I need one that plays sd/hd avi/mkv rips (like the ones ya'll up here) and it need component outputs. The only I one I found is this guy:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=735

they sell it local to me here:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0318658

probably buy a large external to plug into it too.
do you know whats the better external drive? WD, etc... needs to be 1TB or more.

Yeah still looking around for a nice setup aswell, but for me it has to have a dvd/blu-ray drive aswell and atleast space for one internal hdd. I know elguaxo mentioned some really nice and affordable ones over at dead donkey (dont know the precise thread atm)

nice little player!

but if you also need to buy a hard drive, then consider an Atom / ION based HTPC. Some random search @ Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6883103234
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6856158007
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6856173001
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6883103228

some setup guides:

http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-s ... -the-cheap
http://lifehacker.com/5406563/build-a-c ... dia-center

The WDTV is cheaper and it's a great product, but the price of a WDTV plus an external Hard Drive is very close to a full featured Atom/ION based HTPC

Thanks! Having a look at those, I still think the WD player works for me a little better. It has component which I NEED (I got an old 56" plasma for free and it doesn't have hdmi, its an old corporate model), which I plug into my switcher. And having an external I came plug into my computer and then bring it back out to the living room seems easy to me. Hopefully I can get a reliable, large, hdd with esata and usb2.

Thanks for the small-form htpc suggestion, didn't know they were so cheap!

I searched pretty hard, but it seems that NVidia's ION has only HDMI, DVI and VGA video output, but no component. An HTPC based on something else will be more expensive and bigger. So yep, the WDTV is the right thing for you.

It?s only 99.999 euros i confirme that is very good

I just hope it plays alot of the codecs used. When I get it, i'll report back, cuz that price is right, especially if you have an external usb hdd already. or I could get a wireless router setup to it and just stream from my computer. The onscreen gui looks nice too. My penis is stiffening right now.

How do those Atom/ION based pc's compare to a popcorn hour (c-200) ?

I've been thinking about a popcorn but I find it pretty expensive. And also thinking about a tiny netbook/laptop based on Atom or ION. It costs just a little more. But has a shitload more functions.
And something about 10" + HDMI out would be really sweet. (Reminds me of something else... just can't exactly remember what..)

Would also be cool, if it could handle a game or what. Doesn't need to be highres, but has to work decent on 1080p.
But video is the main prio.

I confirm what Telmo wrote I have WDTV and 1TB MyBook Essential, and I'm very satisfied with that setup. Concerning codecs, the only thing I noticed that it couldn't to play are some old .mpg files I keep for sentimental value

for me it's either a cheap player like the WDTV or an ATOM/ION based HTPC. The popcorn has great reviews, but it's just too expensive compared to these HTPCs.



I think games are out of the question, old games yes, but I doubt that a new game will run. The CPU consumes very little, so it's easy to keep it cold, but it's too weak for a modern game. But it should be great for anything else.

Wonder what that is... lol

Must agree on that part.. the high price is the main reason why I haven't gotten one yet.


Diablo II ?
If it can run that kind of old games, I'm fine with it :P
New games are PS3..

Sure!

Lately i'm wondering the same, although I really like the popcorn hour c200 I'm starting to think I'd better get a Asrock ION 330 or something simular

So many replies and I only see the word assrock!

I just want a digital tuner that can play Bluray discs, record them, record HDTV AND has a network option.

This looks nice too: http://www.amazon.com/OPPO-BDP-83-Blu-r ... 465&sr=8-1

But $500,-

OR

LG BD-390: http://www.amazon.de/LG-Blu-Ray-Player- ... 807&sr=8-1

? 245,- (+ there are region free hacks available)

Both have a component output.

Those LG players can't play FLAC inside an MKV file: http://www.fileheaven.org/forum/viewtop ... 27#p815227

I haven't heard of FLAC so far. Are there standalones that supports it? It's not often used in encodes, is it?

The WDTV supports it . FLAC is becoming more popular for 1080p Bluray rips. The thing is that Blurays come with many different lossless audio formats: LPCM, TrueHD or DTS-HD/MA. And FLAC is more efficient than all those formats! Read my post @ FH. I was encoding a Bluray with a stereo lossless DTS-HD audio track of 857 kbps and encoding it to FLAC I got it down to 297 kbps! That's small and lossless. Why would you waste your time on something else when the real deal is so small.

MP3 should only remove the frequencies you cannot hear, so that isn't a real loss, is it?

MP3 = lossy
FLAC = lossless

FLAC > MP3

We are using lossy video codecs (H.264, XviD ...). Why should we use a lossless audio codec, if you can get the "same" (no noticeable loss) quality at a smaller file size?

Btw. we are getting off topic. Sorry.

You are looking this from the wrong angle:

viewtopic.php?p=144224#p144224

Why did you keep the stereo audio track as AC3? Why don't you reencode the audio of every rip you do? Why do you want to keep the audio untouched? Just compress every stereo audio track to MP3, do it always!

edit: and me? I believe in having untouched and smaller audio! LPCM/TrueHD/DTS-HD to FLAC = win!

Because the resulting MP3 file is almost as big as the AC3 one. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

I believe, and I'm not sure, AC3 also has a limit of 5.1 where Flac (might) does 7.1
Most Lionsgate movies are 7.1 and I hope more and more are coming.

FLAC can do 7.1

AC3 kinda was the lossless codec in the dvd ripping scene. I like Flac and ape, but have yet to apply it properly. face it, im poor. Some cheap tight little box suits me fine till i can afford a true htpc. duh don't you think i want unlimited support and a handjob, and a virtual sex chair like in Ahnold's Sixth Day? Fuck yeah gime that for my $300 net a month!

btw started drinking again.

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/ ... on=catalog

Ordering it from them directly is about 230 euro including shipping. Instead of the 350 euro in here...
If you have to pay taxes, it's 288 euro.. still a lot cheaper.