Arman Posted July 28, 2005 Share Posted July 28, 2005 Hi all, I have a Denon DVD 2200 (DVD player) that has the following: 192kHz/24-bit Burr-Brown audio D/A converter I am extremely satisfied with this piece of equipment. I found an Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 soundcard that offers the following: 24-bit 192 kHz D/A converters and 24-bit 96 kHz A/D Does that mean that the playback of these 2 will sound similar if hooked up to the same exact AMP and speakers? I have a Scott 299c Tube AMP fueling 2 Klipsch KG 5.5 floorstanding speakers and a Scott 99D Monoblock Tube AMP fueling a Klipsch KV-3 center channel. Also, I have a Klipsch RSW-15 hooked up to the DVD player. I am worried that sound quality will suffer if I go the HTPC route...but the Audiotrak has given me an enormous amount of hope. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I plan on using my HTPC for DVD playback ONLY. I'm not interested in using my CRT projector for HD (I have a RPTV that'll do the job) and I don't plan on recording TV shows or anything. I'm very interested in the Chaintech GeForce 6600 GT (read a few reviews claiming its superiority...) but the price kinda turns me off. I have a 128 MB NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4200 @ the moment w/ the following specs: Controller: NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 Bus Type AGP Memory 128MB DDR Core Clock 250MHz Memory Clock 450MHz DDR memory (128MB) RAMDAC 350MHz API Support Direct-X, Open GL ICD for Windows Connectors VGA, DVI, TV In/Out Are there any other cards that you all recommend? ---- Let me know, thanks! -Arman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zealot125 Posted July 28, 2005 Share Posted July 28, 2005 I have done alot of testig with different video cards, and I can tell you that the Ti 4200 is MORE THAN sufficint for the HTPC idea. There is no reason to go and buy a new expensive card if you just want to use it for DVD playback. The video out function of the gnvidia cards have not undergone dramatic changes since the old TNT 2 cards, so the only thing that you will be getting out of the new card vs the old is faster clock speeds, and better video rendering for games, which are MUCH more grahics card intensive than DVDs are. A DVD can be played using on board video that some computers have. A video card (such as the Ti 4200) make a VERY significant difference in quality, but I personally cannot tell the difference from one of my GeForce Ti 4600 to my 6800 GT OC. Though if you must upgrade, stick with the Nvidia cards, I have found that their video out is more robust than the ATI cards for external video, even than the X800. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Blacksmith Posted July 28, 2005 Share Posted July 28, 2005 While my Nvidia 5200 was doing the job just fine, it took a dump and needed to be replaced. I chose the Gigabyte 6600GT which is an Nvidia chip. I have read a lot on video cards and settled on this card due to the better integration with the advanced video schemes of Windows XP. It came with a break out box which allowed me to run composite video to my PJ straight from the card. My old card did not support a DVI to composite adaptor and gave me lots of problems. The 6600GT card was more designed for HT systems. As far as Audio out goes, I use an optical digital connection to the sound card which bypasses all the built in decoding completely. It passes the signal to my HT receiver and all the decoding is done there. I can hear no difference is sound quality as played from the sound card to the receiver VS stand alone DVD player passing the digital signal to the same receiver. The video card cost me $195 and the sound card was $50. Both are doing a fantastic job and I consider it money well spent. One thing you need to do though if you are feeding composite video to your PJ (or TV) is get a program that removes the copy protection from your DVDs as they limit the output from your video card composite connections to a max resolution of 480P so to get higher quality....... remove the copy protection. I went with DVDidle http://www.dvdidle.com/index.htm but there are other programs that work as well. There is a thread on this topic at http://htpcnews.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=14202 If you are feeding your TV/PJ a SVGA signal you don't need the program as there is a security gap with SVGA signals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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