Welcome

[Andrew Pratt]

Just wanted to be the first to welcome everyone to the new area and to say that I'm looking to Jon's participation here.

[JonMarsh]

Thansk, Andrew, and hello everybody!

In this forum we will welcome discussions of all matters related to using the PC in entertainmnet and A/V persuits, both video and audio. When used in a Home Theater environment, these computers are usually referred to as HTPCs - Home Theater PC's. HTPC's are most often used for DVD playback, because of the unusually high quality possible in progressive scan playback mode, at reasonable cost (compared with solutions involving scalers, de-interlacers, etc). However, the increasing flexibility of RPTV and FPTV displays, plus the availability of a growing number of high performance direct view displays, has made PC gaming and net surfing a new experience on the large screen.
My first experience with HTPCs dates back to about 2-1/2 years ago, when I built my first system, using a 3DFusion multifunction card using the Chromatic Research chip set. That introduction to progressive scan DVD, primitive as it was in some regards, has set me (like many others!) on the path of upgrading and building new systems, and trying out many of the relevant video card and software combinations on the market. (3DFUsion, Hollywood Plus, 3DFX 3000, ATI Rage 128, Matrox G400, Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2). Displays I have used these with include CRT FPTV, LCD FPTV, and high resolution presentation monitors.
We will add a resource thread for some of the sites having discussions on these issues, and we'll do our best to encourage discussion and solutions, and probably a few home grown FAQ's here.
Welcome aboard, everyone, and let's have some fun!

-Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Lexman]

Thanks Andrew for the welcome for the folks that haven't gotten here yet. But it's Saturday, and we know that is a slow net time many days anyway. Add to that our number of members, obviously, it's going to be a bit slow for a while. But I look for Jon to create a lot of interest in this area, with the support of ThomasW. These guys work well together already, so they are a tandom team of G-force magnitude!

Ok, let's learn about HTPCs and stuff now! Also, welcome to the team Jon! Also please forgive me when I inadvertantly add an H to your name. My Dad is John, so that will be a little tough for me to keep doing that right all the time, lol.

Lex





<A HREF="http://www.catcables.com" <IMG SRC="http://www.htguide.com/lexman/other/sm_logo.gif"

[Mats]

A warm welcome Jon!




Mats
HTGuide

[Ken McDaniel]

Welcome Jon. This is an area whose time has come. I think this will be the first medium to utilize the upcoming Firewire format. Probably a good idea if we stretch the limits starting, NOW.




Ken

[JonMarsh]

Ken,

I hope your right about firewire. Unfortunately, Intel has this major league NIH sysndrome (Not Invented Here), which is why they're trying to push USB 2.0 now, and why they seem to be discouraging others from paying the pittance of royalties that Apple wants for each firewire board. Oh well. I hate it when politics takes over from technical considerations, but there IS an awful lot of that out in the real world.

Regards,

Jon

[Ken McDaniel]

I'm a little miffed peronally because I have already put considerable investment into a Firewire board and video software. I use the board to edit media from my Mini-DV recorder. The bandwidth this thing carries is absolutely cool. Conceivably, Firewire can replace digital cables, component video, S-video, etc... Imagine a pre-amp with only one cable running to each source?




Ken