Anyone using a Vista box as their primary DVD/Blu-Ray player

[KeithP]

I am considering selling my PS3 and AppleTV and replacing it with a Vista machine. In addition to other things, this machine would be my only DVD/Blu-Ray player attached to my 50" Kuro plasma.

I am not looking for hardware recommendations. I am just looking for input from anyone that might have done something similar and their experiences with the set up.

Would you do it again? Does it work OK? That kind of thing.

Thanks,
KeithP

 

[Shawn]

Not a good idea.

 

[abaez]

Why not? I have my PC that I hook up to a projector that I pull out when I want to watch movies. AnyDVD is installed so I don't have to worry about any HDCP issues (although the kuro has no worries I would think), and I also don't have to worry about firmware updates since that is handled by the software. I've never had any issues with any movie.

At the same time, you can rip 1:1 images of a BR or HDDVD with AnyDVD, mount them, and have them all stored on a larger drive so you don't have to go around messing with discs.

 

[zylander]

I have no problems with the way mine is working. Vista Ultimate, Lite-On BD drive and PowerDVD BD edition, have not had any problems playing BD movies. Of course its not integrated with Media Center, but I really dont care, with my Logitech Dinovo Mini its easy to switch windows. Id take this over a PS3 any day!

 

[evident]

i have an acer laptop w/ vista 64 and a blu ray player built in. just need to be careful with signed drivers to get blu ray to play

 

[KeithP]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. It is appreciated!

-KeithP

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

You might want to check this thread as well as a few others at www.avsforum.com.

 

[Oyeve]

Thats what I use. My PC and a 79 buck Lite-on BR player with PDVD8U. My PC has HDMI out and works and looks great. Already had the PC and didnt feel like plunking down even more $$$ on BR. Cant beat 79 bucks (at least not yet). I even hooked up the BR PC drive via sata-usb connecter and ran it on my laptop that doesnt even have discrete graphics, just some Intel GMA crap and vista business 32bit edition and my BR discs played fine. I do want to take it out of my main PC as its way overkill (10 fans, 6 HDs, and tons of other crap) and make a nice small HTPC, but after doing all that I could have just gotten a *shudder* PS3, which I dont want. Guess i'll just have to live without one. 🙂

 

[Booty]

Give me a couple days for my new HTPC hardware to come in and I'll let you know... I'm planning on doing the exact same thing - use the HTPC as a BR and upconverting DVD player...

 

[Plugers]

I'm using a Vista PC for my only BR / HD-DVD player. I have it in a 2U rackmount case, Fits perfect under my cable box.
"My Movies 2" works nice for a DVD ISO collection also btw.

 

[flxnimprtmscl]

My HTPC (using VMC and PowerDVD) does everything for me. TV, dvds, BR, etc and I love it. I can control everything via my Harmony 550. You couldn't get me to use a stand alone player.

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: Plugers
I'm using a Vista PC for my only BR / HD-DVD player. I have it in a 2U rackmount case, Fits perfect under my cable box.
"My Movies 2" works nice for a DVD ISO collection also btw.

Yup. Add to that My Movies adds nearly seamless interaction of Power DVD7 and MCE.

 

[cuti7399]

i'm consider doing the same thing. Lunixmce is too complicated for me.

What's the best remote to use for vista/xp mce? harmony? would like to stay around $50 for that. I have a firefly and could not get it to work with linuxmce

 

[Booty]

Originally posted by: XMan

Originally posted by: Plugers
I'm using a Vista PC for my only BR / HD-DVD player. I have it in a 2U rackmount case, Fits perfect under my cable box.
"My Movies 2" works nice for a DVD ISO collection also btw.

Yup. Add to that My Movies adds nearly seamless interaction of Power DVD7 and MCE.

Can you guys give a little more detail on how you have your software setup? I just built my HTPC, and DVDs played fine without needing addtional software installed. I added ffdshow for divx playback in Media Center, but other than that have not installed any other software or codecs.

What's the advantage of buying/installing Power DVD? Better picture/playback? From what I've read elsewhere it looks like people just install it to use its codec and still play the movies through Media Center...?

