Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI

Posted by: CrackersMcCheese

Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 14:44

I've been thinking of getting a nice quiet shuttle system for the livingroom for blu-ray movies, archived dvds etc. The shuttle system I'm looking at has dvi outputs and ships with a dvi->hdmi converter cable. Is dvi capable of handling the bandwidth or will there be problems here?

I'm looking at the G5 3101M

http://eu.shuttle.com/en/desktopdefault....310_read-14362/
Posted by: CrackersMcCheese

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 14:52

Oh, and...

If I have my own Blu-ray dvds... is there a way to copy these to the hard drive to view them without discs? Or does vista lock down all protected stuff?
Posted by: Charles Beer

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 15:18

i don't know what kind of TV you have but I have a new 65734 65" Mitsubishi DLP and I'm having problems with overscan from my HTPC. I have it connected hdmi->hdmi. I have a motherboard with hdmi out. It might benefit me to upgrade my video card.

Just warning you about overscan issues. The onboard graphics card on the shuttle might not be good enough.
Posted by: Attack

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 15:45

DVI to HDMI will do 1080p and AnyDVD HD will allow you to rip CD's, DVD's, HDDVD's and BlueRay Disc's. As for playback of HDDVD's I have found that playing the raw files works better than playing the image but you then lose the menus.
Posted by: Cris

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 16:04

My understanding is that HDMI is just DVI wrapped up in a package that can handle encryption, so bandwidth shouldn't be an issue.

What may be an issue is cropping. Using the DVI to HDMI cable my Pioneer plasma crops about 5% off each edge, to get the the full 1:1 I have to use the vga in, which is fine for what I do with it, but check it would be for you.

Cheers

Cris.
Posted by: drakino

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 17:21

Quote:
My understanding is that HDMI is just DVI wrapped up in a package that can handle encryption, so bandwidth shouldn't be an issue.


Close. DVI and HDMI are the same as far as the video protocol goes. Both can support single link and dual link, though I haven't seen a HDMI dual link port in the wild. Both can support HDCP encryption, HDMI just changes the connector and ads a few pins to deal with an audio signal over the same cable. My TV set has both DVI and HDMI inputs, and either one works for HDCP off my PS3.
Posted by: spider

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 17:23

I've been using my 360 to do just that. However, a re-encode of a bluray or hddvd disk to a dvd9 wmvhd is about 48 hours though I bought 2x1TB external drives, one of which is a Lacie nas with Ethernet and usb. I've got this hooked up to the network via Ethernet and then the other external drive hooked up to the Lacie via usb (really neat feature of the Lacie drive). The only "problem" I had with this is the 360 does not support NTFS file system, so I formated the drives to fat32 with partition magic to get around the windows-fat32 formatting bottleneck, only to discover that files on a fat32 system are limited to 4gb in size, how lame. Luckily the 360 also supports hfs+ filesystem, so thats what I am using now with the program "MacDrive" to interface with windows. This is working out quite well so far. Now I'm just waiting for Microsoft to add divx/xvid support on dec 4th in the dashboard fall update.
Posted by: CrackersMcCheese

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 18:15

Overscan. Bugger.

Ok lets start with my n00b questions!

Do any TVs allow me to turn off overscan? Or is it pretty much a gamble? Is it a case of taking a pc to the shop and saying "can I plug this in?"

Is the refresh rate something I need to consider? Will a tv have a different refresh rate depending on how its connected i.e. VGA, DVI, HDMI, antenna?

The shuttle system I linked has a pretty good graphics card - is there something that could be done to overcome overscan there?

Cris, you mentioned VGA has no overscan issues. Can I view hidef DVDs over VGA? Or is that laughable?

Thanks for all the help/input.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 18:23

Quote:
The shuttle system I linked has a pretty good graphics card - is there something that could be done to overcome overscan there?


See if Powerstrip helps? As in this?

In addition to adjusting the front and back porch as said in that thread, I think PowerStrip lets you create a resolution-within-a-resolution mode, where you have a full resolution being sent to your video card, but the desktop is a rectangle centered within that resolution.

Anyone know if that sort of thing actually works?
Posted by: andym

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 18:33

My Sony does 1:1 pixel mapping, you just have to enable it in the menu. No overscan whatsoever. I wouldn't even consider using VGA on an HD tv. The difference between that and DVI/HDMI is like night and day to me.
Posted by: hybrid8

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 18:46

Skip the Shuttle system and build something else. Shuttle has not ever, does not now, and likely will never, build a quiet system. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

If you must have only a single system that both holds and plays the media and it must be located in the room with the TV, then splurge and get a big amp-sized case that uses no fans, like the HFX: http://www.hifiatx.com/hfx.php?lang=EN

If you can have a server located somewhere else (recommended) then build a smaller and less powerful machine for playback. Also using a fanless case, but this one can be low profile - put a notebook HD in it.

When I move in February I'm locating the media-playing and serving PC in the basement approximately under where the TV will go. The only thing coming into the living room will be audio/video cabling and a thin wire for the USB IR receiver. But if I was rebuilding from scratch, I don't think I'd start with anything other than an HFX case.
Posted by: Cris

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 20:12

Quote:
Cris, you mentioned VGA has no overscan issues. Can I view hidef DVDs over VGA? Or is that laughable?


I don't really have anything that is capable of outputting 1080 to try it, so I guess I can't answer your question.

