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AkumaX Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Total posts: 507 Gender: Unknown |
 Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:09 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| InTr4nceWeTrust wrote: | | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTPC |
whoa, whoa, whoa :- that's a whole new can of worms 
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itsukiDJoined: 30 May 2007 Total posts: 83 Location: California Age: 31 Gender: Male |
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groinkLocation: Hawaii Age: 41 Gender: Male |
| Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 8:42 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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I received the box today... In summary, IT IS AWESOME!!!!!
I'll write a full-detailed review of the device within the next few days, and will post it on my web site - complete with photos and sample screen shots. During the first four hours or so of playing around with the player:
- Bought the player with no HD. Installed a 250GB HD. Formatted the drive as FAT32. More on that further down.
- Box includes an internal fan. Makes no noise whatsoever. The case is made of sturdy plastic material. Doesn't get hot to the touch, as 250GB HDs tend to heat up A LOT.
- Test the following:
DivX play - works!
XviD play - works!
MPEG-4 play - works!
MPEG-2 play - works!
Test AVI, VOB, MP4 and MPG packages - all work!
- Subtitles - works, and so far tested SSA and SRT. No options for adjusting thickness of the font or color. The font may be too thin for some people. Also, the font background is darkened so that the subtitles come out clearer. The good news is that overscanning is NOT a problem.
- Originally, I had the HD formatted at NTFS (some of my files are over 4GB in size). When playing MPEG-2 files, it skipped every few seconds. After Googling around a bit, I found out that the skipping is due to the way NTFS is accessed. Re-formatted to FAT32, and it played the MPEG-2 files smoothly.
- HD speed is excellent for a USB drive. However, I discovered that the player conflicts with my Western Digital "My Book" USB drive. Tried the combination on two different PCs. So in order for me to copy files from the WD to the video player, I have to first copy the files to my PC's HD, and then copy to the player.
- Remote works well. The play/pause button is pretty weird, as when using the interface, it is unclear when you use the enter key vs using the play/pause key. Fast-forward and re-wind is smooth, and reaches speeds up to 16x.
- Found out that the player does support S-Video! The player also supports VGA displays. I'm only able to test with a 4:3 VGA display.
- The USB interface is non-standard, as it uses the mini USB connector - identical to most cell phone connectors. The cord that comes with the player is only two feet, so I ended up having to use an extension cable for it to reach my PC.
- You cannot have the player connected to your PC and use it as a video player at the same time.
- The power transformer works in both 50 and 60 cycles. The power cable that came with the kit is made for the Chinese, but the transformer uses the universal PC power connector, so I was able to use an ordinary U.S. PC power cable.
- The firmware is upgradeable. Where do you download firmware - I have no idea. There's also no indication in the player as to what version of firmware it is using.
- Although the kit is made in China, everything is in English. The manual is obviously translated English, but still it is easy to comprehend most of the information. Actually, I didn' t even read the instructions until about two hours after first using the player.
--- groink
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itsukiDJoined: 30 May 2007 Total posts: 83 Location: California Age: 31 Gender: Male |
| Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 8:53 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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hey groink...
any chance you'll post screenshots of video with srt/ssa? now if they make one that supports 16:9 wide plus hdmi i will consider making a purchase.
thanks for your review
D
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Dark2003Joined: 02 Aug 2007 Total posts: 10 Location: Los Angeles Age: 20 Gender: Male |
| Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 8:57 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| yeah i just got a laptop with an A\V port on the side
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SayumiJoined: 27 Apr 2006 Total posts: 169 Location: Belgium Age: 20 Gender: Female |
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mt877Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Total posts: 329 |
| Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 2:58 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| groink wrote: | | AkumaX wrote: | hey, you know there are divx dvd players with usb input  (dvp5960/dvp5982) |
The one reason that turned me off from the DVP series (or any DVD player with USB) is that my USB drives (I regularly purchase the WD MyBook drives - currently have six of these) are all either NTFS or FAT32. The DVD players I read about support only FAT, which is what thumb drives use. That's why my impression was that the DVD/USB supported only flash devices like thumb drives, sdram cards, etc. Whereas the two non-DVD devices I mentioned can handle both FAT32 and NTFS. There are also limitations to FAT, such as files larger than 2GB; many of my files are larger than 2GB (I save all my caps to their original MPEG-2 720x480 format.) Even though the disc player portion supports UDF, it still doesn't help me regarding the FAT limitation on non-optical media.
