Top 3 Video Cards for HTPCs: Summer 2009 Edition

Home theater computers often benefit from video cards, but the video cards that work best with them are not always the most popular and most powerful models. HTPC cards place greater importance on silence than on speed. Fortunately, cards which fit well in an HTPC are inexpensive and plentiful.

Falling Prices, Better Cards

Traditionally it is the computer hardware at the lowest end of the price spectrum that sees the least impressive price drops. This is not surprising when one thinks about it - lower price probably means less profit margin for the manufacturers. While a price slash of $50 dollars is not uncommon on high-end gaming cards, a similar price slash on HTPC video cards would mean that manufacturers have decided to give them away free.

Even so, there is evolution in the market. Prices have gradually become cheaper, and the prices of certain more powerful video cards are now into the range where certain HTPC builders might consider them. Unfortunately, the lack of any new GPU architectures from ATI or Nvidia means that cards have not become more powerful, but that is not such a bad thing. Every single one of the cards on this list is already capable of performing the basic tasks expected of an HTPC video card such as playing HD videos.

ASUS Radeon EAH4350 512MB SILENT

The Radeon 4350 is the little fry of the Radeon series. The card is not suitable for gaming of any sort, and certainly is not capable of gaming at the resolutions for which most HTPCs will be used. However, an HTPC is not about gaming, is it? It is about playing media - mostly movies and TV shows either from disc or from the internet. Those are tasks at which the EAH4350 is quite good. Reviews have consistently shown that cards based on this GPU are capable of playing back HD content without issue.

Of course, there are many Radeon 4350s. This model, the ASUS EAH4350, is recommended because of its combination of a passive heatsink, 512MB of memory, and a native HDMI port. At $34.99, it is not the cheapest Radeon 4350 available, but it is within $5 dollars, and the card's unique combination of features set it apart from most of its peers. ASUS also has a good reputation in this segment of the graphics card market. This said, be ware that there are other Radeon 4350s with similar features. They typically cost $5 dollars more, but these cards are frequently put on sale.

HIS Radeon HD4670 iSilence4

The Radeon 4670 is the most powerful Radeon currently available before heading into the realm of full-size cards like the Radeon 4850. They have been largely ignored by the enthusiast press because such reviews usually focus on games. Its larger cousins easily outclass the Radeon 4670 when it comes to gaming, but for HTPC builders who wish to have a powerful video card that is not the size of China the Radeon 4670 is the perfect compromise.

This particular model is special because it has a passive heatsink designed by Zalman for the iSilence4 card. Passive heatsinks are not common among 4670 models but are highly sought after by HTPC builders because they allow a card to be completely silent. HIS is a manufacturer that specializes in enhancing their cards with exotic cooling, so it is little surprise that they have come up with this product. The iSilence4 also has native HDMI. Price is the only obstacle. At about $100 bucks, the iSilence4 is actually more expensive than some Radeon 4850s. This is a product that sells itself on silence, not performance.

Radeon HD4770 (Any Model)

The Radeon 4770 does not look like much at first glance. Its model number correctly implies that it is somewhat slower than the Radeon 4850, and yet the Radeon 4770's lowest price is $109.99, $20 dollars more than the least expensive 4850s. The 4770 is not clocked high and does not offer more memory. Why would anyone buy the 4770?

Well, the Radeon 4770 has a secret. It is the first GPU by ATI to be made on a 40nm manufacturing process. Just as in processors, a smaller manufacturing process means a general reduction in power consumption and thus heat output for any given chip. This holds true with the GPU powering the 4770. While slightly slower than a 4850, the 4770 is incredibly cool and quiet. At load, it consumes less power than any other modern full-sized video card.

These are traits any HTPC builder will find valuable. Granted, the size of the 4770 limits its applications. This is as high-end as most HTPC builders are going to want to go. However, for those who need or want a high-end video card for their HTPC there is no other card better suited for the role.

Related Articles

For more information on video cards, read Top 3 HTPC Video Cards for the Holidays, Understanding and Choosing Video Cards and Components and Tweaking nVidia Video Cards here at Bright Hub.

Good HTPC Sound Cards

Good HTPC sound cards are essential to capture the full immersive experience of the audio that comes with the movies on commercial DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Asus has a high performance card Xonar HDAV 1.3 Deluxe, Ausgen has X-Fi Home Theater HD and Creative labs has Sound Blaster X-Fi extreme.

Introduction

Determining what is a good audio card mainly depends on what your prime interest in using the card is. There are at least three major areas people use these cards for and the products available are optimized for such uses. You may be a gamer intent on getting the best possible sound experience out of your games. The audiophile user wants the best reproduction of music on his system. The largest segment are people who simply love movies and want to play them through those large screen sets and they want the best audio immersion experience they can get.

ASUS Sonar HDAV 1.3 Deluxe

The following discussion is based on the premise that it is the video/movie optimized sound card you are looking for. One of the most talked about cards in this category is the ASUS Sonar HDAV 1.3 Deluxe. It is a PCI Express card and takes the space of two slots. The card has a HDMI 1.3 compatible output. The HDMI 1.3 output can be routed through the HDMI output of the video card, that is a special feature of this card. There is no need to down-sample the Blu-ray disc sound input. You can enjoy Dolby True HD and DTS Master audio because both are supported. The card works with ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre software and it supports all three Blu-ray disc video formats as well as other video formats such as WMV, Quicktime and H.264 HD etc. The software supports the HDCP digital rights management system too. So that there will not be any problems with protected content play back. The product separates out analog and digital signal grounding and shielding that is essential in creating a clean audio sound. Look at the image gallery picture, where the shields show clearly. The audio quality is also helped by the use of high quality oversampling digital to analog converters and other components in audio processing that help create high SNR (signal to noise ratio) audio. Use of the special software to operate this card might look like a bother to some. The card costs around $220 to $230.

Auzen X-Fi Home Theater HD

The Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD is another good card that accepts video from either an internal or external connection, mixes it with digital audio, and outputs the combined video and lossless multichannel audio via a single HDMI™ 1.3 port. This is the same way the Asus card works. This helps with the cable tangle and you just have one cable to connect to your TV set. The card uses the same audio processor that Creative Labs uses for their high end card, the PCIe X-Fi. Dolby digital and DTS encoding is supported. Additional value delivered by the card includes the support for gamers. It implements the realistic EAX 5.0 effects and 3D positional audio. The card will cost you around $220.

Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio

Products offered by Creative labs provide some alternatives. They have categorized the HTPC cards in a combined category of music and movies. PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio is another good card you could look at to support your HTPC. Like the Asuzen card this too has additional features like EAX effects for games and 3D audio support. They claim it is optimized for digital music as well. Thus your music experience is also likely to be fairly good if you have this installed in your system. The immersive audio experience is supported by full 5.1 surround system. With head phones you should be able to discern a spatial dimension to the sound reproduction that you hear. The PowerDVD software available features Dolby DTS-ES and Dolby digital EX decoding.

