Best Media Streamer

[chris1317]

I have a Zensonic z500 and it is a cracking player. Plays just about anything you can throw at it. Works over SMB so no need for additional sw on your PC but it does support that too if you like. Plays ISO's straight from the PC also so no need to rip to vob files. The only limitation that I have found is h264 content, this however is a limitation of the Sigma chipset.

I nearly forgot to say , excelent support forum and regular fw upgrades. Ziova staff take forum coments on board and put out sw updates when required.

Zensonic recently re-branded to Ziova and released 2 new players. One with a DVD drive and one without.

http://www.ziova.com/products.php

I dont work for the company (honest) just love my media player

I agree with the above coment about HD and wireless. Streaming over wireless is no use. You never get anywhere neat the 54Mb/s that is quoted.

Hope this helps

Chris

[rhubarbe]

Well, I had two of them and I thought they sucked bigtime. The board is censored, any posts that are negative toward the product Ziova just delete.

Of course, the firmwares may have improved over time but having waited over a year for the thing I was very disappointed with its abilities.

Like you say, it is an old chipset now - EM8620L. Even the newer Ziova player is on the same chipset.

[Neville Street]

ZIOVA Clearstream™ CS505 looks interesting, why did you not like it rhubarbe? I am also between this and the Linksys Kiss 1600, but happy to be helped if I am heading the wrong way!! NS

[rhubarbe]

I didn't like the Z500 because it wouldn't play anything when I got my first one. It was on 1.2 firmware at the time. I sold it and had another look around the market, tried a few others, decided they were no good either and bought another Z500 which ran up to 1.6 firmware. It still wouldn't play .iso files, which is what I wanted, so I sold it.

That Clearstream thing is just a rebadged Z500 and it uses the EM8620L chipset which is still plagued by the bugs in the Sigma SDK low level code.

I believe that the developers at Dvico have now found the SDK errors and their offerings with the EM8623L chipset are more stable, play more file types but are a tad more expensive.

The Z500 and the Clearstream thingy can be had from www.digitalconnection.com for just $199. That's less than £100. Ask for the USPS shipping option if you decide to buy one and you'll pay less VAT and handling when it arrives.

[scooby_doo]

Originally Posted by Autopilot

I would take care when you see "wireless" and "HD" in the same product description. Current wireless network speeds can cope with the bandwidth requirements of large true HD content.

Erm, I think you missed the 't off the end

As has been mentioned Homeplug devices work just fine, in the majority of cases. Even better if you can run a wired network.

Some media players allow you to plug your "server" straight into the back of the unit so you can avoid using a network altogether.

[Neville Street]

I am looking for much less sophisticated things (I think). I started out being frustrated at all the photo's living on the PC and wanted to be able to see them on the (newish) LCD HDTV. I have 4 Netgear MP101's for music in kitchen and bedrooms, so looked at a Netgear thing that did multi media. Didn't do anything about it then saw the Kiss 1600 promoted somewhere and started to search again. The Z500/CS505 looks like the same kind of thing.

By now as well as photo's and music into the living room I was thinking about upscaling DVD player, these two devices appear to combine it all. I considered PS3 but we do virtually no gaming and so price premium is too much. By the time the kids want gaming kit we will be on PS4 or whatever the next XBox or Nintendo device I am sure.

With all these devices streaming content (the first MP101 is a couple of years old, but the other three are off e-bay in the last 2 months) there is now a ritual for first person up to switch on the PC, so a basic NAS is also on the shopping list. If I go NAS it would seem to make sense to get something with some headroom and with RAID1 to give reassurance (currently backing up on USB 250Gb hard drive).

Rambling on, but any advice from better informed friends is welcome

NS

[scooby_doo]

Originally Posted by Neville Street

I am looking for much less sophisticated things (I think). I started out being frustrated at all the photo's living on the PC and wanted to be able to see them on the (newish) LCD HDTV. I have 4 Netgear MP101's for music in kitchen and bedrooms, so looked at a Netgear thing that did multi media. Didn't do anything about it then saw the Kiss 1600 promoted somewhere and started to search again. The Z500/CS505 looks like the same kind of thing.

By now as well as photo's and music into the living room I was thinking about upscaling DVD player, these two devices appear to combine it all. I considered PS3 but we do virtually no gaming and so price premium is too much. By the time the kids want gaming kit we will be on PS4 or whatever the next XBox or Nintendo device I am sure.

With all these devices streaming content (the first MP101 is a couple of years old, but the other three are off e-bay in the last 2 months) there is now a ritual for first person up to switch on the PC, so a basic NAS is also on the shopping list. If I go NAS it would seem to make sense to get something with some headroom and with RAID1 to give reassurance (currently backing up on USB 250Gb hard drive).

Rambling on, but any advice from better informed friends is welcome

NS

In my opinion the QNAP TS-109/TS-209 are your best bet if you want something pre-built. They do SO many extra things you may find useful too.

If you go with the TS-109 then you can use an external USB/eSATA drive for "RAID1". Personally I'd plump for regular but manual incremental backups of your main NAS rather than utilising RAID. The TS-209 is the same as the 109 but is designed to house two drives.

With regards "headroom" that depends on what you may want to use it for in the future. A NAS is basically a very low spec computer so by definition will not have much headroom. As I say, think about your requirements before you decide for or against one.

