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At first i was interested in the Netgear eva8000 but have read a lot of bad reviews..very buggy.. keeps powering off/on etc etc..and various other problems now very interested in the Linksys DMA 2100 or 2200 (same as the 2100 but with a built in dvd player which will upscale to HD).. Availability for the Uk is Feb 1 according to some web sites..
@utopian wrote:
now very interested in the Linksys DMA 2100 or 2200 (same as the 2100 but with a built in dvd player which will upscale to HD).. Availability for the Uk is Feb 1 according to some web sites..
I think the new Linksys boxes are using the same new Sigma chip as some others. I would wait to see some reviews before spending money. New products of this complexity are also likely to have issues for a while. Check the reports on the earlier Linksys products to see how well they support – not everyone has had a good experience.
just noticed this re: the Linksys MDAs..
NB. Specification amendment: Please note that further to previous information, we have learned that this unit will only stream either from, or via, a Windows Media Center PC with Vista operating system. Note also that VOB (DVD) files cannot be streamed. We apologise for the incorrect information previously supplied.
That’s nice, at least they announce publicly that their device is a show-stopper 😀
Well, I really had my hopes up on the AppleTV, but it lacks the CPU pwoer to do HDTV. meh. So now Im waiting for the Ziova 615.
Congrats on the SC200 to S80_UK, btw. You should try Swisscenter, it seems to be a great app!
Because it was the cheapest option to try, I picked up a used Xbox and did the XBMC media center mod this weekend. There’s a bit ot a learning curve in getting it set up, but so far, its played everything I’ve thrown at it. My biggest glitch was in having it scan my video library to automatically apply movie info. For some reason, it decided every movie was “Sex, Lies and Videotape”. Now I need to decide what format I ultimately want to store videos in. Storing the VIDEO_TS folders is eating more space than I’d like.
However the XBMC is an excellent choice as a front-end, the XBOX itself is a limitation factor to todays standards. It doesnt have an HDMI 1.3 output, and HD movies can not be decoded due to low-CPU spec. However, if you dont watch HD movies it is still a very good option. XBMC has an excellent interface, support of filetypes and protocols such as SAMBA (Windows-Sharing)/FTP/UPnP/Shoutcast. Even if it doesnt play native HD movies, it can still upscale DVD’s/movies to 1080i without issues.
Currently one of the the better HD streaming players i can find is called the Popcorn Hour (http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/). Despite its name, this is one of the most advanced streaming clients on the market today (and quiete rated by videophiles). Nice feautures like: Bonjour, UPnP, DLNA, WM Connect, WMP (NSS), NFS, FTP, HTTP servers, Bittorrent Client.. next to this it also supports a number of cool webservices like:
YouTube, Google Video, MetaCafe, VideoCast, DL.TV, Cranky Geeks, iPodcast, Radiobox, ABC News, Flickr, Picasa, Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! Traffic alerts, Yahoo! Stock, Cinecast, Traffic Conditions,Peer-to-peer TV : SayaTV, Shoutcast. These webservices can be accessed directly from your TV/remote :P.Media files support on this box is truly massive..
* Video containers:
o MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)
o MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG)
o MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)
o VOB
o AVI, ASF, WMV
o Matroska (MKV)
o MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4
* Video codecs:
o XVID SD/HD
o MPEG-1
o MPEG-2
+ MP@HL
o MPEG-4.2
+ ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC
o WMV9
+ MP@HL
o H.264
+ BP@L3
+ [email protected]
+ [email protected]
+ [email protected]
o VC-1
+ MP@HL
+ AP@L3
* Audio containers:
o AAC, M4A
o MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)
o WAV
o WMA
* Audio codecs:
o WMA, WMA Pro
o AAC
o MP1, MP2, MP3
o LPCM
* Audio pass through : DTS, AC3
* Photo formats : JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
* Other formats: ISO, IFO
* Subtitle formats : SRT, SMI, SUB, SSADRM
* Cardea DRM (WMDRM-ND)Cheers,
Tonythat popcorn hour device seems to be like gold dust…
Yes indeed. And they have retailers in my relative vicinity. Awesome.
It almost sounds too good to be true. Hope its not snake oil…. 🙄I have looked at this device on the web for some time. My take on the PopcornHour device is that it’s an interesting way for Syabas to get loads of feedback from end users ahead of their main customers being able to bring products to market. So, the device will have bugs, but it will get there. At the same time it may end up a relatively “plain” offering in comparison with other products that will come to market later using Syabas middleware with the same chips as the PopcornHour. Of course – that’s all conjecture and just my opinion – I could be missing the point completely.
😮
I was about to say the same thing when I saw who made the device.
They get a fast time-to-market and also have a quite nice reference-implementation to show and sell to their customers.Anyway, the featureset is quite nice, the only thing that seems awkward is that it’s only got HDMI 1.1a, not 1.3.
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