Other Issues

With any of the high performance audio cards you should be choosing the rest of your audio gear with care. The speaker system that you use is of considerable importance. The TV set you use as part of the home theater set up also needs to have an audio response that matches your audio card performance.

23" Monitors: Comparison and Review

23" monitors offer many advantages over smaller screens; most notably, this class almost always boasts resolutions of at least 1920x1080. If you need a monitor with plenty of screen space, or the capability to play 1080p movies, 23" monitors are a great choice.

Introduction to Our Selection

For this round up, we selected 3 23'' monitors to compare, based on certain criteria: price, features, and quality. Our source for these monitors was Newegg.com, though you can most likely find any of them at other online stores, or even a brick and mortar electronics retailer, such as Best Buy. Here are the monitors, in no particular order:

Acer X233Hbd

Samsung 2343BWX

LG M237WD-PM

Acer X233Hbd ($170)

The Acer X233Hbd is the least expensive LCD in our roundup, and it's actually the cheapest 23" we've seen. Acer is one of the most prolific manufacturers of computer monitors around the world. Generally, they're known as a buget brand, but Acer monitors are as solid as any high-quality part, without the accompanying price tag.

This Acer model has a resolution of 1920x1080 (1080p) so it's sufficient for watching full HD movies. A 5ms response time means this monitor is good for gaming as well. Unfortunately, the only connection options on this monitor are DVI and VGA; we'd have liked to see at least 1 HDMI input. The stand seems to be one of Acer's largest cost saving measures as the adjustment options are very limited, and the stand is somewhat flimsy.

The Good:

+Price

+Screen Quality

The Bad:

-Lack of HDMI Inputs

-Low Quality Stand

Samsung 2343BWX ($230)

Samsung makes some very nice HDTVs, and this expertise tends to show through in their monitors as well. Their quality and brand recognition seems to command a bit of a price premium, however, as the cheapest Samsung 23" monitor costs $60 more than the Acer model we reviewed.

We didn't choose the Samsung 2343BWX for it's price, though, there is something that makes this monitor special. Most 23" monitors, like the Acer, come with a resolution of 1920x1080. The Samsung has packed a resolution of 2048x1152 in to the same screen space, which means the pixels will be smaller and closer together, and the resulting image will be much sharper. The rest of this monitor is not as remarkable, and the features are similar to the Acer's: 5ms response time, DVI and VGA inputs, and still no HDMI.

The Good:

+Very High Resolution

+Screen Quality

The Bad:

-Lack of HDMI Input

LG M237WD-PM ($300)

The most expensive monitor in this roundup comes from LG, who, like Samsung, are known for making HDTVs. Also like Samsung, the price on LG monitors are higher than equivalent monitors from brands like Acer.

The LG M237WD-PM comes with some features that set it apart from the rest, most notably this monitor includes a TV tuner, so you can watch HDTV without the need to install anything in your PC. It also has great connection options: besides a DVI and VGA input, it also includes 2 HDMI inputs. Otherwise, this monitor has the standard resolution of 1920x1080 and a 5ms response time.

The Good:

+TV Tuner

+Plenty of Connection Options

The Bad:

-Price

Conclusion

Each of the monitors in this roundup have their own advantages and disadvantages. The Acer's main advantage is price, but otherwise is relatively plain. Samsung's monitor has a high density screen, which produces excellent picture clarity, though it's hampered by the lack of an HDMI input. The LG model includes the most connection options and has a built-in TV tuner, but also comes with the highest price tag.

Best HTPC Multimedia Cases: Summer 2009 Edition

Home Theater PCs remain one of the best multimedia electronics one can buy for a home theater. But HTPCs differ from regular PCs. This means that they require a PC case which is well suited to the specific needs of an HTPC.

A Special Enclosure

When you are building an epic home theater set-up one of the first things you'll want is a dedicated home theater PC. While an HTPC can technically be placed in any enclosure, an HTPC is simply a PC connected to a home theater, there are certain traits most people look for when building or re-purposing a computer as an HTPC. Some of the most important traits include a small size, good looks, and HTPC-friendly features like displays, controls, and IR/RF receivers. If you would prefer to buy a ready made system then check out the article on Top Home Theater PC's.

The three enclosures listed below take at least some of those features into account. This is balanced with their value as PC cases regardless of if they are used in a home theater. As a result these enclosures are the best HTPC enclosures and a good choice for anyone building their first HTPC.

Silverstone Sugo SG05

The Silverstone Sugo SG05 is, of the cases on this list, the most basic and the least oriented toward the HTPC role. It in fact has no specific features which are aimed at HTPCs. There are no special displays or controls integrated to enhance the HTPC experience. The Silverstone Sugo SG05 has made its way onto this list not because of any specific HTPC credentials but because it is easily the best value among mini-ITX cases today.

For about $100 dollars the Silverstone Sugo SG05 offers the kind of construction one would expect from full-sized cases costing around $200 dollars. It has a brushed aluminum finish which will look excellent in any home theater without being distracting. Inside the case there is plenty of room for an HTPC video card and any stock CPU cooler. The Sugo SG05 even includes a 300W power supply, which is more than enough for any HTPC.

Given its lack of HTPC-oriented features the Sugo SG05 will probably serve best as an internet-television player and media server. Those who are looking for their HTPC to also replace their DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray player would be better off with one of the other cases listed here.

Antec FusionRemote 350

While Antec is probably best known for its full-size cases like the P183 and the Antec 300, the company also offers a full range of HTPC products. The Antec FusionRemote's role as an HTPC case is obvious from the start due to its short, wide construction. At a glance it is difficult to distinguish it from a mid-range Blu-ray player. It is only the existence of USB and A/V jacks on the front of the case which give it away as an HTPC.

The features included with the FusionRemote are impressive. It comes with a remote which is meant to be used with the Windows Media Center, allowing the user to navigate to their favorite movies. The screen on the front of the case can display information about what is currently playing, although the text is small and becomes hard to read from a distance. The FusionRemote even comes with an Antec power supply. Not bad for a case costing $120 bucks.

Unfortunately the FusionRemote's slim construction makes space tight. Only half-size video cards are sure to fit and some CPU coolers may be too tall. The FusionRemote's HTPC features are also well short of what more expensive cases offer. Those problems aside, the FusionRemote is an excellent choice for an HTPC, particularly if the HTPC is to double as a DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray player.

Zalman HD160XT

Anyone looking for the ultimate HTPC case should look no further. The Zalman HD160XT is it. Zalman cases have a long tradition of being somewhat over the top and the HD160XT is no exception. While most HTPC cases at least include a remote or a small screen, the HD160XT has a touch-screen interface, a great remote, and bundled software fashioned specifically to make it all work together.

