[Midnight Tboy]

Hi all,

About 2 or 3 years ago I had an HTPC build, a Dell 760 small form factor Dual Core E5200 with 4gb ram, with a low profile ATI 4550 card.

At the time it was running mediaportal, quite well, after lots (and lots) of tinkering. After a while though I replaced it with a Popcorn player for convenience (and where the desktop was sat on shelf was too deep so overhanged I bit).

Anyway, now I've just purchased a 3DTV, I want to get into the realm of 3d playback (mostly 3D BD Isos).

I've just purchased and awaiting delivery on a passively cooled AMD Sapphire 6450 512mb DDR3 card, which I believe should be capable of playing/decoding 3d bluray with no problems.

I just need to decide which path of software to go down, as a lot has no doubt changed since I last configured for an HTPC.

So.....I'd like to use XBMC, as only ever used it in the old xbox1. I could consider going down the linux route, but I've heard that radeon cards have a lot of problems with linux. Don't know if those have been resolved since?

So could you please confirm for me if the following is possible in a XBMC Windows 7 based setup?

1) Hotswappable external HDDs....I an external 3.5" drive enclosure, with movies stored on different drive (seperate drive for kids movies, etc). Can XBMC auto refresh when a new HDD is detected if I was to disconnect old and put new in?

2) 3D BD Iso mounting. Most of my existing movies are MKV (720p and 1080p mixed), and the usual SD avi formats. However, most 3d content will be in 3d BD ISO format so don't lose image quality in SBS formats. Is XBMC able to auto mount a 3D iso image when selected to playback? (From using only remote controls etc - no mouse/keyboard required)

3) Presumably, but best check, if a 3D bluray is detected (providing it is possible to play the ISOs), it can automatically switch the PC into 3D display mode for the TV?

4) If 3D switching is possible, is it possible to have it switch to 3d output regardless of it trying to communicate with the tv to make sure its a 3d capable set? Reason being my AVR is a hdmi1.3a Onkyo 607...however I've read that it can pass through 3d, but only if it doesnt try to get the handshake from the tv first (like a standalone bluray player would - and fail). Not end of the world if not, but would make life so much easier

Thanks guys for the help,

Tuck

[PatK]

Although I don't have a Blu-ray set-up nor 3D, I'll attempt to answer some of your questions with a few links. Hopefully someone with 3D can chime in.

1) Use swap-able hard drives on my Win7/64 system.. Windows 7 allows for hotswaps. I should put in a caution that the a standard sata connector is not rated for many insertions and the same goes for the fingers on the drives (something on the order of 300-500) while esata connectors have a 5-10K rating. So external esata drives or drive swap trays would be desirable. http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBM...ecific_FAQ

2) I'm not sure of the status of XBMC and SBS nor 3D, but XBMC is always in flux and if the demand is there, I'm sure it will make the feature list (check the road map for that) This link may be of service here. http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=66970

3) While a quick Google search brought out some specific information (XBMC 3D Blu-Ray)

4) I'm out of my depth here... but your questions are not generalized and need to be looked at by a user who has been down this road, so a 3DTV forum might be a better post. I have run SBS material for the joy of the two images... but I suspect there is only a few players that can handle this material as A+B frame ATM but XBMC can be set up to handle your library and then pass on the media to an external player that could be SBS capable.

Hope this has helped in some respect, and if you have further information to add to the collective, that would be great.

[clubwerks]

As for 2), there's a bunch of good tutorials on how to get XBMC to mount an iso and launch an external player. I believe that's what you're going to need to do.

[Midnight Tboy]

Thanks guys,

something for me to digest in the morning when get a chance.

Yeah as far as I can tell (at least referring to mediaportal), it will involve basically calling up PowerDVD v10 or v11 or alternatively TMT player to have the isos play.....probably fine in that respect to configure, tho maybe not so the switching to 3d mode automatically.

I was having a google of XBMC 3d bd iso, and such like tho most links seemed to come up with linux info.

Some part of me thinks maybe try the linux route, as I could do with a bit more experience with linux as it has only been basic so far......but from what I can gather, unless its outddated info, there being some massive problems with proper support for amd cards in linux (tho maybe those problems are only relative to advanced setups such as adding lots of filters to interleaved footage and the likes)

At least I have a spare pc of similar spec I can throw the gfx card in to have a play, so can format it, and Bart image it to hearts content until I get the thing right.

I think (tho not sure as I have a couple of different ones) that the main docking station can do esata too. Early days I never used it, as the HTPC would always be a pain not safely removing hardware etc, tho shouldnt be an issue now.

Good point really about sata connectors wearing down after x amount of insertions....not as much I can do to prevent that at moment, tho may consider getting a big tower PC at some point in the future to host a 10+ drive server....been considering something like that for some time...but a future project

[PatK]

Looks like there is some talk about your issues over at http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=93512

[Midnight Tboy]

thanks.

Kinda similar though aimed at nvidia cards instead of AMD and doesn't cover ISOS just SBS....but yeah I think the main way to go about it is to keep all 3d content in a seperate folder and set some rule or other someway/somehow based on the folder path.

3d certainly isn't a case of plug and play - quite a lot of reading up to do on the damn things lol

Just have to wait patiently while my gfx card is delivered and then get tinkering