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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."
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.
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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?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
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.
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
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
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.
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.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
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?