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[deanorth]

Greetings everyone

I would like to change completly my HTPC, now that I have a transport audio PC, based on a stracom FC7B, I would like to move my HTPC to a smaller case than my actual Fractal design node 605.

I'm hesitating between HDplex HD10sodd case with 250w hifi external linear PSU, and streacom FC10, but my hesitation is elswehere.

With a 4770k to power the computer, without a dedicated videocard, would red october HQ still runs, and be able to read everything smoothly, including BR (as I'll have a br reader plus anydvdHD)?

that's my main concern...

[dvogel1]

Hello,

My HTPC has an i5-4570 processor (HD 4600 graphics) and no video card. JRiver plays video (Red October, non HQ) without any problems from my Pioneer DBR-209DBK Blu-ray drive (very quiet). With HQ selected playback works but the video menu structure malfunctions.

Now for the big asterisk- I haven't played any Blu-ray discs yet.

The 4570 is overkill but I chose it to have the 4600 graphics capability.

[InflatableMouse]

There have been many questions about this and a quick search should find at least some of them.

In my experience anything up from a HD4000 or GT430 will do ROHQ with the default settings, except deinterlacing. That requires a GTX660 or higher.

I currently own a NUC with HD5000, it does jinc 3-taps quite easily, but still doesn't deinterlace very well.

[deanorth]

Thanks

means if I buy for example a streacom FC10 case, I could fit a GTX660 inside, and benefit from still very good qs on video...
thanks a lot for the information guys, very helpfull

[mykillk]

AMD's new Kaveri APUs definitely deserve a look.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?gclid=CjgKEAjw7OKaBRCxgtW8nYzG-3cSJACQJEGPckjU_VghKjwKJK1OakwR09eIGfnZKmIPU3yEzFE9NfD_BwE&Item=N82E16819113359&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Processors+-+Desktops-_-N82E16819113359&ef_id=UtTEqAAABMMmmC3A:20140425054628:s

Definitely going to be a bit weaker on the CPU side than the Intel chip you mentioned, but the GPU performance should be great and that matters more for HTPC use IMO.

[InflatableMouse]

The AMD is definitely worth a look, but mind a few things. madVR's exclusive overlay mode doesn't work on AMD and its GPU still isn't fast enough for deinterlacing with madVR.

The downside of a GTX660 or similar dedicated graphics card are the fans. It's anything but silent and when deinterlacing, it will be running near its max so fans will ramp up quickly. Also, last time I looked, the midrange 700-series were cheaper than a 660. You might want to go for the latest greatest.

Last but not least. Think about how much interlaced material you really have and whether its worth the price and noise. For me personally, I have very little interlaced material so this is unimportant to me. The times that I do watch some, I rather have the visual artifacts than a loud buzzing fan or, I re-encode and decomb it offline with handbrake or something. Paying a premium for a dedicated card made no sense for me personally, but if you have a lot of recorded tv shows at 1080i for instance, it might be worth it. Think about it.

[Hendrik]

My GTX660 with Gigabytes Windforce cooler is virtually silent up to 70% load or so, a load level which you will never reach during video playback unless you start using NNEDI, and even after that it remains pretty quiet.
Don't underestimate the GTX660, its a rather powerful card for video playback applications (not counting OpenCL tasks), and it doesn't even break a sweat deinterlacing 1080i content.

PS:
Exclusive mode works on AMD cards, its Overlay mode which doesn't.

[InflatableMouse]

Ah yes, Corrected. Cheers. I knew that

[Hilton]

Here's my Hi-end HTPC config. I highly recommend the ASUS GTX760 DCUII for video. Very quiet.

I built a new permanent HTPC not long ago to replace the part-time Surface Pro 2 which was struggling with processor throttling with MadVR scaling of SD material.

This config is also a great "Steambox" for gaming and awesome HTPC which is whisper quiet even with the GPU at 60% utilisation when applying 4 taps of Jinc in MadVR on SD material.

The Spec is:
Gigabyte z87x-ud3h motherboard
Intel i7 4770 3.9Ghz Quad core Haswell processor
8GB TridentX 2400Mhz DDR3 Ram
Samsung 840 120GB SSD
Asus GTX760 DirectCU II 2GB DDR5 Ram which is whisper quiet
Seasonic 550W PSU which is also whisper quiet
Corsair H75 CPU water cooler which is also whisper quiet

And of course a wireless Xbox controller and old logitech dinovo bluetooth keyboard with media pad and mouse.

I realise the spec is a little over the top for HTPC duties but it makes a very good gaming machine, easily spitting out 60FPS in 2D with max graphics quality (ultra settings) and between 30 and 60FPS in 3D games on high settings. (which I can now enjoy at 1080P SBS 3D @ 60hz with the latest firmware!)

Redoing the calibration with an Nvidia GTX 760 was a similar experience to getting a good picture with the Surface Pro 2 Intel 4400 GPU, but I did learn a few more things that quite surprised me.

Firstly to get BTB below 16 and WTW above 235 to pass through with the Nvidia I had to set the nvidia drivers to 16-235 and do the same throughout the whole video chain. (MadVR)

With the same calibration on the Intel 4400 and using YUV 0-255 I had some visible banding in the grey scale and could still see BTB.
Using 16-235 YUV444 on the Nvidia I got BTB and no banding pattern in the grayscale ramp because their was no compression or interpolation in the video path.