If you want more headroom then you could consider something like the mac mini although you'll need to combine that with an external USB drive to get decent storage capacity.

Hope this helps

[rhubarbe]

I agree about not bothering with RAID. Just make a spare backup on another HDD. I built a RAID5 server way back when I thought I knew what I was doing; it had 5 x 300GB Maxtor Maxline II HDDs in it and it popped drives at the rate of one a week. It must put a lot more stress on the drive than using it conventionally.

After that financial shock I went back to a Synology DS101g with a single Samsung T166 500GB drive in it and have never had any problems. For info the Synology DS101g is similar in function and performance to the QNAP mentioned above.

To the chap who was asking about the KiSS 1600: don't. Go here and read all about media streamers and the disaster that is the KiSS range in general.

http://www.mpcclub.com/

If 'twere two years ago I could have recommended the Asus WL-HDD2.5 which was a wireless NAS that takes notebook HDDs. You can sometimes find them on eBay; these days with 160GB 2.5" HDDs going quite cheaply, this would give some HDD headroom if not processing power.

[Peter Galbavy]

I have a PMS HD MB200 (HDMI with no HDD) with an Infrant NV+ in another room for storage. It's fine for 90% of the content I have and can play DVD images as either ISOs or IFO/VOB directory structures. It can't play H264/MKV/OGG files, but the rest are fine.

[Kieron]

Nobody considered a 2ghz Mac Mini running Front Row with the Perion plug in?

[owain_thomas]

Originally Posted by Kieron

Nobody considered a 2ghz Mac Mini running Front Row with the Perion plug in?

Hi Kieron,

how far along with this solution are you? I've been having a look into it and may well be persuaded this is the way forward. from messing around on my macbook there seem to be a few issues that need ironing out - have you had any luck sorting these things:

- network playback seems pretty hit and miss, having to create an alias to a directory and then go down several levels looks kind of messy, is there a better way?

- playing back different formats over the network - not sure if I was doing things right but divx/xvid stuff seemed a bit tempremental.

- is there a way to get nice cover art and info on files on a network share? I know this is missing on set top boxes but seeing what frontrow can do really makes me wish it would do it.

how far off perfect is your setup with it, would you say?

[rhubarbe]

Originally Posted by Kieron

the Perion plug in?

Those are hobbits, aren't they?

[Ceejayav]

OK, my turn... about 2.5 years ago I made the leap to put all my CDs on a server and play them through a streamer. I picked the Squeezebox and haven't looked back - I now have a Transporter and two squeezeboxes, and a music library than has grown massively and which gets a lot of use.

Now that HDD sizes have grown up a bit, I'm thinking that its time to do the same for my DVDs - I have a few hundred, many of them home made from off-air Freeview recordings so I don't even need to worry about removing the restrictions.

So, like OP, I'm looking for the right product. The main use is to act as a DVD jukebox, connecting to a server which I haven't built yet but will probably be running Linux (I'll put Slimserver and my music files on it as well). It has to be able to play backed-up DVDs, as well as straight MPEGs.

I don't have any HighDef content yet but it won't be long before I do (I do have a suitable TV) so anything I buy has got to be capable of picking up and delivering HD as well as standard def.

Wireless would be good, too - yes I know this may contradict the last requirement, but I reckon that I will run it wirelessly for the time being on standard content and maybe move to homeplugs later when I have enough HighDef content to make it worthwhile.

I really don't want one with an HDD in it - so one that's really small and simple would be ideal.

Recommendations? How about the TViX5100SH ? The KISS1600 looks like a nice idea as I could put it in the same slot as my aging DVD player, but I've seen bad comments on that. Netgear EVA8000 (but this requires Windows?)?

Since this project is going to require spending £1000+ (by the time I've built a decent server with a couple of TB of disc!) price is not the limiting factor.

Comments and suggestions very welcome...

[markwww673]

I'd vote for a Tvix 5100H with the latest firmware H264 & MKV wrapped files play with no problems.

The only issue is that no subtitles are playable in MKV files as yet also DVico are good with there firmware support.

Mark..

[scooby_doo]

Ceejayav,

A few of us are having similar thoughts

Why are you going down the build-your-own server route? Plenty of pre-built NAS devices can do what you seem to be looking at doing? Just curious.

In terms of streamers, that's the Holy Grail currently, isn't it. From the research I've done the TVIX does seem to receive very favourable reviews. Personally I'm put off by its shape . Why they can't house one in a "normal" case so it doesn't look out of place with other devices that you may also have under your TV I do now know

The AppleTV is another great device once you've hacked it, although Apple released a new firmware version that un-did the hacks and it had to be re-hacked. The fear with that one is Apple will continue to keep doing that.

The EVA8000 used to be total pants but it's come on a lot over the past few months. Check out the Netgear Forums specifically the Beta Forum where the decent firmware lives. I'd definitely put that one on your shortlist.

The PopcornHour Networked Media Tank device looks promising so I'd keep an eye on that one too.

There are also the games consoles to consider, if you also want to play games. I've a PS3 and it has come on a LOT since it was first released. They'll soon be making it able to play Divx files.

If you ARE going to be thinking about ripping all your DVDs to disk give thought to HOW you'll be ripping them. Not all devices are good at playing one single format.

Decision decisions