Klegg MediaShare thread

A lot of this functionality can be had with a $40 hard-wired Netdisk Enclosure, a spare IDE HD, and a DivX-enabled DVD player with USB port.

It would be interesting to see how it performs with it's own hard drive. I'll pick one up this afternoon and play with it. It is a pretty cool idea and at $129 at Fry's, might make a decent cheap media server... I don't know much about Klegg and their website looks like something that was created in about two hours. Was the documentation any good?

Well, I just bought one, so now there are two of us with the 30-day window to see what these can do. I hope others join us.

I will open it up tonight to see how it can solve my general requirements.

BTW, I plan to connect using our gigabit Ethernet network. It will sit beside a Hauppauge MediaMVP that serves us well for a limited range of applications.

Regards,
Cogito

I was looking at this at Fry's and was wondering what the user interface was like. Could you describe if for me and perhaps add some screenshots? It would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom

You mean there are DVD players that can access a USB external drive?!?!? Tell me more!!

Philips makes some nice USB-enabled DVD/DivX players (e.g. 5960,5982) which can be used with many USB disk/thumb drives to play a wide variety of multimedia files, especially DivX/Xvid content.

Hmmm. Got this hooked up and am stumped.

Got it hooked up HDMI-DVI, and the picture looks good. UI has several options:

EXPLORE: movie, music, photo, USB, USB, network.

When I explore the network, I see a couple PCs and a few folders in each, but when I navigate from one to another, the file list does not change on several. I can see the folders on one PC from the other, but not with this. Maybe I have to tweak permissions. I hit REFRESH, but it still displays bad directory info. This is with the USB cable unplugged, of course, otherwise the network would not be visible, according to the manual (and experience).

One PC is WIN VISTA HOME PREMIUM, one XP PRO. I can open files in several folders, but find that some files open OK, and it will not open others, saying bad file type. One .asf file worked, another would not. For some reason, it will not display a .dvr-ms file that was recorded in Media Center.

Honestly, I have not fooled around with video files too much in awhile, so am not up-to-date on all the CODECs and types of mpegs, etc. Most of these files play OK across our LAN on all the PCs. The Klegg unit does not play numerous files.

So far, I am unimpressed. It would not play a file I downloaded using DVArchive from my ReplayTV 50XX that plays perfectly using Windows MediaPlayer.

I will fool around more later...want to take advantage of this beautiful Southern California day.

Big question is why won't it display directories from other computers on the network properly (shared folder looks OK, as do the MUSIC, MOVIE, and PICTURES folders I added to the hard drive I installed in the Klegg unit).

I have not installed any of the SW that came on the CD. Maybe that is part of the problem??? but I would not think so.

I do so hat VISTA's permissions stuff, but the XP folders should be shared right.

General comments before signing off:
1. Nice little unit. Looks good. If it did what I want, it would be a keeper.
2. Crummy manual, but workable if you know what you are doing.
3. So far, just using it on a wired network and, except for the folders not displaying what is in them, no problems.
4. Setup was easy so far.
5. Quick boot time.
6. I have not tried any HD material yet, as it will not do my ReplayTVHD files (from beta version), nor will it playback the .dvr-ms files

Any comments?

Regards,
Cogito

Can this device display file names in non-English character sets, like Unicode UTF-8?

1. Nice little unit. Looks good. If it did what I want, it would be a keeper.

Not by my standards - "Chinese"-manufactured look with poor fit and finish, fine scratches all over the enclosure, and burr marks on case edges.

2. Crummy manual, but workable if you know what you are doing.

Agree completely. For $190 (originally), Klegg didn't even bother to have someone proficient in English transliterate.

3. So far, just using it on a wired network and, except for the folders not displaying what is in them, no problems.

Same frustrations, wired or wireless, despite all sorts of tweaks. I like NDAS and it works fine. Wireless G transfer rates are awful.

4. Setup was easy so far.
5. Quick boot time.

Agree.

6. I have not tried any HD material yet, as it will not do my ReplayTVHD files (from beta version), nor will it playback the .dvr-ms files

Haven't tried HD/Replay, but at least mp3's and DivX/Xvid files play fine.

I just passed one of these in Fry's. If it works it will be a great deal. But my requirement is support for the Windows Media Advanced codec for HD files.

Any of you guys that have one goto www.wmvhd.com and download a 1080 and 720 sample to see if it works please!!

I have a feeling even though it can support those resolutions it may not be able to support the high bitrates during playback. I transcode WMVA/WVC1 720P movies at 8MBPS and 12MBS for 1080P.

I was planning to buy a Xbox 360 for the one TV I don't have a HTPC on but this unit would be half the price and support DIVX.

~DC

Done. Both ROBITICA720 and SPEED1080 worked fine when I copied them to the hard drive installed in the Klegg. Both ROBOTICA1080 and SPEED1080 choked a bit running acoss the network, but the workstation they were on was doing other things too.

