Nice... But the problem is it's only good for DVDs and probably 720p material. I think it'll choke with 1080p mkv stuff and Bluray/HDDVD.

Graphics card would not be so important when playing ts / mkv files because the are not hardware accelerated. They rely solely on raw CPU power. So CPU is important in his case. If you only play Bluray / HDDVD material, yes, graphics card is important.

But why worry? Just get a ATI 2400 Pro / XT or ATI 3450 and ýou're good to go for Bluray / HDDVD playback for HTPC purposes. If you plan to playback 1080p mkv files, be prepared to have a high end C2D or C2Q CPU in addition to the graphics card suggested above.

The reason why some front end players can and cannot support HA is because some players are crappy and difficult to set up filters and some not. When the GPU does not support HA, whatever front end player is used would not make a difference.

Unless of course you have an ATI 2X00/3X00 series graphics card and your mkv files are encoded with newer level 4.1 x264 streams, you would not have HA for mkv playback. Period.

Actually, you can get to stream 8 channel LPCM audio together with video via HDMI... Intel based G35 chipset (which apparently only Asus has made one) does this. But they are still at their infancy. Having said that, the Intel X3500 onboard video sucks with no HA. Which is why you need a beefy C2Q CPU on that Asus P5E-VM HDMI mobo. The other one that should do this is NVidia 8200/8300 mobo chipsets.

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Added on May 6, 2008, 12:24 amNot too sure what or how the 1080p files from MS's website are encoded... But if you play 1080p mkv containers encoded with x264 / AVC prior to level 4.1 profile (which most mkv files out there are), then you will have problems.

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Added on May 6, 2008, 12:26 amIf you're just interested in 1080p playback from Bluray / HDDVD disc, it is enough.

However, 1080p playback from mkv files will not get HA because most mkv files generally are encoded prior to level 4.1 x264 ! Safest would be to go with a 780G chipset and a powerful Phenom CPU. But then again, there are many reports of 780G mobos out there not being able to support Phenoms...

This post has been edited by jchue73: May 6 2008, 12:26 AM

What are you planning to do with your HTPC if you're not going to play HD/1080i/p videos?

You should not be aiming for P45 but the G45 instead.

Yes, sadly I have lots of DVDs too. But mkv containers nowadays carry 1.5MBps DTS sound compared to DVDs which normally carry 448kbps or at most 768kbps. Video bitrate is also higher on DVDs.

I think the one you saw is a writer as well. Just a player alone is around RM 800++ if I'm not wrong.

Besides, there are lots of things a PC can do that a PS3 can't.

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Added on June 26, 2008, 5:01 pm1.5k is not enough unfortunately. The 690 chipset is old. Best is to get the AMD 780G or the Nvidia 8200 chipset.

This post has been edited by jchue73: Jun 26 2008, 05:01 PM

Errr, if you want a full HD LCD TV, go with at least a 46" and above. Maybe a 42". With 40" size of TV, you won't see a difference playing 720p and 1080p material.

If you need 40", I'd suggest to invest in a HD Ready panel with 100Hz.