The other thing I'm looking to do is rip some (maybe all, eventually) of our DVDs to the hard drive, but don't really know what format to use. ISO's would be nice because it's like a built-in backup, but I don't want to have to load the ISO to a virtual drive every time I want to play a movie... I just want to be able to select it in Media Center (which I heard My Movies allows you to do... just not necessarily with an ISO?)...

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread... hopefully these questions are relevant to the OP as well...

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: Booty

Originally posted by: XMan

Originally posted by: Plugers
I'm using a Vista PC for my only BR / HD-DVD player. I have it in a 2U rackmount case, Fits perfect under my cable box.
"My Movies 2" works nice for a DVD ISO collection also btw.

Yup. Add to that My Movies adds nearly seamless interaction of Power DVD7 and MCE.

Can you guys give a little more detail on how you have your software setup? I just built my HTPC, and DVDs played fine without needing addtional software installed. I added ffdshow for divx playback in Media Center, but other than that have not installed any other software or codecs.

What's the advantage of buying/installing Power DVD? Better picture/playback? From what I've read elsewhere it looks like people just install it to use its codec and still play the movies through Media Center...?

The other thing I'm looking to do is rip some (maybe all, eventually) of our DVDs to the hard drive, but don't really know what format to use. ISO's would be nice because it's like a built-in backup, but I don't want to have to load the ISO to a virtual drive every time I want to play a movie... I just want to be able to select it in Media Center (which I heard My Movies allows you to do... just not necessarily with an ISO?)...

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread... hopefully these questions are relevant to the OP as well...

I use powerdvd 8 Ultra because it plays BR discs really well.

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: Booty

Originally posted by: XMan

Originally posted by: Plugers
I'm using a Vista PC for my only BR / HD-DVD player. I have it in a 2U rackmount case, Fits perfect under my cable box.
"My Movies 2" works nice for a DVD ISO collection also btw.

Yup. Add to that My Movies adds nearly seamless interaction of Power DVD7 and MCE.

Can you guys give a little more detail on how you have your software setup? I just built my HTPC, and DVDs played fine without needing addtional software installed. I added ffdshow for divx playback in Media Center, but other than that have not installed any other software or codecs.

What's the advantage of buying/installing Power DVD? Better picture/playback? From what I've read elsewhere it looks like people just install it to use its codec and still play the movies through Media Center...?

The other thing I'm looking to do is rip some (maybe all, eventually) of our DVDs to the hard drive, but don't really know what format to use. ISO's would be nice because it's like a built-in backup, but I don't want to have to load the ISO to a virtual drive every time I want to play a movie... I just want to be able to select it in Media Center (which I heard My Movies allows you to do... just not necessarily with an ISO?)...

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread... hopefully these questions are relevant to the OP as well...

There's no codec you can use to play HD-DVD's or Blu-Rays with using VMC. However, if you use My Movies 2 (or google Cyberlink VMC Plug-in) it will automatically launch Power DVD when you load a HD movie, either as an ISO, folder, or physical disk. It's best to rip HD movies to ISO as they just seem to play better. Power DVD fully supports the Media Center remote. Alternatively you can use Arcsoft Total Media Theatre which actually integrates better than PDVD, but I got PDVD for free with my optical drive so that's what I'm using.

I'd keep your software as light as possible on a dedicated HTPC. I think I have the following programs installed on my Add/Remove Programs list:

DivX Codec
Power DVD 7 Ultra
My Movies 2
Drive Image XML
AnyDVD HD
Daemon Tools

And that's it. Works well enough for my non-techy wife to use it comfortably.

 

[jtvang125]

Originally posted by: Booty

Originally posted by: XMan

Originally posted by: Plugers
I'm using a Vista PC for my only BR / HD-DVD player. I have it in a 2U rackmount case, Fits perfect under my cable box.
"My Movies 2" works nice for a DVD ISO collection also btw.

Yup. Add to that My Movies adds nearly seamless interaction of Power DVD7 and MCE.

Can you guys give a little more detail on how you have your software setup? I just built my HTPC, and DVDs played fine without needing addtional software installed. I added ffdshow for divx playback in Media Center, but other than that have not installed any other software or codecs.