As Andy has pointed out, on his TV he can disable the overscan, so check on the model you have/thinking of buying first. I took my macbook into the store with the correct cables and made sure it does what I wanted it to before I put my hand in my pocket. Personally I'm not bothered about the 1:1 thing for HD content as this panel isn't a native HD res anyway. This may be just a Pioneer thing, but it's worth checking I guess.

I don't think refresh rate is a problem, it hasn't been for me on either DVI>HDMI or VGA.

Cheers

Cris.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 21:22

Quote:
Do any TVs allow me to turn off overscan?

All TVs that do not have direct digital display technologies (my terminology, basically anything other than screens that light elements that you see directly, that is, CRTs, rear projection, etc.) are probably designed to have overscan. This is because there is no way for them to get a clean line at the edge of the picture, so they hide the raw edge behind the overscan. There is no reason for a TV that does have direct digital display (plasma, LCDs, etc.) to have overscan, as they shouldn't have an unseemly raw edge. Heck, even films projected at the theater have the equivalent of overscan, and filmmakers, both for TV and film, take this into account when shooting.

The reason I point this out is because if the TV is designed to have overscan, there is a reason for it. If you were to hook up an HD-DVD player to such a screen, it would "suffer" from overscan, too. So if your intention is that you want to be able to watch videos on the screen just as if it were not a PC, then you don't really have to worry about overscan any more than you would if you were just buying an HD-DVD player.

Of course, if your intention is to use it as a PC, then that's where the concern becomes valid, as the Windows taskbar will get chopped off, for example. But if you have some sort of dedicated software that is intended to be used as a media computer, I'm sure that the developers have taken that sort of thing into account and made the UI not rely on the very edges of the screen.

This may be obvious, but no one has said it and I thought it was worth pointing out.
Posted by: tman

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 19/11/2007 23:21

Quote:
The only "problem" I had with this is the 360 does not support NTFS file system, so I formated the drives to fat32 with partition magic to get around the windows-fat32 formatting bottleneck, only to discover that files on a fat32 system are limited to 4gb in size, how lame. Luckily the 360 also supports hfs+ filesystem, so thats what I am using now with the program "MacDrive" to interface with windows.

What? The Xbox 360 supports HFS+ but not NTFS?
Posted by: gbeer

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 20/11/2007 00:50

respectfully I disagree.

There is no reason for any digital set to do digital overscanning. RP tv's should do any over scanning mechanically.

I'd really like to know why designers of FP sets think they need to digitally over scale an image. Are their math skill truly that bad?
Posted by: drakino

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 20/11/2007 02:59

Quote:
What? The Xbox 360 supports HFS+ but not NTFS?


They wanted the 360 to be able to play media files off iPods, including Mac formatted iPods. So HFS+ went in.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 20/11/2007 12:58

Quote:
RP tv's should do any over scanning mechanically.

That still qualifies as overscanning in my book. Sure, it's technically a different process, but you still lose the edges of the picture behind an area that doesn't transmit the image.
Posted by: CrackersMcCheese

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 20/11/2007 18:19

Thank you all for the input. I have discovered that Most if not all Sony TVs allow you to turn off overscan on 1080i/p signals.

Nice review here: http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=63698

The HFX that Bruno linked to looks nice. But it looks expensive! I'll need to take a further look at it.

One last query though...

A pc outputting video on DVI/HDMI - is this 1080p or 1080i? Does tthat even make any sense?
Posted by: Attack

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 20/11/2007 18:44

Quote:
One last query though...

A pc outputting video on DVI/HDMI - is this 1080p or 1080i? Does tthat even make any sense?


This depends on your video card, I know my GeForce 7950 can do both but my TV doesn't accept 1080p input only 1080i input and lower. Since the fonts look like s**t at 1080i I run my PC desktop @ 720p.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 20/11/2007 19:02

Quote:
Thank you all for the input. I have discovered that Most if not all Sony TVs allow you to turn off overscan on 1080i/p signals.

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that should read "discovered that Most if not all [non-RPTV] Sony TVs allow you to turn off overscan on 1080i/p signals."
Posted by: andym

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 20/11/2007 19:20

Quote:
One last query though...

A pc outputting video on DVI/HDMI - is this 1080p or 1080i? Does tthat even make any sense?


The OSD says 1080p on mine.
Posted by: Neutrino

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 21/11/2007 00:26

I wasn't aware that there was any way to rip Blu-rays. After reading this post, I guess there is now. Of course, the result will be huge. Both Hd and blu-ray are massive. There was a time when I ripped dvd's to a file server. Even with 1.2 TB I was limited to ~ 150 uncompessed titles. It's been my experience that due to the size of HD's and Blu-rays it is impractical to rip these. I'll just get up and load the disc.
Posted by: mlord

Re: Blu-Ray, DVI & HDMI - 21/11/2007 01:55

BluRay and HDDVD don't really interest me, but I do rip *all* DVDs that pass through here.

Not for a hard drive library -- the discs themselves are fine for that -- but rather to remove all of the stupid "can't press FF now" type of restrictions from them before playing them, and also to "fix" the odd few that don't seem to be playable under MythTV by default (weird, that..).

But DVDs for me are not like music -- they get played once, twice maybe, and then not again for years. No need here to have them always "on line".

Cheers