Advice Media Streamer

[Moriath]

Ok I have a nas box which i can put anything on

The xbox 360 does a so so job and sometimes gets jittery and all

So im looking for something that can play .mkv and all h264 associated wrappers along with xvis divx and all the avi stuff .. music formats and photos etc from my netgear duo thingy nas drive.

360 will do plain h264 but not mkv etc so is getting a bit limited now things are moving up to that sort of grade.

I dont want to arse about with a linux box ... its just the translation and hdmi input to a amp /tv. DLAN or something compatable like that.

Anyone using anything they recommend ,, i see lots that can do it but want something good

Cheers

 

[soze]

XBMC is your choice its just how you get there. I currently have an Acer Revo which cost £170 running XBMC pulling data from a SMB share on my NAS. It plays everything I throw at it with no problems. OpenELEC do very nice simple installs which just work out the box. I think you just need to look at getting an Atom Nettop with ION or better graphics.

For my birthday I will be getting the new Apple TV which i will try to Jail Break and Install XBMC on. They are silent and cost £100 new. Some people reported problems with 1080p on the old versions I have not seen anything to suggest they still exist on the new version.

 

[Deebs]

Correct me if I am wrong but there is no jailbreak for an apple tv3 just yet. Atv 2 cannot do 1080p and Atv1 can do if you replace the wifi card with a Broadcom crystal hd.

 

[Embattle]

Personally using http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330, certainly very good although I do have a little niggle at the moment that certain series aren't ordered right but this is due to be fixed this month with regular updates.


http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_wd_tv_live_review
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1738/1/

 

[soze]

Looks like that is correct I had not looked into it as I do not have mine yet and there could be a new version of the software by then.

 

[Moriath]

its just like booting up netbooks and stuff to get it up and running i like to press a switch and it works .. does that happen with xdbc ?

The WDTV i have looked at anyone got any experience of using them ?

Do they come with giga networking or they the lower spec like the xbox is ?

 

[Zenith.UK]

Have you considered getting your hands on a Raspberry Pi board and trying your hand at an XBMC build for it?
The board should be available for £31.86 inc.del, though there will be some configuration to get it to work the way you want for your setup.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberrypi
http://downloads.element14.com/raspberryPi1.html?isRedirect=true

I'l be getting one from each of Farnell and RS hopefully. One to be a media streamer for my TV, one for coding, scripting and general hacking ideas.

 

[Moriath]

Have you considered getting your hands on a Raspberry Pi board and trying your hand at an XBMC build for it?
The board should be available for £31.86 inc.del, though there will be some configuration to get it to work the way you want for your setup.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberrypi
http://downloads.element14.com/raspberryPi1.html?isRedirect=true

I'l be getting one from each of Farnell and RS hopefully. One to be a media streamer for my TV, one for coding, scripting and general hacking ideas.

Is pi powerful enough to do seamless 1080p

Not read that much about it

 

[soze]

its just like booting up netbooks and stuff to get it up and running i like to press a switch and it works .. does that happen with xdbc ?

Yes my Revo boots right into XBMC that is the beauty of the software i linked it does not need you to jump though any hoops it just works.

There are XBMC builds for the R Pi and over USB it seems to do 1080p fine but some people doubt it will have the guts to pull a 20gb MKV over the network while caching and playing it. But until they are actually shipped and in the real world it is hard to know.

 

[Cyradix]

If you don't want to build or install something get a Dune!!
http://dune-hd.com/index.php?do=players
Small simple players, full on with a blu-ray player and all the bells and whistles or the Smarts series were you connect modules to get the player you want...

 

[Deebs]

Is pi powerful enough to do seamless 1080p

Not read that much about it

Yes, it has hardware decoding support for h264 and a couple of others. This is purely a licensing affair between RPI and Broadcom.

 

[Ch3tan]

You can also just use ps3mediaserver to remix stuff direct to your 360 from your Jas via your pc. If its all wired rather than wireless than 1080 won't be an issue, cheaper options by far.

 

[Moriath]

Don't want to have my pc on all the time so just want something to take straight from my nas box no remixing etc via a pc

 

[Moriath]

If you don't want to build or install something get a Dune!!
http://dune-hd.com/index.php?do=players
Small simple players, full on with a blu-ray player and all the bells and whistles or the Smarts series were you connect modules to get the player you want...

That dune player does seem to be the dogs bollocks

 

[Embattle]

its just like booting up netbooks and stuff to get it up and running i like to press a switch and it works .. does that happen with xdbc ?

The WDTV i have looked at anyone got any experience of using them ?

Do they come with giga networking or they the lower spec like the xbox is ?

Yes I run mine with my gigabit network.

 

[Moriath]

Yes I run mine with my gigabit network.

you hae any issues with it .. stuttering or codex incompatabilities ?

 

[Trem]

Popcorn Hour by a mile. I have an Asus streamer (ball ache to get to the folder you want), a Sumvision (same as the Asus) and also the Popcorn Hour. The picture quality, sound and ease of use is way better on the Popcorn than any other streamer I have ever seen (including PS3 and Xbox), I love the sync adjust on the PH for films that are out of sync.

