# Any "Must have" software out there??



## Stereo_Dave (Feb 19, 2011)

I'm thinking there has to be something I havent seen or heard of that I can run in the background on my HTPC that "I GOTTA HAVE" ?? 

Maybe like the good old Epicenter - I would think the software is out there ?
Maybe a really nice active X-over?
Really Nice EQ program ??

My querie is 2 fold
1- HTPC of course
2- starting to plan my PC for the car -mmmmmm every mp3 I have in one location ! well plus all the other cool stuff I'll be able to do w/ it. 


Thx


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## nova (Apr 30, 2006)

Can I assume you already have our very own REW? If not, that would be a good place to start.


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## Stereo_Dave (Feb 19, 2011)

Ummm, no - being a newb to this site, I dont know what it does for me ? If I understand correctly REW is a measurement tool only? If so , measurements are useless w/o a means of making adjustments ? (not useless, but I think you know what I mean ?) I'll have to do some research on it, so I dont sound so dumb. To this point I basically just use my radshack spl meter to set levels

can you point me to a rew tutorial or ?? I dont mind finding it myself, just a little lazy (hey it's Sunday)


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## Stereo_Dave (Feb 19, 2011)

OK, I found the REW links (duh) did some reading, now to did out my interlinks and stuff- Meanwhile, like I said measurements mean nothing without a means of actively having control over the signal - SOOOO my original ?? remains. Thanks guys


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## BoredSysAdmin (Mar 6, 2011)

How do you intend to control this in-car htpc? Some sort of touch screen? have you figured out what you'd use for the front end software? :scratch:


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## Stereo_Dave (Feb 19, 2011)

Actually I have 2 applications- The first is my HTPC, the 2nd is the car stereo (no need for surround, but it will be implemented)

There's lots of software out there, I'll likely end up teaching myself Linux and build it using "linux from scratch" (google it) By the time I get to the car-fi, there may be a cost effective system available- I refuse to use wondoze-

I just got to thinking on it and rigured there has to be software available that can handle my EQ/etc duties and most likely the 'epicenter' duties as well (huge fan of an epicenter in the car AKA "thickener") 

I'll keep searching as time permits


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## BoredSysAdmin (Mar 6, 2011)

I assume you already know/tried XMBC/Boxee... I'm not fan of MythTV, but i assume I didn't used it much...
Regarding car application ... not sure - you could try skinned Audacious - it can Eq :dontknow:


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## Theresa (Aug 23, 2010)

WinISD is very useful and free. Not as big a deal as REW but very useful.


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## Road Runner (Nov 26, 2009)

I have tried many media players, and Media Monkey has become my favorite, (go for it and pay for the Gold version)
Exact Audio Copy does all my grunt work of ripping. (create a couple of profiles, one for the highest resolution possible, and one for hard to read disks.)

True RTA (the 1/24 octave is worth buying) is not only good for in house setup. but can be loaded on a laptop and used for in car setup


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## Chester (Feb 19, 2007)

RealVNC is handy (remote desktop software) if you have a laptop and want to access the HTPC from that...

also if you use the ffdshow filters within media player classic home cinema you can use impulse response files to eq your sound... there is a bug with it though so you need a lot of gain to makeup the levels with a 'standard' impulse, gonna work on figuring out that this summer


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## giboni (Apr 27, 2011)

CC Cleaner free

PeaZip free

Defragler free

Autoruns Free:boxer:

cleanmem v2.1.1 free

Prio - Process Priority Saver FREE
Speed up a browser or your blu ray software.
Set affinity of processes to a particular CPU Core. Great if U R running a Quad Core.lddude:

Set FSB 2.0 The easy way to a moderate CPU overclock. free

Mem Test. Fine tune DDR3 or DDr2 memory. free

ATITools to overclock your ATI or Nvidia graphics card. free

Ntune for Nvidia boards and graphic cards. free

Overdrive for AMD boards with AMD CPU 


eg. My HTTP sports Two 1 Gig Akimbos on a Evga Nvidia 780I Q9500 at 3.6 4gigs 1066 DDR3
Gh. 2 Creative Xfi, MixMeister 6 Pro running Steinberg/Wave plugins.
I can run a Movie with ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 on a HT Screen. Edit audio or video.
and surf the Internet & watch Music Videos all at the same time. My HTTP is 3 years old with Xp64.

The Board/CPU can go over 4gh. However not interested in water cooling and instability. Maybe next year
will look at the possibilities of the new boards, cpu and video cards. Prio is great for older Computers running Xp32/64. Especially if you use AutoRuns to shut down uneeded processes automaticaly running in the backround.:boxer: Another nifty program Nlite:sn: Speed up your older HTTP. Why buy or build another one?:heehee:


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## GeerGuy (Apr 26, 2011)

Great site for downloading a ton of useful apps at the same time: ninite.com


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## FloridaSwede (Jun 19, 2011)

Go to my website, I've got a whole page dedicated to free software. Friends helped me set it up.


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## Jasonpctech (Apr 20, 2010)

In my HTPC I tried all the popular players and just never found one EXTERNAL player to work with MM that always gave a consistent user friendly playback. VLC was close but I never found a skin that looked right and it often would not play the DTS audio streams as preferred. *I connect my HTPC to a AVR with optical cable. DTS and the other digital signal needs to be handled by my AVR.*

KMPLayer plays everything no exceptions and the on screen interface hides well comes with a slick dark skin (less distracting) and best of all plays the correct audio streams with no tweaking and keeps a default picture setting so my overall experince is what I call consistent. So that said do try KMPLayer.
You may need to install some or all of the following as well, haali media splitter and FFmpeg & AC3filter for a total solution. (even blue ray)

My KMPlayer script for MyMovies use.

I use WMC7 x64 also for media cataloging and to make life easier for others I use My Movies by Brian Binnerup. My Movies intgrates perfectly with KMPlayer and WMC7 

My Malware :devil: protection is 3 part Avast Av free & Peerblock both active and for monthly scans Malwarebytes all free all proven to be effective.


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