What media player route did you take and why?

[dgaschk]

Many choices.....I simply want to play blur ray rips with hd sound and I dont want a box that is bigger than my tv, and does not cost 500 bucks. I would love for it to support Plex.

 

You can try a a small pc with XBMC. Or an ATVv1 plus a Broadcom HD card or GMA 950 Mac Mini plus a Broadcom HD card with XBMC (all of this can be found on e-bay). I got the new version Broadcom HD card because it is more capable and only costs a few more dollars when new.

[Bolle]

An old ATV picked up on the local eBay, added the Crystal HD card, and running XBMC on Linux from an USB stick. Using Linux much better performance and 1080p support which XBMC + CrystalHD on the Apple OS doesn't support.

Happy with the solution, although the older Apple hardware is noticable whilst browsing the menus, and some codecs throw the decoding off. Also my CrystalHD card is one of the earliest cards and seems not to work well with the newer drivers and XBMC releases. On the plus side it has low noise, good remote control support, and looks nice in the hi-fi rack. 

 

Probably going to look into getting an Atom + ION platform next winter or so, as this seems a better and more future proof solution. The VDPAU HD decoding seems to be more stable, and also the hardware is quicker whilst browsing menus. But have to look into things like HD audio passthrough, good IR remote support, low noise etc.

[PeterB]

About four years ago I selected Squeezebox for my audio.  Initially I used a QNAP NAS as the server, but soon realised the limitations as the server software became more complex.  I moved the server onto a small ubuntu machine, which ran well for almost three years.

 

A little over a year ago I purchased a Popcornhour C200 for video.  At first this had an internal 1TB disk but when that filled up my research led me to unRAID.  The drive from the PCH was redeployed into the unRAID server.  Now, all of my media is held on the unRAID box, which is also hosting the SqueezeBoxServer software.

 

So my current setup is 2 Squeezebox classics, Popcornhour C200 and A200, all served from unRAID.

 

Reasons:

Squeezebox offers high quality audio at a reasonable price - the other option I explored was the Sonos, but that was far more expensive.

PCH plays most video formats with decent quality and is available here in Philippines.

[Tom899]

I don't have one yet, thinking of a Netgear NeoTV-550 or Dune?

[Andrew307]

I recently got a Boxee Box to add to my setup.  I have to say I have been very dissapointed.  The UI is clunky and poorly made.  I like being able to have the box look at all my movies and find cover art for them, but I dont like how it wont let me sort them the way I want. 

 

Probably going back to my WD TV  Live.

[G Speed]

Right now I'm using WDTV Live.. have a few of them in the house.. and so far I can't complain.. I haven't had any problems with it.. it does what I want it to..

 

1080p mkvs with dts or dd5.1...

 

 

[Plugged Up]

I went with a Dune Max since it is a prebuilt media player the size of a Blu Ray and it plays every file you throw at it - Blu Ray ISOs, Folder Ripped BDs, MKVs at lossless quality including the DTS-MA or TrueHD sound track, and the list goes on and on but I'll mostly rip my BDs and DVDs to ISO and play them that way.  It also has bit-torrent built in for direct overnight downloading of episodes that my DVRs missed for one reason or another and it can surf the web.  There is a bay for up to two expansion cards that will allow adding a cable, terrestrial or satellite card should I choose in the future.  A bit expensive at $500 but I like that it is pretty much plug and play and has a small foot print that will easily slide into my home entertainment center.

 

It has a Blu Ray drive built in, so I'll move my current blu ray and put the Dune Max.  The Dune Max can hold one 2tb drive, so I am building an unraid server to give it unlimited storage. 

 

The one negative is the out of the box interface is not that pretty but Zappiti can be installed to it giving it a very slick interface.

[mbryanr]

Have a WDTV Live that works "most of the time" as long as I don't use the latest 1.04.1 FW....but I peeked in the Christmas closet -and saw a Boxee Box .

[Bags]

Anyone use or have any thoughts on the sage tv hd theater 300. http://www.sagetv.com/hd_theater.html

 

[duckman]

I'm using the hd 200, a couple of them actually. But I'm running them as extenders for a sage server looking to my unraid for media. Kinda sucks running two boxes just to watch a movie. I will say this setup has been about as trouble free as one could expect. I have read of some hardware issues with the new 300 so am sticking with the 200's for now.

I've been looking at the various boxes as a christmas gift for my sister and have about decided that they all have issues of some kind and really aren't quite ready for prime time.

[blazinlow]

used to use popcorn hour a110s but have recently switched to mini itx htpcs with xbmc. i just prefer the customization as well as it looks alot more impressive. i also like the way it shows all the newly added stuff etc. the popcorn hours were great for the price however and played everything flawlessly

[Chuck]

First I tried PS3 Media Server running on a Linux box feeding the PS3, which worked, for some files, but was pretty crude.

 

Next I bought the WDTV Live Hub. It is not perfect, but really isn't bad. I would prefer a cheaper model without the internal hard drive.

