Todays best setup for home entertainment?

bazpaul1

OK, i'm a little frustrated - one of the Media Players in our house has become too old as we find it cannot play the new .mp4 filetypes or .mkv files. The company dont make firmware updates anymore because its a few yrs old.

I have been reading about these fancy shmancy Smart TV's - but how do you update their firmware? Can they play lots of filetypes? .ogg .flac music files??? .mkv or even oldschool .rm files???

my question is;
What is the best arrangement of electronics for a superior (updateable) home entertainment system???

You can buy all these amazing new hardrives with streaming capabilities and such but when the device gets old what then??? you rely on the manufacturer to keep updating?

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I'm planning on setting up the ultimate system. Which will consist of a large LCD monitor set up as a TV in the room with a modest PC hidden beside it - wireless keyboard and wireless mouse. The PC does not need to be top of the line as it will just be used for playback and browsing.

I'm not a fan of cable TV but this could be achieved through a LCD monitor that also has scart ports. So you can have you normal TV on the AV1 channel and the computer on AV2 channel?

The computer codecs and such are easily updated - you can download movies from your couch - you can use the web from your couch using your favourite browser not "smart apps" on the smart tv!!!

It would be nice to get media center or something on the PC - to give a nice user interface

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Any ideas?? What is the best, and most cost affective, setup??

bazpaul1

ideas?

PogMoThoin

Scart is dead, everything these days comes with HDMI. Scart doesn't carry HD. You'd do well to find a media player with scart now.

TV's with built in Smart TV functions are pretty limited, they do not play all formats and are pretty poor when compared to set top boxes like the Boxee Box. You could build a HTPC like I did last year, but this will be overkill with the cheap as chips Android on a Stick devices hitting the market these days. XBMC is a free media player that supports all video codecs and runs on many systems, Windows, Linux, Apple TV. It's even bootable on hardware in the form of XBMCbuntu. It has now also been released for Android. It's a community project that's been around a few years and really has become the ultimate, it gets continuous development and updates and it now has plenty of addons and plugins, Rte player, 4 on Demand, BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Youtube (and literally hundreds more). Next year will see the release of the Ouya gaming console that runs android, should be a pretty decent media player out of the box when you install XBMC. Install XBMC on your pc and check it out, you'll be amazed how good it is.

bazpaul1

Very good, i like your input!!

I realise most set top boxes come HDMI. But can you get LCD's that have 2 HDMI's? one for the PC and one for the UPC box or whatever?

I actually have XBMC on my computer as i have been testing it out - very cool stuff, i love the way it pulls down TV covers and episode guides!!!

If you know about Ouya you probably know about the Pivos http://www.pivosgroup.com/xios.html. its a nice little media player thing. What i dont know about Pivos is - can you stream from another computer in the house? Can you connect a fat ass 2TB drive to it? Can you install and use bittorrent on it?

For years in the house I've been running cables, connecting devices, setting up networks, chargin devices - i just want one simple - dont have to move from the couch -solution!!

Is that too much to ask?

PogMoThoin

Most TV's these days come with at least 3x HDMI.

Any of these boxes can stream from another pc in the house, that's the idea, most don't come with storage. It's just a matter of sharing the files. Sort the files on your pc into seperate TV and Movies folders and put them into a folder called media and then right click and share the media folder over your home network. Some boxes have USB allowing you to connect external drives like you said, you can even share the files from here to other similar devices elsewhere in the house.

You're best running uTorrent on your pc, you can get an adroid app to control it if you wish.

Wireless is poor for media streaming, it's best to run an ethernet cable from the STB to your router and keep the wireless for mobility only on laptops and phones.

RonnieWhelan

Get yourself a Mac mini with wireless mouse and keyboard(install xbmc), 120" Projector screen and Good Full HD Projector with hdmi input and you'll have a decent enough set up, and will not cost much more than a samsung 3D TV.

All of the above can be new or used depending on budget.

Just my 2 cents

VictorRomeo

Buy a Boxee. Getting on a bit but still hits all the high notes. Cheap and no need for an overly complicated or expensive PC setup. Remote had a small qwerty keyboard on the other side of it and the mobile app is good too.

