Which media player?

Disco Boy

Disco Boy

Disco Boy

Soldato
Joined
4 Aug 2009
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I'm looking for a media player to plug in to my HDTV. For the moment it will be straight into my TV via HDMI, but at some point later I may be adding an AV receiver so anything that is likely to have any incompatibilities is out. My requirements are:

play 1080p .mkv films from a usb 2.0 drive
two usb 2.0 ports as I want to plug in two drives
I'd prefer if it has wireless so I can play .avi files off a network, but it's not the end of the world if it can't as I have an xbox 360 with wifi.

Budget is around £100.
 
I'm looking for the same thing with a similar budget. I did look at the ac playon mini2 but the complaints around the menus put me off. I do like the look of the mede8tor 400x.

Unfortunately, there's nothing out there which is 100% at the moment so it's picking the best of a bunch.
 
I think about the best you can do at the moment is an Accer Revo and XBMC, all of the standalone players seem to be compromised in some way.
 
The only thing with a Revo is that even a second hand one is out of budget. But I suppose that you do get more for your money. Might keep my eye open for a good second hand one. I've a couple of questions though:

I take it that XBMC being compatible with both windows and linux means that it doesn't matter which I choose?
If I want to use it more as a PC connected to my TV and it was running linux, am I going to struggle to find a player with decent codecs so that 1080p plays smoothly?
 
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Just bought a WD TV live and I would recommend against getting one. The controls (slow to go in and out of fast forward, skip jumps are too big) and the network and setup and inconsistency in picking up shared files, are my nitpicks with it.

My LG TVs built in media player does a better job of playback (apart from lack of DTS)
 
Acer Revo - has all you can need and includes 1080p playback.
It's <£200 too. Install XMBC and it comes with an attachment that allows you to attach it to the back of your TV.

Has HDMI/Optical out for audio and video.

Only downside, it comes with no optical drive, you can pick these up cheap though.
 
eMachine ER1401 Desktop,
AMD Athlon Dual Core K325
2GB, 250GB, Nvidia Geforce 9200, HDMI.

Better processor than the Revos. Don't know how the graphics card compares, but its definitely not as good as the Ion (which is a 9400 compared to this models 9200). so don't know about its 1080p playback.

BUT its being sold for 129.99 if you look for it. so its an option.
 
sswats said:
eMachine ER1401 Desktop,
AMD Athlon Dual Core K325
2GB, 250GB, Nvidia Geforce 9200, HDMI.

Better processor than the Revos. Don't know how the graphics card compares, but its definitely not as good as the Ion (which is a 9400 compared to this models 9200). so don't know about its 1080p playback.

BUT its being sold for 129.99 if you look for it. so its an option.
Click to expand...

You've recommended something which is £30 plus more than an ac ryan and may not even perform 1080p? I'm assuming the £130 cost doesn't include software either?
 
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