HDD Based Player

[Kapz]

While planning to buy a Full HD LCD, I realised that only content is available on torrents as BD players and movies on BD are a long way off. Can some1 suggest which is a good hard disk based player that can churn out HD upto 1080p and is available in India.

So far I think Cowon A3 is capable of playing mkv files but am not sure. Can someone please throw some more light on this?

 

[illusion]

Why dont you build a HTPC with ATI HD 2600 PRO/XT graphics card .

 

[Kapz]

It is a good suggestion, but my idea is to have a small HDD based player without hiccups of streaming over WiFi. I have seen such players at TV showrooms and are used for demo of full HD TVs.

 

[zoony]

Checkout the below mentioned link. They are the authorised distributors of DiVico Products in India.

Jay Multimedia Inc. - TViX India


Divico Homepage

DViCO

 

[venkatcr]

It is a good suggestion, but my idea is to have a small HDD based player without hiccups of streaming over WiFi. I have seen such players at TV showrooms and are used for demo of full HD TVs.

Kapz, what you see in showrooms are, yes, HDD based players. These, though have limited capacity, and need the expertise of the company to make any change. Companies such as Samsung, Sony etc, use this to ensure that the best quality picture is used and that the dealer does not fool around with the system.

What you may be looking for are called Portable Media Players. These are made by companies such as Cowon, Archos, Creative (Zen), Apple (iPODs), iRiver, and others. These play MPEG-4, WMV, protected WMV, MPEG-2, VOB, H.264 formats. Capacities go up to 320GB or about 1300 hours of video.

There are two issues here. One; these players can, to the best of my knowledge, play up to 720p. They cannot store or play Full HD signals. Two; they are expensive. A 100 GD drive will cost around 20,000.

Cheers

 

[venkatcr]

Checkout the below mentioned link. They are the authorised distributors of DiVico Products in India.
Jay Multimedia Inc. - TViX India
Divico Homepage
DViCO

Thanks Zoony. Was not aware of this at all. Any idea of prices?

Cheers

 

[illusion]

Thanks Zoony. Was not aware of this at all. Any idea of prices?

Cheers

I seriously will not advise anybody to go for players which are not available in India unless you travel to the country of purchase often. For ex I have an Archos 80 gb which died on me recently. As I had no trips planned to USA , I could not even get it repaired under warranty. I paid 14k for it and now it is nothing more than a brick for me !!

 

[Kapz]

Illusion, Thanks mate. This is a real deal.

@Venkat- Yes I was aware of players like cowon and archos, but like you said they support only 780p and cost a bomb.

@Illusion, thanks for links man. Although the site does not say much abt disk size, the specs do look very promising and are a right solution for me. Will update once i find out their true colors

Thanks

 

[eummagic]

Illusion, Thanks mate. This is a real deal.

@Venkat- Yes I was aware of players like cowon and archos, but like you said they support only 780p and cost a bomb.

@Illusion, thanks for links man. Although the site does not say much abt disk size, the specs do look very promising and are a right solution for me. Will update once i find out their true colors

Thanks

Hi Kapz!

As per my knowledge, right now only Tvix is available in India distributed through - HD Media Box. But dont know about the after service. But this is very expensive, recently I got quote from for model no. Tvix M6500A - Rs.26438/- (without harddisk). The other alternative is popcorn hour ($215 + shipping + duties extra) which is cheaper than Tvix but again you need someone to bring from abroad. Again, after sales service will be a problem if anything happens. In fact, my plan of buying popcorn hour is put on hold and right now thinking of going for high end DVD player that gives best upscaling results.

Can anyone suggest me some high end upscaling DVD players. I have shortlisted Oppo DV-981HD, your suggestions pls and if any one can give the details of their availability (dealers) in India and the cost.

 

[eummagic]

Why dont you build a HTPC with ATI HD 2600 PRO/XT graphics card .

Hi illusion,

Kindly give me a complete guide on building HTPC and the cost involved. Pls also give details of the software to be installed etc.

 

[venkatcr]

Hi Kapz!
Can anyone suggest me some high end upscaling DVD players. I have shortlisted Oppo DV-981HD, your suggestions pls and if any one can give the details of their availability (dealers) in India and the cost.

