Please can you help recommend a media player

bobc292001

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Hello,

I'm sure this has been asked many times before but I'm losing the plot with all the different options available and I wondered whether you clever ladies & gents would help me out ?

I thought what I wanted would be easy to get, but I can't quite find the right player. :(

Here's what I'm after -

A media player that :

1) I can connect to my wired network.
2) It must have a hard drive on board.
3) Needs to be able to output HD video (via HDMI), display photos and play music (generally MP3's).
4) Needs to have L+R audio outputs as I want the music to play through my NAD amp rather than the TV.
5) Needs to have a good menu system with search facilities so I can search through and find music and movies with ease.
6) Would really like the menu system to have thumbnails / artwork and track details etc. so it's like having a CD collection available to flip through.
7) Needs to be whisper quiet as it will be used in the front room.
8) Needs to be pretty straightforward to use, as the wife and kids will be using it (the straightforward requirement is mainly for the wife... not the kids...if you know what I mean !)


That's it !
It looks like a lot but don't think I'm asking that much.

I was considering the ASUS O!PLAY HD2 as this seems to tick all the boxes...except I have read that there is no search facility and you have to scroll through pages of data to get the track you want.

Can anyone help with some suggestions. :lease:

Thanks,
Bob.
 
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I'm sure this has been asked many times before but I'm losing the plot with all the different options available and I wondered whether you clever ladies & gents would help me out ?
Well the clever bit counts me out, but I'll still try :D
1) I can connect to my wired network.
The majority of media players have a network port, but there are a few that don't
2) It must have a hard drive on board.
Many of the players can take an internal HDD, and many more can connect a USB HDD. But AFAIK only the WDTV Live Hub is actually supplied with a HDD, all the others you just add the HDD yourself (or get your dealer to add it for you).
3) Needs to be able to output HD video (via HDMI), display photos and play music (generally MP3's).
Most of the players should do this
4) Needs to have L+R audio outputs as I want the music to play through my NAD amp rather than the TV.
Not all players have this, but a lot do
5) Needs to have a good menu system with search facilities so I can search through and find music and movies with ease.
I think you will really struggle to find a player that can do this itself. But there are 3rd party apps that can arrange your media by genre to make it easier to find what you want.
6) Would really like the menu system to have thumbnails / artwork and track details etc. so it's like having a CD collection available to flip through.
Popcorn Hour, WDTV Live SMP & Hub, Boxee Box are a few that have this feature built into their firmware.
But others like the Dune media players can do it by running a program on a PC or Mac to create the thumbnails - but these tend to only work for movies & TV series - with the exception of Musicnizer for the Dune players, but this is a paid for app.
7) Needs to be whisper quiet as it will be used in the front room.
Well an internal HDD will make some noise, but most media players will be silent as they have no moving parts.
8) Needs to be pretty straightforward to use, as the wife and kids will be using it (the straightforward requirement is mainly for the wife... not the kids...if you know what I mean !)
Once setup with thumbnails created they should all be fairly easy to use.

If you can let us know your budget then we can give a bit more advice on the best media players - they range from about £30 for the cheap and (not too) chearful to about £370 for a full BluRay player and media player in one so there is a fair range in prices & features.

Mark.
 
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Thanks for the reply.

Budget's not really a major issue but I suppose I wanted to pay no more than £250-£300 (including the hard drive).

I really want to be able to switch the PC off (which is upstairs) and run the media (especially music) from an internal HDD which is why the Asus o!play HD2 looks appealing.

Thanks.
 
Check out the mede8er 500x2 as well, pretty slick unit.
 
Well a 2Tb HDD is going to cost around £100, so that leaves you with about £200 for the media player.
My recommendation would be for a Dune, with the Smart H1 at £179, Smart D1 at £189 and the Smart B1 at £219 which is a BluRay player as well as media player. There is also the soon to be released TV301 at £139 but this only holds a 2.5" (laptop) HDD.
Any of the above should do all you require, although you will need to use a PC program such as Zappiti to get the cover art for movies.

There is also the PCH A-300 for just shy of £200, or the Boxee Box for around £165 but AFAIK it doesn't take an internal HDD.

Mark.
 
