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penelope

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I have a top of the line Pioneer High Definition theatre in my condo and I want to get some High Definition content in 720p/1080i ..WMV HD or Divx HD formats would be good. I have downloaded several gig of WMVHD and DivxHD trailors and samples, but I would like some full length movies.Anyone seen any HD stuff around Pantip or similar establishments ?

ps: if you dont know about HD then check out these links :

WMVHD

DivxHD

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I am a microsoft MVP and have been beta testing with thier media division for a few years.. The WMV discs are pretty good stuff if you have a suitably set up PC and good display device (I use a HD2+ DLP projector)..

Be careful in that some of the content released in WMVHD format needs to use online DRM.. Not only does that mean the HTPC / Media PC must be connected to the net but it also does IP lookups in the same way as region coding and will not issue a licence to a Thai based machine.. Ways around this with proxies are possible but awkward.. T2 extreme edition (arguably the worst transfer and encoding relased.. it was thier first attempt to be fair) is like this.. I have 2 copies as MS sent me one but I had already purchsed a pre release through japan so would post this to you if you want (free) but bear in mind it is the worst release and the most hassle...

The documentary stuff they have is stunning in HD.. Crystal clear and really well worth it if you like HD... There is a selection of movies released in R2 from a german studio that come with offline DRM (on disc so can be used anywhere) these can also be ripped to a media server if you are doing smarthome / media distribution systems..

Be aware you need to have a 5ch analogue connection as these are encoded in WMA Pro audio and there are very very few recievers or pre amps that can decode a digital WMA Pro audio stream..

I mod the HTPC forums over on AVSFroum and there is a lot of discussion of playback tools, content, etc there..

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thanks pp and ll,

awesome feedback, i'll follow those leads...I'm currently playing my WMVHD samples from my HTPC (very high spec), into my Pioneer High def plasma....I thought my Pioneer 969 HDMI DVD player looked great, this high def stuff is just incredible, I'm hooked !!

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Penelope,

What kind of connection you have?

I got a 512/256 kbps adsl, and normally I can download between 150mb and 180mb per hour.

One HD movie would take a whopping 70 hours to download, all the while eating up my complete bandwidth :o

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I know of a Thai person on a Thai home theater forum who sells DVD-Rs of HD content. Of course, he also downloads these movies from newsgroups. If you have the time and the bandwidth, you can do it yourself.

Another alternative for HD content is bittorrent.

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Penelope, I have a 50 inch Pioneer Plasma hooked up to an HTPC as well.  I use Meedio as the interface software and ThearterTek as a player.  Both are optimized for HD viewing and the results are quite extraordinary.  I love it.

Same plasma as me. I also have the Pioneer DVS969AVI DVD player and VSX AX5 Receiver..... HDMI and i-Link connections.

I connect my HTPC to Plasma using a DVI to HDMI cable, use Powerstrip to tweak the display settings (overscan etc ...)..running windows XP, PowerDVD. Played around with MEDIA PORTAL a little for interface software, but went back to standard win xp. Have you seen Windows MediaCentre OS in the malls ? The new Windows MediaCentre KEYBOARD looks cool too !!

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Firefoxx - can you PM me a contact for this "Thai Guy"

I have a 512/256k connection and it takes me around 3 days to download the average HD movie.  When I'm not surfing, I'm downloading 24/7.  If you want HD it's pretty much the only way at the moment.

Penelope, I have a 50 inch Pioneer Plasma hooked up to an HTPC as well.  I use Meedio as the interface software and ThearterTek as a player.  Both are optimized for HD viewing and the results are quite extraordinary.  I love it.

I also own a Sony FX1 HVD high definition video camera which also produces amazing HiDef video.  You can download a sample of a video I made about Pattaya traffic in HD if you like.  It's in HD WMV format although at a fairly high compression rate to reduce the download size a bit.  It's 10 minutes long and 400 megabytes.  The original mpeg hi def file is 4 gigabytes so I won't post that  :D.

Pattaya Traffic Video (400 megs).

To download it right click the link and click on save as.  Happy viewing.

Is there anyone in Pattaya that is into this stuff and would be interested in swapping content?

How many full length hi-def movies do you have in your collection now ? I've only downloaded samples..i can't really plunder the companys bandwidth for full movie downloads.I have shared dsl at my condo, so I can kick some stuff off in the background..we should vounteer to host a giganews mirror server in LOS :o

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Sorry, I myself don't know the name of that Thai guy, or how to contact him. He's in the Thai forum, www.htg2.net, in the high-def sub-forum of the home theater forum. The thing is that to register to write in the forum (and PM people) you are required to send personal data (name, address, a copy of your ID, etc) which is a bit ridiculous and an invasion of your privacy.

The Thai guy's nick is "fot_ja" if you're interested. I think he's a bit strange too... he downloads high-def content to sell, yet he says that anybody's who downloads high-def content is "crazy". So, by his own definition, he's crazy... or doesn't like competition.

