Jack's Gadgets

Loseless audio formats at home

2011-12-01T22:26:00.001+02:00

First, lets clarify the basics: Lossless data compression is a class of data compression algorithms that allows the exact original data to be reconstructed from the compressed data. The term lossless is in contrast to lossy data compression, which only allows an approximation of the original data to be reconstructed, in exchange for better compression rates.

Lossless compression is used in cases where it is important that the original and the decompressed data be identical, or where deviations from the original data could be deleterious.

MP3 and AAC (=the fruit company) are lossy compression.
FLAC and APE are generally used loseless formats.

Be aware, that some cheapest media players and also mobile phones cant play these formats. APE is supported by only few media players, so be aware!

Usually FLAC-s are ripped from CD-s at 12bit/44kHz resolution. Some FLAC-s are HD audio capable 24bit 48 kHz, 96 kHz or even higher definition. This is also too much for some players.

AIFF is widely used uncompressed high-quality sound format widely used in Apple world, but is not supported in any media player I know and had.

Last, but not least - good (= high bit rate) MP3 is generally more than enough for enthusiastic listening. High bitrate means generally 160, 192 or 320 kbps.

My recommendation: If You are leaning towards to audiophile listening and are enthusiastic to play studio master quality stuff, choose Your media player (or transport / DAC) wisely. It should support APE, FLAC and at least 24/96 D/A conversion.

Todays Piano playlist

2011-10-16T11:56:00.003+02:00

1. Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
2. Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major - Johannes Brahms
3. Piano Concerto in A minor - Robert Schumann

Fostex FE206EN back-loaded horn speaker project

2011-10-15T14:46:00.001+02:00

My Fostex FE206EN back-loaded horn speaker project. 21mm thick plywood is used for main section and side panels to ensure a strong enclosure.

Seagate tries to enter into media player market with GoFlex

2011-10-13T11:15:00.002+02:00

Seagate GoFlex looks nice on the paper, still I don’t really believe in them. Their main objective is to sell HDD-s. True good media player is very much about software and constant development. It's about community and customer feedback. In these areas are guys from Seagate, WD and Dlink not so good. I personally had to thow away one WD Live and one Dlink box, because of their bad UX, incompatibility with some HD MKV-s, poor sound quality and sluggish UI.

But We’ll see….

My hybrid digital + tube audiophile system

2011-10-11T12:34:00.000+02:00

Popcorn Hour C-200 transport (internal 1,5 TB storage + wired connection to media server and Internet) in the rack (top left); Pro-Ject DAC box, incorporating Texas Instruments TLV320DAC23. 24Bit/96kHz, 8x oversampling chip (small box, top shelf, right); single ended valve amp (bottom shelf); Fostex speakers, Thomson LED display on top.

C-200 track info is displayed on 26" Thomson LED display. Note, that FLAC loseless track is playing. Both actual file name and embedded tag data is displayed.

Full-range Fostex speakers with 2.2 m long exponential horn design and 94 dB (1W, 1m) sensitivity!

Exchange 2010 hosting

2010-10-06T07:54:00.000+02:00

We started today new service: Exchange hosting
Service bases on Microsoft Exchange 2010, WMware virtualization and HP Proliant and HP Storageworks hardware.

New game

2010-07-26T11:56:00.000+03:00

Today I bought very addictive game for my iPhone. Like tetris, but really dynamic:
Wristbreaker Tetris -style game for iPhone

Got rid of my DVD player

2010-05-21T23:09:00.004+03:00

Today was kind of historic milestone. I unwired my Onkyo DVD player. Proper DVD player has been almost #1 signal source for my home cinema for decades! First one was bought from Helsinki back in 1991. Second one vas bougth 5 years ago with Onkyo AV system.

Instead of dedicated DVD player I plugged external LG Super Multi DVD player Model GE20LU11 via USB to my Popcorn Hour C200. Cracked player Region Free using MediaCodeSpeedEdit and cracked C200 using Community Software Installer. Instructions are here

Some may wonder, why DVD player, not BluRay. I just have many DVD-s, not yet BluRay disks. All new HD stuff is coming from torrents in H.264 Matroska container format. Just saved few $$$.

Usability report after the break.

Go To FLAC

2010-03-03T14:35:00.002+02:00

Other day I downloaded Michael Jackson's "This Is It" from www.isohunt.com. Got FLAC version and MP3 version. FLAC = Free Lossless Audio Codec, I think it't cleared out now :) For C-200 users I highly recommend FLAC version over compressed formats. Soundstage is magically clear! May be We MP3 and compressed music people forgot how real uncompressed sound feels?

There is considerable size difference:

"This is It" 2 CD collection on HDD:

FLAC 630 MBytes
MP3 180 Mbytes (various 270-300 kbps)

So, it's about 3,5 ratio. Worth to listen!

C-200 is cured!

2010-02-22T18:00:00.003+02:00

After consulting with Network Media Tank forum http://www.networkedmediatank.com/ and Popcorn Hour support I tested my unit by using external Chieftec 850W (bah...) ATX power supply. C-200 woke up from coma and the problem was located. Popcorn Hour C-200 PSU was simply dead. After few letters back and forth with Popcorn I decided, that best way to get equipment up and running again is to repair it myself and let them ship only PSU. People from http://www.networkedmediatank.com/ told, that RMA is really long process, together with shipping almost 2-3 months in some cases. So, I accepted self repair option.

Got new PSU today, changed it in 7 minutes and C-200 is running better than ever again :) New PSU is a bit differently labelled, but internals seemed quite similar, as much as I disovered under the hood.

I have to say, that Popcorn Hour web-based support in top-notch. Didn't have any problem with delays or other.

Popcorn Hour C-200 is dead

2010-02-02T17:11:00.003+02:00

Most probably internal power supply unit failed. No standby light, nothing. RMA case, I believe. I was able to use it under one week.

Got C-200 online and working

2010-01-29T14:39:00.002+02:00

After first disappointment I started to find solution, as sending unit back to China wasn't too good idea -- huge freight cost and long waiting time. And my searches were successful.

TWO main issues found:

1. Avoid using "Auto" setting in "Network" setting, use 10/100. For some reason my 15m long Gigabit cable didn't guarantee flawless 1Gb connection and instead of falling back to 100 Mbit, C-200 went crazy;

2. I had to abndon my beloved TwonkyMedia server and move over to Syabas MyiHome 5.2.0 streaming server. It has hugely better compatibility with Network Media Tank system than Twonky.

More notes

1. Chassis of C-200 is sligthly narrower than my std A/V equipment, like Onkyo TX-SR706

PA C-200 425 mm

TX-SR706: 435 mm

So, it's 1 cm narrower. As I don't put anything ontop Onkyo to avoid overheating (this is issue with Onkyo AV equipment!), C-200 has to be below and it doesn't look cool.

2. Installing internal HDD and sharing it to home network is super easy and works well. It's good idea to keep all hot new albums on C-200 HDD to use it autonomically. May-be in the future I will abandon my dedicated streaming server at all?

3. Speed has increased many times due to 2x faster processor and double memory. It really flies now through the menus and media directories.

4. RF remote (its not IR) has pro's and con's. It is really usable, absolutely no need to point it to the device, obstacles are not issue any more. But I can't use now my universal IR remote. Popcorn has solution for that, obtaining IRK-200 kit.

Issues not solved

1. Selecting 1080i resolution from screen settings menu generates bad whistle in left speaker. Have to use 720p, as my 41" plasma is not supporting 1080p.

Received Popcorn Hour C-200, doesn't work

2010-01-28T17:43:00.006+02:00

Popcorn Hour A-110 (smaller) and C-200 (larger)

Received Popcorn Hour C-200. I liked the form factor, it fits much better into my home audio system than old undersized A-110 model. I connected it to my home audio-video system, to home server via Ethernet -- and disappointed.

C-200 started up like perfectly normal. Showed media source menu. Recognised my TwonkyMedia UPnP server. First my new C-200 played SD stuff but at very sluggish way. Did't respond to pause, stop and play commands. Actually responded, but with very big delay. 16x fast forward kept going long time after pressing play. C-200 screen showed play command, but nothing really happaned, kept doing fast forward. Didn't respond to STOP command either. Returning to previous menu level was also extra slow. I restarted C-200 many times, didn't help. restarted my streaming server, no effect.

Things went bad to worse, after upgrading firmware from Maintenance menu. Kernel version 19-POP, firmware version 408-000. Firmware upgrade went OK. New firmware downloaded 100%, installed 100% and verified 100%. But new it is not recognizing any media files. Not in streaming mode neither in network browsing mode. Sees all my servers, but no media files.

I have now to wire back my old Popcorn Hour A-110 what pisses me off big time.

Ordered Popcorn Hour C-200 today

2010-01-08T16:13:00.004+02:00

I ordered Popcorn Hour C-200 today. I have been happy A-110 owner more than a year. It's very good HD streamer, handled Full HD 1080 .MKV and H.264 better and earlier than others.

So, why did I switch?

1. It has much more powerful Sigma Design SMP8643 processor (previous model had SMP8635). A-110 excels in video decoding, but lags in Fast-Forward, jump to and other UI functions. I really hope, that new processor makes user experience better;

2. It has LCD, enables to play audio w/o switching plasma on;

3. I like new design and form factor.

Now I have to wait some 2-3 weeks....

Your order has been sent to Popcorn Hour. Popcorn Hour is responsible for charging and shipping your order. Have questions? Contact Popcorn Hour.
	Jan 8	Popcorn Hour received your order.
	Jan 8	You placed an order with Popcorn Hour on Jan 8.

Neat and small HD media player

2009-11-01T09:00:00.004+02:00

Found lately very small media player. Not streaming, but really good companion on the go. Just take your favourite movies with you either on SD or USB and play via HDMI in 1080p! Impressive from the product with size of iPod.

