evening chaps.
After doing some research on the internet, I have decided to ask the overclockers massive for some advice.
I have a home cinema setup which has an old HTPC at the heart of it. this device streams to a popcorn (networked media player). the current popcorn hour then displays to 2 large 50 inch tv's and a mid range 1080p projector.
because of the size of these displays, I need to have a system that can handle HIGH quality 1080p content.
currently my HTPC this spec.
Athlon dual core x2 2.4 dual core cpu
4 gig of ram
nvidia 7800 GT
lots of hard disks.
the media pc has windows 7 on it. I use the pc to view the internet, and listen to music.
but to watch movies, because the pc cant really handle 1080p content without using the core AVC codec, I stream the content to a popcorn hour media player.
The popcorn hour is great for picture quality, but the menu system is awful. My girlfriend cant use it, and ive decided Ive had enough.
A friend of mine showed me his media portal setup and it blew me away.
I want to invest some money into my HTPC and use it to do everything.
I need it to
Stream HD 1080p content. (possibly 3d as well)
Im talking about .mkv's/x264 files...
stream music
view the internet.
my question is this..
do i need to throw the system away and start fresh or...
Could I buy a new graphics card that could take the grunt of decoding the the mkv's off the CPU?
If so what would you recommend?
I have no idea what supports it!
I read on guru 3d that for a GPU to be able to decode a .mkv, you have to play through windows media player classic.. is that true?
thanks in advance guys.
sn0w
After doing some research on the internet, I have decided to ask the overclockers massive for some advice.
I have a home cinema setup which has an old HTPC at the heart of it. this device streams to a popcorn (networked media player). the current popcorn hour then displays to 2 large 50 inch tv's and a mid range 1080p projector.
because of the size of these displays, I need to have a system that can handle HIGH quality 1080p content.
currently my HTPC this spec.
Athlon dual core x2 2.4 dual core cpu
4 gig of ram
nvidia 7800 GT
lots of hard disks.
the media pc has windows 7 on it. I use the pc to view the internet, and listen to music.
but to watch movies, because the pc cant really handle 1080p content without using the core AVC codec, I stream the content to a popcorn hour media player.
The popcorn hour is great for picture quality, but the menu system is awful. My girlfriend cant use it, and ive decided Ive had enough.
A friend of mine showed me his media portal setup and it blew me away.
I want to invest some money into my HTPC and use it to do everything.
I need it to
Stream HD 1080p content. (possibly 3d as well)
Im talking about .mkv's/x264 files...
stream music
view the internet.
my question is this..
do i need to throw the system away and start fresh or...
Could I buy a new graphics card that could take the grunt of decoding the the mkv's off the CPU?
If so what would you recommend?
I have no idea what supports it!
I read on guru 3d that for a GPU to be able to decode a .mkv, you have to play through windows media player classic.. is that true?
thanks in advance guys.
sn0w
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