Hd Media Players

[arkom]

Was hoping some experts could give me some basic background on how they work. Went to Fortune Town and saw a few different ones from WD Live to Chinese versions, but the sales people there didn't really know too much about them. Was just wondering how movies and videos are downloaded, is there any fees involved? Don't mind paying extra if quality is good.

Thanks

[powderpuff]

Let's look at the hardware side.

You need a TV with full HD & some HDMI inputs.

I will talk about WDTV Live. It connects to your network by LAN cable or if you have a USB Wi-FI antenna & a Wi-Fi wireless router it will connect to your home network that way.

WDTV Live has a built in Youtube interface, Of course you have to be connected for that to work.

You can stream media from your PC to your living room TV.

You would download in the normal way.

[powderpuff]

Another way to accomplish this is by using a HDD extrenal drive that I have seen in Pan Tip Plaza. There are any number of USB connected "cradles" for sale allowing you to transfer whatever media you wish to a HDD. Then remove it from the "cradle" & plug it into one of these external HDD adapters that include HDMI output. They have a menu that allows you to choose what you wish to view. About 3000 baht. I saw them on the 4th floor at the front Platinum mall side.

[craigt3365]

Let's look at the hardware side.

You need a TV with full HD & some HDMI inputs.

I will talk about WDTV Live. It connects to your network by LAN cable or if you have a USB Wi-FI antenna & a Wi-Fi wireless router it will connect to your home network that way.

WDTV Live has a built in Youtube interface, Of course you have to be connected for that to work.

You can stream media from your PC to your living room TV.

You would download in the normal way.

I don't think you need a HD TV. I have used this WD Live on my cheapie LCD TV back home and it worked fine. Of course, HD is WAY better. Here, my TV is 720 HD. Fantastic pictures!

I've had this WD for almost a year. It's relatively cheap and I love it. I have a new TV that allows me to plug a USB drive directly into it, but I don't like the interface. WD is much better.

I use a 1.5TB external hard drive to connect to my media player, which has hundreds of movies and TV shows on it. Unfortunately...I've yet to get the player to recognize my PC on the network. I can play YouTube videos, internet radio, etc.....but can't find my PC!!!!!

[angiud]

Craig, to see your pc on WDTV live you need to made the folders shared and, of course, have the PC connected with a LAN ethernet cable to the unit.

Sharing the folders or the HDD (such as C, D. E, etc) is easy and depend the OS you use, but usually right click and sharing

[powderpuff]

Maybe I'll go down to Pantip mPlaza & take some pictures. I have the WDTV Live.

Craig. Is your PC connected to a router? WDTV Live connected by LAN cable?

[craigt3365]

Thanks, guys! I am not very PC literate, and have been messing around with this for several weeks. Here's my config. I have a DSL modem which is connected to a Netgear 5 port gigabit switch. Out of that goes a wire to my PC and then one to the living room where the WD Live box is. I'm guessing that switch is causing the problems. I've tried to use the setup utility, but it can't connect to the server...at least that's what it's telling me.

My WD Live can find the internet. I can play YouTube, internet radio, etc...and the folder on my computer is setup for being shared...but no luck! So for now, I am just keeping my external drive next to it. I think I will bring in the network guy who setup this up to see what he can do. I didn't have the WD box when he first came here.

[astral]

When you play a video file on your PC you use a programme, e.g. windows Media Player, to

convert the file so it displays on your screen.

These boxes do the same, but dedicated to the job.

Just plug in the disk on one port and your TV on the other.

The box will display the menu on the TV and you select the file you want to watch.

Most versions now allow connection to the LAN to stream data from your PC

or direct from the Internet.

I have the WDHD player, and have recently helped a friend setup a Mede8er.

The Mede8er can have an internal disk, which makes it heavier.

My WDHD player uses external USB disks, and is with me here in a hotel

connected to the TV in the room.

HDMI is the best connection, but not essential. If you have an old TV with AV sockets

Red/White/Yellow, you can also use those

[arkom]

Thanks for the replies everone.