I was kind of thinking along the same line. I don't think HHD based systems have reached a level where they are economical and smart enough to replace a good DVD player with 1080p upscaling. Audio servers are a different story. With uncompressed codecs such as FLAC, you get output which is equivalent to a Redbook CD. And using a simple wireless system such as Sonos or Squeezebox, you can use your existing computing systems to store and play music. I am not sure media players have reached that level of maturity.

Eunmagic, the Oppo 981 is a very good choice. You will find it hard to get a comparable player at that price bracket. The 981 is available from our own Forum member Prithvi of Absolute Phase. Check the following link.

http://www.hifivision.com/dvd-playe...ppo-dvd-players-available-absolute-phase.html

Cheers

 

[illusion]

Hi illusion,

Kindly give me a complete guide on building HTPC and the cost involved. Pls also give details of the software to be installed etc.

In a nutshell:-
HTPC is nothing but an ordinary desktop computer with the addition of a decent graphics card like HD 2600/ 3450, High and a better quality sound card . You may go for a remote but in addition I will suggest you to also go for a wireless keyboard and mouse combo as it will provide greater control on the HTPC. Now since LCD's are predominating in the market , you can hook up the htpc via an hdmi cable for 1080p output. If you have an av receiver make sure to opt for a sound card with digital out . this will enable you to connect your HTPC via a Digital chord to your receiver to experience 5.1 sound.

Advantages :-


1)You can play all the movie formats that exist today , starting from mkv to avi
2)Better sound reproduction than most budget to comparatively Expensive DVD players. This is one thing i can vouch for, many time I connect my xps laptop to my av receiver via a usb adaptor ( the adaptor has digital optical out) and the difference in the sound ( especially the bass) is noticeable.
3)If you go for a 1 TB HDD then you can store all your( maybe most of them for some people ) movies , songs, pictures etc in one complete solution !!
4)HIGHLY SCALABLE - When Blu ray becomes cheaper, just add a Blu Ray rom and hey presto you have a blu ray player ( Pls go for a decent process such as core 2 duo 2.2 ghz+ or a comparable AMD as they are not much expensive nowadays). Short on space no problem - add another 1 TB of HDD and you are good to go.

hope this helps!!

 

[Kapz]

Hi Kapz!

As per my knowledge, right now only Tvix is available in India distributed through - HD Media Box. But dont know about the after service. But this is very expensive, recently I got quote from for model no. Tvix M6500A - Rs.26438/- (without harddisk). The other alternative is popcorn hour ($215 + shipping + duties extra) which is cheaper than Tvix but again you need someone to bring from abroad. Again, after sales service will be a problem if anything happens. In fact, my plan of buying popcorn hour is put on hold and right now thinking of going for high end DVD player that gives best upscaling results.

Can anyone suggest me some high end upscaling DVD players. I have shortlisted Oppo DV-981HD, your suggestions pls and if any one can give the details of their availability (dealers) in India and the cost.

Thanks for ur inputs eummagic. Thing is I already have a DVD based Pioneer wireless system so I am not much for investing in another DVD player. TVix has all the works like co-axial audio out so I can enjoy Dolby Digital as well. Its network connectivity makes it as good as an HTPC. The point about after sales service is definitely a sore point. All I can say is that I picked up my pioneer in Singapore and iriver PMP in UK. Both these have limited service availability in India. However, both these have not caused any trouble so far. The link given by illusion refers to India distributor. I'll have to talk to the fellow and decide on after sales part.

 

[Only_me]

Hi,

All the TVix Products from JAYMM comes with one year warranty. They are providing after sales service also.

Thanks

 

[Kapz]

Would be nice if JayMM can display product prices also on website. Makes it easier.

 

[Only_me]

Ya, but you know the dealers in India right?.

The best thing is, the same piece (Model) is priced differently with different retailers.
I mean the HD7000a is around 21000/- with the cochin distributer, 25000/- in Hyderabad and around 23000/- from the other guy. I called everyone of them, enquired the price and got different quotes from each of them.

I did not understand which is the correct price to pay and finally dropped the idea of getting it.

Thanks

 

[Kapz]

These price differences are due to local taxes. Thanks for your update.

