Well i have been using a modded Xbox with XBMC to play avi rips for ages now... I have my sorted 1TB external drives with 900 is movies / TV shows disks etc etc.... playing thigns though the PC network directly onto my TV or projector...

Now years latter.. i think it is again time to upgrade this setup.. the best set up I have ever had...

The probelm is that with 1080p TVs and Projectors.. XviD rips just are not cutting it.... Most sites (like this one) have opened HD Rip sections (Highest Quality Section they call it here) Anyway these high rez 3-4g files just over load teh processor of the Xbox and can not be played at all....


So I am asking... witch consol shoudl i go for... I do not give a fuck about computer games... I am just looking for a easy way top stream the new high quality video rips across my network.... When i last looked 360 could only play WMV.... but i hear there is a free upgrade now but it still can not play OGG, MKV, and what ever that new quicktime thing is... .. um .24Hd or somthing?

PS3 has a built in blue ray and that seams good.. but can it also play these formats?


Any other solutions sugestions?

If money is no issue then just get another rig and hook that up.
If a missus (?) complains then get a heavy laptop with hdmi out & blue ray drive.

These best solutions don't come cheap of course

consoles don't really hack it; you have shit codec support and a plethora of playback incompatabilities.

You need to build a MPC, i think that pretty much ends this story. i'd put any commercial solution out of your mind right now, the xbmc was a hack for what was essentially a pc which is why it lasted so long as 'market leader' in media playback.

I'd suggest a PC and silence it as best as possible.

I flat out would not bother with bluray; its a bad format, costs too much and the benefit isn't there when you can download the content very easily. I don't easily condone not purchasing media, but bluray / hddvd has pushed that one out on us for being so shit. Make sure you have a free drivebay incase you want to buy one, but now, imo its a waste of money right now. Spend the money on a newsgroup subscription if you don't have one already.

Well XBMC has great codec support.. it cna play everythign under the sun... it is just the processor that is to wimpy to play the mkv sorat 1080p style vids.... I know the ps3 and the 360 have the grunt for it.. but why hasn't a decent homebrew software sceen sprung up like on the xbox?

because its architecturally more like a console and ps3 is very weak on memory when you run linux on it.

I'd say they are completely out of the running if you want to have an open platform; if you want to play only a certain kind of file then look at the consoles, but only if you want a games console. If its just media you are after, get a media pc.

You could get one of those Popcorn Hour A-100 Network Media things:

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/

Me. I just use a PS3 now, and despite what spud says, apart from mkvs, it'll play pretty much everything. mkvs can be easily transcoded btw with mkv2vob.

h.264 support is flakey at best even after all the repacking you have to do; you been downloading 1080p hd streams regularly or just the odd one?

The reference hardware decoder is a regular Blue-Ray player, which supports h264 streams at Level 4.1. The PS3 does the same (plus some features more) and this should be expected from all future "highend" hardware decoders. 1080p rips by ESiR, CtrlHD and others who know what they are doing are all encoded at Level 4.1.

There are many rips, specially the older ones, that are not Level 4.1 compliant.

Yes, as elguaxo says virtually all of the newer 1080p rips are l4.1, so no problems really - but mkv2vob copes OK with the l5.1s, just it take hours to transcode rather than minutes. Mkv2vob also has to convert dts to ac3. There are more PS3 ready images coming out now that will fit on DVD-5 (720p) or DVD-9 (1080p) by ps3avchd. I normally go for these as it saves hdd space.

I rather like the PS3 as a media player. I used the 360 for a while, which was OK, but the PS3 seems more adept as a media centre.

Which is why it fails for me. If you have to fuck with the file then it isn't a choice for me; which is the reason xbmc was the best out there.
I go for quality encodes, when you start pratting around avoid perfectly valid rips then that is a failure.

Sure anything can work if you re-encode / transcode it; but I'd hope you shouldn't have to.

Well each to their own. For the cost of a PS3 I see it as the best choice around at the moment.

So you think the best idea is to get a cheap laptop with digital VCideo out to your HD TV / Projector..... This could work... . . .

I have heard ps3 is the best choice... but it seams to have some probs with h.264 and can not play .mkv as far as I know..... Seasm like this thread is supporting that....

a PS3 doesn't support the MKV container, it doesn't support many audio formats, but it's a decent h.264 hardware decoder. There is an app called mkv2vob that remuxes (very fast) a HighDef MKV movie into the container supported by the PS3. Even if this is very fast, it's still a manual step you must make. And there are older MKVs and a few newer MKVs that need a transcode. mkv2vob transcodes them automatically for you when needed, but this takes hours. Sometimes just the audio needs to be transcoded.

I think the popcorn is a much better choice. It supports the MKV container and TS streams, it supports the audio formats that you get in the highdef MKVs (decodes AC3, DTS, FLAC, Vorbis, AAC and Audio pass through for DTS-HD MA, DTS-HD HR, Dolby True HD, etc.) and it has a solid Level 4.1 support for h264. There are just very very few highdef MKVs that are not supported by the popcorn, probably just some old encodes. The weakest point of the popcorn is: Network Ethernet 10/100

But if you have the money, then a HTPC is perfect.

Maybe sony is damm well aware of Mkv being the BR-rippers's container of choice, eh ?

Does the popcornhour support 1080p?

yes

Read these posts re: the PCH and 1080p/dts mkv files:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p ... ost1169157

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p ... ost1172193

I heard problems with popcornhour too

there is a hughe thread at hdbits and tons of rips have been tried with the popcorn.

the main problems:
Network Ethernet 10/100. it is not enough for 1080p specially if a DTS track is present, use a harddrive instead.
the video is not L4.1 compliant. and the popcorn is even not 100% strict with this.
firmware. upgrade it.

edit: and I also said

I've been thinking about getting a ps3 for a while, but two things nag me:
1) having to transcode, repack and waste my time faffing
2) don't want/need bluray which is adding another £50-100 to the price tag
That and there's very few games I want to play; the xbox 360 is better there but its playback is weaker.

That's effectively wiped both the consoles out for me.

I'd happily buy a htpc but the problem i have is silencing them, anyone got some hardware recommendations on that front?