Updated some home theater equipment and PC *PICS*

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frankgomez75

Platinum Member
Mar 23, 2004
2,215
1
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I upgraded a few home theater components 3 months ago and finally got around to taking
some pics.

My old Harmon Kardon blew, and Circuit City replaced it with an HK AVR225.
I upgraded from satellite speakers to (4) Polk Audio R50's for only $200 and a center Polk Audio CS1 for $100, sitting above the 50" DLP.

I also upgraded my Hometheater PC, a better case with VFD Display, took out the 6600GT and put in a 7900GT PCI Express VidCard and added a 500GB Hard Drive. Computer turns on by remote control using my universal Logitech Harmony Remote so my lazy butt doesn't have to get up from the couch. :)

In addition, my HTPC is connected to a 1 Terabyte Server :)

Old Home Theater Component Rack

Upgraded Home Theater Component Rack

Old Home Theater PC

Upgraded Home Theater PC

Rear Speakers

Rear Dual 10" Sub 1

Rear Dual 10" Sub 2

Living Room 1

Universal Remote and Keyboard

Front End


Recorded Television Shows

Movie Collection

Home Theater Gallery

I also installed Meedio as my front-end along with TheaterTek 2.2 to watch all my videos. In addition Iinstalled FFDSHOW to upscale all my videos. Here are some screens of what FFDSHOW upscaling can do:


Check out how much crisper and clearer Yoda looks.... look at his hair and skin texture
Attack of the Clones " Yoda" Regular
Attack of the Clones "Yoda" Upscaled with TT and FFDShow
Attack of the Clones "Yoda" Upscaled with TT and FFDShow - Readjusted


Here you can notice how much crisper the blanket looks and the details in the rocks
LOTR Frodo Regular
LOTR Frodo Upscaled with TT and FFDShow
LOTR Frodo Upscaled with TT and FFDShow - Readjusted

In this one, the beard stubble is much more detailed
LOTR Face Regular
LOTR Face Upscaled with TT and FFDShow
LOTR Face Upscaled with TT and FFDShow - Readjusted

And finally, Sullys hair is much crisper and detailed as well as the hanging light and the floor
Monsters Inc Regular
Monsters Inc Upscaled with TT and FFDShow
Monsters Inc Upscaled with TT and FFDShow - Readjusted

So what you guys think?

Edit: Changed the pics from .bmp to .jpg :)
 
7

777php

Diamond Member
Jul 17, 2001
3,498
0
0
What do you use to display TV show icons like that? Is that a spefic feature in Meedios or a plugin?
 
Dee67

Dee67

Golden Member
Dec 14, 2000
1,034
2
81
Blood in Blood out is easily one of my favorite movies of all time. Great taste.

 
jpeyton

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
Aug 23, 2003
25,375
142
116
Meedio is now owned by Yahoo! and they will only provide EPG support until July. And support/updates are no longer offered.
 
F

frankgomez75

Platinum Member
Mar 23, 2004
2,215
1
81
Originally posted by: jpeyton
Meedio is now owned by Yahoo! and they will only provide EPG support until July. And support/updates are no longer offered.
Click to expand...


This is true... but I don't use Meedio for recording. I only use it as a "front-end".
I use Beyond TV 4 to record in high definition. ;)

With a 1 Terabyte server.... I don't worry about storage too much. I pretty much record what I want in high definition... and the cherry on top is I have free over the air (OTA) HD, so I get LOST, 24, The Office, etc... all in HD for free recorded and stored to be later reencoded to Xvid for storage purposes. :)
 
N

Nutdotnet

Diamond Member
Dec 5, 2000
7,721
3
81
Frank- do you happen to know where I can find out more information on using FFDShow, TT, and the like? I tried using FFDShow with another program (forgive me as I can't recall the name) but it looked awful...I just didn't know what I was doing.

That's like a night and day difference!
 
F

frankgomez75

Platinum Member
Mar 23, 2004
2,215
1
81
Originally posted by: Nutdotnet
Frank- do you happen to know where I can find out more information on using FFDShow, TT, and the like? I tried using FFDShow with another program (forgive me as I can't recall the name) but it looked awful...I just didn't know what I was doing.

That's like a night and day difference!
Click to expand...


Yeah, no problem.... for anyone interested here are some guides and info on setting it up:

HTPC News FFDShow Guide


I personally use this one, with a mixture of the Intermediate and Advance settings:
FFDShow Config Walkthrough


I also would check out this thread at the bottom:
Theatertek Forums

Get yourself a copy of Theatertek 2.2 or 2.4 and run FFDShow, and get blown away by the increase in detail, as you can see in my first post above.

HD-DVD/Bluray can wait... I'm pretty happy with the results I've obtained by upscaling and using filters to make a better movie experience. This should hold me off a couple of years until the a clear winner has been decided in the new HD formats.
 
sygyzy

sygyzy

Lifer
Oct 21, 2000
14,001
4
76
Very impressive Mr. Frank Gomez. What is the exact product name of your Xecuter X-Box mod? What did it give you other than a pretty front plate and display? Not that it isn't cool, just curious.
 
T

TheCanuck

Senior member
Apr 28, 2003
373
0
0
After seeing your setup my e-penis now feels like it has shriveled up and died! I really need to update my HTPC.
 
