Best network media player for DivX / Xvid

davil

I'm trying to find out what's the best "bang for buck" when it comes to media players. I need something that will stream DivX / Xvid , up to at least 720p... SD is okay if it's going to be cheap as my TV isn't great anyhow but HDMI would be great.

I'd like if it were DLNA compliant but once it streams from a SMB share or Twonky it'll be fine. The copy of Twonky on my NAS doesn't transcode so the media player would need to be capable of playing most codecs. the more the better. I'm switching from XBMC on an old XBOX as its hardware is starting to fail.

I'm considering the following:

• Acer Aspire Revo [ small PC cabable of HD video output, but there are a few different models ]
• Acer Aspire RevoView [ Digital multimedia receiver ]
• D-Link Boxee Box [runs Boxee, a bit like XBMC]

But I'll consider any alternatives.

Budget somewhere between €150 and €300

I'm considering a Playstation 3 as well as it has so many features (Blu-ray being the big one), but might be cheaper and less hassle to get a net-top ? and before anyone says, I'm not buying another XB360 - one is enough, and that's upstairs. far away from main telly.

At the mo the Revo is top of my list because I can install Ubuntu or Windows 7 or anything I want really, it will probably even boot XBMC from a USB stick !!

So if anybody has any experience with this lately, or any great suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks.

davil

actually, I just thought, I've a Samsung Galaxy S phone with Allshare, so something with Allshare would be great. I can't find a definitive list of Allshare compatible Blu-Ray players and TVs though... I suppose I'll just have to keep googling until I find the best compromise for all my needs.

TheZohanS

I use a WD TV Live hooked up to a WD Elements 2TB hard drive.

File Formats Supported

Video
AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9
Photo
JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Audio
MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
Playlist
PLS, M3U, WPL
Subtitle
SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI
Note
MPEG2 MP@HL up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
MPEG4.2 ASP@L5 up to 1280x720p30 resolution and no support for global motion compensation.
WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL up to 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p24 resolution. VC-1 AP@L3 up to 1920x1080i30, 1920x1080p24 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
H.264 BP@L3 up to 720x480p30 or 720x576p25 resolution.
H.264 MP@L4.1 and HP@4.1 up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30, or 1280x720p60 resolution.
An audio receiver is required for multi-channel surround sound digital output.
Compressed RGB JPEG formats only and progressive JPEG up to 2048x2048.
Single layer TIFF files only.
Uncompressed BMP only.


Basically it will play anything you throw at it right up to 1080p. It handled an 11gb .mkv version of Avatar flawlessly and the quality was amazing. You can connect it directly to your router or add a wireless dongle and go onto Facebook, YouTube and a host of other sites and internet radio stations. It has a HDMI connection and optical out to link to your AV Receiver. It has a very slick and intuitive user interface and when software updates are available it will tell you and you can update it automatically.

I picked up mine from Amazon.co.uk

Their description:

Manufacturer's Description
WD TV Live - Play a world of HD media on your TV
HD video, photos and music - they're on your computer, on your USB drives, on the Internet, but how do you enjoy them on your TV? Now it's easy - play a world of full-HD, 1080p media on your big screen TV with the WD TV Live network-ready HD media player.

Full-HD 1080p video playback and navigation
This is the real thing; full-HD 1080p playback. Sit back and enjoy the spectacular picture quality of brilliant high definition video and the crystal-clear sound of digital audio. Use the included remote control to make your entertainment choices using our crisp, animated navigation menus. WD TV Live also supports a wide variety of the most popular file formats, meaning there's no need to spend time transcoding. Supported file formats include AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS and WMV9 for video, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP and PNG for images, MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG and Dolby Digital DTS for audio, SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB and SMI subtitle formats as well as PLS, M3U and WPL playlist formats.





