As for Blu ray, I rent regularly from Block Buster online and rarely have an issue with scratches, etc. I have not tried the local library, but then I don’t really have a need to.

As for MKV files, I think the growth of that container format is significant and therefore I agree that our teams should be looking at how best to make those playback well on any AMD/ATI platform. I know that we are always looking at ways to improve video playback, regardless of container format.

As for 1.3, Maui meets some of those requirements, but note that Maui really deals with audio quite differently and therefore full 1.3 compliance was not really the direction we were headed with the platform. Maui is more about using HDMI for video and the D2Audio part for the audio to deliver a fully unique HTPC experience.

Blu-Ray (or any other optical media) is inherently fickle and susceptible to scratches and other issues (ever tried renting Blu-Ray / DVDs from your local public library?). People want the media they own on their hard disk, and to save disk space, the encodes of the Blu-Ray videos do become non-DXVA compliant.

I personally know that the Radeon HD3xxx series doesn’t even try to playback non-DXVA encodes. So, MKV backups mostly become a nightmare for a media box with such specs.

Staying on the topic, present day Blu-Ray players support HDMI 1.3. Not sure if the Maui board does the same. (If it is based on HD 3200, likely not).

AMD / ATI HW developers and driver developers must work together and iron out issues so that a seamless experience akin to that of the users of WDTV HD Media Player / Xtreamer / Popcorn Hour is delivered.

As mentioned in an earlier reply, I am using Maui board which has the UMA (on board) graphics. Therefore, I don’t have a discrete card plugged in, just the integrated graphics of the RS780 chipset. The equivalent discrete graphics would be a Radeon 3200HD.

Regards,
Jay

http://budurl.com/xcmx

I am using a D-Link Wireless N router (825 I think) along with a D-Link USB wireless N adapter.

My rotuer/HTPC distance is about 70 feet and around a corner. Not quite line of site and I do have a large metal vent in between the 2.

I am running the MSI Media Live Diva board mentioned in one of my earlier blogs. I have the 5.1 Amplified version of the board. I have a Phenom 9350e 65W quad core CPU, 4GB of Memory, 1 x Seagate Pipeline HD 500GB HDD and 2 x Seagate DB35 750GB HDD. Have the 2 x TV Wonder 650 tuners mentioned in the blog. Was running Vista 32 with Media Center, just updated to Win 7 Beta, working pretty good. Also have Arcsoft TMT for Blu ray. Running MCE Weather and My Movies Plug Ins.

HTPC is connected to internet via Wireless N router, getting 270Mbps steady network connection. So far, no problems streaming content from web.

I cancelled my Sat. service and increased my broadband connection so I would not have any downloading issues. Therefore increase in Internet costs by about $10 but eliminated Satellite costs completely. Net savings is almost $100 per month for me.

Few minor hiccups here and there at first, but overall things are going smoothly for us. Biggest thing for me is to not tweak system…If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”