video card advice

[savras]

Hi,
I am building an HTPC from scratch. My main usage will be
music/file server and displaying videos downloaded from bittorrent
at my 24'' 1920x1200 monitor. The videos I am downloading are both
SD and HD 720p and 1080p in a variety of formats xvid, wmv9, h264
in different containers including matroska and HDDVDs rips.
I will not install any TV card on it.
I am planning to run either XP or Vista.

I am really puzzled with my choice of motherboard/video I should get.
I am browsing the web for the last couple of days but I cannot figure
out what should I spent money on? the video card or the processor?
Are these formats being accelerated by buying a DX10 card? Or
all these formats are too generic and vlc will fall back to the proc
for decoding?.
And do you have some starting pointers to make me figure out what I really need?


Thanks for reading my email.

 

[FraGGleR]

I would recommend you search this forum a bit. There are a couple threads here and there basically addressing most of your questions. If you are just watching videos, it MAY be possible to use an integrated solution. Not enough testing is in yet to completely determine it. Basically, if you don't have hardware acceleration on your graphics card, the processing will fall to your cpu. Just about any modern dualcore should do fine, just as anything over a 7600gt or a x1650pro should work just fine. The DX10 cards won't specifically help because they are DX10, but the new versions of PureVideo or AVIVO might help. There is no perfect solution out there, which is why we come here to share our experiences and opinions after tinkering for ourselves.

 

[w1retap]

Just got with a fairly quick dual core processor, and a decent video card with HDCP. I'd recommend a 7600GT w/ HDCP on the lower end, and a 8800GTS 320mb on the upper end. That way if you ever want to play HDCP content, you'll be able to without a problem. Also, hardware acceleration will be working great. I wouldn't recommend ATI so much. We've done various comparisions on HDbits, and Nvidia seems to be the clear winner according to everyone there. (picture quality wise and hardware acceleration wise)

A little advice here too..

Codecs to use
- Nvidia Purevideo
- CoreAVC Pro
- Matroska
- Xvid

That should cover everything you need to play codec-wise. Then use MediaPlayerClassic for everything. For HDDVD's and Bluray rips, use PowerDVD 7.3. =)

 

[savras]

thanks for both your answers!!!!

w1retap you are proposing a HDCP compatible 7600GT card. Do you have a specific model in mind? In new egg this is the only one I found:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125058

Also do I really need HDCP if all I will play is HD-DVD and BD Rips? I understand that I need it when want to play it directly from the optical drive.

An nother thing: When saying a fairly quick dual core processor, do you mean AMD or Intel?

Thanks again!!!!

 

[w1retap]

w1retap you are proposing a HDCP compatible 7600GT card. Do you have a specific model in mind? In new egg this is the only one I found:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125058

Neweggs servers are messed up right now and I can't view that for some reason.. but yea, probably, lol.

Also do I really need HDCP if all I will play is HD-DVD and BD Rips? I understand that I need it when want to play it directly from the optical drive.

No, you don't need it. I was just suggesting HDCP for the sake of having it. You never know what will require it, and if you decide to go with a HDDVD or Bluray drive when they become cheap, you are all set already.

An nother thing: When saying a fairly quick dual core processor, do you mean AMD or Intel?

Either or, whatever your preference is. A Core2 or a AMD X2 is sufficient for 1080p playback.