 

Also tried the Seagate FreeAgent Theater +. I gave it to my mother to stream Netflix, which other than being a little slow it does well. Interesting it will play a few BDMV folder structure backups that the Live Hub choked on. However the FAT+ doesn't have the bandwidth to play high bitrate movies over the network. However the exact same network, wire and all feed movies like Avatar to the WDTV LH w/o a hiccup. This really was the deal breaker on the FAT+, although for the price I didn't expect much.

 

Next I am going to try an Atom based HTPC for my bedroom. Now that I am converting my exiting Linux box to unRAID I will need a box to run shell scripts and such on anyway. That $200 Zotac has my attention, but I am waiting for the price to drop or a better model to come out.

[Tom899]

Yesterday I bought a "Netgear NeoTV 550" media player. I ripped about 10 Blu-Ray and DVD's to ISO using "AnyDVD HD" coupled with "ImgBurn". I tagged them with "Media Center Master". My new unRAID server can finally get a work out! Everything is working great!

 

1/12/2011 Update- Have now ripped 123 movies to ISO. The NeoTV 550 and unRAID server are still working great!

[Unqualified Spectator]

First post - Greetings all!

 

I got started down this path with a Patriot Box Office. Stop laughing...I know it is weak. I just wanted a playback device that could take an internal HD and was small enough to take on vacations and such. The PBO is very good at handling most any video, audio, or photo in most formats. It supports MKVs, TS_videos, ISOs, you name it. For what I intended to use it for, the PBO is great, especially when visiting the mother-in-law...you know, the one with 16 channel DirectTV and they never heard of a DVD player.  PBO plays back on Composite video or HDMI, all the way to 1080p.

 

For home, I have PS3s, an XBOX 360, and the Wii. I thought about streaming to them, and for the living room I want to go the XBMC route. The only thing that the Patriot Box Office doesn't do is offer a web browser, or I would consider the YAMJ route...maybe you guys can suggest some solutions? I know you can putz with the firmware and gain access to YAMJ but it is still sort of a kludge. I want something with the high WAF (Wife Approval Factor)...

[opentoe]

Yesterday I bought a "Netgear NeoTV 550" media player. I ripped about 10 Blu-Ray and DVD's to ISO using "AnyDVD HD" coupled with "ImgBurn". I tagged them with "Media Center Master". My new unRAID server can finally get a work out! Everything is working great!

 

All the current Dune players have the same chipet as that Netgear 550. Since I already have the Popcorn A-200 and the Dune Prime 3.0 there was no sense for me to get another player, but I would at least 'try' the Netgear 550 just because it has the only chipset I like in a media player.

[talmania]

Well I thought I'd chime back in on my own thread and give an update:

 

I've bought and tried out the following:

 

Dune Smart HD D1

Popcorn Hour A200 (modified to fanless--JUST before the A210 was announced, ugh!)

Netgear N550

 

And am about to pull the trigger on a Boxee to check out as well.

 

I have no intention of keeping all of them but so far my favorite is the Dune running Zappitti.  Gorgeous, simple interface with powerful media management capabilities (compared to what I'm used to and briefly explored).  The A200 is rock solid---plays absolutely everything without a hitch but the front end isn't terrific and the new NMT manager still has some bugs to work out.

 

Next up will be an HTPC running XBMC or some other variant thereof for comparisons sake.

 

[Joe L.]

Next up will be an HTPC running XBMC or some other variant thereof for comparisons sake.

You do not need to dedicate a HTPC to try XBMC for comparrison.  The window's version works very well.

 

(I have the window's version on my Vista laptop, and the XBMC Live version on a Revo-1600 net-top.)

 

Joe L.

[marlin]

Hi,

So just to be clear XBMC will not work with WD Live but will with Popcorn products?

[Joe L.]

Hi,

So just to be clear XBMC will not work with WD Live but will with Popcorn products?

No... never said that.  I said XBMC have a version you ca install and run on Windows, or a version of it is coupled with a minimal ubuntu distribution and can be booted as a Live-CD.  You never see ubuntu linux.... just like you never see the linux OS that runs the popcorn hour products.

 

I never said anything about the popcorn products and XBMC.  They are media players, just like XBMC.  They both can play media stored on a server.

[mbryanr]

Well I thought I'd chime back in on my own thread and give an update:

 

I've bought and tried out the following:

 

Dune Smart HD D1

Popcorn Hour A200 (modified to fanless--JUST before the A210 was announced, ugh!)

Netgear N550

 

And am about to pull the trigger on a Boxee to check out as well.

 

Gotta say that the Boxee plays all of my movies with no issues (basic setup HDMI to TV).  I know the Boxee people are working on DTS-HD dropouts for those with audio systems to support DTS-HD.

 

I really like that the interface is simple, aggregrates all shares, and 95% of my collection was correctly identified.  Those running XBMC or YAMJ may not like the Boxee scraping, but for me it works.  I'd like to see improvements to manually identify DVD concerts, specials, and TV episodes.

 

Playback has been flawless.  I've recently changed my setup temporarily (added a Buffalo Tech WLI-TX4-AG300N Wireless Access Point), but unRAID and Boxee Box is a great combo.

