Anyone had experience of a WDTV and EVA9150?

[NeilF]

I'm torn between these two solutions:-

WDTV (+500gb passport drive)
Pros:-
- Cheap.
- Easy to update. Just plug the passport into a PC and drag onto it.
- Firmware seemingly updated often.
- Small unit.

Cons:-
- Slowish interface?
- No network attachment (without hacking it).


EVA9150
Pros:-
- Network enabled.
- Supposedly nippy to use.
- Might also be fast enough to allow photos (resized appopriately) to be viewed at a good rate. This would be nice!
- Excellent remote controller.

Cons:-
- Update over network can be slow, with the alternative to remove the drive and plug in to a PC via a USB adapter. The latter would really be the realistic way to get large amounts of data onto the unit!
- £140 more than the WDTV.
- Big unit, which will have to fit in my enclosed wooden tv unit with little ventilation (temps??)


Main requirement is to watch video media. Secondary, if possible it to put my photos on it. But I'm willing to cross it off the list.

Anyone had any experience to both units who can maybe shed some light on them for me. I've not touched either so making a choice is very hard. For example, is the internet access on the EVA9150 a gimmick or actually any use?

 

[DP10]

The current WDTV is networkable with a USB Ethernet adapter and custom firmware. Also I think WD are bringing out a new version of the WDTV with an ethernet connection soon.

I have the WDTV and think its excellent it has played everything I have thrown at it with no problems. There are also regular firmware updates which is a big plus.

 

[NeilF]

The current WDTV is networkable with a USB Ethernet adapter and custom firmware. Also I think WD are bringing out a new version of the WDTV with an ethernet connection soon.

I have the WDTV and think its excellent it has played everything I have thrown at it with no problems. There are also regular firmware updates which is a big plus.

In reality though, what does that network access give you, if all your media is on a local USB drive to the unit?

 

[GeoK]

I see that like me you are still searching for a device that can handle photo browsing and display.
I have given up on the WDTV, just too slow. I wonder if any of these devices have enough processing power to do this.
Do you think that any of the new micro PC’s (Acer Aspire Revo, ASRock ION 330 etc.) would be capable? This would enable the use of Windows Media Centre and possibly even being able to view RAW photo files.

 

[NeilF]

I see that like me you are still searching for a device that can handle photo browsing and display.
I have given up on the WDTV, just too slow. I wonder if any of these devices have enough processing power to do this.
Do you think that any of the new micro PC's (Acer Aspire Revo, ASRock ION 330 etc.) would be capable? This would enable the use of Windows Media Centre and possibly even being able to view RAW photo files.

Well, as regards media player and photos, I'm more than happy to resize (mirror) my photos down to X by 720 (ie: the native resolution of my TV), making them all about 200-300K big. This can help the media players alot in their speed. From accounts the EVA9150 should only take about 1-2 seconds to flick between such images which sounds OK! I've got a batch program to handle all of that for me, only converting/mirroring updated/ew new photos etc etc...

As for the micro PCs I believe they might be lacking in raw horsepower to deal with some video formats/codecs?

I have my eyes on either the WDTV or EVA9150 at the moment, but can't decide if the EVA9150 is worth the extra £130ish pounds for the slightly quicker interface. I'm tempted to forget about photos for a year or two, get the WDTV, and then look at the next gen of media players in a year or two to get an all in one solution...

A lot of my investigation recently has been to do with how to get tens of GB onto these devices - let's say you're putting two HD movies on it. With the WDTV you simply move the passport drive around to your PC. With the EVA9150 you either copy for hours over wireless (or wire if you're lucky enough), or do something similar to the WDTV taking the onboard drive out and connecting it to the PC. This is possible, but is not quite as straight forward/easy...

So, I'm on the fence. If someone with an EVA9150 could confirm one thing to me I'd buy it though. In this video clip of someone browsing photos on an EVA9150 (from say 25secs onwards), is there a transition effect (fade) on? Can this be disabled? Would it speed the move from one picture to aother up even more?
YouTube - PhotoViewer

That clip is of the EVA9150 moving through photos a couple of hundred K in size (from a NAS). It appears to be at an OK rate (1.5-2 seconds per move). If turning off a transition effect would improve the speed even more, I'd get one

 

[DP10]

If all your files are on a USB drive then there isnt any point on network access. However there are some add-ons that allow you to access apple movie trailers and some other things. Also you can send files from your PC to your USB drive without disconnecting it from the WDTV.

