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"I have a 2/3 pulldown DVD player which gives me better quality than any PC ever will"

Probably not, especially when used in combination with a projector.

Maybe Im not part of the target demographic, but I have a nice widescreen, I have a Tivo, I have a CD player capable of mp3 playback, I have a 2/3 pulldown DVD player which gives me better quality than any PC ever will, and I have a Denon sound system.

You are in the target demographic, but you just don't know it. Whether or not it suits you in particular is another matter. While we're comparing units, I've got a very nice home theater system with thousands of dollars in speakers and a front projector and a 8 foot wide screen, and the source is almost completely driven from my htpc. The 160 hour Tivo is also piped through the htpc. My 6000 tracks of vorbis files are available on the network to my htpc.

Software dvd decoding has advanced to the point that it equals pretty much even the most absurdly expensive hardware players, and for those with projectors it provides better scaling than anything but the best Faroudja chips. Unfortunately, all the best software for htpc's are currently available mostly for Windows and a box of similar functionality is still quite a ways off.

You should at least give it a chance. Go to AVS Forums HTPC section for more information. In short, a media center pc gives you the best of all worlds (including remote control operation and several well-designed simple interfaces) without the cost of audiophile level gear.

Go look at AVS Forum and their HTPC forum. Even has a sub-forum for HTPC on Linux.

It's a very, very busy forum though, with a couple hundred threads a day being posted to. But it's the definitive place for HTPC knowledge.

Dish Network's PVR921 which has DVI output, dual tuners, ethernet support, and HDTV recording won the "Best of Show" at CES

Moxi has announced an HDTV PVR that will be integrated with Cable, the Moxi Media Center. Charter Communications is testing this box right now in St. Louis.

On a related note, I am happy with DVI's winning the interface war for HDTV output, mainly because it does not restrict the signal to MPEG2, which Firewire does. This means when HD-DVDs come out, they can use whatever technology makes more sense (blue laser), and my TV does not have to assume it's MPEG2.

Other links of interest where you could dig up more info on HDTV, or audio/video in general:

• HomeTheaterHiFi.com
• AVS Forum
• DTV Max

Have a look at this thread at avsforum for more details.

New customer? If you go to buy a DirecTV system at Best Buy or the like, they'll try to take an extra $100-$150 for the triple LNB dish. But you can get one for free. Sign up for DirecTV on one of the regular packages (often free after rebate -- try Blockbuster and you also get a year's free DVD rentals), and tell them you want Para Todos, the Spanish network. That comes off one of the other sats, and you'll get a triple-LNB capable dish. Might not have all three LNBs on it, but the 3rd LNB is about $40, and just slots in with no rewiring etc. You don't actually have to by the Para Todos channels, either -- the dish install and program signup seem to be handled separately. (I went through this a couple of months back after reading about it on the Web.)

Here is a picture of the new DirecTV version of the box.

It appears that DirecTV has finally decided to relax the Firewire restriction, and you'll be able to see HD DirecTV receviers with Firewire support. (Which will kick ass... My TV has Firewire.)

No clue what connections will come on the HD DirecTivo, but I sure hope to see them with Component Out, DVI, and Firewire, supporting both early adopters (Component In only), and both digital interfaces.

(I'd like DVI to die a horrible death, but I recognize that most HDTV buyers can olny get one, or the other, and there's no reason they (the people with DVI) should be left out on the cold.)

There's nothing preventing you from attaching a PC to a television. In fact, many of today's video cards have s-video outputs. Plus, many projectors have VGA or DVI inputs and there are also devices that convert VGA to component inputs (such as this one.) In fact, the entire premise of the HTPC (Home theater PC) is that the PC is actually better than a standalone DVD player, because of the availability of scalers and custom resolutions. Not to mention the fact that it can also serve as an MP3 jukebox. Check out the HTPC FAQ. (Not to mention the fact that it is generally easier to get a region-free DVD-ROM drive than a region-free standalone DVD.)

