Maximum PC Moonlights With a HTPC Build

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[quote=”Mikinho”]
[quote=”autoboy”]
Yeah, they didn’t need the sound card[/quote]

One one of the pre-reqs was 3D HDTV and HD Audio bitstreaming so a discrete sound card was needed since the NVIDIA 4xx series weren’t available at the time of the article.

[quote=”autoboy”]
The worst HTPC builds are the Atom/ION builds.  At least when these guys are done they can play Hulu.  Those guys that build ION systems can’t even play all the videos they throw at the ION systems.
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We’ll have a review next month that will disagree on that.  The AtomION builds can be a great HTPC if done right assuming you aren’t a big add-inextra software user.  For a long time Flash was worthless with Ion builds but since their introduced hardware acceleration it works quite nicely.
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God I hate HD bitstreaming.  I wish it would just go away.

Why anyone would spend an extra $250 plus all the setup headaches to get bitstreaming is beyond me.  That same person would probably pair that bitstreaming setup with a small $1000 satellite speaker system thinking they got great sound out of it.  LPCM is right there absolutely free.   ::)  If you want bitstreaming over LPCM because you must have completely untouched audio then you had better have $3000 worth of speaker and $800 worth of amp or more with perfectly placed speakers and exact calibration.

Is your Atom dual core?  That makes it better.  But does it work with Hulu?  What about with Silverlight?

[mikinho]

[quote=”autoboy”]
Is your Atom dual core?  That makes it better.  But does it work with Hulu?  What about with Silverlight?
[/quote]

Yes ,dual core w/ hyperthreading (i.e. 4 threads).  I would never recommend a non-dual core.  I would urge anyone looking at an Atom system to wait for until the D525 is used more on SSF devices, it is a the first 2nd generation Atom that offers a decent speed improvement.  I’m a big fan of the D510 for low-powered server usage and routers but the D525 does a better job for mini-HTPCs.

But all of the dual core AtomsIon combinations work great with both Hulu and Silverlight.  With higher rate Blu-ray rips you’ll tend to see some issues though.

[Andrew Van Til]

[quote=”autoboy”]
God I hate HD bitstreaming.  I wish it would just go away.
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There are a lot of reasons why HD bit streaming is a very nice feature (bypassing the OS’s mixer to name a big one).  Why do you want it to go away?

[autoboy]

[quote=”babgvant”]
[quote=”autoboy”]
God I hate HD bitstreaming.  I wish it would just go away.
[/quote]

There are a lot of reasons why HD bit streaming is a very nice feature (bypassing the OS’s mixer to name a big one).  Why do you want it to go away?

[/quote]

because it is confusing for users and completely unnecessary for 99.99% of of the population.  It is thought by many people as the only way to get HD audio to your speakers but that is not true at all.

[captain_video]

[quote=”autoboy”]
God I hate HD bitstreaming.  I wish it would just go away.

Why anyone would spend an extra $250 plus all the setup headaches to get bitstreaming is beyond me.  That same person would probably pair that bitstreaming setup with a small $1000 satellite speaker system thinking they got great sound out of it.  LPCM is right there absolutely free.   ::)  If you want bitstreaming over LPCM because you must have completely untouched audio then you had better have $3000 worth of speaker and $800 worth of amp or more with perfectly placed speakers and exact calibration.
[/quote]
The same reason there are so many people into high end audio when the vast majority of the population is happy with their Bose Lifestyle systems.  We want the best sound possible.  I guess I qualify because my surround system far exceeds your minimum requirements. ;D

[quote=”autoboy”]
because it is confusing for users and completely unnecessary for 99.99% of of the population.  It is thought by many people as the only way to get HD audio to your speakers but that is not true at all.
[/quote]
In fact, I found bitstreaming to be quite simple to set up and get working with very little effort.  I was originally using an Asus HDAV 1.3 sound card and then switched to an ATi HD 5670 graphics card for bitstreaming HD audio.  Neither setup required more than a couple of settings to select the HDMI output for the primary sound device and one or two playback apps.  It’s nowhere near as confusing as you make it out to be.

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