The case itself is also outstanding. The build quality of the HD160XT is higher than one will find on most tanks. This helps the case stand out from most other HTPC cases, which tend to be a little flimsy. The HD160XT doesn't skimp much on interior space, either, so most hardware will fit comfortably inside.

The size of the HD160XT is in fact the case's only major flaw. The HD160XT weighs four pounds more than the FusionRemote and twice as much as the Silverstone Sugo. It is also far larger than the FusionRemote, resembling a receiver more than a Blu-ray player. Oh, and then there's the price. The HD160XT can sometimes be found on sale for as little as $550, but its normal MSRP is $699. That's more than most HTPC builds cost in total, making the HD160XT only suitable for hardcore enthusiasts.

Linksys Media Hub NMH305 Review

Here is a review for the Linksys NMH305 unit, a good beginner solution for backing up your needed data into a single-storage solution

Overview

The Linksys Media Hub NMH305 offers an easy way to back up your data without the need to own separate PCs for the task, and without needing to keep your main machine on all the time. The Media Hub makes for easy access and organization of your files, be they videos which you need to access quickly without needless trawling, music, or any other type of file.

Developed by Cisco, it allows you to easily set up one single central unit so you can access media with your console for instance, or simply keep it as a backup solution next to your main PC. It has a variety of features but falls slightly short of some as we will see.

The Look
Rating

The unit is generally well designed, both aesthetically and functionally, with a black glossy finish and grey-panels at each side. The unit is quiet and won’t disturb your working or playing environment very much, but the combination of both the PC’s fans and the Linksys’s internal fans might combine to prove slightly annoying.

Removing or adding a drive is simple – just press the button which opens a lid and slide in the new drive which will be automatically detected and set up with the secure "mirrored mode."

Performance and Features
Rating

Everything you would expect of a media-aggregation server is generally there: an LCD display for ease of navigation, USB ports and memory sticks, automatic backup functions and specific folder-monitoring. However, the automatic backup function will not work with the Macintosh OS X system, although it supports the O/S fully.

It supports DLNA 1.5 and Universal Plug and Play, and you can set up external storage by opening an account with Linksys. The latter is only possible through its own browser, however, which proves problematic.

Although mainly average in terms of performance, the NMH305 falls short in some ways. It doesn’t support drag-and-drop, which means you need to use the internal uploader method to transfer files. This becomes annoying and tedious at times. The unit also has problems with some browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, and it displays icons incorrectly.

The transfer speed is fairly good and you can switch between RAID 1 and RAID 0 should you wish to.

In Summary
Rating

The NMH305 is quite easy to set up and, although backup can sometimes prove tedious, the automatic file-importing features and 500GB space can come in handy. Although the price is a bit steep at about $600 and it isn’t without its faults, it is an OK unit to own, particularly if you aren’t experienced with backup solutions and media storage.

Best HTPC Multimedia Cases: Summer 2009 Edition

Home Theater PCs remain one of the best multimedia electronics one can buy for a home theater. But HTPCs differ from regular PCs. This means that they require a PC case which is well suited to the specific needs of an HTPC.

A Special Enclosure

When you are building an epic home theater set-up one of the first things you'll want is a dedicated home theater PC. While an HTPC can technically be placed in any enclosure, an HTPC is simply a PC connected to a home theater, there are certain traits most people look for when building or re-purposing a computer as an HTPC. Some of the most important traits include a small size, good looks, and HTPC-friendly features like displays, controls, and IR/RF receivers. If you would prefer to buy a ready made system then check out the article on Top Home Theater PC's.

The three enclosures listed below take at least some of those features into account. This is balanced with their value as PC cases regardless of if they are used in a home theater. As a result these enclosures are the best HTPC enclosures and a good choice for anyone building their first HTPC.

Silverstone Sugo SG05

The Silverstone Sugo SG05 is, of the cases on this list, the most basic and the least oriented toward the HTPC role. It in fact has no specific features which are aimed at HTPCs. There are no special displays or controls integrated to enhance the HTPC experience. The Silverstone Sugo SG05 has made its way onto this list not because of any specific HTPC credentials but because it is easily the best value among mini-ITX cases today.

For about $100 dollars the Silverstone Sugo SG05 offers the kind of construction one would expect from full-sized cases costing around $200 dollars. It has a brushed aluminum finish which will look excellent in any home theater without being distracting. Inside the case there is plenty of room for an HTPC video card and any stock CPU cooler. The Sugo SG05 even includes a 300W power supply, which is more than enough for any HTPC.

Given its lack of HTPC-oriented features the Sugo SG05 will probably serve best as an internet-television player and media server. Those who are looking for their HTPC to also replace their DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray player would be better off with one of the other cases listed here.

Antec FusionRemote 350

While Antec is probably best known for its full-size cases like the P183 and the Antec 300, the company also offers a full range of HTPC products. The Antec FusionRemote's role as an HTPC case is obvious from the start due to its short, wide construction. At a glance it is difficult to distinguish it from a mid-range Blu-ray player. It is only the existence of USB and A/V jacks on the front of the case which give it away as an HTPC.

The features included with the FusionRemote are impressive. It comes with a remote which is meant to be used with the Windows Media Center, allowing the user to navigate to their favorite movies. The screen on the front of the case can display information about what is currently playing, although the text is small and becomes hard to read from a distance. The FusionRemote even comes with an Antec power supply. Not bad for a case costing $120 bucks.

Unfortunately the FusionRemote's slim construction makes space tight. Only half-size video cards are sure to fit and some CPU coolers may be too tall. The FusionRemote's HTPC features are also well short of what more expensive cases offer. Those problems aside, the FusionRemote is an excellent choice for an HTPC, particularly if the HTPC is to double as a DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray player.

Zalman HD160XT

Anyone looking for the ultimate HTPC case should look no further. The Zalman HD160XT is it. Zalman cases have a long tradition of being somewhat over the top and the HD160XT is no exception. While most HTPC cases at least include a remote or a small screen, the HD160XT has a touch-screen interface, a great remote, and bundled software fashioned specifically to make it all work together.

The case itself is also outstanding. The build quality of the HD160XT is higher than one will find on most tanks. This helps the case stand out from most other HTPC cases, which tend to be a little flimsy. The HD160XT doesn't skimp much on interior space, either, so most hardware will fit comfortably inside.

The size of the HD160XT is in fact the case's only major flaw. The HD160XT weighs four pounds more than the FusionRemote and twice as much as the Silverstone Sugo. It is also far larger than the FusionRemote, resembling a receiver more than a Blu-ray player. Oh, and then there's the price. The HD160XT can sometimes be found on sale for as little as $550, but its normal MSRP is $699. That's more than most HTPC builds cost in total, making the HD160XT only suitable for hardcore enthusiasts.

