Question about getting media to the HD200

[SolidSnake745]

Hi, I was considering purchasing one of these HD200's and wanted to make sure of how media is streamed to the box. Does the box recieve content by a program running on a computer? If so, must I use SageTV's software or are there alternatives? Or is it that you set up network paths (I.E. \\My-PC\C\MoviesGalore) and the box reads files from that directory? Thank you for your responses in advance!

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by SolidSnake745

Hi, I was considering purchasing one of these HD200's and wanted to make sure of how media is streamed to the box. Does the box recieve content by a program running on a computer? If so, must I use SageTV's software or are there alternatives? Or is it that you set up network paths (I.E. \\My-PC\C\MoviesGalore) and the box reads files from that directory? Thank you for your responses in advance!

It can do either. In Media Player Mode (standalone), it can read any networked drive. This means it can pull content from NAS devices or PC's. Most of us use them in Extender Mode which then interacts with Sage Media Center running on a server somewhere in our house. This allows the HD200 to not only be a video playback device, but further it allows it to play back live/recorded shows as well (since Sage will schedule and record anything as long as you have a tuner to do so).

[freedml]

For most of us, the HD200 automatically starts in Extender Mode where is gets content through the SageTV server. You can turn this auto feature off, or you can 'catch it' as it's booting and stop the link to the server. If it's in the wrong mode you have to turn it off and on again.

[SolidSnake745]

Thanks for the info! Another question if you could: If I use it in standalone mode and give it avi files with separate .srt or .sub subtitle files, does the box load them as well?

Oh and also for files that have subtitles in the file themselves (like .mkv media), is the subtitle data available to be used?

[SolidSnake745]

Does anyone have an answer to this?

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by SolidSnake745

Does anyone have an answer to this?

Yes, we support external subtitle files as well as embedded.

Specifically:

CC/Subtitle formats supported: EIA-608(NTSC/ATSC/QAM Closed Captioning), SRT, SSA/ASS, VobSub (sub/idx, mkv), Nero MP4 VOB Subtitles, MP4 Text, SAMI, .sub (Subviewer/MicroDVD), DVD, BDMV, M2TS, multiple languages supported in all formats