dipdog
02-02-07, 12:25 PM
HDD Media Players
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I have a few quick questions about HDD media players. I have a P4 PC in the den, and a P3 laptop in the living room (where the TV is). The P4 does fine with video, but the P3 is a Dell D600 with incorporated 8mb video card that really isn't big enough to play some AVI files without skipping. I'd like to play these files on the TV, so I've been thinking about purchasing an HDD media player.
My questions are probably uneducated, but I just wanted to see if someone wouldn't mind helping.
1) Do HDD media players have video cards incorporated? I'm assuming not. I know this is just my lack of understanding, but if you get a bigger video card to provide more RAM for video playback on a computer, what controls the amount of memory dedicated to video playback on an HDD media player when all it has (I'm assuming) is a hard drive? What I'm getting at is I just want to know if an HDD media player can play most all videos smoothly, or if there are limitations to what it can play well.
2) Do HDD media players (the ones where you insert your own hard drive) require special software to be loaded onto the hard drive when it is inserted? Or does that software (whatever allows you to scroll through the directory on the TV) run separately from the hard drive?
3) Does anyone have any particular experience with HDD media players that they'd be willing to share?
Thanx!
- Scott
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I have a few quick questions about HDD media players. I have a P4 PC in the den, and a P3 laptop in the living room (where the TV is). The P4 does fine with video, but the P3 is a Dell D600 with incorporated 8mb video card that really isn't big enough to play some AVI files without skipping. I'd like to play these files on the TV, so I've been thinking about purchasing an HDD media player.
My questions are probably uneducated, but I just wanted to see if someone wouldn't mind helping.
1) Do HDD media players have video cards incorporated? I'm assuming not. I know this is just my lack of understanding, but if you get a bigger video card to provide more RAM for video playback on a computer, what controls the amount of memory dedicated to video playback on an HDD media player when all it has (I'm assuming) is a hard drive? What I'm getting at is I just want to know if an HDD media player can play most all videos smoothly, or if there are limitations to what it can play well.
2) Do HDD media players (the ones where you insert your own hard drive) require special software to be loaded onto the hard drive when it is inserted? Or does that software (whatever allows you to scroll through the directory on the TV) run separately from the hard drive?
3) Does anyone have any particular experience with HDD media players that they'd be willing to share?
Thanx!
- Scott