Re: Network media player update

["Marc R. Fuller" <groups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Ian,

I've got the MB200 here.. had it about a year and am pretty happy with
it. Unfortunately though the Firmware is pretty damn buggy. PM (Pixel
Magic) are releasing new firmwares pretty regularly but seem to be good
at introducing more bugs :\  This box has huge potential, but the bugs
and the poor interface let's it down. I've just started using it with
NFS (a fairly new feature released by firmware)  and that's working very
well, it's also a million times faster than using samba so I am chuffed
with that. I think most of the problems I and others are having is with
the wide range of codecs and settings different movies have. Just one
little tweak can mean the difference between playing fine and crashing
the box.

I usually rip movies with DVD Fab Decrypter and then copy them across
using ViceVersa Pro (this helps with CRC errors when copying). I tend do
just use VOB files as using ISO's seems to crash my box pretty
consistently. I also can't seem to use IFO's without problems. This of
course means some movies mess up with sound and/or subtitles.
Unfortunately the latest firmwares don't seem to be making these issues
any better. I would also like to have had OGM or MKV support but the
chip doesn't support this so sadly that will never happen :\

Have you been to the pixel magic forums yet ? It's a pretty good source
of information and has links to the latest release and beta firmwares...

http://www.pixelmagicforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=17

Good luck with your box.. great item with huge potential... if only we
could get a stable firmware :D

Cheers

Marc


ian.bird@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> I have now had the HD MediaBox MB100 by PixelMagic for a week or so
> and on
> the whole things are going well. I will put together a small review
for
> Mark with photos etc. once I have answers to some of my questions. The
> summary so far though is:
> DVD playing from my NAS box. Generally few problems but there are 2
> annoying ones.
>
> 1) There is sometimes a slight pause every now and again similar to a
> normal DVD changing layers. This happens once to three times on a
normal
> length DVD.
> 2) Occasionally the screen will freeze whist playing a movie. This has
> happened on both VOB files and an AVI. Rewinding a few seconds and
> pressing play cleared the VOB ones.
>
> After noting the pausing problems I bought a new 500 Gig hard drive to
> fit
> to the unit internally to see if this would help. I fitted it with few
> problems and plugged it into the PC to copy the files across. To my
> eternal embarrassment I even had to read the manual at this point as I
> had
> never had to format a USB drive before. Anyway, several hours later it
> was
> done but I was running out of time so I copied a single AVI file to
the
> drive and took the unit back in for the missus and I to finish
watching
> the Fab 4 film. It played well right up to the point where it froze as
in
> point 2 above. Now, being an AVI I pretty soon discovered that it did
not
> rewind or do any of the other tricks I had found worked on the VOB
files.
> I was able to find out how far into the movie I was and that was about
it.
> Anyway, to cut a long story short, the AVI would rewind and jump to a
> time
> stamp etc. but only when being played from my NAS drive. This is very
odd
> and I will be asking about it on the forums over the weekend. Of
> course as
> most of us know AVI files are strange things and to jump in 40 mins I
had
> to enter 10 mins in the jump screen. I guess this is all down to the
> compression codecs so I don't really hold this against the unit
itself.
>
> Suffice to say this is not a completely problem free solution but I am
> very pleased with the unit so far. It comes the closest to a solution
> that
> any of the units I have tried to date have. My current thinking in
light
> of experience so far is to hold VOB files on the local hard drive and
> AVI's on NAS units through the network interface. Picture quality and
> sound are first rate and I would not know I was not watching the
original
> DVD. My setup is modest though with a Sony 28 inch digital TV and the
> sound played trough the TV. Sadly I am not allowed to upgrade the TV
to
> anything over 32" and only then when it dies. My missus is
becoming
> allergic to cables too which is not good for an HA enthusiast.
>
> More once I get to the bottom of some of the quirks. You never know,
some
> of these may be cured by a firmware update. Finger crossed.
>
> Ian
>
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>
>