johnm160 Posted July 2, 2011 Share Posted July 2, 2011 I know this is not an A/V forum but with all of the media we are storing in UnRaid surely there are some ideas on what to stream the media to. Currently I am using a WDTV Live. It works, I like it, but don't love it. It does not like all audio formats. I have several files that it plays the video for but will not play the audio. I am storing more and more of my media in an HD format when possible, but only one tv in the house is HD. I guess this means if I stream to more than one tv there will have to be some transcoding involved. Is it better to let the server do this or the box it is streamed to? So what are you streaming to? Quote Link to comment
pfp Posted July 2, 2011 Share Posted July 2, 2011 Popcorn hour A-200 with my own customized 2.35 YAMJ Aeon skin - I LOVE it! Quote Link to comment
johnm160 Posted July 2, 2011 Author Share Posted July 2, 2011 Have you found anything the Popcorn Hour will not play yet? I know my WDTV Live refuses to play a few audio formats DTS comes to mind right off the bat. I believe there is another format or to on the hd MKV files that it will not play also. I can't test it at the moment since I am away from home. Quote Link to comment
kingpin Posted July 2, 2011 Share Posted July 2, 2011 i use a WDTV Live and like you said, i like it but i don't love it. The GUI is very boring. I also have an HDMI cable ran from my MacPro that lets me use Plex and XBMC. I LOVE plex, but right now it is not working with my current setup. With the cable ran from my MacPro to the my Marantz SR8002 i get stuttering on the screen. It seems to be a problem with the receiver itself because plex works wonderfully on my mac. XBMC works great and that is what i seem to use the most. I love the way you can customize the skins and the way it works. I would rather use PLEX because i think they put a little more effort into making it work better on the mac (and now on android, linux and windows), but i will have to wait and see about somehow bypassing the video in the receiver. kingpin Quote Link to comment
pfp Posted July 2, 2011 Share Posted July 2, 2011 Have you found anything the Popcorn Hour will not play yet? I know my WDTV Live refuses to play a few audio formats DTS comes to mind right off the bat. I believe there is another format or to on the hd MKV files that it will not play also. I can't test it at the moment since I am away from home. No. However my requirements may be rather simple. I just play ripped DVD's and Blu-ray's (in their native folder format). No issues with any of the audio formats. One thing to be aware of though - unlike the c-200 the A-200 does not have "full" blu-ray support . It plays the largest file on the disc which in the case of a branching disc is usually problematic. I use clown_BD to strip everything but the movie with audio/subs I want and it creates a single M2TS file so this is not a problem for me. Quote Link to comment
joshpond Posted July 2, 2011 Share Posted July 2, 2011 Popcorn hour here for me too. C200. The website will show the actual list of files it can play but it seems to cover most if not all video and audio. I have avi, mp4, and .iso (dvd and bluray) I believe most audio formats are also supported, mp3 and dts and DD both HD and standard versions. It will also play 3D SBS. Josh Quote Link to comment
kizer Posted July 2, 2011 Share Posted July 2, 2011 XBMC in living room WD Live in Office WD Live in Guest room Ipad using AirVideo iTouch using AirVideo Pc in my office with Subsonic for my tunes Hopefully soon I'll have something setup in the Garage to listen to tunes as well. Quote Link to comment
johnm160 Posted July 2, 2011 Author Share Posted July 2, 2011 XBMC in living room WD Live in Office WD Live in Guest room Ipad using AirVideo iTouch using AirVideo Pc in my office with Subsonic for my tunes Hopefully soon I'll have something setup in the Garage to listen to tunes as well. seems like you have covered just about every option Quote Link to comment
duckman Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 sage tv server serving 2 hd200 extenders. The hd200 won't do dts audio, other than that, no complaints. Of course google just bought sage so thats the end of that... Quote Link to comment
kizer Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 XBMC in living room WD Live in Office WD Live in Guest room Ipad using AirVideo iTouch using AirVideo Pc in my office with Subsonic for my tunes Hopefully soon I'll have something setup in the Garage to listen to tunes as well. seems like you have covered just about every option Only if I "had" a PS3 running PS3MediaServer. LOL Quote Link to comment
Rajahal Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 XBMC (Openelec) on a Zbox Quote Link to comment
squirrellydw Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 Plex on Mac Mini Plex on iPad Plex on Android (soon to be iPhone) Plex on ATV2 Quote Link to comment
razmajazz Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 Windows Media Center + MediaBrowser (x4) Quote Link to comment
johnm160 Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 XBMC in living room WD Live in Office WD Live in Guest room Ipad using AirVideo iTouch using AirVideo Pc in my office with Subsonic for my tunes Hopefully soon I'll have something setup in the Garage to listen to tunes as well. seems like you have covered just about every option Only if I "had" a PS3 running PS3MediaServer. LOL Christmas is coming LOL Quote Link to comment
johnm160 Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 sage tv server serving 2 hd200 extenders. The hd200 won't do dts audio, other than that, no complaints. Of course google just bought sage so thats the end of that... Yeah I have not got around to sage I had wanted to, seems this time my procrastination paid off. So what options do we have that would play DTS or TrueHD audio? Quote Link to comment
