I was thinking about buying a capacious 1 terabyte HDD for my HTPC and backing up blu-ray ISO's onto the hard drive and then watch them with PowerDVD but I have a couple of questions: 1: Will I be able to connect my HTPC to my PC via HDMI and have no problems with viewing the movie? I've heard HDMI has DRM that isn't friendly to back ups so I thought my back ups might not work if theyr piped through HDMI to the HDTV. 2: Will I lose any functionality if I play the movies through my PC opposed to a PS3? I'm just curious because looking at the specs for the blu-ray players when you take a look at audo coding for example the specs vary between on board to no. I'm assuming if I had a sound card capable of decoding it all and a graphics card with HDMI v1.3 it wouldn't make a difference, blu-ray would take advantage of it just like a blu ray player or the PS3 would provided it was there. I'd rather play the movies through my HTPC since I wouldn't need to buy expensive blu ray discs to back up each movie I could just put it on my HDD which can be reused at a later date. I know I went on a little bit but I'm doing my last touch of homework before making a decision so I appreciate any help.
The main contentious problem with the HTPC or PC route is making sure you have a HDCP compliant graphics card since there is a "compliance handshake" that takes place between the graphics card and the HDTV and the connection must be digital (DVI or HDMI). I believe there are some HDMI output Gtraphics cards that also allow an Audio connection to be made but I do not believe that there are any sound cards yet that can do Dolby True HD but there might be some motherbords. My motherboard has a S/PDIF output and I can send the audio over a co-axial cable to my surround reciever to get DTS or Dolby 5.1. I do not have a PS3 and do not know if it outputs HD audio formats and of cousre you would need a surround sound system that could match your sound output capabalities in either HTPC or PS3 routes.
I think I'm set with the GPU. I'm going to be using a HD 4850 which has: - Built-in HDMI with 5.1 surround sound support - On-chip HDCP So I should be fine with HDCP compliancy and it looks like it has sound support too. Curious question but could I use a DVI to HDMI converter and still be HDCP compliant? I'm going to be using a Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 soundcard which can be seen below: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...uzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 Sound Card - Retail Funny thing is I've stumbled across something that may be of interest to you as well. The Auzentech card I've picked conveniently has an add on card called "Auzentech HDMI X-Tension" which basically connects to the Auzentech card and gives you Dolby True HD. http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/...rst-card-to-support-hdmi-13-and-dolby-truehd/ I think I have my answer, thanks for your help.
DVI to HDMI cable is what I use. As for HD audio, My surround system only does DTS, Dolby 5.1 and prologic II. However, contrary to DVD, I can have DTS on every Bluray I watch which I have been quite satisfied with. I can afford to wait to change my surround system and see what products develop for the PC. So far I have enjoyed my Bluray experiance & I hope you do too but it is not the "Revolution" over DVD that the industry would have you believe.
