AVS › AVS Forum › Gaming & Content Streaming › Networking, Media Servers & Content Streaming › POPCORN HOUR A-400 is coming soon
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

POPCORN HOUR A-400 is coming soon - Page 2

post #31 of 1491
9/8/12 at 6:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by indieke2 View Post

I want Oppo 95 quality in image, and to play all my files like the X 3, but want perfect PQ. The 95 was too expensive, and was not so handy for external files, and I not needed the extra cost for the sound, as I use my Accuphase as Dac. The Oppo 93 (European model) had too much videonoise.

indieke2. Are you sure the Oppo 95 has better PQ than the Oppo 93 ? This is the first that I heard of this. From what I remember everyone say the Oppo 95 has better audio as it's major differential selling point.
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #32 of 1491
9/8/12 at 10:05am
Sigh. Yes, that is the point. Here on this forum, everybody says this is impossible. I had both against each other, same settings, same connections, and the 93 had visible more video-noise. I send the 93 back, and the seller said there was nothing wrong with the unit. On a french forum, more then one user had the same comments, if they saw both. So I wonder if there is a problem with the European unit. But honestly, I tried different setting as auto-out was totally different. Soft movie like for te 95, much harder and video noise for the 93. Changing the setting to another color-space on the 93, could make things better, but the video-noise was always more present.

Again, in France I was not the only one to see this, but in the States they have other meaning.
Reply
Reply
post #33 of 1491
9/8/12 at 11:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by canton160 View Post

the big buzz is that sigma will have their 3D media player available in november 2012, exactly a year after realtek 3D launch
what new features sigma bring vs realtek ?
jukebox- ( med1000x3d is already option)
xvp (not required if you have a av receiver)
esata ( most of librarys are on NAS but still good option)
price (more expensive players + ~100$)
bugs ( all players have bugs and does will not be exception)
apps to control jukebox( its the only interesting feature so far )
better built silverstone cases ( ok i agree )
i would give a few months to med1000x3d to fix all the bugs, they seem to fix more than they promise...

1. Jukebox - is the med1000x3d jukebox an internal jukebox or are they still running the yamj type app thing?
2. VXP - Will out perform any AVR unless you are in the 1000$ range. Also note since no players pass native video your scaler in your AVR does nothing anyways its all in the player Unless the realtek pass Native No sigma players have so far.
3. Esata - Actually its very sad but most of the pch users are disc/usb drive users while the NAS is getting more popular I bet single/usb disc have more users.
4. Price - you have to pay a price for VXP it is a very good scaler. But again hopefully there is no bugs with it and we get lots of options.
5. Bugs - Our hope is sigma spent more time on this chip being its first higher end chipset but im in the boat there will be bugs

WIth this it gives people more options, Maybe the fps for 3d works right on sigma unlike realtek. And the DUAL Core chip should allow faster apps/html5/flash things to run and hopefully opengl could make for a better UI experience.
Reply
Reply
post #34 of 1491
9/8/12 at 1:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by halfelite View Post

1. Jukebox - is the med1000x3d jukebox an internal jukebox or are they still running the yamj type app thing?
2. VXP - Will out perform any AVR unless you are in the 1000$ range. Also note since no players pass native video your scaler in your AVR does nothing anyways its all in the player Unless the realtek pass Native No sigma players have so far.
3. Esata - Actually its very sad but most of the pch users are disc/usb drive users while the NAS is getting more popular I bet single/usb disc have more users.
4. Price - you have to pay a price for VXP it is a very good scaler. But again hopefully there is no bugs with it and we get lots of options.
5. Bugs - Our hope is sigma spent more time on this chip being its first higher end chipset but im in the boat there will be bugs
WIth this it gives people more options, Maybe the fps for 3d works right on sigma unlike realtek. And the DUAL Core chip should allow faster apps/html5/flash things to run and hopefully opengl could make for a better UI experience.


1- yamj thing, and very easy to use.
2- any comparison test we can take a look ?
3- dont argue with that, i use both , the phisical when i what to make some tests
4- i dont mind pay premium if is really worth it
5- in sigma , its syabas and dune company that correct their own bugs, contrary to realtek according to some sources.
Reply
Reply
post #35 of 1491
9/8/12 at 1:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by indieke2 View Post

Sigh. Yes, that is the point. Here on this forum, everybody says this is impossible. I had both against each other, same settings, same connections, and the 93 had visible more video-noise. I send the 93 back, and the seller said there was nothing wrong with the unit. On a french forum, more then one user had the same comments, if they saw both. So I wonder if there is a problem with the European unit. But honestly, I tried different setting as auto-out was totally different. Soft movie like for te 95, much harder and video noise for the 93. Changing the setting to another color-space on the 93, could make things better, but the video-noise was always more present.
Again, in France I was not the only one to see this, but in the States they have other meaning.

