Media Player/Streamer

[aud19]

I'm in the market for something that will stream both assorted video files (MKV, WMV, MOV etc) and Flac audio files from my NAS as well as down the line stream Netflix, VUDU (if it becomes available in Canada...or with a work around) and have narrowed it down to the updated WD TV Live or Boxee Box.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on both. It seems the older WD device was a bit poo-pooed on for it's inferior GUI but it looks like that's been updated for 2012 and from what I've read is much improved it's also much cheaper and seems to do just as much... In fact Dell Canada seems to have it on for $84.99 right now...

http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/Hard_Drives_Storage/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&sku=A5554011&baynote_bnrank=1&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch

The Boxee has a bit more robust hardware, is generally considered to have a superior GUI and ads a web browser. However I've seen reports of audio dropouts and also read concerns on it's music playback interface (is it just an afterthought to the video playback and streaming?) The cheapest I see it at in Canada is $189.99



Is the Boxee's hair better speed and possibly superior GUI/web browser worth an extra $105. Feel free to make a vote on what you'd spend your money on in the poll.

[Alloroc]

Hi Jason,

I tried out both - and a couple of others too.... A device from Lacie(crap) and a Popcorn Hour device (amazing but way too expensive).

in the end I went with Boxee.

The WD Live is - in my opinion - the next best thing. It's a simpler and quieter device than the Boxee and I very nearly kept it. There was one overriding issue though that made me drop it and that was one of media scanning.

When using the Boxee to scan my media folders it takes a few hours - a good few in fact. I have about 4TB of my own purchased content stored digitally on a NAS. But at least when it does it does it in the background and you can continue to use the device.

The WD Live takes forever to scan - it took a few days to scan my content and was not able to use the device while it scanned.

Now, normally this might not be a huge issue exept with the WD you have to re-scan every time you add content to your library and want to update the device to present it.

I simply could not live with that. So the Boxee was kept.

Audio dropouts on the Boxee Box is limited to DTS-HD soundtracks. It's a known issue but seemingly the issue rests with Intel and the SDK provided for the Atom chipset. Go figure. Anyhow, I can confirm that this is so. I ripped a BD with zero compression. A 40GB file. Video is perfect - flawless in fact. Audio drops out though. Not an issue however for Dolby True HD.

It will play almost every other audio and video format that's out there. The music interface is weak, but then I use my Marantz network processor for digital music playback in FLAC. I would not recommend the Boxee if your prime function was music streaming. It's all about Video really.

However, the real treat with Boxee is where it aggregates other online content and present is to you in an attractive coverflow. It mergest this content with your own stuff so it appears seamless. With NetFlix, Vudu, Pandora & Spotify and many many other apps it makes the Boxee a very interesting HTPC but one without the grief of Windows or Linux.

Note : for all these devices you will have to have a standard file naming convention for them to associate all the online metadata to your content. There are great tools out there for that that I can recommend.

The remote is interesting too as when you flip it there is a querty kbd on the other side.

Bottom line is that while the Boxee is flawed and the team are slow to update, having lived with both and having paid €100 more for the Boxee, I feel my money was better spend with it.

It's also the first gadget that I ever bought that the missus actually loves. it's also the first thing she turns on when she wants to watch something.

She really loves it.

[aud19]

Yeah the music thing is scaring me away a bit. We probably use our current HTPC roughly 60% of the time for music...

I'm starting to lean toward the WD, seems to to everything I need and at $84.99 through Dell is RIDICULOUSLY cheap. At that price I'm almost willing to take the risk and "just see".

I think the Boxee had the lead a year or two ago but they seem to have stalled a bit on updating and the WD has if not passed, at least caught up/right on their bumper for less than half the price. The biggest complaint I've seen on the WD's was that the old GUI was clunky/crap. They appear to have fixed that. I'm going to look more in to the indexing you mention though.

Otherwise I don't really have a need for the web browser on the Boxee. If I want to Google something I'll just use my Android phone, which also has a remote app for and I can just use my phones keyboard

Would love your recommendations on the file/folder naming!

[JeremyG]

What about the AppleTV jailbroken to run everything? Less than $100. I've got a first generation AppleTV (the one with the internal hard disc) jailbroken with XBMC, NitoTV, Boxee, and can also play multiple audio formats not supported by iTunes. If I had a NAS I could point XBMC or NitoTV to it to stream from there. I could add a web browser, but the processor is too slow for my liking. Mine does not support blu-ray audio formats, but my Marantz doesn't decode them anyway. The new version may have HD audio support. Just a thought.

