The Best Streaming Media Player

DeviceGuru writes "It's looking like 2012 will be a watershed year for cord-cutters wanting to replace expensive cable TV services with low-cost gadgets that stream movies and TV shows from the Internet via free, subscription, and pay-per-view services. Accordingly, this DeviceGuru smackdown pits five popular streaming media player devices against each other. The smackdown compares Roku, Google TV, Apple TV, the Boxee Box, and Netgear's NeoTV, tabulating their key features, functions, specs, supported multimedia formats, and other characteristics, and listing the main advantages and disadvantages of each device. Then, it provides a summary chart that attempts to quantify the whole thing, so you (theoretically) can pick the best one based on what characteristics are most important to you. Of course, the market's evolving so quickly that the entire process will need to be redone in 6 months, but what else is new."

Comments

Raspberry

[Anonymous Coward]

An R-Pi is all you need for this purpose (and its launching sometime in the next few days)

Re:Raspberry

[Oswald McWeany]

I've wondered if Raspberry Pi would be good for this or not- and had considered getting one for that exact purpose. Obviously no one has experience with R Pis as HTPCs yet- but does anyone with experience of HTPCs think the Pi would be good enough for that?

Re:Raspberry

[mehrotra.akash]

On their blog, they do show a demo of 1080p and XBMC
GPU accellerated stuff should work fine I guess, but probably non GPU accellerated would be problematic

Re:Raspberry

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardware based mkv h264 decoding. Other than that most people say it wont have enough power to decode other codecs.

Re:Raspberry

[Kagato]

Raspberry Pi is pretty limited at the moment in terms of things it will play. That's more or less a licensing issue for them. For instance it could decode MPEG2, but since that's a $5-10 license to unlock that functionality on the SoC, it's not presently doing it. I think people are going to be able to do some really neat things with the UI via XBMC with the Pi, but as far as the number of Codecs supported the Boxee is going to be king.

Re:Raspberry

[AVee]

But the same is true for all the devices in the article, they all rely on GPU based decoding. Non GPU accelerated stuff won't play on those shiny boxes as well. The hardware in there isn't all that different.

Re:Raspberry

[MMC Monster]

There's apparently demos of Raspberry PIs running XBMC. However, it really depends on the codec the video uses. They've only liscenced a few codecs. Raspbmc (http://www.raspbmc.com/) is a distro that may be of interest once these devices are in people's hands.

Re:Raspberry

[Anonymous Coward]

That sucks. I was intending to get a bunch of these to turn into STBs, but if they can't do MPEG-2 they're absolutely useless to me. Damn...

Re:Raspberry

[doronbc]

http://www.raspbmc.com/

Re:Raspberry

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the Raspberry Pi will suck as a media player. The manufacturer has only licensed a few audio and video codecs so there is a lot of media it won't be able to play. Broadcom won't document the device so it is extremely unlikely that anyone will be able to fix it.

Re:Raspberry

[BLKMGK]

Does it really need to accelerate MPEG? I'm pretty sure it's going to be able to decode that on it's CPU without much trouble....

Re:Raspberry

[Kagato]

Doubtful, in particular for 720p+ res MPEG-2. The CPU on the Pi is pretty weak sauce. 700Mhz ARM11. For instance if you wanted to play an MPEG-2 stream (ATSC Over the Air Television) the processor would most certainly fail trying to decode the standard 18Mb/sec 1080i stream. The Pi has some of the same XBMC issues as the Apple TV 2 in terms of low power processor and limited codec support. Although in the case of the Pi a lot of the Codec are actually on chip, but the code to unlock it hasn't been purchased.

In the grand scheme of things having to drop $10-20 on a bunch of licensed codecs is not the end of the world and would still make the Pi way less than anything else out there. If you've got the time or desire to do the experimenting I think the Pi is the way to go. But if you want something to play your NAS full of Torrents and Broadcast caps, then Boxee is the way to go. If you don't mind living in the Garden then ATV2 is the way to go.

Re:Raspberry

[jedidiah]

No. An ARM video appliance can't handle decoding anything in software. This goes for a phone, tablet,or one of these video appliances. That is why there are transcoding servers like Plex.

These video appliances are simply not up to the task.

The ARM is really a terrribly weak CPU. You pay for the lack of power consumption and other "low profile" advantages.

Re:Raspberry

[doconnor]

Standard definition MPEG2 would still be useful for many.

Does anyone know if it possible to translate MPEG2 into MPEG4 without reencoding? It should be doable if MPEG4 has a superset of the features of MPEG2.

Normally there would be know reason to do this, but it would be useful to get around these licensing restrictions on the Raspberry Pi, smartphones and other devices like this.

Re:Raspberry

[Snaller]

"...its launching sometime in the next few days"

And will probably be bug free in 5 years.

Re:Raspberry

[cynyr]

low bitrate 1080P, at the base profile... crank that up to ~30Mbit video and level 5.0 high and watch it not work any more.

1080P h264 could mean just about anything btw. I wish more people would realize how broad of a codec h264 is.

Re:Raspberry

[speculatrix]

it depends on the specific Arm processor, there's a vast number of variants, from those designed to go into kitchen appliances to those for "smartbooks". here's a comparison of arm vs atom:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_1204_armfeb&num=1

What about openness?

[sethstorm]

All fine and well if you don't want updates that the manufacturer won't give you. There's a lot of cases where this comparison review lists software deficiencies, but firmware lockdowns make things worse.

Never mind the content issues that come along with these devices.

Re:What about openness?

[RDW]

They should probably have a 'hackability' score - e.g., the tiny current version of the Apple TV is a very nice piece of hardware that's capable of much more than Apple's lockdown allows out of the box. Hack it and most of the limitations (lack of a web browser, limited media compatibility, access to non-iTunes network shares) go away:

http://www.appletvhacks.net/

Re:What about openness?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The news is mostly bad on that score.

Unless I'm much mistaken, every device on that list is locked down by design. The success of that lockdown varies slightly; but they all derive their intentions from the unpleasant history of 'Conditional Access' set top box devices. There are hacks of varying completeness and difficulty for some of them; but they are all hostile by design from the bootloader up, so that's a cat-and-mouse thing at best.

On the plus side, the cost and power budget of implementing a comparatively open system(ie. a dinky Atom board has a binary BIOS; but at least its a closed firmware that is designed to boot anything a normal x86 system would, unlike the Boxee or GoogleTV, which are Atom-based but notably hostile, and a rasberry pi has a proprietary GPU firmware blob; but doesn't attempt to control user behavior) has fallen substantially in recent years; but any purpose-built system sold as supporting the various streaming services or DRM systems is going to be hostile, period.

Re:What about openness?

[JoeMerchant]

I've been reasonably happy with the WDTV, even though my generation didn't get Netflix, it feels adequately maintained and even upgraded on the feature front.

Re:What about openness?

[hairyfeet]

That is why I prefer good old fashioned HTPCs and so do my customers. Want to make it a DVR? Add a $30 digital/analog tuner. OS? take your pick, plenty of HTPC software for both Windows and Linux so both work well. Want to make it a media library you can access all over the house? A big fat hard drive and wireless card. No worrying about not liking the surfing or getting locked out like GoogleTV, you can use any browser. Services? netflix, Hulu, hell a dozen channels free in Win 7 WMC as well, tons of choices there. Want to game? Add a cheap powerful graphics card like an HD4850 and you can play pretty much anything you want.

So I don't see why you'd want one of these things when HTPCs have frankly never been cheaper. if you are worried about power (I find if given the choice most will choose features over power though) then simply use an E-350 based board, they have a nice barebones case and all for less than $150 and it'll do 1080p over HDMI and accelerates pretty much any of the major formats. Personally though i like to use the Phenom I of all things, you can get an E series which is the low power chip for $60 for a quad which makes it a great little transcoder, slap it in a nice little VCR style case with a couple of 2Gb sticks and a Tb hard drive and you have a nice media center that'll do a hell of a lot more than any of these boxes. With these all it takes is the box being blacklisted or not being updated and as you said you end up with a useless black box, whereas an HTPC can be used for other things.

Re:What about openness?

[mcgrew]

Indeed. What set top box to buy? I'm a nerd, I build my own. I already don't have cable; almost everything on cable I'd want to watch is on HULU or the networks' own web sites. I have a perfectly good computer plugged into my TV, why would I want something I couldn't fiddle with? I don't see what any of these boxes do that any nerd couldn't put together himself.

I was disappointed, I thought by "players" it was going to be Winamp vs XMMS vs WiMP vs Aramok vs whatever other software media players there are.

Re:What about openness?

[CastrTroy]

I agree. For my media player uses, I just have a soft-modded Wii. You could have got one for $100 last Christmas, now the only option seems to be $150 with a game I was thinking of picking up a second one just for watching streaming TV in the bedroom. You can either play videos off your network shares, or hook up a USB hard drive to it. Small, uses little power, starts up quickly, and can also play games if you want it to. Throw some emulators on there and play some classic stuff if you don't want to buy any Wii games. Compared to the price of buying a dedicated media streaming device, there's not really much of a comparison.

Re:What about openness?

[jank1887]

but won't output HD. Sure, DVD's aren't HD either, but that will be a dealbreaker for some people.

Re:What about openness?

[msauve]

"Compared to the price of buying a dedicated media streaming device, there's not really much of a comparison."

A Wii costs 3x what a Roku does, has fewer media choices, draws 10x the power, doesn't support HD, has a worse UI for media, and requires technical knowledge and effort to allow use of non-Nintendo approved content. As a network media player, it does less and costs more.

You're right. They really don't compare.

Re:What about openness?

[ottothecow]

there is a nice step up from the E-350 to the A-series llano apus.

I just built one with the A6 version (triple cored 65W) but the super cheap A4 is great. Tons of power vs an E-350 or atom+ION system. The integrated GPU is excellent and if you add a pci-e video card, they will work together as an SLI pair.

I've heard the linux drivers can be iffy with the AMD stuff. My old htpc was on an ion nettop with linux and worked great but I have been running win7 and it is working fine although it has some really boneheaded behavior with regards to HDMI handling that linux solved (whenever I shut off the TV or reciever, it decides it needs to briefly cut out the hdmi-audio and reset the resolution)

Re:What about openness?