Specifications:

Media Storage Support:USB devices with file systems: FAT, FAT32 and NTFS* (* editing functions not supported on NTFS formatted devices). SD, MMC, SD and SDHC Memory card devices with file systems: FAT and FAT32 only.
Video: MPEG1/2/4(MPG, VOB, AVI), DivX (avi), XviD (avi), resolution up to 720 x 480 30fps / 720 x 576 25fps.
Audio: MP3,WMA and OGG.
Photos: JPEG, BMP and GIF Support 1080p when use HDMI output to TV.
Subtitles: SRT/SM/SSA/SUB
Functions: Playback, copy, delete and reformat
Inputs: 1x USB2.0 and 1x SD/MMC/MS Card
Outputs: 1x HDMI 1.3 and 1x Composite(A/V)

Installed today Twonky Media Server ver 5.1

2009-10-16T12:08:00.003+02:00

Installed today Twonky Media Server ver 5.1, previous version was 5.0.68. I'll give later review, what differences I saw. Twonky claims, that performance is much better, as they use new database engine instead of their legacy.

Download link is here: http://www.twonkyforum.com/downloads/5.1/index.html

Popcorn Hour A-110 and C-200 comparison

2009-09-10T15:38:00.005+02:00

There is new Popcorn Hour model out -- C-200. But what animal is it really. My old A-110 actually beats by big score other media streamers, specially in HD, H.264 and .MKV section.

Comparison in the nutshell:

What it means in reality? Easier setup and operation, using built-in LCD. Faster UI responses and shorter buffering times. Gigabit interface speeds up large photo streaming over copper network, added BluRay capability and AVCHD support.

Seems like superiour streamer!

NEW! Popcorn Hour C-200 is new impressive product!

2009-06-17T10:52:00.007+03:00

Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/16/popcornhours-latest-c200-media-box-is-blu-ray-and-anything-else/

Look also Media Tank forum: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=23731

It has everyhing in, what You can imagine about media streamer. Latest model A-110 was already winner in HD, new one, Popcorn Hour C-200 will be even better.

More after the break...

Onkyo TX-SR706 upscaler still overheats

2009-05-18T13:42:00.002+03:00

Last time I swapped my Onkyo TX-SR706 head unit under the warranty and installed 12 cm fan to cool video upscaling cirquitry. One day I saw again singnal disappearing in fast image shanges on my plasma. I found my fan mis-placed and stopped. Clearly same overheating problem. Put fan correctly back to the right position, ontop of Faroudja chipset and image loss never ever happened.

First Atom-based HD streamer

2009-03-11T09:28:00.002+02:00

We used to see big noisy media center pc-s and Sigma chip based network media tanks with awkward user interface. This is media center pc / HD network media streamer, using Intel Atom processor. Due to low-power HD hardware decoder, it's capable to show 1080p HD through HDMI 1.3 interface. System is passive cooled and silent.

Hardware decoder video format support:

H.264/AVC SP, MP and HP at Level 4.1 up to 40 Mbps

SMPTE VC-1 SP, MP and AP at Level 3 up to 40 Mbps

MPEG-2 MP at ML and MPEG-2 MP at HL, up to 125Mbps

Uncompressed video output

• YUV 4:2:0, YUV 4:2:2

• NV12 planar YCbCr format

• YUY2, UYVY packed YCbCr format

• 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p support

CD turned 30

2009-03-09T15:07:00.003+02:00

Was it really 30 Years ago?! I remember debates about digital sound. Many analog fans claimed it artificial and unnatural. Time flies...

Read Engadge t story

Updated my Popcorn Hour A-110 firmware today

2009-03-07T09:02:00.003+02:00

I updated my Popcorn Hour 110 firmware today. Hmm, nothing really changed visibly?!

TwonkyMedia Server 5.0.55 seems to be working now

2009-03-05T09:25:00.002+02:00

Installed today bug-fixed version of TwonkyMedia Server 5.0. Seems, it rescans content now.

Its unsupported version and not found easily from their website.

Download working Twonky 5.0.55 here

Few new notable HD titles

2009-03-01T13:06:00.005+02:00

I've found few new titles in HD, mainly 720p in .MKV format H.264.

You can borrow these titles in HD format from Your friends wia bittorrent network. Use MiniNova.org or other servise fo find title needed.

My workflow:

1. Type in name of the title to MiniNova.org search box

2. Select Movies tab

3. Sort by Seeders

4. Ctrl+f to open find in browser

5. Type 720 or 1080 to find first HD version in the list (if available)

6. Download torrent and activate bittorrent client uTorrent or BitTorrent

7. Move downloaded file to correct location

8. Unpack RAR files (usually HD movies are in multiple .RAR's)

9. Put .MKV in the right directory

SwarmPlayer -- stream directly form torrents

2009-02-28T09:11:00.004+02:00

SwarmPlayer 1.0.1

Torrents, downloading and streaming are going to merge. Alredy now You may stream video over peer-to-peer bittorrent network, using new streaming client SwarmPlayer.

Workflow today

Find torrent from EzTv etc

Download TV Show, using uTorrent or BitTorrent etc

Store it to media server

View it from big screen media streamer or computer screen

Workflow tomorrow

Find torrent from EzTv etc

Stream it directly

So, there will be no need with messing with home media server. Just pick the show and look.

Internals of my 2 TB Atom media server

2009-02-26T20:24:00.005+02:00

My server is not connected to display, keboard and mouse. It's entirely controlled via LogMeIn software. Only used connections are Intel Pro 1000 Gigabit LAN (expansion card on tthe right) and 220V mains (top left).

Please notice 2 x 1 TB SATA HDDS, connected to motherboard via red SATA cables. Power supply is in front of the computer (left on the photo). You van see low profile Intel Pro 1000 LAN card. I use it instead of integratet realtek Fast Ethernet (100 Mbit) LAN.

My Atom server configuration:

MITX Intel Little Falls D945GCLF motherboard
Intel Atom 230 1,6 GHz CPU;
Intel 945GC / 82801GB I/O Controller ICH7 chipset;
RAM 2 GB (1 SIMM);
HDD 2 x 1 TB Western Digital Caviar Green;
Intel PRO 1000 GT Gigabit LAN adappter;
Windows XP x32 SP3;
TwonkyServer media streaming

Moved from BitTorrent to uTorrent

2009-02-16T16:13:00.003+02:00

I uninstalled BitTorrent and installed uTorrent. Reason -- lately I had more and more unclear error messages. I have hopes that it works well, as uTorrent is one of most popular torrents available. I need stabile product, as I leave my media server un-attended for weeks and if I lose torrent in the middle, I lose lot of time to restart and recheck all downloads.

Californication season 2 in HD 720

2009-02-13T13:53:00.002+02:00

For HD and/or Californication friends: S02 is all available in HD 720 from eztv.it

Atom HDD performance is OK

2009-02-13T10:20:00.005+02:00

I measured HDD performance, using HD Tune 2.55 (free edition). I was quite positively surprised. Average read speed 70 MB/s is more than enough for any kind of HD streaming, large .MKV copying and .RAR unpacking. Anyway, bottleneck is Gigabit Ethernet, allowing max 40-50 MB/s throughput.

Speed is about the same, what I had 2 wears ago, using RocketRaid PCI RAID controller and 2 x 250 GB HDD-s. Not bad. What surprised me most, was very low CPU usage, what shows good chipset.

My Atom server configuration:

Intel Atom 230 1,6 GHz CPU;
Intel 945GC/ICH7 chipset;
RAM 2 GB (1 SIMM);
HDD 1 TB Western Digital;
Intel PRO 1000 Gigabit LAN card;
Windows XP x32 SP3;
TwonkyServer media streaming

Soon I add another 1 TB HDD, HD movies will fill 1 Tera quite quickly.

Do not upgrade to TwonkyServer 5.0

2009-02-12T21:30:00.005+02:00

Lately I installed new Intel Atom based media server hardware, moved my media library over to that and installed newest TwonkyServer 5.0. Shouldn't! New server is buggy and has one very bad flaw -- it doesn't update media library after copying new files to media folders. Only way to get new files visible is to rebuild all database. It is so annoying that I have to move back to 4.4 version. Don't know how, cause there is no download page for older versions anymore.

Shame, Twonky

Edit: Twonky added download page also for previous versions

Atom server is serving HD

2009-02-07T09:50:00.007+02:00

So, yesterday I unpacked all arrived components of my green media server, nicknamed "Atom". All components arrived separately and I really felt like 20 years ago, assembling first PC. I was able to lift in ITX motherboard to ITX minitower, first removing power supply off the way. Space was scarce. I installed 1 TB hard disk to its place. Soon I install next one to other 3,5" media bay, ment for multi-card reader or floppy. I installed Intel Pro 1000 Gigabit network card to free PCI slot, I fill use it instead of motherboards Realtek 100 Mbit one.

Then I cabeled everything - power to system board, fans, power to drives, front panel lights and swiches, SATA, IDE.

Luckily I had old IDE CD ROM drive to make Win XP x32 install and after that Intel Express driver install. I was most convinient system driver set install I've see - chipset, LAN card, display driver and sound device drivers were installed smoothly in one batch.

I installed XP SP3, AVG Free anti-virus, SmartDefrag and new Twonky 5.0 server. I also added LogMeIn client and HDtune.

Technical specifications and benchmarks after the break.

Nice 4-disk NAS (Atom-based)

2009-02-04T21:04:00.005+02:00

Very interesting product TS-439 Pro Turbo NAS. Employing energy-efficient and quite powerful Intel Atom. Still only NAS. No torrent clent etc. I believe, that its possible to install Twonky server, but requires skills -- not so trivial operation. They have solution for Squeezbox, but not for generic UPnP clients.

