HD HDCP HTPC questions (try saying that 3 times fast!)

[Lil old me]

Hi guys,

Im pretty much decided on getting a Panasonic TH42PZ80B at the end of the summer. Hopefully itll be even cheaper by then! I'm now thinking about how to play back HD content on it. As I see it there are 3 options:

Option 1. PS3 comes in at £280, can only play bluray and not HD Dvd (thinking I can pick up some disk bargains at the moment) but I will have a ps3 to game on if I buy one.

Option 2. HTPC Windows Vista.

Microsoft Media Centre Remote Controller (A9O-00001) Microsoft Media Centre Remote Controller (A9O-00001) £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/256M Vcool Silent 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/256M Vcool Silent 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) £52.99
(£62.26) £52.99
(£62.26)
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail £65.99
(£77.54) £65.99
(£77.54)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Sub Total : £200.95
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £36.61
Total : £245.81

Not too much cheaper and I won't be able to game on it.


Or option 3 the same as above but using a linux solution. This is cheaper (-£60 for windows vista) but will require a lot of work ripping cds to hdd and decoding them (potentially illegal).

Can anyone help?

 

[craptakular]

I have built a media pc for blu-ray/hdd it worked well, but i felt the ps3 a bought a few months ago is miles better.

hd dvd is dead, just get a ps3 with remote.

ps3 is a superb picture

trying to get it to work in linux is a nightmare, i gave up. if u really want hd-dvd buy a 360 drive for £20 and use it on your existaing pc with a long dvi-hdmi lead. Thats what i do now for my existing hd-dvd collection

 

[Lil old me]

Thanks for this, is the ps3 picture really that much better than a pc? I'm thinking if I use win xp + media centre and source a really cheap hdd from somewhere I can cut the cost a bit more, £300 for a ps3 seems loads especially as itll only be the 40gb version. So really what im asking is, is the ps3 £150+ better?

 

[FrankJH]

you havent accounted for HD software decoder (for playback of discs)

your videocard can do the job of actually decoding it but Windows still requires some software to display the stream

PowerDVD 8 costs around £80 now, there may be other options but they all have issues of one kind or another

If you dont have any HD-DVDs then I would certainly go for the PS3 as from a usability point of view its much easier, no constant driver updates, occasional firmware but nothing in comparison to Windows requirements, plug and play, warranty return to Sony with immediate replacement etc etc without the hassle of actually getting it running to start with

IF you do have HD-DVD's then the PS3 isnt a complete solution to start with


a lot more effort is required if you really want HD-DVD compatability so I would really see how many deals you can find that you really want - as there wont be any more (or very much anyway) as HD-DVD is basically dead with few if any new releases.

 

[Lil old me]

you havent accounted for HD software decoder (for playback of discs)

your videocard can do the job of actually decoding it but Windows still requires some software to display the stream

PowerDVD 8 costs around £80 now, there may be other options but they all have issues of one kind or another

If you dont have any HD-DVDs then I would certainly go for the PS3 as from a usability point of view its much easier, no constant driver updates, occasional firmware but nothing in comparison to Windows requirements, plug and play, warranty return to Sony with immediate replacement etc etc without the hassle of actually getting it running to start with

IF you do have HD-DVD's then the PS3 isnt a complete solution to start with


a lot more effort is required if you really want HD-DVD compatability so I would really see how many deals you can find that you really want - as there wont be any more (or very much anyway) as HD-DVD is basically dead with few if any new releases.

I had a look at the drive i picked out and if i get the retail version then power dvd comes bundled and its only £70 more. Woo!

I dont have any hddvds atm but the drive with hddvd support is no more expensive than a pure blu ray one (in fact i can only find 1 bluray only pc drive)

So if i make the changes above i get:

Microsoft Media Centre Remote Controller (A9O-00001) Microsoft Media Centre Remote Controller (A9O-00001) £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/256M Vcool Silent 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/256M Vcool Silent 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail £65.99
(£77.54) £65.99
(£77.54)
Sub Total : £107.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £20.34
Total : £136.56

OK so i am cheating by having half a pc already made but it is a lot cheaper, is the ps3 £170 better?

 

[craptakular]

I had a look at the drive i picked out and if i get the retail version then power dvd comes bundled and its only £70 more. Woo!

I dont have any hddvds atm but the drive with hddvd support is no more expensive than a pure blu ray one (in fact i can only find 1 bluray only pc drive)

So if i make the changes above i get:

Microsoft Media Centre Remote Controller (A9O-00001) Microsoft Media Centre Remote Controller (A9O-00001) £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/256M Vcool Silent 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/256M Vcool Silent 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail £65.99
(£77.54) £65.99
(£77.54)
Sub Total : £107.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £20.34
Total : £136.56

OK so i am cheating by having half a pc already made but it is a lot cheaper, is the ps3 £170 better?

