HTPC or media player? same thing?

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Reality Bites

Reality Bites

Soldato
Joined
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I've been looking into and spec'ing upa HTPC front end and a NAS to store ripped DVD/BD's and photo's etc. I was going to use windows 7 for the front end.

Is there anything this would give me over a HD media player as this would work out at probably half the cost. :confused:
 
You could use linux and remove the cost of the windows license if you are looking for super-cheap.

You could get an atom based all-in-one ION based pc for £200ish which would do hardware hd decoding with the onboard video.

I don't have much experience of non-pc media players, but i cant see them being as flexible as something like this.
 
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I think media streamers are where its at.

They are developing very fast and a lot of them just work.

The AC Ryan Playon HD mini is looking a very good unit for the price.
 
I noticed you're other thread about which streamer to buy. They are appealing for the money. I'm finding it hard to justify a £300 htpc over a HD streamer for £100 or so less.

EDIT, I can't see whether that AC ryan unit does HD audio over HDMI?
 
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My needs are simple.

A low power silent streamer that plays everything and a JUKE BOX interface. for sorting stuff.

I had a play with YAMJ designed for the AC Ryan MINI last night just to see how much of a faff it was creating the Movie JUKE BOX....I have to say it was so easy and worked really well.

I may buy the AC Ryan now as the price for what it does looks like a no brainer...Here is the JUKE BOX I created just by pointing the program to my WHS share. It got every single one right including my TV shows

It plays MKV natively and seems to meet all my needs. As I say I don't need local storage or a BD drive.

RyanJB1.jpg


RyanJB2.jpg


RyanJB3.jpg
 
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I've looked into this before, and I have to be honest...a HTPC just isn't cost effective these days at all. You can pick up HD media players now for £50-£100. Otherwise a PS3 is what £250 new, or even £150 second hand. I have actually been toying with the idea of buying a second broken PS3 (broken blu-ray drive) for the bedroom. These often only go for £40 on ebay and they are a powerful central media hub. OK so they don't play .mkv files natively at the moment, but what with history being made daily over the last week or two with homebrew on the way to PS3, it seems that it may be able to in the near future. I personally use PS3 media server anyway and stream even the highest bitrate .mkv files transcoded on the fly with no issues.

The main reason I won't buy even a media player is that they all seem to come with only 100mb ethernet ports. How pointless. Any network based connective devices I add to my network now I want to be capable of gigabit speeds to future proof. The PS3 is and my home network is/will be soon. For anyone who suggests 100mbits is fine, well I've experienced occasionally high bit rate mkvs bottlenecked by 100mbit lan. OK so the settings in PS3 media server I left compeltely uncapped to see what bandwidth it would use, but it's very possible even now.

There is also the hassle of a HTPC having an OS aka manging it (booting and shutdown times). Noise levels need to be kept low which means spending more money on it or you sacrifice the power of it. It also occupies more space often as well. I spec'd one up recently and it came to in excess of £300 as well.
I just want the cheapest thing that can play my media files via gigabit lan and so far I'm edging towards either a borked PS3 or even an xbox but noise level puts me off this.
 
Easyrider how much is that? I saw a link for it at £200 but then another for £70 so not sure if its the same thing. Also what about noise levels? Does it have gigabit ethernet?
 
that does look very good :)

jaybee said:
Easyrider how much is that? I saw a link for it at £200 but then another for £70 so not sure if its the same thing. Also what about noise levels? Does it have gigabit ethernet?
Click to expand...

its passive, it doesnt have any fans :)
 
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A media streamer is cheaper, but Im not sure Im convinced with that arguement completely.
To be fair - I run WHS and have a media PC in my lounge, so I haven't looked at media streamers at all, so Im out of touch..
For the OP - if all you want to do is stream movies, then a streamer may be the best way to go if you already have a NAS..
I have a media PC that has completely replaced everything else in my house, it is my stereo, blu-ray/DVD player, photo's, fileserver etc
A cheap AMD board, low power quad, and a small HDD for the OS, and you are sorted, running Media Portal, you can have the box as your media server, and we have the clients installed on all our laptops, and can watch TV anywhere in the house.
Where that arguement would fall down is if you have multiple TV's, we only have the one, if you had another TV in the bedroom, then you would want a media streamer anyway, so it may not be the best set up for you.

Media servers are cheaper, but I enjoy the flexibility that having a dedicated setup provides me with..
 
jaybee said:
Easyrider how much is that? I saw a link for it at £200 but then another for £70 so not sure if its the same thing. Also what about noise levels? Does it have gigabit ethernet?
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They are around £85

Its totally silent no moving parts.

