I normally toss these things, but today I was reading the latest Buy.com junk mail catalog, which has an entire page dedicated to "networked DVD players". They highlight two models: the GoVideo Networked DVD player and the Oritron On-media Player. The Oritron doesn't seem to exist on Oritron's web site at all, although you can get it at Buy.com. Wunderbar. The GoVideo player (buy.com page), for which I also can't seem to find the real vendor's page, looks somewhat less like a cheap piece of plastic, although it doesn't support as many whizzy features.

The claim for these gizmos is that they can such MP3s, videos, and JPEG files out of your computer and display them on your TV/stereo. Plus, they've got the usual progressive scan DVD players (no doubt with chroma bugs and other oddities still intact). Sounds nice, in theory, but we know it's all about the quality of the software. Has anybody played with one of these things yet?

Given how crowded my equipment rack is, I'll have to remove something to add something. I'd rather not buy a new DVD player until it can do "everything" I might need. Of course, "everything" includes SACD/DVD-Audio, these sorts of network functions, and certainly other things I can't yet imagine how I could ever have lived without. Or something like that.

Thoughts anyone?

The GoVideo player (buy.com page), for which I also can't seem to find the real vendor's page, looks somewhat less like a cheap piece of plastic, although it doesn't support as many whizzy features.

Do you mean this?
http://www.govideo.com/

you might be interested in walt mossberg's review from yesterday's wall street journal. this URL will only be valid for a week, as WSJ is otherwise a subscriber-only site.

i'm not familiar with the oritron, but the gateway and go video products are just repackaged versions of the platform from digital 5.

edit: the oritron also appears to be based on the digital 5 platform.

--dan.

Has anybody played with one of these things yet?

Hugo's got the similar-sounding Kiss DP-500, which he seems quite pleased with. The navigation of MP3 and JPEG content is a bit basic, but usable. The included server software is Windows-only, but apparently there's some Java stuff on Sourceforge that can be made to work on Linux.

Mind you, the only Right Way to make this kind of product (or, in this day and age, Rio Receiver-type or Central-type products) is to use the UPnP MediaServer specifications, which AFAICT none of these three does.

Note that (apparently) the GoVideo doesn't do MPEG4 or Divx, and the Kiss doesn't (apparently) do MPEG2 from a network source. It looks like the Oritron is the only one with all bases covered...

Peter

the gateway and go video products are just repackaged versions of the platform from digital 5.

That's interesting. D5's web site lists MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX and UPnP support as features, so perhaps these units are more featureful than their own web sites admit.

UPnP MediaServer is hopelessly overengineered -- it falls into the IMAP trap of manfully struggling to deny its own nature as a remote filesystem, thus making it much more complex than if they just admitted it was a remote filesystem from the word go -- but at least it's non-proprietary.

Peter

He doesn't cover the things I want to know: is it HDTV-ready? How's the video quality? Is there any skipping?

"[Walt Mossberg] doesn't cover the things I want to know"

Now there's a surprise.

after a while, i've gotten to the point where i can read between the lines a bit in walt's reviews. he will never get overly technical, but there usually is some interesting info in there somewhere.

walt wrote:

In my tests, I played lots of music, viewed photos and slideshows and played videos. All played smoothly and quickly and without a hiccup. These results were obtained on both the Gateway and Go-Video products, using both wired and wireless network connections.

so, he explicitly states he did not have any problems with stuttering video, so that's good. now, he doesn't mention anything about video quality, but my impression of his writing style is that if it was an issue, he would have mentioned it. i would conclude that his experience was that the picture quality was probably in the "good or better" range. knowing the price point, i doubt it's astonishing.

i'm pretty certain these devices don't grok hdtv at all. as they're pretty fresh on the market, keep your eyes open for reviews to appear elsewhere for more data points.

--dan.

I never read his columns, so honestly, I had no idea what to expect.

Hmm... many questions come to mind. Do they support all these formats from local media (CD-R, DVD+/-R) or only over the net? How does this compare to TiVo's personal media center option?

At this point, I think I'll wait around another six-or-so months for the alleged HD TiVo, which may well solve all the world's problems, including national unrest in Liberia.

"Established in 1984, GoVideo has pioneered some of the"

Hmm, seems they didn't deem this information important enough to be seen in its entirity.

i think everyone has the same questions. maybe i'll swing by best buy or gateway country this week and pick one up, and write up a proper review. it can always be returned...

--dan.

SonicBlue used to have one listed on their website that I was watching for as coming out in July. I guess that is where GoVideo has gotten it from (didn't they buy that division). I would be interested in a good review of it since I will be in the market for one sometime soon and it sounds like a good idea.

SonicBlue used to have one listed on their website that I was watching for as coming out in July. I guess that is where GoVideo has gotten it from (didn't they buy that division).

Govideo was a division of Sonicblue until they gained their independence during all that Chapter 11 stuff. Or, rather, regained the independence they had had before Sonicblue bought them in the first place. They were never really integrated with Rio or ReplayTV AFAICS; I never met or heard from anyone from Govideo during the whole Sonicblue period.

Peter

Thanks for clearing up the facts for me I wasn't sure how the relationship between the two went but I'm glad to know that they survived and made it out on their own again. Course I've never owned any of their products before so I don''t know the quality of them.

What is the advantage to this over a HTPC?

You can do all of this and a whole lot more with a modded Xbox, though using Xbox Media Player and with the addon AV pack, it's high def ready.

Wow, I had no idea how far along the Xbox Media Player has come along. Are people using this as a replacement for their DVD players? Does it have Toslink (optical or coax) digital audio output? Seems interesting.

Well, whatever else you can say, home theater is certainly in an immense amount of flux these days. About the only thing in my stereo rack that I don't expect to be obsolete in three years is the empeg.

I'm using it as my primary DVD player. Well, not Xbox Media Player but the Xbox in general. The advanced AV pack does have optical out, I dont think it has coax, though.

XBMP has come really far, though. It does VCD, SVCD, DIVX, XVID, AVI, MP3, OGG and tons of other formats and the output is usually flawless. I tossed a 120GB drive into mine and have been ripping my DVDs to 1GB DIVX files and putting them on the hard drive. Nothing like having 70-80 movies to chose from without having to touch a disc.

I forgot to mention it also does Shoutcast, Photo album support, TV showguide listings and more.

What programs/OS do you use to encode your videos for Xbox play back?

I use a program called Super DVD Ripper. There are a ton of others that do the same thing and DiVX just released Dr DiVX and I've heard it is quite good as well.

How noisy is the Xbox? I assume it has a fan?

I'm buying one of these pronto. THey look amazing. i need one in my life.

What I'm really dying to know is if these players are capable of playing ripped DVD files, such as ISO files, over the network. Now THAT would be killer.

Just to be pedantic (since I'm bored), DVDs have UDF filesystems and CDs have ISO (ISO-9660, to be specific) filesystems.

And to correct myself, DVDs can have ISO filesystems, but it's uncommon for that to be the case. I suppose CDs could have UDF filesystems, but I've never seen that.

I don't have a db meter. However, the fans are so quiet that it is possible to hear the harddrive spin-up.

(fans: micro & video)

And to correct myself, DVDs can have ISO filesystems, but it's uncommon for that to be the case. I suppose CDs could have UDF filesystems, but I've never seen that.

DirectCD and probably others of these packet writing utilities use UDF on a CD-R/CD-RW.

Now I'm being pedantic.

Yes you can get optical outs... svid... composite really any kind of output you want for Xbox. Just buy the appropriate cable set.