POPCORN HOUR A-400 is coming soon - Page 37

Third for Diamond Design.

Hello:

Just went 15-2 & won my fantasy football league, cant think of a better way to use the winnings. Was thinking of jumping into the media streamer bandwagon with the A-400. This would be my first streamer. But I've sort of been sitting on the sidelines a bit the last 2-3 years. Reading and trying to keep up with the new technology. Been backing up my blu-rays, movie only in blu-ray folder rips to about (3) 3-terabyte drives in the mean time. And yes I've read the ripping blu-rays II, just not the last 6 months of latest posts yet.

Anyway any tips or advice you guys can provide. I know the A-400 is work in progress. I'll probably go with diamond design when I order. How do most of you use all the drives you have? I assume some people are like me and are using 3 or more external drives to store thier content. Do you use a usb bridge/hub? Do you leave the drives all on at the same time or some sort of trigger to turn them on/off. Thanks for any advice.


JR.

First, I wish you the best of luck with the A-400. As for storing your media, I built an UnRaid server, which has 6 2TB drives. One drive is for back up / redundancy, and the other 5 drives are for storage. I used to have 3 2TB drive in a 4 bay hard drive enclosure, but this was too problematic when using a jukebox.

However, when I used to own an A-300, it recognized my hard drive enclosure with all the drives in it. I was able to brows each drive separately, and select a movie to watch.

I have 9 USB drives daisy chained together and connected to my PCH and I have a drive inside the PCH. All of the USB drives are Fantom Green drives: they spin down when not in use to save on wear and tear (thus they are 'green' drives). I have 3 USB 4-port 'connectors' used to connect the drives. All visible from my PC and the PCH.

Okay, all. Time for advise.

Got my A400 today. Have spent the last two weeks (while waiting for it) ripping my BR library to an external drive.

Connected it to the net, updated firmware, connected the external drive. Started to play Alice in Wonderland. There are audio/video sync issues. Figured might have done something wrong with this movie.

Started to play Captain America. There are audio/video sync issues.

Disconnected drive and connected to computer. File plays just fine - no sync issues.

I'm putting the HDMI from the PCH A400 through my Onkyo TX-NR708 then to the TV.

Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to select a specific setting?

I used dvdfab to "copy main movie" to one external drive. Then I used dvdfab again to rip the main movie to another external. I did many one at a time, but a few I would copy to hdd one at a time & then rip as a group.

Since they played fine on the PC, am I doing something wrong on the PCH setup? Can it not handle this?

Try connecting the PCH directly to your TV. This will at least help you determine if the issue lies somewhere in your setup (from the PCH -> AVR -> TV). If you experience the same issues then I would guess it is PCH A400 related. I would note that I don't have A/V sync issues on my rips. Alternatively, you could try ripping one of the troublesome blurays with an alternative to DVDFab (MakeMKV is a free option) and see if you get the sync issues (to determine if DVDFab is the culprit)

I have noticed an A/V sync issue on occasion. But if I see it I pause the title and then hit play and it is fine. It doesn't normally happen though. Usually it will be fine while playing an entire movie. But I think if I start messing around in the BD lite menu it sometimes gets out of sync depending on what I do in the menu.

EDIT: And the Titanic 3D BD arrived from BestBuy today. Yes it is two discs for the 3D movie. Each disc is 50GB. So I wonder what the bitrate is.
Edited by aaronwt - 1/7/13 at 5:47pm

If I remember when I would navigate around the A/V would get out of sync for a few seconds. I found the safest bet, once you start a movie, don't touch anything!

I run onkyo as well with no sync issues, Couple things to try make sure the onkyo does not have a lag setup on that hdmi port, aslo try enabling lip sync on the onkyo

Where does one enable "lip synch" or lag on the onkyo?

The only setting I seen is:
A/V sync which is currently set to 0 msec.

its somewhere in the settings not currently at home to look, also try setting the hdmi port on the onkyo to direct source to turn off post processing the box is doing.

