Using graphic card with HDMI out no need sound card anymore?

cos the ati c.g got built in sound chip. So the c.g can send audio thro its hdmi port without going thro another sound card.

That's cool. Only ATI card can do that or nvidia also can. I am more of a nvidia fan.

You can order it from the authorised distributor (forgot the name - check it at the Silverstone website). That's how I got mine. It's a beauty.

Oh ya.. price? Around RM2k... maybe a bit less. I got mine a long time ago.

This post has been edited by Traveler: Jul 12 2009, 08:41 AM

Those HTPC with LCD is just gimmick. Actually it's more troublesome as if it is using dual output from your video card. If you boot your PC without turning on your tv, it'll turn you LCD screen into primary display and tv as secondary. Also, LCD touchscreen is useless. If you are using it as HTPC, you are not going to walk to your tv and press the touchscreen. Casing with VFD is more pratical. Check out iMon. Silverstone very expensive. You can buy a desktop casing you like and get iMon or Thermaltake VFD(iMon oem) that come with remote.

Traveler,
Thanks for the info, I guess 2K for the case is a little too expensive at this time, perhaps I should just go with the LC17 w/o the LCD screen.

+++

Sapphire HD4850 Vapor-X 1GBD3 a good choice for this built? (RM525)
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/p...sn=0001&pid=221
As for the motherboard, should I get a P45chipset or G31chipset? How would they compare?
P45 http://my.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=1...428&modelmenu=2 (RM175)
G31 http://my.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=1...266&modelmenu=1 (RM375)

This post has been edited by s6xs9x: Jul 12 2009, 11:55 AM

HD4850 VaporX 1Gb only RM 469. Get from Redic last week.

Bro,
I saw another HD4850 From Gigabyte that comes with a passive cooler, it would keep the system quite? Will playing HD files on 1080p be too hot without a fan?
When the audio pass thru via hdmi are they in bitstream? So my AMP will do the decoding?
BTW, where and what's Redic?

I would suggest LC10-M if u r short in budget.... It comes with VFD and iMon software and they are currently doing a promotion now.... If u r interested, just PM me for the details.... Can help u to get it since I'm getting one myself.... For more info, just google it up....

This post has been edited by Aura: Jul 13 2009, 12:15 PM

pierreye,
how is this HD4850 compared to the Asus Xonar HDAV1.3?
Will the Xonar be able to audio out uncompress and let the AMP do the decodings?
http://uk.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=wIxyLFT9vTWHLHk8
Or does it also output as LPCM?

I don't hv Asus Xonar. RM 600 just for HD Audio bitstreaming is not worth it. Might as well get an Xtreamer NMT at RM 600. 4850 LPCM output is good enough for me. Compare to my PS3 LPCM output for TrueHD, not much difference. Separation and sound quality is good. Better than DTS or AC3. You can hear there is compression especially in AC3.

Regarding casing, are you putting it in the shelf? If yes, watch out on air flow. My previous built had overheating problem due to tiny dual 60mm fan at the back + 1 x 80mm fan at the front. The casing is so hot due to air flow restriction. Better look for those casing with 120mm fan at the back.

This post has been edited by pierreye: Jul 13 2009, 06:51 PM

Pierreye,

If the Xonar is able to bitstream and also playback 1080p files smooth, I might go for it. Does it Bitstream?

After few days browsing through the net, I'm still quite blur on what to build. But one thing for sure, I would want to keep it below 2K.

How's this build?

CM Elite 360 - List Price 139/=
CM Extreme 390W - List Price 119/=
PC6400DDR2 2GB x 2 - List Price 164/=
WD 640GB Green - List Price 210/=
P Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz - List Price 238/=
Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 - List Price 699/=
GA-EP45-UD3L - List Price 375/=

Current Total 2024/=

Would it struggle to playback 1080p?
When I get a BDrom later, would I be able to RIP them without stress?
The specs above how does it compare to a Divico6500?

Thanks in advance

Can U enlighten me a little? According to various articles on the net and this one http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3411&p=3 looks like we can convert DTS-HD MA (not just DTS core) as well to LPCM. No?

No software decoder yet for DTS-HD MA. Only solution now is to convert DTS-HD MA to Multichannel FLAC loseless. But I don't prefer this method as it is troublesome and I'm getting NMT xtreamer which can bitstream DTS-HD MA. If you still want to convert, use eac3to. I remux most of my bd into .ts file format and strip it down to bare min mostly either TrueHD or DTS-MA.

The article you link actually mention it will downsample the DTS-HD MA (mostly 48khz, 24bit) to 48khz 16bit so you don't get bit to bit accuracy.

This post has been edited by pierreye: Jul 14 2009, 08:18 PM

pierreye,
Question for you since I know u r into calibration and HTPC. Have you calibrated a display fed from a HTPC? How are your gamma curves. I have attempted to calibrate 2 display from an ATI display card (4830 or something). On both cases, the gamma curve was way out of whack. The gamma from 50% to 90% was somewhere between 1.3 - 1.7. The low end gamma was ok at 2.0 - 2.2. So there was no way in the ATI Catalyst control center to fix this. Even using the gamma option. Seen this before?

Either you end up with a washed up picture or a picture with no shadow detail.

My projector is fed with HTPC ATI HDMI. I have no problem with the gamma curve. I don't actually fix from catalyst driver as I believe it will skew the output. If it suppose to output 0,0,0 for black, then I expect the HDMI to output RGB 0,0,0 not some other value due to the tweak on the gamma or color on the video card. I have try XP and Vista and Vista is the better option. Reason is XP VMR9 cannot automatically expand 16-240 level to 0-255. So you need to calibrate your projector with 2 profile, one for video and another for PC level. If not you will either get black crush or washout due to incorrect level.

Another thing you can try is in the catalyst controller you can choose either YPbPr output or RGB output. Choose either one and check your gamma.

What player you are using? I'm using MPC-HC with DXVA support which can help on VC-1 and H264 accel. You can then use the built in Pixel Shader to tune the gamma + 3D color decoding correction. Check out the AVSforum for the code to do it. Since you have the i1Pro probe, you should have no problem to get a perfect color gamut BT.709 and correct gamma.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=912720

Thanks for the reply.

Actually, I was calibrating for someone else. There is some improvement changing from YCbCr to RGB. I initially tried adjusting the display but it was atrocious. Then tried adjusting the catalyst but still not much improvement. I did not try RGB 0 -255 since this would not be correct. Maybe this is something I can try next time.

I cannot remember the software used by the computer to display the calibration images. I then calibrated the display with a media streamer and got a normal gamma curve. The problem was that the media streamer did not pass WTW so that was another problem.

Anyway, will need to try more HTPCs to see if I can iron out the problem.

Yes, no bit to bit but at least it is still DTS-HD MA. Either that or need to fork out ~RM700 for Xonar.

Would you all recomend getting a X-Fi for sound?

anfieldude,


Just rerun the calibration for my Plasma 50PY800. I'm using RGB full output but I can't get BTB and WTW with panny tv. So I suspect the tv only accept video levels, not pc levels. Attached is the calibration chart. I can get quite a uniform greyscale at D65 (dE less than 3) but gamma is avg at 1.9 for cinema. Lowest is around 1.78 and highest around 1.98.

Another option to manipulate the gamma a bit is use All Drv and All Cut to shift the Y value for high and low white point which might help. Might try that out tomorrow.

Nothing much can be done except using the MPC-HC shader to modify the gamma for the movie. Green a little bit oversaturated.

This post has been edited by pierreye: Jul 15 2009, 07:16 PM


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