So if I understand correctly, the WD Live ect is pretty much just a player and I cannot actually downloand any movies directly on to it correct?

[Jdietz]

Basically they are small computers, sometimes with internal HDD, running some linux variant for the user interface and video decoding, and a graphic card optimized for TV / HDMI output

[craigt3365]

Thanks for the replies everone.

So if I understand correctly, the WD Live ect is pretty much just a player and I cannot actually downloand any movies directly on to it correct?

Most media players do not have an internal hard drive. This one seems to have one:

http://www.mede8er.com/

I guess if it was networked in you could download directly to it? But you would have to leave it on all the time and the WD runs quite hot. Plus, you external HDD would need a nice fan to also keep it cool...

[powderpuff]

Thanks Craig. So based on what you have said it appears that your WDTV is fine - router configured correctly & modem works normally. For some reason WDTV live doesn't see your main workstation.

Try looking in "My Network Places" or the equivilent to see if WDTV live shows up. Good Luck

[craigt3365]

Thanks Craig. So based on what you have said it appears that your WDTV is fine - router configured correctly & modem works normally. For some reason WDTV live doesn't see your main workstation.

Try looking in "My Network Places" or the equivilent to see if WDTV live shows up. Good Luck

Thanks! I've noticed a new twist. It's connected to my wireless router in the living room, which goes to the switch. I will look in my network places. Plus, I'm going to post my config in the WD Live forum and see what their experts have to say! Also, I'm running Vista, which makes it a bit different than other setups.

[astral]

Most media players do not have an internal hard drive. This one seems to have one:

http://www.mede8er.com/

The model 500 certainly does.

I guess if it was networked in you could download directly to it? But you would have to leave it on all the time and the WD runs quite hot. Plus, you external HDD would need a nice fan to also keep it cool...

Networking is the way to go.

I do not remember any way to tell the mede8er to download from the Internet

but it can certainly retrieve files from a PC or NAS on your local network.

Or you can send files using Windows explorer, or ftp

There is a fan to keep the internal disk cool

[powderpuff]

OK so I went down to Pantip plaza & got some pictures. My idea is. Use a USB HDD docking station to transfer your media to a hard drive (SATA).

Connect a box like this EGREAT Network HD player. It has cables to connect the HDD. It maybe isn't real pretty but maybe one could hide it in a cupboard. Because there is no enclosure there is no need for a cooling fan.

The EGREAT EG-S1A is the little box behing a HDD with 2 red cables sticking out the side.

At the back is a LAN socket 10/100 USB in, HDMI out , 12 volt power (wall wart) & various RCA outs.

See specs here

EGREAT

The EGREAT has a dedicated you tube browser similar to WDTV live. It's sold by MacroCare. Price 5680. 4th floor right at the front (street side) of the building near the toilets.

What ya tink?

[powderpuff]

btw - mines connected to a wireless N router using a USB wireless N adapter. (Cisco)

[Oberkommando]

I considered the e-Great but I ended up getting rid of the WDTV (piece of junk) and buying an HDi Dune. Phenomenal machine.

[craigt3365]

I considered the e-Great but I ended up getting rid of the WDTV (piece of junk) and buying an HDi Dune. Phenomenal machine.

And what was the cost of this machine?

[moo9]

Recently bought at Tuk Com Pattaya a so called HDMI Player HDPro-M1 plus external 2.5 " Alu HD case incl. 1 TB WD drive all together at 5,700 Baht. Got a free HDMi Cable on top. Amazing picture, sounds, has even a HQ Optical Audio output.

I do not need the networt access in the box (this one does not have it), as it should be portable and I do not like to switch on the computer for viewing. So it's downloading or ripping, transfer it to the ex. HD, done.

One little flaw, it comes formatted in NTFS, which my Mac can not write on, but there are software solutions to circumvent it. Mac FS is not readable by the Media box.

Here the link:

Datage HDPro-M1