I've been using Media Center with the MyMovies add on for 5 years (www.mymovies.name) for SD DVDs with MCE 2005 and, more recently, Vista Ultimate. However, this is crappy option for HD content and the lack of FULL support is putting the whole HTPC concept at risk.
The lack of HD / Blu native support is almost a deal breaker for me right now. Even having MyMovies automatically open Cyberlink's PowerDVD HD to play HD content is a pretty bad compromise. There is no way to get a digital 7.1 signal to a receiver. Optical / Toslink can only handle 5.1. Most HD content is only 5.1 now but even if you wanted to get that HD, digital 5.1 signal to your receiver, you are out of luck. Cyberlink PowerDVD has to downsample HD audio to no higher than 48 kHz 16 bits-per-sample before sending to the audio driver.
Until MCE supports HD or Blu content natively (and does not downsample audio) OR Cyberlink decides not to downsample HD audio *AND* someone comes out with a way to get a digital, non downsampled, 7.1 signal to a receiver, the whole HD HTPC concept is self-defeating IMO.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Aaron @ Sep 28th 2007 3:03PM
I've been using Media Center with the MyMovies add on for 5 years (www.mymovies.name) for SD DVDs with MCE 2005 and, more recently, Vista Ultimate. However, this is crappy option for HD content and the lack of FULL support is putting the whole HTPC concept at risk.
The lack of HD / Blu native support is almost a deal breaker for me right now. Even having MyMovies automatically open Cyberlink's PowerDVD HD to play HD content is a pretty bad compromise. There is no way to get a digital 7.1 signal to a receiver. Optical / Toslink can only handle 5.1. Most HD content is only 5.1 now but even if you wanted to get that HD, digital 5.1 signal to your receiver, you are out of luck. Cyberlink PowerDVD has to downsample HD audio to no higher than 48 kHz 16 bits-per-sample before sending to the audio driver.
Until MCE supports HD or Blu content natively (and does not downsample audio) OR Cyberlink decides not to downsample HD audio *AND* someone comes out with a way to get a digital, non downsampled, 7.1 signal to a receiver, the whole HD HTPC concept is self-defeating IMO.