@indieke2

whats the meaning of EE

thanks
Reply
Reply
post #36 of 1491
9/8/12 at 2:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by canton160 View Post

1- yamj thing, and very easy to use.
2- any comparison test we can take a look ?
3- dont argue with that, i use both , the phisical when i what to make some tests
4- i dont mind pay premium if is really worth it
5- in sigma , its syabas and dune company that correct their own bugs, contrary to realtek according to some sources.

2. As for comparison tests you can find some old tests around the web from when Gennum owned vxp sigma bought it in 2008, not sure if sigma put out any products with it. At the time VXP had better de-interlacing then say qdeo from marvell. Some things to lookup would be like the Marantz's VP-11S1 1080p projector as it was paired with the VXP scaler. most of the stuff that ran VXP was in the 10,000$+ range out of my budget lol.

5. Somwhat true. Syabas and Dune have more control over the firmware then a realtek turnkey solution were they mostly just do a UI around a player. The difference is syabas/dune can use there own player and make changes to the player the part that is sigma only is if there is any bugs inside the SDK which is still closed source and sigma hands only.
Reply
Reply
post #37 of 1491
9/8/12 at 3:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by halfelite View Post

. . . the part that is sigma only is if there is any bugs inside the SDK which is still closed source and sigma hands only.
This is only part of the story.

The Sigma SDK is closed source in that you may not disclose any of it, but when you pay the $30,000 for the SDK, you do get all sources and you are free to modify it to your liking. However, it is pretty low level code, and it takes a brave programmer to venture there. This is why Sage was the only company that ever offered source-direct on a Sigma platform: They had a programmer with the balls to venture into the bowels (and that may be why Google swallowed Sage).
Reply
Reply
post #38 of 1491
9/8/12 at 4:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by halfelite View Post

2. VXP - Will out perform any AVR unless you are in the 1000$ range. Also note since no players pass native video your scaler in your AVR does nothing anyways its all in the player Unless the realtek pass Native No sigma players have so far.
5. Bugs - Our hope is sigma spent more time on this chip being its first higher end chipset but im in the boat there will be bugs

I think you mean no "shipping" Sigma player offers source direct. As pointed out by Mark below, all the old SageTV Sigma players offered native resolution output - even ancient 8635 ones. Syabas is just too damn lazy or incompetent and would rather give excuses blaming the SDK.

Regarding bugs - I predict this will be the buggiest player Syabas has ever released. Just look at their track record starting from the original a100 to the current a300. Combine that with the added complexity of a multi-core processor, VXP processor, etc. There is a good reason this thing has been delayed for so many years. Lucky for them they dropped full Blu-Ray support since they never could get it working 100% on the C200 for all movies. With each new player, they waste way too much time/effort on stupid apps/jukeboxes instead of focusing on core bugs that affect audio/video playback quality. The iPad app is yet another example in a long list of such features.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkHotchkiss View Post

This is only part of the story.
The Sigma SDK is closed source in that you may not disclose any of it, but when you pay the $30,000 for the SDK, you do get all sources and you are free to modify it to your liking. However, it is pretty low level code, and it takes a brave programmer to venture there. This is why Sage was the only company that ever offered source-direct on a Sigma platform: They had a programmer with the balls to venture into the bowels (and that may be why Google swallowed Sage).
Reply
Reply
post #39 of 1491
9/8/12 at 5:13pm
^^ Thanks for the correction. I would say it takes a special dev with lots of knowledge to get that low level and i bet its a rare talent to find outside of sigma or another bigger operation, None of the other companies over the years dune, pch, egreat, nixeus Ever had source direct either. Sysabas said they tried but was to buggy and could not get it working right.
Reply
Reply
post #40 of 1491
9/8/12 at 5:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by canton160 View Post

@indieke2
whats the meaning of EE
thanks

Edge enchantement, meaning sharpening of the edges, that makes the image look sharper, but is in fact an artifice.
Reply
Reply
post #41 of 1491
9/9/12 at 11:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by indieke2 View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by canton160 View Post

@indieke2
whats the meaning of EE
thanks

Edge enchantement, meaning sharpening of the edges, that makes the image look sharper, but is in fact an artifice.
Was not EE demon for videophiles all this time and undesirable? Now shall we pay for it;(?
Reply
Reply
post #42 of 1491
9/9/12 at 11:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by zoro View Post

Was not EE demon for videophiles all this time and undesirable? Now shall we pay for it;(?

