Media PC

Auvers

Hi guys I have been thinking of putting together a media PC and was just wondering how powerful does the CPU/vid Card have to be to play 1080i/720p movies/TV shows and how cheaply can one be put together?

Oh I have this TV
https://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=323271

8T8

Depends, your TV supports a maximum of 720p which really isn't all the demanding (it's just a resolution of 1280x720 pixels).

The most common content available commercially in this form is HD-DVD & Blu-ray movies, is that what you are intending it for ?

Everything else encoded at 720p is fairly easy to decode you don't need uber powerful hardware.

There are roughly 4 main video codecs that are used to encode HD video material;
* MPEG-2 the oldest & computationally easy to decode even at HD resolutions.

* VC-1 fairly new codec, requires a semi decent CPU but tends to work fine even on older hardware (used frequently with HD-DVD's and Microsoft HD videos).

* MPEG-4 ASP (XviD & friends) easy to decode doesn't require a powerful CPU, not really used with HD material.

* MPEG-4 AVC aka H.264 the most advanced video codec, computationally expensive to decode though the latest software decoders have lessened the impact (will be used a lot with HD-DVD & Blu-ray eventually) you still need a good CPU but it doesn't have to be the bleeding edge.


Any media PC you build ideally you want it to be dual core, I'd say a Core 2 Duo E6300 or Athlon 64 X2 3800+ should handle everything, on a lesser note a dual core Pentium D should also suffice like the Pentium D 915. 1GB of system RAM & anything else it doesn't matter too much what you pick. Note those suggestions are assuming you are going to building this for use with HD-DVD or Blu-ray.

Auvers

8T8 wrote:

Any media PC you build ideally you want it to be dual core, I'd say a Core 2 Duo E6300 or Athlon 64 X2 3800+ should handle everything, on a lesser note a dual core Pentium D should also suffice like the Pentium D 915. 1GB of system RAM & anything else it doesn't matter too much what you pick. Note those suggestions are assuming you are going to building this for use with HD-DVD or Blu-ray.

Thanks 8T8 for the informative reply just a couple of more questions, what graphics card should I go for? would a cheapo mainboard with onboard video do the job?

Oh to answer one of your questions I am building this for general use i.e HD-DVD/Blu-ray movies and 720p tv shows that my American cousin sends me

*edit* would a 400watt PSU (i.e. antec) do the job for a E6300, 2gigs ram,graphics card + two 400gig sata drives

8T8

Graphics need only be basic integrated variety with a good CPU like the Core 2 Duo and a good decoder there will be no need for GPU assisted decoding.

That's not to say GPU assisted decoding isn't useful it's just not a necessity like people think it is. However what ever motherboard you buy make sure it has an x16 slot for PCI-e graphics cards just in case.

Now if you plan on using HDMI to connect to the TV then you will need a graphics card at the moment very few graphics cards support HDCP over DVI and there are even fewer HDMI enabled graphics cards & motherboards with integrated graphics plus HDMI are rare as hens teeth.

According to a demo NVIDIA recently showed off you can only play back HD discs if using DVI/HDMI with a HDCP enabled graphics card & display (your TV is). However if using an analogue VGA connection you don't need a HDCP compliant graphics card but wont get the sharper picture from the digital outputs and run the risk of falling foul of the image constraint token were they will lower the resolution of the disc (the VGA demo also crashed which isn't a good sign with the Cyberlink player).

Right so now you know all that the cheapest HDCP/DVI enabled card on Komplett is this X1950 Pro card for €200 which has a few things going for it;
* Quiet enough cooler but it is still a fan based system not ideal for a HTPC.
* HDCP support so you can use HDMI.
* AVIVO DVD decoder for regular DVD's comes free with it.
* ATI haven't really been too forward about HD assisted decoding bar supporting Cyberlinks player but it's a powerful enough card so it should be of some use in HD assisted decoding.
* Good card useful for gaming.

OcUK have an X1600 Pro that comes with an actual HDMI output for €139 - see second from the top. This would be a better pick if the price of the X1950 Pro is too much
or the length of the X1950 pro is an issue.

As for the PSU without a GPU 400W is fine
With an X1600 Pro 400W is fine
With an X1950 Pro 450W might be a better choice to play it safe.


More info worth knowing;
* CoreAVC is the best H.264 decoder beating the Cyberlink H.264 GPU assisted decoder & that's in software alone, Core are planning GPU support at a future date & the Pro version is multi-threaded which is why the dual core CPU is handy.
* The Xbox 360 add-on HD-DVD drive which is about the cheapest drive you can get will work under Windows Vista as a HD-DVD drive. I have a feeling it will not work with HD-DVD in XP but I'm not 100% certain on that just a hunch.
* In XP there are only two authroised players from Cyberlink & Intervideo for HD-DVD & Blu-ray
* In Vista it will ship with MPEG-2 & VC-1 decoders but no H.264 decoder which you will have to supply yourself there have been hints that {Vista} Windows Media player will support the HD-DVD framework out of the box but it's not verified though it would be handy as you can avoid Cyberlink & Intervideo's stuff and hopefully use CoreAVC with WMP to complete the chain.
* Blu-ray support in Vista requires a third party player.
* Vista MCE & WMP can now integrate third party players into their UI which removes a potential annoyance if you go with Cyberlink or Intervideo's offerings.
* Future HD-DVD's discs may be region encoded they aren't for now but supposedly it's going to happen which will put a spanner in the works of future imports. Not sure about the status Blu-ray.

Auvers

Thank you 8t8 all questions answered perhaps you should create a sticky on this subject as you obviously know what your talking about.

8T8

The thing with all this stuff is that is it still a bit up in the air and the hardware & software is still not easy to come bye yet...

After the dust settles when you can easily acquire the components a sticky may be a good idea but probably more appropriate in the HTPC forum

In fact this thread is one of those areas were it's hard to call as it's 50/50 but I think it is probably better off in the HTPC forum but I will leave a redirect to the comp building forum.

unklerosco

8T8 wrote:

OcUK have an X1600 Pro that comes with an actual HDMI output for €139 - see second from the top. This would be a better pick if the price of the X1950 Pro is too much
or the length of the X1950 pro is an issue.

I have one of these for sale on adverts if ur interested...

RuggieBear

bloody pimps...:p