I dont think the photo viewer is that sluggish on the WDTV. My photos are 2mb+ and they take 4-5 seconds between images in slideshow form. The thumbnails of the photos do take some time to load as they need to be resized however if your file size is 200-300KB then it should be a lot quicker.

The only advantage in terms of video for the Netgear is that it can pass through DTS-HD and Dolby-HD audio formats. I dont have an amp that can decode HD audio formats so the Netgear doesnt offer anything over the WDTV for me.

I would also consider the Popcornhour A-110 which I think is a superior product to the Netgear and is cheaper. If you dont need networking and HD audio then just go for the WDTV im sure they can improve the speed and features of it through firmware updates as it uses the same chip as the popcornhour.

 

[NeilF]

If all your files are on a USB drive then there isnt any point on network access. However there are some add-ons that allow you to access apple movie trailers and some other things. Also you can send files from your PC to your USB drive without disconnecting it from the WDTV.

I dont think the photo viewer is that sluggish on the WDTV. My photos are 2mb+ and they take 4-5 seconds between images in slideshow form. The thumbnails of the photos do take some time to load as they need to be resized however if your file size is 200-300KB then it should be a lot quicker.

The only advantage in terms of video for the Netgear is that it can pass through DTS-HD and Dolby-HD audio formats. I dont have an amp that can decode HD audio formats so the Netgear doesnt offer anything over the WDTV for me.

I would also consider the Popcornhour A-110 which I think is a superior product to the Netgear and is cheaper. If you dont need networking and HD audio then just go for the WDTV im sure they can improve the speed and features of it through firmware updates as it uses the same chip as the popcornhour.

This is another interesting topic... Ignoring file transfer, what use is the network access?

As for the PCH, again I thought the Netgear was generally quicker than it (as well as the WDTV).

As for photos, my main issue with speed is when you simply want to flick through pictures. From what I understand the Netgear is quicker at moving from picture to picture... I believe it is also quicker than the PCH...

See the attached video of a EVA9150 navigating through photos from a NAS (100-300K in size).

YouTube - PhotoViewer
(see from about 25 seconds onwards)

 

[lmaolmao]

NeilF, i've noticed photos is a big feature for you, have you considered an ION platform running XBMC?

 

[NeilF]

NeilF, i've noticed photos is a big feature for you, have you considered an ION platform running XBMC?

Yes, I've looked into it but:-
1) Quite expensive.
2) Quite big and probably noisier than a media player.
3) Some debate about how well they actually can processing media. ie: How smooth they actually are.
4) As rejards jpegs - Are their processors any more powerful than a sigma?

 

[Lt. Dang]

What about a PS3?
It seems quite quick at displaying photos and thumbnails, has a neat photo album presentation mode, the internal HDD is expandable to (currently) 500Gb and you can plug in an external FAT32 drive of any size you like via USB.

It also has wired and wireless network capability.

I think it also has some new specialized (free) Photo processing software for download - but not tried it yet.

Regards,

Lt. Dang

 

[NeilF]

What about a PS3?
It seems quite quick at displaying photos and thumbnails, has a neat photo album presentation mode, the internal HDD is expandable to (currently) 500Gb and you can plug in an external FAT32 drive of any size you like via USB.

It also has wired and wireless network capability.

I think it also has some new specialized (free) Photo processing software for download - but not tried it yet.

Regards,

Lt. Dang

FAT32 = 4gb file limit... Don't believe the codec support is as good as general media players... Expensive...

One user with an EVA9150 and PS3 said the EVA9150 was better with photos (when they were resized to native TV resolution)

 

[Lt. Dang]

FAT32 = 4gb file limit... Don't believe the codec support is as good as general media players... Expensive...

One user with an EVA9150 and PS3 said the EVA9150 was better with photos (when they were resized to native TV resolution)

I actually use the WDTV for video playback but I was thinking of the PS3 for your photo requirement.

If you stream video from a PC the 4Gb limit with FAT32 would not apply.

PS3 video codec support is improving with each update - but not as good as the WDTV yet.

I mainly use my PS3 for gaming and web browsing on an LCD TV but the photo display features are fast, extensive and impressive.

Just for info, a link to an overview of the new PS3 photo app.
http://playstationlifestyle.net/2009/01/21/ps3-photo-gallery-review/

Regards,

Lt. Dang