From my experience I sold my HTPC as powerdvd was so bad it took a month in one instance for them to release an update to play a film.

Now that the blu-ray format has settled down this shouldnt be much of a problem now.

I still say ps3, as its silent, plays games, streams media, plays blu-ray fantasticlly, upscales dvd's superbly, has an ethernet port for updates, a Tv tuner for PS3 is out soon too!

I think its better personnally.

 

[FrankJH]

I had a look at the drive i picked out and if i get the retail version then power dvd comes bundled and its only £70 more. Woo!

I dont have any hddvds atm but the drive with hddvd support is no more expensive than a pure blu ray one (in fact i can only find 1 bluray only pc drive)

So if i make the changes above i get:

Microsoft Media Centre Remote Controller (A9O-00001) Microsoft Media Centre Remote Controller (A9O-00001) £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/256M Vcool Silent 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/256M Vcool Silent 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail £65.99
(£77.54) £65.99
(£77.54)
Sub Total : £107.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £20.34
Total : £136.56

OK so i am cheating by having half a pc already made but it is a lot cheaper, is the ps3 £170 better?

That retail pack doesnt include the full version of PowerDvd - I think its only stereo sound (and it doesnt support HD-DVD, even though with a hack this is possible)

The only reason I advised about looking further into particular HD-DVDs you can get is that imo the hassle isnt worth it if you end up buying majority of BR;s - you might as well go PS3 (even if at some point you upgrade the hdd to a larger one, which Sony allow you to do and tell you how to in the original packaging)

 

[Lil old me]

From my experience I sold my HTPC as powerdvd was so bad it took a month in one instance for them to release an update to play a film.

Now that the blu-ray format has settled down this shouldnt be much of a problem now.

I still say ps3, as its silent, plays games, streams media, plays blu-ray fantasticlly, upscales dvd's superbly, has an ethernet port for updates, a Tv tuner for PS3 is out soon too!

I think its better personnally.

Hmm the ps3 does sound good but im still concerned about the price

That retail pack doesnt include the full version of PowerDvd - I think its only stereo sound (and it doesnt support HD-DVD, even though with a hack this is possible)

The only reason I advised about looking further into particular HD-DVDs you can get is that imo the hassle isnt worth it if you end up buying majority of BR;s - you might as well go PS3 (even if at some point you upgrade the hdd to a larger one, which Sony allow you to do and tell you how to in the original packaging)

Ah ok, didnt realise this, thanks! What a rip off then! Yea i get what you're saying about HDDVD, I'm really not all that bothered to be honest and it does sound like an awful lot of effort.

The ps3 thing isnt just about the HDD, the 40gb version comes with less usb ports and no emulator. I dont have any ps2 games personally but I know my friends (who will inevitably hijack the console) will do.

 

[craptakular]

Hmm the ps3 does sound good but im still concerned about the price



Ah ok, didnt realise this, thanks! What a rip off then! Yea i get what you're saying about HDDVD, I'm really not all that bothered to be honest and it does sound like an awful lot of effort.

The ps3 thing isnt just about the HDD, the 40gb version comes with less usb ports and no emulator. I dont have any ps2 games personally but I know my friends (who will inevitably hijack the console) will do.

I have never used any of the usb ports, what do u intend to use them for? The lack of ps2 game support isnt a problem if you dont have any games! the 40gb drive is enough as you stream all the media from a pc using WMP11/mediatomb/medialink

 

[R4z0r]

Having built an HTPC, I'd go the PS3 route. HTPC are great, and if you put the time in you will get a better system than any standalone solution but it's a huge amount of work. You will run into problems along the way, it's just down to chance as to how much of a problem they'll be.

I see you haven't mentioned a case, HTPC cases can be quite expensive for nice ones so I'm assuming you're just going to use an old one which probably won't look as nice as a PS3 ...

 

[Lil old me]

Having built an HTPC, I'd go the PS3 route. HTPC are great, and if you put the time in you will get a better system than any standalone solution but it's a huge amount of work. You will run into problems along the way, it's just down to chance as to how much of a problem they'll be.

I see you haven't mentioned a case, HTPC cases can be quite expensive for nice ones so I'm assuming you're just going to use an old one which probably won't look as nice as a PS3 ...