So, is very powerful and reliable data store for files and backup, but not so much for home entertenment and media streaming.

More: http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=110

HD movies in the viewing queue

2009-02-04T08:13:00.003+02:00

Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona

Few new titles arrived today into my BitTorrent "complete" folder:

Vicki, Christina, Barcelona, HD 720

Wanted, HD 720

The Visitor, HD 720

Burn After Reading HD 720

All titles are H.264 in .MKV container. So, If one is interested to look HD stuff from the net, should buy accordingly .MKV compatible device. Be aware, that many HD devices are not able to handle H.264 / MKV. My 0.02 cents -- read carefulle tech specs before buying.

All from MiniNova

Atom based green media server

2009-02-04T00:22:00.004+02:00

So, I decided to get more green or greener. Instead of Intel quad processor platform I go to more moderate Atom plaform.

2 x 1.0 TB SATA HDD in RAID 1 (mirrored)

MB MITX Intel Little Falls D945GCLF;

Intel 945GC/ICH7 chipset;

Atom 230 (1.6GHz, 512KB); RAM 1x DDR2 667 2GB;

10/100 LAN, 6xUSB2;

2x SATA, PATA;

Intel GMA950

One might ask, why I didnt go to NAS, easy and cheap. Because of certain requirements:

easy to install and manage Twonky media server software
possibility to use BitTorrent client
possibility to unpack .rar and .zip files (lot of 4+ GB .mkv's are breaked down to dozens of .rar pieces)

My current server pulls from the wall about 170 Watts. Knowing that Atom uses some 4 Watts and about the same chipset, power drop should be considerable.

After the break new readings...

HD stuff viewed

2009-02-01T20:26:00.003+02:00

When I started this HD streaming forum some time ago, there was practically no HD content available online at all. Now, the situation is much better. My last viewing list:

Appaloosa HD 720; 4,5 GB MKV;
Transsiberian, HD 720; 4,5 GB MKV;
Burn After Reading HD 720; 4,6 GB MKV;
Gattaca HD 720; 4,3 GB MKV;

There is 50/50 possibility to find HD version in torrents. Most times 720, but sometimes also 1080 version. Usually I sort all torrents by seeders, most populars up, then I try to find most seeded HD version. I usually recognize it by size (> 4GB) or I do quick in-page browster search Ctrl+f 720 or 1080.

My A-110 plays all MKV with flying colors, so it has been eye-opening to look good-quality HD stuff at home. It's like goint to the street after laser eye surgery...

Places to find HD stuff:

http://www.mininova.org/

http://thepiratebay.org/

http://eztv.it/index.php (for TV series)

Folding@home supercomputer

2009-01-25T16:28:00.002+02:00

This indeed not HD related, but I have been busy building my personal supercomputer (PSC) for Folding@home application. Currently I broke 5 TFLOPS barrier, but new milestones to hit.

Take a look of my Estonia Donates Folding@home supercomputer project

My new challenge

2009-01-24T10:49:00.003+02:00

Green is this year black. So, I'll downgrade my media server power-wise, trying to retain full HD capabilities.

Outline of new architecture:

Intel Atom processor and corresponding 2 SATA MB (Instead of Quad Xeon)
2 x 1TB striped RAID (speed, no fault tolerance, data backup is done separately)
MS Windows 7 beta
BitTorrent v6
TwonkyMedia 5
LogMeIn Free remote controlled, no LCD, no keyboard

I really hope to cut power consumption down multiple times. Numbers and Watts after the break.

TwonkyMedia Manager 1.0 and Server 5.0 are out

2009-01-13T09:55:00.003+02:00

TwonkyMedia has news. They changed their ancient website to more modern, updated server 4.4.9 to 5.0 and added brand new product - Media Manager. Actually Media Server is now a component in Media Manager (also separately downloadable).

Twonky Media Manager 1.0

This product is for PC / Notebook scenario. In case, You are using NAS or dedicated Linux / PC server, You may upgrade to Media Server 5.0

Main improvements in version 5.0

new database structure that uses less memory;
server-side user-playlist support;
new transcoding architecture;
new plug-in that includes support for Internet feeds like Flickr photo, YouTube™ video
new Internet radio stations

More detailed test later. Be tuned :)

New HD "steel" keeps coming....

2008-12-01T20:58:00.007+02:00

Netgear Digital Entertainer Elite

2 new HD Streamers/Players in just few days:

Netgear Digital Entertainer Elite

What makes it "elite". For me it starts from form factor, it's good in my rack woth Onkyo head unit etc. Secondly, all major HD formats and digital audio formats are supported.

Mentionable features

HDD is self installable
Progressive download capable with HDD model
Draft-N wireless
Max 40 Mbps throughput
All major video formats, including ISO, VOB, MKV
Home theatre audio: DTS 5.1; DTS-HD master audio; Dolby Tru-HD, Dolby AC3 and other formats suported

Cons

SageTV Theater

SageTV HD Theater 200

Fan-less quiet design.
Video formats: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264 up to 1080p, AVI, MKV, MOV, ASF, VOB, WMV9/VC-1 up to 1080p;
Audio formats: MP2, MP3, AAC, WMA, Vorbis (stereo only), AC3 (stereo down-mix/pass-through), FLAC, DTS (pass-through);
Video Out: 1 HDMI, 1 Component, 1 Composite, 1 S-Video
Audio Out: Left/Right audio output and optical S/PDIF

Seems that HD is soon taking over...

myiHome is too basic server

2008-11-27T22:15:00.006+02:00

Firs I tested today myiHome UPnP server ver 3.5.1, downloaded it from Syabase homepage as last version. I was greatly disappointed with this server. Didn't recognize and show some of my HD content (Bourne Ultimatum MKV-s for one example), didn't play MOST of my HD content

Only later I found out that there is alsi much newe version on Networked Media Tank homepage -- ver 5.1.3 (sic!).

Sure, I'm spoiled by functionality and speed of TwonkyMedia, but still -- myiHome is far too basic UPnP server tested so far. I really lihe Syabas hardware, using myself Popcorn Hour A-110 Networked Media Tank. But for some reason, their server software is not up to the level.

Cons music:

Not user friendly, if You got 600 artists like me,
took ages to find Robbie Williams album Intensive Care (my fav usability test)
no artist or album index
Doesn't show title, elapsed time, track info etc..
No album art

Cons general:

Takes 50 MB-s of HDD, Twonky only <3>

Pro's

Ver 5.1.3 plays most of 1080 HD stuff I had on my server, including:
IMAX Blue Planet MPEG2 .TS
1000 Places to See Gambodia .MKV
Bourne Ultimatum .MKV
Hancoc .MKV
Victoria Secrets 2007 .TS

Making long story short -- I removed myiHome from my server after 1 hour of testing. Not recommended. Alternative: TwonkyMedia server.

New product category - HD streaming Blu-Ray players

2008-11-27T11:08:00.005+02:00

www.netflix.com

Samsung BD-P2550

First we got Xbox 360 streaming HD Netflix online DVD rental with more than 100 000 titles. Then We heard about Samsung's BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 Blu-ray decks. Now LG BD300 has also capable of streaming HD from Netflix.

Its easy way to tranform users through technology they are familiar with. Imagine, Blu-Ray is playing virtual HD disks on service basis.

Popcorn Hour, son of Syabas Technology

2008-11-26T22:16:00.003+02:00

Syabas Technology is the company, having many media technologies, including network media tank (NMT) and media streamer. Popcorn Hour and few other NMT-s like HDX 1080 are based on Syabas NMT platform. Today I downloaded their UPnP streamer MyiHome 3.5.1 Win version and installed to my 2,5 TB media server.

What is the difference between DMP (digital media player, streamer) and NMT (networked media tank):

DMP: streaming client
NMT: streaming client, HDD, UPnP server

Test results and personal preferences compared against TwonkyMedia 4.4.9 tomorrow...

Tomacro -- another HD streamer from Shenzhen

2008-11-26T07:29:00.006+02:00

This is Tomacro's new LIM 320s. In Tomacro company media streamers called DMA - Digital Media Access devices. Their latest model seems quite capable, covering all HD container formats and video codexes used in HD:

MPEG2-HD; .mpg, .tp, .ts, .avi, .mkv
WMV-HD/VC-1: .wmv, .evo, ts, .avi, .mkv
H.264(Mpeg4-AVC): .mov, .m2ts, .mp4, .ts, .avi, .mkv
Mpeg4(DivX-HD, Xvid-HD): .avi, .mkv

All main SD videos are also covered, also music and photo streaming.

Player is based on Sigma Design ® SMP 8635 (exactly the same model what is used in my favourite Popcorn Hour A-110), offering HDMI 1.3 functionality, including embedded audio.

Interesting non-streaming HD media player

2008-11-25T10:50:00.003+02:00

WD TV

Western Digital (WD) has quite interesting, though not UPnP streaming product WD TV HD media player. It plays from USB HDD movies and photos in 1080p HD through HDMI. It also plays music files. In short, copy all Your media to portable USB drive and show it everythere.

I personally see this product as additional media interface to WD Passport USB HDD's although it supports other USB drives also.

Must watch: Top Gear Polar Special

2008-11-24T01:37:00.003+02:00

Indeed, in 1080 HD format. Available in MiniNova, just search Polar Special 1080.

Excellent image and sound quality and quite a project! Be aware, that it's 7 Gbytes .MKV or so in HD.

Excellent TV show torrent site

2008-11-21T01:35:00.003+02:00

We know, that its quite a headacke to find quality c0ntent from torrents. Some have spanish audio, some really bad quality, etc...Lately I started to use really exellent site to download new TV Shows. There are currently 2, what I'm following:

So, just find Your fav from EZTV and enjoy...

