Home Theater Pc Build Help

Home Theater Pc Build Help Looking for some advice

#1 spaceball11

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Joined: 01-November 12

Posted 01 November 2012 - 03:34 AM

Hello all, new member here. I'm planing on building a home theater pc soon but I could use a little help.
My plane is for it to do the jobs of multiple peaces of equipment.The pc will need to be able to be a 3d blu-ray player,a preamp/processor
(at least 7.2 with lfe output), and be a video hub (have HDMI 1.4a with passthrough, dvd up convert and other a/v inputs).
Just looking for the best way this could be done.Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

#2 spaceball11

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Joined: 01-November 12

Posted 01 November 2012 - 03:55 AM

Would I use a video capture card for the inputs? If so can it do passtrough?

What sound cards would be best for the preamp stage?

What programs can i run to up convert? And is there a Audyssey MultEQ XT32 like program for PC's?

#3 waldojim

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Posted 01 November 2012 - 09:33 AM

I have not seen anything yet that allows a passthrough HDMI on the PC. There are HDMI capture cards, but there is no telling how devices requiring a secure connection will react. Up-converting is a waste. Your TV will scale the image to fit it's own display - and usually do a far better job.

Most built in sound cards support 7.1 channel outputs now - none that I know of supporting 7.2. I could be mistaken on this, as I have no desire for 7.1 or above. If you are looking for higher end cards, look into the Asus Xonar series, or HT Omega. Word of advice, if you have a receiver capable of decoding the audio on it's own - and happens to use high quality 24bit DACS (Burr Browns for example), you are likely to get far better audio from it. Send it a digital signal if you can, and let it do the work.

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" -- Isaac Asimov

Spoiler

#4 MLStrand56

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Posted 28 November 2012 - 07:45 AM

I'm starting to build a Multi-Media server, which is what I think you want to build.

You need a Very Good vid. card, & I'd recommend a very good Audio Card. You can get by with "onboard audio", & if that sounds good to you, then you have no need to upgrade, until the onboard audio Doesn't meet your needs.

Spend money on the vid. more than anything!!!! Audio will always be Audio. The Vid. is what's evolving & changing!!!!!

MLStrand56

#5 mjd420nova

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Posted 28 November 2012 - 02:21 PM

I certainly can imagine what his goals are, and it costs a pretty penny for the deice to do it right. A studio HD video/audio mixer. Some I've seen are up to 56 inputs for close to $30K. Smaller units, eight channel are more sensible but still out of reach at $3k. Any other approaches to getting all the playthings to work together is wrought with pitfalls and sync faults. Throw in a few analog devices and things get really complex. Starting from square one will insure all units work together and cabling will match from device to devcie and port to port. The mixers offer options to do up-conversions and graphic insertions from canned indexes or another device. The only thing missing was an ethernet port or a WIFI option.