Replacing Direct TV with Netflix and PC for News & Entertainment Center

[Mar]

A big job for me, so I came here. Direct TV's bill of $73/mo compared to Netflix's $8.99 and our already existing intardweeb connection is comparing a 9mm to a 120mm DU HVAP.

I'll be using my old HP Pavilion for this. What I need is: Info on routers etc for keeping the gaming rig and the "N&E" connected to the intardweeb at the same time; info on cables for converting feed from an 8400 GS to a big screen TV; opinions on the best news websites.

We're also going to be buying a new big screen TV so if you guys can give some opinions on what to get from Best Buy it would also be appreciated.

[BaldEagl]

The router's not a big deal.  I've got a Linksys router I bought several years ago and it's still going stong.  Mine is wireless.  I've got two computers and a network printer wired to it in my office and a laptop connected wirelessly at the other end of the house and still have an open wired port.

Not sure how big a TV you plan on getting but you'de better make sure the 8400 GS will support the resolution.  Does that card have a DVI or HDMI connector?  You might be able to use VGA cable.  I know you can with LCD monitors.

If you're going this route you might want to look into a TV tuner card and a set of rabbit ears so you can get your local broadcast channels.  IIRC they are about $100 and Hauppauge seems to own the market.  Then a you could use a big monitor instead of a TV.  Beyond that there's a lot of web-sites that have tons of TV episodes available for viewing online.  

I dropped my cable down to the local broadcast channels and a few others that come with them (CNN, TNT, etc.).  That costs me $8.00/mo. (Comcast) plus I pay for my Internet connection ($67 total... TV and broadband).  I've been watching the NASCAR race coverage on the NASCAR/TNT Race Buddy thing since the races are now on cable channels I don't get and the coverage is actually very good.

I've been thinking of going the same route but I think I'd want to build a HTPC first.

Good luck.

[Getback]

I like that idea. I just don't know where to start. My TV is a good 25 ft from my comp. It does have dvi connections but running a cable that far seems ugly.

[Ghastly]

We started with a "dead" laptop - one that my son had damaged the screen on.  Our Samsung 43" TV has a VGA connector on it, and it was a lot easier to run an Ethernet cable to the entertainment center than anything else- I already had a BlueTooth wireless mouse and keyboard.  I'd originally intended to switch in a computer with a DVI connector, but that never happened. Why?  Because today there is a much much better way to do this ....

Don't even bother with a computer.  

Samsung and Sony (perhaps others, but these I know) both make BlueRay players (the one we have cost about $149) that will play movies from your Netflix instant queue. (As well as Blockbuster, Pandora and YouTube).  It looks better than it did off the computer, and is a whole lot less mess and messing about.  Simply place what you want in your instant queue from a computer, then select it on the BluRay player to play it.  I used a wired connection for ours, but Samsung has at least one model that also supports a wireless connection.

(One caveat - for some reason the Samsung BluRay player didn't work properly through my Netgear FVS318 router, even though the computer did. It would connect, but wasn't able to stream - or show the graphic of the "DVD case cover".  No solution could be found, so I switched routers.)

Anyway, that's what I did - and it's the only way I'd do it again.

<S>

[Mar]

Yeah, nevermind using the computer for Netflix, I wasn't thinking about the card having to support the resolution of a big screen TV, we'll use an xbox 360 instead. However I'm still bringing the PC out to the living room for news etc, so I could still use advice about news sites. I also don't really have a clue about routers, only ever used a modem, so advice on them will help too. Don't worry about wireless, we have no problem running cables up, down, left, and right throughout the house. I'm running a 50 ft cable to my gaming rig in my room from the modem in the living room right now.

[Skuzzy]

Resolution is not an issue to be concerned with as Netflix streams are highly lossy to reduce the amount of data.  All a high resolution output is going to do is show the flaws/artifacts better.

I tried Netflix once, but it was painful to watch on my 55" television.

Once you get used to a non-compressed 1080p stream, going to Netflix is like going back to an NTSC broadcast.  I realize some, if not most, people do not care about the actual physical quality of the content they watch (people are happy to watch movies on thier phones!), but I do care.

Plus, I hate what these services are doing to the Internet.

[Mar]

Perhaps I should get a PS3 instead for BlueRay movies. TV episodes and small viewing can be streamed, but we'll get the DVDs in the mail when we want the good stuff. Still beats DTV's bill. Thanks for the feedback Skuzzy.

[Masherbrum]

Resolution is not an issue to be concerned with as Netflix streams are highly lossy to reduce the amount of data.  All a high resolution output is going to do is show the flaws/artifacts better.

