consumer.hardocp.com — Two new classes of devices threaten to make the Home Theater PC obsolete. Has the HTPC party ended before it even began, or will competing devices be crippled over fears of copyright infringement? [H] Consumer discusses the ups and downs of these devices, and how you could save a lot of money by going with one.
Feb 19, 2007 View in Crawl 4
zenerdiodeFeb 20, 2007
I won't give up my HTPC because no single box out there has yet to allow me to;1) Store 100+ ripped favorite DVD's locally so my lazy butt doesn't have to go digging for that disk of Nacho Libre when I just want to see one scene. BTW, I'm one of those that DOES NOT like to display my entire collection of DVD's on some bookshelf or wall.2) Record a full season many TV shows in HD...without worrying about which show to delete in order to have room to record the next episode. The beauty of HTPC is the expandability and flexibility. I can easily add more hard drives or offload to external hard drives at any time. No so with the Comcast box.3) Superior upscaling of DVDs using ffdshow. I personally think it's better than any upscaling DVD players out there.4) cheap HD-DVD playback with the Xbox360 drive. Sure my 360 is much cheaper and plays the HD-DVD as well...but then it ain't no DVR.5) You-tube and Digg browsing!!!6) Internet streaming with Orb. The HTPC is far from dying...it's just the beginning to live up to its potential. Add up the costs of all the individual boxes that can perform the function of the HTPC and you'll find you're not saving all that much. Even then, you'll likely be short on some functions.
zenerdiodeFeb 20, 2007
all you ever wanted to know about ffdshow and morenot for the faint of heart, technical ILLITERATI, or mac user --it's not OSX compatible...plus Mac users like simplicity, right :D<a class="user" href="http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=719041">http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=719041</a>
brianboykoFeb 20, 2007
My big problem with the article is that HTPCs have an advantage over cable boxes in that a cable box cannot bring you TV over IP, and many people don't care about high def; they want to get good mileage out of existing sets. The main thing preventing me from getting either an HD or Cable is that there's a lack of compelling content for either.
bobmysteriosoFeb 20, 2007
I see htpc comments and things about media integration daily on Digg. Can I plug my ipod into my STB and sync it? No. Do I want to do this? No. I have an ipod and it has my music on it. I have itunes and it keeps my music. if I want to listen to my ipod on my stereo - which I do daily - I use a Logitech bluetooth ipod thing from woot for $45 I think. It allows me to take my ipod with me into the kitchen and adjust the volume/song easily using the itunes interface.Do I have an HTPC? I did, for years. I had myHTPC before it became meedio, before it was bought by yahoo. I ran it for years, and it worked ok. But there were always tweaks and lots of the whizbang features I just didn't need. Weather info? I'll just look at the weather.com rss feed on my homepage. Playing movies? Back then I just had svideo.So I got rid of the htpc. For streaming internet audio I plug the little ipod blue tooth thing into my wife's laptop, which is always on and stream to the stereo. The laptop 9/10 times is displaying the recipe we are making, so its already on. I have one of the nasty SA8000 HD boxes, and its true, its not ideal. But for $10 extra / month please deliver me a solution that can record 2 HD channels with dolby digital and watch a 3rd. It does it, does it well, and does it consistantly. I've had HD for 5 years now, and this is the best time so far. A lot of good stuff is in HD, I record it all and watch it later, and it always works. I can't burn the stuff off to dvd, but I don't want to.Lastly, playing xvids and other content I do using a dlink dsm520 wireless player. It outputs 1080i component and dolby digital - it works great. The only thing HTPC gave me that I don't have now is game playing. And I do miss Super Mario World all anti aliased. The Wii version looks like crap compared to that.So there you have it. For my needs, I can easily do everything an HTPC would do, except games.
managemyrightsFeb 20, 2007
If my PVR could download HD porn I wouldn't have any space left on it either.
wirelesshnicFeb 20, 2007
I am running Mythtv for my scheduled shows and basic DVR features and I also have a geexbox front end and tvrss/democracy player back end. Its all free software and was all put togeather for alittle of nothing. These devices are nothing in comparison the options I currently have avaible.
ic349Feb 20, 2007
The article is BS. In addition to all the good comments here, he is flat wrong about re-ripping a music library to a complete lossless scenario. Unless a music CD is recorded better than AAD, a 192 bit rate is just fine. I have mine hooked up to a sub $100 5.1 speaker system and with a few tweaks and the right sound card, people think they are hearing the original disc on a high end system. I don't have tons of money to blow like some audiophiles, but I do know how to use what I got.
zbeastFeb 26, 2007
The HTPC is simply the best way to display all the media types that are out there.These stupid bridge devices will never be able to evolve fast enough to ever all of the content that you can download.Ive tested a lot of them and found all of these bridge devices hard to use and simply wanting in features.If you need a new function on a HTPC you download the software and you done.Try that with these "bridge" devices. If its not for technical reason it's going to be for licensing reasons that you favorite video or audio file wont play. One of the best hacks for the xbox 1 was the xbmc. Taking what was effectively a cheap pc, the xbox and turning it into a great media center pc. <a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC</a> I would like to see a product like this from dell.
zbeastMar 28, 2007
The only way that these "stand alone devices" can kill HTPC's is if they 1) have no drm2) support all of the image, video standards and audio types.. The Apple TV is a no winner as it only plays quicktime. I'm not going to sit around and try to convert my 6tb's of videos to Quicktime.I'm no just picking on Apple. I have to say windows media center sucks too.It's all about drm and using the horrible windows media player. I just use VLC and I can play anything from vob dvd rips, xvid, and divx and what ever else comes down the pipe.I can even play video games on the system. Some thing you can't do with these sealed box solutions.Ya, the xbox 360, PS3 and even the Wii want to get in the game of letting you download games and movies.But far as I'm concerned it fine for them to be a game system but as the way I'm watching video I really don't want to have my content locked up in these systems. If I buy content it I want to be able to use it. Not just have it lock away in a digital prison.Or worse yet having these digital devices telling me what I can and can't play in my own living room.
spire3660Mar 1, 2009
I have a commercial DVR for the wife acceptance factor and a HTPC running Snapstream Beyond TV for my own use. I like being able pump the signal to any PC in the house, with a nice interface and easy remote support. It works. The biggest mistake people make by FAR is feature creep. Setting up a HTPC to emulate a commercial PVR is relatively simple if you have a plan and a little PC building experience. Its when people want emulators and the ability to play back more codecs then what is be recorded etc (i.e. stuff comm. PVR doesnt do anyways) that problems and issues occur. The more features you add the more you have to QA the system to make it works smooth and eliminate kludges.
spire3660Mar 1, 2009
Ill never understand why people insist on pushing HD thru WiFi. Its like saying im going to feed my cable signal through a transmitter and receive TV via rabbit ears. You wouldnt do that, you would man up and wire the cable in. Just my $.02