modern telecine use CCD. In a charge-coupled device Line Array CCD Telecine, a white light is shone through the exposed film image into a prism, which separates out the image into the three primary colors, red, green and blue. Each beam of colored light is then projected at a different CCD, one for each color. The CCD converts the light into electrical impulses which the Telecine electronics modulate into a video signal. which can then be recorded onto video tape. .

CCD scanners have reached 4K resolutions. In other words, if a film is converted to digital format using a CCD, you can get 4000p24.

Another way that is becoming even more popular is scanning. This method provides the highest scanning possible. The scanned film can be stored indefinitely, and can be edited before being released either on film again or on digital formats.

In this method, using high speed scanners, each frame of the film is individually scanned as a still picture. The scanned images are stored as image files normally DPX (or at times TIFF). Both these are uncompressed formats and take large space. Each 2000 DPI TIFF file of a 35mm snapshot will take about 14.7 MB of space. A DPX file is even larger. Remember each hour of film has 60x60x24 or 86,400 frames. So, if you use a 2000 DPI TIFF file, each hour will take 1,270,080 MB. Because of the size of the images and the number of frames per film, these are stored on SAN systems running to 100s of terabytes.

Equipment such as The Director can scan films at about 7fps and create digital equivalent of 2K resolution. Filmlight's Northlight 2 can scan at about 2 fps but create digital equivalent of 6K resolution.

There are special hardware available using very high end workstations where each frame can be seen individually for editing. This is called Non Liner Editing. or NLE. At present, almost all film editing is done through NLE systems. NLE systems allow miniscule corrections to film colours, brightness, addition of special effects, and most important, removal of noise elements. This is the method used for remastering of old movies (called film restoration) or addition of color to black and white movies. A few examples in India are Naya Daur and Mughal-E-Azam.

It is different story for TV serials and news clippings where digital cameras are used.

Cheers

 

[anm]

cool! Venkatji :thumbsup:
is there any ikon for kneeling down and say "jai ho"?

regards

 

[Rem]

As always superb write up venkat your knowledge abt all thgs audio/visual is jus amazing and the way you put it in writing is even more impressive.


@Gobble
@ Suprateep

Y I specified l2 cache was not for improving HTPC performance but rather to have a system which performs well for a longer time and I believe L2 cache plays an important role in improving overall system performance I know that L2 cache is not gonna improve video or audio quality

lets face it most of us are gonna buy a pc and keep it for a few yrs watever the purpose is so i jus wanted him to future proof it coz the newer softwares which come out are getting more and more resource hungry

cudnt login during the weekend hence the late reply

cheers guys

 

[Rem]

Venkat

Do these people use those expensive SGI workstations for these purposes any idea

 

[suprateep]

I am a bit concerned about this fascination that many of us seem to have for ripped movies.

I have spent the last few weeks seeing ripped movies through my 983, through a 1 crore plus Meridian combo that has it own Mediamax software system, and a couple of other systems. My conclusion? Nothing but original DVD for me. You take a bad rip and scale it to 1080P, and even a system like the Meridian cannot help you. On the contrary, it only enhances the distortion.

An original movie is something close to 200GB. You compress it to 25GB for Blu-Ray and 5 GB for DVD. By ripping it, you are yet again compressing it to less than 1 GB. Does this make sense? Not to me.

All of us are so fastidious when it comes to music. We strain our ears to listen to nuances, hidden emotions, sound stage, clarity, etc, etc, etc. We talk about analogue being better than digital, and we spend hours fussing over our systems, and discovering exotic ways of cleaning our records, CDs, and ways of mounting our CD players so that there is no vibration. All for what? That extra bit of information that we believe is available in the song?

REM

But when it comes to our eyes, which is actually a more sensitive and immediate sensor, we are ready to abuse it? We will throw anything at it? We cringe when we hear a distorted song, but we will happily sit through 2 hours of noise on the screen and strain our eyes and brains to differentiate the colours and the tones?

Let us give our eyes some fair deals folks. Just like we walk away from a bad recording or distorted sound, let us not strain our eyes with distorted and badly formed images. Let us treat them to some pleasant colours, tones, contrasts, etc.

Long live our eyes. As we love to say in India for everything - 'Hamari Aankhen Zindabad'. Yuck! that sounds like a movie title.

