If you ever want to hit something around the wdtv form factor, you can get a full blown ivy bridge system from Intel in that size with their new NUC systems. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102002&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10440897&PID=3332167&SID=u00000687 Intel's integrated video is perfectly fine for HD video. I even have a first gen core i3 laptop that does this fine. That's actually what I mainly use to watch movies on the HDTV. ivy bridge integrated gpu's are no slouch either. Also the logitech k400 keyboards are awesome for htpc's as they have a built-in touchpad surface. You can grab them for $29.99 at target. http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/Wireless-touch-keyboard-k400r
I saw the NUC, but it doesn't have optical out so it's a non-starter. I'd rather not have to replace my receiver. I've tried doing HDMI to the TV and then running either optical or coaxial to the receiver, but you get input lag where the sound is out of sync with the video. It's also $300, and that's without ram or an SSD. Kinda pricey. This was what I was looking at for a keyboard/mouse: http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Enhanced-Multimedia-Keyboard-57Y6678/dp/B005L2NTTQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359304589&sr=8-1&keywords=lenovo+media+remote I went ahead and bought the APU parts. Came to $199 shipped with combo deals.
LOL...piracy is the "future", but you think you have to build a separate PC just to view HD video on your TV? Just buy a $79-$99 box and stream video to it from the computer you already own. Unless you have an outdated router spec, you'll have no issues.
Why, so I can have sketchy codec support and they can slip DRM into it just like Sony did with the PS3 and all the bluray players? No thanks. Homie don't play dat no more.
Also, I forgot to mention I want to be able to make HD Skype calls from my living room TV. AFAIK, no cheap streaming boxes do that. My wife and I sometimes call family on Skype, especially around the holidays, and it's annoying to do on a laptop or on my desktop PC. Also, the only streaming box I know of that does MKV is the WD Live, and like I said, I didn't like it when I tried it. Very laggy and unresponsive. Apple TV and Roku from what I've read not only don't do MKV, but have poor codec support in general. Plus Apple are kind of assholes. They're the kind of company that would pull a dick move and slip something like cinavia into the Apple TV.
Apple TV can't do MKV and has issues streaming files in general. It's mostly just for stuff like YouTube and Netflix. You could hack the old ones to run XBMC but from what I understand you can't with the current gen Apple TV. And the older Apple TVs are very pricey, like $300+ if you can find one. Raspberry Pi looks like a lot of work, and I despise Linux. Plus, it doesn't have optical out. What I need: -Plays 1080p MKV files without stuttering -Does optical out to recievers -HDMI -Works with Logitech Harmony Remote -Not underpowered. Needs to be fast and responsive. -Can hook a webcam up to it to do skype calls A PC is the only thing I know of that does all of that.
MKV is just a container for H.264 files, just like MP4 or M4V. There's nothing special about it, other than it's flexibility for subtitles vs. other formats.
True, but I don't want to have to sit there and convert a bunch of shit to MP4. It needs to play MKV files. End of story.
The best quality rips are always MKV. It's the best container. You can throw DTS audio and subs into it. It's pretty close to having an actual bluray.
mkv is the scene standard right now. so if cmdr wants to get his stuff quick (tons of seeders from the get-go) and from something he knows will have good audio/video quality, he'll have to rely on scene releases. wdtv is the only real established set-top box that handles mkv like a champ (with all the multi-subtitle and multi-audio stream support). but like he said, the interface needs work. I bought one for my aunt and it's perfectly fine if you're using it for movies/tv-shows locally, but if you're going to use the other services, the UI is clunky. i think for the more advanced people, the HTPC will always be the better solution. it's the most flexible and they would have the knowledge on how to build one. windows media center is pretty hot too.
It really isn't possible for MKV to have "better quality" since it's only a container. Probably the reason it's used so widely for pirating is the subtitle support, but it doesn't look to me like cmdrmonkey watches many films that aren't originally in English anyway.
I understand they're container files. I meant good audio/video quality since the scene releases have standards they actually follow for the bitrate. The other random downloads from random people aren't really following any quality rules so the person could be encoding with any random bitrate and sloppy cropping to make it look horrible.
That's not really true. I do watch some foreign films, and again, MKV is better because they can roll in subtitles easily. Alterego probably needs to leave this discussion since it sounds like he doesn't really pirate anything and basically has no clue what he's talking about. Sure, I could convert to MP4 or M4V. But that would mean waiting around for the conversion, and conversions don't always go smoothly. Sometimes you end up with out of sync audio or other issues because you're essentially making a copy of a copy. I'd rather be able to just download and watch right away. Converting is too much effort. Also, MP4 doesn't do DTS as far as I know. DTS sounds better than anything else. AAC sounds like absolute poop by comparison to DTS. MKV does DTS.
It's not that hard to understand: MKV, MP4, and M4V are all capable of the same quality for audio and video, and you don't have to build your own computer for the TV to get 720p and 1080p ripped files onto the screen. It's also kind of hilarious that the same person who is claiming that entertainment content isn't worth paying for is also claiming that he needs the absolute best quality for experiencing something that is supposedly worthless.
How do you figure when MP4 and M4V can't do DTS which is the best audio standard? AAC is nowhere near as good as DTS. None of the cheap streaming boxes do MKV except the WD Live, which has a shitty interface. What are you not getting here? They're also vulnerable to DRM being slipped into firmware updates. $200 is the equivalent of buying 10 blurays. I watch that much content in a weekend sometimes. Money well spent as far as I'm concerned as it will save me thousands of dollars on content I won't have to buy. Besides, people spend more than $200 on high-end bluray players and game consoles they plan to use mainly for watching content. I don't see what the big deal is about spending that much. And I'm getting something that does a lot more than just stream content for the money. I could do skype calls, browse the web on a real browser from the couch, and even do light gaming as the onboard on the AMD APUs isn't half bad.
I guess it depends on what your definition of "best" is for home use. In the study below, AAC files rated "excellent" quality at 320 kbit/s, while Dolby Digital Plus needed 448 kbit/s and DTS needed 1.5 Mbit/s to achieve the same rating. So, yes, you can technically achieve ripped files with higher quality sound with DTS, but the file sizes have to be huge...and you can do it with MP4 for sure (Handbrake). Plus, the vast majority of people are not going to be able to tell the difference between formats once you hit the "Excellent" level, especially with speaker/headphone equipment that the vast majority of people could afford. I guess you can believe that it's better if you want, but for the most part you're just wasting drive space. http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3324.pdf