PC Configuration for streaming to PCH A200

[jfreytag]

I'm about to buy a new PC and was wondering if anyone knows if this configuration is good enough to stream high definition video from the PC to my PCH.

PC Core 2 Duo / Intel 775 P4 E7500 (2.93 Ghz) / Asus Motherboard P5KPL-AM SE / RAM 2 Gb Ddr2 800Mhz / 320 Hd Sata2 / Kit 450w

Thank you!

[spawn]

Absolutely - it will be more than fine.
"Streaming" from the PC to the PCH doesnt really require any juice from the PC.
The PC only acts as a storage and the PCH does the job of pulling the data from the PC harddrive through the network
Your computer wont be doing anything

[jfreytag]

Fantastic, thank you Spawn! The PC seller mentioned quality loss when streaming HD video over to the PCH via Ethernet but it doesn't sound right to me, do you know if this is true?

[spawn]

That is not true at all.

When you play HD video on the PCH from a normal network share - the PCH will just pull the filedata from the share, and play the file using its hardware decoder, the same way as if it played from an internal harddrive in the PCH itself, or from an USB harddrive. In this case the PC does "nothing", it only holds the files.

What the PC seller may be thinking of is if you dont play directly from a network share, but instead have a server software on the PC which transcodes the files before sending it to the player - this is a completely different technology and something often used when you have to stream mediafiles to players that doesnt natively support the files you want to play - for instant PS3, Xbox360 and others. In this case the server software will transcode the files to a format the player understand, on the fly, and you need a powerfull computer to do this transcoding, which also will affect quality negatively.

But the PCH natively support alot more formats than for instanse a PS3, therefore you dont need to install and use transcoding server software to deliver the media
For the PCH all you do is create a normal windows share of a folder on your PC with your mediafiles in it. Then the PCH can access these files directly through your network and play them with no kind of interference from the PC - and offcource with no qualityloss at all.

[tinyhands]

I have to say, it bugs me when people use the word "streaming" incorrectly. Hopefully they'll read the difference (above) and begin to understand that there is a contextual difference in the terms when used in reference to NMT/HTPC.

[chris57]

I personally don't have any issues with that and it's a losing battle.

The important point is knowing if the files are transcoded in any way.