Okay, I've confirmed the issue is with the Onkyo, not the PCH A400. No lag at all with FF/RWD causing lag when connected directly to the TV. If I play through the Onkyo, it was playing fine when I hit "play" for AIW on the remote. If I hit play from the NMJ on iPad, lag started after FF to beginning of movie. If I rewind 5 seconds or so and hit play, it works fine. The option someone suggested of "don't touch anything" isn't optimal. We pause quite often, grab a snack/refill, hit the head, etc.

But alas, we can drop this and get back on topic. I'll follow the other thread suggestions on the Onkyo and see if I can find a happy medium.

Maybe it's time to upgrade. Recommendations?

Back to the A400 though....or the iPad app for viewing the movies with the slick icon interface: NMJ Navigator. I have a few questions for this thing.
1) How do I correct a movie's info/icon? e.g. I have Bram Stroker's Dracula labeled simply as Dracula and it shows up as a 1931 Dracula directed by Tod Browning. Marvel's Avengers shows up as "The Avengers" from 1998. Boondock Saints 2 doesn't show up as anything but my filename.
2) Can I get this slick looking interface to show up via the TV as well with the regular remote...or is it just for the iPad/iPhone, etc.

Not related to the NMJ,
3) but can anyone recommend any cool apps to check out? Didn't have long to play with the PCH tonight. Won't have long tomorrow, either.
4) I have a 2TB USB 3.0 drive connected to the PCH in the USB 2.0 port. Any reason I need to transfer it to the 3.0?
5) Can I connect to the drive in 4 via my PC (other side of the house) via wired networking to transfer files to the drive for the A400 to read/update its database with as I rip my DVD collection next? I know I can disconnect the drive & bring it to the PC, but hey, I'd rather just leave it connected.

I use NMJToolBox2 to add/edit all my titles in NMJ.


http://www.nmjtoolbox.net/

Really great utility. I find that I see the results of the edits on my iPad. Pretty neat way of controlling the A400. But when I switch to NMJ on the TV the edits don't always seem to show up. Odd.

philip

For 1) you can always use the built in change poster utility on the A400 though NMJT2 is better I think. There you can just drop the correct poster in the spot on the left. For 2) you just click on Network Media and then the share you applied NMJ to. If you have it set to start up then it starts. Otherwise you highlight the share, press left and then select J. You end up with basically the same interface, though the iPad version seems more manageable. I prefer Oversight+Eversion on the TV.

philip

lol A sad commentary. Maybe PCH should include this in the user manual!

With the rate they are fixing bugs, it may be fixed soon (depending on where the problem lies).....I ahvent seen too many OOS issues on the forums however.......

From what I have seen at CES today, Dune will shortly own this market...

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1450642/dune-max-hd-3d-at-ces#post_22803410

believe it when we see it. Sounds like the HD pro all over again, And given there has never been an intel solution with working HD audio again believe it when we see it, not to mention XBMC as it sits is all GPL cant be sold to consumers so again its not the same XBMC we all know and love.

I am here and have seen it! the pro was always behind glass and never even demonstrated live at past CESs.

So they had a working unit?

Yes, I even played with it. It also has a mini pci slot for a tuner card...

It'll have to be price competitive with an HTPC running XBMC and TMT5 as an external player. By that I don't mean cheaper, I just mean competitive to the point where the difference is worth the saved time and effort of building and maintaining the HTPC.

That sounds like it would be expensive. How would that own the market?

Better yet, how can it get away with having Cinavia for discs, but not using it for the files?

Its sounding more and more like an htpc, so take say xbmc running does not have cinavia also does not support full disc, then you pop in a disc you have to load powerdvd or the likes and it does have cinavia as well as full menu support. Its no different then the xtreamer htpc that came out. Its just a pre built system. The main issue with HTPC is how it all functions together if its like xbmc is now with setting up external players its nothing new, If they have a way to streamline from disc playback to single file and such then it becomes interesting.

When the unit hits the wild and it can properly be reviewed, then I'll believe it.

It is not an HTPC and of course you should defer judgement

so maybe it would he better when dune fanboys stop hijacking threads, unbelievable :/

Or maybe you should post this in a Dune thread he didnt say it was an HTPC, he said its sounding more and more "like" an htpc.....


agreed.....of course we could go into the Dune threads and just start posting links for all of the other players, I am sure the regulars would love that lol......