@rpedde wrote:
No hdmi. 🙁
Anyone know anything that will decode hd content and has hdmi? That would be the winner in my book. I’ve got a virtual graveyard of stuff that’s *almost* not crappy.
My current preference would be the Ziova CS-510 – it ticks all the boxes for me, but they are expensive and hard to get. So right now, I am hoping that this will come good – http://www.airlinktek.com/english/product.php?prod=mg350shd – Mediagate seem to do quite well in the US market, although they are one step behind their Korean developers in terms of products. That one does have HDMI. Available today in the US is the MG350 has DVI-D which can be directly connected to HDMI – http://www.mediagateusa.com/html/mg350.html – but I wonder whether this may fall into that “*almost* not crappy” category (it certainly won’t win any prizes for good looks).
Both of these are based on existing technology which is now pretty well sorted (same chip as Ziova CS-505/CS-510). The next gen chips from Sigma Designs are making their way into new products around now, and may be better for true HD, but history suggests it will take 6-12 months before the firmware is adequately bug free and stable.
The biggest problem that I see is that the customer needs vary quite widely. Some folks (like me) just want to watch their ripped DVDs. Good picture, AC3/DTS pass through and correct subtitle handling are important to me. Others want DivX in various flavours. Others want local recording or linkage to PC based recording. Others want an audio player that happens to be able to do video. Then there’s photos, and so on. And don’t get me started on server support – that’s a mess too. The manufacturers struggle to cover this spread, and end up doing most things badly, IMHO.