 

Current Setup: 

Media Sources

unRAID server

Synology Ds-210j

Multiple Windows Clients

 

each wired through the DGS-2205 GigE switch to the Boxee Box.  The switch is wired to the Buffalo WAP (had to move my server and Syno to a new location).

 

[speedkills]

You can't beat some variation of XBMC which leaves XBMC, Boxee, and Plex.

 

Boxee has a horrible UI, they say they are going to work on it but beware for now. 

 

Plex is in my opinion hands down the best, especially for WAF, the library and scrapers work far better than the others.  It streams to ipads and Apple TVs easily.  The downside is that it is expensive, you ideally need a Mac Mini 2GHZ or better (2009 or better is the way to go).  If you need multiple clients you can use one Mac Mini and a few AppleTV2s which could end up cheaper than multiple full blown players since the mac mini will handle the transcoding and library for the whole house.  Plex is working on a port of their server to linux, there is a poll on their site right now and the leading candidiates for the first version are Ubuntu and unRaid (nearly tied for votes, go vote for unRaid!).  If the server is handled separately then AppleTVs and the LG smart media extender boxes are great clients and in my opinion a great way to go.  Nice to stop a movie halfway through, go to the bedroom and restart it and have it pick up where you left off.

 

Next best option (or better depending on your needs) is an atom/ion htpc like an Acer Aspire Revo, I just found one for a friend for $175 (the older R1600 model which is more than fast enough).  XBMC is working on their library but it still can't match Plex, that said it is a little more tweakable if you don't mind spending the time on it.  XBMC on the AppleTVs is almost there but not quite ready for primetime.  XBMC on the AppleTV3 should be amazing, everything you need for $100 with no fan and only puling a few watts of power but that doesn't really help you today.

 

For what it's worth I'm running Plex right now, I'm not an Apple guy but it works so well I went and bought a used Mac Mini just for Plex.  I was about to spend $200 for something decent, figured I might as well spend $400 buying a used Mac Mini and get everything I wanted to make the rest of my $2k setup work to it's fullest potential. I am experimenting with XBMC on AppleTV right now and immediately I notice it's cool that it is so cheap and used so little power but it just won't replace my Plex box, it's slow, can't handle all of my 1080p files and the library/scrapers are a joke compared to Plex out of the box.  I'm positive with some work I can get the scrapers working well and all of my content in my library but it's all there with no work in Plex and that says a lot as far as I'm concerned.

[Blade1001]

I have just moved to a Netgear NeoTV 550 and I can honestly say it is excellent! After spending a couple of years with a TViX 6500a, where all the grahical interface had to be set-up manually, the interface on the Netgear is a revalation!

 

I just ran MCM on all my rips, which also generates the necessary Netgear .TAG files, and all necessary cover art, fan art and film blurb appeared instantly on my Netgear with no messing about.

 

The SMB connection isn't great as it only has a 10/100 ethernet port, but the NFS connection from my unRAID is rock solid with a constant 90Mbps - which must be the ports real world max.

 

As a result I can stream .TS files, blu-ray .ISO's and full BD structures with no stuttering at all. Netgear support also looks promising as they have indicated they are ramping up the speed/frequency of firmware improvements. Its already a good box, and I think its set to get even better.

 

 

[betaman]

As a result I can stream .TS files, blu-ray .ISO's and full BD structures with no stuttering at all. Netgear support also looks promising as they have indicated they are ramping up the speed/frequency of firmware improvements. Its already a good box, and I think its set to get even better.

 

Have you tried any full 1:1 BluRay Rips in an MKV container with this box?  Just curious as I have a PCH A-110 and I'm looking to upgrade to either a C-200 or possibly the NeoTV 550 to stream higher bandwidth content.

 

EDIT:  Nevermind...just did some research and I don't want to have to worry about potential Cinavia issues with the NTV550.

[Blade1001]

No never tried .mkv containers, don't see the point when I can rip an .iso image or the full BD structure. These are 1:1 anyway.

 

As for Cinavia, it will never get implemented, it would reduce their sales to zero overnight, no company would do that!

[betaman]

No never tried .mkv containers, don't see the point when I can rip an .iso image or the full BD structure. These are 1:1 anyway.

 

The main reason would be if you just wanted the movie and HD audio track of preference.  MKV is somewhat nicer than M2TS or TS because you can keep the chapters and have subtitles in the container.  The disadvantage is there seems to be more overhead in streaming higher bitrate files.  Remuxing to TS ususally solves this issue but you lose the stuff I just mentioned.

 

As for Cinavia, if it's going to show up anywhere it will be with a more mainstream company like Netgear vs. Syabas.  Since they both have nearly the same chipset (8642 vs. 8643) the only advantages I see with the NeoTV 550 over a C-200 is the price ($130 less) and maybe the front end UI (YAMJ should solve this).  From what I read of the problems on the netgear forum, the advantage of the C-200 is the maturity of the firmware albeit the new NMJ UI seems to be a bust atm.  I'm sure Netgear's firmware will catch up quick though as they have deeper pockets.