Jeremy

[Hdale85]

There is an HD decoder card you can add to the first gens as well to offload video processing. I think you can get them for like 50 bucks.

[JeremyG]

Really? Huh. That would be neat. It may also cool off the case. I can fry an egg on the top of the thing. That's really the only downside to having it. I don't really watch many movies, though it would be nice to be able to queue a concert blu-ray without having to dig through a stack of discs. I'll investigate. Thanks, Dougie!!!

[Hdale85]

Oh they aren't even 50 bucks anymore! They are crazy cheap

http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=BCM70012%20HD%20Hardware%20Decoder%20Mini%20Card%20For%20Apple%20TV%20UK&_itemId=200438289115

It's the Crystal HD decoder.

[Alloroc]

Would love your recommendations on the file/folder naming!

This all assumes you have some logic already in the file name. For example, "BreakingBadS01E01.xxx" or whatever.

I would also suggest keeping seaons seperate too...

\Shows
:\BreakingBad
-\Season 1
-\Season 2

And so on....

(I like Breaking Bad!)

OK. For movies I use a tool called "The Renamer"

http://www.therenamer.com/

Most of these devices recommend you place each movie file within it's very own folder. It will rename the folder to include the year the movie was made. It's surpriseing how many remakes and different movies with the same name are out there. Nice and simple.

\Movies
:\Avatar (2009)

For TV Shows I use FileBot

http://filebot.sourceforge.net/

I use this as it's great for bulk renaming - useful for multiple seasons and the convention it uses is great.

Then and here's the fun bit - to build up my own metadata I use a tool called Ember.

http://www.howtogeek.com/61976/how-to-use-ember-media-manager-to-whip-your-media-collection-into-shape/

When you have a good file and folder stucture as well as naming convention, Ember will scrape the web (IMDB, TVDB etc.) for cover art, movie information, episode guide , posters and so on. It will store all of that information in the correct folder. This is really useful as you will have all of this information atandard, regardless of the device you use. It will also use this information in preference over any of the data the device itself might scrape when building the media library.

Oh, btw I was using the very lates 2012 WD Live device when evaluating. It is nice, and really cheap. Either way, these little media streamers are fantastic.

[aud19]

Thanks Jeremy but not really a fan of Apple products. For one, why should I have to "jailbreak" something to make it functional? Why not just buy something that already does that stuff right out of the box? I suppose if you're already heavily invested in Apple/Itunes it could be worthwhile. But I'm not, I've got an Android phone/music player and all my house audio is currently .flac played Winamp and soon to be the WD TV Live it looks like.

Thanks Vincent, I've already organized my media in pretty anal (borderline OCD :lol: ) folders, so hopefully it won't be too much work to tweak Movies are all under "Network Share/Movies/Action, Comedy, Concert etc/Movie Name/Movie File". TV series are under a TV folder in movies then "Show Name/Season/File Name".

Music is all under "Music/High Res(seperate folder for low res)/Artist - Album/Audio Files"

Thanks for the tools too :T Though it looks like the WD may have something built in for finding that stuff too...can't seem to find the youtube vid I came across yesterday showing it though :lol:

[aud19]

FYI...got the wife's approval last night :T

[aud19]

...and now I get to badmouth Dell.

So it was $84.99 yesterday, I talk to my wife about it last night, she agrees this is the best/cheapest route to go and I go to order it this morning and it's $94.99 at Dell. So I call in figuring that any decent reseller would simply match the price from yesterday. Talk to customer service/sales and nothing, ask for a supervisor and nothing. I ask him: "so you want me to buy it for less elsewhere, lose a sale and customer and give a competitor your business?". He's says he's sorry and there's nothing he can do. I tell him that's horrible customer service and say goodbye.

So now I'm getting it off Amazon.ca for $89.99 :roll:

Fricking idiots!

[Alloroc]

Thanks for the tools too :T Though it looks like the WD may have something built in for finding that stuff too...can't seem to find the youtube vid I came across yesterday showing it though :lol:

They almost all do but they can be quite inaccurate. It will display what it wants to and you can't change it on the fly. Also, when you have your own 'nfo' and cover images, it speeds up the indexing process - crucial for if you plan to live with the WD... Ember jsut gives you complete control of how your stuff is presented - you'd be amazed at how many different DVD covers exist for the same movie....