Of course, Windows XP MCE is not necessary to play DVDs or to record tv shows, despite what MS would want you to think.

Off topic: Despite recent jokes about fancy computer cases, HTPC is a growing niche market and people want fancy computer cases (such as this Coolermaster case) because they want to put their PC with their receiver and other HT equipment.

You are going to be a pioneer on this one.

No he's not. The people over at AVS Forum have been doing HDTV time shifting via HTPC for 2 years now.

I use the MyHD card and haven't looked back. Except at the TV, that is.

My MyHD is in a 1.8GHz P4 HTPC in an equipment closet connected with about 25 feet of Y/Pb/Pr cable to a Toshiba 34HF81 HDTV (1080i). One antenna input is from over-the-air broadcasts (Dallas area), the other from analog cable TV.

Record and playback is with an IDE-baed RAID array with a SCSI interface, currently less than 1TB of storage, but more planned.

DVDs that I've legally purchased get DeCSS'd and go onto the RAID array under a subdirectory named FairUse. Then the originals go into a box for safekeeping and I play just the personal, legal backup copies. (Take that, Jack V.).

MyHD plays back the DVDs, cable TV, and over-the-air HDTV (mainly PBS specials and Jennifer Garner in Alias :-) in stunning 1080i.

True, the driver's aren't entirely stable, but it works well enough for HDTV and SDTV timeshifting as well as DVD playback.

And I learned about all this stuff from AVS Forum. Ask there, and learn.

I have pretty much finished building my HTPC (Home Theater PC). I would suggest visiting some forums. Specifically avs forum. Some things that you might want to check out is a MyHD card. It will upscale existing resolution to 1080i. It will also take an existing hd transmition and allow you to output it to an HDTV. The MyHD card comes with tuner software and a remote. Secondly you should look into getting some software called PowerStrip. This allows for dynamic resolution settings. Different applications will require different resolutions. It also allows you to tweak refresh and color. A good etailer/retailer is digital connection. You can get the MyHD card there. Also they sell low profile cases that look like stereo components. Another thing that you should get is a VGA to component switch. This will take a vga output and convert it to a digital component output for your hdtv. Some of the experts suggest specific motherboards. The one that I got upon someone's suggestion is the Asus P4B533 P4 Socket 478 DDR Motherboard. Apparently, there are certain chipsets that are very good for multimedia. I think that the chipset that is in the Asus is the Intel 845 but I can't remember if that is correct. Also that board comes with a digital coax and dolby 5.1 on the board. You can save a couple of bucks this way. You could also buy an expensive sound card and get a little better quality but not much better. Do the M$ XP as well. They have better multimedia support and can support a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, which you might want. The blue tooth has better range than other RF and you don't have to worry about obstructions. There are other HD cards out there such as Holo3DGraph, but they can be very expensive. MyHD gives you good bang for you buck. BTW, you will still need a regular Video card. They suggest a ATI Radeon. That is the standard for HTPCs. For watching DVD, you will want TheaterTech and for enabling remote operation, you will want to look into the software package Girder (spelling). Before you buy anything, go to the avsforum website and check with some people who have been doing this a long time. They even have a Linux HTPC forum. Sorry, but the drivers for the MyHD card on Linux are not available....yet.

There are other choices, definitely stay away from the Hauppauge, their founder died and it seems that with his passing so has any passion for HDTV.

The MyHD card is an excellent choice though. It has active software development and currently has support for recording both ATSC (HDTV) and NTSC - most similar cards only do ATSC because it is easy - it is already in MPEG form off the air.

All cards, except the AccessTV are one-way only. You can either record/watch incoming HDTV or play recorded HDTV but not both at the same time. The Access card essentially has two cards in one and comes the closest to tivo-like functionality, but they are known for flakey software and taking up two slots and being hot.