[Anonymous Coward]

No Hulu Plus

Re:What about openness?

[MogNuts]

You're 100% right. I don't know what the hype is all about. These devices suck, are inferior, have shitty updates, and don't support everything you want.

The best, and only solution is what everyone already has: the Laptop.

Quiet, portable, supports EVERYTHING with no restrictions, access to every digital service and store, always gets updates, cheap (within reason--getting a $400-500 laptop can play everything and you'll have it for 7 years so the lifetime cost is neglible). And the set up is so simple. Plug it in to your TV with an HDMI cable. Done.

Re:What about openness?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless I'm much mistaken, every device on that list is locked down by design.

You are much mistaken. At the very least all Realtek-based media players that I've come across are fully open and can be flashed with any contents as long as the Flash sizes match.

Of course, the kernel code for those devices has never been upstreamed (locking you into a heavily-patched 2.6.12) and the actual player application is closed-source, but PlayOn!X works fine on AC Ryan, Mede8er, and Asus players. Others such as the Terratec M740 come with optware support out of the box.

Re:What about openness?

[MogNuts]

I might add that the one thing a cheap laptop can't do is blu-ray.* But attempting it myself, don't even bother. Get a stand-alone blu ray player. They're only like $80 now. The shitty, bug ridden, pricey, and unsupported after 1 year PC software (they make you buy the new version for updates) required to play blu rays isn't worth it AT ALL. Hell, going the PC blu ray route, OEM's even gouge you for the drive ($150 drive vs 80 stand alone player), then the annual ~$70 player software. Screw em. And depending on the stand-alone player, they all have free updates pretty much forever.

And besides, even though I LOVE blu ray, think it's totally worth it for the quality and amazing 7.1+ audio, the writing is on the wall. Discs are out. Digital is in. So is it worth it to invest in it?

* Maybe it can though. Doesn't SB have special hardware for that?

Re:What about openness?

[Fnord666]

So I don't see why you'd want one of these things when HTPCs have frankly never been cheaper.

Don't forget to factor in the cost to power it all the time. A Roku sips power through a coffee stirrer. An HTPC with a gaming graphics card gulps it out of a fire hose.

Re:What about openness?

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

You are right about that! I bought my AppleTV, and was really disappointed in how little it could do. Then I hacked it and installed XBMC. The world just opened up. A hacked AppleTV is the best streaming media player I have ever seen.
Admittedly it is only 720P, but when streaming ripped videos it really isn't that much of an issue.
Netflix is pretty good on it too.

Re:What about openness?

[jedidiah]

An HTPC doesn't need a gaming graphics card.

Although a cheap trailing edge graphics card will decode all of the things that a Roku can't handle.

There's a good reason it's a closed box. If you could easily feed your own media to it, it would be far more obvious how limited it is.

Re:What about openness?

[jedidiah]

Yes. An actual BD player might actually end up being the best "video appliance" since many of them support the same services that the dedicated appliances do.

Why buy something that can't do it all?

Re:What about openness?

[hairyfeet]

The E-350 is 18w under load, hell the Phenom I E is a max 65w under load and idles less than 30w and we are talking about a machine that can transcode from any format to any format! nobody is talking about using some Pentium 4 space heater here dude, low power computing has never been cheaper. Here check this out its less than 30 minutes to put together, just pop a couple of screws and pop in the RAM and HDD and you are good to go, even has built in wireless and is only 18w max while doing 1080p. Hell there are plenty of videos on youTube of guys playing games on them! I know my netbook which is the same chip plays L4D and GTA:VC just fine.

Re:What about openness?

[NoMaster]

"The E-350 is 18w under load, hell the Phenom I E is a max 65w under load and idles less than 30w ..."

OK, that's for the CPU - now throw in the GPU, and the rest of the hardware you've conveniently forgotten about, and it's how many watts in total?

By contrast, according to the website the top-end Roku 2 XS draws "'less than 2W (typical) when streaming HD video".

Re:What about openness?

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...dude? Don't really know squat about chips do you? Its okay bud, let your old pal hairyfeet break it down. you see the E-350 is what is called an "APU" which has BOTH CPU AND GPU built in, so that 18w under load and less than 8w idle is for BOTH CHIPS. You get a Radeon HD6310 AND a Bobcat dual core for that wattage dude. I had a friend that actually ran Kill-A-Watt on his VCR style I made, its 32w under load and right at 12w idle. Hell I had him try the Phenom I based one and it was 94W under load and was idling at around 48w, and that is for a quad core transcoding powerhouse and included an HD5450 GPU discrete.

And the Roku is a moped dude, sure its cheap on gas but what can you actually DO with it? Can you transcode? you can with the E-350. How about use any browser you want? Any chat client? can it download? Stream to other boxes in the home? be a jukebox? Run a choice of OSes? How about support, can you promise it'll will be supported with updates until 2020? Check your email? Play video games other than Angry Birds? Hell I've even used my E-350 as a music production studio with Audacity and hydrogen.

Check out the E-350 man, its got all the features you could want in an HTPC and sips power, quiet as a churchmouse and low enough wattage it can be passively cooled. Then if you want more power the Phenom I E series is $60 for a quad at starmicro and those babies are multitasking monsters, i have a client that often transcodes on his while listening to music and surfing the web, can your Roku do that?

Re:What about openness?

[GigaplexNZ]

I've been very disappointed with the WDTV. There's been a fair few firmware updates, but for each update that fixes one issue I've had, it breaks two more. The latest firmware actually causes my unit to lock up when playing about half of my media library (had to revert to an older firmware) and it appears the device has been EOL'ed so there's probably no more updates coming.

Re:What about openness?

[hairyfeet]

Sorry friend but given the choice I'd take AM3 over Liano, AMD really screwed the pooch with those chips. Why? One word...sockets. I'm afraid you are screwed when it comes to the socket friend, AM3+ is getting exactly ONE more chip before they pull the plug, and they have already announced Bulldozer will be an FM2 chip NOT and FM1 and the two sockets aren't backwards compatible.

Frankly Intel couldn't ask for a better competitor as AMD has really been shooting themselves right in the face, no need for Intel to do or say shit. First they kill AM3 which not only had the budget and "bang for the buck" demographics tied up but could have been served by a single chip, just take a single 95w Thuban, any that have bad cores you make a Phenom II X4 or X3, any that have bad cache you make an Athlon X4 or X3 and voila! 100% yields and no waste. Instead they toss it for chips that are 40% more expensive while being nearly that big a difference in performance the WRONG way, with the Thuban and Zosma often stomping the crap out of the A series and BD, and their prices are too close to Intel on both the A series and FX to make them worth buying, its a total clusterfuck.

So honestly friend the E-series is the only current chip from AMD I'd touch right now, hell Tiger has been selling Thuban X6 chips for $99 and it stomps a mudhole in the asses of both the A series and FX while having both cheaper boards and more choices on boards. BTW you want cheap chips, be it Intel or AMD, you ought to check out Starmicro whom I've been buying from for a couple of years. Great service and plenty of choices, their $60 Phenom I X4 e chips make great HTPCs, low power and real transcoding monsters.

Re:What about openness?

[ottothecow]

Honestly, I don't think I have *ever* upgraded a CPU on a machine.

I just keep them going until full replacement (with maybe ram/HDD upgrades)...have never felt the need to upgrade fast enough that same-socket upgrades were a valid path.

Re:What about openness?

[cynyr]

right but a fair number of the E-350s are fanless and only consume 18W for the whole board. That's not even close to that A6.

Re:What about openness?

[JoeMerchant]

Hmmm.... most of my media library was tailored to be PS3 DLNA compatible, so I haven't had any breakage problems. It does lock up once every couple of months, but that's better than any PC I've ever used.

Re:What about openness?

[hairyfeet]

Really? That's a damned shame because you can, well at least you COULD with AMD enjoy hellish speed boosts by getting one of the lower chips to start with and then moving up as the prices dropped. the box i'm typing on started with a dual core 7550 (which is now in my landlady's PC) then I went up to a Phenom II 925 quad (now in my youngest boy's PC) before finally getting a Thuban X6. With each upgrade I got a hell of a speed boost and since I was able to keep everything else, like the 8gb of DDR 2 800 I got when it was cheap I was able to upgrade the machine for a hell of a lot cheaper than it would cost to buy a new box each time. I saved enough that with this last upgrade i went ahead and bought a crossfire board so simply add a second GPU when mine starts to lag to get even more life between replacements. Personally I bet this X6 will probably last me until the end of the decade unless some breakthrough allows them to code for more than 4 chips easily.

anyway next time before chunking you might want to try Starmicro as they are the go to place for cheap chips. they go all the way back to socket 423 on the Intel side and slot A on the AMD side so there pretty much isn't a desktop out there you can't give a speed boost with a starmicro chip.

I like my Boxee

[hey]

Apps are written in Python. There are currently about 250 now.
I was shocked when I saw a friend's AppleTV... there was no web browser - stay in the garden children.

Re:I like my Boxee

[wooferhound]

I have a Sony BDP-380 Streaming Blu-Ray player that appears to play anything from Disc or USB or Ethernet or computer. Lots of audio and video and photo formats. So far it has played everything that I've thrown at it. Never a problem with NetFlix or RedBox rental discs. After using this player for almost a year, I wouldn't have anything else.

Re:I like my Boxee

[rikkards]

Two guys I work with have Boxee and looked at this. It appears that it doesn't take into account the latest update which addresses a lot. I personally have two homebuilt XBMC boxes but if I want another I may just do Boxee.

Re:I like my Boxee

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been smoken in my Mystical Garden for many years.

www.mythtv.org/

Re:I like my Boxee

[alen]

good thing they have an ipad app because there is no way i can figure out what i can actually watch on this thing via the website. at least Roku has a list of apps that i can easily find on the site

Re:I like my Boxee

[rsmith-mac]

Boxee can go to hell after throwing out their PC/Mac/Linux userbase virtually overnight. Dropping support is their rightful choice, but they did it in just about the worst possible manner.

Re:I like my Boxee

[rikkards]

Why? Boxee is based off of XBMC. If you are not using their Box, you are better off using XBMC, Boxee is always playing catchup.

Re:I like my Boxee

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I was shocked when I saw a friend's AppleTV... there was no web browser - stay in the garden children.