Top 4 Home Theater PC’s

If you are thinking of purchasing a Home Theater PC have a look at this article for brief information on some of the most popular systems. We also explain what a Home Theater PC is, how it differs from a standard desktop PC and why you would need it specifically

Do I Need a Home Theater PC?

If you are into your films and TV shows then it would be good for you to invest in an epic home theater package. An integral part of that package will be a unit specifically designed to handle films, DVD burning, TV recording and other related services. A Home Theater PC (HTPC) doesn’t look like a standard desktop or gaming PC you would buy, but appears more like a home DVD-player or set-top box. HTPC provides all kinds of services connected with Media and Audio, such as recording DVD’s, TV shows and tuning or playing games. They also offer normal PC services like e-mail, surfing and other standard PC services. In short it is a greatly powerful unit and as a result, not sold cheaply.

Here are some of the most popular HTPC systems, each with different specifications suited to your needs. There are options such as large or small hard-drive storage, video editing and an integrated Microsoft Operating System such as Vista Home Premium.

Four of the Best HTPC’s

Sony's VAIO XL3 – The Sony runs a dual-core Intel Processor (2.13 Ghz) and has about half a terabyte of memory split in two 250 GB drives. You can edit your recorded material, from TV or DVD, and access the Vaio Living Browser for surfing the web and checking your mail. The unit is priced at around $3,000 and for media uses it is particularly ideal because it has lots of hard drive space. However it has been criticised as a PC, with no mouse and a much inferior GeForce 7600GTL considering the price tag of the unit.

Dell XPS 420 – The XPS is less expensive than the Sony at around $1,300 and looks more like a standard PC, with a tower unit, a mouse and a standard keyboard. The unit features a hardware video transcoder speeding up your recording, a slideshow (which isn’t much use), TV tuner and bundled Roxio software. It also has a small display on the top of the tower with other not very useful features such as a solitaire game, picture viewer and media player. Although the unit comes equipped with a GeForce 8800 GTX video card, it isn’t recommended if you wish to have a media and gaming solution in one, but it’s certainly a powerful media-centre at this price.

Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 – This is basically a laptop configured and optimised for media usages, such as burning and recording your TV onto PC. It has two 80 GB drives and about 1 GB of RAM. The strength of this unit is of course its portability since it isn’t very powerful, but you can’t expect much more for around $700.

Alienware Hangar 18 HD – A stylish power-unit, similar sized to some of the larger satellite or cable boxes. The unit features a Windows Vista Premium O/S, allows you to record TV shows much like TiVo and supports multiple TV tuners. You can download and store content from the web, such as music or high quality videos. If you need more space you can upgrade up to 2 terabytes of hard drive storage for content (remember you can upgrade any HTPC unit). The Hangar 18 features all the 5.1 surround connections and includes a subwoofer. It is an ideal unit if you need lots of video content stored in one place. The price is around $2,000.

Review of the Hulu Desktop for Windows

Long an online presence, TV video and movie purveyor Hulu now has a dedicated desktop version. It's designed to work with your Media Center remote and play full screen on your PC. The application exposes a few rough edges, but it's trying its best to be a better TV than TV. Let's see how it does.

A better TV than TV? For a Windows Media Center enthusiast already watching TV and satellite TV on the PC, that's a tall order. For one thing, the Hulu Desktop does not play inside Media Center; it's a separate application. In fact, Hulu Desktop is not currently aware of Media Center. The use of the remote is the only point that they have in common, and Hulu doesn't even fare great there because it does not use the standard buttons.

Downloading and Installing Hulu Desktop

But that's getting ahead of our story. We downloaded Hulu Desktop using the "Labs" link at Hulu.com. The application was installed and tested on a two-year-old Vista Ultimate PC with 3 GB RAM, an AMD 64x2 5200+ (2.60 GHz) processor, and fairly low-end integrated Nvidia GeForce 6150SE graphics. The Internet connection was ADSL+.

The download was an 862 KB file named "HuluDesktopSetup.exe." It installed quickly and smoothly.

First Run and Follow-Up

At first run, Hulu Desktop launches directly into a video. In fact, it does this at every start, even to the point of restarting the last video watched -- from the beginning! While it only takes moments to navigate away, this is a bit unpolished for an Internet media application. However, it mimics the way real televisions work, and Hulu would like us to think of it in just that way.

Now the fun begins. Hulu started in an application window, and my first impulse was to reach for my remote. Hmm... How to make it full screen? How to pause or resume playing? How to navigate within the window?

It's not what you think. It's not even what you expect. Pressing "Clear" on the remote causes Hulu Desktop to go to the menu screen. From there, the menus can be navigated by using the up, down, right, and left buttons. Pressing the OK, or Select, or center button, has the same effect as right-clicking on the video: it pauses the video and brings up the context menu with "Continue" selected. Selecting Help → Remote → Menu shows the following two screens.

Pressing OK for "Select" had the same effect as right-clicking on the image. However, the "Back" button had no effect at all. (I was surprised that the back button did have an effect on Firefox, though.)

Here's what it looks like after pressing OK.

And after pressing "Clear," which minimizes the video and returns the view to the main menu.

Pressing up or down on the remote, or clicking the video or frame, brings up an information pane and the duration or time-line strip.

A nice feature of the interface, and one that deserves wide adoption, is a preview window that appears a second after you click a location on the time-line. The right and left buttons on the remote also move the focus along the time-line: a brief press moves the "insertion point" forward or backward, while pressing and holding brings up the preview window and smoothly moves it along the time-line.

It was a bit of a surprise that the Hulu Desktop application does not respond to the play/pause controls on a Microsoft multimedia keyboard. Most other multimedia Windows applications do, so perhaps this is just an oversight.

More of a surprise is that there's no obvious way to maximize the player from the remote. If running it from a keyboard, pressing Ctrl-F maximizes the application. Clicking the maximize box with the mouse also makes it go full screen. In either case, it needs to be done before using the remote.

Minimum Requirements for Hulu Desktop

Full-screen, by the way, translates into 480p when "High" is selected by clicking on the "Quality" button on the time-line. This should also be done before switching to ten-foot couch mode.

The video quality is dependent on the connection speed. The modes are:

• Low: 400 - 480 kbps, 288p
• Medium: 650 - 700 kbps, 360p
• High: 1000 kbps, 480p

Hulu seems to overstate the minimum requirements somewhat.

• Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz
• At least 2.0 GB of RAM
• Windows XP or later
  
• 2 Mbps Internet connection
• Flash 9.0.124

I also tried the application on a 1.73 GHz, 756 MB Windows XP machine. Hulu Desktop was well able to run in a window, but it stuttered when in full-screen mode. This machine has never been great for playing DVDs, either, so it was pleasant to find that Hulu Desktop worked at all on it.

A third machine I tried it on was a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo laptop with 2GB RAM. Hulu Desktop had no problem running full-screen at 1680 x 1050 on it. (It actually ran better than on my desktop machine.)

