I just built a media PC for my 65" 1080p HDTV and I want the best performance for watching movies online and streaming video at full size. I installed a NVIDIA nForce 630i/7100 motherboard with an on board video card, What is the best video card for my setup or is this sufficient?|||Jezz, with that kind of resolution youd need top of the line
A 280 GTX or 4870 HD x2|||Don't listen to this person. A 280GTX or ATI equivalent is seriously overboard.
1080P is a resolution of 1920x1080 at various refresh rates. That's a fairly mid-range resolution when it comes to computers these days. Unless you plan on playing high-end 3D games using the HTPC (Home Theater PC) you only really need a mid-range card. You're better off playing those on a PC though (higher resolution and more comfortable use of mouse/keyboard)
Basically more expensive is not always better in the HTPC arena. The issue is the video decoder (2D) not how many 3d objects you can render (3D).
features to look for:
1) decode H.264 up to 1080P video.
2) HDCP support
3) low power requirement and heat dissipation. - You don't want to turn your living room into a sauna nor do you want to suck 250 watts of power doing it when 80 watts will do. The adage is you wouldn't use a Porsche to deliver mail, you use what works for the job.
Here's some info on Nvidia's site covering cards up to the 8800 GTX.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html
Just look at the various HD content types you might need. Today for the money it's not worth going below a 7 series card. An Nvidia 8500 would probably be very good and not cost much either.
Finally I highly recommend you take a look at XBMC (Xbox Media Center). It's been around for years for the original XBOX and recently they release a cross platform solution called XBMC Atlantis that works very nicely and runs under Windows/Linux and the original XBOX (as well as Mac).
http://xbmc.org/blog/2008/09/18/xbmc-atlantis-beta-1-released-now-serving-all-common-platforms/
video demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz2ogxb19oE
I can't put into words how awesome this application is. I used it for years on the original XBOX (still do on my bedroom TV). The only reason I upgraded to an HTPC was because the original XBOX hardware would not decode HD quality h264 files that had a high resolution (anything over about 600 lines in 16:9 aspect ratio). Granted XBOX was 2000/2001 era technology (Geforce 3). Now I'm running XBMC for windows and loving it.
A few XBMC details:
First it's free, and second it works better than anything else out there. It supports almost every media (music and video) format out there. If your familiar with the VLC media player, a good analogy is that XBMC is the VLC of media centers.
It also has custom apps you can install (called scripts - written in python if your familiar with programming). A few of these apps include the ability to search/stream video from youtube, Apple movie trailers, and internet radio:
http://www.xbmcscripts.com/
The development team (it's essentially open source) is also highly motivated and has been at this for years. I cannot stress how good this thing is. It literally changed the way I watch media (aside from BluRays which I watch via my PS3 but only until I install a Blu-Ray drive in my HTPC).
The abilty to access network shares also means you can stream media from any computer in your house including a PC with a TV tuner. Wireless G (with a stable connection) is more than sufficient.
Anyway I didn't meant to take a tangent on XBMC, but it will make your media center experience GOLDEN! Let me put it in one further term, I have donated close to 150 dollars to their cause and I've never given a dime to other efforts like this with the exception of wikipedia...
Good luck.
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