Nice slogan, son. Of course when you're man enough to ride with the big boys you'll know you can get a Mac Mini with a tuner from someone like Elgato and do things far more than just browse the web.

With so many things that offer streaming for my television (e.g. Blue-ray player, My two game consoles, and the HDTV itself), I haven't seen the need for yet another device that does what I already have. So regardless if your an Apple hater (wall garden... what a rube) or not, articles like these are becoming irrelevant.

Re:I like my Boxee

[synapse7]

Did you forget we are boycotting Sony here?

Re:I like my Boxee

[JoeMerchant]

So far it has played everything that I've thrown at it.

I read this about most every streaming media player, probably because they all use FFmpeg at their core.

Re:I like my Boxee

[blahbooboo]

Boxee dropped their PC software. Switch to Plex, it kicks boxee's ass

Re:I like my Boxee

[KermodeBear]

I also love my BoxeeBox.

I'm not sure why the review had gripes about the stability of the device - I never have any issues with mine at all. It plays damn near anything, the built-in SMB client for attached storage is wonderful, the web browser works well enough (albeit slowly).

It did have a pretty rocky start, but things are good now.

Re:I like my Boxee

[colinnwn]

Real men build their HTPCs from componenets and install MythTV. What's a Mac Mini? Though I'll be the first to admit I'm not man enough to keep mine up with any consistency. It's been down over a year and I haven't had time to fix it this last time.

Re:I like my Boxee

[Anonymous Coward]

XBMC Eden is so much better than Boxee anyway.

Re:I like my Boxee

[rsmith-mac]

It's the apps. I was using Boxee to watch out of market NHL and MLB games on my HTPC, since it was the only thing out there that supports paid content and integrates well with Windows Media Center and remotes.

Re:I like my Boxee

[Anonymous Coward]

Except in Applications. Boxee has much nicer looking applications and outnumber xbmc one..

Or you could just use a normal computer

[Anonymous Coward]

Really. Why have a specialised thing for viewing video? I can understand hooking up a bigger screen, but other than that it just seems pointless.

Re:Or you could just use a normal computer

[MankyD]

Because reading a normal desktop's output from 15 feet away on the couch is hard. The nice thing about these is that the UI is designed for easy reading and navigation with a remote.

Re:Or you could just use a normal computer

[JoeMerchant]

Because reading a normal desktop's output from 15 feet away on the couch is hard. The nice thing about these is that the UI is designed for easy reading and navigation with a remote.

http://xbmc.org/ addresses your concern, though in practice I mostly just use VLC instead.

Re:Or you could just use a normal computer

[DigiTechGuy]

For the longest time I just had a simple 19" tube TV, it did fine from across the room. 19" used to be pretty standard. I now don't even have a TV (after my 36" tube died) and I just watch content available on the internet, for free, on my 23" desktop screen. I feel no need to spend a fortune on a large TV and HTPC. To each his own, but a 23" 1080 screen is fine for what I use mine for and I have no problem with it from across the room.

Re:Or you could just use a normal computer

[Kuad]

Or alternately, if you're concerned about power draw, most of the better NAS boxes out there run some form of streaming software. I've got Serviio running on an ARM-powered QNAP box and it works flawlessly.

Cable service & ads

[Anonymous Coward]

If only my cable service would cut off some ads with the money i give them. Nope, they increase the ad time instead. I know they need ads for their revenue but sometimes the time they give they on the air is ridiculous. Too bad cause i would glady pay an extra for getting my channels instead. Nahh what i do is simple, I go on the Internet and watch my tv shows and movies...humm my own way. Ok, it's not always legit but...I'm so sick of ads...damn it.

I can't see the point of standalone media streamer

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people are actually going to get streaming video through other devices: Games Consoles, Blu-Ray players, connected TVs and DVRs.

Frame rate sync

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm yet to see a review that takes under account the ability of the media player to re-negotiate HDMI mode to match the frame rate of the source material.

Most players are guilty of either a single frame rate (atv2, I'm looking at you) or having to manually change modes (great user experience, right?).

Of all players I know, only the Popcorn Hour ones have the ability to configure which modes you want it to auto-select. This results in silky-smooth playback.

Otherwise, try playing 24000/1001 fps on 25fps display or 25fps material on 30000/1001 fps display. It's always jerky and fugly.

But I guess it's more important that the thing plays protected content or that you can watch cats on youtube.

Pfft, get off my lawn.

(captcha: bashing)

Re:Frame rate sync

[rikkards]

XBMC has a check box that lets you change the source framerate. With that checked, the main menu is running at 60hz but TV shows flips to 24hz,

Re:Frame rate sync

[Anonymous Coward]

not on all platforms (atv2 cannot do it)

Re:Frame rate sync

[PopeRatzo]

Of all players I know, only the Popcorn Hour ones have the ability to configure which modes you want it to auto-select. This results in silky-smooth playback.

Otherwise, try playing 24000/1001 fps on 25fps display or 25fps material on 30000/1001 fps display. It's always jerky and fugly.

But I guess it's more important that the thing plays protected content or that you can watch cats on youtube.

I'm having trouble following. So the Popcorn Hour boxes won't play protected content?

I'm tired of treating DVDs like precious artifacts instead of obsolete media. I want all of my DVD (and BluRay) content on my media server. I was looking at a Popcorn Hour box.

Re:Frame rate sync

[Anonymous Coward]

The Popcorn hour will play pretty much anything you can save to a drive - bluray will need copy protection removed, but that is relatively trivial now.

Re:Frame rate sync

[atamido]

For me it just changes the framerate to 24fps, no matter what the content is. 30fps TV show? The TV is still switched to 24fps. I just gave up and left it at 60fps always.

This will save money for how long?

[StoutFiles]

In most areas, the cable and internet come from the same provider who has a monopoly. If enough people cut cable, they will just raise internet prices to keep the same profits. Hell, they're going to raise internet prices for everyone regardless because we all use too much bandwidth in their opinion.

Re:This will save money for how long?

[QuantumRiff]

Cable companies have to pay for the right to broadcast the channels, some channels are much more expensive than others. (I have heard from friends that ESPN charges cable companies about $12/month per subscriber!!!) So yes, cable is expensive, and there is a fair amount of profit, but the companies could probably raise internet costs by only a few dollars a month, and still maintain the same margins. Not to mention, they can use the fact people are leaving in droves to force lower licensing costs from the content producers... (Of course, if your cable company OWNs a content producer, like http://www.kabletown.com/, then yes, you should panic)

Re:This will save money for how long?

[need4mospd]

Or the cable/internet provider will come out with their own streaming service. Such as Comcast Streampix announced a couple days ago, for only $5 per month.

Of course it's not available if you just have the internet plan...so add $15-20 to that...

Though if you're like me, you figured out that it's cheaper to have both TV and internet than just internet if you need useable speeds. Because their base internet plan with no TV is something stupid like 5Mbps(on a good day). To upgrade the 5Mbps plan to 20Mbps costs MORE than just switching to the TV/Internet plan, which comes with the 20Mbps plan.

They'll get their money one way or another.

Re:This will save money for how long?

[sjames]

I could do without ESPN.

Sage TV

[Anonymous Coward]

And what will become of Sage TV?
They are owned by Google now.

Are they going to dump that now that they own the
motorola set top boxs?

Its still a great product.

There is no "best"

[gweihir]

Different people and different scenarios lead to different requirements and to different "best" solutions. Do not start that stupidity of identifying a global "best" here as well!

US centric ?

[dargaud]

I want the same question asked worldwide, otherwise the Pirate Bay stays the only option for many.

Re:US centric ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is very US centric.
While the US is asking the question France (of all countries) has had the answer for some time now.
In France the operator Free has been pushing price down and the technical advances up...
My Freebox is not only cheap AND pretty and designed by Monsior Stark,
it is an ADSL modem AND a Blueray/DVD player, Wifi hotspot, TV reception, both via Free and TNT(digital tv) , VOD, Videorecorder, DECT Telephone base, NAS, Multimedia streaming, Bittorrent client, Clock(!), internetradio, webbrowser...
Even the bloody remote has a Wii like accerolometer thingy inside and their is a collection of games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db4mXb7LbKI
Did I mention it runs linux...
Being a ADSL provider makes it possible to do good Quality Of Service for the TV and the telephone.
More info: http://www.free.fr/adsl/multimedia.html
Google and Apple should just skip trying to patch the TV.
Why should I buy a videoplayer when my ADSL box can do all this and more?

Re:US centric ?

[Yvan256]

If you go with worldwide, then the iTunes Store is probably your only option. I don't know of anyone else offering legal downloadable media in so many countries.

Even Canada, which is so close to the USA in so many ways, doesn't have access to things like Hulu, etc. They're all USA-only services.

Re:US centric ?

[jrumney]

I don't know of anyone else offering legal downloadable media in so many countries.

All 6 of them? And the record and movie companies wonder why piracy is so rampant in the rest of the world.

Re:US centric ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why should I buy a videoplayer when my ADSL box can do all this and more?
Because it does many thing doesn't mean it do it well. Far from it.
The bluRay/DVD player is really cheap, and really unreliable.
No 24p on media streaming afaik
You can't tune the NAS exactly as you want (I can run debian on mine, it's almost a real server)
The freebox do run linux, it's just inaccessible, and Free (the operator's name) has violated the GPL for over a decade, and without the FSF, it would still violate it now. In the meanwhile, NeufTelecom provided everything to recompile your own firmware since a long time. True free-software spirit
The remote is a joke, as well as the game.
And the Stark argument is just ridiculous. I really don't like Apple, but at least their product are designed by real designer, as a whole, not just the exterior.

Re:US centric ?

[Insightfill]

I want the same question asked worldwide, otherwise the Pirate Bay stays the only option for many.

Oblig The Oatmeal comic on this topic.

Re:US centric ?

[jedidiah]

Yes. You are far better of with a region free spinny disk player in this regard.

Anything that can run Plex/XBMC/MCE/MythTV is also a good option in this regard. Liberate the conventional media and do whatever you like with it.

You will never have to worry about your "digital copy" being unplayable because of some DRM glitch.

I have SmartTV

[Anonymous Coward]

It does all that stuff and came built-in to my TV and also my blue-ray player.
If I want to stream something else I can get the TV to hook up to my computer via Nero Mediahome which came bundled with the TV.

