ROKU Photobridge HD

[Cayars]

It probably does the same thing. I can't tell ya since I don't have a HD TV. SD TV works just fine for me at the moment. I've come close a couple of times to update the main house TV but I know as soon as I do that my "tinkering" will turn into a 3 month "fest" and I don't have time to do that for a while.

Maybe Santa will be good to me this year.

[atlantic]

Just picked up on this thread and thought I would put in my 2 cents worth. I bought a ShowCenter about 18 months ago (wired only model one of the first) and have been mostly pleased with it's results. Especially since they released the new firmware upgrade v. 1.7.1 back on 2/1/2005. Before the last upgrade it was okay but now it has a new look and does support Rhapsody if you're a subscriber and internet radio. The reason I purchased it was first for music, second photos then video. The Show Center does output to 480P, 720P and 1080i and mine does have it and it does work properly. Another reason I purchased it was because of the component output for my HDTV and the audio optical output which is much better than the analog outputs on this device. Not sure if it's device or my amp but there is a difference. I have streamed stored videos from a file server that I store recordings on made from SageTV (Hauppauge PVR-150) using "Ultimate STV" by Cayars of course and the quality is as good if not better than when I play them back directly from my HTPC to the TV itself, wouldn't think it would but it does. Maybe it's my MSI nVidia FX5500 card in the HTPC. O and it's a lot cheaper and faster than another PC, cheap or not, that's used just for streaming.

There are a few things I don't like about it like the way it sorts your media for you on the screen (just my personal preference) the fact that I can't really play recorded shows from my ReplayTV properly and the Pinnacle Media Manager Software, and it would also be nice if it accepted a compact flash & memory stick like I believe some other devices do now like the Roku PhotoBridge HD Digital. Not sure about the spec's on the new Buffalo’s High-Definition Wireless Media Player with Progressive Scan DVD but anyone that has one or seen one in action I would like to know their comments.

[JasonJoel]

Yeah... I wonder if Newmedia42 has received his Buffalo device yet...

He hasn't posted back with the results.

Jason

[atlantic]

Hope that's not a bad sign

[jptaz]

Atlantic,

Does the SHowCenter Playback HD Recordings? If it does Pinnacle should be shouting it from the rooftops, but none of the documentation even mention HDTV or playing backing .TP or .TS HD recordings at 1080i or 720P.

If you don't have any of these files download a demo clip from Fushion:
http://demod.dvico.com/hdtv/hdtv_demo.tp

I am willing to bet that the ShowCenter can not play this file.

My $80 XCard and display pictures and scale 480i MPEG2 files to HD Resolutions, but that is entirely different from being able to Play HD Video.

For $300 I had better be able to play back HD VIdeo files like on the Roku. Also the Roku has the linux development environment freely available.

I am sure that the ShowCenter is a great product for what it does, but I just don't want people confusing the ability to display pictures and 480i videos at HD Resolution as the same as the capabilities of the Roku which most definitely plays back HD Recordings.

John

John

[jptaz]

Additionally the Buffalo unit looks pretty good from the stand point of being able to playback HD Resolution video files, but appears to only support WMV HD and DIVX HD file formats. This is rather surprising since .tp and .ts are pretty standardized HD recording formats. Maybe that have a tool for converting those to MPEG2 (which is what they actually are anyway).


John

[atlantic]

I am almost sure it does not play .ts or .tp files. I tried to download from the link above but it looks as if it would take all night to complete so I'll have to try it later. Technology has come a long way in the last 18 months. When I purchased my Show Center it was one (of only a few) of the latest and greatest things at that time in that price range, but not any more, that’s why I’m looking around again myself. The main purpose with this purchase was music, not video. Would I purchase another one today? I doubt it, but I think it was a good purchase at that time.

I may be wrong but I don’t think I have seen Pinnacle or anyone else mention that the Show Center Plays any type of HDTV format.

BTW - Do you have a Roku? If so what are your thoughts? I like to hear what owners and users say about their products. I learned a long time ago NOT to believe every thing or even half of what you read in the sales brochures.

One thing I do like about Roku. It's their founder Anthony Wood. Prior to Roku, he invented the digital video recorder (DVR) and founded ReplayTV. Replay TV I have and Replay TV I really like.

Replay TV was first NOT Tivo...

[jptaz]

Actually I do not have a Roku, but from what I have read on other forums the Roku, like the showcenter has improved greatly with the latest firmware updates.

I definitely agree that at the time from what I have seen on the ShowCenter it was a very worthwhile investment for music and other media playback. In many reguards it and the Buffalo Techonology are more flexible than the Roku.

