wanted recommendation & advice on standalone media players (compatible with macs)

p1tse

p1tse

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want a media player, prefer to have HDD inside and option external drive plug in if possible

to keep movies on to play on tv etc.

but must be compatible with mac's.
 
PS3 (come with e blue ray drive)
xbox 360
Popcorn hour
WD media player
Apple TV
Mac Mini

All of these will work with a usb drive plugged in or using the internal storage. I use PS3 and XB360 to connect to my NAS at home and stream from them.

Is that what you were asking for as your question was not 100% clear..!
 
thanks

want something portable.

can you recommended a decent sized external drive prefer the ones where it doesn't need a power source so non 3.5" for the mac?

do avi and other formats work through the ps3? i have the original ps3 where do you connect it up?
 
the Western Digital Passport drives match that unit and they are the same size.

When you ask about mac compatible drives that is just the format that the drive is in. FAT32 will work on anything but has a file size limit of 4gb NTFS will work but you need a plug in for your mac and i am not sure if the players will read a MAC Journaled drive or not.

Lots of info there sorry...!

A PS3 has 2 USB ports on the front at the bottom left corner, if you plug in a USB drive into that it will show up in the browser.

It plays most formats but will not play mkv by default without some playing about but will play AVCHD whick is blue ray format.

Mac
 
p1tse said:
want a media player, prefer to have HDD inside and option external drive plug in if possible

to keep movies on to play on tv etc.

but must be compatible with mac's.
Click to expand...

Popcorn Hour C-200. I got it 3 month ago and its brilliant. I have 2 HDDs inside (fixed 2.5" and removable 3.5"). It plays pretty much all the formats (including all HDs and MKV support) out there, build with nice metallic finish to fit into your HiFi shelf (so won't look out of place) and is dead silent (no fans).

It has 4 external USB connectors so you can plug as many as 4 extra harddrives if you wish.

I copied my entire collection of DVDs (about 300) over to 2.5 TB of total disk space (uncompressed - purely DVD rip) with all my audio CDs (about 400) ripped to MR3s and it still has plenty of space.
 
thanks

i need to stick to fat32 for ps3 use anyway from what i have read.

really prefered an all in one unit, but not too much of an issue if running a portable external drive.

do you know the difference in the WD media player connectors, apart from price. i have the ps3, but would like another option for portability etc.

Popcorn Hour C-200, i'll go google that.
 
Popcorn Hour C-200 is circa £300, alot more than i want to spend for now.

i found another option:
Iomega ScreenPlay Director HD 1TB Media Player NAS Network Attached Hard Drive circa £150. only problem i would have is default at NTFS, which i would need to remformat to FAT32 for ps3 use.

limitation of FAT32 is 4gb file. is that transferring a single file/folder?

also if using either the above or a sperate WD portable drive can i organise the movies say:

Folder - 'Movies'
- movie a
- movie b

Folder - "TV series"
- tv series 1
- tv series 2
- tv series 3
- sub folder - tv sereies 3a
- sub folder - tv sereies 3b

and the ps3 or media player can open and sort through folders?
 
p1tse said:
Popcorn Hour C-200 is circa £300, a lot more than i want to spend for now.
Click to expand...

I did get mine at 270 - price matched by AdvancedMp3. I had the same dilemma - wanted to spend 100 quid on player but could not find one that was good and flexible enough to be at least a little future proof. So ended up getting C-200 and it is worth every penny. If BluRay and full MKV support don't bother you that much - look at the PopcornHour 110 (previous version) It still sells well and is supported and cheaper.

Quality media players do come at a cost and C-200 is no exception. It is build on latest Sigma chipset (which means it plays even the most demanding HD video).

p1tse said:
...
only problem i would have is default at NTFS, which i would need to remformat to FAT32 for ps3 use.

limitation of FAT32 is 4gb file. is that transferring a single file/folder?
Click to expand...

The 4GB is a limitation of the filesystem not the transfer so you won't be able to put files larger than that on your FAT32 drive.