--- groink |
groink,
You should check out the Zensonic Z500 network dvd player. It's not in the spec, but the Z500 supports USB drives which are NTFS formatted.
I have a network dvd player I-O Data AVEL Linkplayer2, it is very similar to the Zensonic Z500, but not as feature rich. I can run server software on my Mac or PC to stream video and subtitles to the Linkplayer, also I just purchased a Buffalo Linkstation Live 500GB Gigabit NAS which has a build in server for streaming multimedia files. Ok, all this hardware is not a cheap solution, but it's very nice. Instead of getting the I-O Data, I should have waited and got the Zensonic.
http://www.z500series.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's the specs:
Specifications
1. Audio Formats Supported
* MPEG 1 Layers I,II and III
* WAV
* CD Audio (With FreeDB Support)
* OGG Vorbis
* FLAC
* WMA
* AAC
2. Video Formats Supported
* MPEG-1, MPEG-2 MP@HL, MPEG-4
* ASP@L5 (720p), WMV9 MP@ML (720p)
* XviD
* Nero Digital™
* QuickTime with MPEG4 encoding. .MP4 extension
* DVD ISO/IFO ***
3. Picture Formats Supported
* JPG/JPEG2000
* BMP
* GIF
* PNG
4. Playlist Supported
* M3U
* PLS
* ASX
5. Network Support
* Ethernet 10/100 Mbps
* Wireless 802.11b/g
* SMB support -- access Windows shares directly
6. USB 2 device Support
(if the device appears as a mass storage device)
* USB Thumb Drives
* USB HDD Drives
7. Internet Radio Support
* Integrated Internet Radio Player with preinstalled library of stations
* Stations streaming MP3 or ASX are supported
8. Media Streaming Software
* TwonkyVision 2.9 (Full Version)**, Windows Media Connect
* TwonkyVision supports Windows, MacOS X & Linux
* Share Pictures, Audio and Video Files
* UPnP enabled
9. DVD Player
* DVD-Video, SVCD, VCD 1.x and 2.0
* DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW
* CD/-R/-RW
10. Extras
* Subtitle support - SRT, SMI, SSA formats
* Online Weather Panel
* HDCP support
* Digital Rights Management: Windows Media DRM 10 *
* EL backlit remote
* Multi-purpose joystick for quick and easy navigation
* ID3 Tag and display on VFD panel on player
* Incremental Pan and Zoom (fine grained control of zoom in .1 increments)
* Firmware updates from OSD. Check for new updates.
* WEP encryption support on Wireless 802.11g
11. I/O
* SCART output
* HDMI output
* S-Video output
* Composite Video output
* Component output
12. Audio
* Stereo output
* Coaxial output
* Optical output
* Analog 5.1 output
13. Connectors
* 10/100 Ethernet
* USB 2.0
* Wireless 802.11g
14. TV Types
* NTSC (480i / 480p)
* PAL (576i / 576p)
* HDTV (720p50 / 720p60 / 1080i50 / 1080i60)
~~~~~~~~~~~
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AkumaXJoined: 19 Apr 2006 Total posts: 507 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 3:14 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| heh heh, nice update groink. im still trying to figure out what to do when i replace my dvp5982...
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sabriyahmJoined: 02 Sep 2006 Total posts: 236 Location: Georgia Age: 30 Gender: Female |
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SayumiJoined: 27 Apr 2006 Total posts: 169 Location: Belgium Age: 20 Gender: Female |
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jainahJoined: 16 May 2005 Total posts: 40 Location: France Age: 26 Gender: Female |
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itsukiDJoined: 30 May 2007 Total posts: 83 Location: California Age: 31 Gender: Male |
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sabriyahmJoined: 02 Sep 2006 Total posts: 236 Location: Georgia Age: 30 Gender: Female |
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AkumaXJoined: 19 Apr 2006 Total posts: 507 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:26 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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| sabriyahm wrote: | | itsukiD wrote: | | sabriyahm wrote: | | I have the phillips Divx dvd player with USB port. I also have a 500GB external harddrive. This is how I watch all my dramas. AVI files and .srt work just fine and I even learned if you press menu and then menu again for some reason the subs get bigger so I have no complaints. However lately with the rise of the x264 codex and MPEG4 i have been looking aroung for a new DVD player that will play them. Hope someone posts in here if something like that comes on the market. Grionks item seems nice but far to much money for me. |
i checked videohelp.com and it lists 6 standalone players that can play the 264 codec, 3 are yet to be available, one from KISS, Samsung, and the playstation 3 (the latter of the two are blu-ray players). the three that are on the market range from $400 and up, but the ps3 might be cheaper in the future with sonystyle's $250 credit for purchasing their ps3.