johnm160 Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 XBMC (Openelec) on a Zbox I was looking at Openelec the other night after reading about it here I believe. I thought I read that linux is lagging behind in the HD audio formats. Was that you that posted that here? Quote Link to comment
duckman Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 I misspoke on the dts. The hd200 will pass dts to your processor just fine, but will not decode it. I beleive the hd300 may do hd audio, I was waiting on getting a 300, guess I waited too long. Quote Link to comment
Paak Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 XBMC (Openelec) on a Zbox Same here, it plays everything I've thrown at it. I spend more time watching this than cable tv. I also have PLEX on a Mac in another room but it hasn't gotten much love since I connected the Zbox to the living room tv. Quote Link to comment
johnm160 Posted July 5, 2011 Author Share Posted July 5, 2011 The price point on those zboxes are pretty nice. Now correct me if I am wrong but I thought I read if you wanted to handle DTS/TrueHD you had to be on a sandy bridge. Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 I'm using W7 and Mediabrowser. This was just really simple to setup and use. I just installed Mediabrowser and Haali Media Splitter on a new W7 install and was good to play the formats I use. The WDlive will stream DTS or DD audio to a receiver but it won't stream HD audio formats. I believe it can also decode DD and send it as stereo out the jacks. It won't decode DTS for the stereo output jacks. The ION Zbox's can't stream HD audio. They can be used to process HD audio and send it as PCM to the receiver. This accomplishes about the same thing in the end but the PC setup is a little more complex (getting it setup to decode/convert the audio to PCM instead of just letting it send the audio track right to the receiver). The sandybridge or the Zacate can both be used to stream HD audio to a receiver over HDMI. Both Nvidia and AMD also have video card solutions for HD audio. You can get a Zacate Zbox if you so desire. I personally would look towards a Zacate based system for a media player only system, as opposed to using a Atom or a Sandybridge. A Sandybridge would work great for a more capable system when you want more than just media playback. Peter Quote Link to comment
Rajahal Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 I really don't understand a lot of the HD audio decoding stuff. My Zbox running XBMC will play every file I throw at it. Files with simpler audio (I'm assuming non-HD) will be played by the Zbox directly, meaning the volume buttons on my MCE remote will work. Files with more complex audio (HD audio, I guess?) will go into 'passthrough mode' and the volume buttons on the MCE remote won't work, I have to use volume control on my receiver instead (which conveniently is possible over wifi from my phone ). Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 I really don't understand a lot of the HD audio decoding stuff. My Zbox running XBMC will play every file I throw at it. Files with simpler audio (I'm assuming non-HD) will be played by the Zbox directly, meaning the volume buttons on my MCE remote will work. Files with more complex audio (HD audio, I guess?) will go into 'passthrough mode' and the volume buttons on the MCE remote won't work, I have to use volume control on my receiver instead (which conveniently is possible over wifi from my phone ). The audio does not have to be HD to be streamed. DD and DTS are not HD and they are streamed (the digital data is sent directly "as-is" to the receiver"), meaning the computer can not control the volume since the computer is not processing the audio. Do you have a HDMI or optical/coax connection to the receiver? At any rate, the Atom based Zbox can not stream HD audio... Peter Quote Link to comment
Rajahal Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 I'm using an HDMI connection to the receiver. I'm curious now to try to find some file with HD audio to see if it will play, since you say it won't. Why wouldn't the Zbox just stream any type of audio that it couldn't decode? Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 Why wouldn't the Zbox just stream any type of audio that it couldn't decode? The ION chipset can not stream HD audio. There must be a PAP = protected audio path to stream HD audio and the ION chipset does not have the PAP. Only the Clarkdale, Zacate and certain ATI (4xxx and 5xxx series) and Nvidia graphics cards have the PAP. The PAP is basically a connection that is hard to crack/hack so that people can't record the data stream as the video plays. I have no idea why it matters and personally I think it's retarded. There is software to rip and re-encode BluRay (it's pretty much wide open now) and if you can convert/edit/play the BluRay disk to a playable file anyone can use then there is no need to protect it from being recorded as it plays. Your Zbox is an ION right? If so, it can convert the HD audio to PCM and send that to the receiver but it can't stream the HD audio. You will never get the receiver DD+, DTS-HD or Dolby-TrueHD lights to turn-on with the ION chipset. To playback HD audio using PCM you need to send 7 channels which does require the HDMI connection. You are likely just streaming DD (also called AC-3) and DTS to the receiver over the HDMI. This could be done just as easy using an optical or coax cable. Peter Quote Link to comment
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