All of the cards (except the WinTV-D, the predecessor to the WinTV-HD) are based on the Janus ATSC decoder chipset. Janus, recently purchased (by Oak Technologies?) has never been, and still isn't, interested in supporting linux driver development. Programming specs are only available under tight NDA...

Check out the HDTV forums and the Linux HTPC forum at avsforum for lots of talk about this kind of thing. Beware, avsforum has been growing by leaps and bounds and their server is in need of an upgrade (seems like they upgrade at least every 6 months), so it is probably a little slow and might come to a halt under the mighty gaze of slashdot...

The Home Theater Computer forum at AVSForum has a ton of info. I use the MyHD card for HD tuning & recording. Another poular one (w/ psuedo-open source code) use the HiPix

The folks over at Avsforum should be able to answer any other questions you have. There's a group of people there who write open source software for the Hipix so no DRM on the HDTV shows you record!

I can't answer your question for you. But have you checked out the AVS Forum? Their Forum on Home Theater Computers should be just what you're looking for because a specialized forum should be able to give you better information than this forum. The AVS forums are very well populated and you should be able to find someone who can answer your question over there.

1) Go to the AVS Forum's HTPC section

2) Start reading.

The people there have already come across every issue you will encounter. They're extremely helpful. It's an absolutely invaluable resource.

Once you get your HDTV setup working, be sure to visit their HDTV section, especially the HDTV Programming section.

-S

1) Go to the AVS Forum's HTPC section

2) Start reading.

The people there have already come across every issue you will encounter. They're extremely helpful. It's an absolutely invaluable resource.

Once you get your HDTV setup working, be sure to visit their HDTV section, especially the HDTV Programming section.

-S

1) Go to the AVS Forum's HTPC section

2) Start reading.

The people there have already come across every issue you will encounter. They're extremely helpful. It's an absolutely invaluable resource.

Once you get your HDTV setup working, be sure to visit their HDTV section, especially the HDTV Programming section.

-S

So, the solution is to uncheck seven checkboxes. That is not particularly discoverable, but once discovered, it is quick and effective.

Ick. You've got to be kidding. I can tell you that the Tivo UI is much more polished.

I've been thinking about getting a ReplayTV (we already have two Tivos), but I've been a bit worried by some of the comments that I've seen in the ReplayTV section of avsforum, such as:

• The ReplayTV seems to occasionally lock up or require periodic reboots.
• Occasionally, the ReplayTV seems to not record shows at night (~3AM???) because of something it's doing.

Now, I'm guessing that these don't happen all that often, but it bothers me that they don't seem to be uncommon. Tivos seem to be infinitely more polished and user-friendly.

However, being able to transfer shows (in an officially-supported manner) is very attractive ....

Soldier on over to the AVS forum and observe that lots of folks (myself included) receive ATSC DTV just fine with a simple indoor antenna.

From everything I've read (AVS Forums, Home Theater Spot), the ATI dongle seems to be a little flakey. For my money (and I know $200 >> $30), a proper VGA to Component transcoder is the way to go. Way fewer headaches. Though ATIs suck for custom resolutions, so expect to deal with a bit of overscan. It looks like the best solution right now is to pick up a WinPVR or WinPVR 250 and an nVidia GeForce-based card, a VGA->Component transcoder, and PowerStrip. I'm still dealing with my AIW 7500, though.

Now to wait for AT&T to bring HD to digital cable, and then find some way to get that into the HTPC ...

Actually the Radeon 9700 Pro comes with a standard set of component cables (feed off the TV-out) that can work at 480i/480p/720p/1040i on a TV capable of receiving HD resolutions.

Ah, yes, ATI's component convertor. Sure, it was only $30, but most people who have one have reported flakiness and problems (check out places like the Home Theater Spot or AVS Forum).

The overscan issue seems to have been from the cable conversion the AIW Radeon 8500's had & the fact your using a non-Ati device to do the same on a AIW Radeon 7500.

