Questions about HD200 media player

[cat6man]

Hi,

I'm close to picking up one of these HD200 units now that it looks like it will be able to support BD backups. I've looked at the manual (and browsed the forum a bit) but haven't found answers to a lot of questions so hopefully someone can answer them here.

1. is upnp supported (currently use tversity)
2. is the beta BD support ISO only or also BD folder structures
3. HD audio: bitstream or multi-channel or both over hdmi?
4. i assume this has rock solid playback support of TS/TP recordings from HDHR and HDPVR.....any known issues/limitation?
5. BD playback - is SMB and 100mbit ethernet sufficient to support BD data rates from an NAS?

If there is a list of capabilities somewhere that I've missed, let me know and I'll do more research.

[HelenWeathers]

2. is the beta BD support ISO only or also BD folder structures
BD folders are supported w cover art, don't know about ISO.

3. HD audio: bitstream or multi-channel or both over hdmi?
Bitstream works for S/PDIF and HDMI, don't know about PCM.

4. i assume this has rock solid playback support of TS/TP recordings from HDHR and HDPVR.....any known issues/limitation?
Rock solid.

5. BD playback - is SMB and 100mbit ethernet sufficient to support BD data rates from an NAS?
The HD200 is 10/100 - I use it on a GigaBit wired network though. Someone else?

[paulbeers]

1. I use Playon with my HD200 which uses upnp, and so it can pull in upnp servers. I haven't tried it with tversity, but it definately is compatible with upnp.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

The HD200 is 10/100 - I use it on a GigaBit wired network though. Someone else?

i also have a gigabit wired network but have heard some rumblings on MPCClub that it may be insufficient to support the highest BD rates.........but if you all (i.e. beta testers) are having no problems, i'm sold............the only open issue left for me is upnp support and i'm ready to order

[cat6man]

a couple more questions:

does spdif and hdmi output support high resolution audio (e.g. 24/96)?

is there a separate beta forum for beta testers of the hd200 or does all feedback and communication to the developers happen in this forum?

[Brent]

Originally Posted by cat6man

..the only open issue left for me is upnp support and i'm ready to order

Hey there cat6man! It's been a long time since the early HDHR days when you and fonceur did that workaround (before the HDHR was supported on BTV). Good times

Anyway, if there's something "upnp" related you'd like me to test out with my HD200 let me know and I'll try to do it this weekend. I know you use TVersity (which I've not used thus far) but how are you using it and how do you see using it with this setup? I don't currently have my own Blu-ray drive so I can't test that, but is there anything else?

[cat6man]

hey brent, good to hear ya! i've always found sage forum folks to be right up there on the tech (b)leading edge (like with the hdhr and firewire recording)...........the hd200 seems like a winner.

the way i use upnp is to watch quasi-liveTV, typically ballgames.

(insert 'no flaming me for not just integrating the recording system with the media player' caution here..........just don't wanna...........)

if i play back an in progress recording via smb, and start watching when the recording is at the 20 minute mark, the playback will stop when i get to 20 minutes, at least on my current ziovacs615 players (and others)

tversity appears to lie to the media player and give a really large value for file size or run time or something so that the playback can continue indefinitely past the point where the file was when playback commenced...........this is a really critical feature for me and only tversity seems to (unofficially or unintentionally, i guess) support this

so i guess i can think of 2 tests:

1)
start a recording...............start watching it at time=T with network media player over smb...........can you watch it past the point time=T? if so, i don't need upnp anymore and the hd200 provides an equivalent functionality.

2)
test hd200 with tversity.............if it finds/works with tversity server, it should do everything i need................i imagine if it works with twonky or any other upnp server, it would work fine with tversity.

thanks!

edit: forget testing upnp............it clearly says upnp support on the product page............no issue for me then........thanks again for the test offer.........i'm ordering one right now! (blu ray seals the deal for me)

re-edit: oops............right after ordering one, i see that the notes for the current beta release say "support for bluray playback with beta server 6.5.11" which i assume means bluray works in 'extender' mode but not in standalone 'media player' mode, which is a killer for me............

http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/03/03...ray-streaming/
on the other hand, the above article implies that support for stand alone media players is planned, so i can learn to be patient (i think i can, i think i can..........)

[Brent]

Originally Posted by cat6man

http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/03/03...ray-streaming/
on the other hand, the above article implies that support for stand alone media players is planned, so i can learn to be patient (i think i can, i think i can..........)

Yeah, it shouldn't be too long but I'd wait to be sure it all works out on standalone if that's a key factor in your purchase. I know you record with BTV and are happy with that, but some day you ought to give SageTV a try. I think you're the perfect candidate as a SageTV user

Anyway, stay tuned - I'm betting we'll see that blu-ray stuff hit the standalone in the coming month or so - possbily sooner.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by Brent

Yeah, it shouldn't be too long but I'd wait to be sure it all works out on standalone if that's a key factor in your purchase. I know you record with BTV and are happy with that, but some day you ought to give SageTV a try. I think you're the perfect candidate as a SageTV user

Anyway, stay tuned - I'm betting we'll see that blu-ray stuff hit the standalone in the coming month or so - possbily sooner.

well, i made a bet and hopefully it will happen as planned............

worst case is i have another media player that i can use to stream hi rez audio to my D/A in my main stereo system (in my plans anyway)

best case, i put hd200 as main streamer in my home theater, thereby adding bluray functionality, and move ziova to the main stereo system

[cat6man]

well my hd200 has shipped and will be here on friday........i know what i'm doing this weekend



a couple more questions:

1. is there bookmarking for picking up video playback where it was last, if not played through to the end? for DVD streaming and for TP (hdhr and hdpvr) recordings?

2. what video navigation functions are there for skipping ahead/back, typically used for getting around commercials or moving to a specific time? for example, skip ahead by a fixed time or % of file, go to a time index, etc? is it reliable? (the last is because sigma chips are known to have screwed up this basic navigation feature since the dawn of time..........sometimes skip ahead even takes you backwards on many if not most network media players)

3. output resolution: can the hd200 be set to provide native resolution output over hdmi? i mean 480i in=>480i out, 720p in =>720p out, 1080i in => 1080i out.
i use a vp50 video processor that is infinitely more capable of deinterlacing and scaling video than the sigma chipset so i want to minimize
the processing done in the hd200..................i am not aware of any media players that do this (yet) but this feature is supposedly very close to becoming
available on a slew of NMT boxes
http://www.mpcclub.com/modules.php?n...rder=0&thold=0