I bought mine from America, add on the duty and it was still less than buying off Amazon - http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/ I got this one - http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog&mainItemId=45

 

[Moriath]

Popcorn Hour by a mile. I have an Asus streamer (ball ache to get to the folder you want), a Sumvision (same as the Asus) and also the Popcorn Hour. The picture quality, sound and ease of use is way better on the Popcorn than any other streamer I have ever seen (including PS3 and Xbox), I love the sync adjust on the PH for films that are out of sync.

I bought mine from America, add on the duty and it was still less than buying off Amazon - http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/ I got this one - http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog&mainItemId=45

aye looks nice but i dont need to repeat the networks storage i already have and your paying extra for the capability to put a drive in it

 

[Trem]

aye looks nice but i dont need to repeat the networks storage i already have and your paying extra for the capability to put a drive in it

You can buy models without the extra functions for less money, was just pointing out which one I had.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/POPCORN-HOU...YY/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1334079167&sr=8-10

 

[Embattle]

you hae any issues with it .. stuttering or codex incompatabilities ?

Well I use Handbrake and do all the normal stuff of changing certain settings depending on the source type, such as is it animation etc but other than that I create them using the H264 codec with AAC and DD audio and then dump them on my NAS. It can read the NAS as a media server but to add the extra scraper functions etc I've created an WDTV account on my Synology NAS and given it read/write access to the Music, Photo and Video shares and then use network shares on the WDTV as the content source.

A minor niggle I have is how it currently displays series/seasons, so it'll show them as 1, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 2, 21, 22 although this is due to be fixed this month. Other than that I've not noticed anything else much but then been spending more time converting dvds etc at the moment. BBC iplayer worked fine while set on HD on the few programs I've watched via it.

 

[Moriath]

ok worked out dune max more expensive than wdtv live and a nlue ray player so thats what i got i hope they work as well as the reviews

 

[Poag]

I personally have a Mac MINI (2009 got it 2nd hand for £200) running Plex Media server and Plex media center. In the background runs sabnzb, with sickbeard running my TV shows and couchpotatoe for movies.

Its connected to our main TV directly as its our main TV watching place. Both mine and misses have the Plex Droid app for mobile viewing of our TV collection. Plex Media Center is also on the laptops and tablets we have for mobile viewing in the home.

Got a trio of 1TB external USB3 drives in a raid as its file host. Eventually I want to get a NAS to do it, but it does the job for now.

The media server does all the cataloging of tv shows, it also on the fly recompresses media for display on different devices. For example on my tv it sends the pure 1080p, while for my mobile it cuts it down to 720p, same for the tablets.
Also works out the available upstream bandwidth and compresses to that ratio so you can stream over the net without jitter, just not awesome quality if your upload is pants

 

[Embattle]

The WD forum is quite good for information - http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Media/ct-p/wdtvlive_streaming

This is a link for issues and what the situation is regarding them - http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Issue/idb-p/streaming_issues

TV Content is from - http://thetvdb.com/
Film Content is from - http://www.themoviedb.org/

 

[MYstIC G]

Correct me if I am wrong but there is no jailbreak for an apple tv3 just yet. Atv 2 cannot do 1080p and Atv1 can do if you replace the wifi card with a Broadcom crystal hd.

This. As discussed before elsewhere imho there are two options:

• Get the aTV and wait for the jailbreak (or vice versa) £100 and you get the remote, smart package, etc.
• Raspberry Pi probably a pain in the arse if you really wanted a remote control but cheap and can likely be re-purposed later on.

 

[Moriath]

Nah WDTV is nice it seems and coupled with a blu ray is cheaper that the dune max. Ordered and waiting for them. Cba to jailbreak or create from a pi kit . Too old to waste time on that I want out of the box plug in and go these days. Maybe 15 years ago I would go with ate or pi but not now

 

[MYstIC G]

Nah WDTV is nice it seems and coupled with a blu ray is cheaper that the dune max. Ordered and waiting for them. Cba to jailbreak or create from a pi kit . Too old to waste time on that I want out of the box plug in and go these days. Maybe 15 years ago I would go with ate or pi but not now

Good call mate.

 

[Deebs]

I prefer my Mac Mini with XBMC loaded, connected via HDMI to the amp (thru to TV) streaming all content from my FreeNAS systems.

 

[Deebs]

Raspberry Pi finally ordered

 

[Zenith.UK]

Thanks for reminding me. I got mine about a week ago.
It works, and as I expected it is painfully slow on a 2GB SD card. Apparently some people have larger SD cards with swap partitions to speed up general operation.

This is one project that's just about to release a final v1.0 build of a distro with XBMC.
http://www.raspbmc.com/

 

[MYstIC G]

I wouldn't bother with anything other than OpenELEC to be honest. It's far more established than that and seems to run much tighter with the main XBMC developers.

Their bug tracker is here atm:

https://github.com/OpenELEC/OpenELEC.tv/issues?milestone=10&page=1&state=open