 

[eummagic]

......................All I can say is that I picked up my pioneer in Singapore and iriver PMP in UK. Both these have limited service availability in India. However, both these have not caused any trouble so far. The link given by illusion refers to India distributor. I'll have to talk to the fellow and decide on after sales part.

Yes, it is true....electronics is something really mystery because a high quality product can also fail because of so many other influences, similarly a low quality product life can keep on going without any hiccups. Though the primary quality of the product certainly gives mileage of life span but so many other factors like power, usage, climate etc effects the product life span in the long run. 7 years ago, I had purchased a samsung (grey) VCD player and it worked fine without any hiccups. I believe apart from quality of the product, luck also should smile on us for longer life span of the product.

 

[eummagic]

In a nutshell:-
HTPC is nothing but an ordinary desktop computer with the addition of a decent graphics card like HD 2600/ 3450, High and a better quality sound card . You may go for a remote but in addition I will suggest you to also go for a wireless keyboard and mouse combo as it will provide greater control on the HTPC. Now since LCD's are predominating in the market , you can hook up the htpc via an hdmi cable for 1080p output. If you have an av receiver make sure to opt for a sound card with digital out . this will enable you to connect your HTPC via a Digital chord to your receiver to experience 5.1 sound.

Advantages :-


1)You can play all the movie formats that exist today , starting from mkv to avi
2)Better sound reproduction than most budget to comparatively Expensive DVD players. This is one thing i can vouch for, many time I connect my xps laptop to my av receiver via a usb adaptor ( the adaptor has digital optical out) and the difference in the sound ( especially the bass) is noticeable.
3)If you go for a 1 TB HDD then you can store all your( maybe most of them for some people ) movies , songs, pictures etc in one complete solution !!
4)HIGHLY SCALABLE - When Blu ray becomes cheaper, just add a Blu Ray rom and hey presto you have a blu ray player ( Pls go for a decent process such as core 2 duo 2.2 ghz+ or a comparable AMD as they are not much expensive nowadays). Short on space no problem - add another 1 TB of HDD and you are good to go.

hope this helps!!

Hi, Thanks for the inputs. Currently, my PC having the following specs assembled by me 3 years back.
Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz with HT
1.25 GB DDR Ram
Asus Geforce FX5200 128MB
Liteon DVD writer
No dedicated sound card using motherboard's inbuilt

Does upgrade to my system help making it HTPC or should I built a new system?

 

[illusion]

Hi, Thanks for the inputs. Currently, my PC having the following specs assembled by me 3 years back.
Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz with HT
1.25 GB DDR Ram
Asus Geforce FX5200 128MB
Liteon DVD writer
No dedicated sound card using motherboard's inbuilt

Does upgrade to my system help making it HTPC or should I built a new system?

Your current config is decent . Why dont you do something . Just hoop uk your existing setup with your TV via VGA and see how you like the result . For audio hook up your 5.1 onboard to the Analog Ins of the AVR. You can install K Lite Codec pack which has a list of all the most popularly used av codecs today.This will help you to Play all movies formats available till today.


My Comments:-

The processor is good , since it has Hyper threading it will be good for MKV /AVI, HD Rips as well as DVD Video. Do you want Blu Ray ? If yes then wait for sometime , atleast another 1.5 years to make the move to a quad core. It will also make BLU RAY drives common and cheaper by then.

Ram is ok (If you will be running Windows XP then it is more than enough.)


I googled around the card you have mentioned . The card has VGA which is ok . My comp had an onbard Intel GMA 3000x and I was more than happy with the result with My 26 inch LCD. I have a few 720p MKV rips and on playback my first reaction was WOOW !! But the card will not be compatible with Blu Ray in the future ( I dont think HDCP is supported in your card) so you will have to go for an upgrade later on.

Does your onboard motherboard have a digi out ? Ex my Asus has a provision for digi out . I just need to add the digi port to get digital optical out . Since I was not getting the same in my city , I asked one of my pals to get a usb sound card with optical out from the USA and it works beautifully. But anyways when you upgrade to a Quad Core then you will have to upgrade your motherboard. Many motherboards available today have onboard spdif out which will suffice ( unless you are an audiophile) or just get a usb sound card like I did.