HTPC vs PS3
 

Alright so I'm looking for something that will play blu-ray and be able to stream videos from my desktop to my tv. PS3 seems like the way to go, but I already have a 360 and probably wouldn't game on the PS3 except for the exclusive titles. I also have an old computer just collecting dust (2 7800gtx's, 2gb ram, not sure what cpu). I was thinking I could just upgrade that a little bit. Another thing I would like about having a HTPC is playing roms.


What do you guys think? What are your experiences with HTPCs? If I go HTPC I don't really want to spend > $450

No reason to get a PS3 for media, if you already have a 360. It plays the same video files as the PS3, and can stream from your PC as well.

i love my HTPC
even in HK, i used a HTPC w/ media center as the HD box instead of those set top box that they sell. Not to mention, my HTPC upscales everything to 1080P and plays everything thats shared between all my comps.

believe it or not the most expensive component in my HTPC(s) is actually the keyboard and mouse combo (dinovo edge, dinovo edge mini for my setup in my room), and then the case is not cheap. LOL

what tv tuner/video card are you using for the htpc?

can the 360 or ps2 play mkv files in 1080p?

Is it Media Center itself that upconverts, or something else on your HTPC?

its the awesome hydeness he radiates.

In fact, he has a 4 year lead in 3-D HDTV technology because the hydeness is so awesome. Panasonic just stole a fraction of it and reverse engineer it.

The 'upconvert' is done by the media player. The HTPC runs at 1080p (probably 1920 x 1200 res) all the time, and everything would be scaled to that resolution.

I recommend the HTPC route. HTPC gives a lot of versatility, and basically no limitation on file formats, since you can just download software or updates.

^+1

2 7800 should be powerful to do hard decode on blu ray movies with any dual core CPU, if you get a BD drive as an upgrade.

You're referring to the software running on the HTPC, right? The reason I ask is because i'm looking for software for an HTPC that can upconvert videos. I don't think Windows Media Center upconverts.

windows itself will upconvert everything to the resolution windows is set at.... hence 1920x1080 = 1080P

HTPC would be way more practical, since you can play absolutely any type of media file you want on it. Sounds like really the only thing you need is a Blu-Ray drive, which you can get for about $140...

and a decent sound card

I definitely wouldn't waste any money on the sound card unless you are looking for a particular type of audio in/out that is not available on your motherboard. (i.e. optical)
I've tried comparing the OB sound card vs a M-audio and Audiogy sound card and you really won't see any difference in terms of sound playback quality...it just gives you more interface and features and that's it.

Recently got a new HDTV as well here.

Any baseline configs that you guys would recommend? I've been out of the rig building business for a while now. Space is of concern.

nothing much is needed for spec.. mATX board, best if there are those ATI or nVidia chipset that support HD decoding and HDMI out. I havn't check which board is capable of those. but i did get a nvidia board for another MCE that has HDMI out. any pentium dual core or higher is good enough. 2GB ram... better if u get more since ram is cheap anyways. HDD size of your choice and case of your choice.

if you want to add TV tuner, that i'm not sure what's good here for canada. since u'll have to use the cable box as well. and Media Center only support composite and s-video input from cable box and not anything better.

Make sure that the video card you choose has HD decoding otherwise your computer may be too slow. My 6000+ with a cheap video card is choppy when playing 1080p movies.

I use my PS3 to watch movies. HTPC is obviously better but if you want something that plays Bluray and be able to play movies you downloaded, the PS3 will save you a lot of money.

It's a hassle to copy movies to the PS3. You usually have to convert the movies through a program called "mkv2vob", copy to external hard drive, then connect the external hard drive to PS3. Also keep in mind that the maximum file size is 4GB because your hard drive has to be FAT32 and Windows can only copy up to 4GB files on FAT32 drives. If you have larger files, you have to use a program that allows you to use your PS3 to browse and download files from your computer. The PS3 internal hard drive can hold files larger than 4GB.

why waste time copying when u can just stream and transcode video with tversity

well if the mother board has a HDMI out, there is really no need for sound decoding, but without you lose so much more for sound via regular aux/optical link

I would suggest using an HTPC. With an HTPC case, it really looks great with your other AV equipment.

http://members.shaw.ca/volvoman/index/Pictures/TV.JPG

u should get the 4870 since it handles the lossless audio and 7.1



and new asus soundcard

http://www.blu-ray.com/images/ces2009/xonar.jpg

well, if you're going to play just the exclusives on the ps3 and need a bluray player, why not PS3 :) can't always get the .mkv files and most movies are avi!

what if you use a 16gb flash drive or something will that work

whats about a 16gb flash drive to transfer

I run a ps3 with this program:

http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/

Small program, not clunky like tversity and full stream of mkv's with no hiccups

* Ready to launch and play. No codec packs to install. No folder configuration and pre-parsing or this kind of annoying thing. All your folders are directly browsed by the PS3, there's an automatic refresh also.
* Real-time video transcoding via MEncoder, tsMuxer or Avisynth
* DVD ISOs images / VIDEO_TS Folder transcoder
* OGG/FLAC/MPC/APE audio transcoding
* Thumbnail generation for Videos
* You can choose with a virtual folder system your audio/subtitle language on the PS3!
* All formats PS3 natively supports: MP3/WMA, JPG/PNG/GIF/TIFF, and all kind of videos (AVI, MP4, TS, M2TS, MPEG) the ps3 is willing to play
* ZIP/RAR files as browsable folders for pictures/audio files
* Preliminary support for pictures based feeds, such as Flickr and Picasaweb
* Preliminary Internet TV / Web Radio support with VLC, MEncoder or MPlayer