network media player recomendations
Discussion
Lots of these devices out there all seemingly with various foibles.
Want something that will connect via ethernet (wifi not important) and play all common file types, ideally 1080p (but this seems rare, may settle for 1080i) and would be nice if it's slick in operation, see a few complaints about clunky interfaces.
Ta.
Want something that will connect via ethernet (wifi not important) and play all common file types, ideally 1080p (but this seems rare, may settle for 1080i) and would be nice if it's slick in operation, see a few complaints about clunky interfaces.
Ta.
I got an Asus O-Play last week and for the price it's decent enough. Interface is a little clunky and long winded, but it plays absolutely anything you throw at it and was very easy to set up. If they upgrade the GUI and make it look a bit prettier with a future firmware release, then it'll be hard to beat for the money.
Edited by wiffmaster on Saturday 10th October 23:48
wiffmaster said:
I got an http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-O!Play-HD-Media-1080p-MKV-H264-Player-inc-RJ45-USB-eSata last week and for the price it's decent enough. Interface is a little clunky and long winded, but it plays absolutely anything you throw at it and was very easy to set up. If they upgrade the GUI and make it look a bit prettier with a future firmware release, then it'll be hard to beat for the money.
That link doesn't work. Would you mind checking it? Very interested.MonkeyBusiness said:
wiffmaster said:
I got an http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-O!Play-HD-Media-1080p-MKV-H264-Player-inc-RJ45-USB-eSata last week and for the price it's decent enough. Interface is a little clunky and long winded, but it plays absolutely anything you throw at it and was very easy to set up. If they upgrade the GUI and make it look a bit prettier with a future firmware release, then it'll be hard to beat for the money.
That link doesn't work. Would you mind checking it? Very interested.Thanks for the tips, the netgear looks good but a little more than I was thinking of spending. Guess the questions is whether it's gonna get some serious use or just be a thing for easily viewing those little bits'n'bobs
hairyben said:
copy'n'paste usually mendeth a dodgy link. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-O!Play-HD-Medi...
Thanks for sorting it - got the order of the code wrong in my initial post (now fixed).As I say, it will play everything you could possibly want it to, is full 1080p and good value. Unlike most other players, it doesn't have a noisy fan either - completely silent. If they just made it a bit prettier with a firmware update, then it would be perfect.
Edited by wiffmaster on Saturday 10th October 23:56
wiffmaster said:
Thanks for sorting it - got the order of the code wrong in my initial post (now fixed).
As I say, it will play everything you could possibly want it to, is full 1080p and good value. Unlike most other players, it doesn't have a noisy fan either - completely silent. If they just made it a bit prettier with a firmware update, then it would be perfect.
Thanks for posting this. Looks very very good and just what I am look for to connect to my Netgear ReadyNas.As I say, it will play everything you could possibly want it to, is full 1080p and good value. Unlike most other players, it doesn't have a noisy fan either - completely silent. If they just made it a bit prettier with a firmware update, then it would be perfect.
Edited by MonkeyBusiness on Saturday 10th October 23:54
MonkeyBusiness said:
Thanks for posting this. Looks very very good and just what I am look for to connect to my Netgear ReadyNas.
No worries. One other tip - if you're a member over at AVForums then there's an excellent section over there on Network Media Players. AVForums also have a deal with Scan, whereby if you're an active member of the forums, you can get free delivery on any order.Edited by MonkeyBusiness on Saturday 10th October 23:54
Is there a media player for your PC that you can save music & Blue Rays on in the same place??
I looked at the link you gave above which was really useful but it also sounds very complex. Surely there is an off the shelf product you can buy to load onto the PC without linking multiple products together??
I looked at the link you gave above which was really useful but it also sounds very complex. Surely there is an off the shelf product you can buy to load onto the PC without linking multiple products together??
there are as many products and variations as there are ideas right now, with new ones coming out every month, its just a case of exactly what you want to do...to/from/what format/what other devices do you own/network connectivity etc.
I can stream music, photos, blu-ray rips etc from my NAS to my TV via my old EVA player, with no PC switched on ...thats a pretty basic requirement to be honest
as above - lots of real world experience on individual models, and reviews on the AV forums media streaming section
I can stream music, photos, blu-ray rips etc from my NAS to my TV via my old EVA player, with no PC switched on ...thats a pretty basic requirement to be honest
as above - lots of real world experience on individual models, and reviews on the AV forums media streaming section
To be honest, I'm not quite sure 
Allow me to explain; Plotloss first put me on to this thing (had never heard of before), and in his words "even in my industry, I think this thing is brilliant". I then looked around the 'net and found reviews and things for it, all giving it top marks.
So, I went for it. Even though you can get media streamers/players for half the price, I thought if Plotty and others say it's that good - I'm going to trust them!
2 months in and I'm only just beginning to use it in anger, so to speak. We're decorating heavily my girlfriend's house (for me to move in) so it's remained at my place most of the time. But now we've got our bedroom sorted, it's in there before lounge gets done (next week). Hence only recently using it.
It's the ease and simplicity with which you can use it that strikes me. It's the first thing of it's type I've bought, and so I'm in an odd position of not actually knowing what's good about it. When I talk to some friends who have media players of other types (those "half the price" ones) they always talk of having to recode video that they've downloaded before it will play, can't do blu-ray *.mkv files (have to recode that too), sometimes has issues with some codecs (that of course you don't find out until you're sat down girlfriend beside you and pizza in hand! ("give me 10mins, I'll have it sorted" - we've all been there before with technology I'm sure!). With the popcorn, it plays everything. Literally, everything.