These streaming devices would of been cool 10 years ago, but they are already antiquated now.

WD Live

[zeronitro]

I got my WD Live for $80 about a year or so ago. Plays 1080p mkv flawlessly off of a samba share from a linux server. It just works.

Looks different and a little more expensive then mine, but probably still worth getting: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136997

Re:WD Live

[marcop]

Yeah, not sure why they didn't include this. The 2011 version is much better over the previous models and it plays anything you throw at it. The 2011 versions has a MUCH better UI, remote control, and has WiFi. Here is one review:

http://youtu.be/gjteOdHkAHQ

Note on how the looks are different from previous models. Don't bother with the older models since the UI is that much better.

I plug this into my car's DVD player, put a dozen or so kids movies on a flash drive, and let the kids watch what they want on long trips. No more fumbling for DVD's.

Looking at the specs of the others I don't know why this isn't included.

Re:WD Live

[jomcty]

I'd like to second this recommendation. The main omission from this device is the lack of Amazon Prime streaming support. Also, there is a problem with switching audio in a mp4/m4v file sends video racing ahead, however, strangely enough, mkv's work fine. No sub-$250 device I'm aware of does it all perfectly, but overall, I recommend the WDTV Live it and would buy again.

Re:WD Live

[Anonymous Coward]

WDTV LIve is still awesome. It's best feature? It plays EVERYTHING with no complaints. No transcoding, no remuxing, it just plays. Flash the stock box with b-rad firmware and you add dozens of extra features and the ability to run it as a mini linux server. Best $80 bux you can spend.

Re:WD Live

[honestmonkey]

I've got an older one, but I still like it fine. I don't need anything too fancy. Used to have it hardwired, now I have a wifi adapter. Works great for what I want to do with it.

Re:WD Live

[JoeMerchant]

I've got an older one, but I still like it fine. I don't need anything too fancy. Used to have it hardwired, now I have a wifi adapter. Works great for what I want to do with it.

x2

Re:WD Live

[berashith]

thanks... i had been looking into this device, and was happy to see a comparison article, until I noticed that this wasnt in it. It just seems "good".

Re:WD Live

[Anonymous Coward]

My WD TV Live Plus is by fare better then any of these listed specifically for the MKV files. I like roku interface, but until it can play MKV's as well as WDTV from my NAS, its not my cup of tea.

Re:WD Live

[Anonymous Coward]

ps3 + mediatomb
with transcoding, works for everything, including youtube.

Re:WD Live

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the exact model number of the 2011 version, or how do you know you have one?

Re:WD Live

[s7uar7]

I have the newer version. It's great for streaming from a NAS, and BBC iPlayer is great, but the Netflix app forces a re-auth every couple of days. 'Typing' an email address and password using the remote is not fun.

Re:WD Live

[SCHecklerX]

Same here. I'm more of a passive TV show watcher, so not ready to give up the satellite quite yet. But for movies, torrents on an NFS share with WDTV Live can't be beat. It just works. And that's the main reason I chose the WDTV Live. Yes, I did say NFS. Check it out:

http://b-rad.cc/wdlxtv/

http://wiki.wdlxtv.com/Main_Page

Re:WD Live

[Anonymous Coward]

I previously used ps3 and mediatomb, and bought a WD Live for a second TV. I stopped using the PS3 for media because I got tired of having to update my PS3 every time I wanted to watch netflix.

Re:WD Live

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you have an android phone you can use it as a remote makes typing much easier. hell I think they have an iDevice as well you just have to be on the same network.

Re:WD Live

[marcop]

It's the one linked in the parent to my post.

These are the older ones:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136916
The old interface: http://youtu.be/NQdSLOhrVMc

The new interface is in the my previous post. You can also see the size of the remotes in the postings. The newer version's remote is twice the size of the old one. It's not perfect since I wish that it had a qwerty keypad that flipped out. Also, the colored buttons on the new remote are a little confusing to know which to push. But trial and error wins out.

Re:WD Live

[SoCalChris]

I've got both at my house, the weasiest way to tell is to look at the remote. The newer version has a full remote with a numeric pad, the older remote is much smaller, and doesn't have the numeric keypad. Yes, the new model is way ahead of the old model, and the old model is pretty good.

I've got two of these hooked to my two tvs, and a linux machine running SickBeard and acting as a file server. It's a great setup.

Re:WD Live

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the WD Live Hub, which has a 1TB hard drive for all my porn, as well as Netflix, Pandora, Hulu, etc. apps. And it allows me to stream stuff off of a network share, and it plays pretty much any media file you throw at it.

A couple of complaints, I wish it had a built-in web browser and I wish Western Digital would fix the iTunes server as that hasn't worked with the last two firmware updates.

Re:WD Live

[Novogrudok]

I have a WDTV (WiFi, FullHD) and I can confirm that it "just works". The box is very small! I have tucked it behind my wall-mounted TV, so all wires are hidden. One minor point is that the buttons on the remote are quite hard to press, so entering words using on-screed keyboard is difficult. Of course, you can connect a proper wireless keyboard, so it is not so bad :)

Re:WD Live

[uvajed_ekil]

I got the latest WD TV Live streaming media player a few months ago, and it has been fantastic. It plays every format I have tried, streaming from Linux or Windows computers on my network, or from an external hard drive. The online services also work well. There is one flaw with Netflix that I am hoping a firmware update will fix, which is that I have to have to type in my login info every few days, but that is it. After researching all the competitors available for similar prices I was sure the WD TV was the right one for me, and I could not be happier with it.

There is third party firmware available for some WD TV boxes but not yet for the latest incarnation of the Live SMP. So far it seems that WD updates firmware frequently enough.

Re:WD Live

[Anonymous Coward]

It detects a keyboard if you plug one into one of it's USB ports. I'd go mad retyping my netflix info in otherwise (if you power it off without selecting anything as soon as the no-netflix-login error comes up, you bypass the problem too)

Re:WD Live

[ossuary]

Yeah, I don't have too much faith in a media box lineup that doesn't include a newer WDTV. WDTV was one of the first "prime time" media boxes. Very odd to see it left off the list.

Re:WD Live

[Osty]

It's a little confusing, but you can tell by the name:

• WD TV - the original 720p device. Obsolete
• WD TV Live - Replaced the WD TV, added 1080p and a bunch of other features, but is missing hardware support required for Netflix/Hulu support. Obsolete, but often still available for ridiculously good prices, and still perfectly functional if you don't need Netflix or Hulu. I have one of these for the bedroom.
• WD TV Live + (sometimes written as "Plus" instead "+") - The WD TV Live, plus Netflix and Hulu. It's literally exactly the same, with the addition of the hardware-level DRM that Netflix requires. Obsolete just like the WD TV Live, but also often available for ridiculously good prices.
• WD TV Live Hub - Has a built-in hard drive, and debuted the new UI. Intended to be more of a stand-alone media "hub" rather than a streaming player, thus the included hard drive. I bought one of these for the in-laws to use on their boat where they have intermittent internet connections.
• WD TV Live Streaming - The replacement for the WD TV Live +, with the Hub's new UI and remote and a redesigned case. I don't know why WD didn't just ship the new UI on the older WD TV Live +, given that they're pretty good about updating firmware frequently.

The Live +, Hub, or Live Streaming are all excellent choices for inexpensive streaming media players with Netflix/Hulu support.

Apple TV

[Daas]

An Apple TV by itself is almost useless. It's a good Netflix box but other then that : meh. Where is shines is AirPlay, you can stream your stuff from pretty much any website or App on the iPad (or iPhone) and most of the time the quality is pretty great.

If you want to transform it into an amazing machine : jailbreak it and put XBMC on it, you'll have the best of both Apple and the Open Source world. The only remaining issue is that it doesn't do 1080p, but then what kind of streaming content can you get in 1080p?

Re:Apple TV

[jo_ham]

The older Apple TV does if you put an expansion card into its PCI slot (you have to remove the wireless card to do this though), then it will support 1080p quite happily in XBMC with the exception of some of the more silly encode settings.

It's been a while since I looked at it. Crystal HD or something?

Re:Apple TV

[JoeMerchant]

An Apple TV by itself is almost useless. It's a good Netflix box but other then that : meh.

Funny, I feel the same way about our PS3.

Re:Apple TV

[human spam filter]

Yep, a Crystal HD decoder should work. I put one into the mini-PCI slot of my 5 year old laptop recently. The decoder is about $20 on ebay.

Using the wrong remote

[microcars]

Apps are written in Python. There are currently about 250 now. I was shocked when I saw a friend's AppleTV... there was no web browser - stay in the garden children.

True, if you use the simple -out-of-the-box- minimal remote that comes with the device.
But if you use your iPhone/iPad/iPad Touch as a WiFi remote (with the free Remote app from Apple), you have a really sweet remote that also does mirroring via Airplay. Anything visible on the screen of the i-Device shows up on the TV.

I'm always surprised at how many I-Device owners had no idea that they could use their device as a remote control and display content on their TVs.
At family gatherings we just turn on the TV, fire up the AppleTV and then everyone pulls out their iPhones and shares photos.

Re:Using the wrong remote

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Actually we considered getting the AppleTV solely to interface our iPad and iPods to the TV via AirPlay. Also streaming from my computer is a bonus. The price isn't too high for just those functions. As for Netflix and other services, those things are already provided by my HDTV, Blue-Ray, and game consoles.

Here's what I want:

[MMC Monster]

Here's what I want:

Someone to bundle an Acer Aspire Revo 3700 with an appropriate IR receiver and remote (ie: Noah Company MediaGate GP-IR02BK Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate MCE Remote Control).

Load it up with OpenElec and a couple of the standard repositories (bluecop, etc.).

And just sell that as a media center.

I did it myself, but it took some trial and error to get the right stuff together. But now that I have it's it's easy to duplicate for the family.

They missed one.

[Anonymous Coward]

By far the best player I have come across is Seagate's GoFlex TV http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/home_entertainment/hd-media-player

It does everything. It has played everything that I tried. It does windows networking very well. It does YouTube, Netflix, MediaFly, Pandora and a number of others. It does 1080p has outputs for composite, RGB, and HDMI. It also has an optical output and will send out a raw optical stream that my audio receiver can process.

