Well I've got my new system setup and want to know what you think. I've setup a cheap windows xp box for this that would only be used for media playback with audio in mind to avoid swapping SACD, DVD-A and DualDiscs but keeping the quality of sound while making everything digital and easy to access and here is what I chose.
I selected a Pioneer VSX-1015TX receiver that supports multichannel WMAPro. Now my HDTV set has a DVI connection that works with my DVI video card and my set displays a native resolution of 1280x720p of my computer screen so full screen video playback from WMP10 of an HD DVD using WMV will display in full HDTV on my DLP set. Now the Pioneer receiver can decode an HD DVD discs 5.1 surround track because it can decode WMA Pro upto 7.1 channels.
Now I bought a program called DVD Audio Extractor which could extract all my multichannel audio CDs and DVDs into 6 wav files which I could use in Windows Media Encoder so I could create one WMA file that would be a VBR 700+ bit rate @ 92Khz and 24-bit. It sounds very good on my new setup. Now to ease playback I had todo this below.
To start off even though my receiver can decode WMA Pro only WMP 10 can send the signal to the receiver at this time so I used an S/PDIF cable from my soundcard to the receiver and went into WMP options...devices...speakers...properties and clicked the checkbox that says play WM Audio Pro audio over digital output.
Now I have the problem of always having to be at my computer to change and playback songs so I found a way to use my Dell Axim PDA and I used a program called Zerama Remote 4.2.1 which if for my Pocket PC but it needs to be connected via WiFi to the computer or network that the computer is on. I have to tell the software what my computers info is so it can talk to it so I can now use it like a remote control via WiFi to select any song I want via WMP.
So with all that said I now have every multichannel audio CD in digital format and I can use my PDA to playback any song in full multichannel surround sound. This remote can also playback any DVD rip of a WM HD DVD disc which means I can playback full HD DVD quality with multichannel sound all from the comfort of my couch now.
I really don't like using windows stuff but right now a windows system was the best solution to my problem without creating more problems like ease of use problems. It has to work, be simple and fun/enjoyable and it happens to be that Microsoft along with Pioneer was able to provide this. If only apple had something similiar I would bite because Apple stuff is very well designed.
I selected a Pioneer VSX-1015TX receiver that supports multichannel WMAPro. Now my HDTV set has a DVI connection that works with my DVI video card and my set displays a native resolution of 1280x720p of my computer screen so full screen video playback from WMP10 of an HD DVD using WMV will display in full HDTV on my DLP set. Now the Pioneer receiver can decode an HD DVD discs 5.1 surround track because it can decode WMA Pro upto 7.1 channels.
Now I bought a program called DVD Audio Extractor which could extract all my multichannel audio CDs and DVDs into 6 wav files which I could use in Windows Media Encoder so I could create one WMA file that would be a VBR 700+ bit rate @ 92Khz and 24-bit. It sounds very good on my new setup. Now to ease playback I had todo this below.
To start off even though my receiver can decode WMA Pro only WMP 10 can send the signal to the receiver at this time so I used an S/PDIF cable from my soundcard to the receiver and went into WMP options...devices...speakers...properties and clicked the checkbox that says play WM Audio Pro audio over digital output.
Now I have the problem of always having to be at my computer to change and playback songs so I found a way to use my Dell Axim PDA and I used a program called Zerama Remote 4.2.1 which if for my Pocket PC but it needs to be connected via WiFi to the computer or network that the computer is on. I have to tell the software what my computers info is so it can talk to it so I can now use it like a remote control via WiFi to select any song I want via WMP.
So with all that said I now have every multichannel audio CD in digital format and I can use my PDA to playback any song in full multichannel surround sound. This remote can also playback any DVD rip of a WM HD DVD disc which means I can playback full HD DVD quality with multichannel sound all from the comfort of my couch now.
I really don't like using windows stuff but right now a windows system was the best solution to my problem without creating more problems like ease of use problems. It has to work, be simple and fun/enjoyable and it happens to be that Microsoft along with Pioneer was able to provide this. If only apple had something similiar I would bite because Apple stuff is very well designed.