YOyoYOhowsDAjello

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,205
45
91
I'm probably going to come off as a jerk, but I'm going to say it anyway.

I've seen some very impressive FFDShow pics, but some of those you have look like you've really compromised some aspects of them.

Yeah, you've got a lot more "detail", but you're also introducing a ton of noise and you've got some other major problems.

I wasn't going to say something until I saw what the doors in the Monster's Inc. bathroom looked like.

I haven't really played around with FFDShow at all and don't know what all the settings to, but to me it looks like whatever you're doing, you're not only getting some real detail, but you're also screwing things up by adding a lot of noise, artifacts, and false detail.

I know I've seen some great results from FFDShow and I just want you to get the most out of it. I've seen pictures where people were able to get the detail in Sully's hair but there weren't the problems I'm seeing with your output. Have you looked through some suggested settings to try or played around with some different options?
 
F

frankgomez75

Platinum Member
Mar 23, 2004
2,215
1
81
Originally posted by: sygyzy
Very impressive Mr. Frank Gomez. What is the exact product name of your Xecuter X-Box mod? What did it give you other than a pretty front plate and display? Not that it isn't cool, just curious.
Click to expand...

Nothing really, just flashy looking. Lights show network activity, hdd acitivity, name of movie or song playing. I bought it since I used to mod boxes for ppl on the side, and showed them what I could do. Out the modding business for now...
 
A

arod

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2000
4,236
0
76
personally your sharpening is way too high..... the "enhcanced" pics look fake now. but it probably looks better on the tv vs computer monitor.

i have dabbled in theatertek/ffdshow and it produces a very nice image.

my setup is somewhat similar to yours except i use vista mce (rc1) which handles everything your frontend does and i dont have to mess with multiple programs and i dont even have my computer in the room (just my xbox 360 which does the extender thing which is one area no other front end software has been able to match so until they do im not going to even look at anything else... and streaming hd is of vital importance to me and works great with vista mce). I really hope somebody comes up with a software version of the extender system (if beyondtv does great) but my personal goal is to have one server with 5 or 6 tuners and a few tb of space and have that same experince on all tv's in my house (den, theater and bedroom/kitchen etc)
 
F

frankgomez75

Platinum Member
Mar 23, 2004
2,215
1
81
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
I'm probably going to come off as a jerk, but I'm going to say it anyway.

I've seen some very impressive FFDShow pics, but some of those you have look like you've really compromised some aspects of them.

Yeah, you've got a lot more "detail", but you're also introducing a ton of noise and you've got some other major problems.

I wasn't going to say something until I saw what the doors in the Monster's Inc. bathroom looked like.

I haven't really played around with FFDShow at all and don't know what all the settings to, but to me it looks like whatever you're doing, you're not only getting some real detail, but you're also screwing things up by adding a lot of noise, artifacts, and false detail.

I know I've seen some great results from FFDShow and I just want you to get the most out of it. I've seen pictures where people were able to get the detail in Sully's hair but there weren't the problems I'm seeing with your output. Have you looked through some suggested settings to try or played around with some different options?
Click to expand...


:| Dammit... frank mad! frank hurt!

;) Actually, you're right... I still got some tweaking to do. FFDSHOW is trial and error. I need to mess with some of the filter settings like Chroma, Lancoz, Denoise, etc....

Hopefully over the weekend I get some free time to tweak my settings some more. FFDShow is some versatile and the options are endless.
 
YOyoYOhowsDAjello

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,205
45
91
Originally posted by: frankgomez75
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
I'm probably going to come off as a jerk, but I'm going to say it anyway.

I've seen some very impressive FFDShow pics, but some of those you have look like you've really compromised some aspects of them.

Yeah, you've got a lot more "detail", but you're also introducing a ton of noise and you've got some other major problems.

I wasn't going to say something until I saw what the doors in the Monster's Inc. bathroom looked like.

I haven't really played around with FFDShow at all and don't know what all the settings to, but to me it looks like whatever you're doing, you're not only getting some real detail, but you're also screwing things up by adding a lot of noise, artifacts, and false detail.

I know I've seen some great results from FFDShow and I just want you to get the most out of it. I've seen pictures where people were able to get the detail in Sully's hair but there weren't the problems I'm seeing with your output. Have you looked through some suggested settings to try or played around with some different options?
Click to expand...


:| Dammit... frank mad! frank hurt!

;) Actually, you're right... I still got some tweaking to do. FFDSHOW is trial and error. I need to mess with some of the filter settings like Chroma, Lancoz, Denoise, etc....

Hopefully over the weekend I get some free time to tweak my settings some more. FFDShow is some versatile and the options are endless.
Click to expand...

Good. I hope you find a good balance for what produces the best result on your set.
 
F

frankgomez75

Platinum Member
Mar 23, 2004
2,215
1
81
Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
is meedio a good frontend? did you use xlobby at all?
Click to expand...


xLobby, I haven't tried it... Meedio has been rock solid for me as a front end. I haven't messed with my frontend for over 7 months :) *knock on wood

In the next year or so, I'm thinking of moving over to MCE, but for now I'll stay put.

The only downside is, Meedio has been sold out to Yahoo! and Yahoo hasn't dont jack with it. So, unfortunately Meedio is no longer supported nor updated. Hopefully someone picks up the ball and makes the frontend that ends them all.
 
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