Author Topic: Another $100 streaming media player, this time from Asus (Read 6483 times)

massive88 · « **on:** December 02, 2009, 12:22:48 pm »

Saw this last night on AOTS, the biggest drawback for me would be no WiFi, but besides that (my room is wired up anyway) it looks pretty darn good, and will play mkv's.

Any opinions?

http://g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/gadgetpr0n/69246/Asus-OPlay-Media-Player-Review.html

Edgedamage · « **Reply #1 on:** December 02, 2009, 05:04:57 pm »

Quote from: massive88 on December 02, 2009, 12:22:48 pm

Saw this last night on AOTS, the biggest drawback for me would be no WiFi, but besides that (my room is wired up anyway) it looks pretty darn good, and will play mkv's.

Any opinions?

http://g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/gadgetpr0n/69246/Asus-OPlay-Media-Player-Review.html

Yah because blu ray rips stream so smooth over wifi

. I got one of these and I am loving the way it gives my eSATA drive the shutdown command on power off.

The good:
-Plays uncompressed DVD rips with menu support.
-MKV & RMVB playback.
-Finds all of your networked shared drives.
-Played everything I threw at it.
-Rock solid network playback of 720p rips.
-I am using it behind a closed glass door in my wall unit and it runs cool without any active cooling.
-Loves to stream files from XP & Linux machines.

The bad:
-Rewinding over the network slow.
-Shortcuts not working yet (even though there is a menu item for it).
-Has problems with win7 shares. (still using xp so no problem for me)

ChadTower · « **Reply #2 on:** December 02, 2009, 07:55:39 pm »

That actually doesn't look too bad. $100 a bit high for an upgrade from XBMC but the day is coming soon where there's a drop in replacement that is inexpensive enough to trade in the modded Xboxes.

EwJ · « **Reply #3 on:** December 02, 2009, 08:41:56 pm »

This one from Patriot looks good. Slot for 2 1/2" SATA drive, network, decent remote, USB ports (no eSATA ports).

massive88 · « **Reply #4 on:** December 03, 2009, 10:45:54 am »

Quote from: ChadTower on December 02, 2009, 07:55:39 pm

That actually doesn't look too bad. $100 a bit high for an upgrade from XBMC but the day is coming soon where there's a drop in replacement that is inexpensive enough to trade in the modded Xboxes.

Depending on how much you use it, the price savings could be fairly quick. This little guys runs at 10W, I dont know how much the Xbox180 pulls, but my 360 does about 150W watching streaming media.

That patriot guy looks pretty swank as well, a little more expensive and doesnt look as attractive imo, but looks like another good option. Theres getting to be so many of these little devils...

massive88 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 03, 2009, 10:47:24 am »

Quote from: Edgedamage on December 02, 2009, 05:04:57 pm

I got one of these and I am loving the way it gives my eSATA drive the shutdown command on power off.

Edge, do you know if it supports subtitles embedded in MKVs as you would find in Anime downloads? Thats one thing thats been a pain to get streamed to my Xbox360...

Hoopz · « **Reply #6 on:** December 03, 2009, 10:49:12 am »

It's be nice if Directv would integrate something like this into their receivers. It already has a hard drive and ethernet port. It'd allow me to move the X-Box running XBMC out.

ChadTower · « **Reply #7 on:** December 03, 2009, 10:54:41 am »

You'd have to use the thing an awful lot to get back the difference between a nearly free XBMC box and this box based on wattage consumed.

DirecTV will neeeeeeeever stream stuff like this. That was the whole problem between DirecTV and Tivo. Tivo put true multiroom viewing into their boxes - DirecTV is adamantly against that and always has been - and forced Tivo to remove it from the integrated DirecTivos. Tivo only disabled it. It was very easy for advanced users to get into the OS (Linux) and enable the MRV. That was a big enough philosophical problem for DirecTV that they actually severed the Tivo contract and developed their own DVRs. Even now they are still occasionally teasing MRV on their DVRs at elecronics shows but nobody ever expects them to deliver. And all of that is just stuff that was locally recorded off DirecTV and the usual mp3/jpg sharing. It doesn't even factor in outside video content. We still run SD DirecTivos at my house strictly for the MRV ability.

saint · « **Reply #8 on:** December 03, 2009, 11:06:06 am »

This one is really catching my eye:

http://www.brite-view.com/cinematube.php?gclid=CMOk0_C9uJ4CFRTHsgod1Sj5mg

Anyone have any thoughts on it?

ChadTower · « **Reply #9 on:** December 03, 2009, 11:44:54 am »

The torrent engine intrigues me. It doesn't specify but I assume it would be downloading content to drives connected directly via USB. That's cool. The problem is that few things on the net are as exploited by hackers as P2P clients. That's a neon flasher of a network entry point.

Edgedamage · « **Reply #10 on:** December 03, 2009, 07:50:33 pm »

Quote from: massive88 on December 03, 2009, 10:47:24 am

Quote from: Edgedamage on December 02, 2009, 05:04:57 pm
I got one of these and I am loving the way it gives my eSATA drive the shutdown command on power off.

