Quick and Dirty Networked Media Player - A Complete Disaster
Ever since I started using Snapstream's Beyond TV3, I've been looking for a way to get that video content up to my TV set. I've been looking at a few different commercial networked media players, but haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet (I've requested a few for review though). My wife Ashley wanted to watch a certain show, so I figured I'd give something a try: my laptop, a Fujitsu P5010D, has S-Video out on it, so I thought I'd try to connect it to the TV along with a minijack to stereo RCA outputs for audio.
When I hit the key combination on my laptop to enable the external video signal, it bluescreened. 8O Not an auspicious start! After recovering and a completely unhelpful error message about the problem because caused by an unknown device driver :roll: I tried it again. This time, it worked. I made the external display 800 x 600 in resolution, but as you can see from the photograph above there were black bars around the edge of the screen. I tried 640 x 480 but they didn't go away. I enabled Windows Media Player on the secondary monitor (the TV set) and put it into full screen mode. A few seconds after starting it the doorbell rang and I had to stop it - only to once again be frustrated by the unintuitive keyboard shortcuts for Windows Media Player. Control+P to play/pause? Why not something obvious like the space bar? And why don't the arrow keys jump the video forward and backward? I've been spoilt by Beyond TV3 and the FireFly remote - trying to control a video player with keyboard shortcuts is a ticket to misery.
Eventually Ashley gave up and disconnected the laptop from the TV set and decided to watch the show on the laptop. That should have worked, right? Guess again. Even though the laptop was showing a full 54 Mbps connection over 802.11g, the 720 x 480 resolution, 4000 kbps MPEG2 videos were too much for the bandwidth and once every minute or so the unit would sputter and skip. It never stopped to buffer, which makes me think it might have also been an issue of processing power. The laptop on batteries defaults to 600 mhz, so it might not have had enough CPU firepower to chew through the video.
And that was that - ultimately, this experiment reminded me of when I hooked up a computer to my TV set five years ago and tried a home-brewed media centre PC. It was noisy, dysfunctional, and cursed by software that wasn't meant to do what I was asking it to do. This experience was no different, and I'm once again looking for a stand-alone, networked media player (Ethernet wired preferred) with a remote control. Any suggestions?
Not sure how people here feel about such things but I use a modded XBox with XBMC (Xbox Media Centre) - a little setup of the config xml file and I can see all my media spread around 2 PC's and 3 laptops.
I really cannot fault it - and I purchased it just for this media player functionality and I do get to play the odd game now and again.
My brother has a Kiss DP-508 DVD player that does all the usual Divx etc but also has a 80 GB hard disk and ethernet, which he has used for a while but still goes back to his XBox because of a far more satisfactory experience.
Not sure how people here feel about such things but I use a modded XBox with XBMC (Xbox Media Centre) - a little setup of the config xml file and I can see all my media spread around 2 PC's and 3 laptops.
Tell me more about this - I was just telling someone the other day that Microsoft could, in one fell swoop, blow most of the network media players out of the water if they let the Xbox handle this type of task.
I have been playing media off my computer and putting it up on my TV and stereo system for years, in the same manner (s-video --> RCA) for years.
Living in college dorm rooms for the last four years, I have not always been able to get access to the shows that I want to watch. So instead, I have downloaded Divx versions of the shows from Kazaa. For example, I have every episode of Star Trek TNG & DS9, Babylon 5, the West Wing, and Sex and the City ever produced. I also have many episodes of the Simpsons, and a few dozen movies. It is very simple to store them all on an external HD and wire the room the way I need it in September so that I can play a TV show or movie whenever I want.
Don't give up on your attempts. I had very few problems with drivers and have been watching my favorite shows ever since.
I don't know about anyone else, but I found that SnapStream's latest Beyond TV works wonderfully well as a dedicated PVR. I repurposed my old desktop box (a Celeron 700 o/c'd to 900 Mhz) with 384 Megs of Ram and a 30 Gig HDD by adding Hauppauge's PVR-200 (250? I can't remember exactly - it came with a remote) MPEG-2 encoding PVR card, and a cheap Nvidia card with S-Video out.
This machine is underpowered for what I'm asking it to do, but with a bit of tweaking it works admirably well. When visiting family, we had to go without it for a short time, and did we ever miss it.
Considering the cost - an old PC, $300 for the two video cards necessary (in Canadian $'s) and a copy of Beyond TV, I couldn't be happier. No monthly fees, and since it's a fully functional Windows XP computer, friends can check email or look at our digital photos right in the living room, and if we forget to record a show, downloading a copy of it using BitTorrent is a breeze.
Plus, the transcoding features allow the machine to re-encode shows into Windows Media format, which drastically reduces the file sizes without any perceivable decrease in quality. I can get an hour of video onto a regular 650 Meg CD, no problem. The added benefit is that any computer on our wireless network can watch the shows, and with the transcoding, there is no bandwidth limitation as you cited above, Jason. I regularly plug my laptop into the TV in the bedroom and watch recorded shows there, just by sharing my folder of recordings on my home network, and firing up Windows Media Player. I agree that it's not all that intuitive, and it's sure be nice to have a remote control in the bedroom, but that's a small quibble.
Beyond TV works great for me. (and no, I didn't get paid to say that... maybe I should see if I can work for them! haha)
Not sure how people here feel about such things but I use a modded XBox with XBMC (Xbox Media Centre) - a little setup of the config xml file and I can see all my media spread around 2 PC's and 3 laptops.
Tell me more about this - I was just telling someone the other day that Microsoft could, in one fell swoop, blow most of the network media players out of the water if they let the Xbox handle this type of task.
Jason - basically a chipped XBox runs a different dashboard to allow you to install different apps, including http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/ - at first look it seems complicated but you basically download the media app and ftp it to your XBox (which is plugged into your network) - oh the new dashboards generally have ftp servers built in - the media centre plays everything even .rm files and looks just like Windows Media Centre.
It really is the best Media Centre out there because the software is still being improved and developed - oh and yes it works with the XBox remote control.
My chipped XBox set me back £55 more than the standard price, you can even get places that will chip the XBox you already own, or you can do it yourself.
Hope this helps - if you need any further details just shout.
I don't know about anyone else, but I found that SnapStream's latest Beyond TV works wonderfully well as a dedicated PVR.
That's exactly what I use downstairs to record the shows, but I'm reluctant to go that route upstairs as well by adding another computer. All the hard work is being done downstairs, so all I really need upstairs is a viewer...
My chipped XBox set me back £55 more than the standard price, you can even get places that will chip the XBox you already own, or you can do it yourself.
Ok, I've been looking around at these sites, and I have one question: which mod chip do I want? I see a lot of different options so I'm a bit confused. :-) Will any of them allow me to run the media center dashboard?
Can you wait a month?
The Microsoft Media extender kit is due to be announced on Oct 14 or thereabouts if the rumors are true.
It should do what you need without having to modify your XBOX hatdware.
So will the third party media center extenders, plus the MSN TV2 box (due this week).
The XBOX kit at under $100 might be the best bet.
I'm going to look at it as soon as its released so I'll only have one box plugged into the TV instead of three now...
Quick and Dirty Networked Media Player - A Complete Disaster
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