ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
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anyone use an external media player type thing?
Since my xbox has been banned from Live I can't stream movies to my tv.
So looking at External media players that my external hard drive will plug into and play through my HDMi cable.
Anyone had experiences? can recommend a cheap one? and possibly one that will play .mkv files too
 
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jamied
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Registered: 27th Oct 03
Location: Marbella,Spain Drives: C63
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why cant u stream them to tv? u dont have to sign in to stream things
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Cavey
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Registered: 11th Nov 02
Location: Derby
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There's a few people on here with the popcorn hour 120 (I think) They seem to be pretty popular
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jamied
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Registered: 27th Oct 03
Location: Marbella,Spain Drives: C63
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ps3 too, i dont even have any games for mine, just use it solely for streaming hi def movies etc and music etc.
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Rob_Quads
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: southampton
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Have a look at the Asus Revo - its actually a mini computer but has all the hardware to play any 1080p stuff you can throw at it through HDMI. Can be picked up for around £160 if your lucky
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ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
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quote:
Originally posted by jamied
why cant u stream them to tv? u dont have to sign in to stream things
need to be signed in to access the media update that most of the films I have needs.
popcorn hour is a tad expensive if I remember right
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AlunJ
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Registered: 3rd Apr 07
Location: Newport
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tried updating it without live? http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/console/systemupdates.htm
[Edited on 05-11-2009 by AlunJ]
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Reecemac
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Registered: 7th Jun 06
Location: Essex
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Or put your hdd on a friends xbox and try play a film and it will download the media update to your hdd. Im sure theres a way to put it on a usb stick, the same way as you would an xbox update.
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jamied
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Registered: 27th Oct 03
Location: Marbella,Spain Drives: C63
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do u mean the xvid divx codec?
ive only ever updated mine once and even then u can put them on a dvd or usb stick im sure
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ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
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yeah the xvid divx codec it worked fine when i was connected to live. but wont now so how do I get the update to put on a flash drive?
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jamied
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Registered: 27th Oct 03
Location: Marbella,Spain Drives: C63
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looking for u now mate
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-8256004261555497%3Amrbij4iqshk&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=xvid+update&sa=Search
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1086405.html
not looking good unless you transcode everything
[Edited on 05-11-2009 by jamied]
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Bart
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Registered: 19th Aug 02
Location: Midsomer Norton, Bristol Avon
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I have a popcorn hour A110 for sale if interested.
Would sell it for £130 which includes the 500gb (maybe even 750 or 1TB HDD).
Truly amazing bits of kit and plays every video file type you can throw at it 
*edit* they're around £170 without a hard drive brand new. Ive owned mine for about a year from new.
[Edited on 05-11-2009 by Bart]
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noshua
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Registered: 19th Nov 08
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That's a bargain. I got mine for £140 but it was only month old (no hard drive).
Popcorn is much more than a media player. I'll edit this with some links in a sec.
edit: If you're planning on playing MKVs (which I assume will be HD as you've more then likely downloaded them), most of them will be encoded in DTS audio, apart from 720p HDTV shows which will be AC3. This means you'll need one of two things; an audio receiver capable of decoding DTS audio OR a media player capable of decoding/down-sampling DTS audio. The latter is the cheaper option.
A lot of the media players available don't decode/down sample DTS because it costs a lot for the license. These ones however do;
Popcorn Hour A-110 and C-200 - http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog
Xtreamer - http://xtreamer.net/
Western Digital TV LIVE - http://wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=735
And any HTPC (Home Theater PC) should be able to play it, as they're essentially a PC with a HDMI port instead of VGA/DVI. (Asus O!Play, Acer Revo, etc).
The cheapest option is Xtreamer, followed by WDTV Live, Popcorn Hour A-110 and then the HTPC's.
Popcorn hour has various applications such as a HTTP/FTP downloader (you access it via http://ip ort/DownloadManager_Web), Usenet downloader amongst other things.
The main advantage of media players (against a HTPC) is the low power usage, as well as noise.
Most, if not all, of the HTPCs can run XBMC (Xbox Media Player) which is a great piece of software, Popcorn Hour can be made to LOOK like XBMC, but that's about it (it doesn't have any of the features of XBMC).
XBMC running the Aeon skin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6EY56qiQUE
Popcorn hour with the Aeon skin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNo1FdOu1-I
[Edited on 05-11-2009 by noshua]
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ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
User status: Offline
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yeah I can hook my laptop up with a hdmi cable but i'd prefer the media player for tidyness and remote control etc.
dont know if its worth paying the extra to be able to play mkv files or just get a cheapo media player from maplin and convert the mkv's to avi?
can get a cheapo micro media player for like just £25
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noshua
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Registered: 19th Nov 08
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Like you said, it depends if you want to have to convert everything you download.
It's usually the audio that needs converting, if you're downloading HD stuff, simply because the devices can't decode DTS.
The reason I bought a Popcorn Hour is so I didn't have to convert everything (which took incredibly long for my laptop spec, and also heated my laptop up and made it uncomfortable to sit on my lap).
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Cavey
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Registered: 11th Nov 02
Location: Derby
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Everytime I see a thread like this i'm tempted to buy a Popcorn Hour, but I really don't need it as i've got a PS3, converting doesn't take me too long.
If I get particularly flushed with cash i'll grab myself a dedicated media player sometime
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ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
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i've got a laptop cooler tray
I don't really download anything in HD because my Xbox 360 wouldnt play mkv files. so don't really know if i'd make the most out of like popcorn hour or the more expensive ones at £140 +
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Toby
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Registered: 29th Nov 05
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i have a popcorn hour and my dad has a wdtv, for what you want a wdtv sounds up your street and it is the best by far budget (sub £100) media player
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noshua
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Registered: 19th Nov 08
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Bart has his for sale for £130, with a hard drive, determinately worth paying the extra over the WDTV.
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ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
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got a 1tb hard drive full of films so dont really need the hard drive. Gonna get the cheap one to last me till crimbo then talk nice to ma mum.
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ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
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http://www.svp.co.uk/electrical/digital-vision/hardware-cyclone-micro-multimedia-converter_.html
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noshua
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Registered: 19th Nov 08
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You get what you pay for mate
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ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
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thats very true
thoughts on this one?
http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=186127
[Edited on 06-11-2009 by ajscorsa]
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Bart
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Registered: 19th Aug 02
Location: Midsomer Norton, Bristol Avon
User status: Offline
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Popcorn Hour Video:
quote:
MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)
MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG)
MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)
VOB
AVI, ASF, WMV
Matroska (MKV)
MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4
Hisense Video:
quote:
All Video Format: Real Audio RM/RMVB, WMV9(VC-1), MkV (H.264), FLV, 3GP
Like Noshua says, you do get what you pay for.
I have a linksys DMA2200 media center extender which id part with for £40, so long as you have a windows PC to communicate with, you can stream videos.
Has gigabit ethernet (I think) and dual N wireless.
But as above, its a cheap device which I first started out with.
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ajscorsa
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Registered: 30th Apr 02
Location: Perceton, North Ayrshire
User status: Offline
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any more info on that mate?
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