Yet Another HTPC-advice Thread!

[sam9s]

YOu can always go for a new case, if your PSU is a standard one. Coming to 1050 Mini, I could not find any concrete review stating that Mini supports 4K HEVC decoding dedicated, so if that is your main criteria, I would suggest to google extensively and confirm if Mini has what you specifically need.

Coming to powering the GPU, you can always purchase a 6/8 pin GPU to molex connector for the same.

 

[MaSh]

YOu can always go for a new case, if your PSU is a standard one. Coming to 1050 Mini, I could not find any concrete review stating that Mini supports 4K HEVC decoding dedicated, so if that is your main criteria, I would suggest to google extensively and confirm if Mini has what you specifically need.

Coming to powering the GPU, you can always purchase a 6/8 pin GPU to molex connector for the same.

This article mentions it https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GTX-1050-109-Mini. If not this which one do you recommend under say 10k.

How do I confirm I have this gpu port?

MaSh



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[sam9s]

This article mentions it https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GTX-1050-109-Mini. If not this which one do you recommend under say 10k.

How do I confirm I have this gpu port?

MaSh



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Yep this article looks legit, it has feature set H and that is more than one would want. However it does not mention anything about HD Audio Passthrough , Plus even though the length is small, it might require two slots on the mobo, in that case, you have to change the cabinet. On the plus side the card doesn't require any external PCI-E power connector as per the article, so you dont even need the GPU to molex connector.
About GPU port, you need to have a PCI-E on the mobo, and I think your optiplex has Intel Q43 Chipset. which has PCIE x16 slot, so in all probability, you are all set ...

 

[MaSh]

Yes found a couple of more articles mentioning it. Pass through has not been mentioned, most of the articles are gaming perspective which I am assuming does not need it, so not mentioned even though it does. Not sure, how to confirm that without actually trying it out. Anything in the specs that can hint on it? The non ti variant seems to have only a single plate, with the cooling apparatus occupying the space of another slot. Ti variant from the pics seems to be occupying two slots on the case.

Getting it for 8.5k, 4 months old, with Bill and all. Is it worth giving it a shot? With the current cabinet, my choices are limited for this stage of build.

Need to finalize quickly, sad to see the cpu just sitting, I have disconnected the Pi too, so other folks in the house grumbling too.

MaSh

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[sam9s]

^^ No way you can confirm the Audio Passthrough unless someone confirms on a forum or in an article, so its your call and risk. Personally, I would not care for 4KHEVC as much as I would care for Bitstreaming.

If this would not be used for gaming, then I might look for other options, just because the price it right does not necessarily make the hardware per my requirement, if you know what I mean, rest as I said, its your call ...

Why dont you mail to nvidia tech support and ask them straight, if 1050 mini supports full HD Audio passthrough.

 

[MaSh]

^^ No way you can confirm the Audio Passthrough unless someone confirms on a forum or in an article, so its your call and risk. Personally, I would not care for 4KHEVC as much as I would care for Bitstreaming.

If this would not be used for gaming, then I might look for other options, just because the price it right does not necessarily make the hardware per my requirement, if you know what I mean, rest as I said, its your call ...

Why dont you mail to nvidia tech support and ask them straight, if 1050 mini supports full HD Audio passthrough.

Yes I hear you. And that's the reason I don't have it in my hands already.

What other options are you referring to? I am open to all at the moment which would overcome the fitting and power obstacles. Changing cpu or the psu are not an option right now, unfortunately.

MaSh

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[sam9s]

Don't change CPU or PSU, but see if you can change the cabinet, and fit existing hardware, that way you can also fit a conventional GTX 1050, and move your CPU/Mobo and PSU to this new cabinet. 1050 is not that expensive 11-12K, which, is like just 3-3.5K more than what you are planning to spend, and you get a brand new sealed box packed card. You would also get confirmed HD Audio Passthrough and full 4K HEVC decoding ....

 

[MaSh]

Don't change CPU or PSU, but see if you can change the cabinet, and fit existing hardware, that way you can also fit a conventional GTX 1050, and move your CPU/Mobo and PSU to this new cabinet. 1050 is not that expensive 11-12K, which, is like just 3-3.5K more than what you are planning to spend, and you get a brand new sealed box packed card. You would also get confirmed HD Audio Passthrough and full 4K HEVC decoding ....

Yes, this is what will be done eventually. However, that's for later. Right now want the rig up and running to play around with for a couple of months. I am not even sure whether I will stick on with this solution or head for something like a shield or similar. So no major changes at the moment. This is a Pilot.

MaSh

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[sam9s]

yep I know what you mean ....do share what ever you decide .

 

[MaSh]

With a change of things there is a Zotac GT730 plugged in my system:clapping:. Lot of good things and a couple of not so good, let me create a thread dedicated to it and updated the details.

Thank You Sam for the information, it really helped choose the card for the purpose.

