[insaneoctane]

Since I own a ps3 and have personally been fairly disappointed in its ability to stream my HD content, I thought I'd give other users an opportunity to suggest better methods. I have ripped many of my bd to a folder structure and have only kept the main movie. I've heard that the ps3 won't stream hd audio or certain codecs over the DNla connection? I personally have an i3 2008 R2 server running 24/7 at my disposal and own playon. I'm familiar with ps3 media server and I'm wondering if I can get my bd content to stream with hd audio over to my ps3? Otherwise I'm either going boxee box or neo!

 

[foxnews]

You can't pick one over the other. PS3 can do many things but only a few things work right.


things that ps3 is great for:

-games

-blueray

-Netflic

-Hulu

-Vudu


things that does not work well on ps3:

- local content (No NTFS support and 4GB limit, limited format). WDTV box can do much better job.

- browser ( I am not sure if you even call it a browser)

- youtube (not even usable). again WDTV can do much better job


Sony owns Movie studio and is a big content provider/maker. they will not allow/support any format or streaming that damage their content profit.

 

[rogo]

[sarcasm]


Yes, Sony will not do anything to harm their own revenues like letting you watch your own content.


They will only allow you to watch content where you pay other people (e.g. Vudu, Netflix, Hulu).


Clearly they are evil.


[/sarcasm]

 

[frito]

boxee is and has always been the king of local media streaming, at the moment only untouched BD rips are broken over the network but do play fine with attached storage (buffering issues over the wired network)


boxee devs have said they will try to fix the streaming issue but it may be a hardware limitation.


streaming MKV's is no problem for the boxee box and works perfectly right now.


as far as user interfaces go boxee is easily the best out there today and as it grows they will be fixing things and adding features and more online streaming options.


so far we have used a WDTV, ATV with boxee (ATV is underpowered and could not handle it), and a Asus O!Play, the boxee box just replaced the O!Play and we have zero regrets as the majority of our use is local content

 

[pmcd]



Quote:
Originally Posted by frito /forum/post/19517018


boxee is and has always been the king of local media streaming, at the moment only untouched BD rips are broken over the network but do play fine with attached storage (buffering issues over the wired network)


boxee devs have said they will try to fix the streaming issue but it may be a hardware limitation.


streaming MKV's is no problem for the boxee box and works perfectly right now.


as far as user interfaces go boxee is easily the best out there today and as it grows they will be fixing things and adding features and more online streaming options.


so far we have used a WDTV, ATV with boxee (ATV is underpowered and could not handle it), and a Asus O!Play, the boxee box just replaced the O!Play and we have zero regrets as the majority of our use is local content

Well I have to disagree with you regarding the BBox being the king of local streaming. I have given two BBoxes a week of my time and I generally like XBMC. I brought one BBox back because of an outrageously loud fan. The 2nd one I got was better noise-wise, but it did get louder after a couple of days. Still at a bearable threshold level but it will be returned because there are just too many other issues with the BBox at this time.


- the BBox remote is simply awful when it comes to operating the net part

- local and net content can't be unraveled and slows down the whole unit. I spent more time watching the circles go round and round than anything else. For local playback there are better options. I will say that Boxee on my mid 2010 Mini is far nicer than the Boxee Box and is actually fast. I still prefer XBMC on it however. XBMC on my 1st G ATV with a Crystal HD card is in fact more enjoyable at this point though I admit that this is not something for everyone. This is using a release candidate of Dharma.


- streaming net stuff on the Boxee Box I had felt like I had just downgraded to dialup internet service and streaming local 720p files always resulted in minor stuttering and buffering. Perhaps I had a defective box but I don't think so.


- the GUI is very nice of course but not everyone wants the net and local stuff mixed up. Watched folders are not watched so it is a pain to use the unit in library mode.


- for Canadians the net content is very poor ( not totally Boxee's fault) and what content there is usually opens in a browser and the process of getting it to full-screen is very frustrating. Those expecting Netflix in Canada should not assume it will work. The Netflix app on Boxee on my Mini does not recognize Netflix for Canada.


This player has a lot of potential but at the moment it just doesn't work properly.


Given the pathetic interfaces of most media players it is not saying much that the BB has an excellent GUI relative to those. I personally found it a joy to return to my C200 with Oversight.


Of course, things could change over the next few months but for now there are simply too many negatives ( remote, fan, flaky networking, slow streaming, poor local media capabilities, no sleep mode).