Conclusion

So there you have it. Hulu Desktop is a Windows (and Mac) application that is trying to be a better TV than TV. It has a few rough edges, like not working with the standard buttons on a Media Center remote, but it's an obviously capable application, and it is surprisingly smooth and easy to use.

Hulu made some choices that make the experience better. For example, the videos don't exactly stream. The Hulu Desktop buffers a certain amount of video and downloads entire sections at a time. It spends most of its time playing video that has already arrived. This makes for a smooth presentation and smooth playback.

I would prefer that it not begin playback until I have decided what to watch, but if that is my biggest criticism, there is little reason not to recommend trying this application out.

Combined Digital TV Tuner & Graphics Card

If you're stuck deciding on the video card and TV tuner for your HTPC, why not kill two birds with one stone and go for a combo HDTV Tuner Graphics Card? It saves you space, power, time and expense when building your HTPC, while providing a full suite of video processing and TV input capabilities.

Introduction

You can't have a HTPC without both a TV tuner card and a graphics card, unless you plan to settle for substandard quality in either area. However, some factors can make the process of choosing them difficult. If you have a small form factor HTPC case, there may not be enough room for two full sized cards. Worse, if both cards use the same slot, such as PCI-express, you may be forced to choose between one or the other. Fortunately there are solutions, such as the ATI All-in-Wonder HD, that combine both the video processor and the HDTV tuner into one device, making your build that much easier.

Why an HDTV Tuner Graphics Card?

There are many reasons for choosing a combination HDTV Tuner and Graphics Card. A single card alleviates much of the hassle when searching for the right components, but that's not the only benefit by far. With a single card, you won't spend as much, you'll be using less power, and you'll experience fewer compatability problems and conflicts when putting together your HTPC.

The ATI All-in-Wonder HD

The selection of HDTV Tuner Graphics Cards is unfortunately very small, and until recently the only choices were generations old. Recently however, ATI released the All-in-Wonder HD, Based on the HD 3650 512MB Video Card and Theater 650 Pro Tuner card. The HD 3650, while certainly not a high end video card, is no slouch, and will be able to play most modern games at comfortable framerates. As with all HD 3000 series cards from ATI, the HD 3650 is Directx 10.1 compliant, so it's relatively future-proof when it comes to new games that include those features.

Sometimes when watching HD video, stuttering can occur because the CPU has to balance rendering video with several other tasks at the same time. An additional benefit that the HD 3650 brings is GPU-based video acceleration, which means that the CPU can offload the rendering of HD video to the graphics card, alleviating most stuttering issues.

The Theater 650 Tuner includes a few features that can improve the quality of HD television, such as noise reduction and edge detection, although the quality still won't match that of a cable box hooked up to a television. Even so, for people who just want to watch TV on their computer it will serve just fine.

This card features a multitude of outputs and a coaxial input. The available outputs include HDMI, DVI, S-Video or Component, and the coaxial input can connect to digital or analog cable, or use the included antenna to recieve over-the-air transmissions.

Conclusion

While there is a narrow selection of HDTV Tuner Graphics Cards available, cards like the ATI All-in-Wonder HD provide a great one-stop solution for graphics, video processing, and HDTV input. This type of card can be a great choice for new HTPC builds, or older hardware upgrades. While the tuner quality won't match that of a cable or satellite box hooked up to an HDTV, it will provide some of the best quality television available for your computer, and the HD 3650 video processor is able to output high-quality HD video to a separate television as well.

The Advantages of a Home Theater PC

There are many ways to incorporate your computer into your home theater setup. There are many possibilities that you can unveil when using a PC in addition to a home theater setup. In this article, we will get into the advantages of setting up a home theater PC

Things Needed

There are tons of things that you can do with your home theater system when adding a PC to the mix. Lots of people like to play movies, music, and share documents to view in the comfort of their living room or bedroom.

There are a few things needed when putting together a home theater pc. First, you need a PC with at least a Pentium 4 (or AMD equivalent) processor with a fast motherboard. You also need a video card that is at least 256 megabytes, a decent sound card, and a fairly large hard drive to store the movies you want to watch. Depending on the use, you would also need a wireless keyboard and mouse so you can control the PC while sitting in bed- or across the living room. I would recommend a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. These can be found all over the Internet and range in price from $75 to $200. These are the most reliable keyboards for long distance accuracy and a "must have" for home theater PC users.

You can watch your favorite movie downloaded from Itunes or an affiliated pay-per-download service in high quality surround sound. This can be done by hooking your home theater PC up to the internet, either wireless via router and wireless Ethernet card, or thru a wired cable into an Ethernet card. To avoid latency, you are going to want to use either a high speed wireless G or N connection to do the transferring or streaming. If using a wired connection, you will want to use a gigabit speed Ethernet card.

Streaming

Streaming video is content sent in compressed form over the Internet and displayed by the viewer in real time. With streaming video a web user does not have to wait to download a file to play it. Instead, the media is sent in a continuous stream of data and is played as it arrives. When streaming all of the aforementioned items need to be incorporated into your system. This will keep the crystal clear picture that you want in movies, and also keep the sound lined up with the movie. There is nothing worse than an American-based movie that, because of a bad connection, looks like a poorly dubbed kung fu movie. My suggestion to avoid this possibility is to transfer the movie that you will be watching to your hard drive temporarily before you watch it. The data transfer will only take a few minutes, depending on the file size (a 700 megabyte movie will take approximately three minutes on a normal connection and less on faster connection). This will take away the possibility of network traffic causing interference, and leave only the computer latency to be the source of a possible problem. If you are streaming a movie or video clip from the Internet on Youtube or another site, you may not be able to download it and are left with streaming only.

Internet, gaming and sharing files

Two other uses for a home theater PC are computer gaming and sharing files. These two things, depending on who the users are, can be very helpful. The internet gaming network is a huge network of any kind of game you can think of, and they are all connected together by the Internet. Many games are what's called first person shooters or FPS, and are mostly games involving only a view of the weapon you are firing from your first person perspective. There are also role playing games (RPG), Real-time strategy (RTS), and many others. With your PC incorporated into this home theater PC system, you can play all those great games on your tv in your living room or bedroom. This experience increases when you view the game on a Flat panel LCD, plasma, or DLP TV in a large format of at least 32" or larger.

File sharing is the ability to share files between two or more computers on a home based network. You can share video, audio, documents, and plently of other formats through file sharing. There are also many factors to think about when sharing files: file size, amount of files to be shared, content, and the amount of sharing that takes place These factors are all determined greatly by the ability of the network to process this sharing in an acceptable amount of time. If you have all the elements of a good system, your file sharing as well as your home theater experience will be wonderful for years to come.