You should not exagerate. Yes there is sharpening that videophiles will see but the greater "public", will just find it crispy and stunning. You can't expect this delivers oppo quality in this price-range, and image will be fine for most people.
Reply
Reply
post #43 of 1491
9/9/12 at 1:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by robnix View Post


Werner has stated flash only.

Why is PCH sticking with flash when Adobe seems to be dropping support for it in media players?

Philip
Reply
Reply
post #44 of 1491
9/9/12 at 1:56pm
Think Werner meant Flash lite in reference to jukebox support. At this point, both Flash and HTML5 support would be desirable. There is still a lot out there using Flash, and HTML5 hasn't gotten anywhere near as widespread as it needs to be to kill Flash yet.
Reply
Reply
post #45 of 1491
9/9/12 at 2:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by indieke2 View Post

You should not exagerate. Yes there is sharpening that videophiles will see but the greater "public", will just find it crispy and stunning. You can't expect this delivers oppo quality in this price-range, and image will be fine for most people.

I would not say thatm I expect it to be oppo quality or a little less. The image enhancer is not the only thing that increases the oppo price. it has two imaging chips, dual hdmi, Im pretty sure it decodes all audio formats to analog if you want it to, rather then just supporting bitstream. Take all that out and keep it simple and I bet it would be priced around the same price as the A400.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmcd View Post

Why is PCH sticking with flash when Adobe seems to be dropping support for it in media players?
Philip

Why do they need to move to anything else besides flash, Its just a UI, switching to something else does not make that much of a difference. It would be nice if it supports more then just flash but its still a UI in the end. While things like html5 would be nice they can still run html5 just like they do on the v8. so nothing is really missing.
Reply
Reply
post #46 of 1491
9/10/12 at 3:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by halfelite View Post

I would not say thatm I expect it to be oppo quality or a little less. The image enhancer is not the only thing that increases the oppo price. it has two imaging chips, dual hdmi, Im pretty sure it decodes all audio formats to analog if you want it to, rather then just supporting bitstream. Take all that out and keep it simple and I bet it would be priced around the same price as the A400.
.


I agree on that. The Oppo is also a Bd player. I need a device that plays my Music, Bd's , dvdd rips from hardrive as the physical discs are in Belgium, and I am a lot in France. The Oppo being that Bd player has restrictions as now Cinavia implantation, that will block a lot of ripped discs. Like you said, I not need expensive scalers, I not need awesome sound, as I stream it to my Accuphase Cd player, who is also Dac, SACD is nice, but is not essential. The comparison, with the Oppo is not for its streaming capabilities, but for his awesome Pq, I not managed to find in a streamer. If some manufacturer delivers the benchmard pq of an Oppo, with all the ease I have from my Media8er X 3, I will be the first to buy.

If the A 400 will have the Pq of an oppo is far from sure, I know the x3 not has it. But what is sure is that PCH, not has the best reputation for their soft and bugs. So I will not get too exited. But again, any palyer with tremendous PQ is always welcome!
Reply
Reply
post #47 of 1491
9/11/12 at 3:38pm
Dune prices are way out of control and that's why I'll be buying one of these A-400's. Yea, I like the Dune as I have a Prime 3.0 with a broken BD player in it. So, this 400 is going to be released around the Christmas holidays?
Reply
Reply
post #48 of 1491
9/11/12 at 4:11pm
Late October to early November I believe. Agree about Dune; not worth the price premium.
Reply
Reply
post #49 of 1491
9/11/12 at 4:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by halfelite View Post

Why do they need to move to anything else besides flash, Its just a UI, switching to something else does not make that much of a difference. It would be nice if it supports more then just flash but its still a UI in the end. While things like html5 would be nice they can still run html5 just like they do on the v8. so nothing is really missing.

The point is that they should be looking towards the future and not something that is on its way out. So to attract new development you want people to be using newer methods. Flash just sounds so darned old fashioned.

