New Media Player

[borich_planner]

My xbox media centre is over 10 years old now and the Mrs wants a media player for the bedroom similar to the WDTV Live we have in the sitting room. Purely for a change I fancy something different and not another WDTV Live.

I was thinking of getting the AC Ryan Playon!HD Min unless anyone can recommend something better?

 

[Slade2]

I am also on the lookout for a new media player. I want something that will play from an external drive since I have all my stuff on that drive and that will also play some 3D blue ray movie rips. I have the Gen1 version of the WDTV and also this will play the MKVS i have to downsample the audio from DTS to Stereo for each movie which is a pain.

So is there anything out there that will play .264 MKV files from an external drive at full screen. Looking forwards to the replys to see what people can recommend

 

[RimBlock]

I had a AC Ryan Mini and sold it due to the terrible network speeds and its inability to play large MKVs (10GB+) from a network source.

I have been using two WD Live TV HD players without any issues but they do not have the prettiest interfaces. You can get community firmwares for them though.

I recently bought an AC Ryan HD 2 in the hope they had sorted out the network issues and for the most part they have. Still not as good as the WD in my view. I have only had breakup and freezing on one Bluray ISO so far (it cannot play the menus but only the movie file). I do get frame drops now and then though.

If I was looking again then I would probably look at the WD home hub or another WD Live TV HD or look at building a HTPC based on one of the newer miniITX boards and put something like XBMC on it.

RB