My Finished Media Center!

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Tue, 07/12/2011 - 02:22

Mase

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My Finished Media Center!

So... some of you know that I got a new TV a couple months back. Well... ever since then I have been trying to find the ultimate way to watch movies from my PC to the TV. Been using my Xbox 360, but with the larger files... it would slow down a bit or get stuttery. So I tried an Apple TV. Didnt like that... so I got the bright idea of wanting to know if they made extra long HDMI cables. So I got on trusty ol' eBay, and found out I could get a 25 foot cable. Then I thought about lossless... and everyone seem to say you can go to 50 feet without loss, and some even said 100. So... a couple weeks ago I bought a new video card with HDMI out and decided... why try to find something to play the movies when my computer works just as fine! So today I finally got my HDMI cord, and ran it from my PC to my TV, and its working great! I need to upgrade my ram from 4gigs to 8gigs though. Sometimes the computer will stutter on the large files if im trying to do something on here. But check out the picture below on basically what the desktop looks like...

The left with the movie "Wolverine" is on the left, and my PC monitor is on the right. Pretty crazy on how all of this works AND.... they each have there seperate resolutions. The TV is in 1080p while my monitor is in 1600x900. Its just amazing how all of this works! lol

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Tue, 07/12/2011 - 10:58

CarJust

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Looks pretty cool bud....just wondering what your problem was with apple tv, we have been using it for the last few months and love it. Havent had a problem with it at all. Even running netflix and a few other things through it. I have my desktop and a toshiba laptop and my macbook running on the network and it works perfect.

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Tue, 07/12/2011 - 12:16

MacUK

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Love my Apple TV's 2 first gen and a new ATV2, especially Airplay from your phone or iPad, amazing

Tue, 07/12/2011 - 15:52

Mase

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I have a lot of movies in an x264 format that wont play on the Apple TV unless I jailbroke it. Plus my copies of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is like close to 20 gigs a piece, and sending that info gets stutter to not playable. Basically for the same price as the Apple TV I was able to get my computer on the TV. Now when I add the more memory it will be a lot more, but its nice to have it this way because now I am not limited.

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Tue, 07/12/2011 - 16:13

Brad

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We're looking at buying a house in the next few months and I'm pretty excited about setting up my media room. We're totally in the dark ages electronics-wise. Of course I'm also thinking that it seems like all the new stuff is right about where SmartPhones were a few years ago and that in a couple of years things will be simpler and slicker.

Tue, 07/12/2011 - 18:05

CarJust

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Download your movies on mp4 format and they play perfect.
I was doing what your doing now with the hdmi cable all over my living room and it was driving me crazy ( I hate cords!! )
I have all my computers in the office now and my dog isnt tripping over all the cords in the living room.

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Tue, 07/12/2011 - 23:21

Mase

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Brad wrote:

We're looking at buying a house in the next few months and I'm pretty excited about setting up my media room. We're totally in the dark ages electronics-wise. Of course I'm also thinking that it seems like all the new stuff is right about where SmartPhones were a few years ago and that in a couple of years things will be simpler and slicker.

There are tons of different options to choose from... its crazy! I mean you have the standard DVD/Bluray players. You got the media streamers like Apple TV, Xbox, Playstation, etc. Or just use a straight up computer. Its nuts... lol

CarJust wrote:

Download your movies on mp4 format and they play perfect.
I was doing what your doing now with the hdmi cable all over my living room and it was driving me crazy ( I hate cords!! )
I have all my computers in the office now and my dog isnt tripping over all the cords in the living room.

The cords dont bug me. My TV, and PC are on the same side of the room, and you cant even see the cord because of my chair and mini fridge... heh. Actually have 3 cords going through there. 2 Ethernet Cords, and now the HDMI cord... heh

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Wed, 07/13/2011 - 14:32

Mase

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Managed to put a patch on the memory issue last night. SVCHOST.EXE was taking up over 3.5gigs worth of memory for some odd reason, so I put it on low priority and it seemed to work. Dont know why it was going nuts but at least for now I dont have to spend $160! lol

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Wed, 07/13/2011 - 15:03

Lizzy_B

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Brad wrote:

We're looking at buying a house in the next few months and I'm pretty excited about setting up my media room. We're totally in the dark ages electronics-wise. Of course I'm also thinking that it seems like all the new stuff is right about where SmartPhones were a few years ago and that in a couple of years things will be simpler and slicker.