HD bandwidth compared to SD

2008-11-19T12:55:00.005+02:00

Left HD 1080 standard SD 352 lines on the right

I did some research today, looked few titels in HD and SD, comparing bitrates, both video and audio. Its really good to see, that better-quality matherial has more bandwitht for sound (up to 1,5 Mbts) than usually watched crappy XviD movies (sound and video combined less than 1 Mbps).

My content:

Top Gear MKV 1080p H.264
Hancock MKV 1080p H.264
Bourne MKV 1080p VC1
Mariposa ASF 1080p WMV
1000 Places Cambodia MKV 1080p MPEG4
Californiavation MKV 720p H.264
SI Swimsuite 2008 AVI 720p XviD
Average SD AVI 352i XviD

So, video bandwith was generally 10-16 Mbps for HD and ca 1 Mbps for SD XviD. Sound took about 350 Kbps, in DTS 1500 Kbps, in crappy XviD DVD rip about 127 Kbps.

Popcorn Hour is for HD content!

2008-11-19T00:25:00.002+02:00

So, today had some spare time and upgraded Twonky Media server to ver 4.4.9 -- version supporting .MKV containers.

Some days earlier I hooked up my new Popcorn Hour A-110. Now I'm confident and assured, that its next level vompared with D-link DSM-520

Few things to mention:

HDMI 1.3, audio support, one cable for all
.MKV and H.264 support
fast forward forks well with HD, also jump to 10%-20%-30%...

Cons

I don't like form factor, doesn't nicely fit in into my home theatre rack
plasma screen is flickering between menu -> play and other functions
No album art, playing MP3-s

Tested HD content

The Bourne Ultimatum 2007 1080p (HD-DVD rip)
Hancock 1080 (Blu-Ray rip)
Top Gear Polar Special 2007 1080p (BBC-HD H.264)

More detailed report will follow, but as far I can only recommend Popcorn Hour A-110 and Twonky Media 4.4.9.

Mysterious ways of UPS (Popcorn Hour)

2008-11-12T17:09:00.003+02:00

As You know, I ordered Popcorn Hour S-110 lately. Quite interesting reading is UPS report. My packet has been in quite many countries:

TALLINN,EE 11/12/2008 9:54 A.M.

VANTAA, FI 11/12/2008 7:38 A.M.

MALMO STURUP,SE 11/12/2008 5:14 A.M.

KOELN ,DE 11/11/2008 9:46 P.M.

DUBAI,AE 11/11/2008 6:50 P.M.

CHEK LAP KOK,HK 11/11/2008 11:03 A.M.

PAMPANGA,PH 11/11/2008 3:48 A.M.

SHENZHEN, CN 11/10/2008 6:55 P.M.

So, it has been in 8 countries all together.

Popcorn Hour Media Tank S-110 soon to be reviewed

2008-11-11T17:29:00.004+02:00

Your order has shipped!

Nov 11

Full shipment - Popcorn Hour has shipped your order.

Track UPS package #UPS-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nov 11

Tracking data added - Popcorn Hour has added new tracking data to your order.

Track UPS package #UPS-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Oct 24

$264.00 charge - Your credit card (MASTERCARD xxx-yyyy) was charged for $264.00. "GOOGLE *Popcorn Hour" will appear on your credit card statement.

Oct 17

Order received - Popcorn Hour received your order.

Oct 17

Order placed - Your order was placed with Popcorn Hour. A confirmation email was sent to you by Google.

Onkyo Blu-ray -- not streaming, but HD

2008-11-11T16:38:00.004+02:00

Onkyo DV-BD606P Blu-ray player

My digital home employs Onkyo steel. I had postponed the blu-ray player purchase, cause Onkyo stepped on HD DVD path and first DV-BD606P Blu-ray was just launced. It supports Dolby® TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio™ surround sound and minimizes the number of cables to one -- HDMI (plus power cable indeed..). Put my order in few days ago, hope to receive it in the end of the year -- Europe is so far from USA and Japan...

Digital signal path in AV streaming

2008-11-08T10:47:00.005+02:00

Watching cable SD by Internet provider (IPTV)

IPTV Provider, ADSL IP data
Thomson SpeedTouch 780 IPTV boadband router
Twisted Pair ADSL IP data -> HTTP Ethernet 10/100 Mbps
Amino Aminet A110
Video: HTTP protocol Ethernet 10-baseT -> 576i component (Mpeg2)
Audio: Coax S/P-DIF PCM
Onkyo TX-SR706 FLI-2310
Video: Component 576i/50 -> HDMI 1080i
Audio:
Hitachi 42" HD plasma
HDMI 1080i -> image

As You see, there is still one stage in analog. Hope to het new Aminet A130 or A530 box with HDMI to het over it.

Changed Onkyo TX-SR706 under warranty

2008-11-07T15:00:00.004+02:00

Due to HDMI blankout problems I changed my head unit under the warranty. New one functions perfectly.

Hooking up the modern 7,1 receiver takes at least an hour, inluding Audyssey automatic speaker level adjusting etc. Huge number of different inputs causes mistakes and adds some thrill...

Onkyo TX-SR706 Faroudja DCDi is overheating

2008-11-01T17:30:00.004+02:00

I have used it only 2 days, but I'm quite sure, that Faroudja DCDi Cinema scaler is overheating, if natural cooling not well provided. Plasma is losing signal in conjunctiton with fast screen transitions. In my case cable set to box and DVD component signals are up-converted to 1080p by Faroudja DCDi Cinema scaler.

All the other user csenarios work well. Signal from Dlink DSM-520 HDMI is also up-converted to 1080i HDMI output. Today I watched 3 consequent Fifth Gear series from my Media Server / DSM-520 but no siglal losses occured. Then I swiched over to cable and signal started to disappear in every minuta or so. In my case I up-converted component signal to HDMI 1080i. I swiched my receiver off for an hour, it cooled down and problems disappeared.

I'm planning to modify my TX-SR706, installing fan and heat-sink to FLI2310 DCDi chip.

I'll report more later...

Waiting for my Popcorn Hour A-110 to arrive

2008-11-01T16:39:00.002+02:00

Your order is in progress. Oct 24

$264.00 charge - Your credit card (MASTERCARD xxx-yyyy) was charged for $264.00. "GOOGLE *Popcorn Hour" will appear on your credit card statement
Oct 17 Order received - Popcorn Hour received your order
Oct 17 Order placed - Your order was placed with Popcorn Hour. A confirmation email was sent to you by Google.

New head unit Onkyo TX-SR706

2008-10-31T14:44:00.009+02:00

Onkyo TX-SR706

Yesterday I bought new THX® Select2™ Plus 7.1-Channel Onkyo TX-SR706 head unit to my multimedia entertainment center and swiched my old Onkyo TX-L55. Why I did so? Same question was asked by my spouse.

1. Video swiching capabilities

I have different video sourses with different output formats

a. Dlink DSM 520 has HDMI output

b. DVD player is Component

c. Aminet 110 cable set top box has component output

So, swiching from one source to another causes manual input selection on my Hitachi 42" plasma. It doesn't have direct selection, so You have either to cycle through 8 or so inputs or find right input through the menu. Old TX-L55 didn't have HDMI swiching or even pass-through at all.

Now all video swiching is done by Onkyo, cause it converts every signal (analog and digital) to 1 HDMI output in 1080 format. So sweet. No input selection whatsoever. And only 2 cables are passed to plasma monitor (power and HDMI) instead of thick bunch of component and scart cables.

2. Video up-scaling

Onkyo TX-SR706 has clever Faroudja DCDi Cinema scaler, incorporating FLI2310 chip, upscaling up to 1080p every single input -- digital or analog, component and even composite. Being honest, I didn't see much improvement compared with my HD TV internal upscaler after 1 hour of using new feature, but will comment this topic later.

3. Audyssey

Now I can really sure, that my surround sound is as close as possible, as film director ment. Usually front-back-surround balance is not correct and subwoofer is out of balance. Onkyo passes series short sweep-signals through all surround speakers and tunes cross-over frequencies, dB gains and time corrections. It takes time (5-10 minutes), but worth it.

More Pro's

There is plenty of digital audio inputs, both optical and coax. No need for precise planning and every single connection is digital. New remode is so much better. Source and remote operation happens from one button and other are much better planned.

Con's

Onkyo was in HD DVD clan and hasn't been able to finish their blu-ray player yet. So, it will be on the shelves early next year perhaps. So, I didn't buy new DVD player, but waiting for Onkyo blu-ray.

0,5 TeraByte mark hit

2008-09-10T15:33:00.003+02:00

So, I lately crossed the 0,5 TeraByte milestone of movies, music and images on my 2,5 TB media server:

1100 Videos, 475 GB
6800 Music tracks, 44 GB
25 000 Photos, 42 GB

As You see, most of the digital data today is movies.

Dlink really weak in HD

2008-09-10T15:15:00.004+02:00

I have been the patriot of Dlink products in media streaming. Currently I have 2 pc of DSM 520 and one DSM 320 streaming off my 2,5 TB Dell PowerEdge quad-core media server. Mostly I watch TV-shows like Friends, Top Gear etc and lot of MPEG4 movies. But more and more movies are coming out in HD, ripped off from blu-ray or recorded from the HD cable/terrestial. In most of the cases these are in .TS format, .MKV Matroska containers, H.264 whitch is pain in the a.. for Dlink. Converting is really a lottery and not really an option. Also, high bitrate (more than 20 mbit per second) 1080 has been problem for DSM-520, despite of wired ethernet.

Now I look something more capable. Most probably I'm going after Popcorn Hour A-110 streamer. Looks like just for me, HDMI 1.3a, supports the latest high bitrate video formats (MPEG2 MP@HL, H.264 HP@L4.1, VC-1 AP@L3 in TS of at least 40Mbps) to give you up to 1080p high-definition videos.

