Stand alone media players.

[enoughfakefiles]

What's good cheap stand alone media palyer at the moment. I'm toying with the idea of purchasing one instead of the divx players with the usb port.

I seen the one manker posted yeterday here.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...ce=14&doy=19m1

And am wondering if this is a good buy at this time or will there be better things to come along as soon as you blink

[lynx]

Seems a rather expensive way of doing it, when you work out that you could get a dvd player with usb and a larger external disk drive for a lot less money. Mind you, maplin have always been a bit expensive when it comes to devices like this.

Now, if you could play something back while updating from your pc, I might think it was worth considering. Maybe something from this lot:
http://www.cclonline.com/product-cat...ategory_id=280

[enoughfakefiles]

I want something that will basically play anything you throw at it. I think my medion divx player is getting a little tired or the other way round, i'm getting a little tired of it not playing things

[lee551]

if you have a LAN you can throw a modded xbox on there with xbox media center. it'll play just about any format of video/audio/pix. it's made watching content from my PCs and network storage so much easier.

[DKre8ive1]

I seen this box called "Network Media Tank" it looks pretty intresting and for the price of $179 US + throw in the cost of a 500gig drive and I think it should make a decent media server and I am seriously considering buying one.

Networked Media Tank
USD179.00

In view of overwhelming response to the first batch of available units and to be fair to those who signed up early, we will provide registered members the opportunity to make their pre-orders on a "first register, first serve" basis.

From 12th November 2007, we will send out invitation to first batch of registered members, they will have two days to complete their pre-orders using Google Checkout which schedule to ship on 19th November 2007 onwards.

This will be followed by the next batch of registered members, so on and so forth, until we have provided all registered members the opportunity to make the pre-order, before opening it up to newly registered members.

Popcorn Hour A-100 allows you to pull in digital video, audio and photos from various sources for your enjoyment on your HDTV or Home Theater setup.

You can stream or playback your digital media content from a variety of sources, such as your PC, NAS, digital camera, USB mass storage devices (Flash drive, HDD, DVD drive) , internal HDD* and even directly from the Internet via the Media Service Portal.

It also serves as a NAS and a BitTorrent peer-to-peer downloader** to eliminate the need to switch on a PC or other device for this purpose.

The Popcorn Hour A-100 supports the latest high bitrate video formats (MPEG2 MP@HL, H.264 [email protected], VC-1 AP@L3 in TS of at least 40Mbps) to give you up to 1080p high-definition videos.

In recognition of advances in Internet TV, the A-100 supports peer-to-peer Internet TV streaming technology from SayaTV, as well as popular unicast internet TV such as YouTube, Google Video and Metacafe via the Media Service Portal.

The A-100 firmware is upgradeable to support future media containers, codecs and features.

* HDD not included
** An internal HDD is required for these functions.

Specification :

Connectivity

* Bonjour
* UPnP SSDP
* DLNA
* Windows Media Connect
* Windows Media Player NSS
* SMB
* NFS
* HTTP servers: myiHome, WizD, SwissCenter, MSP Portal
* BitTorrent P2P
* NAS access : SMB, NFS, FTP

Web services

* Video : YouTube, Google Video, MetaCafe, VideoCast, DL.TV, Cranky Geeks
* Audio : iPodcast, Radiobox, ABC News, Jamendo
* Photo : Flickr, Picasa
* RSS feed : Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! Traffic alerts, Yahoo! Stock, Cinecast, Traffic Conditions.
* Peer-to-peer TV : SayaTV
* Internet Radio : Shoutcast

Media files supported

* Video containers:
o MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)
o MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG)
o MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)
o VOB
o AVI, ASF, WMV
o Matroska (MKV)
o MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4
* Video codecs:
o XVID SD/HD
o MPEG-1
o MPEG-2
+ MP@HL
o MPEG-4.2
+ ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC
o WMV9
+ MP@HL
o H.264
+ BP@L3
+ [email protected]
+ [email protected]
+ [email protected]
o VC-1
+ MP@HL
+ AP@L3
* Audio containers:
o AAC, M4A
o MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)
o WAV
o WMA
* Audio codecs:
o WMA, WMA Pro
o AAC
o MP1, MP2, MP3
o LPCM
* Audio pass through : DTS, AC3
* Photo formats : JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
* Other formats: ISO, IFO
* Subtitle formats : SRT, SMI, SUB, SSA

DRM

* Cardea DRM (WMDRM-ND)

Chipset

* Sigma Designs SMP8635

Memory

* 256MB DDR SDRAM, 32MB Flash

Audio/Video outputs

* HDMI v1.1 (up to 1080p)
* Component Video (up to 1080p)
* S-Video
* Composite Video
* Stereo Analog Audio
* S/PDIF Coax Digital Audio

Interface

* 2x USB 2.0 host
* Parallel ATA

Network

* Ethernet 10/100

Power

* 12V DC, 3A

Dimension

* Width 10.5"(270mm) x Depth 5.25" (132mm) x Height 1.25" (32mm)

Weight

* 2.2 lbs (1Kg)

Source-> http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinesto...option=catalog