Connect to your home network or the Internet
with full-HD 1080p resolution and support for
a variety of popular file formats. View larger.
Play videos, music and photos from the Internet on your big screen TV
Explore and watch YouTube videos and Flickr pictures on the big screen, rock out to thousands of radio stations via Live365 and discover new music with Pandora radio. WD TV Live supports a list of popular online services that delivers Internet content onto your HD TV, including YouTube to broadcast yourself on the World's #1 video sharing website, and Pandora – free, personalised Internet radio playing only the music you love. Enter your favourite songs or artists and enjoy stations created just for you. Rate songs as they play, because Pandora caters to your tastes and adapts stations to your feedback on the spot. There's also Flickr to share your photos and Live365, which lets you listen to thousands of commercial-free Internet radio stations. Live365 has broadcasts from Radio Disney, Santana, David Byrne, Pat Metheny, and Paul Oakenfold, as well as stations created by music lovers just like you.

Access files anywhere on your home network
Play movies, music, and photos from any PC or drive on your home network. The Ethernet port connects this player to your home network through a wired connection or via popular, supported WiFi adapters (sold separately), and is ideal for use with WD's My Book World. You can play content from most popular USB drives, digital cameras, camcorders, and portable media players that can be recognised as mass storage devices, and compatibility is optimised for My Passport portable hard drives. There's no limit to the size of your media collection; just add more USB drives for more space. Plus, with two USB ports on the player you can connect multiple USB storage devices and access them simultaneously. Our media library feature even collects the content on all the drives into one list sorted by media type.


Transfer and play files from your home network
or the Internet on your HD TV.


Get connected with a simple, intuitive user interface
Using the included remote control you can navigate smoothly through your entertainment choices using the DVD-like navigation, which also supports video chapters, track modes and subtitles. There's a HDMI port that lets you connect to the highest quality HD TV or home theatre, plus additional composite (RCA), and component outputs to ensure compatibility with virtually all television sets. The optical audio output sends digital signals to your AV receiver for the best surround sound experience, and there's also support for wireless network connection with optional USB wireless adapter.

Advanced navigation
Advanced navigation in the form of thumbnail, list and video previews also helps you to browse your content by file name or by thumbnails of photos, album covers and movie cover art. You can even preview videos while you browse your content. The Media Library function enables you to view all your media by media type in one menu regardless of its location in folders, or simply use the search function to search for your media by filename.

Photo viewing and music playback
The WD TV Live Media Player lets you view your photos in a number of ways. You can create custom slide shows with a variety of transitions and background music, or you can view group all media by type within one menu, regardless of its location in folders. The photo viewer supports zoom and pan functionality, with music playback including the usual fast forward, rewind, pause, shuffle and repeat controls.

Box Contains
HD Media player
Compact remote with batteries
Composite AV cable
Component cable
AC adapter
Quick Install Guide
Installer CD

Hope this helps.

davil

Thanks for that info! sounds like a great piece of kit. Unfortunately I already have a (quite expensive) QNAP NAS so I'm trying to find something that works well with it. My Samsung Galaxy S works great for watching episodes of house in bed when I'm meant to be sleeping, so I'm thinking something along those lines. To be honest, in the last couple of days I've been blown away by XBMC live - I just need to get a small HTPC to run it on now, as the old Dell I have for it is a bit big. I would recommend XBMC to anyone. sure I won't have blu-ray for another while, but I don't think I'll miss it too much.

Praetorian

Im another wdtv fan, wired up to our network now, used to stream wirelessly. Great player.

PogMoThoin

The Boxee Box is the best piece of kit I've ever bought, can't rate it highly enough, plays absolutely every single file I got (2.5TB media collection) without fail, does 1080p and has optical surround out.

See my thread:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056080740

DoubleBogey

Have had a popcorm hour for years now. Plays everything you can throw at it. They have excellent support, allowing firmware updates for all models, they are even still doing updates for the original A100. I stream straight from my home server and don't even need a hard drive in the popcorn hour.

They have also just done a deal with the Matroska (mkv) lads to make a standard 3D file format modelled on their players. Again, update has gone out to all latest models, automatically giving you a 3D media player for free!

It is very expensive on most sites but works out cheap if you buy direct. Remember to add VAT onto the price, this is payable to DHL on delivery.

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/