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I have a few questions regarding the setup I am picking up tomorrow: I was able to get a Panasonic TCP50S1 (50" 1080p neo-pdp plasma) online at sears.com for $999, and it included a free xbox360 pro. This gives me a few options with how I am going to setup my home theater.
Equipment I have available to me I will use 100% certain:
1. Panny plasma
2. Harman Kardon 2-channel receiver+speakers
I also have the following systems:
1. At my studio desk, which is a 5 minute walk away from home (architecture student) my old desktop i brought from Japan when I moved to Michigan: an amd pII quad core@3ghz with 6gb ram/640gb wd be hd's x2, as well as a ati 4850 which works only when the minitower silverstone (sg03) is rotated on it's side. I got tired of dealing with that and so I downgraded it to a 4350, as I only ever use this box as a remote desktop client from my new laptop, to do distributed renders.
2. lenovo w500 laptop, came with an intel 80gb s1 ssd, which I was able to pickup for $1k even from their outlet site. Great for speed/working on my current project, afterwhich I dump it to the desktop for backup, not so great for recording/storing lots of media.
What I'm wondering is what the best way to go about setting this up is.
We don't really watch any tv, just movies. I could bring the desktop back home and set it up as a media center, but then I'd lose that processing power for renders, which really help when i'm pulling 2-3 all nighters in a row working to a deadline. Unless I can figure out how to render on it from school, possibly through a remote desktop connection?.
Another thought was to either use the xbox360 as a netflix hd client, or to sell it and use the money to buy an hdtv tuner card for the desktop so we could have a DVR as well (we're all really busy and sitting down to watch a show on the networks schedule is not going to happen)
We just got comcast installed (wanted uverse but not available in our building, no fios at all) with the bare minimum tv/6mbps internet, so that's our pipe in.
FINALLY: calibrating it, I'm leaning towards the option of getting a digital pci-e tuner, possibly waiting for one with the cablecard. This appeals to me because I could use my existing spyder3pro to calibrate the colors (I assume this would work? I think KMPlayer is color aware/read a few things about getting that to work). If I were to go this route, would the 4350 be enough for 1080p, given the quadcore processor? Do I even need it? Could my mb is a rev1 GA-MA78GM-S2H with the radeon 3200hd igp, and conveniently has built-in HDMI out, so that'd save me the $10 on a dvi->hdmi converter.
This is rambling, and there are quite a few variables, bu that's exactly why I'm wondering if anyone can make heads or tails of what might be the best way to streamline all this, if there's any issues I'm not seeing/etc.
Thanks!
Equipment I have available to me I will use 100% certain:
1. Panny plasma
2. Harman Kardon 2-channel receiver+speakers
I also have the following systems:
1. At my studio desk, which is a 5 minute walk away from home (architecture student) my old desktop i brought from Japan when I moved to Michigan: an amd pII quad core@3ghz with 6gb ram/640gb wd be hd's x2, as well as a ati 4850 which works only when the minitower silverstone (sg03) is rotated on it's side. I got tired of dealing with that and so I downgraded it to a 4350, as I only ever use this box as a remote desktop client from my new laptop, to do distributed renders.
2. lenovo w500 laptop, came with an intel 80gb s1 ssd, which I was able to pickup for $1k even from their outlet site. Great for speed/working on my current project, afterwhich I dump it to the desktop for backup, not so great for recording/storing lots of media.
What I'm wondering is what the best way to go about setting this up is.
We don't really watch any tv, just movies. I could bring the desktop back home and set it up as a media center, but then I'd lose that processing power for renders, which really help when i'm pulling 2-3 all nighters in a row working to a deadline. Unless I can figure out how to render on it from school, possibly through a remote desktop connection?.
Another thought was to either use the xbox360 as a netflix hd client, or to sell it and use the money to buy an hdtv tuner card for the desktop so we could have a DVR as well (we're all really busy and sitting down to watch a show on the networks schedule is not going to happen)
We just got comcast installed (wanted uverse but not available in our building, no fios at all) with the bare minimum tv/6mbps internet, so that's our pipe in.
FINALLY: calibrating it, I'm leaning towards the option of getting a digital pci-e tuner, possibly waiting for one with the cablecard. This appeals to me because I could use my existing spyder3pro to calibrate the colors (I assume this would work? I think KMPlayer is color aware/read a few things about getting that to work). If I were to go this route, would the 4350 be enough for 1080p, given the quadcore processor? Do I even need it? Could my mb is a rev1 GA-MA78GM-S2H with the radeon 3200hd igp, and conveniently has built-in HDMI out, so that'd save me the $10 on a dvi->hdmi converter.
This is rambling, and there are quite a few variables, bu that's exactly why I'm wondering if anyone can make heads or tails of what might be the best way to streamline all this, if there's any issues I'm not seeing/etc.
Thanks!