I have a DirecTv HD DVR with the whole house option and the GoFlex Player recognizes it as a media streaming device. I came across that feature by accident and contacted Seagate about it. They said that they had been working on it and it was only in the last release of the BIOS which if you have the box connected to the internet, it updates automatically.

If you can rip a dvd or bluray it will play it. I store all my audio CD's in FLAC and this media player plays very well through the optical port. It also runs on 5 volts so I bought a car cell phone charger and cut off the cord and attached the cord of the player to it and installed it in the SUV and plays movies for the kids off of 4 microSD cards connected via a USB hub all in the center console of the vehicle.

This Seagate also can do wireless networking via usb. When on the road we pull into a McDonald's, click on network and watch current news.

I have nothing to do with Seagate but I have done extensive testing and research and you won't find a better one for the price.

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[Oswald McWeany]

Many people who don't have kids- or arn't recently out of college will more than likely not have Game Consoles (some will- probably most slashdotters- but general population at large won't)- even those that do have kids- the Game Consoles will probably be in the kids room. Blu-Rays, Smart TVs and DVRs will all eat out of the market- but again; a lot of people already have those devices so won't be buying them new just to get online media.

Definately there are alternatives shared-purpose devices that will do some of the things these media players will do; however, they don't do it all, or as well.

I think media players like these have a limited life- in 5 or 6 years, they will be phased out (unless they can find new niches to incorporate) as TVs and BluRays steal the show. Right now though- for many in the world a standalone media player is still a good idea.

my Roku experience for the hackers out there

[netsavior]

One thing the reviews leave out is scriptability/hackability.

Roku actually has a pretty easy and open-ish api.
Roku channels can be written in a scripting language called Brightscript (feels mostly like VBScript). The SDK also comes with C header files if you'd rather write something low level. I wrote a basic channel that takes reads an XML manifest file from my webserver and lets you pick from any of my home videos (or backups of my DVDs or infringed video) and streams it on the TV. I did this in about 15 minutes of coding on the roku side, including a "cover flow" style menu. (Of course, you aren't going to escape the need to transcode your video files, unless you are doing it hot on the webserver)

later when they upgraded the OS (without breaking any compatibility) I was able to write a page to run on my webserver that allows me to go to a browser from any of the computers on my network and select any movie (accessible by http) and directly launch it on the roku from the browser (which is very helpful for when I want to watch a horror/pr0n movie with the wife after the kids go to bed, but I don't want the kids to have access to it during the day)
I wrote an HTML/AJAX remote control app to run on our tablets/iphone/laptops to control the roku if we misplace the remote, which was also really simple, due to the easy/open API
I have tried many set top solutions, and THIS is the one my 3 year-old and my grandmother can use, but that I can still force it to do what I want.

Re:my Roku experience for the hackers out there

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds neat,willing to share it with folks who don't code much?

Re:my Roku experience for the hackers out there

[tkrotchko]

Does this let you stream video from a DLNA server on the Roku?

Re:my Roku experience for the hackers out there

[netsavior]

nope :( There are no known reliable DNLA clients yet for Roku.

Re:my Roku experience for the hackers out there

[gbooker]

The Roku rates pretty low in terms of scriptability/hackabilty IMHO. Yes, it has an API, but through numerous poor choices on Roku's part, this is not as useful as other platforms. Their Brightscript is not well designed, and the VM is buggy. I can cause the device to hard reset with one line of code (an accidental discovery trying to make the thing work). The library availability for the language is poor. Heaven help you if you want to do something that's provided in libraries on the net in nearly every language but not available on Brightscript. If you want to do something very very simple, you can pull it off, but more complicated programs are an exercise in frustration. Additionally, their provided displays are missing key functionality. For example, the Grid Display cannot be stacked without crashing the device, you cannot set the selection on it before it is displayed, and there is no callback for the display of the grid so you can set the selection then. Also, use the debugger too much, and you'll lock up the device, requiring pulling the power to correct it. Lastly, you cannot have more than one development app on the device at a time.

I went to a GoogleTV, and it's hackability is vastly superior to the Roku. It uses a language which has a large library availability (java) and the programming environment is inside an IDE (Eclipse). The remote debugger is more useful, synchronizing the execution with the location in the code and displaying local variables, in stark contrast to using telnet on a port to step through which is essentially a stripped down command line gdb (which is missing many of the more useful commands, such as breakpoints).

I cannot speak for the other devices, but if they were to provide any API for third party development, I would be surprised if they were not superior to the Roku. It has a development environment you would expect from the previous decade, not this one.

> later when they upgraded the OS (without breaking any compatibility)
This caused me to laugh. I have a Roku 2 and experienced a regression on http live streaming resulting in audio dropouts, video freezing, and even the device rebooting. My dad has a Roku 1, and experienced regressions on two separate "updates." This is not isolated; just see the forums and the number of requests to revert the firmware and Roku's refusal to allow it.

Re:my Roku experience for the hackers out there

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you share any of that material anywhere? I'd love to see some more examples of simple code for the Roku. I've been using a channel that a guy built for doing what you're doing (Roksbox) and it works fine, but I have started to come across some limitations (like it loads everything into memory up front, which doesn't work well for images of 1000 video clips).

Re:my Roku experience for the hackers out there

[tkrotchko]

Bummer. I like the Roku; its cheap and it works, but if it supported DLNA, it would be perfect for my needs.

Re:my Roku experience for the hackers out there

[netsavior]

Well I don't have 1000, but it really helps if you break them up by genre or some other category. with 100 clips in one single category, the coverflow is still pretty fast, but don't package any of your thumbnails in your channel, load them from a URL instead, trust me it is way faster. It appears that there is something with channel size that makes the roku way slower, I can't explain it, but even my menu headers and stuff I keep on my webserver and load them dynamically, since it seems the smaller the brightscript package the faster the channel. Also, make the pictures JPEG and not PNG, for whatever reason the roku seems faster at JPEG. Also, make them lower resolution than you think they need to be. I try to keep my thumbnails between 10 and 30KB, and that keeps them loading quickly and really how great do they need to look?

As for sharing the code, really there is nothing my code can do for you that the examples in the SDK won't do. Mine is full of lazy hard-coding and not commented at all, which won't really help anyone make progress. I should spend the time to clean it up so I can post it, but I haven't.

PS3?

[gatzke]

My PS3 does ok for movies and pictures. Plus it plays games and DVD / BluRay. And Netflix.

Why do I need one of these additional boxes? What am I missing out on?

Re:PS3?

[netsavior]

The PS3 makes a lousy appliance. It overheats if it is always on, the controllers run down the battery while they idle, it has very frequent software patches. Idle to movie is about 3 seconds on a Roku, from "off" to movie is about 5 minutes-30 minutes on a PS3, (boot, login, - possibly patch - netflix, play). I have both and the PS3 really can't compare to a "cable box" like a roku ca, even though it's video capabilities are similar or better.

Re:PS3?

[Anonymous Coward]

My PS3 is on 24/7; I bought the logitech remote adapter, cake to watch anything now.
If your PS3 is overheating it may be time to blow out the dust in it, or move it.

Bittorrent client?

[jaymzter]

They seemed to have missed a bittorrent client in the list of features. How about letting me load up what *I* want to watch from the device, instead of what *you* want me to watch. Plus, if they can't mount shares, how can you connect the one upstairs with the one downstairs? These things can't stream to each other?

On another note, it seems odd my old PCH A110 can still "out feature" some of these newer players on the market. It plays from samba, nfs, or upnp shares, includes a bittorrent client, and of course handles almost any format you can throw at it. Of course, it's also very long in the tooth by now.

Re:Bittorrent client?

[SCHecklerX]

See my post above. WD TV Live plus with wdlxtv firmware gives you this and a lot more.

Re:Bittorrent client?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an easy solution with Boxee - hook up a USB HDD to the box and this will act like a NAS device which shows up on your PC. Run your Bittorrent client on your PC, store the downloaded file on the NAS and it'll be available on Boxee with no need to keep your computer turned on.

xbmc

[doronbc]

will ALWAYS outperform any other player. people can continue to ignore it, but xbmc running on any device is better than anything else out there imo.

Re:xbmc

[Anonymous Coward]

will ALWAYS outperform any other player. people can continue to ignore it, but xbmc running on any device is better than anything else out there imo.

The Boxee Box runs xbmc, FYI.

Re:xbmc

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed 100%. Free, open source, and better than anything else on the market - commericial or free.

Since they overhauled it last year and added the online addons repository its just amazing. You can install skins, video and music addons that allow you to stream from a variety of sources. Check it out at xbmc.org

Re:xbmc

[tlhIngan]

will ALWAYS outperform any other player. people can continue to ignore it, but xbmc running on any device is better than anything else out there imo.

xbmc on a device boxed up and sold at Best Buy is the Boxee Box. Boxee is a fork of xbmc from way back when (and you could use the Boxee software when they had it).

Of course, assuming you want to go after the "I want to go to Best Buy, and buy a box that connects to the TV" market, rahter than the "I want to go after anyone who's willing to put up with a fugly PC next to their TV (or pay $$$ for a nice case that looks like it belongs in the living room) or hack something to run xbmc".

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[netsavior]

I have a PS3 and a Roku, I can tell you they both do netflix and hulu plus, and the PS3 even has a much better interface for netflix... we still use the roku more. The PS3 has to install an OS upgrade every week or so, the "controllers" or remote control system will use up the batteries completely in about 10 hours of idling, the device itself gets really hot even idling, etc. So for the roku, it is always on, the remote always works. For the PS3 we have to turn it on, wait for a firmware/OS upgrade, then remember to turn the controllers off while we watch TV. It does way too much to be an appliance. The PS3 is a game console with streaming, the Roku is an appliance, and there still is a big difference.

WD TV Live

[yodleboy]

I love this little box, have a couple of them and there's not much it won't do. Plays just about any video format including mkv, vob and iso images. Connects to Netflix and 10 or so other services (the glaring omission here being Amazon). Can connect via DLNA, directly to a linux or windows share or you can plug a USB drive into it play media from that as well. It's a very capable device and @ $99 it's a relative bargain. Did i mention the interface is easy and intuitive with lots of options, you can customize several buttons on the remote and there's a remote control app for Android and iPhone?

Sorry to sound like a shill, but I've been really happy with these players.