Another option is Buffalo Linktheater HD On the paper its H.264 AVC capable, but MKV container is not clearly notetd on their spec sheet?!

DH Tune measurements

2008-05-24T09:33:00.002+03:00

Before, PCI bus RocketRaid 1820a:

After, PCI-E RocjetRaid 2320:

Average IOmeter trasfer speed:

before 72 MB/s
after 154 MB/s (increased 100%)

One interesting media streamer

2008-05-22T12:31:00.004+03:00

Recently I found unknown for me streamer -- EZ media. What was new for me:

no HDMI, only DVI (converter DVI to HDMI included)
plays WMA Pro and MPEG Pro (usually max quality is limited 320 kbs MP3 and WMA)
plays H.264 AVC MPEG4 part 10 HD video (does it play Matroska containers???)
UPnP 1,5 and DNLLA 1,5 compliant (most streamers are UPnP 1.0 compliant)

Product line includes SimpleCenter software media server and EZsource NAS (not yet available).

Disk subsystem throughput

2008-05-21T19:49:00.003+03:00

As told earlier, I swiched from PCI RAID controller to RocketRaid 2320 PCI-E (x4) RAID controller. Throughput is up significally:

Read speed:

Before 100 MB/s
After 520 MB/s (UP 5,2 times)

Write speed (RAID-5)

Before 54 MB/s
After 150 MB/s (UP 2,8 times)

Important fact is, that using packets less than 8 MB gave > 1022 MB/s read/write speeds because of new cache employed on the new controller. I's PCI-E x4 physical limit !?

PCI-E RAID controller installed

2008-05-19T15:56:00.006+03:00

Due to some compatibility issues I decided to get rid of old-fashined PCI RocketRaid 1820A and replace it with very modern PCI-Express technology RocketRaid 2320 unit. It has PCI-E x4 architecture.

My media server in the nutshell

Dell PowerEdge SC1430
Quad core Intel E5335 CPU 2,0 GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 2x4 MB L2 cache
2GB Memory
HDD 80 GB dedicated to OS and programs
RAID 5 2,25 TB (4x750 GB Hitachi SATA), dedicated to digital media
RocetRaid 2320 RAID host adapter, PCI-E x4 (300 MB/s each SATA port)
Broadcom Gigabit NIC

My main objective was to get away from compatibility issue, but once I had to reinstall my RAID, I choce more potent PCI-E model to get rid of all possible bottlenecks in the data path.

System bottleneck speeds:

So, network is the slowest link in the chain.

HD MKV container, D-Link DSM-520 and MediaCoder

2008-04-05T20:20:00.001+02:00

If You have media server and D-Link DSM media streamer, You are not able to playback MKV (Matroska) files. PAL resolution files are easy to convert using MKV2VOB converter, but my equipment didn't work with HD format.I tried and failed long time to fing good probram to convert MKV container into suitable format. Finally I found the product, what really works -- MediaCoder, look http://www.mediacoderhq.com/

Few tips:

Video Tab
Mode: Quality-based 100%
Format: MPEG2
Container: MPEG2
Source: Autoselect
Backend: Autoselect
Copy Video: UNSELECTED

Audio Tab
Source: Autoselect
Encoder: Lame MP3
Resample: Original
Channel: Original
Enable Audio: Selected
Copy Audio: UNSELECTED
Gain 0dB
Audio ID: 0

Lame MP3 tab
Rate mode VBR
Channel Auto
Bitrate/Quality: 8
Algorithm Quality: 1

I use currently MediaCoder ver 0,6 and it works just well.

Best HD torrents

2008-02-23T13:08:00.005+02:00

Some torrent directories have been moved more quickly seeding HD stuff than other directories. Here is my TOP-5 lists for High Definition material:

Torrent directories 1080+720=total HD

http://www.snarf-it.org/ 500+3800=4300 HD torrents listed;
http://www.thepiratebay.org/ 1000+1000=2000;
http://www.mininova.com/ 500+700=1200;
http://www.isohunt.com/ 700+500=1200;
http://www.bitenova.com/ 100+1000=1100;
http://www.torrentspy.com/ 20+300=320;

There are also some closed-communy torrent directories. Some of these exceeded user limit and they dont take new members.

Indeed, they differ in usability and ease of search. My personal favourite is http://www.mininova.org/

How to get HD stuff from Internet?

2008-02-23T12:19:00.004+02:00

We all got HD equipment, but no content. Internet is one source to download 720p and 1080p movies, music videos, tv shows, fashion shows etc. If You never did it, here are short instructions:

1. Get torrent client software, like BitTorrent ;

2. Find interestinf content from torrent directories like:
http://www.snarf-it.org/ ; http://www.thepiratebay.org/ ; http://www.mininova.com/ ; http://www.isohunt.com/ ; http://www.bitenova.com/ ; http://www.torrentspy.com/

3. Start downloading. Volumes are big, starting from 0,5GB (compressed AVI files), usually ca 8GB per movie, so prepare to fill up Your server soon. I just expanded mine up to 2,2 TeraByte.

4. When needed (if you receive xyz.rar, xyz.r01, xyz.r02 etc), unpack spanned archive using WinRAR, WinZIP etc. Open first file with unzipper and it automatically unpacks and combines all parts of spanned archive, making one xyz.avi file.

RAID upgrade speed comparision

2008-02-19T20:49:00.003+02:00

HDTune 2.55 results for 4 x 160, total 0,5 TByte setup:

HDTune 2.55 results for 4 x 750, total 2,2 TByte setup:

Few comments. Some 10% better throughput and 30% better access time at the same CPU load. Main difference: 400+ percent more disk space.

Major storage expansion to 2,2 TByte

2008-02-18T23:38:00.007+02:00

So, downloading HD stuff from several torrents (post about best HD torrents will be available soon) filled up quickly my Half Terabyte server. So, I decided to switch frorm 4x160GB disks to 4x750GB setup, eg total 2,25 TB usable RAID5 storage.

RAID5 is essential in multy-disk setups, as single drive failure destroy's completely striped storage (RAID 0). Mirroring halves usable storage and is expeensive. So, RAID 5 is the winner. It is important to notice, that You may not want to use any entry-level RAID controller for RAID 5 as they use software parity calculation, overloeading CPU at large array writes. Instead usse HW accelerated version, for example RocketRAID 1810a.

My 2,2 TB media server in the nutshell

Intel P4, 2GHz, 100MHz FSB
512 MB RAM
PCI bus 32bit
40 Gb ATA disk for OS from integrated controller
4 x 750 SATA II 7200 RPM disks from Hitachi
RAID5 controlled by HighPoint RocketRAID 1810a
Intel Gigabit NIC
Tower form factor (Dell Dimension 8200)

Windows XP SP2
TwonkyMedia 4,4 streaming server

My 2,2 TB RAID migration process:

Installed temporary SATA controller and SATA drive 500GB for migration buffer;
Tested old partition performance, using HD Tune 2.55 (free);
Copied the contents from old RAID to single 500 GB SATA disk, attached to temporary SATA controller, using CodeSector TERACopy (took about 15 hours at average speed 6,5 MB/s)
Tested the integrity of copy using TERACopy
Took out 4 x 160 GB disks
Installed fresh 4 x 750 GB Hitachi disks
RAID 5 Zero build, using RocketRAID BIOS utility, block size 2048 (good for large sequential reads-writes as usual in video and audio media streaming), took 15 hours;
Created parrtition and formatted it, usine windows storage admin tools from Control Panel;
Copied all data back from single 500GB disk, using TERACopy;
Tested integrity of the copy with TERACopy;
Uninstalled temporary migration hard drive and controller;
Tested partition speed, using HD Tune.

It took total to c3 full days to complete the job, far more than I expected Thanks to slow disk-to-disk copy -- probably due to slow 100MHz FSB. Copy speed to single disk was in average 6,5 MBps, restoring to new RAD happened at 10 MBps pace. My next server will be >1000 MHz FSB and PCI-x configuration. For streaming purposes old system is good, but copying is painfully slow.

After the break -- places to get HD content, Victoria Secret 2007 show in 1080 HD and more..

Logitech's aquisitions

2008-01-11T14:14:00.000+02:00

Logitech is taking big steps to consolidate digital media entertainment products. They have purchased Slim Devices, and two of their main products Squeezebox, ca U$ 300-400 product pricing and Transporter, ca U$ 2000 product pricing. Aditionally they have their own Wireless DJ Music System U$ 250.

Dual mode players

2008-01-08T22:53:00.000+02:00

There is new trend in media streaming. There are Dual User Modes:

Extender for Windows® Media Center
D-Link MediaLounge™ in D-Link case.

Media Center Extender mode shows Media Center screens on Your TV, look and feel like PC. Proprietary MediaLounge look and feel like streamers we got used to.

There are new breed of PC-to-TV players like D-Link DPG-1200 witch act as pure PC desktop extenders and doesnt anymore stream from UPnP storage!

New from Dlink

2008-01-08T22:04:00.000+02:00

There is line of new products "coming soon" from Dlink. I'd like to emphasize one nice feature I missed long time and now model DPG-1200 has. Now You can connect cheap LCD monitor via regular VGA cable. Until now it wasn't possible because of missing VGA connector.

New remote has trackball and 2 buttons. So, navigating on TV screen is more PC-like.

Note, that DSM model name has been changed to DPG!?

My media server content update

2007-12-18T20:57:00.000+02:00

My Half-Terabyte media servers is starting to look old. It's Intel P4 CPU based computer, using 4x160GB RAID5 storage for digital media. Still I have plenty of room there, only 171 Gigabytes is used out of 450 GB:

Server type:
TwonkyMedia 4.4
Used memory: 6868 KB

Last database update: 20:41:15

Content
Music tracks: 6695 (42 GB, 799 albums)
Pictures: 22971 (32 GB)
Videos: 307 (77 GB)
Radio stations: 150

License information: The Server is registered.