What's the advantage of buying/installing Power DVD? Better picture/playback? From what I've read elsewhere it looks like people just install it to use its codec and still play the movies through Media Center...?

The other thing I'm looking to do is rip some (maybe all, eventually) of our DVDs to the hard drive, but don't really know what format to use. ISO's would be nice because it's like a built-in backup, but I don't want to have to load the ISO to a virtual drive every time I want to play a movie... I just want to be able to select it in Media Center (which I heard My Movies allows you to do... just not necessarily with an ISO?)...

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread... hopefully these questions are relevant to the OP as well...

I don't use PowerDVD to play back my movies but I believe if you go that route Media Center will minimize and start up PowerDVD. Once the movie is done you will have to manually switch back to Media Center with the mouse.

I would go with ISO files because it's easier to manage (1 file/movie). If you install Daemon Tools (virtual drive app) MyMovies will automatically mount the ISO file for you.

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: jtvang125

Originally posted by: Booty

Originally posted by: XMan

Originally posted by: Plugers
I'm using a Vista PC for my only BR / HD-DVD player. I have it in a 2U rackmount case, Fits perfect under my cable box.
"My Movies 2" works nice for a DVD ISO collection also btw.

Yup. Add to that My Movies adds nearly seamless interaction of Power DVD7 and MCE.

Can you guys give a little more detail on how you have your software setup? I just built my HTPC, and DVDs played fine without needing addtional software installed. I added ffdshow for divx playback in Media Center, but other than that have not installed any other software or codecs.

What's the advantage of buying/installing Power DVD? Better picture/playback? From what I've read elsewhere it looks like people just install it to use its codec and still play the movies through Media Center...?

The other thing I'm looking to do is rip some (maybe all, eventually) of our DVDs to the hard drive, but don't really know what format to use. ISO's would be nice because it's like a built-in backup, but I don't want to have to load the ISO to a virtual drive every time I want to play a movie... I just want to be able to select it in Media Center (which I heard My Movies allows you to do... just not necessarily with an ISO?)...

Sorry if I'm hijacking the thread... hopefully these questions are relevant to the OP as well...

I don't use PowerDVD to play back my movies but I believe if you go that route Media Center will minimize and start up PowerDVD. Once the movie is done you will have to manually switch back to Media Center with the mouse.

I would go with ISO files because it's easier to manage (1 file/movie). If you install Daemon Tools (virtual drive app) MyMovies will automatically mount the ISO file for you.

FYI the new version of My Movies closes Power DVD and returns to MCE if you hit the Green Button.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: abaez
Why not? I have my PC that I hook up to a projector that I pull out when I want to watch movies. AnyDVD is installed so I don't have to worry about any HDCP issues (although the kuro has no worries I would think), and I also don't have to worry about firmware updates since that is handled by the software. I've never had any issues with any movie.

At the same time, you can rip 1:1 images of a BR or HDDVD with AnyDVD, mount them, and have them all stored on a larger drive so you don't have to go around messing with discs.

PS3 is more compatable for Blu-Ray, has no major playback issues, supports decoding of ALL the lossless methods with no quality loss (AFAIK the software for PC can only do 16bit).

If you want inferior sound quality and possible problems with new disks then fine. Me, I'll keep my PS3. Still the best Blu-Ray player out there.

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: abaez
Why not? I have my PC that I hook up to a projector that I pull out when I want to watch movies. AnyDVD is installed so I don't have to worry about any HDCP issues (although the kuro has no worries I would think), and I also don't have to worry about firmware updates since that is handled by the software. I've never had any issues with any movie.

At the same time, you can rip 1:1 images of a BR or HDDVD with AnyDVD, mount them, and have them all stored on a larger drive so you don't have to go around messing with discs.

PS3 is more compatable for Blu-Ray, has no major playback issues, supports decoding of ALL the lossless methods with no quality loss (AFAIK the software for PC can only do 16bit).

If you want inferior sound quality and possible problems with new disks then fine. Me, I'll keep my PS3. Still the best Blu-Ray player out there.