Good luck! I know this sounds very...unpolitically correct?...but I am SOOO happy I have my husband to sort through the media mess. Just make it go. That's all I ask.

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Wed, 07/13/2011 - 15:37

Mase

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Lizzy_B wrote:

Brad wrote:
We're looking at buying a house in the next few months and I'm pretty excited about setting up my media room. We're totally in the dark ages electronics-wise. Of course I'm also thinking that it seems like all the new stuff is right about where SmartPhones were a few years ago and that in a couple of years things will be simpler and slicker.

Good luck! I know this sounds very...unpolitically correct?...but I am SOOO happy I have my husband to sort through the media mess. Just make it go. That's all I ask.

Jess in a way said the same thing last night. She made the statement that non-of-this affects her. I told her... Well... Don't you watch everything with me on here? Don't you watch your movies on here? Your tv shows? She got quiet after that... Lol

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Wed, 07/13/2011 - 18:18

Bella

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Lizzy_B wrote:

Brad wrote:
We're looking at buying a house in the next few months and I'm pretty excited about setting up my media room. We're totally in the dark ages electronics-wise. Of course I'm also thinking that it seems like all the new stuff is right about where SmartPhones were a few years ago and that in a couple of years things will be simpler and slicker.

Good luck! I know this sounds very...unpolitically correct?...but I am SOOO happy I have my husband to sort through the media mess. Just make it go. That's all I ask.

True!
I have no idea what half of those things mean.

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Bella

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 13:02

JustCar

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Bella you can ask me anytime, with what I do I still fight the sigma that we girls don't know anything.

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Thu, 07/14/2011 - 13:25

scrappy

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Bella, I am in your camp on this one. I have no idea what all that stuff is or what it does.

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 15:30

Mase

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It all really depends on what you want to do. If you use a lot of iTunes and enjoy that... Apple TV is perfect for you. Even an Xbox 360 will connect to a Windows computer to share with Media Center. But if your like me and like full control... a PC hooked right up to your TV is a great solution because your not limited to one format.

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Thu, 07/14/2011 - 17:51

Bella

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Ohh XBox..I know that one!!

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Bella

Thu, 07/14/2011 - 18:51

Mase

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Bella wrote:

Ohh XBox..I know that one!!

Yup. If you have MP3's on your computer and everything is on the same router... you can listen to them on your TV.

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Fri, 07/15/2011 - 02:43

Bella

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Mase wrote:

Bella wrote:
Ohh XBox..I know that one!!

Yup. If you have MP3's on your computer and everything is on the same router... you can listen to them on your TV.

Yesterday I lost us $75.00 because my lack of mechanical no-how. It's a long story but basically I told our home warranty people something was wrong with the coil on our garage door--but it was actually the spring--but by saying coil they sent electrical people out here for something they couldn't fix and I had to pay the deducatable anyway. Dave said I'm not allowed to do technical or mechanical stuff ever again.

I can build things though! I can take apart pretty much anything and put it back together. I have also built furniture and done a lot of work on our house--that stuff I can handle and be all "I am woman hear me roar". It's just the tech stuff that gets me.

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Bella

Fri, 07/15/2011 - 12:41

Mase

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Bella wrote:

Mase wrote:
Bella wrote:
Ohh XBox..I know that one!!

Yup. If you have MP3's on your computer and everything is on the same router... you can listen to them on your TV.

Yesterday I lost us $75.00 because my lack of mechanical no-how. It's a long story but basically I told our home warranty people something was wrong with the coil on our garage door--but it was actually the spring--but by saying coil they sent electrical people out here for something they couldn't fix and I had to pay the deducatable anyway. Dave said I'm not allowed to do technical or mechanical stuff ever again.

I can build things though! I can take apart pretty much anything and put it back together. I have also built furniture and done a lot of work on our house--that stuff I can handle and be all "I am woman hear me roar". It's just the tech stuff that gets me.

lol... its all good. My son and I have our own 360's, and we will play Halo or Gears together and listen to music from my computer. Its a lot of fun to play these games with some nice music... lol

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- My Int3ractiv3 Trip R3port '12 - CLICK HERE!
[url='http://www.wdwforgrownups.com/forum/pick-mases-dinner-disney']- My Interactive Trip Report '11[/url]

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My Finished Media Center!