Getting the Best out of an Ivy Bridge HTPC: Windows 8, madVR and More..
by Ganesh T S on January 20, 2013 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Intel
- HTPC
- Ivy Bridge
- Windows 8
- Passive Cooling
Software Interface: XBMC and JRiver Media Center 18
The combination of MPC-HC and LAV Filters enabled us to play back all our media files without issues. However, the user interface is not really amenable to a media center experience. XBMC, undoubtedly, has set the gold standard for the HTPC user interface. It is possible to go through hoops to make XBMC use MPC-HC and LAV filters for media playback, but the XBMC UI is lost during playback.
XBMC's internal playback engine incorporates DXVA capability also. It works very well for most common media files (standard TV broadcast recordings and Blu-ray/DVD re-encodes in MPEG-2 / MPEG-4 / H.264). However, interlaced VC-1 clips pose a challenge even with DXVA disabled.
Interlaced VC-1 Playback in XBMC (non-DXVA Mode)
If you don't particularly care for madVR or don't have any interlaced VC-1 clips in your library (and don't plan to add any), XBMC is a very good choice for the software interface to a Intel-based HTPC like the one we are discussing right now.
If you have already tried XBMC, but still have unmet requirements in terms of technical capabilities, I would definitely recommend taking a look at JRiver MC18. The UI (Theater View) is a couple of notches below XBMC, but it more than makes up for the lack of eye candy and ease of navigation by completely handling the configuration of madVR and various codecs without user intervention. We have covered the Red October initiative before. On our testbed, we were able to get perfect playback of all our clips using the Red October standard profile (which doesn't use madVR).
Interlaced VC-1 Playback in JRiver MC18 (RO Standard)
From our experiments, the combination of LAV Video Decoder (QuickSync) + madVR with default settings should work without issues. A similar profile is used in Red October High Quality (RO HQ) (some of JRiver's own filters are added to the chain), but we had plenty of dropped frames during playback of 720p60 / 1080p60 / 1080i60 streams. I am in touch with JRiver to investigate this issue further and will make it a point to update this section in case the status of RO HQ on the HD 4000 changes.
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damianrobertjones - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
It's hardly difficult to use Windows 8! Heck a few of the ladies in work purchased laptops for their kids over xmas with Windows 8 and they're having no issues.... WHy are you??? Makes no sense at alllotharamious - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
No real useful advantages. But, it's $40. Oh yeah, and new task manager, new file copy dialog, storage spaces, data deduplication, WAY less naggy updates, fast boot (way faster than 7), extra dimension in your start menu for more stuff.Nothing at all.
ol1bit - Friday, January 25, 2013 - link
My Win 7 HTPC works just fine with my network streaming Silcon Dust dual tuner.I rebuilt by gaming PC with Windows 8 and after a week I couldn't take it anymore, re-installed Win7-64bit.
-Stupid UI
-Dumbed down for Grandpa and Grandma
- Stupid colors in office (aka none per se)
- COD4 and older games don't work.
Win7 has none of these issues, so if the only benefit I get is a netflix app that uses a tad less power, and a crappy UI forget it.
JlHADJOE - Sunday, January 27, 2013 - link
"Fast boot" is fast because it changes normal shutdown to "hibernate".If you force the OS to do a proper reboot, there's no improvement over 7.
justniz - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
Actually you can do a lot more with Linux than just surf YT. Check out MythTV. It is a VERY capable PVR/HTPC suite.In my opinion, much better than any product available for windows, and free too.
SantaAna12 - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
Aii yii yii!No I dont have Windows Pro 8.....pay up!
a2f - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
Is there any way we could get a look at how you have configured the various settings for the LAV filters and madVR for our own personal testing?Mangix - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
in regards to the refresh rate issue, which i am not too familiar with, have you tried modifying the EDID in the registry to help fix it?link: http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Re...
dubya911 - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
How do the final capabilities of this compare to the plethora of android mini PCs floating around? Things like the MK802, G-Box etc seem to have a beta version of XBMC with network storage support now. Or if you want to move upscale a bit googleTV, Roku etc?Other than the fun of putting it together is there an upside? My napkin math puts this build north of $600. That is a lot of delta to make up.
edlee - Sunday, January 20, 2013 - link
You are absolutely right.I have a set up One Raid -5 Xeon E2-1235 file server with a bunch of different DLNA servers programs to work with different client devices.
for example:
PS3 media server for my PS3
Servio for my Sony blu-ray players and smart tv devices
Plex for my roku
Qloud Media server for my android clients
This way I dont have to setup an expensive HTPC in every watching location, and the Xeon e2-1235 is comparable to i7-2600 so it has all the processing power to handle video transcoding in software, until these apps update their encode engine to take advantage of quick sync.