Woe Baby! HD Media Extender!!!

[InvisiblePin]

I just read some of the threads talking about HD media extender. Sounds great. I'm sure I'm in for at least one , maybe two.

InvisiblePin

[Fluffdaddy]

HD Media Extender!!!...........When's that come out?

[95TBird]

To quote Maxwell Smart "Looks like he fell for the old "They are coming out with an HD Media extender" Trick"...

[Protoman]

That is a great TV classic, of which I have every episode. I can't wait for Get Smart to come out next year to theatre...

Thanks,
Protoman

[InvisiblePin]

Currently recording every episode of seven of nine , er, I mean Voyager.

[mohanman]

Well, if the stories are true on the internet, XBOX 360 will have IPTV capablities by this winter, and Ps3 has recently received a hd tuner in Europe. Because stupid US cable companies won't let the consumer have what they want for what they pay for, I dont see this coming here anytime soon without problems. However, IPTV is a possibility. So I really, really hope that if sage which I truly love, and standby wants to stay competitive will release their HD extender prior to any of this stuff. I realized yesterday what sage has.. it's a pvr, music jukebox, video player, picture viewer, dvd player, has youtube and google video! (no other program has that). Has so much to offer... The only thing that bothers me is that using computers as extenders is a pain in the butt. There are crashes, full screen exclusive becomes minimized etc, and if I had a girlfriend over, they don't know how to use it. If there was such a simple solution as an HD extender to use with a server tucked away in a closet, all my dreams will come true! Anyone could easily pick up the remote, turn on the tv and have the extender already on and full screen ready to go.

Mo!

[mdnttoker]

I really wish people would stop replying to this thread...I get excited everytime I see it in the "updated threads" list, hoping that the HD Media Extender has finally been released...only to be disappointed over and over again.

[stanger89]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9q2jNjOPdk

[mohanman]

Freaking hilarious

[dagar]

Originally Posted by stanger89

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9q2jNjOPdk

Ah, tis a classic that I love watching every time we have to repost it

[bcjenkins]

The thread title cracks me up. I don't know if it was intentional, but woe is definitely correct as compared to whoa. If the device was released; whoa would be more appropriate.

B

[JUC]

woe...

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/video-war...ort-296902.php

more info out later i guess. Looks like lots of companies jumping in with m$ some with DVD players too.

[mohanman]

That is interesting, it says by the end of the month we should be seeing media center extenders by Linkysis and Niveus. engadget just had an article about media centers soon to support up to 4 cablecards. That is kind of tempting, especailly if cable companies have gotten them to be easier to install. I just wish this was all sage stuff, I think it may be hard for me to convert, as I love the sage interface. Niveus stuff is really expensive too. But I am sure it is top notch quality equipment.
Hopefully sage will have some answers for us.

Mo!

[heffe2001]

I sure hope Sage is going to trump the release of the HD extenders for Vista, get theirs out this month before the ones start shipping for MCE. If the MCE ones come out at a decent price-point, it's going to be difficult for me to wait indefinitely for Sages solution...

[dotheDVDeed]

Never gonna happen

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by dotheDVDeed

Never gonna happen

That referring to Sage getting theirs out first, MCE's being resonable, or what?

I would hope that Sage's are effectively done, just waiting on the final release of the current betas. If not, I wonder just how many converts from Sage to Vista/MCE we'll see once their boxes hit the shelves? With the price of a used '360 going for less than 200 now, I'm sorely tempted to just grab a few of those consoles and going that route, then I could use them for games or whatever as well as TV, but just haven't wanted to take the plunge yet. I did pick up one 360 to play with (mainly for Bioshock, damn good game), and I was toying with the idea of connecting it to my Vista Ultimate machine, just to check it out, just haven't had time yet... That and I don't think the 360 will let you view xvid/divx which would be a dealbreaker for me at the moment...

[mohanman]

The xbox 360 would be a sweet media extender if it :
1) wasn't so damn loud
2) had xvid/divx support
3) had quicker menus
4) had dvd over network storage support.

It lacks all of those! I tried it out, went immediately back to sagetv.
Bioshock is addicting, I am almost done with the game. fantastic images.

Mo!

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by mohanman

The xbox 360 would be a sweet media extender if it :
1) wasn't so damn loud
2) had xvid/divx support
3) had quicker menus
4) had dvd over network storage support.

It lacks all of those! I tried it out, went immediately back to sagetv.
Bioshock is addicting, I am almost done with the game. fantastic images.

Mo!

Yeah, the lack of xvid/divx support is a definitely deal-killer, but if the new boxes out next month are able to play them native, and are relatively fast (IE:, at least as fast as a MVP on Sage), I'd definitely look into it. If they hadn't crippled Vista's extender support so that it didn't work with the old-styled extenders, I'd likely be running it now, I still have my extenders they sent me during MCE 2005 beta, as far as I know they still work, but who wants to run a version behind on MCE :P.

[foolio]

I would switch to MCE in a heartbeat if they had a software extender - ie, MCE "client". I have a flow blown kitchen computer and living room computer than I want to keep using instead of using extenders in those two locations.

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by mohanman

The xbox 360 would be a sweet media extender if it :
1) wasn't so damn loud
2) had xvid/divx support
3) had quicker menus
4) had dvd over network storage support.

It lacks all of those! I tried it out, went immediately back to sagetv.
Bioshock is addicting, I am almost done with the game. fantastic images.

Mo!

Ok, I've been playing with my 360 as an extender for the past hour (using my HDHR as a video source), and it appears to run pretty well. Menus are just as fast as the Vista PC it's connected to, and mine for whatever reason isn't very loud (could always replace the LOUD fans with aftermarket quieter ones). As for points 2 & 4, it's got a DVD reader in it, so it's fine for me there (we haven't pulled many full DVD's over to the server yet), but if it won't do xvid/divx still a no go.

I'll most likely leave it running on that machine (It's a arcade machine we use for emulation/mame/etc), just to work with my music collection, especially since I like how MCE does music much better than the current way Sage does...

*EDIT* Looks like it'll do xvid/divx after all, just like sage, look for a program called Transcode 360, even uses ffdshow for the transcode engine . (Actually the latest versions use Mencoder & VLC I believe, and works great). It'll even do DVD's if you're using the VLC transcoder from what I've read...