[mythtv-users] Cheap HD media players

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Fri Jan 1 18:48:41 UTC 2010


On Friday 01 January 2010 11:31:59 am Fa wrote:
> There are a bunch of cheap HD media players on the market.  I am wondering
> if anyone purchased one and used it with mythtv.  So far, I have been happy
> with the Asus OPlay HD media player.  At first I used it to play from CIFS
> share of the recording directory with scripts to do some nice symlinking to
> arrange the media, however with the new 1.17 firmware, the upnp stuff seems
> to just work with mythbackend.  I think for $100 it did it job well and
>  does HD, it's form factor is small and quiet.  Oh another thing, my mythtv
>  setup is using HD homerun.  Recordings can be watched on the OPlay without
>  transcording.  Also it seems to play most other formats that I throw at
>  it. I wish it could do commercial skipping, but right now it doesnt and if
>  I want commercial skipping I just do a mpeg2->mpeg2 transcoding with the
>  cutlist to remove commercials.
> 
> Anyone have comments about other cheap HD media players?
> 
> http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=sPkRGUeRrpiVYl5K
> 

Game consoles work pretty well as media players, and they are available fairly 
cheaply on the used market. I have an XBox-360 and a PS-3, they both have some 
limitations but they do work, and if you already have one anyway, the cost is 
nothing.

I also have a D-Link DSM-520 and a Myka unit, both of which also work quite 
well.

The PlayOn server is good for getting a lot of internet content onto your home 
network, and works with just about any UPnP/DLNA capable player. Lots of 
available plugins make for a wide range of options, as well as the built-in 
ones like HuLu, Netflix, Amazon VOD etc.


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