for me i'm still tryin to put together a mock up for a homemade standalone multi-format "D-A" player, with the minimum hardware requirements for cost effectiveness  (considering i've spent about $500 on standalone divx dvd players and never completely satisified with their performances)
any suggestions on the software end would be greatly appreciated.
D |
Does the PS3 have a USB port to plug in a harddrive? Cause if it does thats what I'll buy since I have been meaning to pick one up forever. |
ps3 has 4 usb ports. hard drive has to be formatted in fat/fat32 for it to work
but it works great 
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RasckitaJoined: 25 Feb 2007 Total posts: 386 Age: 21 Gender: Female |
| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:35 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0 |
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I'm such a nOob in this subject! 
| groink wrote: | | The DVD player doesn't set what is or isn't HDTV. The media itself does. If you have a VIDEO_TS formatted DVD video in HDTV format, the DVD player will play the video in that format. |
So does this mean that a dvd that has HDTV written (like my LeeHom Concert DVD, for example) in any dvd player and any TV, the HDTV resolution will show up? Is HDTV resolution better than other resolution?
| itsukiD wrote: | the cheapest retail divx player that i've seen is the Magnavox MWD7006 at walmart for 37.73... plays avi files only and has srt support (but the subs are small, but i have a work around for that) composite, component, and s-video outputs. using a divx dvd player is great cuz u dont have to reencode anything, jus backup it up on a dvdr and play, unless u need to do something with the subs (see below)
i have this machine set up to a 50" toshiba rear projection screen with component cables in my L.A. place and plays fine (like a dvd, if the episode is widescreen, it plays with the borders automatically) . I'll try to bring it down for an quality/performance check using a similar tv set (magnavox 20in with s-video) and post screenshots of my findings.
*hint*
worried about the small hard to read subs that the machine provides, here's my work around:
use divxmuxwizz (find it on divx.com, must have current divx codec installed) to integrate the subs on to the avi file that will have a bigger font like this sample: |
Thanks a bunch!
Does this Dvd player, plays Xvid too? And does it play DVD-R (recorded in data and not video format) I think i'll try a dvd player similiar to this. Any hint on how can I discover if the DVD players support srt? Does it has written in the box? 'Cause I tried asking people that work on stores that sells dvd players but they're not very well informed!  Ahhh and one question...does any dvd player that support Divx, play DVD-R recorded in data format and not only CD-R in data format?
| AkumaX wrote: |
| Jez wrote: | | Like u said earlier, u can connect ur ipod video to the t.v. and watch it. I do that a lot and it works! Hope this helps... |
yeah but don't you have to convert to ipod video first? |
I thought doing this procedure would be easy and simple. And in fact, it is easy, but a friend of mine has iPOD video and he told me it can take hours to convert the videos. :/
| AkumaX wrote: | | hey, you know there are divx dvd players with usb input (dvp5960/dvp5982) |
| sabriyahm wrote: | | I have the phillips Divx dvd player with USB port. I also have a 500GB external harddrive. This is how I watch all my dramas. |
MMmmmm... does these divx dvd players with usb input play videos inside a pendrive for example? or can it conect to the pc even if the pc doesn't has separated video board? 
| nophankh wrote: | | Great thread. I was looking for something like this. I have an ipod video, so can someone tell me how I can play videos without converting to mp4 format...that takes forever. |
I think there isn't a way to play videos on ipod video without having to convert to mp4. :/_________________   |
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Thanx, Zah-rah 