For SageTV purposes the Roku appears to have the greatest potential for a SageTV Media Extender - especially if HD Support is added down the line. This is because of the open development environment in linux which frey already has working.

John

[waynedunham]

The 2.0x firmware on the Roku has made it infinitely better. Prior to this upgrade it was virtually useless at playing back video files. The lip synch was always off. However in the version 2 firmare updates the lip synch has been excellant.

Atlantic, I too have Replay TV's ( 2 5504's, a 2020, and 3030) The 2020 and 3030 I've upgraded to 60 gig drives and they still work great. I've had the 2020 since November of 1999, bought the 3030 in July of 2000 and got the 2 5504's at a great price on Ebay almost a year ago.

I was hoping to see more interest in getting a Sage Client to work on the Roku. I moved my Media MVP to the bedroom and am using the MVPClient on it. I can play the Sage files on the Roku by simply sharing the video directory on my network, but would really like to be able to use the Sage interface on the Roku so I can easily mark, delete, schedule, etc from the Roku in the living room.

[atlantic]

You're using your Roku to share video files the same as I am doing on the Show Center. It's doable, just not how I would like to do it, that's why I came to Sage. I agree if there were a way to get Sage Client on either of these 2 devices or even another type of stand alone device that would be great...

Since you do ReplayTV too, DVArchive has plugin for Meedio and I was wondering if you know of anyone that has something similiar to that for Sage yet?

[JasonJoel]

Thought I would mention they finally posted the owner's manual to the Buffalo device on their website.

After reading through it, it looks like the only way (currently) you can get to files on a PC is if their software is installed. In other words it doesn't look like it can connect directly to a shared drive like I think the Roku can.

Not a big deal for me, as all my media is on one machine, so I can just install the software. But might be a big deal to non-Windows users.

I really like that the Buffalo deviuce supports the Windows Media Connect. There are a lot of on-line movie rental sites that are going to be using that for DRM.

Jason

[JasonJoel]

Well, I couldn't resist. I ordered one of the Buffalo devices. Will probably be end of next week when it gets here though. Haven't gotten a new toy in a long time.

I'll be happy to post what I find. I only have SDTV though, so probably won't be of much help on those issues.

Jason

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by atlantic

You're using your Roku to share video files the same as I am doing on the Show Center. It's doable, just not how I would like to do it, that's why I came to Sage. I agree if there were a way to get Sage Client on either of these 2 devices or even another type of stand alone device that would be great...

Since you do ReplayTV too, DVArchive has plugin for Meedio and I was wondering if you know of anyone that has something similiar to that for Sage yet?

Yes, I have my two Sage Video partitions shared on my wired network and the Roku can see and access them. I'm using a 3rd party viewer called Mplay which is pretty nice. It has both a 3 min and 30 sec quickskip, and a 10 and 30 second Instant Replay. It also has support for chapters for ripped DVD's, as well as the ability to set/remove bookmarks, and create playlists. It supports several video modes, i.e. 4:3, 16:9, full screen, ect.

I'll be honest, I initially loved DVArchive for the Replay, but now find it less useful. Mainly because of the excrutiatingly slow transfers from the Replays, due to their networking speed limitations. Why should it take more time to transfer a show from the Replay to DVArchive than it would to just watch the same show?
I also rarely view anything from the Replay on my computer so I run DVArchive less and less.

I was hoping that they'd do something like the Medio plugin for Sage. Now if DVArchive could steam shows from a Sage interface to the Replays THAT would be awesome! Using VLC (Video Lan Client) it's probably possible to stream shows from a Sage directory to the Replays. Since I have an MVP in the bedrrom and the Roku in the living room I can already do that without using up CPU cycles.

[atlantic]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

I initially loved DVArchive for the Replay, but now find it less useful. Mainly because of the excrutiatingly slow transfers from the Replays, due to their networking speed limitations. Why should it take more time to transfer a show from the Replay to DVArchive than it would to just watch the same show?
I also rarely view anything from the Replay on my computer so I run DVArchive less and less..

You are really being to kind when you say slooooow transfers. That is the only downside I have now about Replay. The only reason I use DVArchive in the first place is to move recorded shows off the Replay and store them on my file server so I can stream them from my Show Center in another room.
That's why I'm looking for other ideas myself.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by atlantic

You are really being to kind when you say slooooow transfers. That is the only downside I have now about Replay. The only reason I use DVArchive in the first place is to move recorded shows off the Replay and store them on my file server so I can stream them from my Show Center in another room.
That's why I'm looking for other ideas myself.

