major problems trying to set up medialaptop to plasma and working right

[tha5150]

ok, hey everyone. i have been trying for some time now to get my system working properly. started off with my external hard drive connected to a linksys wireless storage link to my router and playing movies through my 360. but only being able to play divx type movies, i was unhappy since i have a 1080p avaliable TV. so a friend from work gave me his Gateway that he stepped on the screen and it isnt viewable. no problem, i connected it to a vga to hdmi converter box i picked up for 50 bucks on ebay. looks great except there is a blockyish look on all edges. smooth playing though. but since i have no vga connections on my plasma, i am out of luck. vga is only analog anyways, but whatever.

problem is a few things. the laptop " Gateway MX6421 " only has a 64mb internal video card. i have upgraded to 1.5gb of memory hoping it to help out a little bit. but i am so unhappy with this set up. everything is perfect except the picture isnt so great. nothing near great. i have put so much effort into this set up and it still isnt right..

one more thing i would like to do is use my new 42" plasma in my bedroom to somehow access my movies on the hard drive out in the living room. this would be sweet!

is vista media center edition worth it to install on the media center laptop?

i use my regular laptop to remote into the media laptop to control it mostly and do my downloading and what not. but i have a cool gyration universal remote to control the mouse and tv.

what would all of you pros out there suggest i do? below is the hardware i have to play with..

Gateway MX6421 http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Q106/Blade/5956nv.shtml
linksys wireless network storage link http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-Storage-Link-Drives-NSLU2/dp/B0001FSCZO
mator 500gb external hard drive http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VB5MZG
120gb external sata hard drive in mad dog enclosure.
vga to hdmi converter box http://cgi.ebay.com/PC-VGA-Component-Video-Audio-L-R-to-HDMI-Converter_W0QQitemZ200228...QQcmdZViewItem
xbox 360[/url]

[rallynavvie]

I wouldn't bother with that laptop much, it may not be able to chug through 1080p stuff very easily. The fact that it has a VGA port only confirms this.

For the money you have spent on your equipment thus far (two plasma TVs, at least one 1080p, the NAS link) you should invest in a cheap HTPC and install Vista with Media Center on that. I think someone posted a cheap, mini-ITX system in the computer forum that would work perfectly. That Gyration mouse is excellent for HTPC work by the way.

[tha5150]

so your thinking that media center for vista and a new pc would do the trick huh. i honestly beleive you, but i just hate the trying to get it through my head that i have a laptop sitting in front of me then that i will not be using. yes, it was free, but thats not the point. just looks so cool sitting in there next to my cable box and radio ya know. heh.

but seriously, there has to be a way to play atleast a dvd or 780p movie that looks good. i am playing a divx on it, 2 part ufc movie and it doesnt look all that great. i even downloaded the ultimate fighter show from wednesday, 300mb, and looked like crap. so i dont think 1080p, i or 780p has anything to do with it.

more so how the video is getting pushed out.

one more thing that is odd.... when my laptop is not remotly connected to the media laptop and i use the gyration mouse to navigate, find a movie and play it the sound plays fine but there is no picture. so then i open the remote connection, the picture displays instantly. 2 days ago ( i havent messed with anything ) the picture would turn on when the remote connection was made, i closed the connection and the video froze, but audio kept going... lastnight, same issue but when i closed the connection, the video kept playing..

why is it that this is happeneing. VERY VERY weird..

[guns1inger]

A 300MB Divx looks very average on my SD CRT, so on a 1080p plasma there should be no surprise that it looks like crap. Honestly, unless it has a running time of around 5 minutes, I don't see how you can expect anything else. The graphics system on your laptop is simply never going to be able to much more than mediocre, and if your display has any quality to it, then mediocre is going to look like crap.

So to sum up - you are playing crap files from a crap laptop, and getting a crap output. So what was your question again ?

[tha5150]

i would assume a data transfer through vga to hdmi wouldnt be blueray quality. yes you are right.

the question is, with all the tools i have avaliable to be, what would be the best bet to get a quality picture to the plasma?

not being a genious, but having a brain i would think it shouldnt be that hard. maybe this... tell me if i am wrong..

attach the 360 to the router, the media laptop to the router, the external hard drive to the media laptop.
use the plasma to surf the web if needed through remote desktop on my other laptop.
use media center edition to play movies through the xbox 360 so the output will be quality. ( will the 360 be able to play .x264 files or whatever they are called? blueray, hd dvd or anything other than divx?

would this work if i can get everything to connect to eachother???

[rallynavvie]

Which remote access application are you using? Some don't play well when trying to display both remotely and locally.

I can't speak to the 360s capabilities since I have a PS3. I know I can play H.264 on the PS3 when I have my media server running. I've heard the Xboxes can work a little better as Media Center extenders though.

The laptop has a decent video card built-in but it's aimed at output through the primary display which is broken. Had it a DVI output you'd have better luck using it for what you want it for but the VGA and HDMI converter solution is going to create some of the quality issues you've been experiencing.

[guns1inger]

A 64MB internal VGA card will never give you bluray quality.

If you have high quality source - which would be, at a minimum - studio encoded DVD that has not been recompressed, then you might be able to get a good quality image from the 360. if you use Xvid/Divx downloaded from the net that has been compressed into arbitrary sizes like 350 and 700MB then you are wasting your time trying to get anything decent out of them on a large HD screen. All you will see are all the flaws inherent in such a highly (and indeed over) compressed format. This source material is damaged goods before oyu even get hold of it, so there is nothing you can do to make it anything more than it is.

If you want quality from your TV and player, you need at least true 720p H264 material, which usually weighs in at around 4.38 - 7.8GB per movie length file. unless you have this, your post is moot.

[tha5150]

i have access to anything i want. 11bg blueray - 50gb blueray (which the file i have never got to play, something very wierd) R5 releases, etc..

point of all this is, i understand that a divx thats 800mb will not look perfect, yet decent. also, your correct, when i try to play anything work a dang, the vga to hdmi converter isnt going to let this happen. especially a $50 one off ebay..

my question is this.. if i have TVersity installed on the medialaptop, connected the 360 and everything, wired to the router, would i be able to see the external hard drive thats connected via usb on the medialaptop in the 360 video's part.. or even if i installed media center edition, would this be better / do-able? could the 360 see the path to the usb HDD. also, would this be my best solution to my issue? the 360 has componet cables, obviously. (well the new ones have hdmi)

to me, this all sounds like it should work, right???????

[tha5150]

do i need to format to media center edition for all this as well? vista or xp? which would be better

[guns1inger]

Frankly, I think media centre sucks regardless of which platform you use, but on your laptop, I would go with XP

[tha5150]

ok

listen, thanks to all for the help so far. i will install media center over xp and see if it works as good as i hope..

i am at work right now, but can remote into the medialaptop from here and install media center on top of xp and get it all set up and ready to use the 360 to search for files when i get home..


i will keep you all informed.

[rallynavvie]

Frankly, I think media centre sucks regardless of which platform you use, but on your laptop, I would go with XP

Which is strange considering Media Center is just an additional application built into the bundle (XP Pro or Vista). MCE 2005 is identical to XP Pro except that you can't join a domain unless you do it at installation, and even then there are ways to get around that.

[tha5150]

i got the MCE additon for xp waiting to be burned to disk, but i need to be home to do that. other than that, i have TVersity installed and adding content as we speak.