HELP WITH MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM

[slush_poepie]

Hello

It has been some time since I made a post. I need some advice. I am building just a general multimedia centre for home and was wondering if the following parts will be good enough for blu-ray playback.

Celeron Dual-core 1.6ghz
Intel G31 M/B
1gig DDR2 800mhz ram
Sparkle Geforce 8400GS 256mb
500gig HD
Sony Blu-ray drive

That is the specs for now. I am using a Geforce 8400 because I live in South Africa and ATI RADEON cards are overpriced here. Some cases the Geforce 280 is cheaper than the Radeon 4870. So ATI cards are out. That is the basic system and would just like to know if this is good enough for Blu-ray playback. All this should be about $350 including TV card,PSU and custom case.
Also I have never build a multimedia system. Does anyone have advice on what software to use and what PC REMOTES. I was thinking of going with a LINUX system but am not to sure...I dont know what to look for in a remote so I was looking at logitech remotes and they look good but are almost 1/3 of what the system costs.

Any advice????
Thank you

 

[Proximon]

It seems like a reasonable budget build. I cannot say if the 8400GS can handle blu-ray playback or not.

I do know that the 790GX chipset is good for this sort of thing... integrated video, and you could get a less expensive AMD CPU. I can't say if that would meet your budget or not.

You should try to get 2GB RAM though.

 

[Guest]

Hi

The 8400GS should handle HD-DVD playback with no problems, just make sure it's the newer version with the G98 GPU. Nvidia changed the 8400GS from the G86 to the G98 GPU without changing the name. The 8400GS(G86) will struggle, the 8400GS(G98) does full hardware VC-1 decoding, though it's 3D performance is markedly worse.

As for Linux - take a look at MythTV. If you get it working come back and tell me how you did it!

Stuart

 

[slush_poepie]

Thanx for the reply. I would go with AMD but ATI/AMD are overpriced in South Africa(I should have said that before) I like a standard intel board I was just Unsure about the GEFORCE 8400 and CELERON. System will basically just be used for watching Blu-ray so just need input on that and REMOTES and software.

 

[slush_poepie]

This is the GEFORCE I want to get

http://www.sparkle.com.tw/product_detail.asp?id=65&sub_id=118

 

[englandr753]

As far as playing DVD's, are you going to be imaging movies to your hard drive and playing from the image? If so, then go to ebay and buy Corels 9HD and this remote:

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_44_ENU.html

Download and run Cyberlinks bluray disk advisor and it will tell you if your system is ready for bluray:

http://www.cyberlink.com/prog/bd-support/diagnosis.do#top

It appears that your video card will do it, I would suggest you get as powerful of a video card as you can afford:

http://docs.cyberlink.com/multi/support/answerbox_productfaq.jsp?FID=2577&nProdId=31&ProdVerId=175&nCateId=5

The CPU support technically makes no mention of celeron cpus. I think you would be better off getting an AMD X2 chip if that better fits your budget. They do make mention of the AMD 3800 X2 so that chip or faster would be recommended. As far as Intel goes you will need a Pentium D or Core 2 duo. The problem with the Celeron is basically too low of cache to process data fast enough. This probably would cause hicups and that will be very annoying:

http://docs.cyberlink.com/multi/support/answerbox_productfaq.jsp?FID=2576&nProdId=31&ProdVerId=-1&nCateId=5


I have used Cyberlink Power DVD 7.1 for a while now and its the best player I have used to date. I like one of the features that it is able to go to an image on your hard drive and play that image as if it is a disk. I have a 1 terabyte hard drive full of movies and I just click on the movie I want to play and off you go. I like doing it that way because theres no physical disk to play from and it doesnt skip when you pause and start playing again.

Hopefully this helps...

 

[englandr753]

This is a link to Corels site:

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1189528458632?trkid=dvsedid&trkid=56132197#versionTabview=tab0&tabview=tab0

Also, their version of the bluray advisor so you can get a second opinion:

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Content/1193332030582

 

[Proximon]

.... The problem with the Celeron is basically too low of cache to process data fast enough. ...

After I posted here, I began wondering about this. I thought I recalled that Celeron lacked some instruction set for multimedia as well.

 

[englandr753]

Not sure about that, it could be true. I thought that Intel basically culled out cpus based on their performance and that is how they categorized them from Pentium and Celerons. I dont know if this still holds true about the Core 2 duos.

If that was how they did it it would appear they have the same instruction set but at a lower performing level.

I would like for someone to iterate on this that knows better...

 

[slush_poepie]

I found this article. It is said that they tested the blu-ray playback with integrated graphics on the celeron e1200. Does not look that bad.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3417&p=5

 

[slush_poepie]

Hello if you guys are still interested I found another article

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/intelatom-vianano_10.html#sect0

So I will built the system in the next few weeks. If it sucks then I will let you guys know.