I hear you there. With the amount of recording I do I just found that DVArchive isn't all that useful to me. Trying to transfer a show while recording something and also viewing a previous recording on the Replay makes for VERY sluggish remote response and even unpredictable reboots of the Replay when it runs low on available memory.

The ability to stream shows from the other Replays is one of the great features of the newer generation Replays over my original 2020 and 3030 models.
I do have to sit down and really get to know the abilities of SageMVP and how to utilize the remote to approximate the awesome transport capabilities of the Replay (Quickskip, Instant Replay, random access, Jump, ShowNav, etc). The recording tranport capabilities of the Replay is something I've really grown to love and utilize.

When it works (about 75% of the time) ShowNav is great, and when it doesn't the ability to use random access and selective skip/instant replay makes finding the start/end of cmmercial breaks a breeze.
Now if Sage had something like that built in that didn't require external processing.......

[Jesse]

Hello Wayne,

I was hoping you would elaborate on the myplay viewer for the Roku. How exactly does this allow you to interface with your sage files? Are you able to view them onscreen and select them? I am guessing since this is not an actual sage client session there would be no live tv and no scheduling of recordings? I guess I would like to know the actual use process.

Thanks in advance.

Jesse

[waynedunham]

Mplayer has a built in file selector which allows you to view any directory that the Roku can see whether it's the built in Ram, Media Card, or a network directory. The file selector is a basic file selector that is pretty similar to the one's your used to in Windows programs for opening/saving files. It is however only a file selector so you can't delete, rename, etc like you can in the Windows file selector.

So you go to your Sage Recordings directory that you shared from the Sage machine. There you'll see the full filenames that you'd see if you opened up Windows Explorer on the recordings directory in List View.

You select the file you want to play and highlight it. Then you select "Choose" and it will play the video.

Once the video is playing you can select the aspect ratio, 4:3, 16:9, Full, and several other options. Hitting the "Rotate" button on the Roku remote will cycle through these modes.
Pressing the "Info" button on the remote will show the filename, position in the file (in %), Bitrate (Added in the latest version), View Mode (Aspect Ratio), and Audio Mode (Not sure where it gets this, I think it's from the Roku Setup?)
For transport controls on the remote you have the stop/pause button which acts at a pause button (Press Exit button to stop). The Rew button jumps back 30 seconds, FF button jumps 3 minutes ahead, Left arrow jumps back 10 seconds, Right arrow jumps ahead 30 seconds.
The Select button will add/delete bookmarks, and the up/down arrow keys go to next/previous bookmarks. If you're at a bookmark (i.e. you just hit the up/down arrow key) pressing select will delete the bookmark. If you aren't right at a bookmark then pressing select will set a new bookmark. I don't recall what the limit is on the # of bookmarks.
Now if you're viewing a ripped DVD the Zoom in/out buttons will do next/previous chapter.

That's it in a nutshell. Now let me throw a couple links at you. Be patient, I've never put a link in the forum.

Here's the link to the thread on Mplayer at the Roku website.

http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1796

That's the first page for the latest version of Mplayer.

Now here is the Mplay web page which explains everything far better than I've done here, and even has pictures. Hey, in perusing the page it answered a couple things I wasn't sure about here.

http://www.permanence.com/MPlay/index.html

That page should answer most of your questions, but feel free to ask any other questions and I'll try to answer them.

[Jesse]

Hi Wayne,

Thanks very much for the info.

It sounds like the roku is pretty usable even without full sage client interface. I have been considering the Haup. MVP, but the roku just seems more future proof. I guess it's just a matter of whether or not I want to go out on a limb and buy one before any confirmation of whether or not sage will eventually support it.

Thanks again.

Jesse

[waynedunham]

I have both the Media MVP and the Roku, they both have their advantages/disadvantages. For me, the major advantage of the MVP is the SageMVP ability. It's main disadvantage in my experience is the darkness of the image. I had to go into the tuner setup for each tuner in Sage and brighten them in order to have reasonable usage on the MVP. This makes those same recordings on the Roku appear just a bit washed out. I found a setting that's acceptable on both, but ideal on neither.

I did a search here on the Forums for UPNP in hopes that Sage supported it, but alas it doesn't appear that it does and no talk from the Sage folks abot adding it. I'm going to have to pop over to the feature request forum and ask about it.

The main reason I want this is in the final release of the 2.0 firmware for the Roku it is going to have UPNP support. From the little knowledge I've gleaned from Googling UPNP it looks like it should be fairly easy to implement if Sage supported it.

[atlantic]

Went to www.cnet.com noticed they have added a new review video on their main page for the Buffalo Link Theater.