Earlier I had no luck playing DVD ISOs with the mplayer packaged by Ubuntu, so I followed some blogger's guide on compiling it. Now my video is perfectly fine with mplayer. So I think I have an XBMC problem rather than a hardware problem. I could just use mplayer, but I wanted XBMC so my wife could ...

I copied a file locally to the SSD and found that playback was not improved. I also did the following test and found about 12Mb/s read speed. chaz@argus:~$ time dd if=stuff/dummyfile of=/dev/null bs=16k 16384+0 records in 16384+0 records out 268435456 bytes (268 MB) copied, 23.2691 s, 11.5 MB/s real...

For all the people that play media files off nfs...do you use regular fast ethernet? I just set up a HTPC and video playback is not smooth when playing back DVD iso files with XBMC. The files are on an NFS share on my server. Could network speed be the problem? Do you need gigabit ethernet for this ...

I believe that VDPAU is working. I have the latest NVIDIA driver, and mplayer reports VDPAU success, and XBMC has 'use VDPAU' checked in the menu. I think the problem might be the bloated desktop and/or XBMC more than the video itself. I have my card set to 1920x1080 so I'm doing the scaling on the ...

I recently got my 2006-era HTPC out of storage and realized it's just not cutting it any more. I installed Precise Pangolin and it won't smoothly play DVDs at 1920x1080 using XBMC. Everything else about the software stack is making me pretty happy, except my CPU runs at 70%, and memory similarly use...

I have a DFI RS482 mobo, fanless 8400 videocard, 90w AMD 3700 with giant Zalman, and no power supply. Actually I have a 250W PSU from an old dell, but it does not have the right plugs. The main plug is only 20 instead of 24 pins (I think). So the mobo will not even post. I looked up the plug wiring ...

I remember seeing an article for a power supply that was external and resembled a laptop power brick only with ATX connectors on the end. I want to cobble together my old mATX motherboard and I would like it to be as close to silent as possible, so a PSU like this would be an ideal solution for me. ...

I'm going to WC my PC, and I will be making my own water block because I'm poor and like making things. I'm having a hard time finding copper locally, but I have several nice pieces of aluminum. I know copper's thermal conductivity is much higher than Al, but the stock HSF (AMD 3700) is aluminum aft...

Are they just hollow, or solid, or what? I t almost seems like you could cut them and use it as a water+air cooler.

https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=1953102&WishListTitle=micro+version For money savings I decided to back back down to 1GB of ram after reading a few articles that 2GB is overkill unless you are a hardcore gamer. I hope I don't regret it; I WILL be us...

The Hauppauge you selected is the MCE version To the best of my knowledge, it will indeed work with XP Home/Pro. the DFI's integrated CPU is probably more suited for video since it is ATI. S-Video is a very nice connection to have.... The DFI seems to be a nice board the PCI-e x1 slot in between PC...

Thanks for the good info on the processor! Considering that case, with a nice fullsize (right? Do I need a special PSU) SPCR-recommended PSU. How much power do I need? I'm not sure which of these MOBO (or other) to go with, the DFI has more features with S/PDIF out and Svideo out, but does the ASUS ...

I am considering building This MicroATX motheroboard into a multimedia/HTPC with these parts (minus the ATX applicable ones) http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16815116620 . The goal is a multimedia home PC with mild HTPC capabilities. No/light gaming. My question is if this is a wis...