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Media Center
Hello All!
I am trying turn my computer into my home's "media center" and I need some advice/help. If any of you happened to be at CES this year, you probably heard about the Moxi Media Center. This device stores all of your media files (DVD, MP3, etc) and distributes the content via wireless networking protocols.
I personally like the idea of storing all of my media on my computer, and I don't think this should be very hard to do. I started ripping CD's almost 5 years ago and am up to about 45 GB worth of 160 kbps MP3's. I just recently started storing all of my DVD's onto my hard drives as well. I use smartripper to rip the entire DVD (vob, ifo, etc) into virtual drives on my computer so that I can use WinDVD to play them back.
I have a two part question ...
1) I would like to hook up my computer to my HDTV so that I can play the DVD's from the computer. I currently have an ATI Radeon 8500 video card, and I was wondering if there is any way to convert to DVI output from the card into component signals (YPbPr)?
2) If I use an optical connection from my computer (Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum) to connect to my home theatre's receiver, would the receiver be able to recognize that the input is 5.1 surround? In other words, is there any way to leave the output from the sound card "untainted" and let the receiver decode it?
Thanks in advance for any advice you can give. Take care.
I am trying turn my computer into my home's "media center" and I need some advice/help. If any of you happened to be at CES this year, you probably heard about the Moxi Media Center. This device stores all of your media files (DVD, MP3, etc) and distributes the content via wireless networking protocols.
I personally like the idea of storing all of my media on my computer, and I don't think this should be very hard to do. I started ripping CD's almost 5 years ago and am up to about 45 GB worth of 160 kbps MP3's. I just recently started storing all of my DVD's onto my hard drives as well. I use smartripper to rip the entire DVD (vob, ifo, etc) into virtual drives on my computer so that I can use WinDVD to play them back.
I have a two part question ...
1) I would like to hook up my computer to my HDTV so that I can play the DVD's from the computer. I currently have an ATI Radeon 8500 video card, and I was wondering if there is any way to convert to DVI output from the card into component signals (YPbPr)?
2) If I use an optical connection from my computer (Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum) to connect to my home theatre's receiver, would the receiver be able to recognize that the input is 5.1 surround? In other words, is there any way to leave the output from the sound card "untainted" and let the receiver decode it?
Thanks in advance for any advice you can give. Take care.