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I have a top of the line Pioneer High Definition theatre in my condo and I want to get some High Definition content in 720p/1080i ..WMV HD or Divx HD formats would be good. I have downloaded several gig of WMVHD and DivxHD trailors and samples, but I would like some full length movies.Anyone seen any HD stuff around Pantip or similar establishments ?

ps: if you dont know about HD then check out these links :

WMVHD

DivxHD

Can i come watch some movies? ill bring the popcorn!! :o

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I have a top of the line Pioneer High Definition theatre in my condo and I want to get some High Definition content in 720p/1080i ..WMV HD or Divx HD formats would be good. I have downloaded several gig of WMVHD and DivxHD trailors and samples, but I would like some full length movies.Anyone seen any HD stuff around Pantip or similar establishments ?

ps: if you dont know about HD then check out these links :

WMVHD

DivxHD

Can i come watch some movies? ill bring the popcorn!! :o

actually one of the reasons I invested in a home theatre is because i generally dont like going to public movie cinemas (cell phones, chair kickers, talkers,queues,have to watch at a given time,cant pause the movie to go for a piss etc...., etc....)

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Hey Penelope

Can you tell me where you got the DVI to HDMI cable.  I am still using component connections because I can't find the right cable to hook the computer to the screen.

Also I see you have the same amp and DVD player as me.  Presently I have the DVD player hooked up to the HDMI input.  As the Pioneer screen only has one HDMI imput I presume you are using component for the DVD player.  I have heard of HDMI switches but never seen one in Thailand.

No I have a Gefen HDMI switch.Actually bought in NZL, as I have a contact with the local distributor there. I dont know who distributes GEFEN in LOS. I could run the HTPC into the PC input, but as it is on the front of the receiver, it just looks ugly with this big fat vga cable snaking around the front.

GEFEN 2 to 1 HDMI SWITCH

A bit pricy, and I bet the next version of the Pioneer media receiver will have 2 HDMI inputs, Murphy's law eh !

DVI to HDMI cable(generic brand) bought at a little independent chinese computer shop in Sydney(I will upgrade to a Monster cable someday).

Check out these guys in LOS...Monster dvi to hdmi cable..expensive, but that is about par for the course as far as Monster gear gos.

Actually I bought the DVD player and VSX Amp in NZL too (got a great price)...I only bought the plasma and speakers in LOS.

Now i've got my eye on one of those HD sony camcorders !!

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  • 10 months later...

At the moment I live in UK and have a 10Mb connection. This allows me to download lots of HD Movies quicly from Usenet.

I use an Internet site called: https://www.newzbin.com/

In the top search box I just put HDTV. All the TV shows and movies are then listed. From there it is a one click process to generate an NZB file which I load into my copy of Newzbin Pro. And a short while later (or a few hours!) I have another HD Movie.

As stated before most of these are in ts format but if you download and install the free util HDTVPump you can play them fine in Windows Media Player. I have recently bought a 50" LG Plasma and have my Xbox360 connected to it at 1080i definition. Using the Xbox360 I stream all the ts movies to the Plasma from my MCE Computer (The Xbox360 is only supposed to stream WMV Videos but TS files work fine!!!). Quality is great and very easy to work. Sometimes I ignore the 360 and connect the MCE computer directly to the Plasm using HDMI connection, but I see no improvement in quality.

I will be arriving in Pattaya to live forever (I hope) in August 2006. and will be bringing lots of films with me on Hard Drive, not found a media big enough to hold the ts files yet. Don't fancy spending 20 hours encoding into WMV-HD. But if anyone want to bring an external HDD I will be happy to copy them across for you.

After August I will be spending 2/3 months in LOS then 1 month back here in the uk. If the Internet connection in Pattaya is too slow to download movies I will remotely operate my PC in the UK and download all I need then on each trip home swap the hard drives over. Think this will keep me satisfied with Good Quality English language TV while I am in LOS.

PatayaPete, got lots of your FLB vids already ncluding the Traffic one but don't think my version is HD. Have to say your vid quality gets better every year!

Regards Chris

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I set up my old computer to output 1080i via DVI to my 1080i LCD panel. It looks absolutely gorgeous. Of course, the movies take forever to download. If you want a good .ts codec, get Nvidia's Purevideo codec. It can be used on most graphics cards (not only Nvidia's), reduces CPU usage, and does very good scaling/deinterlacing.

Buddy was OK for getting movies off usenet... it was around 1 megabit.

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Someone asked about DVI to HDMI connectors, You can get decent quality leads that do this for 3,000 Baht upwards (5m) or you can buy an adaptor that just sits at the DVI end (or HDMI end) and plugs into the HDMI socket.

Generally HDMi and DVI cables max out at about 15 metres.

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