Blu Ray Player or HTPC?

[Audio Flynn]

I have a pretty nice first gen Panasonic Blu Ray player. I was thinking of upgrading to a higher end Denon or Oppo BDP but started looking at HTPC home build options.

I have built quie a few desk tops over the past 12 years.

Can a HTPC with AMD A8 processor, ASUS MOBO and Plextor BLU RAY burner perform as well as an Oppo plus have all the streaming / storage options?

I will also use the HTPC to record my LPs to 24 / 6 FLAC.

[Rudy81]

I havea HTPC and an Oppo BD-93. The Oppo is the best BD player I have owned. It is my 5th unit and blows all the others away, which it should since it was three times the price, but worth every penny. Getting a HTPC to do what the Oppo does, if possible, will take a lot of software tweaking and you will be hard pressed to match performance. I only use the HTPC to play my stored FLAC music collection.

A really good high end video card that can play 1080p will likely get way up there in price I think, making it a moot point. The Oppo will hold its value way better than a pc video card. Then you have the issue of the audio card for the pc. You will need to invest in a card that can match the Oppos performance, again getting pricey.

Your best bet, IMHO, is to use an old pc for music storage and just get the Oppo. Pricing was better through Amazon.com since I saved tax and shipping.

[psg]

Naive question here... but isn't video on Bluray just bits sent over HDMI? What does a video card do in the loop that alters any of it? I would think the Oppo might be great if you need to upscale DVD to 1080p because it might do it better than the scaler in your 1080p display, but what makes it display Bluray 1080p material ant differently than any other player?

[Rudy81]

I'm really not up on video technology to answer that with any accuracy. Certainly upscaling is one issue, but I'm not sure what other functions the video section plays in the proccess.

[Thaddeus Smith]

while the hardware is out there to support blu-rays in an HTPC environment, if you do some digging around you'll see that there is very little software support for a clean solution that will accomodate all of your digital and disc needs.

also, by the time you've built a decent performing HTPC to fit the need - you've exceeded the cost of an oppo bdp-93.

[MrMcGoo]

Home theater PCs use video cards with an HDMI port built in. Windows 7 SP1 fixed problems with the audio drivers over the HDMI port. The video cards are not terribly expensive for blu-ray. The big advantage to an HTPC is that it can run a huge (many terabytes) amount of storage for video. Since a single blu-ray can run up to 50Gb, the storage can be used up rapidly.

The problem with an HTPC is that blu-rays are subject to as many as two layers of encryption and that the OS was originally designed to enforce the copy protection. There are software workarounds, but they are not worth the trouble IMO. A blu-ray carosel is a better solution IMO.

On the other hand, blu-rays are sold with digital rights to download the DVD level of software. This is where an HTPC can shine as a server, but the resolution is lower in both video and especially the sound. Any good DVD player ot TV will upconvert video to 1080p that usually looks good on TVs up to 60 inches. There is no upgrade on the sound though. I buy blu-rays for the sound more than the picture. Folks with giant screens and projectors probably want the best picture that blu-ray has to offer.

Bill

[prerich]

I built a client a Bluray capable desktop for under $520.00. That's including a 2TB harddrive and 16GB of ram! She loves it! (She mainly uses it for photography and Photoshop CS). It can be done - I started out with BD for computer before I even bought a standalone. I'm a mod over at Bluray.com, and I have enjoyed my HTPC for about 6 years now ! I just added a HDHR3 HomeRun Prime to my system and returned all of my HDDVR's. Software is important but if you're going after the top of the line Oppo - a good HTPC can compete.