You can do lossless LPCM over HDMI with most motherboards and video cards, and stream the high-definition DTS-MA and TrueHD with an Asus add-on card. Not to mention uncompressed analog out with any card or board. Don't know where you're getting the 16-bit thing.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I've been using a HTPC for a bit over a year, as mentioned, Media Center does not support Blu Ray so you need a player, I've been pretty happy with it, although you can do it cheaper using a PS3 or with a stand alone BR player.

I also have a tuner card and a HDTV antenna and take advantage of MC's free TIVO like service, am pretty impressed with Hauppauge's 2250's card, dual HD tuners on one card, with am AM/FM tuner built in, nearly 2TB's storage that I don't come close to filling yet. I use a projector for my display.

Also, the Media Center Remotes are pretty good, but I added a Logitech Harmony 880 recently, and it does a good job, as well as controls my projector functions.

I upgraded to Windows 7 beta yesterday, it's pretty slick.

For the future, I fear for HTPC's, I tried to get cablecards and have been met with blank stares, and as a rule, I think the industry is scared to death of someone daring to time shift or perhaps copy their media, so they keep making it difficult to make this stuff work 🙁

And yes, I'd never go back, would build another in a heartbeat...

 

[abaez]

Originally posted by: XMan

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: abaez
Why not? I have my PC that I hook up to a projector that I pull out when I want to watch movies. AnyDVD is installed so I don't have to worry about any HDCP issues (although the kuro has no worries I would think), and I also don't have to worry about firmware updates since that is handled by the software. I've never had any issues with any movie.

At the same time, you can rip 1:1 images of a BR or HDDVD with AnyDVD, mount them, and have them all stored on a larger drive so you don't have to go around messing with discs.

PS3 is more compatable for Blu-Ray, has no major playback issues, supports decoding of ALL the lossless methods with no quality loss (AFAIK the software for PC can only do 16bit).

If you want inferior sound quality and possible problems with new disks then fine. Me, I'll keep my PS3. Still the best Blu-Ray player out there.

You can do lossless LPCM over HDMI with most motherboards and video cards, and stream the high-definition DTS-MA and TrueHD with an Asus add-on card. Not to mention uncompressed analog out with any card or board. Don't know where you're getting the 16-bit thing.

I have to chip in because I don't know where he is getting "major playback issues" from. I don't know about sound, but I have had no playback issues on my player at all with any movie, including all of the FOX titles. So the PS3 magically not having any playback issues and being "more compatible" is just not really true.

There are several benefits and drawbacks to each, you just have to make a decision based on your needs.

 

[KeithP]

I was just doing a little figuring on cost based on the pieces for the system I already own. To add DVD/BD playback capabilities to my HTPC build, I am looking at roughly $200 or so of additional hardware/software cost. The prices of good stand alone BD players are now under $300. I think I may just go with a stand alone player and leave the HTPC duties to time shifting, on-line video watching, and gaming.

Again, thanks for the feedback everyone!

-KeithP

 

[XMan]

What kind of hardware are we talking about? More than likely all you'll need is the drive, which can be had for around $100.

 

[sportage]

I am now working-testing just a system.
I have an LG BR player that came with Powerdvd HD.
I also wanted to use MCE and netflix streaming.
1080p video out via HDMI, also.

So far I have setup powerdvd to detect the BR disc when inserted into the drive,
and play in full screen. That part works very nice. Just pop in a BR disc, and powerdvd takes over full screen. Just like a standalone BR player.

Then for MCE, I found a netflix plug-in app and it works BETTER than
the roku standalone netflix streamer. Better in that the interface with your netflix
queue is a lot nicer, in that on series shows the whole series episodes are listed.
On the roku I had to do a lot of searching and using the remote.
(hard to explain)

Now my final testing is whether or not to install the Windows 7 beta as my MCE PC os.
The W7 beta has MCE support, and in testing it works very nice. Not one freeze up
with Win 7 MCE, where I encountered several with vista's MCE.

Also, W7 mce works nicely with my HD ota tuner card, in recording ota HD tv.
And again, no issues encountered with recording or recording playback.
With vista's MCE, it was hit and miss. You never knew if the system would halt or freeze.

Edit 1/17:
The netflix mce plugin will NOT install in W7 beta, so not going the W7 beta os route.
Too bad. Everything else looked good.