I tried Netflix once, but it was painful to watch on my 55" television.

Once you get used to a non-compressed 1080p stream, going to Netflix is like going back to an NTSC broadcast.  I realize some, if not most, people do not care about the actual physical quality of the content they watch (people are happy to watch movies on thier phones!), but I do care.

Plus, I hate what these services are doing to the Internet.

Yep.   

[Ghastly]

Resolution is not an issue to be concerned with as Netflix streams are highly lossy to reduce the amount of data.  All a high resolution output is going to do is show the flaws/artifacts better.

...

Things seem to be much better these days.  The Netflix "standard" quality streaming visually appears to approach that of DVD, and the HD streaming appears to be better than DVD, and looks at least as good and perhaps a bit better than Comcast HD cable channels.   One thing I will mention - the same stuff streaming to the BluRay player definitely looks much better than when streaming to the Panasonic Toughbook CF-72 (ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 video) connected via the VGA connector.

All based on my own humble not very scientific hairy eyeball-based evaluation, of course.

<S>

[Skuzzy]

Unless you have a 24Mb/s download speed, you cannot get full HD quality.  If you have an 8Mb/s download connection rate, you can get DVD like quality.  Of course, that assumes you can actually get those speeds.  In reality, it would be around 30Mb/s for HD, and 12Mb/s for DVD in order to make the best playback.

At one point Netflix dropped the HD digital audio tracks from the HD content in order to cut the bandwidth requirements without giving up more in the video.

[Mar]

Hmm, this is all very good info. There's a chance that we can upgrade our connection speed from 1.5 to 10mbps for $10 more, so it's still looking good for Netflix. We can just wait for a BlueRay in the mail if we want a theater experience.

I'm still looking for opinions on news sites and routers though. Note we'll need to connect up to 4 devices to the intardweeb with the router.

[Tac]

I did just that 2 years ago.

Netflix for the movies and some tv series...


HULU and other free-to-watch websites for almost anything else.

[Skuzzy]

I need to ammend my post.  Netflix does not stream any digital audio at all (DTX, Dolby AC3...).  They only stream the analog audio tracks, for DVD or HD content.

I am still trying to dig up the actual speeds that cap the streams at.  At one point it was 2Mb/s for DVD and 4Mb/s for HD, but that was early on in thier implementation.

Ok, so what does it take to stream video data?  An uncompressed standard definition (720x480) DVD would require 166Mb/s to maintain a 480i resolution (double that speed if you want to do a 480p feed).  Using MPEG2, that rate drops to about 3.3Mb/s at the best compression ratio MPEG2 can deliver, before artifacts become too unbearable.  Typically it averages to around 6 to 8 Mb/s.

Uncompressed HD content at 720p needs 885Mb/s and 1080p requires 1991Mb/s. MPEG4/H.264 gets it down to around 18Mb/s.  Now try to come up with yet another lossy compression method to get those numbers down to 3 or 4Mb/s.  It really is quite impossible to not see the difference in quality when they are side-by-side.  This is where Netflix wins though.  No one sees it next to an uncompressed feed or an MPEG4/H.264 feed of the content.

I am just commenting on what it takes to stream the images.  Like I said, most people do not really care about the image quality.

[Ghastly]

It really is quite impossible to not see the difference in quality when they are side-by-side.  This is where Netflix wins though.  No one sees it next to an uncompressed feed or an MPEG4/H.264 feed of the content.

I am just commenting on what it takes to stream the images.  Like I said, most people do not really care about the image quality.

What's more, most of us are aren't even comparing it to DVD - mentally, we are considering it to be a competitor to the cable TV, not the DVD player - and at least in my instance cable isn't anywhere near as good as DVD - or actually even as good as Netflix "standard" IMHO.

But I think you are still correct on the numbers - As recently as May I was told 4 Mb/s when I was trying to resolve the router issue that couldn't be solved.  What I'm not absolutely sure of is whether that was given to me by Netflix, or Samsung T/S.   As an experiment, I think I'll log the traffic next time I stream Netflix (both something "standard" and something "HD") and see what the traffic actually is.

I'm not sure what the difference is with the BluRay player in the mix, either.  Netflix "HD" content streamed through the BlueRay player looks better to me than a DVD played in the same player (although it's not anywhere near as good as a BlueRay). Perhaps if I viewed the same content side by side I'd see something I don't now.   Netflix content streamed through the computer did not seem to be anywhere near as good. 

<S>

[Mar]

Ghastly, any clue on how it would look through a PS3?

We never had HD in the first place, and like I said, we can just get a DVD in the mail when we want it.