I do have a CM 101 to use as a case which is pretty swish but the consensus does seem to be the ps3 route. I really cant afford it at the moment with the tv as well but it will be a long term goal. I think for now I'll just have to use a normal gfx card with a dvi-hdmi lead and upscale dvds.

Will that work ok 'out of the box' with mythbuntu? (Inevitable linux problems aside.)

Once again thanks for all your advice guys!

 

[Matrix]

I have never used any of the usb ports, what do u intend to use them for? The lack of ps2 game support isnt a problem if you dont have any games! the 40gb drive is enough as you stream all the media from a pc using WMP11/mediatomb/medialink

Is there a way to stream or to store some x264 files using a ps3 as i was about to build a htpc set up but i keep hearing how good the ps3 is with blue ray .

Thanks.

 

[james.miller]

you want to play bluray? get a ps3. it just works, and works extremely well. i have both a ps3 and a top spec htpc and the htpc is nothing but aggravation. waiting for updates, sound issues, software instability, software incompatibility.....ps3 just works, first time every time.

 

[dbmzk1]

you want to play bluray? get a ps3. it just works, and works extremely well. i have both a ps3 and a top spec htpc and the htpc is nothing but aggravation. waiting for updates, sound issues, software instability, software incompatibility.....ps3 just works, first time every time.

I agree. Almost always use my PS3 over my HTPC now. In fact I'm thinking of selling the HTPC.

 

[FrankJH]

you want to play bluray? get a ps3. it just works, and works extremely well. i have both a ps3 and a top spec htpc and the htpc is nothing but aggravation. waiting for updates, sound issues, software instability, software incompatibility.....ps3 just works, first time every time.

James

Just out of interest, if you needed an extra br player in another room would you still go for a 2nd ps3 and if so would you try and track down the same sku?

2ndly if you do a backup of the original ps3 - I was wondering if you could restore it to the 2nd without issues (does it keep all the xmb audio/video settings etc or just what you have d/l in the past etc)

 

[dbmzk1]

James

Just out of interest, if you needed an extra br player in another room would you still go for a 2nd ps3 and if so would you try and track down the same sku?

2ndly if you do a backup of the original ps3 - I was wondering if you could restore it to the 2nd without issues (does it keep all the xmb audio/video settings etc or just what you have d/l in the past etc)

I can answer that easily if you like. I'd happily buy another PS3 for use as a Blu-ray player and am actually planning on doing so once I get my other room sorted out.

You can fully backup everything on the hard drive with the exception of a few things here and there which are copy protected, ie I think one or two games have saves that can't be copied. Not sure if it keeps the settings, but they only take a minute to set anyway.

 

[james.miller]

James

Just out of interest, if you needed an extra br player in another room would you still go for a 2nd ps3 and if so would you try and track down the same sku?

2ndly if you do a backup of the original ps3 - I was wondering if you could restore it to the 2nd without issues (does it keep all the xmb audio/video settings etc or just what you have d/l in the past etc)

hmm. if i was going to reply to your post, it would be something like:

. I'd happily buy another PS3 for use as a Blu-ray player and am actually planning on doing so once I get my other room sorted out.

You can fully backup everything on the hard drive with the exception of a few things here and there which are copy protected, ie I think one or two games have saves that can't be copied. Not sure if it keeps the settings, but they only take a minute to set anyway.

regarding the sku, i dont think thats important really. a 40gb would be fine for playback. the only reason why i love my 60gb so dearly is the sacd playback, which would cost me £200 to replace with a standalone unit. i had a thought though - audio on bluray. bluray has everything needed for some very high quality audio. i wonder if it'll catch on? bd-audio anyone?

 

[FrankJH]

I can answer that easily if you like. I'd happily buy another PS3 for use as a Blu-ray player and am actually planning on doing so once I get my other room sorted out.

You can fully backup everything on the hard drive with the exception of a few things here and there which are copy protected, ie I think one or two games have saves that can't be copied. Not sure if it keeps the settings, but they only take a minute to set anyway.

Thats what I am thinking of also - which is why I asked the question

The more complicated the xmb becomes surely the harder it is to get all the settings right?

audio on bluray. bluray has everything needed for some very high quality audio. i wonder if it'll catch on? bd-audio anyone?

Certainly sounds fabulous idea (not sure its necessary to classify it as "audio" though, even if there is no video on the disc) cant see it happening until BR is much larger though - I wish Sony would, but I just cant see it happening

Trying to decide between another ps3 and a squeezebox/sonos currently for my bedroom, just got a 250GB hdd for original 60GB sku so will be looking at streaming over the weekend