Resolution mess

2007-12-18T16:10:00.000+02:00

Today everybody have HD-ready plasmas or lcd-s at home Either 1080 or 768 horisontal lines resolution. There are only few devices what provide HD resolution, but lets refresh our memory in the resolution mess!

480 lines NTSC DVD, format mostly used in US 720 x 480

576 lines PAL TV and DVD, format used in Europe 720 x 576

720 lines HD format

1080 lines HD format

Cables

SCART is capable of carrying up to 576i lines (technically 625 lines with additional data)
Component video is capable of carrying signals such as 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p
HDMI cable is capable handling signals up to 1080p

Hope, it helped...

D-Link DSM-520 update and more....

2007-12-18T15:29:00.000+02:00

Album art is there!

It's has been a while from my last post. Few reasons for that. First, my system is up and running and I use it for everyday home entertainment. Secondly, no major new products have been purchased. Still, tho main improvements in my setup: D-Link supplied remarkable firmware update for DSM-520 media player; secondly I purchased Logitech Harmony programmable remote in order to get disappeared remote mess on my coffe table.

In this post I'll concentrate on dLink. Almost half year back I replaced old DSM-320 with HD model DSM-520. First I connected it to my 1080i plasma via YUV HD Component cable, then via HDMI and now via PAL Scart. Strange, that I downgraded to 625 lines , but I did it because of convinience. My Hitachi 1080i plasma soesn't allow to adress inputs directly, only cycling via all inputs. Scart allows seamless automatic input selection. Pity, that HD formats (HDMI and Component) doesn't use automatic input sensing. Using HDMI requires selecting correct input each time on my plasma.

So, about one month ago new firmware ver 1.04.05eu became available and I installed to my media player. Main and most visible difference is music track playing screen, whitch is totally re-designed now. It shows album art, which is very nice! You tend to remember albums associating with album art.

From bottom to top: D-Link DSM-520, Onkyo DV-L55 DVD player, Onkyo TX-L55 d-class receiver

Also, it supports now 1080 resolution via HDMI now. At least few versions back, HD formats where not supported via HDMI as intresting as it was.

LobsterTunes and HP iPaq rw6815

2007-03-31T18:06:00.000+02:00

Few weeks ago mr. Iain Barclay from Electric Pocket contacted me and offered to test their Pocket PC UPnP media player software, called LobsterTunes. At first I tried to install it to my unused Dell Axim Pocket PC, but I forget that it has older OS version than Windows Mobile 5. So, dont bother installing Lobster on old gear, it requires WM5.

Few weeks passed, cause I had to travel and had skiing holiday with my kids. But lately I had enough time to go to local HP and pick up new HP iPaq rw6815 , called "Personal Messenger". Its basically Pocket PC + smartphone. Having 2,7" LCD and relatively speedy 416 MHz Intel PXA CPU.

So, following the "dont kill the (personal) messenger" guidlines, I installed LobsterTunes application. Installation was straight-forward and easy and appplication was usable right away. As proper UPnP client, it found my server and was ready playing music without any additional configuration. One of the UPnP beauties is: no drivers, no configuring. Still, You have to keep in mind, that WiFi keys should be entered.

I ran my personal usability test: from 10 000 tracks on my server, find as quickly as possible Advertising Space, Album Intensiv Care, artist Robby Williams. It took mere 30 seconds to find this track -- good resut! Not much slower than using D-Link DSM 320 with the remote. Lobsters user interface pretty much followed the same logic than any other Media Receiver.

I had lot of small interruptions, some 2-3 per track. At the beginning of each new track I had small 0,5-1 sec interruption on 2.-d second position. Almost always, regardless of signal strength, etc. As this product is yet in beta testing, there is enougt time to sort it our.

Version tested was 1.0.21.0.

Features I really liked are album art and QuickMix.

From This Moment On in BMW 7-series

2007-03-13T12:56:00.000+02:00

Some people like Diana Krall, some don't. I like. Today I got the mood to listen her last CD "From This Moment On". I did it much louder than usually.

I'm the lucky owner of BMW 745, equipped with Lexicon's Logic 7 (7.1 channels) sound system. Lexicon’s LOGIC 7 technology converts standard two-channel music seven-channel surround. The new LOGIC 7 system in the 7 Series BMW consists of 13 speakers, including two low profile subwoofers that are positioned under the seats and coupled to the frame of the car. A set of tweeters is positioned both in the front and the rear of the car with midrange speakers in the front and rear doors. A center channel speaker is located in the middle of the dashboard and surround speakers are located on the rear deck. Also in the system are a six-disc CD changer and a 420 Watt DSP amplifier (main channels 7 x 40 plus 2 x 70 Watts for the subwoofers).

Before this musical experience I was in quite bad mood, because of visiting local tax office. But "after" mood was great. My car was filled by huge concert piano, contrabass sounded better than in live concerts, percussion was sizzlinly live and electric guitar was precise and true. Most of all I was impressed of clarity and natural sound of piano. I even forgot to listen Diana herself because of strong emotion coming from instruments.

Why I'm writing it here, in digital media blog. Cause I bought this album on-line from www.gomusic.ru . I just was very-very satisfied with 256 kbps MP3 sound quality and precision through my in-car 7.1 system.

Didn't sound so good

2007-03-13T00:36:00.000+02:00

Dee Dee Bridgewater is my favourite jazz artist. Period. Last Sunday I grought back 2 CD-s (Live at Yoshi's and Live in Montreux) what have been about 2 years at my friends house, still unripped, still missing from my Music Server.

My friend is equipmeent fetish problem. So, we listened my CD-s at his place via Danish Copland valve pre-amp and Copland power amp, attached to DynAudio speakers via very-speecial speaker cables. I sounded so damn good.

Then I went home and ripped righ away these CD-s to my Media Server. I used WMA Variable setting, producing best quality available on my system, Then I listened same tracks from my system. D-link DSM-320; Onkyo d-class amp, Polk Audio speakers. It didnt soud so good at all. Is it due to compression or because of my equipment costs 3 times less than my buddy's? Good question -- no answer.

Great feedback from my reader

2007-03-08T15:27:00.000+02:00

Today I receive such letter:

Hello Jaak,
On my search for a HD mediaplayer I found your Blog. The information really helped me. I wanted to buy the Helios X3000, but as I looked further I found the Ziova ClearStream. The Helios looks better, but the ClearStream has more options. See http://www.ziova.com/cs505_specs.php
With regards, Marcel (from Holland)

I am glad, that my blog has been hepful and that I got valuable feedback.

Lets take a glance, who is the Ziova Corporation and what they have. They have only 2 main products, HD networked media players. HD only! They also have HDMI and Component cables in their product range.

They have 2 media player models, CS510 pure media player, CS505 media player with DVD.

Clearstream CS510 and CD505 highlights (listed only interesting features)

Pro's

HDMI and Component Video HD output
Plays MPEG2 and MPEG4 video up to 1080i
Plays WMV9 HD video up to 1080i
Streams UPnP
Streams directly from MS Windows Shares (no authentication)
Both wireless and 10/100 ethernet
Twonky media server included
Dolby Digital analog output included

Con's

CS505 model had DVD player, but no upscaling
1080p is missing (I personally don't care)

Conclusion: Full-bred High Definition media receiver with good connectivity.

2 Mo birthday, who are the quests

2007-03-02T13:18:00.000+02:00

Positive

My blog is interesting among americans, europeans and in China
Blog popularity is risen to 20-40 visits per day
I get feedback from developers and users by e-mail

Negative

Japan is zero - I believe, because of language difference, despite of many companies in this field
Commenting still slow

Next report in 1 month

More big guns

2007-02-27T01:05:00.000+02:00

For some reason I keep stucking to serious media servers recently. This is my latest discovery -- S1 Digital Media Server

Pretty amazing tech specs:

3 terabyte RAID storage
Full 1080p Video Output via HDMI, DVI, Component or VGA
7.1 or 5.1 Channel High Definition AudioOutput audio via S/PDIF
Dual HDTV and SDTV Tuners (Four TV Tuners!)

Damage about U$ 7500

Some more serious sh*t

2007-02-13T13:23:00.000+02:00

Being extremely proud about my Half Terabyte Media Server, equipped with RAID5, Gigabit ethernet and Twinky software, its hard to write about product, following.

Looking for serious media server. having exess of U$ 10 000. Dont look further, if You are living in the States.

NiveusMedia Denali Edition

With scaling of DVDs up to 1080p resolution, and a 7.1 pro audio solution that boasts a 115db Signal to Noise Ratio, the Denali not only manages your entire home's digital media collection, it does it with the finesse that has made the Denali the industry's reference point in media center excellence.

Some key facts:

1.5 Terabytes of Storage
Playback DVDs at high resolution 720p/1080i/1080p
four built in television tuners (2x NTSC & 2x ATSC)

Xbox 360 connected!

2007-02-12T20:26:00.000+02:00

Today I connected new Xbox 360 to my Media Server via wireless adapter. I was absolutely positively surprised. Setup was quick and easy. Just enter WAP key, select server connected and bingo! I also tester wired setup, what was even easier. Just plug and play!

I have 42" Hitatchi 1080i HD plasma and my Xbox is connected to that via HD Component cable. It allows to exploit full 1080i capability of my plasma. A tad confusing is digital audio connection. You have to buy separate optical cable and it connect to the Xbox-end of the cable!

Xbox 360 functionality as media player:

- Plays music: Yes, MP3 and WMA

- Shows digital photos: Yes, at 1080i HD resolution!

