Any recomendations for an HD media player ?

Jon_01

I've been waiting for Blu ray players that can be deregion'd and that'll play HD divx/xvid but that's looking further and further away.
I've been looking at HD media players which seem to do everything I'd want (play downloaded US tv shows in 720p and 1080i for my wife to watch).
I thought they'd be just afew !! How wrong can you be...

Anyone have one they can recomend, dosen't need a hard drive I've got a few spares both ide and sata. It just need to be fairly upgradable. . .

Marty_J

The Apple TV is super-nice. It might not be quite as versatile as you require though.

Jon_01

Marty_J wrote: »

The Apple TV is super-nice. It might not be quite as versatile as you require though.

Saw a review on the Gadget Show a while ago. The picture looked amazing as I recall but it took an age to download an HD movie and, as you say, not very versatile; no divx/xvid which means it falls at the first. Sorry, but a nice idea. . .

stormyrider

Jon 01 - Did you get any further with your research on this?

I'm looking for the same kind of product and have been reading reviews and looking at products for most of this afternoon!

All I want the product to do is be a hard drive that I can load a lot of video files on and then play them back on the TV. I don't want/need WIFI, and I don't need a record from TV function either.

It would need to play DivX, Xvid, AVI files etc - the more the better and hopefully updateable via Firmware.

A couple I spotted were the LaCie LaCinema: http://www.cnet.com.au/wireless/streamingmedia/0,239028928,339286048,00.htm
750tb for £119.99 on Amazon but with no reviews: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0012GVO6K/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

Envizage 1000GB 1TB Cyclone External Hard Drive Multi media Player
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001G55P9O/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A16G8I0J6OEMKP
Although reviews aren't too chirpy.

Beyond that I'm a bit stumped. I'm sure there's some good products out there.

Anyone else got any ideas?

cheers!

kevsan

Something like this....

http://vaio.sony.de/view/ShowProduct.action?product=VGX-TP3Z/B&site=voe_en_GB_cons&category=VD+TP+Series

almillar

I had an AppleTV at the start, before there was anything to download, and thought it was great. The taking ages to download comment is slightly unfair I think, as any similar service will also take ages, if it's a hi-def film, it'll take ages to download. Take that up with your ISP...
Anyway, it is a bit restrictive in what it plays (basically, it shifts iTunes on your computer to under the TV) and I 'upgraded' to a MacMini. Plays anything you like, Front Row is a great Media front end type thing that comes with OSX, and Plex is a version of XBox Media Centre adapted for OSX, which is also great. VLC can then fill the gaps. 1080p plays nicely as does digital sound.

energy80s

The current "streaming media player" that everyone is raving about is the Popcorn Hour. They are made to order and will stream full hi def over either your network (from a NAS drive) or from it's own built in hard drive. More info here ... www.popcornhour.com ... they cost around £130.

mandm65

if you want something simple that can play immediately out of the box then go for the Divico Tvix media players. They received very positive review recently in the pc magzine (december 2008 edition), https://www.pcw.co.uk for futher details.

Conor_3

Why not the Playstation 3? You could install Linux on it as well and you've got a fully fledged computer that'll play everything you can chuck at it.

JUNIOR

Dosent play a (Media )file over 4gig:rolleyes: although i might be mistaken

stormyrider

Thanks for all the replys - some good leads for me to follow up.

Still confused though:

Popcorn - looks great and reasonable price but doesn't mention divX support?

Apple TV - I discounted a while ago I think but can't remember why - think it was due to lack of formats supported.

Dvico Tvix 6500a media streamer - looks good although way more than I need with all it's streaming capabilities. For £300 is a bit more than I wanted to pay too...

Going to keep on searching, I'll let this thread and any interested readers know if I come across the solution.

Thanks for all the ideas so far though - very helpful board!