Still seems like an interesting media player. I don't suppose it might run XBMC?

Philip
Reply
Reply
post #50 of 1491
9/11/12 at 4:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brajesh View Post

Think Werner meant Flash lite in reference to jukebox support. At this point, both Flash and HTML5 support would be desirable. There is still a lot out there using Flash, and HTML5 hasn't gotten anywhere near as widespread as it needs to be to kill Flash yet.

The key word there is "yet". I don't thnk too many young people are augmenting their toolboxes by becoming experts in Flash. You want to think ahead, not back.

Philip
Reply
Reply
post #51 of 1491
9/11/12 at 7:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmcd View Post

The point is that they should be looking towards the future and not something that is on its way out. So to attract new development you want people to be using newer methods. Flash just sounds so darned old fashioned.
Still seems like an interesting media player. I don't suppose it might run XBMC?
Philip

The question still remains development for what. It doesnt make any money to hire someone to redo your flash based jukebox in html5 there is no money to gain doing that. Likewise 95% of all media streaming sites still do flash based streaming and even the html5 sites can pass video to a flash client. They dont lose anything finically themselves by sticking with flash nor will they lose out on any things to come in terms of online media streaming. While for user apps something else would be nice its still not a finical gain for them.
Reply
Reply
post #52 of 1491
9/12/12 at 1:23am
Now the essential, again! Could Pq compete with an Oppo? Somebody has already seen this player?
Edited by indieke2 - 9/12/12 at 1:47am
Reply
Reply
post #53 of 1491
9/12/12 at 11:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brajesh View Post

Late October to early November I believe. Agree about Dune; not worth the price premium.

Right now that would depend. The current Dunes are the most reliable players I have in my house, and I would gladly pay an extra premium for that. I have had nothing but issues from the times I use the PCH A300. Now the question is what will the new Dunes bring, and likewise for the new PCH, especially in terms of stability
Reply
Reply
post #54 of 1491
9/12/12 at 12:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

Right now that would depend. The current Dunes are the most reliable players I have in my house, and I would gladly pay an extra premium for that. I have had nothing but issues from the times I use the PCH A300. Now the question is what will the new Dunes bring, and likewise for the new PCH, especially in terms of stability

+1
Reply
Reply
post #55 of 1491
9/12/12 at 12:14pm
Diamonhomedesign has presale up if you live in the US

http://www.diamondhomedesign.com/store/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=97

Would be nice to see some new dune products there IFA announcements were a little meh and again no dates as to when anything will go on sale. hopefully they bring something out this time.
Reply
Reply
post #56 of 1491
9/12/12 at 12:56pm
Yeah, if only I could trade my A-300 for a good amount of $$ and Syabas guaranteed Seamless branching and HD Audio work right in ISO containers on the A-400!
Reply
Reply
post #57 of 1491
9/12/12 at 12:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by theaxledentaldj View Post

Yeah, if only I could trade my A-300 for a good amount of $$ and Syabas guaranteed Seamless branching and HD Audio work right in ISO containers on the A-400!

HD Audio, Seamless branching, HDMI handshake issues, network connectivity, etc... Glad the A-300 is not a primary player in my house
Reply
Reply
post #58 of 1491
9/12/12 at 1:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

HD Audio, Seamless branching, HDMI handshake issues, network connectivity, etc... Glad the A-300 is not a primary player in my house

Doesnt the dune suffer the same seamless branch issue in bd lite?
Reply
Reply
post #59 of 1491
9/12/12 at 1:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by halfelite View Post

Doesnt the dune suffer the same seamless branch issue in bd lite?

All bd lite suffers from this. I don't use BD Lite on my Dunes though so its not an issue (and to be fair I rarely have seamless branch movies since most are main movie rips, just something that always comes up with my test files). Obviously the hope is bd lite sorts out these issues for the next gen models.
Reply
Reply
post #60 of 1491
9/12/12 at 2:10pm
If thats the case with BD Lite Profile 1.0 being the issue on current gen media players, then I'll have to remux them seamless branching Disney Bluray ISOs into one m2ts.But I dont recall 1186 having the issue!?!?! Hmmm.. I'm not sure remuxing a Disney Bluray ISO will result in something cut off or glitching either?!
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Gaming & Content Streaming › Networking, Media Servers & Content Streaming › POPCORN HOUR A-400 is coming soon