Topic: HD Video Card and PC Blu-Ray player.

[Touti]

Since I'm selling my collection I will obviously have to start renting again if I want to watch movies.  For reasons that would be boring to you and too long for me I'm gonna go with a the computer on this instead of a "normal" player.

I need to buy a HD Video card, it doesn't have to be extremely powerful since it will only be used to watch Blue-Ray movies, I'm not a gamer so I don't need that extra power.

I don't know which card I should get, I can't even decide on ATI vs NVIDIA.....any suggestions ?

[RossRoy]

Personally, and that's very debatable and your mileage may vary, I'm an ATi fan, simply because so far, every time I've had an nVidia video card, I've only had problems. That's not to say there's no problems with an ATi, but it always felt more manageable than with nVidia, IMO.

That being said, I think that at this point in time, most every video card on the market is powerful enough for HD playback. I really do like TomsHardware "Best Graphics Cards of <WhateverMonth>". You basically decide how much you want to put toward buying a new video card, and they tell you the that gives you the most bang for the buck.

See here, it might inspire you: Best Graphics Cards For The Money: Feb. '09

[Najemikon]

That's exactly what I would have said. Don't worry about capability, Eric, but longevity. Pick what you can afford, hopefully it'll have HDMI, because that's pretty essential and bear in mind you need a version 1.3 HDMI cable which can be pricey in itself. I've no idea how much it is in Canadian moolah, but here in the UK my mid-range one was £60.

Mid-range will do for the card too. Cheap cards are getting a little old while brand new are untested. Pick the medium price range and you'll have a card that's been out a few months and proved itself.

What resolution is your TV?

[Touti]

Thanks for the link Seb.....I'll check that out.  I've used ATI cards for over 10 years and never had any problems with the card themselves.  The only thing I dislike with ATI (and it may have been fixed in recent years) is that removing/updating drivers is a real pita.

I moved away from ati because of that 2 years ago and been using nvidia since with no major problems either.  I do know however that there's some problems with them, especially with DVI-out connectors.  A friend of mine who recently upgraded his cube to blu-ray and bought and ATI card was here when I changed my TV and he was frustrated by how very few options the nvidia drivers give compared to ATI.

Jon, I don't the exact (max) resolution of my TV but it's a "real" HDTV that does 1920x1080p.  As for HDMI, I don't know anything about versions, I always thought a cable was a cable.  If it has to be 1.3 then so be it, I'll just buy the cheapest expensive one I can find  but HDMI is a requirement for me, I want a video card taht HDMI out, I don't want to fool around with dvi-hdmi adapters and all that crap.

I've been "out of the loop" on video cards in the last few years but I've read that you can have models with sound decoders now.  Would you recommended it ?  My  motherboard has 5.1 sound with coax digital output so I guess there's no point in spending extra money for sound decoding on the gpu.

[RossRoy]

I've been "out of the loop" on video cards in the last few years but I've read that you can have models with sound decoders now.  Would you recommended it ?  My  motherboard has 5.1 sound with coax digital output so I guess there's no point in spending extra money for sound decoding on the gpu.

Well, my video card is an ATi EAH4850 scratch that, I've no idea what the exact model is   

But, I do know it's the HD 48XX line and it does install a HDMI Sound Driver, but I'm guessing what it actually does is bundle up the sound from the audio card to send through the HDMI cable. I don't think it does any decoding. I'm guessing that it does is create a passthrough for the audio from your sound card to the HDMI cable. It may encode it in Dolby Digital in the process to send it out. I actually have no idea, as I don't use the HDMI function at all.

And about the drivers: there are nowadays some driver cleaners that do a great job when your installing newer versions of drivers. There's even customized drivers (omega comes to mind).

[Najemikon]

Jon, I don't the exact (max) resolution of my TV but it's a "real" HDTV that does 1920x1080p.  As for HDMI, I don't know anything about versions, I always thought a cable was a cable.  If it has to be 1.3 then so be it, I'll just buy the cheapest expensive one I can find  but HDMI is a requirement for me, I want a video card taht HDMI out, I don't want to fool around with dvi-hdmi adapters and all that crap.