Re:WD TV Live

[rikkards]

One word: Bookmarks.
That was enough to turn me off. Also I found video support was a bit less forgiving than my XBMC box. Granted the price is good and for my dad who isn't using networking it works well but too many clicks for my taste

Re:WD TV Live

[yodleboy]

What are the bookmarks? Haven't run into those. Does he have the current WDTV Live or the old one that just called WDTV? I bought the original a couple of years ago and was less than impressed. I actually returned it within a week and put my media library on hold. Video support was horrible and I could encode 2 movies identically and one would play and the other would fail. The new player is night and day better than that old piece of crap. It's vastly improved.

Separate box?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do I need another box sitting next to my TV? Why isn't PS3 or XBOX on this list....
At least I get digital audio outta my PS3

Why was Sony's media player left out?

[Nexusone1984]

I have a Sony Streaming Media player I picked up from Best Buy for $50.

It has Wifi, USB port, HDMI output, Network drive support.

I love its support of Divix and most common media formats, not a bad device and uses Open source linux software.

Re:Why was Sony's media player left out?

[tepples]

I imagine that Sony was left out for the XCP rootkit scandal and Sony v. Hotz, among other things.

What integrates well with MythTV?

[davecb]

I already have a box dedicated to MythTV, and am willing to invest the time to add stuff to it, but I'm not likely to buy another box and have another ^&#$%%@! remote for something that insists it's the only game in town (;-))

--dave

Re:What integrates well with MythTV?

[doronbc]

for the love of god, have you been living under a rock? xbmc not only has pvr specific builds, but you can just add mythtv source to any xbmc build, i have live tv thru xbmc on my win 7 laptop, ubuntu htpc, and apple tv 1 running xbmc on crystalbuntu http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=MythTV#Setup_in_XBMC

Re:What integrates well with MythTV?

[davecb]

Excellent, thanks, all! --dave

Re:What integrates well with MythTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

I already have a box dedicated to MythTV, and am willing to invest the time to add stuff to it, but I'm not likely to buy another box and have another ^&#$%%@! remote for something that insists it's the only game in town (;-))

I use a Sony TV that plays over DLNA from my mythTV box. I used PS3 before but that couldn't cope with radio recordings or with some Freeview HD (UK) recordings which switch between 1080i and 1080p.

MOD PARENT UP!

[GrumpyOldMan]

I agree that this is a very important feature, and very rare outside of full-on PC based media centers.

My current box (SageTV HD300 media extender) does this. It is very sad that SageTV was purchased by Google, and you can no longer purchase this hardware. This is the exact same Sigma tango3 hardware as the WDTV Live Plus (and probably a few others), so we know that low-end STB hardware is capable of it.

Plex client

[blahbooboo]

I was thinking this was a good review until I saw they didn't even know that Roku has a Plex client app. The plex client lets you play media stored on your computer, which is the functionality the review said was lacking...

Re:Plex client

[Overzeetop]

Hope it works better than it did mid-2011, since the client turned out to be DOA with the box I bought. I gave up after a month and sold it. I use a JB appleTV now, though since we all have iDevices, we could have just used the plex client and streamed. (Oh, why doesn't apple open up the TV to apps?)

Re:Plex client

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Roku 2 XS and plea works fine

providers lock out the content

[Anonymous Coward]

Being on the dumb side technology speaking, I ask this question. I have new TV, samsung, that has built in web browser. So I want to watch a rerun on Hulu. But hulu, CBS, fox, etc. can tell that it is a TV and wont stream the media. Since I am cheap I don't to pay the monthly cost of netflex, or hulu plus or both. How can I get these TV's to display a HD quality picture, at the lowest overall cost.

Re:providers lock out the content

[netsavior]

low overall cost: connect it to your computer with an HDMI cable. Otherwise you are looking at subscriber services.

Re:providers lock out the content

[tepples]

low overall cost: connect it to your computer with an HDMI cable.

Which would require buying a new computer for the room with the TV. A lot of people aren't willing to do that.

Re:providers lock out the content

[netsavior]

yes, he specifically was looking to watch huiu on the tv without paying for it, connecting a PC to your TV is the least geeky way to do that. I know set top boxes aren't for normal consumers, cheapskates on slashdot are not normal consumers.

WD Live HD Plus

[Anonymous Coward]

The GUI is a little simplistic, but the WD Live HD Plus playback is flawless for 1080p content over a 100base-t wired connection.

I have XBMC on a dual core Atom netbook too, but it can't handle any HD content at all without massive skipping. For SD content it is nice enough, but more and more recorded TV shows are 1080i here.
The WD Live HD Plus plays pretty much any content (no RM) - perfectly, with multiple audio tracks and multiple subtitles - all flawlessly.

None of the apple solutions handle 1080p or even 1080i. They only output 720p video at best. That is unacceptable to me - plus they cost 20% more.

Are you buying the device for playback ability or a pretty interface? I care about the actual playback of the content more.

I swear by

[P-niiice]

I swear by the "Prodigi pd-100n hd multimedia player" (google that) but I definitely want to do an XBMC box, maybe on an r-pi, maybe not. The Prodigi is great. Streams from samba shares, plays anything you throw at it, turns a usb drive into a NAS. It lacks XBMC's pretty interfaces though. I'm buying another Prodigi and TV for my wife to watch Tyler Perry on. Heh.

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[bhcompy]

Exaggerate much? PS3 has upgrades semi-often(less than once a month these days) and they are NOT required to use anything other than the PlayStation Network. These upgrades add features anyways, like the native Netflix application. As far as the batteries and the heat, the original model did get hotter(not like the 360, though) than the current design that runs fairly cool, but many of those units have been phased out anyway(unless you've replaced the laser by now) and the batteries last plenty long and are rechargeable anyways. If you use the ps3 bluray remote, you can use rechargeable AAs or just turn the remote off during the shows(is it really that hard?).

From a standalone device perspective, the PS3 is hard to beat in functionality outside of a dedicated PC. As with all multifunction devices, it has it's shortcomings, but some of those that you mentioned aren't true or aren't really shortcomings(takes longer for my stereo to turn on and load an HD signal than it does for my PS3 to turn on)

My Vote

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't had the pleasure of checking out the HDI Dune series of Media streams/players, I would highly suggest you do.
I've had mine for the better half of a year now and I have absolutely no complaints. It just works and supports everything I throw at it, with vigor! Supports very high bitrates (which helps when loading my Bluray ISO's from SMB share on my HP Proliant MicroServer, servering Windows Home Server 2011 & MyMovies Add-in service)
It's absolutely the best setup I've every had, extremely amazing interface and pretty quick to boot.
Check it out
http://dune-hd.com/index.php?do=players
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/me/en/sm/WF06b/15351-15351-4237916-4237917-4237917-4248009-5153477.html?dnr=1
Windows Home Server 2011 (Easy enough to find) $50 !
http://www.mymovies.dk/

Re:My Vote

[P-niiice]

Very similar to the Prodigi, but this has more features. I wonder how they compare on format handling.

Re:My Vote

[P-niiice]

I think the Dune will be my next box.

Re:My Vote

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot comment on the capabilites of the Prodigi but the Dune has been a very pleasant experience.
Most of what I do is the MKV container h264 codec and it is flawless I get no slowdowns/hiccups.
I also do quite a bit with the full BDISO rips from my collection and it works perfectly.
Teamed up with that MyMovies management collection/addin for WHS and it is ideal

15 ft HDMI works

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a US$9 10ft HDMI cable that works flawlessly. I can't imagine that the 15ft $15 cable from Amazon wouldn't work perfectly too. I'm watching _A Scanner Darkly_ now as I work.

I have a WD Live HD Plus (US$80) for 100% silent 1080p steamed content from local SMB sources. The UI is not too fancy, but the playback is as good as my HTPC for much less cost. I don't worry about 3rd parties tracking everything I watch either.

Here's a better playback device table via google-docs https://spreadsheets1.google.com/ccc?key=tjY1oj6WVMRfdgjpDyPbBSg&authkey=CMWSqM8P&hl=en&authkey=CMWSqM8P#gid=0
It has many more options.

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[marcop]

Portability. I have the WDTV Live Streaming device talked about in another thread. This and some of the ones in the parent article are REALLY small. You can have a bunch of ripped movies on a small thumb drive and plug the device into your car's TV. Without an in-car entertainment system you can still pick up a 7"-10" portable LCD and use it with one of these devices in a car. It's a far better system than anything you can buy. Also, having a dozen or so movies on a thumbdrive in Xvid format (or some other format) is way more convenient than DVD's.

Tried to use their comments, but fail.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice job making the data fit your conclusions. You've managed to adjust the scoring to make the Apple TV be lowest scoring device in your list. You conveniently don't mention that an iPhone or iPad can be used as an RF remote and as a keyboard for the AppleTV, two of your gripes about it.

You also give over 25% of your "advanced" rating points to being able to plug-in a USB stick to the device itself, something I never do and is made totally obsolete by AirPlay. Another 25% of your "advanced" points are also for playing from Windows shares, etc. Really? 25% of the "advanced" score is lost because I have to configure iTunes to autorun on my media server? Big deal.

Re:Tried to use their comments, but fail.....

[P-niiice]

Limited choices should get you a lower score. You need flexibility if you're going to cut the cord.

Re:Tried to use their comments, but fail.....

[Ostracus]

Flexibility at minimum would be a WD Live (with local storage) on the front end, and a SiliconDust HD Homerun Prime on the back-end. Some local media like CD/DVD/Blu-ray is of course absent.

Re:Tried to use their comments, but fail.....

[Ostracus]

Note: this would have been a better arrangement if SiliconDust had gone with separate inputs on the tuners. One for OTA and the other for cable. Just like on the originals.

Most Versatile is Roku & Xbox 360

[na1led]

For the price and size, the Roku IMO is the best streaming box you can get. It has probably the most content providers and it's easy to use. It may like UPnP or DLNA but you can use channles like RoksBox and stream movies from a simple Web Server or NAS drive. I also think XBOX 360 is a great for streaming because it's simple to use, and provides some advanced capabilities like Voice commands (with kinect).

