n00b: What does the HD300 do?

[SoFresh]

I know this is a dumb question but I can't seem to really understand, so pls bear with me. I have a trial install of SageTV MC on my PC that is recording my OTA HDTV. Just for fun I also set up some local media sources (ripped 720p DVDs as VOBs, MP3s, etc.).

My PC is our nominal HTPC b/c it is in the living room and has it's DVI out to the HDTV so we normally play media that way.

I have bought a Boxee and while it has a nice interface it does not really meet my needs at the moment, but it does move alot of the processing burden off of my main PC.

Does a HD300 have it's own processor or will it consume CPU cycles from my SageMC pc?

Is it basically just like running SageMC but on my TV?

Can it connect to playon? Can I install PlayOn on it? (I am trying to remove some CPU burden from my main PC)

What type of online offerings are there?

Is it just a front end for what is on my PC?


My TV has a DLNA client so most shared content is available directly through the TV but I have been using Boxee to watch my shared Sage MP4s b/c it sees the commercial skip flags. Using SageMC itself to play my media is just another CPU burden I don't need.

I am just confused.

Thanks so much.

[wrems]

The HD300 is a hardware extender. It has processing capabilities that offload your server's CPU. Basically, your server becomes a streamer there is literally no impact on your machine when playing back video files. The biggest benefit is no noise, low power consumption and no fussing with video codecs and such. It's nearly a plug and play device. While it can and does emulate what you see on your server you can have different UI's on the extender. It doesn't mirror the server its a client that can be setup completely different than any other extender, client, server on your network.

You can access Netflix with them too, however that requires the use of Playon (paid subscription) and some third party plugins freely available in this forum. When you use Playon though your server needs to be beefier to transcode the stream on the fly and send it to the HD300. If you use Playon you'll need a decent setup.

Many folks like the extender/server setup since you can stick your loud server with all of your tuners and hard drives in the basement or closet and have a simple little box neatly tethered to your TV. The best part is they just work!

[PiX64]

I was going to answer as follows but wrems beat me to it.

What do they do?

"Everything!"

but wrems answer is better :-D

~Pix64

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by wrems

Basically, your server becomes a streamer there is literally no impact on your machine when playing back video files.

That's overstating it. The files still have to be read from the server's hard disk and transmitted over the server's network interface. So it will consume disk and network bandwidth on the server, plus some small amount of CPU overhead to get the data from one to the other. But the heavy CPU burden of decoding and rendering happens on the extender, not on the server.