Need help building a HTPC

[2canSAM]

I am looking at building a HTPC and have some questions. Right now I have in System 1

AMD TBird 800/Abit Kt7 raid
256mb Micron PC-133
Diamond Viper700Ultra, Toshiba DVD-rom, Aureal SQ2500

System 2 is
AMD k62-400, Iwill XA100+
192mb PC100
3dfx Voodoo 3 3000, Toshiba DVD-rom
Diamond MX-300 sound card.

I have tried using a software dvd player on system 2 using the Voodoo's tv-out and the quality is poor. This is just the system because if I try to watch them on the Monitor they look the same way. So I know it is not the tv-out of the Voodoo which btw looked great to me. I had bought an ATI Rage Fury Pro to put into system 2 but the guy sent me a dead card. If I put a Hollywood+ card in system 2 how comparable to a set-top player will it be? With this card in place I will use the Tv-out of the Hollywood+ right? Would I notice that big of an improvement if I put the Hollywood+ in System 1? Thanks for helping out a newbie at this.

 

[Workin']

OK, first things first.

<< This is just the system because if I try to watch them on the Monitor they look the same way. So I know it is not the tv-out of the Voodoo which btw looked great to me. >>

The TV-out is separate from the monitor display. Voodoos have very poor TV-out and no built-in DVD support.

<< If I put a Hollywood+ card in system 2 how comparable to a set-top player will it be? >>

Fairly close.

<< With this card in place I will use the Tv-out of the Hollywood+ right? >>

Only for watching DVD's. The H+ can't output anything else to the TV. Not your desktop, not Divx, no games. Only DVD video.

<< Would I notice that big of an improvement if I put the Hollywood+ in System 1? >>

Probably not. Except you would have TV-out for DVD's.

 

[2canSAM]

What is happening on system 2 is there is a lot of flickering when I try to use a software DVD player. It happens on the Monitor and If I use TV-out. Now I moved the Voodoo3 to System 1 since my Viper doesn't have tv-out and used it to watch a DVD on my tv using the Voodoo's TV-out and it looked great. So my question now is If I buy a Hollywood+ to put in system 2 which is having the probelms with Software DVD and use it's Tv-out to watch DVD will I still get the flickering probelm since I will be using a Hardware based solution. I think that system 2 being a slow system as well as having no DVD decoding built into the video card is the problem. This is why I want to put the Hollywood+ card in it to use it as my HTPC. So system 2 with the Hoolywood+, Using it's TV-out to watch DVD's, will the Quality compare to a set top system?

 

[Workin']

The flickering might be because the deinterlacing setting in the software decoder is not set correctly. You usually have three choices, bob, weave, or auto. Make sure it's set to auto.

If you want to use a Hollywood+, the quality will be about as good as a really cheap set top system. I don't know if it makes a difference to you, but the Hollywood+ will only output DVD's through its TV-out, and nothing else.