No, the overscan is an issue of how TVs work -- all TVs have some amount of overscan, and TV broadcasts are designed to compensate for this. Even after having my RPTV professionally calibrated, I still have the recommended ~5% overscan on all sides (anything less and you start getting into geometry and convergence issues). nVidia graphics cards support any custom resolution you can define (within their hardware capabilities, of course, but 1080i doesn't even make nVidia cards break a sweat) , and thus you can define a custom resolution that compensates for overscan (you'll need something like EnTech's PowerStrip for this, of course). ATI cards are much less flexible in terms of custom resolutions (or, at least, the 7500 was, and I believe the 8500 was as well). Thus, my wishlist is that ATI would at least come up to the level of nVidia and properly handle custom resolutions.

Unfortunately thier is still no component in though... I could make use of that as well...

Immersive's Holo3DGraph video processor card does have component inputs, but those only accept SD interlaced inputs (480i, basically), not HD or progressive scan inputs (480p, which isn't HD, or 740p or 1080i). I've heard mention of DirecTV units that can be captured from via coax input (something about the box will output whatever channel it happens to be on through channel 3 or 4 of the coax, so you'll need an HD tuner card in your PC to pick up the signal from the STB), but I haven't researched this very much, and I have no idea if AT&T will do something similar (they're bringing HDTV to digital cable in my area sometime in the next few months). If that doesn't work, then I'm SOL with my HTPC once HDTV gets here (and I'll definitely at least try the HDTV feed, because I've been pining for it for over a year).

The DIY section on avsforum also has some info.

DIY subwoofers is another place to start.

In fact a google search yields about 16,000 results with the words "DIY" and "subwoofer".

Which brings me to...

Is this really news?

-S

And not every PC is equipped with AGP

Well, every PC built in the past 3 or 4 years is... and, frankly, if your main PCs are older than that you're not likely to be reading ArsTechnica or something about a BIOS tweaking guide.

But like most 'BIOS' guides I've read, this gives alot of info on 'tweaks', with little mention of the damage that the wrong settings can do

Obviously a problem... I haven't read the article yet (didn't feel like it this morning, and it's toast now), but they should really mark the settings that are potentially dangerous. Screwing around with your RAM timings, CPU clock, etc. can release the magic smoke awfully quickly.

There's also a disproportionate amount of Soundblaster-bashing going on here

Not really. Creative Labs has long made the worst hardware they could get away with, and did so thanks to having created the original standard for PC sound. They've never been high quality cards, and have often caused problems with other hardware and software. Go talk to someone who tried putting an SB Live in a dual processor NT4 system about it for example.

Frankly, if you're looking for a new soundcard then there's little reason to buy Creative. For general use (games/music) both Hercules and Turtle Beach make better cards for less. For games alone, Hercules or Philips are better (Philips mentioned purely due to QSound). If you're talking about just playing music, doing a home theater PC, or mid to high end audio then a more expensive card that does real 24/96 or 24/192 audio is preferred - M-Audio and many others fit the bill here.

I do think that the incompatibility bit is somewhat overstated (I don't have any problems with my SB Live or my much older SB64 ISA), although SB's are notoriously bad about sharing PCI IRQs and the like, but the poor sound quality and total lack of compliance to industry standards are not. The digital out on the Live series doesn't comply to any spec known to man -- its voltage is roughly 10x the allowed spec. Even the Audigy continues to resample everything to 48 KHz, which plays hell with CD Audio, and their claims of 96 KHz sampling rates are deceptive at best (only applies to the digital outputs, and only sometimes at that).

If you want more details, I suggest either the PC AV Tech or [H]ardOCP's Audio forum. If you're interested in HTPC's in particular, then take a look at AVS Forum's HTPC forum.

