Media player.
Dec. 11th, 2007 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luckykaaA couple of weeks ago, I bought myself a Freecom Network Media player.
I think it's time for a mini-review (review #1 of 2. the second will be after I get myself an HDTV).
Bought the diskless version. Setup is perfectly easy. Simply requires plugging in to the mains, TV and network (a wireless version is available but I went for this one because my router is right next to my TV).
Setting up the PC for basic network operation simply involved sharing a folder. The media player can access the network via Windows file sharing and go through the directories using the remote. Menus are a bit sluggish and the remote isn't as good as I'd like but all perfectly usable. Handles avi, mpg and VOB which suggests that it will play ripped DVDs but I've not tried this yet. Xvid and DivX seem to work very well and have a nice picture quality.
Disappointing that it doesn't handle AACs. Nor does it handle mkvs. That wouldn't be a problem since these can be converted to Avi. Once there we get the problem that all the HD videos I have access to appear to be h264 with AAC neither of which are supported by this device.
I attempted to play a 1280x720 XviD file but I had a blank screen. Either it couldn't handle the file or refuses to downscale.
Installation of a disk drive was easy enough and the device can read NTFS and FAT32. The device can be plugged into a USB connector and used as a USB hard disk. Copying over the network isn't quite so easy. It doesn't show up on the network neighbourhood. Custom NDAS software has to be installed to make it appear to be a hard disk
It's a nice piece of technology. It's far from perfect in its current incarnation. Lack of h264 support and the bizarre network interface are the main problems
I think it's time for a mini-review (review #1 of 2. the second will be after I get myself an HDTV).
Bought the diskless version. Setup is perfectly easy. Simply requires plugging in to the mains, TV and network (a wireless version is available but I went for this one because my router is right next to my TV).
Setting up the PC for basic network operation simply involved sharing a folder. The media player can access the network via Windows file sharing and go through the directories using the remote. Menus are a bit sluggish and the remote isn't as good as I'd like but all perfectly usable. Handles avi, mpg and VOB which suggests that it will play ripped DVDs but I've not tried this yet. Xvid and DivX seem to work very well and have a nice picture quality.
Disappointing that it doesn't handle AACs. Nor does it handle mkvs. That wouldn't be a problem since these can be converted to Avi. Once there we get the problem that all the HD videos I have access to appear to be h264 with AAC neither of which are supported by this device.
I attempted to play a 1280x720 XviD file but I had a blank screen. Either it couldn't handle the file or refuses to downscale.
Installation of a disk drive was easy enough and the device can read NTFS and FAT32. The device can be plugged into a USB connector and used as a USB hard disk. Copying over the network isn't quite so easy. It doesn't show up on the network neighbourhood. Custom NDAS software has to be installed to make it appear to be a hard disk
It's a nice piece of technology. It's far from perfect in its current incarnation. Lack of h264 support and the bizarre network interface are the main problems
