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Josuah wrote:
 The biggest hurdle I've come across is the player. Your best bets are VLC or MPlayer |
Hmmm, never heard of those players.
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however each has its own quirks
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I've only played with PowerDVD (the one I decided to buy) and TheaterTek. Both work well, but are a little different from each other.
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and you'll have to recalibrate your display accordingly.
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Good point about calibration. There's a program out there called PowerStrip that will pretty much allow you to tweak every possible parameter on your video card. It will take some trial and error, but you will be able to properly (for the most part) fill you screen with the computer image.
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As for storing the movies, MPlayer at least can rip DVDs to disk.
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Google for DVD Decrypter or DVDGold.
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A lot of HTPC enthusiasts like ATI's player and graphics card support for playback.
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Although I have an ATI video card, it will be my last. Actually, I said that before, but it was all Dell offered and I didn't feel like going through the gyrations of finding something else. In the end, it works "OK", but I've had driver problems, and the whole GUI is just kinda goofy. I have had ATI problems at work and on other machines as well. I will not buy another (I know other people have good luck with them; maybe I'm just unlucky or too picky).
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See if you can output the raw digital signal, instead of using your computer's sound card to output analog. IIRC, I was able to do this for Dolby Digital with MPlayer, but DTS wasn't so happy.
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Yeah, you definitely want to output raw S/PDIF data to your receiver or preamp. Don't let the sound card to the D/A for you -- there's just no reason for it, and if you want it done right, you'll have to research the sound card to death, and then pay through the nose for it. Just allow your receiver/preamp to do it -- it's what it does best.