I've been "out of the loop" on video cards in the last few years but I've read that you can have models with sound decoders now.  Would you recommended it ?  My  motherboard has 5.1 sound with coax digital output so I guess there's no point in spending extra money for sound decoding on the gpu.

I had no idea there were different versions of a cable either! I bought my Blu-Ray player at Christmas, picked a cable off the shelf (cheapest one at £19.99 and I thought that was expensive!), but the nice man who wanted my money said it was only a version 1 and I needed 1.3 and a quality brand (another £40+)  . I pointed out that he was in it for a sale, but his explanation made sense and research backed it up. In fact there is a lot of bull about cables in home cinema and this is the only time it felt right.

Blu-Ray is still a fledgling technology and it's transfer is measured in GigaBytes. The latest players are pushing 4gb at a 1080p screen (yes, you have got the top limit there), whereas you can halve that rate for 720p or 1080i. A HDMI cable less than version 1.3 is not physically capable of transferring 4gb, so you end up with stutter. And a "cheap" 1.3 cable will also stutter.

I think of it like electricity cables. You wouldn't expect to be able to power your fridge from the same weight cable plugged into your radio for instance.

When I needed a second cable, I learned another lesson. Don't get it from a superstore! I don't know if it's the same where you are, but smaller shops have a greater range of higher quality cables for less cost. My first cable was £60, while my second was £40 and it's a better brand.

Regards the sound, I'd always go for an expansion rather than on-board mainboard or video. Pick the best man for each job and keep them all separate! I know you wouldn't need all the ports because as Rossroy says it uses the one cable, but still, the entry level Creative card (here, it would be about £15) will be more advanced than the mainboard and takes processing away from the GPU which is always good. As they improve the tech, you can replace the card with another entry level replacement (the work goes into the chip that's the same across the range anyway).

Blu-Ray sound is as revolutionary as the video so I would want the best options to develop my system and upgrade it as required. Plus, if you ever decided to get an amplifier, you want a separate HDMI link for the sound.

[Touti]

My sound won't go through my HDMI cable anyway.  I currently own a Sony Dream System home theater.  It's a "all in one unit" with the DVD Player and Sound system together.

It has 1 toslink input and one digital coax input.  The toslink is used by my digital tv set top box and the coax is used by my PC.  That's why I can't buy a regular blu-ray player, if I did I'd have to use one input on the home theater system and I would no longer have sound from the PC which is important to me because I use it to listen to music. 

Using the PC as a blu-ray player, I'm gonna connect the HDMI cable to the TV for video and keep the connection with the sound system.  I don't know if coax vs optical makes any difference in the quality of sound, since sound on blu-ray is apparently much better than on standard DVD and most probably better than what my set top box has I will probably switch the cables and use optical from the PC and coax from the set top box.

When I built that PC I put my money where my mouse was and bought a very good motherboard with HD sound but as I'm writing this it just occured to me that sound won't be decoded at all by the PC so it's irrevelevant whether I use onboard, sound card or a sound on gpu, I will only transfer the digital sound signal to my Sony System which does DTS, Dolby 5.1 and has all the usual Dolby DSP options.

I can't find a video card that has an HDMI connector on it so it looks like I'm stuck with using a DVI to HDMI adapter...which apparently always comes separately 

I think I'll go with this
ATI Card

Pioneer blu-ray player

[RossRoy]

If you look around at video cards, there are some that have a big DVI-like connector, but with a lot more pins, and it comes with a dongle that integrates all the non-DVI connectors, such as HDMI, TV recording, etc. Some card DO have an HDMI connector of some sort available.

As for Coax vs Optical - same difference. They both sending a digital signal. So it's either the signal gets through... or not. And sound needs a lot less bandwidth than video. So you can run whatever you have available, be it Coax or Optical.