MaSh

 

[sam9s]

GT730 is good for Bitstreaming, but not so good for 4K HEVC playback ....

 

[MaSh]

GT730 is good for Bitstreaming, but not so good for 4K HEVC playback ....

I do not have a 4k display, so that was not a requirement. HVEC 265 will be missed, although I have not tried it yet. 264 as expected plays with no issues.

Issue is with the bitstream. I am unable to find a way to make it do that. Its sending out multi channel PCM only. Although I find it sounding great, but yeh its PCM. Googling a bit, I read that it is because of the newer drivers. Some old drivers gave the option to bitstream.

Due to this my receiver just shows Multi In and not the other formats. Foobar when playing, the display is Stereo.

Apart from this, I love it. It fitted well in the cabinet, Windows recognized my receiver along with all the formats it can play. I have selected Marantz, the receiver as the default output.

Will research more on this PCM-Bitstream thing. Do let me know if you have any suggestions or information about it.

MaSh

 

[MaSh]

Update:
Installed Kodi 17.1 and all good. Looks like it's bitstreaming the movie audio to the receiver as now I see all the different formats being decoded by the receiver. However, for some weird reason pcm sounded better to me . Will do more tests.

MaSh

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[sam9s]

cool so everything is as it should be ... glad all worked ...

 

[MaSh]

cool so everything is as it should be ... glad all worked ...

Yes all looking and sounding great. Just need to compare pcm vs dd, dts, etc and pick the direction to take.

MaSh

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[TheSeeker]

Update:
Installed Kodi 17.1 and all good. Looks like it's bitstreaming the movie audio to the receiver as now I see all the different formats being decoded by the receiver. However, for some weird reason pcm sounded better to me . Will do more tests.

MaSh

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this bitstream issue is one thing that has left me baffled for past few weeks. i tried to go by one of @spirovious' earlier created threads (on bitstreaming from HTPC to receiver), but faltered at initial few hiccups. tried to read on this online but realised need to devote some amount of time to this. from my gaming consoles, i do get digital out, but from HTPC, LPCM. audio-out is set to the GPU. did you find any solution?

 

[buxx]

Any thoughts on what I can use to bitstream from a Macbook Air?

 

[MaSh]

this bitstream issue is one thing that has left me baffled for past few weeks. i tried to go by one of @spirovious' earlier created threads (on bitstreaming from HTPC to receiver), but faltered at initial few hiccups. tried to read on this online but realised need to devote some amount of time to this. from my gaming consoles, i do get digital out, but from HTPC, LPCM. audio-out is set to the GPU. did you find any solution?

Hmm I have not tried any games on this yet. Don't will try either. Ps3 does that duty for me. However, from what I have read, games do not bitstream, only lpcm.

For some reason, I am preferring this pcm more than bitstreaming, maybe my marantz isn't that good at decoding or my preferences are different. So as of now it's mpc hc with experiments on madvr.

Any thoughts on what I can use to bitstream from a Macbook Air?

Did you try installing Kodi? For me on Windows, that's the only one that's bitstreaming. All others are pcm.

MaSh

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[pjbiju]

All Gurus out here - I need your advice and help (this is my first post over here and I hope I am adding this to the right thread)

I want to build a HTPC and get the best out of the gear that I have. My thoughts are:

• Laptop - Dell Precision M4400 mobile workstation with 8GB RAM, 250 GB Hard disk and NVIDIA Quadro FX 770M graphics card. I already have this and so have to go with this.
• The laptop has no operating system - so I need your suggestion as to which version of Linux would be the best for HTPC. I have no plans to buy Windows OS.
• Which other software do I need to add? I will use this to play music and movies. I will use another laptop for sorting and tagging my music. So this will only be used for playing the music and videos. Since I do not have a TV at home, the immediate requirement is for music. I plan to buy a TV in the near future.
• Initially I will have a 2TB portable HDD with all my music and movies in it connected to the laptop.
• My family would also be using the HTPC to play music from youtube, gaana.com, internet radio stations etc.
• I plan to feed the audio output to my Denon N7 and its speakers (I plan to upgrade the speakers from the default Denon ones and add a powered sub woofer later on) - I know it is a very simple set-up, but one that we for now are satisfied with.
• Should I invest in a DAC that will connect the laptop to Denon N7? Please do not suggest any DAC which is very expensive . I do have a lot of music in flac, wav format. We listen to English pop songs, blues, (strictly no hard rock or metal or in short songs that we feel are more of shouting than singing), Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and I (just me when I am alone at home) also listen to Mozart, Beethoven and other classics.

 

[MaSh]

Guys any suggestions on a budget smps? For some reason the current smps has become very buzzy and gets on my nerves sometimes. The fan is clean and there is no dust anywhere, it's still noisy. The graphics card doesn't need any additional power, so additional connector is not required. All I want is for it to be as silent as possible.

MaSh

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