With the GTX 760 I also had to use a display port to HDMI adaptor to get 7.1 channel DTSHD MA audio for my sony 5200ES receiver as it wont pass through 1080p24 with the Nvidia card but it would with the Intel 4400.
So im using HDMI for video and display port to HDMI for audio. The HDMI port on the GTX 760 goes straight to the projector.

The projector is also running in YUV mode again as it was with the Intel 4400 which means brightness is at 48 and contrast at 55. This seems to get the best out of this projector for my screen. Very happy with my new HTPC/Steambox with the W1080ST. Its perfect!

[6233638]

Firstly to get BTB below 16 and WTW above 235 to pass through with the Nvidia I had to set the nvidia drivers to 16-235 and do the same throughout the whole video chain. (MadVR)

BTB and WTW are not supposed to be visible during playback.
They are only used for calibration purposes, and shouldn't be necessary on any modern display.

If your display supports an 0-255 signal, that is what you should be sending it.
The settings in the video section of the Nvidia control panel should not have any effect on madVR playback. You should be using the madVR controls for that. (but again, BTB and WTW should be clipped in the PC)

Using 16-235 YUV444 on the Nvidia I got BTB and no banding pattern in the grayscale ramp because their was no compression or interpolation in the video path.

PCs work in RGB. If you output YUV then the video card is performing a conversion from RGB to YUV, and it is usually not done with the greatest precision.
madVR's conversion to RGB is done with 16-bits per channel, with very nice dithering options available. I wouldn't output YUV unless your display requires it.

With the GTX 760 I also had to use a display port to HDMI adaptor to get 7.1 channel DTSHD MA audio for my sony 5200ES receiver as it wont pass through 1080p24 with the Nvidia card but it would with the Intel 4400.

You should decode in the PC to LPCM so that you can use Media Center's VideoClock feature, rather than bitstreaming.
Bitstreaming usually results in either audio sync problems or video stuttering.

[Hilton]

Firstly to get BTB below 16 and WTW above 235 to pass through with the Nvidia I had to set the nvidia drivers to 16-235 and do the same throughout the whole video chain. (MadVR)

BTB and WTW are not supposed to be visible during playback.
They are only used for calibration purposes, and shouldn't be necessary on any modern display.

Its not quite as straight forward as you make out!  There were, or still are a number of bugs with Nvidia's handling of HDMI and YUV/RGB which I cant remember the details off the top of my head. But it makes it extremely fiddly to get YUV444 working properly which is what works best with my projector.

Edit: found it, the complete explanation by the man himself madshi, essentially Nvidia need to implement a global video mode to stop all these issues with the driver not displaying the correct video mode> https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/523992/tip-for-nvidia-users-using-hdmi-and-getting-accurate-color-format/

Ok, the above are the technical facts. Now let's talk about what this means in real life:

 Some displays expect 0-255. Some displays expect 16-235. Some displays can be switched between 0-255 and 16-235. The NVidia driver has no way to know for sure what the display is configured for. So there *MUST* be a user option to define the "global mode". And such an option is currently sorely missing.

 My suggestion on how to solve this mess is this:

 (1) In the NVidia control panel under "Adjust desktop color settings -> Digital color format" you could extend the options from "RGB, YCbCr444" to "RGB Full, RGB Limited, YCbCr444". This switch would then control the "global mode".

 (2) Get totally rid of the "video mode", please. It makes zero sense to define different black/white levels for video as opposed to e.g. photos. A display always expects black and white to be at the same values. The display doesn't care whether the content is video, games, photos, applications or whatever. So having a separate RGB dynamic range option for video makes no sense, as far as I can see.

 (3) Please make the global mode switch available for developers via NVAPI, too.

Yes its obvious you don't need BTB or WTW but it makes it easier to calibrate if you can see BTB and WTW. Of course you shouldn't see it when calibrated.

Using 16-235 YUV444 on the Nvidia I got BTB and no banding pattern in the grayscale ramp because their was no compression or interpolation in the video path.

PCs work in RGB. If you output YUV then the video card is performing a conversion from RGB to YUV, and it is usually not done with the greatest precision.
madVR's conversion to RGB is done with 16-bits per channel, with very nice dithering options available. I wouldn't output YUV unless your display requires it.

As I said above, I need YUV444 for best video quality with my projector. It has chroma subsampling errors with RGB.

With the GTX 760 I also had to use a display port to HDMI adaptor to get 7.1 channel DTSHD MA audio for my sony 5200ES receiver as it wont pass through 1080p24 with the Nvidia card but it would with the Intel 4400.

You should decode in the PC to LPCM so that you can use Media Center's VideoClock feature, rather than bitstreaming.
Bitstreaming usually results in either audio sync problems or video stuttering.

I don't bitstream, I decode to 8ch LPCM in MC19 because my amp also doesn't support DTS-HD MA or True-HD. I need the extra DP to HDMI output because my AMP wont support 3D passthrough or 24p so I need a HDMI signal going direct to the projector for 24p and 3D support, and another HDMI signal for LPCM to the AMP.