- Streams video's from UPnP media server (TwonkyMedia): NO (plays only from Xbox Hard Disk)

Pro's:

- Very good graphical interface

- Super visualization during music playback

- Very good quality in photo slideshow, shows also large 10 Mpix JPG photos >3 MB size

- Very quick srolling in the lists (artists, folders, albums, etc..)

Con's

- Doesn't stream videos from 3.-rd party media server (TwonkyMedia)

- Doesn't support all sorting/grouping features of TwonkyMedia UPnP server. You have to scroll through all 300 artists + 400 composers, to find one. No useful index feature, TwonkyMedia provides.

- Messes up all artists and compusers. Xbox combines artists with composers, producing 800-artist long list, instead of true 300 artists. Not standard UPnP behaviour

Conclusion: Very powerful and aesthetical graphics and fast CPU raises Xbox to very high level among other media playesr, pitty not streaming videos.

New digital media products from BIG PLAYERS

2007-02-12T13:29:00.000+02:00

There are lot of niche players in digital home market. Also few bigger SOHO network company like D-Link and NetGear. Good news is that old slow mainstream hi-fi companies are jumping to bandwagon: Yamaha, Onkyo and Philips. So. You may find now 10/100 LAN connectors among with most usual connectors on the backplane.

Yamaha

Yamaha has good reputation in home cinema systems and receivers. New models RX-V2700 and RX-N600 has media player functionalityes, added to pure good old receiver.

RX-V2700 features

7-channel powerful surround sound: 980W=140W x 7 RMS; 1,295W=185W x 7 Max
Digital ToP-ART with superior audio-grade parts and devices used throughout
Pure Direct for higher fidelity sound reproduction
3 in/1 out HDMI (Ver 1.2a) for handling digital signals including Super Audio CD
Assignable amplifiers for bi-amp connection
1080p compatible HDMI (3 in/1 out)
High-definition video up-conversion
Up-scaling (480ior 576i to 1080i/720p)
De-interlacing (480i/576i to 480p/576p)
Wide-range video bandwidth (100MHz -3 dB, 1080p compatible)
Network Receiver functions
(Internet radio, PC music files, USB portable audio players and flash drives)
iPod compatibility via optional Yamaha YDS-10
Compressed Music Enhancer
Improved YPAO sound optimization with 6 system memories
GUI on-screen display (6 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Russian and japanese)
Superior zone control with additional zone remote unit and zone multi-language OSD
Upgraded CINEMA DSP with 22 DSP programs
Dolby Digital EX and DTS 96/24 compatibility

Very interesting feature is MP3 music artifact removing: Compressed Music Enhancer

RX-N600 features

6.1-channel, powerful surround sound: 570W=95W x 6 RMS; 145W/Ch Max (for Europe);
810W=135W x 6 Max
Digital ToP-ART and High Current Amplification
192kHz/24-Bit DACs for all channels
Playback MP3/WMA/WAV music from a PC
USB flash drive/music player compatibility
Play Internet radio
MusicCAST Client compatibility
Compatible with iPod via optional Yamaha YDS-10
Compressed Music Enhancer
On-screen display
3 HDTV compatible component video inputs
Component video up-conversion
Digital video processing with TBC (Time Base Corrector)
Quad-Field CINEMA DSP and 14 surround programmes
Night Listening Enhancer (Cinema/Music) and SILENT CINEMA

Onkyo

Onkyo has also serveral new stream-able receivers. They look lika good old-school AV Receiver, but backplane reveals ethernet connection.

TX-NR801E THX™ Select 7.1-Channel A/V Home Network Receiver and

TX-NR5000E THX™ Ultra2™ 7.1-Channel A/V Home Network Receiver

Internet Features:

30 Internet radio random presets
Ethernet port (Homenetwork)
Net-Tune Protocol Function
MP3, WAV, WMA decoding

What exactly is Net-Tune??? Is it UPnP compliant? All what I found from the marketing matherials, that You have to install Net Tune Central server software to Your PC or home media server and starrt listening MP3, WAV and WMA music and Internet radio. Most probably it is just another entry level UPnP server.

D-Link DSM-520 from eBay

2007-02-10T21:43:00.000+02:00

Today I ordered my second media player D-Link DSM-520. It will be my main player, connected to my home cinema and 42" plasma via component HD.

Why I chose DSM-520? The only reason was HD 1080i ability. I have 21 000 hi-resolution digiphotos in my server to share and also I have 1080 HD plasma to show them to my family and guests. Previously I used to show it in PAL, wat is onli 480 lines. So, the resolution improvement will be 2 times horizontally, what is vlearly visible!

It cost me just 205 €, so, quite cheap!

High-End Audiophile Media Players

2007-02-08T22:26:00.000+02:00

There are number of $ 150-250 players out there, available from internet shops and huge electronics superstores.
But there are lurking some serious pieces of art - toys for purists. Some of them are here:

Olive Opus U$ 3 900.00
homepage

Plays music from UPnP server
Plays internet radio
No video, no photos
Killer fact: internal 750GB drive hold up tp 2100 loseless CD-s.

Helios X5000 U$ 579,00
homepage

Plays music
Plays internet radio
Plays 1080p video
Shows shared photos
Killer fact: High Definition Upscaling up to 1080p (1920x1080) resolution

Slim Devices Transporter U$ 1999.00
homepage

Plays music from UPnP server
Plays internet radio
No video, no photos
Killer fact: balanced gold-plated XLR outputs

So, audiophiles, the ball is Yours!

Best players, on the paper

2007-02-07T17:53:00.000+02:00

Information about media players is so scattered. You have to work all day long in very specific forums and make elaborate web searches to get some overview about new UPnP media players.
If I had to buy few media players, then here are my choices:

TOP 5 Living-room / home cinema

For use with HD LCD or plasma. They all comply my minimum requirements:

High Definition (HD 1080)
Play's music, photos and videos
Component output for HD
HDMI output
UPnP compliant

D-link DSM-520 http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=438
Pixel Magic HD MediaBox http://www.pixelmagicsystems.com/products/media_players/hd_mediabox.htm
NeoDigits Helios X5000 or X3000 http://www.neodigits.com/
NetGear EVA8000 http://www.netgear.com/Products/Entertainment/DigitalMediaPlayers.aspx
Kiss DP-600 http://www.kiss-technology.com/?p=600en

Bedroom
Requirements for bedroom are:

WiFi built in
1 box design, speakers included
Easy, to use
Built-in LCD screen
UPnP compliant

Philips Streamium WAK3300; WAS7000; WAS700
Pinnacle SoundBridge Radio
Acoustic Energy WiFi Internet Radio

I found!

2007-02-06T22:48:00.000+02:00

Today I found the product I need. http://www.neodigits.com/
Model X3000
Why?

It streams 1080 HD video from UPnN server
It has both component and HDMI ouput
It looks business

I will wait and cool down few days before I most probably order it. Only $ 450.-, shipping included.

Who are reading My blog?

2007-02-06T20:07:00.000+02:00

My blog has been up and running about 1 month. At very beginning I started measuring traffic with Google Analytics www.googleanalytics.com . It is very illusttrative tool with different charts, based on very little information of my readers.

All together, readers from 15 different countries visited my blog.

Top 5 Countries
#1 USA
#2 UK
#3 Canada
#4 Swizerland
#5 Australia

I wondered about Swizerland!? Who are these watchmakers, reading my media server blog?

Music in the bed

2007-02-06T14:50:00.000+02:00

Tried today to use my Dell Axim X3 as media player, to acess my vast collection off media server. Simple Twonky web client, what works fine on PC, doesn't function on my axim.

Then I tried Rudeo Control http://www.rudeo.com/ but it is so limited in trial period, that very hard to say is it good or not. In some extent it works, but then I experianced quite weird behaviour. Can't recommend.

I have to look further...

New media project

2007-02-01T23:14:00.000+02:00

From today I start photographing estonia art. It is big fun to have good art collection in Your media server. Also displaying them on the 40" HD plasma.

My idea is to make hi res photos, no distorsion, perfect white balance and exposure. Aim is to capture life-like images.

Each image will be about 1,5 - 3MBytes on disk, at least 5 Mpix size, JPEG HIGH quality compression.

Ran out trial

2007-02-01T23:07:00.000+02:00

Today I ran out of 30-day trial period of TwonkyMedia server license. It's time to make credic card transaction over internet :) There is no other substitute for me to Twonky currently. MS Media Connect 2.0 and 3.0 are free, but doesn't work so well. MS is slow and overloads server CPU with simple tasks, like browsing in the library.

My 70 Gigabyte Mahler job

2007-01-30T00:21:00.000+02:00

Today I completed my Gustav Mahler 11 Symphonies ripping job, requiring almost 70 GB free space from my ripping workstation. Not mentioning of two 3GHz CPU-s, running hot at 99% performance level.

Matherial

I have bunch of DVD-s in my posession. All Gustav Mahler's symphonies fom 1 to 10, plus Das Lied von der Erde. All DVD-s had:

Video: MPEG-2 / 720x480 (NTSC) / 4:3;
Audio: DTS audio + PCM stereo audio 48KHz 16bit

Original recording was done in stereo and DTS was artificially generated later.

What I did

I copied the contents of DVD-s to my workstation's HDD, using DVD Decrypter. Decrypting happened at the speed 7x - 10x, depending other simultaneous tasks. Then I converted original MPEG 2 video to much more efficient format MPEG 4 in AutoGK. It took about 1:1, eg 20 frames per second.

Result

I have now Gustav Mahlers 11 symphonies in MPEG 4 compression with hi quality PCM stereo sound.