Edge, do you know if it supports subtitles embedded in MKVs as you would find in Anime downloads? Thats one thing thats been a pain to get streamed to my Xbox360...

Shhh I like to think of them as screeners

And yes my (screener) of UP 720p MKV has subs embedded.

Edgedamage · « **Reply #11 on:** December 03, 2009, 07:53:28 pm »

Quote from: ChadTower on December 03, 2009, 11:44:54 am

The torrent engine intrigues me. It doesn't specify but I assume it would be downloading content to drives connected directly via USB. That's cool. The problem is that few things on the net are as exploited by hackers as P2P clients. That's a neon flasher of a network entry point.

There is a security flaw with the ASUS also. That's why I have the router set to ban any net access to and from the ASUS.

thatitalian · « **Reply #12 on:** December 04, 2009, 04:35:46 am »

Slightly off topic but I have a QNAP TS-209II Pro and it does all of the above i.e. torrent downloader, squeezecenter for my squeezebox, etc.

I connect it to my 360 and stream movies that way. However, I can't for the life of me play any mov files. Someone told me to rename it to mkv, I did so and it didn't play. Also I can never get the 360 to play sub files i.e. an avi file with a separate subtitle file for the movie.

Can anyone shed any light on this as i have a few blu-ray rips that my 360 won't play,

ChadTower · « **Reply #13 on:** December 04, 2009, 07:54:56 am »

Quote from: Edgedamage on December 03, 2009, 07:53:28 pm

There is a security flaw with the ASUS also. That's why I have the router set to ban any net access to and from the ASUS.

Bummer. Take away external streaming from the net and my motivation to move to one of these drops a lot.

Dexter · « **Reply #14 on:** December 04, 2009, 08:45:28 pm »

I've been looking at this lad...

http://www.xtreamer.net/

shmokes · « **Reply #15 on:** December 07, 2009, 09:24:09 pm »

Here's the upcoming official Boxee box. It looks very cool. It'll be $200, but it's based on XBMC, aka the greatest media center software ever created. Boxee is basically XBMC with a bunch of social network and internet streaming stuff added on.

It's gonna be twice what these others cost, so we'll see if it's worth the extra scratch.

Edit: Here's a quick look at the new version of the Boxee software

ahofle · « **Reply #16 on:** December 08, 2009, 01:27:50 am »

LOL what an eye sore. I mean seriously, are they trying to make it into a work of art or something?

shmokes · « **Reply #17 on:** December 08, 2009, 01:50:52 am »

It may only seem horrifying to you because you are picturing something the size of a Nintendo Gamecube (I did at first). Look at the ports on the back to get some scale. It's pretty small. At that size I don't think it looks too bad, but if it does it can be easily tucked away. The interface looks great, though.

ChadTower · « **Reply #18 on:** December 08, 2009, 09:52:55 am »

Whoa. Could they have made that thing harder to fit nicely into an entertainment center? It's like they sat there and thought "okay, you have a nice setup with shelves and glass doors and a rack. Everything has a place, it all fits in an orderly manner. How can we eff that up?"

massive88 · « **Reply #19 on:** December 08, 2009, 12:11:57 pm »

Quote from: shmokes on December 08, 2009, 01:50:52 am

It may only seem horrifying to you because you are picturing something the size of a Nintendo Gamecube (I did at first). Look at the ports on the back to get some scale. It's pretty small. At that size I don't think it looks too bad, but if it does it can be easily tucked away. The interface looks great, though.

Whats the advantage to going for that over say this guy - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103228&cm_re=ion-_-83-103-228-_-Product

I guess not having to set up software and probably comes with a remote? Wifi too I guess, though if you are doing 1080p, might not use it anyway.

I think id rather get the Acer and just hide it away with an RF remote, and have the option to put some games on it as well using Xbox controllers.

shmokes · « **Reply #20 on:** December 08, 2009, 03:37:20 pm »

Yeah, I'd say software config is the big one. I think that in the past that Acer box wouldn't work with Boxee cos the Atom guts were too week. But this new version of the Boxee software apparently adds support for Nvidia's ION platform so now that box would probably run Boxee just fine. I know it'll run the linux version of XBMC well. In fact I posted a link to an article about doing just that with that box a few weeks ago.

Edgedamage · « **Reply #21 on:** December 09, 2009, 10:41:34 am »

Quote from: shmokes on December 08, 2009, 03:37:20 pm

Yeah, I'd say software config is the big one. I think that in the past that Acer box wouldn't work with Boxee cos the Atom guts were too week. But this new version of the Boxee software apparently adds support for Nvidia's ION platform so now that box would probably run Boxee just fine. I know it'll run the linux version of XBMC well. In fact I posted a link to an article about doing just that with that box a few weeks ago.

No eSATA?

shmokes · « **Reply #22 on:** December 09, 2009, 10:48:28 am »

Does it need it? USB has way more than enough bandwidth for streaming media.