[Touti]

As for Coax vs Optical - same difference. They both sending a digital signal. So it's either the signal gets through... or not. And sound needs a lot less bandwidth than video. So you can run whatever you have available, be it Coax or Optical.

I'm not familiar with sound on blu-ray but most people say it's much much better thant DVD.  I think it was Karsten who wrote on this forum that the gain with hd-dvd and blu-ray was much more noticeable on sound than on the image.  What I'm getting at is that if sound is really that much better then it's probably much more data and although I agree with you than being digital it gets through or it doesn't, I am wondering if a coax cable is fast enough.  Could there be some kind of compression going on when using coax ?a

[RossRoy]

Could there be some kind of compression going on when using coax ?a

The worse you can get, bandwidth wise, is Uncompressed PCM sound. From what I've read, the bitrate on any of the codecs used on Blu-ray uses much less bandwidth than that, even at lossless levels. Optical and Coax should be more than fine for the task, AFAIK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF#Hardware_specifications

[Touti]

Yes I think you're right Seb.  Didn't think of it but if coax can carry analog sound it should be able to take just about anything digital.

[Najemikon]

It might help you to know... actually, I'm probably about to really confuse the issue! Ah well.  Anyway, I have an all-in-one system too which has been rendered useless by my Blu-Ray upgrade.

I bought it at the end of 2005 and it has no optical inputs. Therefore the only way I could connect the Blu-Ray is via coax and it only sends a stereo signal. Good old left and good old right.  Course, my Panasonic all-in-one makes a good fist of turning it into surround sound but it's... shit. So I don't bother. 

The rule seems to be that HD sound can only be transmitted across HDMI or optical. Otherwise you're Royally stuffed. Like me.

As soon as I've saved enough pennies, I'm going for separates. Proper amp, proper speakers.

[Touti]

Jon are you sure there's no setups in your blu-ray player to tell it what you're sending through that cable ?  That coax connection can usually be use for different outputs like PCM, Dolby Surround and Digital, maybe you're only getting stereo because you're blu-ray player isn't set properly ?

I'm assuming you know how your player works but it's worth checking.  Can you borrow a receiver from a friend or may rent one for a day to connect your cable and see what type of signal it's getting ?

I'm gonna test that later today with a good 5.1 movie on the PC.  If I see that I can only get stereo like you then I'll put the whole blu-ray/video card thing on hold.  I don't want to spend all that money to end up with cheaper sound than I already have and I'm not ready to let go of my surround sound on HD television.

[Touti]

Jon I just tried something with my PC.



The tests only work with Dolby Digital.  I hear nothing with DTS or Microstuff.  I think the all-in-one systems can decode DTS only internally but not from external sources.  I don't know if that relates in any way to your problem though.

[Najemikon]

Pretty much.

I appreciate the encouragement, but sadly I've followed this right past "feasible" and way into "eccentric, maybe I could solder a home-made widget to do it"!  I've spoken to lots of knowledgeable people and they all just give a sympathetic smile. You get what you pay for and I spent £300 on a complete surround system, whereas a proper future proof setup should cost 3x that. Although, had I spent my £300 six months later, no problem.

It's fundamentally not possible. My Blu-Ray player (and I think, any other) will only output the HD sound on its optical connector. Its coax is PCM and therefore defeating the object of the exercise. My Panasonic has no optical and so its Auxillary inputs are the only option. Stereo output, stereo input, and the equivalent of Dolby Digital at best. The Panny has lots of the usual options to play with that input and create a surround sound, but obviously it doesn't cut the mustard.

Does your all-in-one have an optical input? If so you just need a soundcard with an optical out, which is pretty standard now I think. That should bypass the systems own decoder and just apply any environment profiles you may have setup. The signal from the Blu-Ray disc should be fine.

Unless Rossroy or anyone else can comment, have a look at www.avforums.com. If they don't have an answer already, you'll soon get one as they're very good usually.