Another WD TV owner

[mu51c10rd]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one wondering why they left out the WD line. WD has the best hybrid of local playback and online apps. I have yet to have a file format thrown at it that it can't handles. It also can play from SMB shares, uPnP media servers, and lots of online apps. How did the reviewer fail to add that to their queue? The newest model even has the builtin wifi. I tend to recommend the WD line to people over the Roku, Boxee, Apple TV, or Google TV.

Re:Another WD TV owner

[anlprb]

One Plus to the WD is the lack of a UID needed to log in and use the device. The only login needed was netflix. No double log in just to watch netflix.

Current Boxee and Current Google TV Dead Ends

[Kagato]

Boxee and the Current crop of Google TVs have the same problem. They threw their lot in with Intel for the the System on Chip family (CE4X00 series). A ton of things are provided by Intel from Video, Flash, The problem is Intel has dropped this business line. It's basically has a skeleton crew of developers for upkeep, but it's pretty obvious from the bugs that have stuck around that Intel is phoning it in until their contractual obligations end.

Google has already announced a new hardware platform, it's not clear what boxee is going to do.

VP8 is like H.264

[tepples]

Can the Raspberry Pi's H.264 decoder be repurposed to decode VP8, which is essentially H.264 baseline with the patented parts carefully plucked out? Or is the hardware fixed in function to decode only H.264?

Re:VP8 is like H.264

[Bengie]

I hope so. R-PI does have GPU/SIMD, it could be "decent" for non-HW codecs.

Put up or shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

So what did that all cost? And how long did it take to set it all up?

Was it more than $99? And was it more than 15 minutes?

Not being a dick, but if it's all so easy to do what you say, you would be in business competing against Apple I would have bought your box instead.
If it IS that easy and you CAN give me a near $100 box and a near 15 minute setup time with hardware and SOFTWARE that beats these other devices then quit your day job and get cracking. I want to buy your system.

BUT: If it's more like $300 and as elegant as a volvo chassis with a Hemi engine and an airconditioner duct taped to the window, then I'll keep my Apple TV. Which I have not had to touch since installing a year ago.

Re:Put up or shut up

[whitedsepdivine]

Sorry but media centers are the way to go. Old computer + a HDHomerun + a media center remote = awesome. The setup only takes a long time because the service providers suck at setting up cable cards that are not with their own boxes. If your into it you can do more. But it just takes as long as building a computer, and a little extra time to set up the software. Who doesn't like building custom rigs? If your here you shouldn't be saying building a computer is a waste of time. My media center is 5TB of storage, 3 HD encrypted channels at a time, 2 HD non encrypted, 2 SD channels, Radio, and Netflix. It can record something like 500 hrs of HD content or 4000 hrs of SD. You seriously have months of content. Plus the ablity of using it as a computer, because it is one.

Re:Put up or shut up

[essjaytee]

I love my Win7 Media Center solution. The PC is located in my living room, and I have a linksys DMA-2100 Media Center Extender in the bedroom. Using a Hauppauge dual cablecard tuner it replaced my ($20 a month) DVR and a cable box ($10 a month) from my house. It isn't 100% perfect, there's a very occasional issue with the Tuning Adapter (for SDV channels) which is being ironed out, but all in all it's wonderful. The media center PC is just a cheap small form factor Dell with a low end C2D in it. Using onboard video, it plays 1080P content without issue.

I have all of the DVR functionality I had before, but with practically unlimited storage. I can pause recorded shows and resume from my bedroom. The Media Center interface meets my household's requirement (high Wife Acceptance Factor is a necessity,) and I have Parental Controls that I require.

That takes care of my cable TV options - which I require because I watch live Premier League soccer games on Fox Soccer Channel.

The rest of the setup is MediaBrowser for movies and all other content, and Remote Potato for remote connectivity, scheduling and streaming. I have a better solution than I was paying Time Warner for, and it will have paid for itself after 5 months.

It's astonishing to me that Microsoft didn't throw their weight behind this solution. I know you can use xbox 360s as extenders, but I like my silent, tiny Linksys. This is the start of a completely integrated home media solution.

-Simon

Re:Put up or shut up

[jedidiah]

> Was it more than $99? And was it more than 15 minutes?

Some people want more than an iTunes streamer.

What happened to Apple being a premium luxury brand? Now Apple users will gladly "eat dirt" just to save a couple of bucks. Sure the device is cheap but it's a terribly limited experience. The device itself is not terribly capable and then it's even made worse by the artificial limitations imposed upon it by Apple.

It don't touch my HTPCs either. They are built to be appliances and they just sit and do their job.

Re:Put up or shut up

[hairyfeet]

About $199 for the E-350 and about 30 minutes since its already assembled so the only thing you have to do is pop in a RAM stick and attach a drive, two if you want to add a burner. Hell dude these things are so fricking simple just for shits and giggles i handed the youngest who had never built squat the instructions and he had it POSTing in under 30 minutes just by looking at the pictures and following the step by step.

and the big difference is unlike AppleTV where you are at the mercy of Apple who can drop support, suddenly raise prices for their services, or just tell you "Tough shit buy the new one" that $199 system will run year after year and can't have its plug pulled by anybody but you.

Re:Put up or shut up

[cynyr]

they way it is my dvd rips into h264 level 4.1 high profile can't be played on the apple TV without being re-encoded, making them unplayable on my ps3... grrrrr.

Re:Put up or shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one don't like "building custom rigs". Neither does my wife. I don't have the time to do stuff I *want* to do, not to mention stuff I don't want to do, like administering yet another desktop system. I want a media player to, duh, play media. If I wanted something to hack on, rather than something to actually use, and didn't mind paying 2-3x the price for the privilege, I'd get a Mac Mini and dick around with it interminably. Since I want instead to actually watch video and have my wife be able to do so too, I bought a Boxee Box instead.

I wanted to like Roku. I really did. But they have some weird hangup about divx/xvid/avi and refuse to implement playback. Boxee/D-Link do not suffer from that neurosis, so by virtue of being useable, they got my purchase instead.

The comparison of numbers of "apps" is amusing. Most of the "apps" on any of these players are just people's blogs.

People who prefer to buy rather than build

[tepples]

So I don't see why you'd want one of these things when HTPCs have frankly never been cheaper.

Because people expect to walk into Best Buy and walk out with something. If you have to buy it as separate parts and install them all into a case, it's already a non-starter except for dedicated geeks.

Re:People who prefer to buy rather than build

[jedidiah]

> Because people expect to walk into Best Buy

My upstairs "appliance" was being sold in Best Buy for awhile. Although they tried to hide it. I don't think they wanted people to realize that you could have a $200 PC.

ALL of my HTPCs are cheap ready made boxes.

It's not 2003 any more.

Re:People who prefer to buy rather than build

[tepples]

My upstairs "appliance" was being sold in Best Buy for awhile.

So what make and model of "cheap ready made boxes" should people be buying now instead of the product that Best Buy no longer sells?

netflix on wii

[mrflash818]

Good enough for me.

+1000 XBMC

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Boxee Box runs xbmc, FYI."

Not quite correct - Boxee *plays catch-up* to the latest version of XBMC, so always at least a little behind.

Personally, over the years I've tried lots of hardware and software solutions including commercial, open source and my own. Lots of them were crap, some good (for the time) but all essentially lacking in one major feature or another.

Only in the last few years has XBMC (with remote) made the viewing device feel like a true, very flexible appliance. Living room TV, home theatre/projector etc all under control and *very* rarely have to drop to a keyboard (usually just for tinkering or OS updates (yes, it's running on Win7 - the live cd version didn't work as well on my hardware)).

Apart from the 100s (1000s?) of addons available, XBMC makes it possible to dive in and get your hands dirty writing your own if you need/want to. It's likely that there's already something in the repositories (accessible in-application) to do what you want already.

The fact that XBMC is/was the basis of so many of the products/projects mentioned here (plex, boxee etc) shows its value. Addons and core code are constantly being worked on. I've been very impressed.

We could not verify your subscription

[tepples]

I already don't have cable; almost everything on cable I'd want to watch is on HULU or the networks' own web sites.

All I get is (rephrased) "This network's streaming video is available to subscribers to this network through one of these participating cable television providers: [...] We could not verify your subscription to this network."

I have a perfectly good computer plugged into my TV

Then you are in the minority. I've been told by other Slashdot users that most people who aren't geeks appear to see a "computer" as something for a desk, or at least something not to be moved back and forth between the desk and the TV a couple times a day.

Re:We could not verify your subscription

[yotto]

Then you are in the minority. I've been told by other Slashdot users that most people who aren't geeks appear to see a "computer" as something for a desk, or at least something not to be moved back and forth between the desk and the TV a couple times a day.

Move back and forth?

I have a computer plugged into my TV. It cost me less than 3 months of cable service, and streams Netflix (which I pay for) Hulu (which I don't. Yay Hulu Desktop), and anything else I could reasonably want without a keyboard. It also plays DVDs, locally stored videos, music via any program I want (I wrote my own, actually, to better integrate with the remote in the way I wanted).

It's only a computer in name. In function, it's a (very large) set-top box that doesn't sit on top of my set.

I will buy the first box to come out that has Hulu (not plus. Just Hulu) and SMB, plus all the other stuff that all these boxes already have.

Re:We could not verify your subscription

[mcgrew]

Then you are in the minority. I've been told by other Slashdot users that most people who aren't geeks appear to see a "computer" as something for a desk, or at least something not to be moved back and forth between the desk and the TV a couple times a day.

That is, sadly, true. My 83 year old mom just got a new TV with HDMI and I pointed out that she could plug it into the computer with HDMI. No way to convince her.

But I was talking about us nerds, not normal people.

But does LetterBomb still work?

[tepples]

For my media player uses, I just have a soft-modded Wii. You could have got one for $100 last Christmas, now the only option seems to be $150 with a game

Has Nintendo made the Wii consoles immune to the LetterBomb soft-mod yet? Does it still work on the new Wii consoles with no GameCube controller support?

Throw some emulators on there

Do you mean Virtual Console, or do you mean somehow dumping your NES cartridges to a computer and then putting the ROMs on the Wii's SD card?

Multi Purpose Hardware

[JackSpratts]

Interesting article for its limitations but it misses what I think is the real trend - multi purpose devices.