Edgedamage · « **Reply #23 on:** December 09, 2009, 05:31:27 pm »

Quote from: shmokes on December 09, 2009, 10:48:28 am

Does it need it? USB has way more than enough bandwidth for streaming media.

When you start rewinding / FF uncompressed blu ray rips it's nice to have the wiggle room.

shmokes · « **Reply #24 on:** December 09, 2009, 08:37:29 pm »

Uncompressed blu-ray rips??? That's gotta average like 25 GB per movie. Just how much hard drive space do you have?

2600 · « **Reply #25 on:** December 09, 2009, 08:52:29 pm »

Isn't Blu-ray already mpeg4, what would you compress it to?

shmokes · « **Reply #26 on:** December 09, 2009, 09:07:51 pm »

DVD's are also already compressed (MPEG-2). But you compress them further because you aren't happy with the file size and are willing to suffer some degradation in quality. Shrinking a blu-ray movie down to an 8 or 9 GB 1080p picture is not going to look as good as the original, but it will still be a helluva lot better than an SD DVD.

shmokes · « **Reply #27 on:** December 10, 2009, 02:05:38 am »

Small

.

.

.

ChadTower · « **Reply #28 on:** December 10, 2009, 09:05:50 am »

That's not nearly as small as the pic implies. If you aren't willing to put it on the very edge of an open shelf you have to acount for all of those cables sticking out of the back. That at least doubles the space required. You also have to be sure nothing is ever going to tug on any of those cables as that thing doesn't have any weight and will fall right off.

shmokes · « **Reply #29 on:** December 10, 2009, 07:21:41 pm »

That's what epoxy is for.

protokatie · « **Reply #30 on:** December 11, 2009, 01:32:37 am »

Quote from: shmokes on December 10, 2009, 07:21:41 pm

That's what epoxy is for.

I was thinking metal straps with screw holes, but that would be for the industrial look. If you want it to stick to a surface, but want it to be removable again, I would suggest spilling a little beer or soda on the surface, then sit the thing down. Once the soda dries, you will have a perfect water soluable glued bond.

Ed_McCarron · « **Reply #31 on:** December 11, 2009, 08:10:51 am »

Quote from: protokatie on December 11, 2009, 01:32:37 am

I would suggest spilling a little beer or soda on the surface, then sit the thing down. Once the soda dries, you will have a perfect water soluable glued bond.

Hairspray on the feet. Won't attract insects.

ChadTower · « **Reply #32 on:** December 11, 2009, 08:44:09 am »

Won't come off of the wood, either, for those of us with a hardwood entertainment center.

Ed_McCarron · « **Reply #33 on:** December 11, 2009, 09:55:45 am »

Hardwood? Faaa-ncy. Mines vinyl coated MDF. A little rubbing alcohol takes it right off.

ChadTower · « **Reply #34 on:** December 11, 2009, 10:07:22 am »

Nothing but oak laminated plywood for me, baby!

protokatie · « **Reply #35 on:** December 11, 2009, 11:54:28 pm »

So chad, do you have Hardwood or Plywood? Either way it seems like it would be hard to pee... (Just try to visualize what "plywood" would be... Luckily I dont have that problem...)

Edgedamage · « **Reply #36 on:** December 12, 2009, 08:12:17 am »

Quote from: shmokes on December 09, 2009, 08:37:29 pm

Uncompressed blu-ray rips??? That's gotta average like 25 GB per movie. Just how much hard drive space do you have?

I only have 4tb networked storage so far, I use a 500gb hdd in a eSATA / USB dock. I am just a sata whore but to be honest USB will work also. Plus my drive gets the shutdown command when using eSATA with the asus.

ChadTower · « **Reply #37 on:** December 12, 2009, 11:18:57 am »

Quote from: protokatie on December 11, 2009, 11:54:28 pm

So chad, do you have Hardwood or Plywood? Either way it seems like it would be hard to pee... (Just try to visualize what "plywood" would be... Luckily I dont have that problem...)

Depends on how cold it the room is, I suppose.

shmokes · « **Reply #38 on:** January 09, 2010, 02:03:34 am »

I keep plugging this Boxee Box, but I can't help it. It keeps getting better. Check out the remote. Navigation on one side, Qwerty on the other.

boykster · « **Reply #39 on:** January 09, 2010, 02:40:48 am »

Uncompressed BD rips are anywhere from 12 to 30+ gigs per movie - its a lot of space but its worth it if you have a display that supports it and can swing the storage.

That Acer box thats linked will run XBMC, but the UI might run slow if you run a heavy skin (ie Aeon). Video playback if you run the linux version will be flaweless and smooth using gpu VDAPU, but the windoze version doesn't (yet) support gpu playback.

XBMC rocks - I just bought 2 Asrock 330 ION PC's to replace my aging HTPC's running DVDLobby / ZoomPlayer and it effing rocks.

Oh, and that Boxee box is effing akward! Um, why? I don't care how small it is, but um, you could try to make it "fit", no?


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