Comparing HTPC Manufacturers

There are many companies which offer home theater PCs to consumers, but some companies which offer such products are doing so only because the market exists. There are only a few companies that offer HTPCs which provide a good value, and each has their respective strengths.

Buying an HTPC

Generally speaking, building a home theater PC can save a lot of money. That said, building an HTPC isn't for everyone. It takes a lot of time to research all of the correct components and put them together. Those who would rather have a pre-built HTPC have many options available to them. But which manufacturers build HTPCs which are really worth your money?

Cyberpower

If you've ever opened a copy of Maxmium PC, PC Pro, or some other large print publication, you've probably seen an advertisement for Cyberpower. Cyberpower has been around for a while now and has slowly gained a solid reputation in the market of budget computers. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are less powerful then computers available from competitors like Dell. Instead, Cyberpower tries to keep competitive by keeping their overhead costs low and therefore providing a lower price on comparable hardware.

It seems that Cyberpower is certainly winning the price wars when it comes to HTPCs. Their Media Center X64, a small media center PC with an Athlon X2 7750 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a TV tuner can be purchased at the surprising price of $499. That is extremely low for a pre-built home theater PC. Of course, this base configuration is missing a video card (the motherboard does have integrated Radeon graphics) and the TV tuner seems to be quite generic. But these problems can be rectified with a few upgrades, and Cyberpower also offers more expensive versions with far more robust features. Those more expensive products are much more powerful but still follow the Cyberpower creed of providing good bang for the buck.

Dell

Oddly, Dell no longer seems to offer any dedicated HTPC configuration. In the past Dell had sold a very robust and very expensive HTPC called the Hanger 18 though its Alienware division, but that product no longer appears to be for sale. That does not mean that Dell has nothing on offer, however, as Dell's Studio XPS 435, available with a base price of $899, is available with a TV Tuner slot. While that base price is far higher then the above Cyberpower PC, the Dell XPS 435 is much more powerful. It offers a Core i7 920 and a Radeon 4350 as standard. The TV Tuner options aren't overpriced or off-brands, either. The base Hauppauge TV Tuner with Remote only tacks $60 dollars to the price.

Overall, the Dell is a good pick for those wanting a powerful yet affordable HTPC. The only real problem is that it is not designed from scratch for HTPC use and so it looks like any other tower PC. This can make it difficult to blend into a home theater setting. Also, while Dell's TV tuner upgrade is affordable, their Blu-Ray upgrade is a rather steep $120 dollars.

Building a Home Theater PC

Have you always wanted to have the Internet at your fingertips while sitting in bed, or lounging in the living room without dragging a laptop around with you? In this article, I will be showing you what components to buy in order to build a great machine to incorporate into a home theater system.

Introduction

Building up a home theater system can be a difficult task to do, especially if you’re not very computer or home theater savvy. There are a few steps to take in order to make sure you get the best possible results. Building a home theater entertainment center can be very costly if you don't know what you need to start in putting it all together. This process is not very costly if you build it yourself, especially when you know the parts needed and where to get them at an inexpensive price. This will take longer than going to a store and buying one, but it will prove to be less expensive and overall more enjoyable building your own machine. To start building your system, you have to start with the "brain" unit of the system, the home theater PC.

The PC

There are two ways you can go about acquiring the computer you need to run your home theater system.

1. Buy a pre-built unit from a retail store or online. This route can be very costly because companies overcharge for a lot of their parts because you're paying for the labor to put it all together, and a lot of the time they're parts aren't as reliable as if you handpicked them.

2. Putting together a PC for a home theater is only possible if you know how to build a computer in the first place, or know someone who does. In today's society, most people know someone who is computer savvy. These people can most likely build a computer from the ground up. If you don't know someone like this, you can still save money by buying the parts from a computer company and having them put it together. The company that does it will usually give you a pretty good deal if you buy all the parts from them and they assemble it. There are many options when it comes to the parts to purchase for your home theater PC. You can get away with getting midlevel parts in the machine, because you’re not usually doing very many labor-intensive applications on the PC like graphic designing and gaming. Here is a list of parts that you need to make the PC.

1. Motherboard - This is the board that all the components plug into. You need a good motherboard that supports at least PCI-Express cards, and can hold a good amount of memory. Also, you want the board to be able to be able to upgrade the processor higher than the processor you are buying now, for future development of the system according to new standards. Examples of good motherboards are: Gigabit, ASUS, Abit, and MSI.

2. Processor - The processor is the brain unit that controls the entire computer. Without the processor, nothing inside the computer would function at all. You will need a good processor, at least a Pentium 4 with at least 2 gigahertz of processing power.

3. RAM - This is the power of your computer. The more RAM you have, the faster your machine will compute the necessary information to process your request. You will need a lot of RAM to process certain kinds of video and images, especially when gaming online. The normal amount of RAM for a home theater PC is around 4, and upwards of 8. This is for maximum performance.

4. Hard Drive - The hard drive is the storage unit of the computer. There are three things that you need to know about a hard drive: the amount of stuff you can put in it (storage), the seek time (time it takes for the HDD to access the information), and the RPM speed (the speed at which it saves information). You're going to want at least a 7200 RPM hard drive with a seek time under 5 milliseconds.

There are also other options like RAID setups and SCSI which are 10,000 RPM+, but cost more. SCSI is not used as much anymore, and RAID setups are more common for people who want more peace of mind for backing up information and to lower seek time. RAID is usually configured with two or four hard drives, and all of them run together. The information is split up onto the hard drives, and when accessed, they all work together to access the information as fast as possible. The RAID setup is much faster when saving and accessing information than the standard setup. IDE hard drives were the standard until a few years ago, and were replaced by SATA and SATA II drives. These drives are much faster than the former IDE drives, and are now a middle ground in-between the IDE and the RAID speeds.

As far as storage is concerned, ideally you want an internal drive of at least 350 gigs and also have an external storage drive of around 500 gigabytes (or half a terabyte). This external unit will allow you to watch movies immediately from one computer to another without having to transfer date through the network. Just save all your movies or any media you want to watch onto both the internal and external hard drives, and then just unplug the external drive and plug it into the USB port of the home theater PC to view the media of your choice. This eliminates network traffic, and transfer time.

5. Video Card - You're going to want to have at least a 256 megabyte video card. There are many card brands on the web including Nvidia, ATI, and a few others that are top of the line and standard for most gamers and video pros. There are also variables to who manufactures these brands, like MSI, A Open, ASUS, BFG, Creative Labs, Diamond and ATI. These are just a few of the good brands that make quality video cards. Stick to these brands when you buy a video card, because you shouldn't really go cheap when buying one. There are many places to compare video cards, and get their benchmark scores (results of how good a card is). Lastly, you're going to want to make sure your video card is PCI Express, and that your motherboard supports SLI so that if needed, you can buy two video cards and run them together for double the power. This is for mostly gaming though. Most all computer motherboards come with SLI to hold at least two video cards, sometimes you can run 4 in extreme cases.