Anyone else find the fan unusually noisy?

I was looking at the manual for the Linksys 2100/2200. Both appear to be able to play files from Windows Vista Premium, but the specs do not mention .dvr-ms files. Are they referred to by another name too?

If I can't play those files with this thing, I would look at that as a major failure of this device. I know that many don't like these MS-proprietary files (if I am right about that), but they are what gets generated by Vista Media Center. If you are using a PC to record those, and this extender will not play them in the other room, what is the point? My Hauppauge MediaMVP could play 95% of what I threw at it. Since I just started fooling around with Vista, I will have to see if it too fails to play them.

I do not want to have to waste time converting files just for this.

Also, once it looks at a folder and you navigate to a different folder, it keeps displaying the contents of the first folder, and will not refresh to display contents of the next folder. Maybe it needs an update.

I will try contacting Klegg about this and the dvr-ms issue.

Regards,
Cogito

Yes it is. Right now it is sitting just 3 feet away from me. I wonder how it would be while watching TV with it a dozen feet away.

BTW, you are kinda right about the rough edges on the case. I hadn't noticed, and would not from a few feet away though.

I picked up one at Fry's today for $129. Got it home and plugged it in and connected to my cheapo 720P LCD and connected to network (no internal disk). It immediately found my Linux samba server where all video, pictures, and music resides.

I started with my DVD collection and started Alien v Predator (widescreen) which was ripped from DVD using DVD Shrink. Played great at 720P and 1080i over wired network from the IFO file. I then turned to my Nero Recode MP4 files, which also played without a problem.

I have been using 2 DSM-320s for the last two years. I am glad to finally see that someone is getting things right with the firmware. Having been using the DSM-320s I have a good point of reference for media playback.
Here's my feelings about the Klegg Mediashare when compared to the DSM-320:

Pros:
(+) Remote works great and response is great. Buttons actually work like a real remote (DSM remote sucks).
(+) Plays IFO files and treats it like a real DVD.
(+) FF/Rewind, Prev/Next chapter all work.
(+) Upscaling looks great.
(+) Abiltiy to set brightness and contrast.
(+) JPEG display is sharp/crisp.
(+) Don't need uPnP server running (I have used Twonky for the DSM)

Cons:
(-) Blanks screen between picture display
(-) Fan is very noisy. It is actually louder than my 3TB Linus file server with four disks in it. This is not a big deal since with a video playing you won't hear it. I am not sure it even needs it unless there is a HDD installed.
(-) Navigating the shares is kind of painful. That is where the uPnP server came in handy searching and sorting the playable files in the shared directories so you only see the types of files the player can play.

Untested:
1) Playing ISO files. (I am going to love this)
2) SATA HDD Storage. (hoping this means that it can handle the current 1TB drives from Seagate, Hitachi, and Western Digital)
3) 5.1 Digital Audio outputs.
4) 1080P resolution (looking at Samsung 61" LED DLP)
5) All the other video/audio formats that I don't have.
6) Wireless (although I never had any success watching video over wireless so I won't ever do anything but wired).

Summary
I was seriously taking a chance buying this from Fry's since it is basically an unknown product with what appears to be no support on their website (FAQ, FW downloads, etc.). Maybe I am jaded by how bad the DSM-320 is, but for half the price from 2 years ago it is at least twice as good. At $129 this is a great buy. I will keep the one I have and sell one of my DSM-320s to help defer the cost and probably get another one for my son so when he goes off to school next year he can take his favorite movies with him.

NICE

But tell me one thing. This device doesn't require media player running on another pc to deliver the media right? It finds shares and pulls off the storage, PC or NAS right?

The speed 1080P clip is not full 1080P, its 1440 X 1080. I'll get a full sample posted for testing. I'm going to pick one of these up tomorrow and have a ton of media I can test. If it can't play 1080p over my 100MBit network it goes back.

The Fry's in North County San Diego wants $189 ofr it. where are you?

I am in Sacramento.

And yes, it sees any Windows or Samba shares. When I browse the network drives it shows all the computers on the network that have dhared folders. I just happen to be running samba on a homebrew 3TB Linux server from which I am sharing all my media.

I am even thinking about putting a 1TB drive in the Klegg and use it as my weekly Movie and Music backup target so I can use it as a portable player when we go on trips. The backups are automatic and don't have to be fast because I do incrementals overnight.

The more I think about it the better it looks.

It was in Friday's (2/1/08) Union-Trib ad on Page 3, top-half of the page...little picture looked like a wireless router:

#5393408 for $129.99

San Diego store had about 30 of them on the end-cap facing the front of the store just 30 feet away from that computer sales booth they have there. Ad says good thru 2/5/08, so go bust 'em and report your findings back here!

Enjoy,
Cogito

P.S. I did write to Klegg. Will report back on how they respond. I really want this thing to work, but so far, except for promised HD, it is similar to the Hauppauge MediaMVPs I got a couple years ago, but does not support all the filetypes the MVP seemed to process.

