[ferkh10]

Can this play wirelessly from a NAS like the WDTV live?

[hippo99]

Originally Posted by nosluom

should i just start downloading 720p rips instead?

You should not be downloading anything

Originally Posted by Wrules

The problem with outputting at 720p is that you do not have the option of 24HZ so this therefore creates pull-down judder. For me watching a 1080p film with an occasional drop in the frame rate is more watchable that pull down judder throughout the film. Like the comment before me says, what sort of Media players would be able to cope with high Bit rate Blu-rays without a drop in the frame rate? The ability to stream through ethernet or wireless is usueless for me as no home network connection can effectively stream High quality HD movies wirelessly effectively.

I've not noticed any drops in frame rate on my 1080p films. This may be because I compress my blu-ray rips to reduce the size of them, my compressed files might already be below the 25-30mbits limit that djdazzy mentions so I never saw this problem.

I think you have 2 choices available to you

1. compress your BD rips (using handbrake or ripbot etc) as this will lower the bitrate, whilst not affecting quality too much. You may have to play around quite a bit to find a setting that keeps it below the 25-30mbits limit.
2. easiest option is to rip your blu-rays to 720p (which involves compressing as well), then you can still use the 1080p24 output option on the Micro 2+. It'll upscale & output your 720p file at 1080p24 whithout judder or the occasional pausing.

[Halloway]

I've just discovered a bug with this unit regarding the playing of flacs. When playing a series of tracks (i.e. an album) the unit will not automatically move to the next flac. It has no problems with mp3s, and it can happily play a flac and then an mp3 but will not go to a flac. If you have e.g. an mp3, then a flac, then an mp3 it will play the mp3, skip the flac and then play the second mp3! If you have a folder full of flacs then it will simply play the flac you have selected and then stop.

[MrCarbo]

Hi,

Is it possible to get this unit to display a thumbnail of movies when you scroll down the list? Though maybe you could have a file with the same name as a movie but with a .jpg file extension?

[simonfitba]

Originally Posted by MrCarbo

Hi,

Is it possible to get this unit to display a thumbnail of movies when you scroll down the list? Though maybe you could have a file with the same name as a movie but with a .jpg file extension?

Don't think so.

[savant]

I've been looking for a streamer for a while and this seemed to fit the bill. However, could someone confirm the situation with 720p footage at 24fps that was raised above by Wrules?

If the player cannot handle 1080p films at 1080p resolution because of bandwidth issues and 720p encodes (or downscaled 1080p) cannot be run at my (720p) TV's native 24fps, then that's going to prevent me from investing in it. My eyes are really sensitive to that sort of thing.

Ideally, I'd like a replacement for my ancient Xbox with XBMC which also plays HD MKVs, but there doesn't seem to be a perfect solution at the moment which doesn't have a bunch of PQ compromises

[popetherope]

Bought the 2+ version & generally very satisfied with it & while it's great to be able to play .iso files, I'm a little disppointed that it can't output 5.1 sound from .iso
Or am I missing something?

[A_T]

How do you connect this to a TV with only an analogue coax and SCART sockets?

[bubblegum57]

Originally Posted by A_T

How do you connect this to a TV with only an analogue coax and SCART sockets?

RGB SCART - 3 x RCA Triple AV Adapter Converter XBOX TV | eBay

[dave_bass5]

Hi Guys.

Can i ask does the 2+ have better support for MKV's over the older 2?

I have a TurnmeOn2 and im finding that a lot of MKVs only play for about 10 mins and then re start themselves. Im wondering if a "real" Cyclone 2+ will be better. Its only for the bedroom so in not interested in the audio outputs.

Cheers.

[djdazzy]

Originally Posted by dave_bass5

Hi Guys.

Can i ask does the 2+ have better support for MKV's over the older 2?

I have a TurnmeOn2 and im finding that a lot of MKVs only play for about 10 mins and then re start themselves. Im wondering if a "real" Cyclone 2+ will be better. Its only for the bedroom so in not interested in the audio outputs.

Cheers.

MKVs play fine on a 2+. The only issue is BD bitrate 1080p files drop frames when output in 1080p

[dave_bass5]

Originally Posted by djdazzy

MKVs play fine on a 2+. The only issue is BD bitrate 1080p files drop frames when output in 1080p

Thanks. I think ill give it a go.

Ive tried a few more MKVs on my TurnmeOn2 and it seems to stop play at around 30mins and restart. I then have to use Goto to skip past the 30min point and all files seem to play fine after that.
Im hoping the Cyclone 2+ wont have this issue but i wont be convinced until i try one.

[djdazzy]

Originally Posted by dave_bass5

Thanks. I think ill give it a go.

Ive tried a few more MKVs on my TurnmeOn2 and it seems to stop play at around 30mins and restart. I then have to use Goto to skip past the 30min point and all files seem to play fine after that.
Im hoping the Cyclone 2+ wont have this issue but i wont be convinced until i try one.

No issues like this on mkv files, only avi which stop at the 2gb point. Changing the container to mkv fixes this.

[dave_bass5]

Thats good to know. Ill get one ordered today.

[dave_bass5]

My 2+ arrived yesterday and im much happier with this. All the fiels that would stop at 30mins seem to play fine on the new player.

The only issue I have is i cant get it to play my .IMG files. It wont even see them. I changed the file extension to .ISO but have it go in to the VIDEO_TS folder and manually select the relevant .VOB files.
Am i missing something or does this sound about right?

Cheers.