It has 10/100 lan but TBH I was using my PS3 with a 10/100 switch for the last 12 months until I upgraded my network to 1GB purely for speed transfer of movie files to my WHS.

The 10/100 worked flawlessy for streaming. So this is a non issue for me.

At £85 the unit is throw away in all honesty and when 10/100 becomes an issue the units will have moved on anyway.

I love the PS3 but with so many movie's and files the lack of JUKE box and no MKV support has lead me on this quest to look at alternatives. PS3 media server for me was to slow displaying lists and thumbnails of files. And MKV2VOB is running into issues with certain SUBs and MKV files when transcoding.

I just want something to work allow me to pick a movie and just watch it without scrolling from A-Z like you have to on the PS3...Searching via genre etc.. is where its at.
 
Fair enough easyrider, but for me, the PS3 does a fine enough job. I have my stuff organised badly and I still manage to find stuff ok. Anyone know of a gigabit ethernet HD media player?
 
jaybee said:
Fair enough easyrider, but for me, the PS3 does a fine enough job. I have my stuff organised badly and I still manage to find stuff ok. Anyone know of a gigabit ethernet HD media player?
Click to expand...

There are many. The DUNE units look amazing but they are circa £250+

Dune HD Base 3.0

Dune HD Base 3.0 is the most affordable solution for Full HD (1080p) video playback based on Sigma Designs 864x platform with internal HDD. Includes a comprehensive set of connectors: three USB 2.0 ports (one front, two back), eSATA port, Ethernet 100/1000(*) Mbit/s, HDMI 1.3, S/PDIF (optical and coaxial), 7.1 analog audio, 2.0 analog audio, component video, composite video.

(*) 1000 Mbit/s support is experimental since it is not officially supported by Sigma Designs 864x chips;
Note: smooth playback of any supported kind of media content (including BDMV folders and BD ISO images) is ensured via any network protocol (both NFS and SMB) in both 100 Mbit/s and 1000 Mbit/s networks, due to Dune Network Playback Accelerator feature.
 
I can't see any HD Media players that feature gigabit enthernet to be honest. Exception seems to be those Dune ones. But if it's more than the cost of a second hand PS3....I'm out.
 
jaybee said:
I can't see any HD Media players that feature gigabit enthernet to be honest. Exception seems to be those Dune ones. But if it's more than the cost of a second hand PS3....I'm out.
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That's because BD rips do not need a Gigabit ethernet for them to stream.

They keep the cost's of the units down...

If they didn't work they wouldn't sell any units. :p

I noticed nothing coming from 10/100 to Gigabit with my PS3

If it was an issue then people would be complaining in droves.

I really wish there was a JUKE BOX for the PS3 and MKV support...As a Media streamer these two things are essential into today's climate IMHO :)
 
Actually the Popcorn Hour A200 appears to do gigabit ethernet. It's not really an issue at the moment and won't be for a while, it's only when using very high bitrate streams transcoding on the fly via PS3 media server I have seen bandwidth go over 100mbits. However, you can cap that to use less so it it suitable for say wireless speeds, 100mbit speeds or whatever your choice. So it is manageable. I just want to future proof and don't want the hassle of ever having the network as a bottleneck. Just an annoyance I have with something so simlpe :)
 
jaybee said:
Actually the Popcorn Hour A200 appears to do gigabit ethernet. It's not really an issue at the moment and won't be for a while, it's only when using very high bitrate streams transcoding on the fly via PS3 media server I have seen bandwidth go over 100mbits. However, you can cap that to use less so it it suitable for say wireless speeds, 100mbit speeds or whatever your choice. So it is manageable. I just want to future proof and don't want the hassle of ever having the network as a bottleneck. Just an annoyance I have with something so simlpe :)
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Both the A200 and C200 are rated at Gigabit but no-one has managed to get it to transfer at Gigabit speeds.

So in essence its 10/100 as when the Gigabit option is selected in settings it does not work...Only Auto and this is 10/100 even when connected to a Gigabit switch....Also Popcorn Hour is fussy on what routers it uses...
 
Hmm.... interesting, thanks for that. What about these Western Digital ones HD players? Asus seem to do one too. I think if I go HD media player I will just end up buying the cheapest fairly well rated one I can find. i.e. £50 would be ideal. Otherwise I'll probably go faulty PS3 for £40. I guess atleast the media player would be silent.

EDIT: Popcorn hour A200 seems to get some bad reviews for not showing it's full potential. Also you are right it won't do gigabit even though it is rated as having it.
 
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