6. Power supply - This is the AC power unit that you use to power the system. For the system that you're getting, you're going to want to get at least a 500W power supply. This will give you a good amount of power to run all the parts of your machine. Ideally, you're going to want a 600W or higher unit, but that is up to you. These higher rated supplies also cost more.

Comparing HTPC Manufacturers

There are many companies which offer home theater PCs to consumers, but some companies which offer such products are doing so only because the market exists. There are only a few companies that offer HTPCs which provide a good value, and each has their respective strengths.

Buying an HTPC

Generally speaking, building a home theater PC can save a lot of money. That said, building an HTPC isn't for everyone. It takes a lot of time to research all of the correct components and put them together. Those who would rather have a pre-built HTPC have many options available to them. But which manufacturers build HTPCs which are really worth your money?

Cyberpower

If you've ever opened a copy of Maxmium PC, PC Pro, or some other large print publication, you've probably seen an advertisement for Cyberpower. Cyberpower has been around for a while now and has slowly gained a solid reputation in the market of budget computers. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are less powerful then computers available from competitors like Dell. Instead, Cyberpower tries to keep competitive by keeping their overhead costs low and therefore providing a lower price on comparable hardware.

It seems that Cyberpower is certainly winning the price wars when it comes to HTPCs. Their Media Center X64, a small media center PC with an Athlon X2 7750 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a TV tuner can be purchased at the surprising price of $499. That is extremely low for a pre-built home theater PC. Of course, this base configuration is missing a video card (the motherboard does have integrated Radeon graphics) and the TV tuner seems to be quite generic. But these problems can be rectified with a few upgrades, and Cyberpower also offers more expensive versions with far more robust features. Those more expensive products are much more powerful but still follow the Cyberpower creed of providing good bang for the buck.

Dell

Oddly, Dell no longer seems to offer any dedicated HTPC configuration. In the past Dell had sold a very robust and very expensive HTPC called the Hanger 18 though its Alienware division, but that product no longer appears to be for sale. That does not mean that Dell has nothing on offer, however, as Dell's Studio XPS 435, available with a base price of $899, is available with a TV Tuner slot. While that base price is far higher then the above Cyberpower PC, the Dell XPS 435 is much more powerful. It offers a Core i7 920 and a Radeon 4350 as standard. The TV Tuner options aren't overpriced or off-brands, either. The base Hauppauge TV Tuner with Remote only tacks $60 dollars to the price.

Overall, the Dell is a good pick for those wanting a powerful yet affordable HTPC. The only real problem is that it is not designed from scratch for HTPC use and so it looks like any other tower PC. This can make it difficult to blend into a home theater setting. Also, while Dell's TV tuner upgrade is affordable, their Blu-Ray upgrade is a rather steep $120 dollars.

Velocity Micro

It wasn't long ago that Velocity Micro was just another no-name company competing in a dangerous PC desktop market. Velocity Micro's PCs have been well regarded, however, and increased in popularity over the years. There is good reason for that. Their PCs use some great cases - usually Lian-Li models - and reach a middle ground between a budget company like Cyberpower and a huge corporation like Dell.

That said, there is nothing cheap about Velocity Micro's HTPC offerings. The CineMagix FuzeBox Whole Home Media Server is a pricey $1995, over twice the cost of the Dell XPS and four times the price of the base Cyberpower HTPC. There is reason for the cost. While both Cyberpower and Dell offer products which do indeed plug into a TV and play media, Velocity Micro is pushing its own customer HTPC software called Fuzebox. This software is designed to integrate not only the functions of playing media in a home theater, but also the function of playing media throughout a whole house. A Cinemagix Fuzebox system can, for example, be set up to play music in the kitchen or the living room.

The Velocity Micro solution is likely overkill for many people. In fact, it is arguable if it is an HTPC at all, because it is not a PC which is targeted towards just the home theater but rather towards all of the media needs for a household. But Velocity Micro also offers some lesser HTPCs, and while they do not have the same unique interface, they are still extremely solid machines. Velocity Micro is probably the company to turn to for those who are more interested in the quality of the end product then the value represented by the price tag.

Other Brands

These are not the only manufacturers of HTPCs, but they are some of the most popular and highly regarded. Many companies like HP also have PCs with TV tuner options, and there are also companies like Okoro which create HTPCs with special features like integrated amplifiers. The above HTPC manufacturers should be able to provide a solution which fits the needs of most buyers, however. And no matter what HTPC one purchases, be sure to check out the reputation the manufacturer before. There are many local PC repair shops which will build an HTPC to order, but those shops rarely have the same level of customer support that is provided by a company like Dell or Velocity Micro.

The Advantages of a Home Theater PC

There are many ways to incorporate your computer into your home theater setup. There are many possibilities that you can unveil when using a PC in addition to a home theater setup. In this article, we will get into the advantages of setting up a home theater PC

Things Needed

There are tons of things that you can do with your home theater system when adding a PC to the mix. Lots of people like to play movies, music, and share documents to view in the comfort of their living room or bedroom.

There are a few things needed when putting together a home theater pc. First, you need a PC with at least a Pentium 4 (or AMD equivalent) processor with a fast motherboard. You also need a video card that is at least 256 megabytes, a decent sound card, and a fairly large hard drive to store the movies you want to watch. Depending on the use, you would also need a wireless keyboard and mouse so you can control the PC while sitting in bed- or across the living room. I would recommend a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. These can be found all over the Internet and range in price from $75 to $200. These are the most reliable keyboards for long distance accuracy and a "must have" for home theater PC users.

You can watch your favorite movie downloaded from Itunes or an affiliated pay-per-download service in high quality surround sound. This can be done by hooking your home theater PC up to the internet, either wireless via router and wireless Ethernet card, or thru a wired cable into an Ethernet card. To avoid latency, you are going to want to use either a high speed wireless G or N connection to do the transferring or streaming. If using a wired connection, you will want to use a gigabit speed Ethernet card.

Streaming

Streaming video is content sent in compressed form over the Internet and displayed by the viewer in real time. With streaming video a web user does not have to wait to download a file to play it. Instead, the media is sent in a continuous stream of data and is played as it arrives. When streaming all of the aforementioned items need to be incorporated into your system. This will keep the crystal clear picture that you want in movies, and also keep the sound lined up with the movie. There is nothing worse than an American-based movie that, because of a bad connection, looks like a poorly dubbed kung fu movie. My suggestion to avoid this possibility is to transfer the movie that you will be watching to your hard drive temporarily before you watch it. The data transfer will only take a few minutes, depending on the file size (a 700 megabyte movie will take approximately three minutes on a normal connection and less on faster connection). This will take away the possibility of network traffic causing interference, and leave only the computer latency to be the source of a possible problem. If you are streaming a movie or video clip from the Internet on Youtube or another site, you may not be able to download it and are left with streaming only.

