Upgrade PC or go with HD Extender??

[rerooks]

Does getting a Nvidia card that supports Purevideo HD help? I have seen many people say that the video card helps decoding HDTV, but I am not sure if they are referring to using that PC as a client, or if getting a better video card will help if you have a server that is sending video the a Media MVP.

I use extenders for all of my viewing. I have a HD-100 and it works great. I also have some MVPs. I can "almost" view transcoded HD video from my HD Homeruns on my Athlon 3800+ X2, with a 6600 video card. Would it help with a 8800 GS that supports Purevideo HD? Would that video card help decode the H.264 from my HD-PVR so that I can watch it on the MVP?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by rerooks

Does getting a Nvidia card that supports Purevideo HD help? I have seen many people say that the video card helps decoding HDTV, but I am not sure if they are referring to using that PC as a client, or if getting a better video card will help if you have a server that is sending video the a Media MVP.

I use extenders for all of my viewing. I have a HD-100 and it works great. I also have some MVPs. I can "almost" view transcoded HD video from my HD Homeruns on my Athlon 3800+ X2, with a 6600 video card. Would it help with a 8800 GS that supports Purevideo HD? Would that video card help decode the H.264 from my HD-PVR so that I can watch it on the MVP?

The Graphics card in the server does nothing for Extender playback. This is true for the HD extender (HD-100), and the SD Extender (MVP). The Athlon 3800 + 6600 video card should be able to play back the MPEG2 HDTV streams from the HD Home-Run just fine, with the right codecs (Give cyberlink a shot). The HD-PVR streams are considerably harder to decode, and would definately require upgrading the gfx card if you were going to view them from the PC itself. As for HD-PVR recordings on the MVP, there is apparently some architectural problems blocking this right now, as the transcoder simply doesn't support the HD-PVR's files completely, so regardless of the horsepower you throw at it, it isn't going to be very watchable on the MVP.

[sic0048]

+1 extender. It is simpler to set up, bullet proof reliability, and more power efficient too.

Pretty much a no brainer IMHO. As suggested, to can use a shared drive (on another computer) to watch DVDs without having to rip them.

[grooves12]

Originally Posted by phelme

if you get a chance to try an HD-PVR with the 780G, let us know how the playback performance of it's TS files are and how much CPU is used.

Don't have an HD-PVR... but it plays back h.264 TS streams created from the DVBdream network encoder just fine using Arcsoft Codecs.

[stroths]

+1 for Extender

I had a Server/Client on one machine and upgraded to a separate server client relationship which was nice. However, I spend so much time trying to adjust things on the client that it drove me nuts at times. I upgraded to a HD extender this year and it is sooooo nice having a device that just works.

Once you go HD Extender, you won't go back.

[Zippster]

Originally Posted by doc

I'd go with the extender.

Once you get one you'll wonder why you didn't get one sooner.

Said it ALL.