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I have an HDI Dune - HD Duo. I love it. Following are the responses

1) I can connect to my wired network.
YES, but no wireless netowrk unless you get an addon.

2) It must have a hard drive on board.
The HDD is not presen, but can have two 2TB hotswapable Sata HDDs and external USB drives. (I think they have improved the supported HDD capcity beyon 3 TB, did not check that as I have no need right now)


3) Needs to be able to output HD video (via HDMI), display photos and play music (generally MP3's).
YES, and its pretty good quality in video. can play MP3 but need a better interface, I did not try the images, but it has some functionality show images

4) Needs to have L+R audio outputs as I want the music to play through my NAD amp rather than the TV.
YES, and many more optins

5) Needs to have a good menu system with search facilities so I can search through and find music and movies with ease.
YES, the dunes menus can be little too technical, but you can have many plugins like, YADIS, ZAppity, Musicanizer etc to add funcationality. I am using YADIS as my movie interface. However, dune is yet to come with a decent interface for music. if you go to MPCC forums it is one of the biggest crys amont the fans. hopefully will have a good thirdparty plug in soon

6) Would really like the menu system to have thumbnails / artwork and track details etc. so it's like having a CD collection available to flip through.
YES, through third party software, and they are free

7) Needs to be whisper quiet as it will be used in the front room.
YES. Its pretty quite. I cant here anything from my Dune HD duo

8) Needs to be pretty straightforward to use, as the wife and kids will be using it (the straightforward requirement is mainly for the wife... not the kids...if you know what I mean !)
IT is , especially if you train your wife to use favourites and third party software like Yadis. (but I am still trying to get my wife to use it. She hardly use it.

Cheers

K.C
 
All The Dune machines from Smart upwards will give you the features. The Duo and Max are the top of the list (max gives hotswap hdd and a bd drive, and the Duo gives 2 hot swap bays). They both have an integral display too.

The Smart range would offer the H1 (hotswap bay) or the D1 (display with internal HDD bay)

They all come with L+R as well as optical and sound across HDMI.

The 3rd party tools are good. We ship My Movies with our HTPCs and Servers and integrates quite well with Dune machines.
 
Check out the mede8er 500x2 as well, pretty slick unit.

You could get in trouble for reccomending a non Dune here mate.:D

FWIW, I have the 500X2 as well but it appears that if it's not Dune round here, it's not going to get reccomended. Pity really but I do understand about Forum favourites.
 
people do recommend none-Dune products. But they do tick a lot of boxes for a lot of people :)

You'll see next010 standing on his boxee soapbox :) and others too, but I agree that Dune gets the most column inches, and for good reason.
 
people do recommend none-Dune products. But they do tick a lot of boxes for a lot of people :)

You'll see next010 standing on his boxee soapbox :) and others too, but I agree that Dune gets the most column inches, and for good reason.

Have you ever tried a Mede8er? I'm not knocking Dune simply because I haven't tried them personally, but as a newbie here, there is a lot of chastising on this forum towards people who don't agree with the forum favourites ie Dune, Oppo, XT32 and XTZ plus others.

BTW Graham, thanks for putting your point accross and not ripping my head off for reccomending something other than a "forum favourite". :)
 
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You could get in trouble for reccomending a non Dune here mate.:D

FWIW, I have the 500X2 as well but it appears that if it's not Dune round here, it's not going to get reccomended. Pity really but I do understand about Forum favourites.

Been thinking the same for a while now!

I had a dune, was faulty but dealt with excellently by graham!

However its not all dune dune dune!

Oh you want a amp, onkyo then with xt32 otherwise your obviously a lemon, blu-ray? Oppo or else....

Sub? You gotta build it yourself......speakers...pmcxtzwallops,


No wonder I lost all interest in this....
 
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Hello,

I'm sure this has been asked many times before but I'm losing the plot with all the different options available and I wondered whether you clever ladies & gents would help me out ?