Nope, it does browse other folders across the network without media player or Media Center running. I am just having problems viewing several folders that I have shared other than the SHARED files folder. I wrote to Klegg about it. I may be doing something stupid, but have many years experience as an "end user," often looked down upon as end users often are, but always listened to by our IT staff at work 'cause they know I know more than many of them do, if I can be so bold.

Files I placed into the SHARED folder on an XP PRO system were all ready to go, except for those that it could not play in the first place (from what I gather, like .dvr-ms files. It would also not work with .mov files, which our Minolta F-200 camera uses, nor would it play some .asf files, but it did play others. It did directly play ***** files which I believe came from my father-in-law's Casio, though he might have prepared them in some video editing program.

I just downloaded "The Magic of Flight" 720P demo from the WMV9 site to my NAS box. Worked beautifully. Played perfectly over my 100Mb Lan. And boy is it beautiful.

Oh, I left out a big (+) for the Klegg... It can be completely operated from the front panel buttons. So, if you take it somewhere and forget the remote or can't find it you are not dead in the water like almost all of the other HDD Media Players on the market.

I hope these guys develop a low cost model based on the Sigma 8623 so we can get the H.264 TS playing for under $200. I need the Blu-Ray Drives/Players to come down in price and I will be ready for HD.

Do you think I just might not be sharing folders right? It sees everything in the SHARED folder, but goes screwy with other "shared" folders. For example, when I look at a couple WIN XP PRO folders on Machine A form a WIn Vista Home Premium computer, I do have to enter USERNAME and PASSWORD. Sorry if I sound like a NUBE, but I still have not resolved all my Vista permissions issues. I have even considered paying for NETWORK MAGIC, which promises to make sharing EZ, but I would like to force myself to resolve this without using a utility.

Would anyone who's gotten this to see XP network shares be kind enough to walk the "network-challenged" through the proper set up and, if necessary, firewall tweaks?

I also bought this thing, hoping to get into Media Serving a little bit. My uses for it may be different than others, so I explain that here. I mostly wanted something I could store my music media on, play the music as a jukebox through my stereo system, and act as a backup device for my network. Playing movies hasn't yet been a real need of mine, but it's nice to have that flexibility, as is display photos on the bigscreen.

I am using it wirelessly, and I bought and installed a 750gb 3.0gbs Seagate drive in it. I also installed the NDAS software that it came with, and so far it sees my XP file shares no problem. The guy at Fry's said "be sure to install the software on all PC's you want to use it with". I was actually surprised that he knew anything at all about it.

It seems to play movies well (I've only tried a couple), and the remote buttons and software work very well for movies. So far, I don't really like how it handles MP3 files. It shows everything as filenames, instead of using MP3 tags, so since my filenames are so long (artist+album+track#+trackname) it makes navigating the files slow and painful. Also, the Jukebox software that it comes with works strangely. So while it plays MP3's fine, it's handling of them and the remote and menus are all awkward (as opposed to how well it handles movies). I should also note that I am really only playing things on its internal HD, and not so much over the network so far.

I am also using it as a wireless backup server to receive incremental backups from my various PCs, and I'm pretty pleased about that, too, although it's not super speedy...

The Klegg website looks like something that was made one evening after dinner. No FAQ's, no firmware downloads, just a couple of email addresses for support. Kinda strange for a "publicly traded" technology company, regardless of how small it might be. I think the manual is pretty good for explaining how to install things, but pretty poor for how to use it. The broken English is obvious but I didn't find it problematic.

I will say that I am very impressed with how versatile this device can be. Using an internal hard drive, sharing across the network, and two USB ports for flash drives, etc. is nice. Playing movies, photos, and music as well as acting a as backup device is also cool, as is is large amount of AV output options. I use the digital coax out (and a high-end external DACs) and the music sounds very good with either wav's or high bitrate mp3's. I'm an audiofile, so I don't do well with iPods plugged into my system. Using the digital coax out, I'm happy with the sound for party music, and having USB ports on it means my friends can bring over a thumb drive with their music and we're good to go without connecting a cheap MP3 player's "headphone out" to my stereo system. I'd like the music playing software to get some attention with a firmware update, but so far, I can't see this $129 device going back to the store...

I doubt anyone will be able to help, but I haven't been able to get the Mediashare to recognize any shared folders/files on either of 2 networked PC's. The PC's themselves are recognized, but each shows the following error in the Event Viewer System Application:

"The server received an incorrectly formatted request.."

SWEET I'm heading out to pick up a couple. I'll try to post a tru 1080P sample today so that you guys can try. Anyone else havea 1080p TV?

~DV

Well, my $129 device is probably going back.

I primarily bought this to play music from a Windows Home Server (WHS) box to my receiver. So, I've got no drive in the system, and just browsing across the network. I can see the files, but it is so painful to select files to play that I'll look for something else.