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A Cheap and Easy Network Digital Media Player?
hethatishere asks: "Does such a thing exist? Better yet, is it easy enough for my parents to use? PRISMIQ seems to offer a pretty good one, but it has very limited codec support. D-Link also offers a wireless Media player, but it too struggles with the copious number of codecs available. So is there a cheap and affordable Wireless Networked Media Player, that supports most if not all common and advanced codecs (DivX, XviD, and various wrappers like MKV and OGG, etc), or is this still a pipe dream?"
Nope.
I hear the MediaMVP from hauppauge is really nice, especially for 99$ US. A friend of mine has one and streams all his movies from a PC in his house. It does music, video (including divx) and stills. You can skin the interface if you don't like the canned one.
On the downside, it requires you to install software on your PC, which I think is windows only, don't know if there is a OSS server yet for it. Also, if you intend to watch divx movies, you'll need a 1.8 Ghz CPU or better. Apparently the box is some type of VNC client, and the software turns your PC into a VNC server.
Build em a cheap MythTV box... :)
I love it!
I'm not so sure it is the cheapest solution, but it sure is the most flexible!
An xbox coupled with xbmc (xbox media center) is the shizznizzle!
URL: http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/
(I just _know_ that any geek thats used xbmc will concur)
-- If I were a fish, I'd be wet
I currently have the Qcast player sold by GameShark (not bad for $8, I think the shipping was free even). Unfortunately the PS2 does not have enough juice to decode HDTV files ganked from the net, but it does support DivX.
However XBMC looks promising, since it's OSS it's extensible and supports a lot of stuff. I may have to spring for a used x-box so I can play Dr. Who on my TV and not have it be choppy.
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
seriously though, a mac mini with airport... and down the road it'll stream movies when they get that cell powered station on the market.
H.264 baby, and i'm not just guessing either
Is a PoS 90% of users won't get much use from it.... but as a hacker I've got it doing exactly what I want - it's a linux system so it's possible to get your own apps onto the firmware and customize it in ways that Dlink never intended.
;-)
It does have a lot of things going for it
1) Ogg/Vorbis support - as an early contributer I'm happy to play my ogg collect - but the metadata support sucks
2) XviD support - again, my codec of choice for video.... except that it has a lot of sync problems and drops a lot of frames/freezes up randomly.
3) Wireless G by default - 802.11b is nmo good for video.
4) Every connector on the backplane you'd ever need.
It's frustrating, since I can dig around I can see how easy it would be to make this thing absolutely rock, but dlink just isn't supporting it. This may be because it's a repackaged Redsonic player....
Anyway... time to get imeem running on this creature
http://www.videolan.org/
Pretty Pictures!
Buy a used xbox Install a cheap mod chip Install xbox media center It is great.
Any chance this thing would be compatible with a MythTV backend and use the squeeze-box just for playback? Haven't heard of it before, so I'll do some reading myself, but just for the benefit of the /. crowd (yeah, that's it...;)
Tired of the Slashdot Effect and stories full of broken links? I think I may have a real solution to the problem.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Now and again I realize why i should hand out my mod points half-assed.
--
Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid
An Xbox with modchip and Xbox Media Center (based on mplayer if memory serves) It's played everything I've thrown at it and can take VLC streams or files on a server.
Trolling is a art,
just call my ex-girlfriend Bubbles at 804-743....
oh wait a minute. You said "digital media player". I thought you said "skank ho". My bad. Honest mistake.
Sigh Xbox...
Unless you need PVR (Which would be very very nice...
These will be really really cheap if the 360 has backwards compatibility...
Just mod it install whatever codecs you want comes with ethernet and everything else you want... and you can change the gui...
I was looking at this for my needs, but I no experience with it, does anyone else?
Less Talk, More Beer.
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/
Best part is you can probably find one at your local salvation army for $25.
or else!
It's a great device, but doesn't fulfil the poster's requirements for video streaming.
So is there a cheap and affordable Wireless Networked Media Player, that supports most if not all common and advanced codecs (DivX, XviD, and various wrappers like MKV and OGG, etc), or is this still a pipe dream?
Well, my laptop is more than capable of doing all of that and it wasn't real expensive. I'm sure a second-hand laptop from Ebay or somewhere similar would do the trick just nicely. Whack in a wireless G network card, a remote control connected to the serial/parallel/USB port and install Linux on it with something like Myth TV.
A second-hand laptop with the equivalent of a Celery600 or so would be more than adequate as long as its video circuits give you access to TV out.
To top it off, laptops are notoriously quiet - the fans don't run unless they get really really hot, and even then, they're not very loud.
I drink to make other people interesting!
Get a Xbox off eBay for 25 bucks, toss in a modchip, boom instant streaming media for about 75+shipping costs. The newest Xbox Media Center is sweet.
No sig for you!!
I just bought this DVD player at Amazon, and I'm really happy with it.
It plays nearly everything; DVDs, CDs, DIVX, XVID, MP3s, Don't think it plays Ogg though. All you need to do is burn it to some CD-R or DVD+-R and put it in, just like a regular DVD.
No need try to teach someone the intricacy of a networked home theater system, that's still more of a geek project right now, and costly to boot. Far easier it is to just burn it and tell your wife/mother to put in the DVD player.
I used to have to s-video to my TV in through my laptop for all the times my wife missed her Survivor. A thing she would always need my help to do. Now I can just burn the show to a CD, and I don't have to be there to deal with it. It's Great!
Artist will always make art.
Beware of prismiq - It had a lot of promise when it first came out (over 2 years ago), but the firmware hasn't been updated in well over a year, there are a lot of bugs and incompatibilities (it's very bad at playing DivX files), and the interface for music playback is not very good at all. They've been putting all their resources into their player/recorder, which is now way overdue, and they've been completely ignoring the existing customer base which they've pretty much given the shaft.
Windows Media Player, you fucking LinSux zealot faggots
I've been wanting a good media player for my home entertainment system for a long time now. I'm convinced a good solution will appear in the next year or so but my advice for the moment is to wait.
The most exciting development is that companies have started supporting the UPnP Media Server standard. The idea is that any UPnP media client can automatically detect every UPnP media server that's on the local network and automatically play the shared media - video and audio. What makes UPnP Media superior to pretty much everything else is that it's a completely open standard that's being supported by multiple companies.
There are only three UPnP video players on that market currently that are worth mentioning (though there are a pile of audio players); the DLink DSM-320 and the Philips Streamium SL300i/SL400i. From what I read it sounds like the Streamiums are slightly superior to the DLink but their stats are very similiar. They both play mp3/mp4/divX/XVid, etc.
There are some great UPnP media servers out there if you're running a Windows media box. Microsoft even released their own recently. Unfortunately there really isn't any good option if you're running a non Windows server, buying a copy of Twonkyvision seems to be the current best choice for those of us running Linux/BSD. I've heard rumors that Philips software uses a Java core and might be made to run anywhere.
I'm disappointed actually that UPnP media technology is currently being ignored by the OSS community. You really couldn't ask for a standard that's easier to write for. But I suspect some programmers will eventually tire of their frankenbox video servers and they'll start writing software to support the increasing number of small, sleek, and cheap boxes that are appearing on retailers' store shelves.
In all of these devices the choice of media srever software is crucial. The DSM 320 while limited in native formats can actually play many more when paired with the right media server software (I like the one from http://www.tversity.com/) which does a real-time conversion to formats it supports. You can even play Internet streams directly on TV!