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Media Center PC for 70" LCD TV

S

steverwrx

Junior Member
I want to build a media center PC for my new Sony XBR950 LCD 70" HDTV. It has one DVI input and multiple component video inputs. The main uses for the PC will be games, movies and possibly TV tuner. I am a dish network satelite user. What video card would you experts recomend for my application? Can the video/tuner card work as the tuner for my dish? Thanks in advance.🙂
 
Not sure on the tuner issue, but I've used both a 9800pro and a 6600gt with component output to my Infocus 4805 with nice results.

I haven't tried any sort of DVI connection to a big display, but if Sony did a decent job implementing it, that should be the preferred connection vs component.

Another place to chech out would be the HTPC area of AVSforum.
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: ShadowBlade
pics of TV, then ill help
Welcome to AT
Click to expand...

picture 😛
Click to expand...

oh its one of those
probably an ATI AIW X800, the only problem is i dont think they come in pci-e
aiw on newegg

if you dont want to go with that one, get a 6800 ultra or gt (you said you game) and a hauppage wintv pvr-250

but since your rich, you could probably go with a 7800GTX and that tv tuner
 
I have a Samsung 50" DLP LCD, and I use DVI to connect from my 9800 Pro to the machine, and it looks flawless. Games work well too, since it's only a 1280x720 resolution.
 
Keep in mind that all the TV tuners out right now can only handle analog singnals (either over the air or through coax cable) Even the HDTV Wonder only handles over the air HD signals. Using satellite or digital cable, you have to use an external set top box to tune in the shows. The encoding technology used by digital cable and satellite is still proprietary and they aren't sharing the tech with capture card manufacturers. In the future, they are supposed to have these cable cards out that will at least allow you to use a Media Center with digital cable, but for now you have to use your set top box to tune in the signal and then capture the output of your cable box.

You can get IR blasters that let your Media Center tune in the channel, but when it comes to HD there is no way to capture the signal since none of the current capture cards support HDTV encoding or component input, so you are stuck with SD channels only. And then you are taking a digital signal that has already been compressed with a lossy MPEG-2 codec and decompressed by the set top box, sending it to your capture card as an analog signal, compressing it again for recording on your hard drive, decompressing for playback and converting to an analog signal that then goes into the HDTV for viewing.

I don't know how yours is, but I've seen a lot of Sony TVs on display in the retail stores that are running off of an analog SD signal and under non-ideal conditions the DRC circuits can make a bad SD signal look even worse when it tries to clean it up for viewing at HD resolutions. So a SD signal that has been compressed and uncompressed twice before it gets to your TV could wind up looking a bit nasty on a 70" screen, since you could wind up with digital artifacts stacked on top of digital artifacts.

Right now, you might be better off with a satellite based PVR set top box since those will handle the recording the HDTV programs and might give you a cleaner SD recording if they just dump the already compressed show on the hard drive without reencoding it. My Comcast PVR does this for my digital channels, so movies I record on Sundance and IFC wind up looking identical to the live feed and take up less hard drive space than my recorded SD shows. My PVR even manages to keep the 5.1 sound if a digital channel features it.
 
Hey there. I also enjoy having a large screen so I got a projector.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/Foxy_McCloud/Sonic_themovie.jpg
(Forgive the low quality of the pic and the green part of the wall distorting the color a little towards the top) I went with a DLP 150" screen because the 2000:1 contrast ratio blows LCD away. In fact, most LCD displays I see are only about a fourth of that. (Like 500:1 or something along those lines) Not to mention a 70" TV would take up a great deal of space and they cost thousands of dollars and for such a huge display the picture size pales in comparison to a projector. I'm just glad we have High Defintion and PC resolutions around 1280x960 as I can't imagine how terrible low res media would look blown up to a screen this size!

It's great for playing movies as HTPC and projectors are a match made in heaven. You will probably be glad to know that just about any of the mondern day video cards have a DVI input. I would highly suggest you use your screens DVI input over any VGA or Component inputs as LCDs get a far bigger boost from DVI, being a fixed pixel display and all.
 
I agree completely. Before I parted ways with the AIW 9800, I found PVR on the cable box MUCH more preferable. Likewise, Stereo PCM, Dolby Digital, and DTS all are processed better by a decent 6 channel reciever, rather than my SB card. For games tho, you still need a good sound card.

The limiting factor here is the TV's single DVI input. Given a similar arangement, I chose to hook up cable box->TV with component, and PC->TV with DVI/HDMI. The only problem with this is the potential for Big Business to force a lower rez on the analog outputs, in the name of "anti-piracy". It's unlikely we'll see a Cable-Card (or sat equivalent) vid card any time soon. You can program a remote to control the sat reciever, PC, macros, everything.

Not knowing how much vid power you need, I suggest taking a look at a couple 6600GT cards. Tom's reviewed a bunch not too long ago. Gigabyte makes one with passive cooling, and MSI makes a version with VIVO. If you want more video juice, the card will be bigger (harder to fit in a small case) and hotter (and louder).
 
Originally posted by: SLCentral
I have a Samsung 50" DLP LCD, and I use DVI to connect from my 9800 Pro to the machine, and it looks flawless. Games work well too, since it's only a 1280x720 resolution.
Click to expand...


Theres no such thing as a DLP LCD.....

People are confusing LCD, LCD RP, and DLP a lot in this thread
 
Originally posted by: Sonikku
Hey there. I also enjoy having a large screen so I got a projector.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/Foxy_McCloud/Sonic_themovie.jpg
(Forgive the low quality of the pic and the green part of the wall distorting the color a little towards the top) I went with a DLP 150" screen because the 2000:1 contrast ratio blows LCD away. In fact, most LCD displays I see are only about a fourth of that. (Like 500:1 or something along those lines) Not to mention a 70" TV would take up a great deal of space and they cost thousands of dollars and for such a huge display the picture size pales in comparison to a projector. I'm just glad we have High Defintion and PC resolutions around 1280x960 as I can't imagine how terrible low res media would look blown up to a screen this size!