On Black Friday I was all set to purchase some sort of consumer streaming machine when I stumbled across a Sony display at Walmart featuring a Blu-Ray player that also connected to the web via LAN and streamed video content for what I thought was a reasonable 99 dollars. After a little research back home I found a really good deal: a Sony 3D Blu-Ray player (BDP-S580) from Best Buy that also streams dozens of additional internet channels, some free (the 3 Stooges!) via both LAN and inboard Wi-Fi, with resolution up to 1080p, and plays 3D Blu-rays as well. The 109 dollar unit also included 2 USB ports for outboard content and a browser although it doesn't yet support flash. Hook up was a cinch even if Wi-Fi synching did take some time. It's stable however and I haven't had to redo anything in three months of operation including the occasional power outage.

I watch NetFlix and downloaded movie files on my living room TV almost every evening and it's just a much better experience over staring at a desktop PC or laptop which I'd done for years (cord cutter here). NetFlix looks beautiful by the way.

The easy to use device is a game changer for me (no doubt it passes the baby sitter test). I only wish I had it ten years ago.

- js.

Re:Multi Purpose Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL.
Title :Multi-Purpose Hardware.
Content : *SONY*

C'mon, how can anyone even consider a SONY product when talking playback? SONY will:
1> Limit what format you can use.
2> Limit how you acquire and present that media to the device.
3> Exercise as much control over the experience as it can possible enforce.

Trying to work with SONY equipment, in any way other than the way SONY insists, is an act of futility. There are many players of equal or better quality out there, without forcing you to defend against SONY's societal offensive.

Set your DPI to 80 * size / distance

[tepples]

Because reading a normal desktop's output from 15 feet away on the couch is hard.

How so, once you've set the window system DPI to account for your TV size and seating arrangement? For a 1080p TV, take 80 times the TV's diagonal measure (e.g. 42") divided by the seating distance (e.g. 84") and tell the OS to use that DPI.

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[Bengie]

"they are NOT required to use anything other than the PlayStation Network"

I thought Netflix on PS3 required PSN, because when PSN went down last year, no one could use Netflix.

I'm not a PS3 owner, so I have absolutely no first-hand experience.

WD TV Live Streaming Media Player WORKS!

[Anonymous Coward]

My media player of choice used to be PS3, BUT now I use the WD TV Live Streaming Media Player. No native MKV support on the PS3 has benched the unit, so much so I've not used the PS3 for media playback in over 4 months!

As a general media player the PS3 was and is still brilliant (quick, responsive, fast-forward is much better than the WDTVSMP) but no MKV playback on the PS3 is the ultimate turn-off.

The WD TV Live Streaming Media Player ($100 or less) plays EVERYTHING I've thrown at it including 1080p MKV's with subtitles and multiple audio tracks, it just WORKS. I stream everything via ethernet from my WD My Book World Edition without fail.

I highly recommend the WD TV Live Streaming Media Player.

plex-box!

[kirkb]

step 1: buy an apple tv
step 2: jailbreak
step 3: install plex
step 4: win!

This will save nicle & dimes for how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think that content providers on these set top media players will not nickel and dime you to death? Content costs, good content even more.

Review item

[argStyopa]

I noted in the referenced article that it says the Roku 2 doesn't play Youtube.

I have a Roku 1 and I have a youtube channel, dunno if I added it as one of the roku 'secret' channels one time (I don't think so - I think it's just an available channel), or if they've removed the functionality in Roku 2 but I know I can play it.

I was an early adopter of Roku, buying one the first Xmas they were out and have absolutely loved it. Rock solid stability is no joke. I think I've had one problem in multiple years of constant heavy usage, and that was solved by a hard reboot. My only issues with the Roku are fairly trivial:
- no 1080i, even though it does do 720p (which would seem 'harder'). I have an early HD-tube tv, and it goes only up to 1080i so no HD for me. Changing that soon tho. :)
- their menu'ing system really has been kludgy for a long time. Better than it was, sure, but still pretty clumsy.
- AFAIK no ability to just go buy a backup remote if you lose it.

So many more

[g8oz]

Western Digital TV Live is probably the most user friendly. Iomega Screenplay DX is the latest hotness.

But there are also many no name boxes out there. But they don't have the streaming licensing deals with Netflix, Hulu etc. They are however good at playing all sorts of files (mkv, iso, blu-ray iso), from shared network drives, memory cards, usb drives. Some have internal hard drives. Some will even download torrents for you. Good brands include Popcorn Hour (and the Network Media Tank platform in general), A.C Ryan, and Dune.

All made possible by cheap MIPS based CPUs from Sigma Designs and Realtek. See iboum.com, mpcclub.com and onlybestrated.com for info on these players.

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[bhcompy]

Apparently it worked for some and not for others. I don't use Netflix streaming(shit selection). I use PS3 Media Server, Windows Media Server(WMP), and PlayOn

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[Control-Z]

You can usually back out of the updates, but there are far too many updates.

Netflix on my PS3 has some really weird scrolling issues, each row of covers keeps scrolling without my doing anything. It was fixed briefly last year and now it's back. Aren't all PS3s basically the same? How did this pass QC?

Boxee Box

[morari]

Boxee Box, hands down. It'll do anything you want a set-top to do, and it'll do it all with style. It has a beautiful interface, and the exterior is even pretty neat looking. The QWERTY keyboard/controller is nifty, too. The only downside is that their is no Hulu support... but you'll find all of that stuff elsewhere, in better quality, and with no commercials. ;)

I've had a number of older Realtek bases devices, and they were all pretty much rubbish. Asus O!Play, Patriot Box Office, WDTV Live. All underpowered and lacking in features. Not to mention horrible, horrible user interfaces.

The Roku is a nice choice if all you want is internet streaming. It seems to be lacking on most other fronts though.

Of course, nothing is going to beat a good HTPC running something like XBMC. You're going to pay more for it, and obviously spend more time setting it up. It would certainly be worth it in the long run though. It'd be infinitely expandable and upgradable.

None of the above!

[It's the tripnaut!]

I wonder why Sigma-based network media tanks like the Popcorn Hour C-300 are not included. Is it because it supports [gasp!] "pirate-friendly" codecs and region-free coding? Or is it because these types of media players have far better picture and audio quality?

Horrible name

[sootman]

Why call it "cord cutting" when all you're doing is trading one cord (and, in many cases, one set of fees) for another?

Bonus question: how long do you think content providers will let you get shows "for free" (or cheap) before raising rates elsewhere to make up the difference?

It's easy with a Mac Mini

[talmage]

I use a Mac Mini for my media player. I get some content using Miro (http://www.getmiro.com/). I play video content with either Miro or XBMC (http://xbmc.org/). For audio, I use Music Player Daemon (http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Music_Player_Daemon_Wiki) and control it with my phone or a laptop. It just works.

Only In US

[echusarcana]

Sadly, I live in Canada and this entire discussion might as well be written in Swahili. I've heard there are things like legal online TV south of the border but not here. Admittedly we've gotten Netflix in the last year or so, but it is a stripped-down version. Best Buy doesn't care things like this here. Fortunately, unlike all these US-only services, The Pirate Bay doesn't care where you live.

Unwilling to buy a second PC

[tepples]

Move back and forth?

Yes, because a lot of people "already have a computer" and aren't willing to buy a second to put in the TV room for various reasons.

Amazing omission

[frovingslosh]

My thought on reading this was that they left out the best choice in media players, a simple PC. Maybe they just realized that the PC would be so much better in every way that there was no point in making the comparison, but it still seems liker a disservice to not include one in the comparison. Run whatever software you want, open or not. Always have an update option (Don't get screwed when, as happens, manufacturer decided that a product is "no longer supported"). Play television network feeds such as ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and free Hulu and other things that are blocked from the appliances like Roku or Google TV. Even play games on that 40 inch 1080p screen. I've tried media player appliances, including an expensive D-link appliance that was poorly supported when it came out and then eventually completely abandoned. If you just want a minimal "media player" then at least get a Blu-Ray player with some media functions, it will at least play DVDs, Blu-rays and CDs and you will not seem like a complete loser when the manufacturer no longer supports it in six months. But if you want a truly flexiable and useful media player then a PC with good open software is the way to go.

Lack of Prime Made Me Suspicious

[ossuary]

The lack of Amazon Prime Video has bugged me too. WD passes the buck to Amazon, who promptly passes the buck to WD. It makes me think Amazon has intentionally put a monkey wrench into the works while they engineer their own "Amazon Media Box".

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[adolf]

Netflix worked fine for me on my PS3 throughout the PSN outage, using whatever was the then-current firmware.

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[adolf]

All PS3s are basically the same when they leave the factory. Yours, however, might well be different by this point.

I get weird scrolling issues when I accidentally bump a button on a controller, or one finds itself upside-down on the couch (thus moving one of the analog controls), but it's all PEBKAC -- not a system issue.

Try a different controller if you have one or can borrow one, and then just replace or fix the wonky controller (parts are available without looking very hard at all).

Roku

[Anonymous Coward]

Love my Roku. I could live without it now that I have the laptop set up with the TV screen over an HDMI cable, but really I still use the Roku any time I can. Everything seems crisper, can navigate with a remote (without having to buy additional hardware), and there is a wealth of both official and streaming channels that just make more sense from a "TV" perspective on a set top box. The only things I switch to the laptop for are Plex (I have the Roku private app but the quality seems much lower as compared to on the PC version), and Web-only Hulu shows (those tick me off, I'm paying for Hulu Plus, license your shows for streaming over TV's god damnit). I haven't used the PS3 or Wii for Netflix or streaming media in well over a year. One factor that rarely gets discussed is the loudness of the device itself. Watching movies or TV on the PS3 is like watching with a giant fan sitting under the TV constantly competing for sound. The Roku makes literally no sound, is always on, uses virtually no power, and can do far more media-streaming wise than my PS3 or laptop ever has or will.

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[Control-Z]

I have several different controllers and they all act the same in Netflix. All other apps and games act fine. My controllers haven't had a hard life.

My PS3 is a first gen. 60GB.

I just found it very weird that an app would act like that on standardized hardware.

Re:I can't see the point of standalone media strea

[adolf]

I had a lesser-gen 40GB, and now have a 160GB slim. Both behaved identically with Netflix (which is to say that they both were predictably fine).

I submit that the only variable in the equation is you. Whether you can find the problem and overcome it or not is your problem.