New Laptop HD rig completed - with photos

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jkg2

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Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 10:48 am
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New Laptop HD rig completed - with photos

#1

Post by jkg2 » Wed Oct 10, 2012 12:02 pm

Hi all,

After 10+ years with an old SD Panasonic 42" Plasma (non HD) and a home-made WMC box (also non HD), I've finally taken the plunge and upgraded to HD/Blu-Ray for the whole system.
Just wanted to share a couple of celebratory pics now that it's finally done, followed by a few remarks:

Image

Image Our provider is Verizon FiOS. Like most folks, price was the main issue, but two of the other primary issues were heat and power. My old WMC box was definitely on the power hungry side, as well as being a huge heater, not to mention all the satellite drives I kept adding over the years. The FiOS set-top box also put out a lot of heat, as did the Sony A/V reciever. Everything was in the same cabinet setup you see here, as well as an Xbox 360 Extender in another part of the house, all connected via wired Ethernet 10/100. Did I mention it got hot?

I was determined to simplify everything as much as possible as well, and a Blu-ray capable laptop with HDMI and some flavor of a fast mass-storage port, either USB3 or eSATA, seemed to be the answer. After combing the local computer stores for deals I located an open-box HP Pavilion dv7 at Frys for $500 which fit the bill all around. Next was storage, a LaCie 2 Terabyte tower with eSATA, making it compatible with the HP for a high-speed storage solution. I already had the old Sony A/V reciever which did servicable 5:1 via SPDIF, so no upgrade was needed there and I was able to locate a HDMI->SPDIF breakout box to handle the conversion. A $699 Panasonic 1080p 50" Plasma from Best Buy rounded the big items out.

In addition I purchased a Rocketfish RF-WHD200 wireless HDMI system so I wouldn't have to open up the wall and replace the old YRGB/Component cabling with HDMI. (The rocketfish works superbly BTW, highly recommended, at least for single room solutions.) At first I ordered a new HD set-top box from Verizon, not realizing there was no way to get HD signal out of it into the PC. So, it went back to Verizon along with the old SD box, and instead I picked up a Hauppauge Cablecard dual-tuner, thanks to a tip from these very boards.

After rebuilding everything and copying all the movie and music files back over, I splurged on one last item; a Logitech 1100 remote, which took the better part of a day to get set up but was well worth it IMHo. I also inherited a Lenovo Q150 Keyboard remote, which gives everything needed in terms of control when combined with the 1100.

So, there you have it. Long overdue but fun and generally speaking, on budget.
I'd like to thank all the members here for the many posts and tidbits of information I gleaned along the way while setting this up, couldn't have done it without you.

Any comments or suggestions are very welcome.
Last edited by jkg2 on Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:20 am, edited 4 times in total.

hooraah

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#2

Post by hooraah » Wed Oct 24, 2012 5:15 pm

I love the setup, and I like thinking outside the box and going with a laptop route. Long term I'd be concerned about heat, but I worry too much.

First question - is that just fantastic lighting in the room, or the way you're taking your photographs? I took some photos of my HT setup and the photos came out terrible, but then again, all of my photos do. The extent of my photo settings knowledge ends with "Flash on or off?" If it is just the lighting in the room, I love it. Would like to work out something similar for our HT, maybe some background lighting. I have a tough time doing that kind of stuff without it looking tacky though.

Second - can you give me some more detail on the HDMI -> SPDIF breakout box? I have a very similar setup (Sony 5.1 dolby digital, no HDMI). I can get SPDIF audio to my receiver, but only when the source material is DD. Otherwise, I get nothing. Does the breakout box differentiate between DD/PCM 2 channel? What about if the source material is DTS or DolbyHD (or other formats the Sony receiver can't handle?)

Last - 10 years ago would put us at 2002, making that 42" plasma close to $5k by my nostalgia calculations. Props for the early adoption!

jkg2

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Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 10:48 am
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#3

Post by jkg2 » Mon Nov 12, 2012 4:02 am

hooraah wrote:I love the setup, and I like thinking outside the box and going with a laptop route. Long term I'd be concerned about heat, but I worry too much.
thanks! actually it's so much cooler now than before. This laptop is already pretty cool compared to other laptops, and literally about 80% cooler than my previous setup, which was a normal box with 300w P/S plus three external drive enclosures running off A/C, and on top of that the heat from the old SD FiOS Box.
hooraah wrote:First question - is that just fantastic lighting in the room, or the way you're taking your photographs? I took some photos of my HT setup and the photos came out terrible, but then again, all of my photos do. The extent of my photo settings knowledge ends with "Flash on or off?" If it is just the lighting in the room, I love it. Would like to work out something similar for our HT, maybe some background lighting. I have a tough time doing that kind of stuff without it looking tacky though.
thanks again. I am a semi-pro photographer so don't feel too bad ;)
Tip: Flash off, long exposure, and a tripod will get you on the right path.
hooraah wrote:Second - can you give me some more detail on the HDMI -> SPDIF breakout box? I have a very similar setup (Sony 5.1 dolby digital, no HDMI). I can get SPDIF audio to my receiver, but only when the source material is DD. Otherwise, I get nothing. Does the breakout box differentiate between DD/PCM 2 channel? What about if the source material is DTS or DolbyHD (or other formats the Sony receiver can't handle?)
this is the one! works great for my old amp/reciever which does DTS and Dolby Pro
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053A ... 03_s00_i00

hooraah wrote:Last - 10 years ago would put us at 2002, making that 42" plasma close to $5k by my nostalgia calculations. Props for the early adoption!
yep, it was a Panasonic 42" SD Plasma bought from Visual Apex in 2002, but the price was "only" $2500 ;)
I'm glad I waited to go HD, everything is a real bargain now compared to back then.

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