Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HTPC - Finally! (but have some issues)

Downloaded and installed the latest driver for my 8800 card, as well as the latest version of PowerDVD. The it looks worse than ever now. There's no way that's an 1080p image I'm seeing. Also, the 2.35:1 image from Kingdom of Heaven rests at the bottom of the screen rather than being centered. I put in a standared def dvd to see what that looked like, and it too was awful. Clearly no deinterlacing was being done...it was a mess.

On another note...my desktop is too large for the screen. I have cut off both top/bottom as well as right/left. The Nvidia driver has a utility to resize your desktop. Though no matter what setting I adjust it to, the desktop doesn't resize.

I knew there'd be some growing pains involved, but this is starting to get frustrating. I've had the machine built for a week, and I still don't have either video or sound working as they should. bleck.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

Not that this is any help, but I use TheaterTek DVD software and have no issues. My 6600GT nvidia based card worked great right out of the box. However, recently I tried upgrading the drivers to the latest nforce version online. Sorry, I don't remember the version off hand, just came back from the bars with some buddy's from work.

Anyway, with the latest nforce drivers I had problems vertically stretching 2.35 movies, which is the prerequisite of my anamorphic lens to get rid of black bars.

I had to roll-back my drivers to their default, and I am fine now.

I'm a Nvidia fanboy and I think Vista is great... but right now those two don't mix well. Nvidia has CRAPPY drivers for Vista at the moment and they haven't been able to get the bugs out of any of their 8800 drivers either (Vista or XP).

The latest Nvidia driver for my card simply won't playback blu-ray properly. They also haven't fixed the "overscan" bug yet. My tv has considerable overscan, which I've been told is easily fixed with most video card software. Nvidia has the software, but it doesn't work with the 8800 series cards yet. bleck.

I wish I knew more about this. HTPC isn't as straight forward as I'd hoped (and I'm not even using this thing as a DVR!)

I don't have much to compare to, but thus far I've been far from impressed with DVD and Blu-Ray playback. I suspect it's possibly a combination of the nvidia driver, and my lack of knowledge on how to properly tweak the settings in both the video card and powerdvd software.

I finally gave up all hope of getting my sound card to work. After a week of installing, and uninstalling both the card and software, I've come to the conclusion that is simply isn't going to work. I ordered a new card (the original was bought used). If that doesn't work, I'll start pulling what little hair I have left out.

Anyone want to come to LA and give a htpc newb some lessons?

That really sux cause my HTPC with an A64 3000 1G RAM, 7300GT and onboard sound works perfectly for any multimedia task I throw at it (cept next gen DVDs). TV (DVR) and DVD playback are supurb for me under MCE. But be warned... this is not my first HTPC, I've made MANY and I learned a lot each time. 'HTPC' unless purchased from a vendor preconfigured, is a hobby.

Don't get too discouraged about the Blu ray issues, its pretty new stuff and you sir, are an early adopter there. I can't speak to the sound card issues as a long time ago I abandoned using "high end" soundcards. I'm a gamer but I still don't see the point as the motherboards I've used have always seemed to serve me well enough (spdif). Plus Creative and their history of poor driver support really pushed me over the edge, I will never again buy ANYTHING with their name on it, ever... Lastly the 8800 really seems to be a pain from what I've read. It has insane potential but everything I've read says Nvidia has dropped the ball on it's drivers (as well as Vista drivers overall). It's really hard to believe too as I've had probably a dozen (or more) Nvidia powered video cards over the years as well as a few from ATI and there never was any doubt who made the better drivers pre-8800.

Which HTPC software did you end up going with? I'm curious to know... do you duck out of that software to fire up the Blu ray software or does it work inside of the other?

If it weren't for EAX and the new lossless audio formats with Blu-Ray and HD DVD, I too would simply use the onboard audio as well. It works fine. I'm hoping the used card I purchased was dead, as I bought a new one this week. If that too doesn't work, it's going back.

As far as Nvidia goes...oye. It would figure that I'd buy the first card they've sold in the last umpteen years that they botch. I guess I just need to keep waiting for more driver releases.

I'm not using my machine as a DVR, so I'm simply running XP and using PowerDVD for Blu-Ray and DVD playback. I'm using Window Media Player for CD and MP3 playback.

Should I be doing something else?

IMO, the biggest benifit to HTPC's over other hardware is the various HTPC interfaces. I'm a total MCE fanboy. I love XP's MCE (Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005) interface and Vista's (Vista Home Premium or Ultimate) is even better. There are other good ones that just install on XP (and Vista I'd assume) like Sage, BeyondTV, etc.

Having a remote that drives 99.9% of my computer is just plain nice (because of the interface). If you have never seen MCE in action you may not know what you are missing, or other HTPC software(s). It's true most HTPC software IS geared for DVR functionality but I like MCE the best because of how it handles ALL of my multimedia. I would not want to go without my music library or videos, or pictures, or movies (MyMovies plugin for MCE). And of course having the DVD player built into the interface as well.

Basically my computer has blended into working just like any other stand alone DVD player or DVR/CableBox or CD Player, etc. I do have the keyboard for when I want to go above and beyond, like browsing the Internet or playing a game.

Toss in one other goodie for MCE, extenders. The Xbox 360 is a generation 2 Media Extender. You attach it via your home network to your main MCE machine and it gives you the same interface and ability to play all the same multimedia content you have on another TV elsewhere in your home. I have several friends that have a 360 just for that. I am planing on getting one this summer.

That is why I love HTPC's so much.

Don't forget about playing online streaming content, like Netflix, on a big screen. I'm getting 18 hours a month in addition to the 3 at-a-time mailed DVDs. The selection is slim now, but you know it will eventually pick up. So far all of the movies have played smoothly.

Huh... how's that streaming work? Install some of their software on your PC? If they had a plugin for MCE I'd be interested, always thought things like that should be a no brainer.

Quote:

---

Huh... how's that streaming work?

---

Okay, poorly worded. I'm hoping that Netflix will eventually have other options for "viewing plugins" beyond their current one, but for now it'll work.