Any recomendations for an HD media player ?

stormyrider

I'm now thinking that the Sumvision hard drive enclosure is a good cheap option:
Reviews here: http://svp.co.uk/product/sumvision_cyclone_multimedia_player_enclosure_mte063
Available for £40 here: http://www.digitalpromo.co.uk/sumvision-cyclone-multi-media-35-sata-hdd-enclosure-player-retail-p-3950.html
or about £80 with a 500gb already fitted from ebay sellers.

A colleague just passed by and saw me researching this and came up with the idea of just getting a cheap laptop and a cable and then just putting a cable from the laptop to the TV to watch the video files. For around £200 that doesn't sound bad!

Any other ideas?

almillar

A £200 laptop is very unlikely to give you HD playback on your TV, you'll need good graphics. And where's the remote? messing around with a bluetooth mouse is not the same, and isn't 'family friendly'...

stormyrider

Ended up finally coming off the fence - by pure chance!

Bought an ATMT Media Player with 160gb drive (can upgrade in the future if needed) for just £40 from boffer.co.uk yesterday afternoon. Reviews suggest it does what it says on the tin and and that price who am I to argue?

M4RKM

one thing to bear in mind, is that if you've got your video, it might be in Matroska Video format, which I haven't found anything that plays that yet, apart from a computer...

i currently have my laptop plugged into my tv, and probably be upgrading soon to a macmini, so i have something there dedicated to the needs of my video streaming..

now, if someone can find me a hd (hdmi) media streamer, that works with a) mac and b) .mkv files, for less than that Divico one, it would be appreciated!


Marky

d900

igot a popcorn hour a110 from digitalera.co.uk

as the blurb says:
"Digital Era now stocks a great selection of Network Media Players - Popcorn Hour A-110, Egreat M31B, Elektron EHP-606 Mini and the HD Digitech HDX-1000."

I would probably get the HDX 1000 if i was to get another network media player as they seem to be more reliable (and better designed)

in the future i may get one of these:
http://www.hdi.co.il/fullhd_players/67-dune_hd_center.html

M4RKM

wow.. i like that DUNE HD Center.... a blu ray plus media streamer in 1... awesome!!!

ouch to the price...

amavadia

I was looking for the same, before i discovered the power of the PS3!! You dont even need to install Linux onto it. I downloaded some movies in MKV format, used a tool called MKV2VOB (freeware), passed the file through it (took about 5 mins per movie) and then copied the files (about 6-8GB each), without splitting to the PS3 HDD using a router between it and my PC. No need for a seperate media player, and it plays blurays, dvds, cds, and games all in one machine!

jyonda

stormyrider wrote: »

A colleague just passed by and saw me researching this and came up with the idea of just getting a cheap laptop and a cable and then just putting a cable from the laptop to the TV to watch the video files. For around £200 that doesn't sound bad!

Yes it sounds appalling. I do this from my laptop now using the svideo output which is not much better than VHS, it's noisy and there's no remote. It would be better and cheaper to use a desktop PC running something like xbmc for windows or windows media center.

bob_a_builder

If only this did DivX too

Western Digital HDD-to-HDTV adaptor

stormyrider

stormyrider wrote: »

Ended up finally coming off the fence - by pure chance!

Bought an ATMT Media Player with 160gb drive (can upgrade in the future if needed) for just £40 from boffer.co.uk yesterday afternoon. Reviews suggest it does what it says on the tin and and that price who am I to argue?

Just to give this thread an update. The ATMT Scart Media Drive has been a fantastic hit.

Pro's
- Use it just like any other external/USB drive. Plug it in and drag files across.
- Then plug into TV via RGB/Scart/Composite and playback.
- Excellent upscaling to my 37" Plasmsa TV - if the original DivX file is good quality, it will look great on screen
- Easy to use menu system
- Smart little compact remote control that does the job well
- Makes the whole process of watching some DivX video files VERY easy and cheap compared to every alternative I've personally tried or read about
- Will also play music files/jpegs etc but I imagine this would be of limited interest to most. May be useful to use the JPEGs to show a slideshow of photos to friends/family?
- Comes with built in hard drive ready to go, unlike some competitor products I investigated (Iomega Screen Link etc)

Cons
- This model doesn't support HD content/file types
- Once you click into a folder, it will automatically start playing the first file in that directory if there is one. A quick press of the stop button prevents this so it's not a big hassle but it's worth noting

It's been such a big hit for me that a couple of friends have asked if I could help find them one. Trouble is at the moment that nowhere appears to be in stock at any kind of sensible price. Seen a couple on eBay for more around the £60-£70 mark but nothing cheaper.

I believe that and HD model by ATMT is due out in the summer, if anyone see's it around it will seriously be worth a look!