First, to answer your question:

Any modern ATI or Nvidia card should work just fine. Plasma displays are very sensitive with regards to having their exact resolution displayed, so use a program like Powerstrip to make sure Windows starts up with the exact resolution and refresh rate your plasma monitor requires.

If you haven't bought a plasma display yet, then I recommend you think twice about getting it. There are some really low cost monitors out there that can interface pretty well with a PC. Take, for example, the JVC AV-48WP30, at around $1,700 you can have a 48" HDTV that supports DVI(*). People are using this TV with their PC's at 1280x720, or 1920x540. There are also new 42" (HLM427W, I believe) and 50" (HLM507W) Samsung HDTV's that support DVI and are based on badass DLP technology (I heard this set is particularly sharp when connected to a PC). These Samsung DLP's are MUCH cheaper than other comparable sets, something like $3,000-$4,000.

Note, however, that while the theoretical HDTV resolution is 1920x1080i, very, very few HDTV's can display a discernable pixel grid at this resolution. Still, the price difference between a modern rear-projection HDTV and a plasma monitor is significant (you can buy a decent used car with the money you save).

Here are some very helpful links, I used them extensively when I was shopping around for a new set:

AV Science Forum: great forum with lots of very knowledgeable people. Many of them are into using displays like plasmas/HDTV's with their PC's.

Home Theater Spot: similar to the above, different layout. Another great, helpful site.

(*) Regarding these DVI connectors - yes, these are the new DVI connections used to transfer encrypted data to prevent people from copying future HD broadcasts. It is often documented that you can't use this DVI interface with your computer's DVI out, but more often than not this is not true and it will work just fine. However, ask around on the above sites about your particular DVI TV before buying an expensive DVI cable. :)

A good place to start is http://www.avsforum.com/ it has a large Home Theatre PC Section.

There are heads of HTPC cases out there, if you look hard enough. All the shuttle cases still look like PCs, just PCs with plastic "chrome" on them. I managed to hunt down a case that came in Gold and more or less matches my Marantz 6200 AV Amp (a beast of a machine). Sure it costs a heap and has to be imported from Korea but check out the pictures...

http://www.e-capsule.co.kr/shop/read.cgi?board=htp c_board&y_number=65
http://www.e-capsule.co.kr/shop/read.cgi?board=htp c_board&y_number=70&nnew=2
http://www.e-capsule.co.kr/shop/read.cgi?board=htp c_board&y_number=79&nnew=2
http://www.moddin.net/review.asp?ReviewID=45

I found it via the "Home Theater Computers" forum at:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/


Take the hint - look to Korea for cool cases.

If you're willing to go with water cooling or something like the CALM System's evaporative cooling, you can get even quieter than that. Or you can do what I did and run cables under the floor so you can put the thing in a closet and shut the door.

Yahoo's Silent-PC list and AVS Forum have lots of good info on building PCs a lot quieter than the new Shuttle.

But not as tiny!

first off, the nature of most of the replies here seems to indicate that slashdot isn't a great place to ask home theater questions. try the home theater forum on the av science forum. basically, what you are going to want is a vga card with the ability to output arbitrary scan rates and resolutions. try the ATI radeon line using software to adjust your scan rates like powerstrip. finally, as one other poster mentioned, you're going to want a vga to component video transcoder, like this or this. with the appropriate video card and the vga transcoder, you'll be able to run native HDTV resolution into pretty much any consumer grade HDTV set.

first off, the nature of most of the replies here seems to indicate that slashdot isn't a great place to ask home theater questions. try the home theater forum on the av science forum. basically, what you are going to want is a vga card with the ability to output arbitrary scan rates and resolutions. try the ATI radeon line using software to adjust your scan rates like powerstrip. finally, as one other poster mentioned, you're going to want a vga to component video transcoder, like this or this. with the appropriate video card and the vga transcoder, you'll be able to run native HDTV resolution into pretty much any consumer grade HDTV set.

