Blu Ray from the HTPC

A singer? Nice catch Gmood1.
Thats still excellent performance on th PC.
I want to rip the movies I have to the HD also but I just haven't quite gotten there yet. I'll need to add HD space if I want to place them all on the computer. About how much space per movies is it taking? What software did you use to rip the movies?
I also have a laptop top but I usually don't sa anything about it. It's a clunker by todays standards. I guess I'll to to update it one day.
Very happy to help. Let me know if you decide to go that route and how it works out.

I'm with you on the HTPC. I've done the same thing. I use a video card that passes the audio through the HDMI and I run that to the receiver for decoding and amplification. I may go to a seperate amp when I can and only use the receiver for processing. I'm looking forward to checking out the Asus HDAV1.3 audio card once it's out. The software I use on the PC upscales the video as nicely as any of the hardware processors I've aeen and the added processin g power of the CPU allows a Blu-Ray or standard DVD to begin play within 3-5 secound of closing the tray. Much nicer that waiting as long as 3 minutes from dedicated players.

I'm running a ati type hd4850 right now. Previously I was using a hd3650 with a passive cooler and I discovered it had issues passing audio trough the HDMI port so I had to swap it out. I'm into that one for about $150, a little more than I needed to spend on a video card but it also plays games quite well.

I do need to check out the GOM player, it sounds like it may be the way to go. I'm running PowerDVD right now. At the time it was one of the few programs that supported all the HD audio formats and did BD Live as well.

I have started down the whole house thing myself but as it turns out I'll likely just end up with it in the Master BR and the living room. I figure if I need anything else I'll just stream it to a laptop and move that whereever I am at the time. I only have one flat panel in the master right now and I'm leaning towards a projector for the living room. I also added a HDHomerun box to the network so I have HD broadcast TV anywhere I have access to my wireless network.
Yep, Netflix was one of the reasons I went with HTPC's also. I currenlty have all my music ripped in lossless along with the TV tuner, Blu Ray/DVD and netflix it pretty well takes care of everything. As a extra, email, surfing, and games.
We are in a minority right now but when everyone sees what can be done with HTPC's there will more of them out there. Blu-Ray on PC's was lagging a bit behind but it's there now. High def audio and high quality DACs & decoders are still more difficult to come by but they are on the way and a person can always stream to an audio receiver or processor for now.
The Asus Xonar HDAV will be 1.3a compliant, do all the HD decoding and have top of the line Burr-Browns. An optional card will allow the user to play with different op-amps by simply plug in sockets. That woukd be fun.

I'll be back online Monday and I'll leave some additional information if you like. I have somthing I need to care care of right now so this one is short but I didn't want to leave you hanging of the HDHomerun. There are several sources but I got mine at Newegg. HDHomerun is fairly new so you may want to look through the forum first.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815327005&Tpk=hdhomerun

Sorry, but I had something I needed to deal with right away.
Impressing the women and audio video toys the same time…. It just can’t get any better than that! You must pick the right chicks! I’ll bet the CPU isn’t at 4% with all that going at the same time ; or possibly you have a quad of quads and your just hold out on me. I have one HTPC with a dual core 6600 and one with a quad 9450.
I used to be an engineer/programmer at Dell. Previous to that I owned a computer retail/consulting business. I know Dell isn’t known for quality and performance anymore but I just a grunt doing what I was told. LOL

That's completely true. Theres also another possibility.
You could potentially plug the cards analog outputs directly into an amp or powered speakers (like the Paradigm Studio's) as long as you didn't need to switch too many additional sources. Alternately you could take the output of a video card, like some of the newer ATI's that are 1.3 compliant, and plug that into a receiver that can decode the new formats.
Some very cool things are happening right now.

I'm using the BD ROM made by LG, but I've heard others are as good.

Gmood1,
Do you actually work with S.T. or is the track just sent to a cetralized mixing studio? If you get to work with here directly (please don't take this wrong), is she as hot in real life as she is on the album covers? She sound amazing, I'm listening to her 'UP' album right now.

Shoot, I guess this old man lost his chance once again. LOL