Popcorn Hour Media Tank S-110 soon to be reviewed

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Onkyo Blu-ray -- not streaming, but HD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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How to get HD stuff from Internet?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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?

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

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

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

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.