UVD and Vista Media Centre

[jonathan_phang]

Hello,

I have recently made a media PC based on a shuttle barebone, and due to the great sounding feature-set, i think that I will go for a 2400 or 2600 series card. One of the main points for this is the HD deocding abilities that the card has.

However, is this work offloaded onto the GPU automatically by the drivers? Its just that Vista Media Centre defaults to a MS decoder. Do I need to tell it somehow to use the Ati Card to decode?

Also, another point is to do with the HDMI output. Does using this disable all output from your sound card? I was hoping to have the HTPC hooked up via HDMI, but also to have the output from my soundcard going to an amp, so i can pick to use TV speakers or the separates.

Any help would be great

JP

[Octavean]

The UVD feature of the 2600 / 2400 series is principally applicable to offload the CPU with HD DVD and Blu-ray decode of which Vista Media Center (and the older XP Media Center Edition 2005) do not support directly. A third party application such as “Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultimate” would be needed for HD DVD and Blu-ray support. Some HD file types might play in VMC / MCE but typically these are much less taxing on the system and therefore hardware assistance isn’t necessary.

As for HDMI output, I’m not sure. I was under the impression that one would set HDMI as the default audio output devices in “control panel” rather than having the soundcard as default.

[dangel]

The easiest thing with sound is just to disable all sound devices you *don't* want to use for playback - that way it ends up with no choice as to which to use. I had a few problems with more than one enabled (analog out and optical in my case). For a MC you're unlikely to use more than one (I just have optical to my amp enabled) so this isn't really a problem. I'm connected via HDMI.

I think ATI's low-end cards are a good choice - they're low heat/low power and do hardware decoding. Cheap too. I might chuck my 8600 out for one if I can't resolve my horrible nVidia driver problems.

[jonathan_phang]

Right, so if for example I did want hardware accelaration from the card, it would be a case of installing PDVD (or equivalent playback program) and then switchng the default codec that VMC uses to be that one.

Once that is done, it is purely automatic if there is any acc needed? ie. Does the GPU just know that it has to take over once a certain level of processing has been crossed, or does it need explicitly set somewhere. I just want to make sure that if i get the card, that the fuill potential of AvivoHD will be utilised in VMC, rather than just presuming it works.

Oh and about the HDMI audio, maybe I wasnt that clear. I'm sure that its going to be a doddle to set it to output, but what I want to know is if there is a way to output through BOTH. Basically, I would like HDMI audio to just be for normal usage, through the TV speakers, but then have the option of turning the amp on and then using speakers for say films.

I was envisaging having optical out to the amp and then HDMI audio to the TV. That way, i wouldnt need the amp on all the time, and also, I could start some music or something and then turn the TV off to listen. Just wondering if its possible to have both in conjuntion, as opposed to one or the other.

JP

@Dangel - Stop following me

[dangel]

LOL

Vista has restrictions (or so i'm told) on dual audio output (because of the evils of the MPAA et al) which may prevent you from doing that. I hope i'm wrong, but i only use my amp for audio anyway. You'll have to try it and see.

To select the decoder (note: not a codec) you can use this free tool (http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/comm...do=file&id=119) - once you've installed PDVD you should be able to choose the default (the MS one) or the PDVD one. The PDVD decoder ought to detect that UVD is available and automajically use it for you.

[jonathan_phang]

Yeah - been using that utility already when testing out VMC, pretty handy. The audio isnt that big a deal I guess. If using HDMI tries to defualt my sudio output to HDMI (Which would be logical) then the 2400/2600 still use the DVI connector at the back, but come with a convertor that actaully carries the audio too.

I could NOT use that conveertor, just output video to DVI/DSUB on the HDTV and then use the sound outputs on the shuttle to link to the amp... I make everything so complicated all the time!!! Just need to choose between 2400XT or 2600XT, just not sure of the noise levels.