My idea of an HTPC is to fit it with a Blu-Ray drive when I can afford it and use it for for both Blu-Ray discs and for regular DVDs.

Cheers

+1 to that venkat siir.:clapping:

I agree - I am switched to bigflix recently and would rather watch original DVDs than rips off the web - too much distortion, too much energy spend with a PC turned on 24/7. And for movies like Sin City, Baman, Classics etc I would rather buy DVDs rather than sit through 2 hours of distortion through audio and video.

REM - Agree on the L2 cache - dont remember saying that it is not important. See I have multiple PCs (one as HTPC one as a download station) and a laptop and I plan to use them for many years. the desktop has already served me for more than 4 years though I had to change my mobo as my RAM slots 9(omehow) got fried. So when building a HTPC many end up using it for surfing etc as well (a big screen is always welcome) - L2 cache I agree increases performance anyday for normal daily applications.

 

[Rem]

jus now I saw tht venkatji even mentioned my name in tht quote :yahoo:

m not tht gud in putting wat I have in my mind in words suprateep,gobble hence the confusion

 

[venkatcr]

Do these people use those expensive SGI workstations for these purposes any idea

Till about 2000 or so, Silicon Graphics was the unquestioned leader in digital workstations. If you have seen the movie 'Terminator', the scene where the villain merges with the floor and then re-emerges as a human being was completely made on a SGI Workstation and processor. This is just one example. The list of wonders that were created on SGI is literally endless.

Unfortunately two things killed SGI. One was a few stupid steps it took including buying Cray Research, and it's unending and expensive attempts at making servers with more and more powerful processors. Second was the advent of 2D and 3D modelling software including Maya on both Windows and Mac OS. This took away SGI monopoly in visual graphics.

Sadly, today SGI is nowhere near what it was in around 1995 - the king of visual graphics.

Cheers

 

[Rem]

I was always fascinated by those machines my brother used it 15yrs back and he still talks about it. Somehow loved the machines so much so that I had the SGi workstation images as my wallpaper for so many yrs

It used to run a flavour of Unix and I believe NASA also used those for their simulations along with some SUN workstations sometime back.

Thankyou very much for the info sir.

 

[anm]

who is the new king?

The king is dead. Long live the king!!

 

[venkatcr]

who is the new king?

Oh, like all dynasties, SGI's dynastic rule has been replaced by a fiercely fighting democracy. We have ATI, nVidia, Matrox, Intel. AMD, Sun, and a host of other small but specialised manufacturers.

Should we say 'The King is dead, long live democracy' ?

Cheers

 

[gap g j]

I am a bit concerned about this fascination that many of us seem to have for ripped movies.
...
...

An original movie is something close to 200GB. You compress it to 25GB for Blu-Ray and 5 GB for DVD. By ripping it, you are yet again compressing it to less than 1 GB. Does this make sense? Not to me.
...
...
Long live our eyes. As we love to say in India for everything - 'Hamari Aankhen Zindabad'. Yuck! that sounds like a movie title.

My idea of an HTPC is to fit it with a Blu-Ray drive when I can afford it and use it for for both Blu-Ray discs and for regular DVDs.

Cheers

I completely agree with you, my view is also same.

There is no DVD/BD rental in our area and there is no online rental to deliver also, only source for DVD are grey market which are all DVD5 disc and also we cant get what we wanted but select from what they have, so we need to download from Internet waht we wanted (DVD-Audio, dts audio, etc..)

 

[moserw]

Hmm. Not to condone piracy but where are you guys getting your rips from? Try an aXXo rip. It's PQ is breathtaking. MKV rips of HD content even when compressed and converted to a DVD will beat the PQ of any retail DVD. Honestly! I have all three parts of The Matrix on DVD, Blu-Ray and even some d/l content that is in MP4 format at around 1.5 GB each file. Now obviously the Blu-Ray is the best of all (that goes without saying). But the MP4 compressed files on the PC and converted to a DVD via ConvertXtoDVD have very, very good PQ both on the PC monitor and on the LCD and Plasma I have at home. You can see facial hair on Carrie-Anne Moss, it's that clear. The DVDs kind of suck and never show such clarity or detail.

Of course in terms of SQ all are same as all are in 5.1 Dolby Digital and this kind of sucks for Blu-Ray discs that audio is still in 5.1.