HD300 UI

[sandyj]

I have both the sage HD300 and WDTV live HD by western digital, the HD300 in my option leaves the WDTV for dead in every way in standalone mode. I could do a comparison with the WDTV and Sage HD300 if someone wants it. My 78 year old Mum has one to play movies from a USB 2TB hard drive works fine for her as a basic device, sage server would be to complicated for her.
I have had no issue with connecting the HD300 to any PC network share should work fine with any NAS device if you know how to setup a network with user names and passwords that will depend on your skill level. If you want to make it easier just plug in a USB hard drive or flash drive. All the current media boxes require some PC knowledge to connect to a network device or NAS.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by RNRGAGNE

So can anyone help me, the OP, the other guy with the ReadyNAS NV+ to use it the way we want to use it????

All I can say is what I've already said, I've got an ReadyNAS X6 and an unRAID and have not had any trouble accessing either with my HD300. I do however have User security enabled on the X6 (no security at all on the unRAID).

Originally Posted by RNRGAGNE

One thing I learned from that review is you need folder.jpg files to be in the mix for movie covers to be displayed - so I've got to figure out how to do that with ISO files which I think will be the easiest to do and work with, (if they aren't in there in the first place).

Don't waste your time with ISOs, they are way more trouble and they don't have any benefit that I've been able to determine.

[RNRGAGNE]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Don't waste your time with ISOs, they are way more trouble and they don't have any benefit that I've been able to determine.

That's interesting because from what I've read it seems to be the simplest way to do things. Can you elaborate?

[madpoet]

I use ISOs for everything myself

[RNRGAGNE]

Ha, ha, well thanks for adding to the confusion!

Who's right? Actually, more importantly, what is truly the simplest to archive and play-back through the HD300 or other similar stand alone streamers?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by RNRGAGNE

That's interesting because from what I've read it seems to be the simplest way to do things. Can you elaborate?

I fail to see how they're simple. Most (software) things can't use ISOs directly, ISOs require virtual drive software and for the ISO to be mounted to a virtual drive before it's used.

Standalone mode is a little different as it can play ISOs directly, but if you ever move (back) to a solution involving a PC you're in for more trouble. For example SageTV (software, on the PC) requires Virtual Clone Drive installed so it can mount the ISOs and figure out what they are.

And all that and they offer no benefit over a full M2TS (Blu-ray) or VIDEO_TS (DVD) folder structure. Functionality is identical between folder structures and ISOs, and there's no performance difference.

IMO ISOs are a lot of unnecessary trouble, they're a hack to get around software limitations. The only time they're useful is if you've got software that's artificially limited and only understands drives (like PowerDVD for Blu-ray) and you need to be able to mount your rips as drives.

Originally Posted by RNRGAGNE

Actually, more importantly, what is truly the simplest to archive and play-back through the HD300 or other similar stand alone streamers?

IMO the simplest way is just ripping to folder structures. I can't speak to other streamers. Though again, for the HD300 it doesn't really matter as in standalone mode, they're both supported natively.

[RNRGAGNE]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Standalone mode is a little different as it can play ISOs directly, but if you ever move (back) to a solution involving a PC you're in for more trouble. For example SageTV (software, on the PC) requires Virtual Clone Drive installed so it can mount the ISOs and figure out what they are.
.

That's just it, I have no intention of using a computer to watch my ripped movies...ever. I might listen to music from time to time on one, or download songs to my iPhone but that's the extent of it.

I'll watch movies on my TV in the living room, or on the projector in my HT and it will be through a media streamer from my NAS and that's it. The three streamers I've looked at all seem to have no problem playing ISO's unless I'm misreading things.

I really appreciate the help you and some others are offering, but as I said earlier, I only want to approach this from a "stand-alone" or media player mode accessing files from a NAS.

[onyx00]

My two cents:

I see where OP is coming from as I have done exactly what he wants to do. I appreciated people's comments on "Sage was made to run in extender mode" but I didn't want to do that either, and quite honestly any time I have tried the extender mode it's more of a headache than standalone mode. I run the HD200, but other than being a bit faster hardware, it's all the same as far as I can see.

I find that running the 2nd to last firmware (20090903 I believe) is pretty much perfect for the HD200 in standalone mode (note: the latest firmware seems to struggle significantly when compared to this one, so I went to the hassle to downgrade recently and am much happier now).

Anyway - I play ISOs, MKVs mainly. I have a BD-rip which is detected as such, but I haven't actually tried to play it yet. The only thing I notice Sage Standalone barfs on quite a bit is high resolution (1080p, high bitrate) with DTS/Dolby/TrueHD/etc. passthrough audio. I get significant cut-outs when playing the videos and Sage looked in to it once, claimed the video file was "corrupt." I countered with "VLC plays it fine" (which could have been because VLC didn't play the DTS/Dolby track and instead opted for the AC3 track?). I was finally able to fix this by running is through an Audioconverter which cleans up the DTS track and it solved the issues. A minor hassle, but whatever.

Personally, I was looking to upgrade to the HD300, but I am holding off for the moment because, while the HD200 has been very good, it's far from perfect. I am tempted to try the WD Live box, and may give a shot through Amazon so I can return it if it doesn't work out.

Oh, and beware - the Sage standalone menu is slow, and laggy. This goes for skipping ahead/back on any kind of video playback. I've learned to live with it, but don't expect it to be like a DVD player, etc. in terms of responsiveness. The HD300 may be better, but I doubt the reviewer in the review pointed to earlier spent much time with the item to really get in to this stuff.

[RNRGAGNE]

From what I read there should be an increase in speed over the 200 because of better processing power.

[jchisholm]

Depends what you need it for.. the standalone mode is great if all you want to do is watch a movie. The SageTV client although yes it looks pretty *does not*
at least for me handle iso's without a whole lot of virtual drive hoopla nor does it play mkv's well either.
To be able to load a lot of movies onto an external usb drive and take the HD300 to the cottage or wherever without needing a computer is great.