Media Centres - your recommendations

daveza

daveza

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A client is looking for a replacement for their Mvix 6000R that is less buggy, has a higher capacity, supports HD and will fit in with their existing home theatre system.

All the units I have researched seem to have some negatives or are just too complicated for daily use.

As I understand it one can either use a pc-based system eg running Vista OS or a chip based system like the Mvix.

I see Seagate are also preparing to release their new media product which looks promising - http://www.seagate.com/theater/

I've also look at the iMerge MS5000 - but looks a bit complicated for the technically challenged ?

The world of digital video servers seems very confusing - and perhaps there is no perfect solution available yet.

Price - up to 10 grand.
 
I have a AMD 1.8 processor with 2 gigs ram, Nvidia 6600, Haupage 150 capture card and 4x 200 gig HD running MCE 2005 and it works like a rocket. Just bought a nice "hifi" type case and it fits in perfectly with the rest of my components
 
Some comments on using a pc-based system suggest that it is sometimes too noisy for ' low volume ' movies - what case do you use ?

MCE 2005 - does it support all the latest codecs ?
 
gifs said:
You could also read these threads on avforums.co.za

http://www.avforums.co.za/index.php/topic,2383.0.html
http://www.avforums.co.za/index.php/topic,2394.0.html
Click to expand...

TViX is a pretty decent unit - albeit a little pricey. You're looking at close about R4800.00 for the unit and extra for an additional HDD - pushing price to R6000.00 or so.

It does do HD and comes with nice hardware goodies (gigabit ethernet, HDMI 1.3 etc) and decodes just about everything - but the flaw seems to lie in the software more than the hardware :

It's so bland and basic, with no search functions or anything. Going through 20,000 songs, 150 moveis and 3,000 photo's without so much as a search of any variety or even thumbnail was terrible! A 3rd party program changed the way it looked (http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php/photo/9467/size/big/cat//ppuser/7981) which means I can now browse through pictures of the DVD covers, click and get a synopisis/cast/rating, and a 3rd click takes me to the movie.

I've actually not ever bothered with music and photo's on the this and rather use other means to view/listen to those, until such time as they can make decent software.

My older Pinnacle Showcenter used 3rd party (free) software that offered customisation of everything - so coming to TViX software was a little bleh and siappointing tbh.
 
Well said Dolby. Although it plays photos and music the functionality of the interface for last-mentioned leaves a lot to be desired.

But in terms of pure video player it plays 99% of everything, including HD, I throw at it.

You have to view it as predominantly a video player (and great at that), with the added unsophisticated ability to play photos and music.
 
The opensource program sounds interesting.

A media case at around 3 grand, motherboard, cpu etc and a 1 Tbyte drive should come in close to 10 Grand.

I would need to add a HD card as well.
 
Playstation 3

Have you considered the Playstation 3. Software is evolving, has good HD and audio capabilities, is a Blu-Ray player and a great gaming console.

HDD can be upgraded or it can be connected via LAN or wireless to a PC running any DLNA compliant media server program.
 
So far we have three different free apps for pc and about the same for chip based centres.

All 3 apps look good as an interface so will have to try them all.

Am starting to lean in the direction of a pc based system but still concerned about the noise factor and the cost which is much more than the chip based systems.
 
I'm running VMC - have been for two years, before that had MCE 2005 - also worked great.
 
PC seems to be a winner cause you can easily upgrade it.

we at the house have a similar setup and use both media portal and xbmc and found media portal to be better as you can use a ms remote control which for some strange reason we could not do with xbmc.

So think this is the best and you can use the cash for a nice, atractive box but with still lots of power.
 
I agree about the upgrade path with PC's - mines due for a soundcard and graphics card upgrade now dot HD-sound.
 
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