Regarding NTFS, I would discourage using that - majority of standalone medial players is built on top of some kind of Linux system and using NTFS on them is not as well supported. Quite a few players with installable HDD (i.e. where you can put it inside) will allow to format it to Ext2 or Ext3 filesystem which is more native to Linux and will allow significantly faster file access (this does matter for HD video playback). I personally sorted this problem the other way - found an Ext3 filesystem driver for Windows and used Ext3 on my C-200 HDD. When I need to plug it into Windows machine it works just like ordinary windows drive.
 
thanks

can you explain the limitation of fat32 4gb thing again? is it individual file sizes it can cope with? shouldn't be a problem as avi movie files aren't that big.

blueray and mkv support isn't an issue, so will look at what PopcornHour 110 can offer.

think i prefer an all in with HDD built in and it looks like if 1TB is wanted Iomega ScreenPlay Director HD 1TB Media Player or Cyclone is my option on circa £100ish budget? May just get a 500GB version
 
p1tse said:
thanks

can you explain the limitation of fat32 4gb thing again? is it individual file sizes it can cope with? shouldn't be a problem as avi movie files aren't that big.
Click to expand...

The maximum file size of a single file cannot be larger than 4GB. This may not be an issue now but if you want to use HD files or not so compressed MP4 then you may actually hit this limit very soon.

p1tse said:
blueray and mkv support isn't an issue, so will look at what PopcornHour 110 can offer.

think i prefer an all in with HDD built in
Click to expand...

PopcornHour 110 has internal HDD slot and some retailers even sell it with HDD already. Though in all honesty I would advise to buy just a player without HDD and then get something very quiet (5400rpm drives) like Samsung SpinPoint or Eco Green range (something like this one).
 
thanks

i'm leaning towards iomega or cyclone at the moment

if not two seperate western digital
 
take it back, as i'm new to this will need mkv support
 
p1tse said:
take it back, as i'm new to this will need mkv support
Click to expand...

As I said I was facing the same dilemma a few months back but my criteria were slightly different as I wanted all possible formats to be covered and hardware be relatively future proof. As it stands, there are very few chipsets (CPUs with advanced media decoding capabilities) that are used across the whole range of these media players and the last one Sigma Designs 864x. These new chipsets support BlueRay, MKV and a lot of other HD video features (including full 1080p playback). However as they are still relatively new, players using them are still few a far between and are quite expensive.

There are plenty of media players using previous generation of chipsets (namely Sigma Designs 8634/5). The most famous from them are PopcornHour 110 and TVIX HD M-6500A. Buying them now is ok but not future proof - they won't have support for some formats (like full 1080p HD support and BlueRay) and hardware as well.

I would recommend you to make a list of your criterias to the player, than trawl through existing and well known models and make up your mind. No doubt that may be some compromises need to be made (like price vs. features and quality etc). The best resource I know to look for such info is MPC Club forums. Registration is free and people are generally friendly, so don't be shy to post your questions there as well.
 
i wasn't aware there are so many file types

i've just downloaded a few and they are mkv, rmvb, avi so far
 
p1tse said:
i wasn't aware there are so many file types

i've just downloaded a few and they are mkv, rmvb, avi so far
Click to expand...

MKV is by far the most popular nowadays especially if you want to have more that one track as it allows to have say several audio tracks in different languages or formats (Dolby, DTS), multiple subtitles and so on. Very popular to hold HD content.
 
p1tse said:
i can reformat on a friends PC to FAT32 to work on mac

but it doesn't list of rmvb files

not many do.
Click to expand...

I have not heard of rmvb format, the MKV though if directly ripped from DVD can take more than 4GB.
 
thanks
update

thinking of this: Sumvision Cyclone MKV Media Player Version 2 £70

Sumvision Cyclone MKV Media Player Version 2 Divx, ISO, Rmvb & MKV HDMI USB/SD Media player HDMI full 1080p Supports DTS - Ebuyer

will be wanting to play avi, mkv, rmvb etc.

need a portable external hard drive. any recommendations. or should i just get something like the western digital passport: 500gb via ebuyer £68

is this a good setup for £140, for starters?

was looking at an all in one, but can't find one which plays rmvb and also mac drive ready.
 
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