[A_T]

Originally Posted by dave_bass5

My 2+ arrived yesterday and im much happier with this. All the fiels that would stop at 30mins seem to play fine on the new player.

The only issue I have is i cant get it to play my .IMG files. It wont even see them. I changed the file extension to .ISO but have it go in to the VIDEO_TS folder and manually select the relevant .VOB files.
Am i missing something or does this sound about right?

Cheers.

I've just got one. Yes it seems it treats a DVD iso as a folder - you can't play it like a disc you have to select the VOBs.

[hippo99]

Originally Posted by A_T

I've just got one. Yes it seems it treats a DVD iso as a folder - you can't play it like a disc you have to select the VOBs.

I don't know what you're doing wrong as my Micro 2+ plays DVD iso's as a disc. You get a little message pop up when you select an iso, letting you choose to either open as disc or explore the files (which then lets you go to the individual VOBs)

[dave_bass5]

Thanks. I was pretty sure it can play them so ill have another try at some point.
I normall just join all the vobs together and at them as one large mpg as I don't normay bother with the extras.

One other issue, and it could well be the specific TV I tried this on, but using the AV out (the HDMI on this TV dosent work) I can't get the correct AR from any of m files.
I've tired all the different settings but it's just not quite right.
Not a big deal as it's only my youngest's tv but one that's bugging me.

All in all though I very impressed with this little box. I can see my popcorn hour getting little use now.

[hippo99]

To get the correct AR, you need to use the 'ZOOM' button (don't know why).

Is it mainly DVD's or Blu-rays that are the wrong AR?

If it's Blu-ray's, just set it to 'Video-Full Screen' or 'Default'.

If it's DVD's, the reason the AR isn't quite right is cos video on DVD's ISN'T stored in it's native AR (there are flags on the DVD which tells the DVD player what AR to display. If you play the video back on wmp on your PC (which doesn't correct AR automatically), you'll see that the native DVD AR is wrong.
For DVD, you'll need to use a combination of manually forcing 4:3/16:9 settings on your TV & 'Zoom' button to get the AR right

[dave_bass5]

Thanks for that reply.

Its everything i play via the AV out. Ive only tried the one DVD and i know how fiddly these can be so im not bothered about that at the moment.

The MKV's and Divx files are also doing this but ive followed you advice and think i have it sussed out.

I need to set the Cyclone to 4:3 and the TV to 16:9. This at least all looks correct on screen. No black bars and not over weight people.
Im going to ignore the DVD's as the TV's have a DVD player built in so i can use the original discs.

Thanks again for the help.

All these file play fine using HDMI on the other TV's we have.

[A_T]

Originally Posted by hippo99

I don't know what you're doing wrong as my Micro 2+ plays DVD iso's as a disc. You get a little message pop up when you select an iso, letting you choose to either open as disc or explore the files (which then lets you go to the individual VOBs)

Ah yes I do get an option to play the ISO as a file which then takes me to a menu that cannot be navigated. I may be doing something else wrong.

[dave_bass5]

Actuay that's exactly what happened to me. That's why I ended up going in and playing the vob files directly.

It was late so I didn't have time to mess around but I will try it again and see if I can work it out.
I guess it could have been a bad rip.

[dave_parki_uk]

Im thinking of getting one of these but unsure if will will read mac formatted drives?

Does anyone know if it will read anything other than NTFS ?

[dave_bass5]

It reads FAT32 but i guess thats no use for most BD or DVD rips.

[dave_parki_uk]

Got one of these and i have formatted my 1TB hdd to exFat and i am struggling to read it. Also had the same issue with another 1TB hdd that was in NTFS format.

It started to read and the progress bar stops and the device restarts. Anyone else had this?

[djdazzy]

Originally Posted by dave_parki_uk

Got one of these and i have formatted my 1TB hdd to exFat and i am struggling to read it. Also had the same issue with another 1TB hdd that was in NTFS format.

It started to read and the progress bar stops and the device restarts. Anyone else had this?

Mine works with FAT, FAT32 and NTFS - the progress bar takes a while with the 2TB drive. Never seen it mentioned it had exFAT compatibility.

[SGWoodford]

Originally Posted by dave_parki_uk

Got one of these and i have formatted my 1TB hdd to exFat and i am struggling to read it. Also had the same issue with another 1TB hdd that was in NTFS format.

It started to read and the progress bar stops and the device restarts. Anyone else had this?

Exactly the same problem here.

I have an older player. The same externally powered hard drive (WD NTFS) is recognised by the old version (cyclone micro 2) but not on the new one (2 plus). Progress bar freezes and unit restarts.

I don't have a solution.

[efex172]

I`m looking for a media player that will output 5.1 surround sound via most common compressed audio formats (AC3 AAC etc) and i thought this would but nope.

Is there a media player/dock that does this or the only route is HTPC....

[hippo99]

Originally Posted by efex172

I`m looking for a media player that will output 5.1 surround sound via most common compressed audio formats (AC3 AAC etc) and i thought this would but nope.

What do you mean nope?
As has been stated many, many, many times already on this thread , it DOES do 5.1 surround for AC3 & DTS through it's coaxial output

[efex172]

Originally Posted by hippo99

What do you mean nope?
As has been stated many, many, many times already on this thread , it DOES do 5.1 surround for AC3 & DTS through it's coaxial output

Well to do an actual test on media players this is the type of link that should be posted to give an actual yes/no to what they can do.

So can anyone download and test from these files....
Various format high-definition downloadable files
(please link to any forum as helpful to what streaming TVs etc can handle)

I`m thinking of just getting a Tablet with a HDMI out, multiple use for the same price