Go over to AVS, read the HTPC forum, and read about the SB Live digital output. Yes, it works fine for a lot of people. Yes, it conforms to no standard known to man. And it causes weird problems with some pre-amps/receivers. There are some indications that it may even damage them with long term use.

This is interesting. There's a new type of Ludditism. Instead of rejecting technology prima facie, you're rejecting technologies based on what you call "copyright gestapo restrictions."

For a contrary opinion to that popularly expressed by Slashdotters, head over to the avsforum.com HDTV recorders posting board. There you'll find lots of people enthusiastically supporting copy protection methods like JVC's D-Theater format. Why? Because they know that without those sorts of protections-- or restrictions, if you prefer-- the studios will never release their movies in 1080i format on any medium. A movie recorded in high-bit-rate 1080i is very close, when viewed on consumer gear with a slightly forgiving eye, to an HD master. Studios simply won't release near-master-quality tapes or discs unless they're confident that those movies won't be copied like crazy.

I like owning and watching high-quality movies; that's why I've invested in a high-definition TV, a DVD player, and a collection of DVDs. I'm not interested in making copies of my movies, so the fact that I'm (a) not allowed to, and (b) prevented from doing so doesn't bother me in the least.

So I vocally support copy protection-- or restriction, or prevention, or whatever you want to call it. Without it, I won't be able to watch movies in high definition, and that'd be disappointing. Every time somebody pirates a video, CD, or DVD, they make it ever so slightly less likely that I'll be able to get the kind of entertainment I want in the future.

Also, one might wish to check out the AVSforum HTPC section for more information on HTPC. The 8000DV does come reccomended, and one could even use the technology to back scale (with DScaler, open source, free, and better than $40,000 equipment) HDTV sources to NTSC, though I'd wonder why you'd do such a thing.

Actually, if you are willing to build your own PVR (and I can understand that some aren't), there are quite a few options for timeshifting HDTV content. Namely;

AccessDTV: http://www.accessdtv.com/accessdtv/index.htm
Hauppauge WinTV-HD: http://www.hauppauge.com
Telemann HiPix: http://www.telemann.com/products/dtv200.html

There are quite a few opinions on these cards, and if you are really interested you should be sure to check a more recent one because as the software they use changes, so does the capabilities of the cards. As always, a great resource for all of this is the AVS Forum: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/ [avsforum.com]

comes this better-informed discussion of the topic.

WinTV has just announced some new PVR products, the top two of which will do hardware MPEG-II encoding. The most expensive one also has hardware decoding. Creative Labs' board also has hardware encoding, though it does have some limitations that put some people off. Read about it at AVS Forum in the Home Theater Computers forum.

I guess everyone has a different opinion on what place a computer has in a home theater. To me a HTPC is most useful as a computer thats integrated into a home theater, not as a replacement for other home theater components like a tv tuner or DVD player. A moderately priced stand alone DVD player will outperform video cards in terms of picture quality. PVRs are relatively cheap and quite functional as is.

So what am I driving at? For those lucky enough to have a high def capable TV there is a better solution if you want to integrate a computer. Don't try to replace reasonably priced components that will far out perform a computer (like a DVD player or PVR) instead get a vga -> component transcoder. Transcoders will work with any video card and/or operating system provided you can modify the scan and refresh rates. The best part is that you can run your computer at high definition resolutions! UT at 1080i anyone?

All is not lost if you don't have a high definition capable tv though. If your TV has component inputs and your video card is capable of outputing an interlaced signal with the proper scan and refresh rates you can use a transcoder instead of using a card with TV-out for higher image quality.

There are several transcoders available ranging from $100-300. Copper box sells transcoders from Audio Authority, Key Digital and RCA. Avsforum has lots of discussion in its HTPC forum regarding customer resolutions and scan rates.

The Radeon 8500 is seriously broken for playing DVDs on a very high quality display. The gamma correction is screwed up, preventing proper display of many scenes. Furthermore, the AIW is a somewhat inferior capture card.