If you put a hard drive in it (I bought a £60 1TB H/D recommended by Plotty, so total price about £250 delivered), then you can utilise the built in torrent downloader too.
With it connected to your house network you can play movies, music, videos etc from any connected device, you can also copy all the movies from your PC across, so your pc doesn't need to be on.
One thing you can also do, which I've played with a little bit but won't actually do properly until the decorating's all finished and I have time to do it is install something called YAMJ (Yet Another Music JukeBox). It makes it "Gina friendly" as I like to call it. My girlfriend wants to be able to turn it on and see a big long list of films, TV series that she likes etc with the DVD covers, a synopsis and all that sort of pretty stuff. At the moment, although it works and she uses it fine, it's a little geeky - not quite as "Gina friendly" as I'd have liked, especially when you get into multiple sources.
We're using it so much in the bedroom at the moment that I'll really miss it when we put it downstairs with the nice new big TV. So hence my thinking about another one. My IT guy here keeps suggesting a PS3 as, second hand, you can get one for around the same price and of course then have the ability for games if you wish. It doesn't play *.mkv files though, which is a big thing for me as my new big HD TV that I'm very chuffed with I'll have to recode everything. Ok, it's not a MASSIVE problem, but it's just not as smooth.
Apologies I've written so much - but I thought I'd try to explain the "I'm over the moon with it, but not sure why yet" statement a bit more
Any other questions, feel free to ask!
Oh, and the unit is absolutely bloomin tiny
Allow me to explain; Plotloss first put me on to this thing (had never heard of before), and in his words "even in my industry, I think this thing is brilliant". I then looked around the 'net and found reviews and things for it, all giving it top marks.
So, I went for it. Even though you can get media streamers/players for half the price, I thought if Plotty and others say it's that good - I'm going to trust them!
2 months in and I'm only just beginning to use it in anger, so to speak. We're decorating heavily my girlfriend's house (for me to move in) so it's remained at my place most of the time. But now we've got our bedroom sorted, it's in there before lounge gets done (next week). Hence only recently using it.
It's the ease and simplicity with which you can use it that strikes me. It's the first thing of it's type I've bought, and so I'm in an odd position of not actually knowing what's good about it. When I talk to some friends who have media players of other types (those "half the price" ones) they always talk of having to recode video that they've downloaded before it will play, can't do blu-ray *.mkv files (have to recode that too), sometimes has issues with some codecs (that of course you don't find out until you're sat down girlfriend beside you and pizza in hand! ("give me 10mins, I'll have it sorted" - we've all been there before with technology I'm sure!). With the popcorn, it plays everything. Literally, everything.
If you put a hard drive in it (I bought a £60 1TB H/D recommended by Plotty, so total price about £250 delivered), then you can utilise the built in torrent downloader too.
With it connected to your house network you can play movies, music, videos etc from any connected device, you can also copy all the movies from your PC across, so your pc doesn't need to be on.
One thing you can also do, which I've played with a little bit but won't actually do properly until the decorating's all finished and I have time to do it is install something called YAMJ (Yet Another Music JukeBox). It makes it "Gina friendly" as I like to call it. My girlfriend wants to be able to turn it on and see a big long list of films, TV series that she likes etc with the DVD covers, a synopsis and all that sort of pretty stuff. At the moment, although it works and she uses it fine, it's a little geeky - not quite as "Gina friendly" as I'd have liked, especially when you get into multiple sources.
We're using it so much in the bedroom at the moment that I'll really miss it when we put it downstairs with the nice new big TV. So hence my thinking about another one. My IT guy here keeps suggesting a PS3 as, second hand, you can get one for around the same price and of course then have the ability for games if you wish. It doesn't play *.mkv files though, which is a big thing for me as my new big HD TV that I'm very chuffed with I'll have to recode everything. Ok, it's not a MASSIVE problem, but it's just not as smooth.
Apologies I've written so much - but I thought I'd try to explain the "I'm over the moon with it, but not sure why yet" statement a bit more
Any other questions, feel free to ask!
Oh, and the unit is absolutely bloomin tiny
I've just got one of these:
http://www.netgear.com/Products/Entertainment/Digi...
only does up to 720p so maybe not suitable for your HD requirements - seems pretty good with most over formats though... Only bought it on the weekend though so not fully up to speed with it's capabilities...
one major gripe is that it doesnt appear to support BBC iplayer ( i may be wrong here - but downloaded content seems not to be recognised)
and also the perpetual issue with itunes purchased content (M4P) - massively frustrating having bought some HD content to be unable to watch on my sparkling new TV....
does anyone know any workarounds to this? having downloaded millions of 'free' file conversion tools that turned our to be anything but, and crippled my old laptop in the process - I'm none too keen to go down this route again - hence purchasing the EVA2000
http://www.netgear.com/Products/Entertainment/Digi...
only does up to 720p so maybe not suitable for your HD requirements - seems pretty good with most over formats though... Only bought it on the weekend though so not fully up to speed with it's capabilities...
one major gripe is that it doesnt appear to support BBC iplayer ( i may be wrong here - but downloaded content seems not to be recognised)
and also the perpetual issue with itunes purchased content (M4P) - massively frustrating having bought some HD content to be unable to watch on my sparkling new TV....
does anyone know any workarounds to this? having downloaded millions of 'free' file conversion tools that turned our to be anything but, and crippled my old laptop in the process - I'm none too keen to go down this route again - hence purchasing the EVA2000
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