It's great for playing movies as HTPC and projectors are a match made in heaven. You will probably be glad to know that just about any of the mondern day video cards have a DVI input. I would highly suggest you use your screens DVI input over any VGA or Component inputs as LCDs get a far bigger boost from DVI, being a fixed pixel display and all.
Click to expand...


Flat panel LCD's have a lower contrast ratio but LCD RP is pretty high, not quite up with DLP but not very far off IIRC
 
contrast ratios, bah. it's been proven that manufacturers' contrast and response time specs are worthless. not only are there different ways of measuring, there is no concensus of WHAT they are measuring. it has become another shady number thrown out for sales, like the power output or SNR for audio amps.
 
Originally posted by: rleemhui
Originally posted by: SLCentral
I have a Samsung 50" DLP LCD, and I use DVI to connect from my 9800 Pro to the machine, and it looks flawless. Games work well too, since it's only a 1280x720 resolution.
Click to expand...


Theres no such thing as a DLP LCD.....

People are confusing LCD, LCD RP, and DLP a lot in this thread
Click to expand...

My mistake.
 
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
contrast ratios, bah. it's been proven that manufacturers' contrast and response time specs are worthless. not only are there different ways of measuring, there is no concensus of WHAT they are measuring. it has become another shady number thrown out for sales, like the power output or SNR for audio amps.
Click to expand...


It is a big deal when comparing the contrast ratio of a LCD to a DLP or LCD RP, or a LCD to a plasma. The difference is so huge that it is an obvious difference
 
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
contrast ratios, bah. it's been proven that manufacturers' contrast and response time specs are worthless. not only are there different ways of measuring, there is no concensus of WHAT they are measuring. it has become another shady number thrown out for sales, like the power output or SNR for audio amps.
Click to expand...

The same holds true for Lumens count. I'm thankful for Projectorcentral.com for developing a unified unbiased standard from which to rate contrast ratio and brightness. However, DLP still has the edge over LCD in constrast ratio. Propaganda or not.
 
In addition to our video forum, where this thread belongs, I suggest:

http://www.htpcnews.com/
http://www.silentpcreview.com/index.php
http://www.doom9.org/
http://www.cdfreaks.com/
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/
http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/index.htm
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/main.html
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/
http://www.avsforum.com/
http://www.imagingscience.com/

Anyway, that Sony has a freakish resolution.
This is from the website:
"And our giant XBR® Grand WEGA? televisions reward their owners with resolution that's higher still: 1386 x 788 x 3 for 3.28 million dots."

What the Hell is that?
 
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
In addition to our video forum, where this thread belongs, I suggest:

http://www.htpcnews.com/
http://www.silentpcreview.com/index.php
http://www.doom9.org/
http://www.cdfreaks.com/
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/
http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/index.htm
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/main.html
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/
http://www.avsforum.com/
http://www.imagingscience.com/

Anyway, that Sony has a freakish resolution.
This is from the website:
"And our giant XBR® Grand WEGA? televisions reward their owners with resolution that's higher still: 1386 x 788 x 3 for 3.28 million dots."

What the Hell is that?
Click to expand...

I guess it's a little bigger than 720p... I'm not sure if it has a specific name though 🙂
 
You're welcome, but you have to put up pics here when you get it rolling. Do you have a timeframe for the project?
Man, I thought my 43 inch Panny, 6 feet from the bed, was obnoxiously great. TV's 6 feet and up just blow me away.
 
Originally posted by: steverwrx
I want to build a media center PC for my new Sony XBR950 LCD 70" HDTV. It has one DVI input and multiple component video inputs. The main uses for the PC will be games, movies and possibly TV tuner. I am a dish network satelite user. What video card would you experts recomend for my application? Can the video/tuner card work as the tuner for my dish? Thanks in advance.🙂
Click to expand...


Well, seeing that you have $5000 to spend on a TV, just have someone build and design a HTPC for you.....lol
 
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
In addition to our video forum, where this thread belongs, I suggest:

http://www.htpcnews.com/
http://www.silentpcreview.com/index.php
http://www.doom9.org/
http://www.cdfreaks.com/
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/
http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/index.htm
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/main.html
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/
http://www.avsforum.com/
http://www.imagingscience.com/

Anyway, that Sony has a freakish resolution.
This is from the website:
"And our giant XBR® Grand WEGA? televisions reward their owners with resolution that's higher still: 1386 x 788 x 3 for 3.28 million dots."

What the Hell is that?
Click to expand...


lol, good question....I would have to say HUH WTF
 
Not rich. Married, NO kids. Decent jobs. My wife bought the Sony for us last Christmas. The 43" Sony we have is too small, had to move it to the master bedroom. I have built all my PCs as a hobby.
 
Nice TV, I considered it but decided on the 60" XS because of the integrated cable card and 2 hdmi. But I am missing out on the firewire with it.

You don't really need a great video card for 2d on the tv, it's resolution is 788p. I hooked a 9200se to mine and it looked fine, same with the the 50" Sammy DLP. I haven't tried it with the new ATI drivers, but with the old ones, it would chop the sides of the picture off, I'm sure thats been fixed with the latest drivers that let you choose HDTV resolutions. Both nVidia and ATI have out specific media center drivers that let you pick home theater resolutions.

Personally, I'm building a MCE with RS480 board for my Sony and using that to tide me over for graphics until the r520 finally ships. If I were to buy one now to use with it, it'd be a X800XL. Great card for the price, should be able to play the latest games with the eye candy at 1366x788.
 
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