I wanted badly to like the Boxee Box. It just does so many things. Unfortunately it does none of them very well.


philip

 

[frito]

my BBox is completely silent and i have not had any playback issues with it aside from the already known bug (or possible hardware limitation however) that it will constaly rebuffer when playing back an untouched BD Rip over the network (both wired and wireless) but we are talking about a 45gb movie playing back on a cheap hardware. now when i connected a USB HDD with the same movie on it it played back 100% perfect without a hitch and i find that amazing, it shows that they implemented the hardware acceleration correctly on the device otherwise it would choke if it had to fall back on the CPU


as for HTPC's yes they are the best if you want to invest the time and money in setting them up but the OP is looking for a STB streamer not a HTPC. if it wasn't such a hassle to setup and teach everyone in my house how to use it i would go the HTPC route definitely but many people just don't want to deal with it only to have family members complain to them and the boxee box is the closest thing to a simple HTPC as you can find out there today IMHO plus you know they will continue to update the software and improve it. many things that people are complaining about with 1.0 avner himself has already stated they plan to correct within a month.

 

[pmcd]



Quote:
Originally Posted by frito /forum/post/19517714


my BBox is completely silent and i have not had any playback issues with it aside from the already known bug (or possible hardware limitation however) that it will constaly rebuffer when playing back an untouched BD Rip over the network (both wired and wireless) but we are talking about a 45gb movie playing back on a cheap hardware. now when i connected a USB HDD with the same movie on it it played back 100% perfect without a hitch and i find that amazing, it shows that they implemented the hardware acceleration correctly on the device otherwise it would choke if it had to fall back on the CPU

You are lucky to have gotten a silent one. It seems to be hit and miss. There are many people reporting noisy fans ( well relatively noisy) and many reporting complete silence.


Perhaps I had a couple of bad BBoxes or perhaps they simply didn't like my network setup. Boxee on my Mini ( the Mini is just as easy to set up as any media player though it is far more expensive) works fine.


Had I experienced the BBox the way you seem to have I would have kept it. It's a very interesting media player. The developers are great. I would not use it if it were my only player, but it's probably worth trying out for people upgrading from something else. I happen to have a bunch of media players around so it was no risk. I also really like XBMC so Boxee is quite familiar for me. Maybe I just got unlucky. I'll wait a few months and see what happens. It's definitely an interesting player. I still can't stand the remote though

philip

 

[aaronwt]



Quote:
Originally Posted by frito /forum/post/19517714


my BBox is completely silent and i have not had any playback issues with it aside from the already known bug (or possible hardware limitation however) that it will constaly rebuffer when playing back an untouched BD Rip over the network (both wired and wireless) but we are talking about a 45gb movie playing back on a cheap hardware. now when i connected a USB HDD with the same movie on it it played back 100% perfect without a hitch and i find that amazing, it shows that they implemented the hardware acceleration correctly on the device otherwise it would choke if it had to fall back on the CPU


as for HTPC's yes they are the best if you want to invest the time and money in setting them up but the OP is looking for a STB streamer not a HTPC. if it wasn't such a hassle to setup and teach everyone in my house how to use it i would go the HTPC route definitely but many people just don't want to deal with it only to have family members complain to them and the boxee box is the closest thing to a simple HTPC as you can find out there today IMHO plus you know they will continue to update the software and improve it. many things that people are complaining about with 1.0 avner himself has already stated they plan to correct within a month.

A 45GB movie playing back on cheap hardware? the PopBox is only $130. It can play back any BD ISO with no issues over the Network. Price isn't the issue playing back a full BD rip. I'm sure they will get the issue sorted out with the Bxee Box since the hardware is more than capable. It can easily stream over the network at over 60Mb/s bitrates which is more than enough for a BD ISO since other streamers can do it as well.


Also no box with a fan is silent. I can easily hear the fan in the Boxee Box from twelve feet away in a quiet room. Although I'm not saying it's loud, just that I have good hearing. In a normal viewing environment there is no issue for me. I would only have a problem in a bedroom since the sound from the fan is a pitch that is more annoying than the fan in my TiVos since the fan is smaller in the Boxee Box. I can easily hear the fan in a TiVo from twenty feet away in a quiet room, like a bedroom, but that frequency does not bother me like a smaller fan would.

I don't plan on putting the Boxee Box in my bedroom though. I plan on keeping it in my main viewing area, and I might pick up a second one for my secondary viewing area when BestBuy gets them in stock. But I won't be putting one in my Bedroom(my tertiary viewing area) I will only use my PopBox in there for my media playback.