I thought what I wanted would be easy to get, but I can't quite find the right player. :(

Here's what I'm after -

A media player that :

1) I can connect to my wired network.
2) It must have a hard drive on board.
3) Needs to be able to output HD video (via HDMI), display photos and play music (generally MP3's).
4) Needs to have L+R audio outputs as I want the music to play through my NAD amp rather than the TV.
5) Needs to have a good menu system with search facilities so I can search through and find music and movies with ease.
6) Would really like the menu system to have thumbnails / artwork and track details etc. so it's like having a CD collection available to flip through.
7) Needs to be whisper quiet as it will be used in the front room.
8) Needs to be pretty straightforward to use, as the wife and kids will be using it (the straightforward requirement is mainly for the wife... not the kids...if you know what I mean !)


That's it !
It looks like a lot but don't think I'm asking that much.

I was considering the ASUS O!PLAY HD2 as this seems to tick all the boxes...except I have read that there is no search facility and you have to scroll through pages of data to get the track you want.

Can anyone help with some suggestions. :lease:

Thanks,
Bob.

1st Gen AppleTV ticks all those boxes, plus you can stream music to it from any computer (pc/mac) running iTunes, and control it as a stand alone player using any iPhone/Pad/Pod (Touch) using the Remote app (free).

It does need a computer to set it up and sync to it, but once you've synced music to it, you can use it as a stand alone device, meaning you don't have to have a computer on.

1st Gens were limited to either 40gb or 160gb internal drives, but a 1tb drive is a common upgrade, and if you want higher, the ATV can be hacked with ATVFlash to allow use of the USB port on the back, so you can plug an ext hdd into it and set it as primary storage, meaning the ATV, and iTunes on the computer, see the ATV as having a much larger drive (friend of mine runs his with a 2TB USB drive connected, and iTunes see's it as a 2TB ATV)
 
perhaps rather than it just being the dune fanboys stomping over everybody else, it could be that all the other machines the owners dont like them. If they do they should say so, or not, accordingly.

I have only tried popcorn, Dune and AC Ryan. ACRyan was ok in my tests but a lot of people thing they're buggy. They've replaced the ACRyan firmware with Mede8er software and consider it better.

I cant comment, I've never used them. I can only comment and help on Dune products because thats what I have decided is the one I wish to concentrate on.

I've sold Popcorn and they're OK, I'm just disappointed in Syabas themselves so opted to just do Dune. Dune are proving fun to work with but at least they talk to me unlike Syabas.

there are tons of different machines with tons of different opinions. But you have to consider the ones which get the most mention might actually be that good and not just fanboys alone
 
Been thinking the same for a while now!

I had a dune, was faulty but dealt with excellently by graham!

However its not all dune dune dune!

After a month here mate I've given up asking for or offering advice in public. Can't see me lasting long round here.

Good luck to the OP in his/her pursuit though - and you can do a lot worse than look at the Mede8er 500X2. Now using the Realtek 1185 chip, it streams all the HD sound formats as well as video at 1080/24. Will also play all your music from itunes as well if you so desire or you can convert them all to lossless FLAC and it will play them as well.

I got mine from Amazon and you can get one now with a 2tb HDD for less than £280 including postage. There's new FW coming out soon ti enable you to have the CD covers part of your list. You can already display the covers and info for films by using TVixie - basically does all the hard work for you.
 
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I tend to heavily push the Dune media players as I was an early Dune purchaser who until I did my resurch had never heard of them. At the time it was the first gen WDTV Live or PCH models that were getting all the forum mentions, until I stumbled across a mention of Dune and then started digging deeper in search of the perfect media player (well I'm still looking really :devil: ).
I do however agree that a Dune is not the right purchase for everybody and do point out other devices such as Boxee Box, WDTV Live SMP etc if I feel that is more suited to the person asking. However as I have only ever owned my current Dune Prime 3.0 and before that for a short while a PCH C-200 the majority of my experiences are with the Dune player, so that is what I am best informed about.

Mark.
 
Sorry for ranting!

There is nothing wrong with dunes, just its all i see here now.

At least if you get a dune you know youll be well supported! Time to bow out.....
 
I think, as a final thought, that the first "media" player to give as much love to music as well as video will win the war (and I'll be stocking them :))
 
There is nothing wrong with dunes, just its all i see here now.
There are far more non-Dune threads in the media player section than actual Dune threads. The likes of the WDTV, PCH etc all get plenty of posts as they have many users and there are lots of firmware updates etc for them. The Realtek media players tend to have fewer updates and many of them look and act much the same as each other from what I read.
At least if you get a dune you know youll be well supported! Time to bow out.....
Well Graham and myself, along with several other users, do tend to try to get any questions on the Dune players answered as best we can. Other users of other media players offer the same type of support, so it isn't just Dune on here.

