Computer based movies and music

[admin_exported]

Hi all,

This may well be a daft idea but does anyone use a computer to store movies and music but play them through an AV amplifier and TV?

I am thinking of using a desktop PC to store all my movies and music and play them through a HDMI lead to my Onkyo SR806 amp, this is connected to a pair of Monitor Audio BR6 floorstanders, a pair of BRFX surrounds, a BRLCR centre and a REL Strata 2 sub. I am fully aware a cinema set up can not be perfect for music as well but I have found that in pure audio mode with the amp powering just the floorstanders the sound is perfectly good enough for my music needs, in DTS or Pro-logic etc the movie sound is also good enough. My system also has a Panasonic Bluray, Xbox 360, Virgin V+ and a Samsung full HD 40" Lcd TV all on HDMIs, and I would like to know if it is possible or sensible to use a PC on a spare HDMI input to the amp and will it be easy enough to control with a wireless keyboard using the TV as a monitor, also what sort of PC spec would be needed besides a large hard drive.

I am no whizz with computers but I can get by, there may be alternatives to my idea but I am unaware of them, I do have an Ipod and have thought of a dock but that would only do music, I am also unaware of the possabilities of downloading movies from the V+ box to PC or Bluray to PC etc, I dont want to be doing anything illegal but I do already record on V+ so a different hard drive should not be any different.

If anyone knows a bit more about all this or an alternative please let me know good or bad.

Thanks, Simon.

 

[davejberry]

Hi Simon, welcome to the forums.

I do something similar to what you are thinking about although I don't connect the pc directly as it's far to noisy for music playback at sensible levels in my lounge, I have the pc and hard drives in another room.

I have a lot of recorded tv and films from sky that i have saved to dvd. I have copied all this to hard drive as well as ripped all my CDs to a lossless format (in my case flac and wma lossless).

Using a WDTVlive connected to my home network I am then able to search and play all my music and video through my home cinema system. The WDTV live outputs both HD video and multi channel audio over HDMI or can also output audio over optical.

A simple pc running XP will suffice. I have about 2TB of attached storage on top of the two 500 GB discs inside.

For ripping and encoding my CDs I used dBpoweramp. My media server is Twonky

Nero or Roxio I believe can take care of your ripping DVDs you have made from your V+ recordings.

 

[PJPro]

davejberry,

Why don't you consider attaching an external HDD to your WDTV Live? It'll mean that you won't need your PC on, it'll provide an additional backup of your files and it'll mean that you won't miss the first 1/2 second of your music tracks.

I use a Samsung Story. I like it because it has a switch in the front which I can use to turn it off when I'm not using it.

 

[landzw]

You could add a NAS drive to your WD media player if you can get an internet connection to it , then you can just stream the movies / music over to the NAS from your Pc without having to keep unplugging things all the time

 

[PJPro]

landzw:You could add a NAS drive to your WD media player if you can get an internet connection to it , then you can just stream the movies / music over to the NAS from your Pc without having to keep unplugging things all the time
Yes, but then the NAS has to be switched on. OK, it won't cost as same as having a PC switched on...but the advantage of the external HDD is that you only switch it on when you need it.

 

[kinda]

Hello, I used to have an XBox running XBMC, and it was very good, (until it broke though no hi def).

Having done quite a bit of research recently an ION-based PC, maybe again with XBMC, seems to be the best bet. They are low power and quiet, and can be had as complete systems in a small form factor for a few hundred pounds or less. They seem to do all the hi-def video and audio as required.

Might be worth remembering that ION 2 is on the way, though it doesn't sound as if the benefits are that big over ION.

In terms of getting rid of physical media and the convenience a media centre is great and XBMC is free and very slick. Plus it's potentially upgradeable. However, I did somehow feel that video and sound were better from a Toshiba XDE 500 than the XBox, (never did a back to back comparison), but with better processing power that may have changed and I've heard some goods reports on quality in comparison to standalone BluRay decks.

Was hoping a BluRay player would appear that could read NTFS or EXT3 file systems, (that support big file sizes), and that could read ISO files from the network, but nothing seems to be forthcoming so I'm currently thinking of going for an ION media centre myself instead of a standalone player.

 

[kinda]

BTW the Acer Aspire Revo seems to be popular at the moment as wells as the ASRock ION machines.

The important thing is to have a good graphics processor in the machine that can do all the decoding as it's too intensive to do well in software. Also one that supports the audio over HDMI.

XBMC can decode all the hi def formats to LPCM over HDMI if you need that.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies, another option would be one of the Panasonic DVD recorders and the Onkyo Ipod dock, but I really wanted one unit to do both movies and music and be easy to use. An external hard drive would be a good option but I am unsure how it would need to be controlled and with a PC or the DVD recorder I would be able to copy to DVD if required. My Xbox is far too noisey to use for anything but games. There are a few options but I dont know which way to go.

Thanks again

Simon.

 

[bigboss]

The PS3 is usually less noisier than an XBOX and can be eliminated if you ensure adequate ventilation. It also acts like a wireless media player to wirelessly stream media off your computer.

 

[PJPro]

bigboss:The PS3 is usually less noisier than an XBOX and can be eliminated if you ensure adequate ventilation. It also acts like a wireless media player to wirelessly stream media off your computer.
The WDTV Live will also stream and is silent.

 

[Anonymous]

hi

I use a similar setup. i have a desktop laptop hybrid connected to USB sound card > digital coax out>amplifier

regarding PC, your best bet will be Dell XPS m2010. its the biggest laptop in world with 20.1 inches, excellent HD screen.

Good points for movie/music playback are it is virtually silent during music/ movie and frankly i have never heard its fans except during intensive MAYA work.

It comes with Nintendo Wii style air remote with inbuilt LCD screen.You can see songs being played in remote and since its operate on wireless USb technology,you can operate it from anywhere in house.i havent tested its range but it alteast works from 25 meters.

remote is backlit and very easy to use.

Its body is made of magnesium and does offer better electric interference then a standard laptop as well desktop.

if you buy a dell xps AV kit for 15£, you will get digital out etc so you can omit sound card but i am not sure whether it will lead to detioration in sound quality or not. i have the kit but always used creative USb sound card

I have to mention my thanks to PJpro as i read his post about music from pc and switched to winamp with kernel streaming.it did improved audio quality in one simple step by a big margin,but i do miss the facility of seeing songs detail in my remote as it does not natively support winamp

I have connected 1tb and 500gb hdds to laptop and they are Lacie fanless designs : ) so in all you can have noiseless system by choosing wisely

 

[Anonymous]

forgot to mention that by using a USB sound card , you can eliminate any electric interference from Laptop eletronics.i am using a longer usb cord and sound card is far off from laptop

 

[Torres09]

PJPro:bigboss:The PS3 is usually less noisier than an XBOX and can be eliminated if you ensure adequate ventilation. It also acts like a wireless media player to wirelessly stream media off your computer.
The WDTV Live will also stream and is silent.

Im with PJPro on this one, the WDTV Live is one of the best pieces of equipment i've aquired in recent times.....