If you really want to know what cooks, check out the Granddaddy of A/V Forums and look in their Home Theater Computers Forum. There are two threads in particular of interest:

HTPC FAQ
Best in Class HTPC Component Listing

FWIW, ATI has given a prerelease driver to one of the AVS Forum's most prominent members for testing and he claims the gamma correction problem is fixed in that driver. Who knows when the drivier will be released and if it will be even remotely stable...many of their most recent drivers are pure, unadulterated fecal matter.

The Radeon 8500 is seriously broken for playing DVDs on a very high quality display. The gamma correction is screwed up, preventing proper display of many scenes. Furthermore, the AIW is a somewhat inferior capture card.

If you really want to know what cooks, check out the Granddaddy of A/V Forums and look in their Home Theater Computers Forum. There are two threads in particular of interest:

HTPC FAQ
Best in Class HTPC Component Listing

FWIW, ATI has given a prerelease driver to one of the AVS Forum's most prominent members for testing and he claims the gamma correction problem is fixed in that driver. Who knows when the drivier will be released and if it will be even remotely stable...many of their most recent drivers are pure, unadulterated fecal matter.

The Radeon 8500 is seriously broken for playing DVDs on a very high quality display. The gamma correction is screwed up, preventing proper display of many scenes. Furthermore, the AIW is a somewhat inferior capture card.

If you really want to know what cooks, check out the Granddaddy of A/V Forums and look in their Home Theater Computers Forum. There are two threads in particular of interest:

HTPC FAQ
Best in Class HTPC Component Listing

FWIW, ATI has given a prerelease driver to one of the AVS Forum's most prominent members for testing and he claims the gamma correction problem is fixed in that driver. Who knows when the drivier will be released and if it will be even remotely stable...many of their most recent drivers are pure, unadulterated fecal matter.

The Radeon 8500 is seriously broken for playing DVDs on a very high quality display. The gamma correction is screwed up, preventing proper display of many scenes. Furthermore, the AIW is a somewhat inferior capture card.

If you really want to know what cooks, check out the Granddaddy of A/V Forums and look in their Home Theater Computers Forum. There are two threads in particular of interest:

HTPC FAQ
Best in Class HTPC Component Listing

FWIW, ATI has given a prerelease driver to one of the AVS Forum's most prominent members for testing and he claims the gamma correction problem is fixed in that driver. Who knows when the drivier will be released and if it will be even remotely stable...many of their most recent drivers are pure, unadulterated fecal matter.

forget DesignTechnica -- look, if you *really* want to know what the hardcore insiders are doing, you go to AVS Forum's HTPC forum.

The other "insider" resource to check is Home Theater Forum.

DesignTechnica or other "PC Enthusiasts" sites can't even scratch the surface of what a true HTPC needs to have, and the varied solutions, etc. that go along with it. Not flaming, just telling the truth.

Well it depends a lot on your preference of UI and what features you hold dear. I have a DirecTivo and it rocks. Here is a small breakdown on DirecTivo vs. ReplayTV:

DirecTivo:
-Dual Tuners (record 2 shows at once)
-Costs $99 for new DirecTV subscribers
-Easy to use Interface (Yes, my Linux-running friends, this is a Good Thing)
-Direct digital MPEG2 recording straight to disk, results in ONLY high quality recordings which not only look better, but take up less disk space

ReplayTV:
-Commerical skip
-Local LAN Replay-to-Replay streaming
-Internet Video sharing with friends

I would suggest going to a local electronics store and playing with the interfaces and seeing which one you like more. I had my Tivo first so the ReplayTV interface drives me batty. I might feel differently if I had purchased a ReplayTV first, I don't know.

ReplayTV and Tivo both have vibrant online communities (Replay's and Tivo's) where you can find all kinds of information, good and bad, about the various models. The Tivo community is HUGE with literally hundreds of knowledgeable people (including several Tivo employees) contributing hacks and help constantly.