Mark.
 
graham.myers said:
I think, as a final thought, that the first "media" player to give as much love to music as well as video will win the war (and I'll be stocking them :))

Ill bite!

Totally agree!!!!!! Thats why i love my squeezeytouchy! And am not selling it! So dont ask!
 
I think, as a final thought, that the first "media" player to give as much love to music as well as video will win the war (and I'll be stocking them :))
Doesn't NMJ handle music well now?
Other than cover art for music are you looking for on the fly playlist creation etc to consider music to be well supported?

Mark.
 
I tend to heavily push the Dune media players as I was an early Dune purchaser who until I did my resurch had never heard of them. At the time it was the first gen WDTV Live or PCH models that were getting all the forum mentions, until I stumbled across a mention of Dune and then started digging deeper in search of the perfect media player (well I'm still looking really :devil: ).
I do however agree that a Dune is not the right purchase for everybody and do point out other devices such as Boxee Box, WDTV Live SMP etc if I feel that is more suited to the person asking. However as I have only ever owned my current Dune Prime 3.0 and before that for a short while a PCH C-200 the majority of my experiences are with the Dune player, so that is what I am best informed about.

Mark.

ITs same with me. I have never known about Dune Untill I started looking for a good media player unit. I haev to say when I first received it it was a bit of a disapointment. With All the hype I was expecting a little bit more. (and an interface that would challnage HD TV). However since then (last April) they came up with number of firmware upgrades and lots of improvmenets to the functionality. Then I discovered MPCC too, which has strong community that follows dune and its third party software. So Overall its better. But there are some other things that Other devices do better. I only hope Dune could catch them up soon.

Examples:
Web browsing and playing web media (iPlayer, YouTube, Videos from blogs etc,.) BoxyBee is doing a great job here. So if you already have a NAS and want to watch many videos from web. then consider BOXyBee too. Its much cheaper, and has better functionality on this side

Inbuild movie catalogues and scraper features. If you are not ready to install various third party software, patch them, play with them etc, then consider a product such as Boxy or WDTV they have some of these features inbuilt.

More Music than movies. If you love to have all your music, play them more often, party with DJ software. Then there is nothing like trusty old Laptop.

HULU, Netflix. If you live ina country that supports HULU netflix etc, and want to use them often, then consider any other player such as WDTV, Popocorn???, erc


Just storage: If you simply need a place to keep your downloaded not so good quality movies and play them (considering many TVs and BD players now support USB/Networked/DLNA ). Then consider a NAS box or a player such as iomega.

Games and Movies: If you already own a PS3, it might be able to do many things that typical media player is capable. Just explore the possibilities. My friend has a PS3 and he is using that as a media player. He is using a software that would transcode movies to PS3 (which I have no idea what thi means) and he claims he can watch almost any movie on the PS3.

My experiance is very limited to the number of players we have in this market (UAE-Dubai) and there is not many that I come across.
 
After a month here mate I've given up asking for or offering advice in public. Can't see me lasting long round here.

Well I am dune user and pretty new to that too. But I found the AVForums sort of lacking Dune related threads. (Especially compared to MPCC, and understandable)

Infact, when I first start going rounds on finding a good media player, I always founf AVforums have more information about the Popcorn than Dune. I only hope there is more ACryan related posts. I did not consider ACryan simply because there is not much information about it in the forums (and the price)

Cheers

K.C
 
I've owned a Max since around April last year. I had recently sorted my music streaming via a Squeezebox and came on this forum seeking advice on a BD player with ability to stream films too. I'd never heard of Dune and once Mark advised to take a look at the Max I investigated and bought one. It's been rock solid and has played almost everything I've chucked at it.

Sometimes things are as good as they are hyped up to be.
 
You can get the WD TV Live SMP + an external HDD for easily within your budget.

This will tick all of the boxes you listed, except the HDD will be external rather than internal.

How big is your media collection (in terms of GB or TB)?

Maybe this post will help you see what it looks like in operation:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/16086461-post837.html

Steve W
 
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