I've tried every media device known to man too and the Boxee still has it.

Viewing your own content is also only part of the story....

PogMoThoin

Netflix Uk and Irl isn't working on the Boxee Box, besides that, see what I posted here

VictorRomeo

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Netflix Uk and Irl isn't working on the Boxee Box, besides that, see what I posted here

I'm afraid you're not using it right....!

The DNS service - Unblock US - that costs $40 per year gives you access to everything available in the US - inc. US Netflix - and an awful lot more. Best $40 spent yet.

While most of your points are very valid, right now - today - there is nothing commercially available "out of the box" and for the money that can do what the Boxee does. The Ouya being one(not commecially available) - but don't get me wrong, this litle device really interests and exites me. I have one on order via the Kickstarter program.

If you can get A Boxee for the right price (sub 120), it's still a fantastic little gadget and worth the buy.

The outstanding issue with the CE4100 Atom chip only affects the ability to stream DTS-HD too. Not the end of my world anyway.

There is also a rumour that Boxee are planning to announce a new device this Autumn.

My bottom line point is that the only other devices worth consideration on the market today is the AppleTV and the WD Live TV - without going down the more expensive route of Popcorn Hour or XMBC. And in my opinion, for what it does, the Boxee trumps them.

WeleaseWoderick

VictorRomeo wrote: »

Buy a Boxee. Getting on a bit but still hits all the high notes. Cheap and no need for an overly complicated or expensive PC setup. Remote had a small qwerty keyboard on the other side of it and the mobile app is good too.

I've tried every media device known to man too and the Boxee still has it.

Viewing your own content is also only part of the story....

I would echo these sentiments about the Boxee Box. Picked up one last week on holidays in America and am delighted with it so far! I have a fair amount of TV shows and movies on external hard disks and had messed about trying to stream them to a jailbroken ATV2 but much prefer being able to plug the disks straight into the Boxee and cut out any streaming issues!

Having read that the Boxee also plays ripped DVDs in ISO format (with full menus), I'm now thinking of backing up all my DVDs in this way. Still haven't found any software that doesn't take an absolute age to do that though!

VictorRomeo

WeleaseWoderick wrote: »

I would echo these sentiments about the Boxee Box. Picked up one last week on holidays in America and am delighted with it so far! I have a fair amount of TV shows and movies on external hard disks and had messed about trying to stream them to a jailbroken ATV2 but much prefer being able to plug the disks straight into the Boxee and cut out any streaming issues!

Having read that the Boxee also plays ripped DVDs in ISO format (with full menus), I'm now thinking of backing up all my DVDs in this way. Still haven't found any software that doesn't take an absolute age to do that though!

Great to hear! Try it with Unblock US DNS service and it brings it to a very different level... I didn't bother with the full menu DVD rip - I used MakeMKV - a free tool - to rip out the movie component and leave it at that. Nice and simple. It can leave in subs for movies with them and you can select the sub with the boxee so all is not lost there too....

I love the way it automatically connects the movie trailer to the movie when browsing.....

WeleaseWoderick

VictorRomeo wrote: »

Great to hear! Try it with Unblock US DNS service and it brings it to a very different level... I didn't bother with the full menu DVD rip - I used MakeMKV - a free tool - to rip out the movie component and leave it at that. Nice and simple. It can leave in subs for movies with them and you can select the sub with the boxee so all is not lost there too....

I love the way it automatically connects the movie trailer to the movie when browsing.....

I had the free trial of Unblock US on my PS3 for a while but never got round to paying for it. $40 for the year isn't bad at all so reckon I'll get that soon.

Roughly how long does MakeMKV take to rip a 2 hour movie?

Thanks

VictorRomeo

WeleaseWoderick wrote: »

I had the free trial of Unblock US on my PS3 for a while but never got round to paying for it. $40 for the year isn't bad at all so reckon I'll get that soon.

Roughly how long does MakeMKV take to rip a 2 hour movie?

Thanks

About 10/15 minutes or so.... It's very quick.... You can buy the version that rips BDs too if you have a BDP in your PC. My PC, while high spec with a quad core extreme is now just over three years old... A newer iCore will be a bit quicker....

€40 is a bargain and you can use it on all your devices inside your network...