My New htpc for Blu Ray and HD DVD.

[Jeremy Duncan]

I bought the Dell Inspiron 530.
I bouth the LG Combo Reader and 2600XT Video card and put it in there.
I have 1 gig of ram and a E6600 cpu.
I’m using the 7.7 drivers and catalyst.
I’m using the onboard sound plugged into my pc speakers.  I installed the realtek hdmi aduio drivers for the 2600xt too.
I’m using Vista 32 bit and the newest powerdvd update. This is the Pdvd Ultra that came with the drive, free.
I tested Reservoir Dogs (blu ray) and Arctic Tale (hd dvd).

I previously calibrated my powerdvd using the sddvd.
For hd though, the brightness and contrast was out, so I set the brightness 16 higher, and the contrast 16 lower then tested it using the calibration disk [url=http://”http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496″%5DHere.%5B/url%5D Blu Ray is easier using these free disks.

I adjusted the saturation and hue after adjusting the brightness and saturation.

I used reservoir dogs blu ray to calibrate the brightness.
Since it’s a 2:35 aspect, on my 16;10 monitor there is a distinguishable difference in brightness in the middle of the black top and bottom border if the brightness is out.
This is how I found out to raise the brightness 16 notches.
I used the screen before the menu.

If you calibrate while the dvd is playing the blu ray or hd dvd screen goes funny.
So you need to guess how many points to move the brightness, close the movie. Set it in the color control, restart the pc and start the movie to see how you did.
I made the mistake of calibrating while the polar bear movie was playing and the the picture got messy.

As for how I got both blu ray and hd dvd going and sdvd.
I just installed the pdvd software, updated it. Then, whenever I open a dvd I use the “Cyberlink High Def Suite”, and it asks me if I want to play a sdvd or hd dvd or blu ray. I then pop the dvd in the tray and click which one and press play. The mouse doesn’t work on the menu, so i have to press the enter button to start the movie.

When I click which kind of movie I want to play the cyberlink screen will open.
If I right click on the cyberlink screen I can open the Configuration.
Once in configuration I just click “Video”tab and check accelate video to use the uvd on the 2600xt card.

I tested the power to see how much watts were being used, since I read that a 400 watt was needed.
I used the “Kill a watt” and tested the Voltage amps.
Voltage amps represent the power being used better than the watts.
A watt can be a less than or equal to the voltage amps.
The maximum Va used was 205 = 205 watts.
This was during bootup or using the acronis ghost image.

I read on cnet that this pc is noisy. It is very quiet.
I can’t hear anything but a slight hum that I think is the hdd.
The pc has 300 watts available.
The movies are viewed on my Dell 2007wfp at a foot and some inches away.

Looking at reservoir dogs on this monitor it looked a bit soft.
I was expecting the picture to look like those Hot Fuzz comparison pictures xylon posted.
I think the denoising or something is softening the picture.

The polar bear hd dvd looked ok, but this didn’t jump out at me either.
Not like those Hot Fuzz comparison screen caputres did.

I thought I was watching downconverted video, but no. It was using up to 24Mbps on the reservoir dogs dvd.

The only thing I can say is it looks like the ffdshow dvd’s I watched, but it has nothing to do with Didée or those people.
But that’sjust my opinion having seen both.
I’m sure If I did comparison shots I would see the difference, but just using memory i can’t really tell a big difference.
.
The cpu peaked at a bit above 40% and I use about 850 MB using the registry tweaks
[code]
waittokillservicetimeout: 4000
disablepagingexecutive: 1
enablesuperfetch: 0
[/code]

System Properties, Advanced, Settings, visual effects, set to Performance.

That’s my new hd pc story.
I hoped you liked it. 🙂

[Author]

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