Internet, gaming and sharing files

Two other uses for a home theater PC are computer gaming and sharing files. These two things, depending on who the users are, can be very helpful. The internet gaming network is a huge network of any kind of game you can think of, and they are all connected together by the Internet. Many games are what's called first person shooters or FPS, and are mostly games involving only a view of the weapon you are firing from your first person perspective. There are also role playing games (RPG), Real-time strategy (RTS), and many others. With your PC incorporated into this home theater PC system, you can play all those great games on your tv in your living room or bedroom. This experience increases when you view the game on a Flat panel LCD, plasma, or DLP TV in a large format of at least 32" or larger.

File sharing is the ability to share files between two or more computers on a home based network. You can share video, audio, documents, and plently of other formats through file sharing. There are also many factors to think about when sharing files: file size, amount of files to be shared, content, and the amount of sharing that takes place These factors are all determined greatly by the ability of the network to process this sharing in an acceptable amount of time. If you have all the elements of a good system, your file sharing as well as your home theater experience will be wonderful for years to come.

How to Connect a Laptop to a Television

There are a multitude of reasons to connect your laptop to a television; for example, you might want to view a presentation, or just play some games on a larger screen. Thankfully, it's actually really simple to do

Introduction

Many people find it useful to use a television as a display for their laptop. The larger screen makes it easier for others to view the same material, rather than having to crowd around a small laptop. Connecting your laptop to a television is useful for many other reasons as well. Laptops can be used as DVD players to watch movies, or you can connect a game controller to your laptop and play games on your television's larger screen. Fortunately, there are only a few simple steps to connecting a laptop to a television.

Non-HD Connection

Depending on the type of television you have, there are different cables that you will need in order to connect the laptop to the television.

For an older non-HD television, you'll most likely use either an S-Video cable or an "S-Video to RCA" adapter cable. When you have the cable, simply plug one end into the S-Video Out port on your laptop, and the other into the S-Video In on your television.

If you are using an "S-Video to RCA" adapter cable, you'll need to plug the cable into the S-Video Out on your laptop, and then plug one end of an RCA cable into the adapter, and the other end into the Video-In on your television.

HD Connections

For High Definition televisions, there are a few more options for connecting the laptop. Most new laptops have an HDMI-Out port, making them very easy to connect to HDTVs; simply plug an HDMI cable into the laptop and television.

You can also use the DVI or VGA ports on your laptop to connect to an HDTV, though you might need to use an adapter to convert them to HDMI, if your TV doesn't have those connections. If your laptop does not have an HDMI or DVI connection, but you still want to view High-Definition content, you can use an "S-Video to Component Video" adapter. This is similar to the S-Video to RCA adapter, but supports HD resolutions.

Turning your PC into a Blu Ray Player

If you're thinking about buying a Blu Ray player - wait! One option available is adding a Blu Ray player to an HTPC which you currently own. Doing this is an affordable way to gain Blu Ray capability, and it is easier than you might think

Going Blu-Ray, The Inexpensive Way

Now that Blu-Ray has won the war, prices on players have begun to drop dramatically as companies begin full-fledged attempts to establish themselves as the best in building Blu-Ray players. Blu-Ray players can be had for around $200 for a base model, which looks good compared to a year ago. Still, when compared to dime-a-dozen DVD players, the price of Blu-Ray is still expensive.

But there is an unexpected hero willing to fight for your pocketbook - your PC. Blu-Ray players for HTPCs have been around for some time, and their prices have dropped along with the prices for stand-alone units. Currently, it is possible to purchase a Blu-Ray player for your HTPC at a price of around $99 dollars, half that of basic stand-alone units. Thanks to this bargain pricing, turning your PC into a Blu-Ray player is an attractive solution, although there are some requirements you'll need to ensure your HTPC meets before you upgrade to a Blu-Ray player.

Preparing Your PC

The first roadblock you will need to clear on your path to cheap Blu-Ray enjoyment is the performance of your HTPC. Blu-Ray is not a format which will handle your PC with kid's gloves. Displaying large, high-detail images on a screen many times per second takes a significant amount of muscle, as does plowing through the encoding used to protect the disc from pirates and condense the video and audio into a more palatable size.

There are several areas of performance which you'll need to pay attention to. The first is your processor. A decent dual-core like an Athlon 64 or a Core 2 is recommended. Single-core processors and modern budget dual-cores like Intel's Celeron series may not be up to the challenge. Theoretically, the GPU - which I'll cover next - should be able to take most of the load off the processor. But theory does not always become practice. It is not unusual to see a moderately powerful Core 2 processor working heavily when displaying 1080p Blu-Ray content.

Secondly you'll want to check on your GPU. Having a GPU which is capable of taking on the task of displaying high-def video should take the burden off your processor, creating less strain on the system as a whole. In addition, a good GPU can offer HDMI-out abilities which allow you to run video and audio directly from your PC to your HDTV using a single cable. This makes hooking an HTPC up to your home theater system much easier. For Blu-Ray content, you'll probably want something from the Radeon 3000 series or newer, or an Nvidia card from the 9000 series or newer.

Connecting Your DVD Player to Your Computer Monitor

With the price of LCD computer monitors being much less than the price of LCD televisions, and the desire to contain all of your electronics in a central area, you may be wondering if you can attach your DVD player directly to your computer monitor.

DVD Player to Computer Monitor Connections

Hooking up a DVD player to a computer monitor is wholly dependent on the hardware involved. Depending what output options that your DVD player has and what input options your monitor has, you can have a wonderful experience or less than satisfactory one.

If you have a newer DVD player, one with DVI output, and an LCD monitor with DVI input, you can hook your DVD player to your monitor with no problems. Just hook your cable in and go. It's the same with HDMI to HDMI, but there are less computer monitors with HDMI input.

But, what if you have an older CRT monitor that has stunning clarity but no DVI input? Then, you can purchase a DVI/HDMI to VGA cable, which will attach to any monitor. However, there will most likely be some loss of quality as the output is digital while the input is analog. This loss may be very insignificant, and you may be happy with the output. Again, it depends on the DVD player and the monitor.

If your DVD player does not have an HDMI output, you will need a composite and S-Video to VGA video converter. These devices are capable of switching the signal in order to hook up DVD players, video games, and other devices to the computer monitor, but they come with a price. The video is not as crisp and clear as it would be if it were coming directly from the computer.

If plugging your DVD player into your computer monitor is something you would like to try, you should first determine what quality you are looking for. The best quality will obviously come from a direct digital connection. All other connections will cause a loss of quality. This loss may be small and relatively unnoticeable, or it may be very significant. One thing to remember is loss of quality is subjective. You may think the picture looks beautiful, while someone else thinks it's less than stunning. The best thing to do is give it a try and see what you think.