[aud19]

Absolutely Vincent! And thanks again for all that info It'll also give me something to do while I wait for it to ship to me from Amazon (Stupid Dell :rant: :evil: )

[aud19]

Vincent is there a reason you use Filebot for TV over Renamer? Renamer seems to do TV shows as well...

[aud19]

This looks to be the recommended software for metadata for WD products:

http://wdtvhubgen.codeplex.com/

[JeremyG]

Thanks Jeremy but not really a fan of Apple products. For one, why should I have to "jailbreak" something to make it functional? Why not just buy something that already does that stuff right out of the box? I suppose if you're already heavily invested in Apple/Itunes it could be worthwhile. But I'm not, I've got an Android phone/music player and all my house audio is currently .flac played Winamp and soon to be the WD TV Live it looks like.

I feel that if I can tailor things to my specific needs/tastes, why not? If it has 75% of what I need, and I can do the rest for a price cheaper than getting/settling for something else, then I don't mind. I see buying something as starting the idea, not completing. Maybe my DIY vein runs deep.

[aud19]

But it's not cheaper either... :unsure: It's ~$20 more than the WD TV LIVE...and less powerful out of the box.

[Alloroc]

Amazingly older versions of the Apple TV sell higher used than the new one simply because you can mod it to run XMBC, Boxee, etc....

But I'm with you, Jason - buying something then modding it when you can get a device that does all you want is my way too. Having to Jailbreak to get MKV support is nuts imo...

[Alloroc]

Vincent is there a reason you use Filebot for TV over Renamer? Renamer seems to do TV shows as well...

I just find it way more accurate for TV shows when bulk converting. And easier to recover from glitches in naming convention too....
I do really like it tho'....

[aud19]

Mostly all of this pisses me off that it wasn't really primed to go 1-2 years ago when I spent hundreds of dollars building a HTPC!!! :lol:

[Hdale85]

I can't get that TheRenamer program to make folders for my movies.... They had folders already but it wasn't renaming the folders like I wanted, so I took them all out of the folders and it still didn't do it.

[aud19]

It working GREAT for me (thanks again Vincent) :T

Dougie, probably should have left them in the folders, the software is pretty flexible on options to rename stuff...

[Hdale85]

Yeah, it wasn't working that way though either lol. It should put them into folders according to the instruction page.

[aud19]

Mine is...?

I've had a couple hiccups (Grinch 1966 version showing up as that terrible Jim Carey one) and it somehow got confused with Star Wars Ep II (I, III, IV, V & VI were fine though :lol: ). I also didn't like how it named Jurassic Park 2 to "Lost World - Jurassic.." ...I prefer them to show up together alphabetically. But 98% of it's worked perfect.

[aud19]

Also found some decent vids on the updated WD GUI and some of the options etc..

[YOUTUBE]oUtNuz3mfUE[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]JFLCyrHuJOI&feature=plcp[/YOUTUBE]

[aud19]

Got delivered today! :banana:

[Alloroc]

Jason, just saw your post over at Homebrew.....

So, NFS is all about permissions... Use Samba (SMB) as it is fastest for streaming. Well faster than uPnP anyway. Set your media folder to public and you'll never have an issue. NFS is all about permissions and while it'll work fine and performs well, the WD will regularly ask you for credentials and that will drive you nuts!!! Does the same with Boxee, btw. So, go Samba!

[aud19]

I don't think QNAP supports Samba...but when I finish this whole project (WD replacing HTPC which replaces PC which replaces QNAP NAS) I'll keep that in mind

Got it working...had to find the UPNP setting on the QNAP and poof working like a charm. Tested out playback of a couple movies and some tunes...worked flawlessly and even loaded all the movie info (covers, synopsis, rating etc) I'd set up. Even Carolyn looked impressed!

Going to attempt finishing setup/fiddling, getting our phones setup with the remote app etc this weekend/next and hopefully the HDMI cable I ordered comes soon so I can connect it to the TV rather than my computer monitor :lol:

[Alloroc]

Going to attempt finishing setup/fiddling, getting our phones setup with the remote app etc this weekend/next and hopefully the HDMI cable I ordered comes soon so I can connect it to the TV rather than my computer monitor :lol:

The apps work great.... in a way, better than the hard remote I think.....

[Hdale85]

I'd be surprised if it doesn't support samba as that's what windows uses and what most computers would use in homes.