Best media player?

manbearpig · 15 Aug 2010 at 19:59

Hi,

What media player would be best?, I have a budget of about £50-£80. I would like to be able to play 720p/1080p MKV files, ISO's and the usual AVI's, MPEG's etc. I have been looking at the Sumvision Cyclone series of media players but im not sure which one looks best, I would also like to be able to stream across the network from my windows XP PC.

Do you have one of them or know any media players that are better for the money.

Thanks

Mittens · 15 Aug 2010 at 21:43

I am in the same boat and have narrowed it down to the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player or the http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-000-AK.

hope it helps a bit

manbearpig · 16 Aug 2010 at 11:40

Thanks, I might for the Western Digital.

DJDaz · 16 Aug 2010 at 22:36

I'd recommend the sumvision cyclone mkv player. It's played everything i've thrown at it so far.

manbearpig · 17 Aug 2010 at 16:41

Thanks but I have bought the WD now

Shadows1990 · 17 Aug 2010 at 19:44

Mind if I jump into this thread?

I'm looking for a media player for the girlfriend as she still has my WDTV and I thought I'd treat her

I would go for another WDTV/Live/whatever, but the original WDTV I have is so problematic it's beyond it's worth. Pixelation on HD MKVs which requires quitting and re-entering the video is a REAL pain and occasional sync problems (running the latest firmware, which has made it slightly better). Being unable to decode the DTS audio over the component/HDMI was a massive blow for me too (which I only found out after I got it hooked up). This meant converting almost everything that went onto it for the video or audio problems.

Is there a reliable media player, capable of playing 1080p MKVs (with no silly limits like 4-reframes like the WDTV) and DTS over HDMI?

(And yes, I'm a bit bitter because the lack of support the WDTV got from Western Digital regarding the two main flaws I pointed out. The problems I had were on the original WDTV, I can't speak for the newer models.

manbearpig · 17 Aug 2010 at 21:00

The Sumvision Cyclones have DTS audio through HDMI i'm pretty sure, one of the reasons I bought the WD was because the interface looked a lot nicer though

DJDaz · 18 Aug 2010 at 08:38

as said, the Sumvision Cyclone MKV players can play DTS over HDMI. Although I don't think the v1 can so make sure it's a v2 if you do get one

Shadows1990 · 18 Aug 2010 at 16:13

Thanks for the replies, I'll take a look at the Cyclone

valve90210 · 18 Aug 2010 at 17:00

The wdhdtv Live outputs DTS via HDMI now so that's not a problem anymore.

Also, I've not suffered from any pixelation problems though I haven't played a huge amount of HD MKV vids.

Valve

PixelChef · 18 Aug 2010 at 17:31

Hey, I was also interested at the Sumvision Cyclone the other day, but in the specifications it reads:

Video:
- MPEG1/2/4 (MPG, VOB, AVI), DIVX (AVI), XVID (AVI), resolution up to 720 x 480 30fps / 720 x 576 25fps.

So surely that means it can't play HD movies? Or would it play them but downscale them to that resolution?

For example if I had a MPEG2 movie file @ 1080p would it work with this?

manbearpig · 18 Aug 2010 at 17:54

oL said:
Hey, I was also interested at the Sumvision Cyclone the other day, but in the specifications it reads:

So surely that means it can't play HD movies? Or would it play them but downscale them to that resolution?

For example if I had a MPEG2 movie file @ 1080p would it work with this?

I think you are talking about the Sumvision Cyclone Micro, which doesn't support HD video unfortunately.

PixelChef · 19 Aug 2010 at 18:42

manbearpig said:
I think you are talking about the Sumvision Cyclone Micro, which doesn't support HD video unfortunately.

Ah yeah I was, didn't realise there was a different version of it.