"About the 4500's

There's been some confusion about the upcoming 4500-series ReplayTV's. I'll try and clear up some of the misperceptions:

The 4500 is basically a software update that 4000 users will also receive. The changes in the software are primarily related to the new service fee plus one new, yet to be announced, feature. 4500-series units and 4000-series will interoperate just fine. Of course, any 4000-series or earlier units will be exempt from the service fees. The 4500 is not a DVD-Combo product. The 4500 will be available in retail shortly.

There's not much more I can say at this point, but hopefully this will put some concerns to rest.
__________________
Patrick Ellis
Applications Engineer
ReplayTV, Inc.

CRT is still CRT, it doesn't matter whether or not the tube is big or small, or where the phosporus is located. A CRT monitor is still a projection system, because the electron beams project an image to the front of the tube where the phosphorus converts it into visible light. The only difference with a large screen 'rear projection TV' is that there the phospohurus is located farther away from the screen.

Ditto LCD, LCD is a light filter. An LCD panel is a light filtering LCD layer on top of a backlight. In a projector, it's an light filtering LCD screen in front of a more intensive bulb. Possibly the projector includes a mirror (and cooling) surface right behind the LCD screen and the light performs a 180 right before or after passing through the LCD, but it's really the same thing, the LCD filters the light.

What is darkest is not important. All you need is sufficient contrast ratio, and then you control the light in your viewing room and you colour your projection screen and its surroundings to reflect the absolute black level that matches your viewing room and preferences.

This discussion contains some interesting material to read.

-Aaron

There is not as of yet. The rumors over on AVSForum are that the new model, previously believed to be the 5000 series, are aimed more towards the common consumer. The biggest manifestation of this is rumored to be the activation of the modem (ReplayTV 4000s have an RJ11 jack, but it's disabled) to eliminate the need for a home network. That the lifetime subscription is not built in to the price is also indicative of this.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s= &forumid=26

One of the best HTPC forums around...

There is no Macrovision for component analog HDTV.

The broadcast flag is for over-the-air (OTA) HDTV broadcasts. It's a proposal by the BPDG (broadcast protection discussion group) subgroup of the CPTWG (content protection technical working group, pronounced see-pee-twig).

The analog hole is the component video connection between an HDTV "receiver" (8VSB for OTA, satellite (?mod) or QAM64 for cable demods + MPEG-2 decoder) and an HDTV "monitor." The concern is that "premium content" (monopolized by Eisner's minions) can be recorded by products like the Cinewave HD, DivX;-)'d and uploaded to Morpheus.

The "consumer" HDTV cards for PCs from Hauppage have the 8VSB receiver/demod built-in & no component inputs, but sub-$200 HD analog-component-in cards are probable given time.

The "analog hole" problem is that even with (relatively) closed networks (cable & satellite) where the net controls the box, the box needs to connect to the TV (monitor). DVI + HDCP or IEEE 1394 + DTCP protection is the answer for new sets, but they don't want to obsolete existing HDTV monitors, so the compromise is that selected content will only be converted to unprotected analog at 1/4 resolution (960x540 instead of 1920x1080). The AV Science Forum people are NOT happy about this.

The EFF has a nice section on DRM for HDTV. There's a presentation of a proposal there that seems to say that broadcast protection would entail a flag or watermark that "compliant equipment" would obey if present.

OTA doesn't have the option of replacing everyone's tuners or simply blocking them out of premium content, so I guess we'd all better buy non-compliant receivers now! There might be law passed in the vein of SSSCA to require compliant receivers in the future, but the CE mfgs aren't fighting this the way the IT mfgs are fighting SSSCA, so it might go down as a voluntary program.

(OTA is a.k.a. "digital terrestrial" to separate it from direct digital broadcast satellite)

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copyright isn't ownership: it's monopoly control of distribution

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