software setup

[jimmsch]

OK My HTPC is coming together. I will use the MSI Passive cooled Radeon HD 2600XT on a P5B Dlx with E6600 and Corsair HX520 PSU. I will install WinXP Pro, or any other Windows OS someone might suggest.

My question is what is best software to use for watching .x264 and/or .h264 encoded avi and/or mkv files. I will use the HDMI to the TV from HD 2600, but I will not install the sound drivers for it. The sound will be passed through either onboard SPDIF or Auzentech X Plosion SPDIF to an external decoder.

I was finally able, after many failures, to get the onboard sound to work through SPDIF using InterVideo WinDVD, but I don't think it will play the HD files. It wasn't the best sound I ever heard, so I might get an X Plosion. VLC would not recognize the SPDIF very well and resulted in echoing sound...totally unacceptable.

I will use this mainly for watching HD files of the type that I mentioned above, and probably for DVD discs also. I am sure it will surf the web just a bit, but mostly just watching HD content.

[Jon]

For AVC content you'll need FFDSHOW (with x.264 support checked on) and Haali Media Splitter installed. CoreAVC is good too, but not free and not as customisable. It's not as CPU-intensive as using FFDSHOW, however. FFDSHOW can also handle all the audio whether it be transcoding on the fly (if you have MP3, AAC, etc. audio that your receiver can't handle) or direct S/PDIF passthrough.

I use all of this on my media centers with MCE2K5 as my frontend.

[jimmsch]

For AVC content you'll need FFDSHOW (with x.264 support checked on) and Haali Media Splitter installed. CoreAVC is good too, but not free and not as customisable. It's not as CPU-intensive as using FFDSHOW, however. FFDSHOW can also handle all the audio whether it be transcoding on the fly (if you have MP3, AAC, etc. audio that your receiver can't handle) or direct S/PDIF passthrough.

I use all of this on my media centers with MCE2K5 as my frontend.
Thanks for the info Jon.

I am afraid I might need a tutorial on how to get all of this setup. :( I'm a dummy.

[Jon]

It's really not all that difficult as long as you're not doing post-processing and whatnot. A default install of FFDSHOW and Haali Media Splitter will give you playback of most any format right off the bat.