Mpeg 4

2007-01-29T10:32:00.000+02:00

Today I ripped The Matrix again and converted it into Mpeg 4 AVI (Xvid). My Matrix DVD is NTSC 16:9 format with english AC3 sound. In that case my particular workflow was:

DVD Decrypter ver 3.5.4.0 Read more
AutoGK ver 2.40 Read more and download

My main objective is to save some disk space, keeping high audio and picture quality. Also, my current media renderer D-link DSM-320 hangs playing huge VOB files. So, basicalyy I'm searching the way to playable.

First DVD Decrypter phase copies the raw content of DVD to HDD, removing copy protection. AutoGK phase converts number of 1 GB VOB files to one AVI file.

Size matters

VOB form: 5 GB (main movie + AC3 Dolby Digital 3+2/1 soundtrack only, 720 x 480)
AVI MPEG 4 1,86 GB (Target quality 100%, 720 x 304 resolution)

BitRate while playing: AVI 1954 Kbit/s; VOB 7600 Kbit/s (measured by DSM-320).

Viewing experience

First I looked video from my Dell Optiplex 20" Wide aspect monitor. I looked good.
Then I copied the AVI file to my Media Server and lloked it via D-Link DSM-320 media receiver on my Hitatchi 42" 1080HD plasma and Onkyo TX-L55 digital receiver. The result was disappointing. Sound was good -- as soundtrack is probably unaltered during compression, but image was unharp and had problems with moving objects and camera panning. Movements were jerky, not smooth. Soud was badly out of sync. Not recommended.

Next steps

Have to try other media renderers. May-be I have to build one, based on Intel SFF desktop PC?

Question

2007-01-26T23:45:00.000+02:00

I have all Gustav Mahler symphonies in my posession, all DVD-s. If I'd like to rip only audio, what is the best method?

DVD has 2 soundtracks:

-> PCM 48 KHz, 16 bit
-> Dolby Digital 5.1

Quality is vital. I play music off mu server via UPnP media player D-Link DSM-320.

So, best technique? Please comment!

I found Mr Elliott's tutorial for conversion, going to try it.

Minor upgrade

2007-01-25T15:35:00.000+02:00

Today I upgraded my Media Server RAID setup.

Before:
One volume per server

RocketRaid 1640 controller
RAID 5 volume, bootable (Win XP + data)

After

NEW: Two volumes per server
NEW: 40 GB IDE UDMA 5 bootable HDD (Win XP + TwonkyMedia server + other software, not shared)
NEW: RocketRaid 1810A controller (hardware accelerated RAID 5 parity calculation)
RAID 5 (4 x 160 SATA 150), containing digital music, images and movies - shared

So, basically I have bootable, not shared HDD for Win XP and data-only RAID 5 volume, shared to my house.

Performance IOmeter

Write throughput
Before 10 MB/s
After 54 MB/s Improvement 5,4x

Read throughput
Before 100 MB/s
After 100 MB/s same

Real-world copy test 254Mbyte CD

Before 8,5 MB/s
After 21,2 MB/s Improvement 2,5 times

Performance HD Tune

After (55MB/s, burst 82 MB/s) and before (47,7 MB/s, burst 57 MB/s)

I'm satisfied with new RAID 5 write performance!

Dirt cheap Russian option

2007-01-25T08:35:00.000+02:00

You have to fill up Your huge media server with music. How? One option is iTunes, billing 1 € (U$ 1,2) per track. Another option is www.gomusic.com ,they bill just U$ 0,10-0,15 per track. Ten times less, one album for one track from iTunes.

Gomusic in the nutshell:

> 31 000 albums
> 25 000 artists
fast download
U$ 0,15 per track

It is mad to make U$ prepayment to russian internet company, selling online music? For most people it is. Still, this service has been reliable and fast. I have used it over 2 years. They claim,that legally is all correct with "Federation of Authors and Rightsholders for Collective Management of Copyright in Interactive" - so it's not pirate site.

DVD economics

2007-01-23T21:17:00.000+02:00

How much is one DVD on Your digital home media server HDD in $$$? In VOB form? Lets take 5 GB Movie (The Matrix for example).

one 250 GB HDD = U$ 80.00
one Matrix = 5 GB
one HDD can home 50 movies

So, 1 movie occupies U$ 80/50= U$ 1,60 worth of hard drive.

In reality, You tend to have RAID, so multiply it by factor 1,25 (in 4 disk configuration)

1 Movie occupies U$ 2.00 worth of RAID5 disk system :) Not cheap, heh!

Half Terabyte server update

2007-01-23T14:03:00.000+02:00

I downloaded best performance meter available -- Iometer. As the Iometer User's Guide says, Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. It was originally developed by the Intel Corporation and announced at the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) on February 17, 1998 - since then it got wide spread within the industry. Look more: www.iometer.org

So, I played in my home network, particularly with my HTMS (Half Terabyte Media Server) RAID subsystem.

My HTBMS server config:

Dell Dimension 8200 base, 2GHz P4, 512MB RAM (tower)
4 PCI 33MHz x 32bit slots,PCI 2.2 compliance + AGP slot
Intel PRO/1000 MT Gigabit NIC
HighPoint RocketRAID 1640 SATA RAID conroller
4 x 160 GB SATA drives (WD + Seagate) in RAID 5 configuration
MS Windows XP Pro
TwonkyMedia UPnP media server

So, test data:
Maximum read throughput: 100 MB/s (with >1Mb packets)
Maximum write throughput: 10 MB/s
Maximum I/O ops/s: 10 000 ops/s (with 512 Kb packets)

I am not happy with write performance. Read performance is very good, also through gigabit NIC and my home lab, all gigabit. Problem for low write performance is parity calculation during write in RAID5 model. Option is to go for RAID 0 or 1, but I'd like to stay in RAID5, because of reliability and space. Buying model 1640 I didn't have any idea, that parity is calculated by computers CPU. So, processor load is 100% during large writes. I found that RocketRaid 1810a has hardware XOR parity module, so CPU is not overloaded. Have to swap RAID controller, or I'm not satified.

I found extremely interesting forum thread about buidling cheap and powerful RAID5. Must reading for everybody, who are trying it at home.

Geisha is Ripped

2007-01-22T00:10:00.000+02:00

Today I sarted ripping DVD-s into my Half Terabyte Media Server (HTMS). Filling server with DVD-s is easy. Geisha was about 5 GBytes! I have 390 GB free, it can handle about 70 DVD-s only!!!! Shame...

I used DVD Decrypter for ripping. Later found from Wikipedia article, that this program is illegal. Is it so?

My ripping hardware is dell Optiplex 620 Dual Core 3GHz Intel Pentium D, with 2GB RAM. I ripped all DVD at 10x speed. So, 100 minute movie is in Your server in 10 minutes. Satisfactory!

Bad news is that olny first VOB file played, all the rest hanged my DSM-320. Have to play with options.

Good news is that TwonkyMedia server can handle huge VOB files, Windows Media Player 11 can't, too slow.

Wish List

2007-01-21T01:38:00.000+02:00

This is Media Receiver wish list, concerning D-Link DSM-320, DSM-520 and upcoming DSM-750 models. I use model DSM-320 in conjunction with my home cinema. Soon I replace it with DSM-520 and old unit goes to bedroom, connected to old-school CRT TV. But I have wishlist for D-Link.

Please add LCD monitor D-sub output
Currently You may see the server contents, setup it and make adjustment only using your AV equipment -- LCD TV, Plasma TV; projector etc. DSM has composite, s-video and component outputs. I am lucky and have 42PD8600 42" 1080i Hitachi plasma TV. But I have a problem. If you listen all day long music and plasma is on, all static texts of DSM-320 "burn in". They disappear in some time. Still, You dont to keep Your 42" plasma on all day only to show track name currently playing. I miss some additional display. D-Links philosophy is not to add one or twil-line lcd to their receiverst, as some other companies do, like Roku. OK, I agree. But please give oportunity to add additional 15" PC LCD monitor via d-sub connector.

Screen saver

To avoit durnt in characters on my plasma screen

More resolution for OSD
Having about 260 artists and 700+ albums in my media server, I'd like to see a lot on the screen, trying to find album I wish to play. Currently You can see only 10 lines of text or so. TwonkyMedia has good solution indexing and grouping albums, artist etc to reduce time-consuming scrolling. Thats a good solution. But still, I'd like to see info in many colums, at least optionally.

Track properties
Please make possible to see bitrate, encoding and other properties of streaming tracks and also streaming video. Hope, that UPnP standards support it.

Thats it, three wishes only where is my goldfish?

Ripping in My Mind

2007-01-19T16:16:00.000+02:00

Today I did some more ripping.

Ripping (also referred to as digital audio extraction) is the process of copying the audio or video data from one media form, such as Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) or Compact Disc (CD), to a hard disk (definition from Wikipedia).

My objective was to understand difference between WMA Variable and MP3 320 Kbit/s encodings. They both are my vavourite because they meet hi quality listening needs and still they both are compatible with most of equipment available.

MY test album was Denon's high fidelity demo CD, containing 11 tracks from Beethoven to Bruckner. Demanding stuff! Symphony finales and Piano contserts.

My surprise was quite big, then MP3 320 gave 23% bigger file than WMA Variable. I assumed, that encoder should choose very high bitrates because of nature of music.

MP3 320 Kbp/s: 162 MBytes album size;
WMA Variable: 132 MBytes album size.

Ichecked real compression levels of WMA Variable:

Track 2 Ludwig van Beethoven, Egmont overture
341 Kbit/s
Track 4 Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphonie nr 7, Presto
325 Kbit/s
Track 10 Anton Bruckner, Symphonie Nr 6, Finale
317 Kbit/s

So, no real differene in compression, WMA variabl is just more effective than MP3. I didn't hear any difference in sound, listening tracks after each other. I know, that A-B-X blind test is more objective, but I dont have equipment at my home for that.

I didn't make any fundamental conclusion. I keep ripping using WMA Variable, as I used to do earlier.