Streaming audio/video to TV set
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I've set up a file server where I archived information like family photos, MP3 songs and movies. My understanding was that with decent wireless network (802.11g) I should be able to find an applicance that would read the contents of the file server and play it in a living room audio equipment and TV. I've even found a model I thought would be able to do the job: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player (LinkSys also has one but not so powerful). It all sounded good: no need to have turn a PC on to play an album or a movie in a living room. However, apparently I overestimated capability of a media extenders: they don't seem to be independent players that would only require to connect to a proper file server. They seem to require information to be served/streamed from a computer with special software installed. This kills the idea of not having a separate machine always on. I wonder why or is it just premature stage of media players? AFAIK playing a DVD requires 7.5 Mbps bandwidth. Modern WiFi provides more. So there's no problem to fetch required amount of data from an external source. So why dedicated streaming software on another PC? Can't media player just load data and apply proper codecs or decoders? Majority of living room DVD players in addition to DVD and CD successfully decode MP3, JPEG, and some of them even DivX. Why can't media players do the same, but instead require installing media server software on a PC that will be used as content server? I guess I don't fully understand the topic. Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway Hex is for sissies. Real men use binary. And the most hardcore types use only zeros - uppercase zeros and lowercase zeros. Tomasz Sowinski
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I've set up a file server where I archived information like family photos, MP3 songs and movies. My understanding was that with decent wireless network (802.11g) I should be able to find an applicance that would read the contents of the file server and play it in a living room audio equipment and TV. I've even found a model I thought would be able to do the job: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player (LinkSys also has one but not so powerful). It all sounded good: no need to have turn a PC on to play an album or a movie in a living room. However, apparently I overestimated capability of a media extenders: they don't seem to be independent players that would only require to connect to a proper file server. They seem to require information to be served/streamed from a computer with special software installed. This kills the idea of not having a separate machine always on. I wonder why or is it just premature stage of media players? AFAIK playing a DVD requires 7.5 Mbps bandwidth. Modern WiFi provides more. So there's no problem to fetch required amount of data from an external source. So why dedicated streaming software on another PC? Can't media player just load data and apply proper codecs or decoders? Majority of living room DVD players in addition to DVD and CD successfully decode MP3, JPEG, and some of them even DivX. Why can't media players do the same, but instead require installing media server software on a PC that will be used as content server? I guess I don't fully understand the topic. Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway Hex is for sissies. Real men use binary. And the most hardcore types use only zeros - uppercase zeros and lowercase zeros. Tomasz Sowinski
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I've set up a file server where I archived information like family photos, MP3 songs and movies. My understanding was that with decent wireless network (802.11g) I should be able to find an applicance that would read the contents of the file server and play it in a living room audio equipment and TV. I've even found a model I thought would be able to do the job: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player (LinkSys also has one but not so powerful). It all sounded good: no need to have turn a PC on to play an album or a movie in a living room. However, apparently I overestimated capability of a media extenders: they don't seem to be independent players that would only require to connect to a proper file server. They seem to require information to be served/streamed from a computer with special software installed. This kills the idea of not having a separate machine always on. I wonder why or is it just premature stage of media players? AFAIK playing a DVD requires 7.5 Mbps bandwidth. Modern WiFi provides more. So there's no problem to fetch required amount of data from an external source. So why dedicated streaming software on another PC? Can't media player just load data and apply proper codecs or decoders? Majority of living room DVD players in addition to DVD and CD successfully decode MP3, JPEG, and some of them even DivX. Why can't media players do the same, but instead require installing media server software on a PC that will be used as content server? I guess I don't fully understand the topic. Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway Hex is for sissies. Real men use binary. And the most hardcore types use only zeros - uppercase zeros and lowercase zeros. Tomasz Sowinski
I did some research on similar devices, here are the top 3 that I liked and I have listed others as well. Some aren't available in the US yet, but should be shortly. TViX FIA On3 MediaGate MG-35/MG-350HD Here's a few more (some links are reviews): Rapsody RSH-100 iZak Modix HD-3510 (Tom's Hardware review) Modix HD-3510 (Engadget review) Lacie Silverscreen Hope this helps. Later, CMT
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I've set up a file server where I archived information like family photos, MP3 songs and movies. My understanding was that with decent wireless network (802.11g) I should be able to find an applicance that would read the contents of the file server and play it in a living room audio equipment and TV. I've even found a model I thought would be able to do the job: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player (LinkSys also has one but not so powerful). It all sounded good: no need to have turn a PC on to play an album or a movie in a living room. However, apparently I overestimated capability of a media extenders: they don't seem to be independent players that would only require to connect to a proper file server. They seem to require information to be served/streamed from a computer with special software installed. This kills the idea of not having a separate machine always on. I wonder why or is it just premature stage of media players? AFAIK playing a DVD requires 7.5 Mbps bandwidth. Modern WiFi provides more. So there's no problem to fetch required amount of data from an external source. So why dedicated streaming software on another PC? Can't media player just load data and apply proper codecs or decoders? Majority of living room DVD players in addition to DVD and CD successfully decode MP3, JPEG, and some of them even DivX. Why can't media players do the same, but instead require installing media server software on a PC that will be used as content server? I guess I don't fully understand the topic. Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway Hex is for sissies. Real men use binary. And the most hardcore types use only zeros - uppercase zeros and lowercase zeros. Tomasz Sowinski
Early days ~ You are only looking at playing pre recorded content, what about live content from a dtv tuner card etc http://www.upnp.org/standardizeddcps/mediaserver.asp[^] http://www.neuston.com/en/home.asp[^] is another good media player Most of these are based on chipsets from http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products/[^]
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I did some research on similar devices, here are the top 3 that I liked and I have listed others as well. Some aren't available in the US yet, but should be shortly. TViX FIA On3 MediaGate MG-35/MG-350HD Here's a few more (some links are reviews): Rapsody RSH-100 iZak Modix HD-3510 (Tom's Hardware review) Modix HD-3510 (Engadget review) Lacie Silverscreen Hope this helps. Later, CMT
Thanks, I followed your links and found a couple of other devices: MVolt[^] Cooldrives[^] But unlike for example MediaGate they don't have WiFi. It looks I will have to wait for *my* device to come :-) Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway Hex is for sissies. Real men use binary. And the most hardcore types use only zeros - uppercase zeros and lowercase zeros. Tomasz Sowinski
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Early days ~ You are only looking at playing pre recorded content, what about live content from a dtv tuner card etc http://www.upnp.org/standardizeddcps/mediaserver.asp[^] http://www.neuston.com/en/home.asp[^] is another good media player Most of these are based on chipsets from http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products/[^]
Thanks. It looks like event for pre-recorded content these devices are in its early days. Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway Hex is for sissies. Real men use binary. And the most hardcore types use only zeros - uppercase zeros and lowercase zeros. Tomasz Sowinski