Bought a Media Player

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7th July 2011, 05:05
Demon Cleaner

Bought a Media Player

I didn't want to get a media player, as I use my PS3 for that stuff, streaming only though. But last week I was again browsing through the MPC forums to see if there's anything new. They had some newer stuff, although not the best, so I was also checking out again some older reviews, mainly from 2009.

That's when I came across the Mede8er MED500, and a their site, which is kinda reliable, it got their award as best player. So I went to their site, and to my joy, they had the MED500X2, second version of the award winner, which came out the 1st of June this year.

So I checked out some online reviews, and on the 3-4 sites I was, it got only the best reviews, apparently this new one is again top quality and a top player, although it only has some features, like playing BD ISO, USB 3.0 or DTS-HD MA and TrueHD bitstream, more than the older model.

I then looked at the price, which was only 169€, which I found quite reasonable. So I ordered one, with 1TB disk, which was then 229€, and I'm looking forward getting it, it got shipped yesterday.

I bought it so that I can leave my PS3 only for gaming and BD watching. The fan is quite noisy and the streaming is not working all the time with f.ex. .mkv files. And I also doesn't play every .mkv file, so that I have to convert it first. Lately I used Showtime Viewer, which comes with MultiMan, and that one works a least better than streaming with PS3 Media Server or Twonky (which still doesn't support .mkv files). This way, I also want to give my PS3 a longer life.

The Mede8er of course can do a lot more, I still will use streaming, but I will put all my series f.ex. on the internal disk. I'm gonna give you an update on its functionality and how good/bad it works once I have it.

Here's some pictures:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18.../mede8erx2.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...iga/125979.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...iga/125975.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...iga/125976.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...iga/125977.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...iga/125981.jpg
7th July 2011, 10:23
Harrison

Sounds very interesting, and it seems to have a lot of features for the price. I look forward to your update once you get it.

The interface also looks very polished in the pictures.

I assume it also does upscaling for older SD video. Does it also directly support internet video streaming like youtube?
7th July 2011, 11:09
Bloodwych

Wow, what an interesting and quality looking bit of kit!!! The price is great too. I would be really interested to get your opinion on it.

I'm currently using a Core2 E7200 HTPC for all that front room media stuff, but this does look like a great alternative for relatives and family members who just want a media player.

As you said, your PS3 will last longer - less dust build up and wear and tear.
8th July 2011, 04:29
Demon Cleaner

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harrison

I assume it also does upscaling for older SD video. Does it also directly support internet video streaming like youtube?

It does upscaling, and it has YouTube XL. For a quick view of all the features, look at the main page here.

I got it yesterday, set it up, and immediately installed firmware 1.01 on it, although still beta, it has some extra features already.

Was really easy to setup, and I could reach my files on the PC straight away. Tested some .mkv video, and that played just fine, and I have to say the quality is also impressive.

Only thing that I wanted to do yesterday, is making movie sheets and XML metadata for all my movies and series, but that failed. I had installed ThumbGen and Y2M (special one for Mede8er) on the PC, but they refused to retrieve data from IMdB or such database sites, don't know why, but I already posted my problem in the Mede8er forum, gonna look later if someone got a hint for me. I have to say that I never used such software before in my life.
10th July 2011, 20:30
Bloodwych

Thanks for the update; always nice to play with new toys. :)

The tech we have these days is unbelievable.
10th July 2011, 22:01
Demon Cleaner

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demon Cleaner

Only thing that I wanted to do yesterday, is making movie sheets and XML metadata for all my movies and series, but that failed. I had installed ThumbGen and Y2M (special one for Mede8er) on the PC, but they refused to retrieve data from IMdB or such database sites, don't know why, but I already posted my problem in the Mede8er forum, gonna look later if someone got a hint for me. I have to say that I never used such software before in my life.

I got that also working the next day, problem was that my firewall was blocking the application. It didn't ask to let it pass, so I didn't notice it straight away.
11th July 2011, 11:48
Harrison

So it is worth buying? Anything you can think of that it can't do, that you would like it to?

And is its firmware/software in active development?
11th July 2011, 13:21
Demon Cleaner

Firmware is in very active development, as they are very close to their community and try to please as many customers as possible and are always listening to people's wishes and trying to realise them.

I also copied now some stuff onto the internal HDD, the stuff which is less important and doesn't need backup. There's a lot of different files in different video formats, and I tested them all, it also plays formats like rm, rmvb or flash. Very inpressive.

We watched a movie on Saturday evening, the first one we watched so far from the media player, and it played flawlessly, without interruption or anything similar. Ok, it's supposed to work, but you never know with new hardware.

I took now pictures and metadata for all of my movies, which is looking very nice.

Example Back Swan:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18.../BlackSwan.jpg

I'm still doing my series which is a lot more work, as I do have to run the YAMJ application on every single episode. You can do a main image for the whole episode, like with the movies, but I found out that if you run it over every single episode, it also takes the correct episode name, plot and episode video image.

Here's how it looks f.ex. for Boardwalk Empire:

Episode 1
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...camiga/BE1.jpg

Episode 2
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...camiga/BE2.jpg

Episode 3
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...camiga/BE3.jpg

This looks very amazing on the TV and is quite informative, however it really takes long, I need about 30 minutes for one 20 episodes season. And if the data is not completely correct, image, banner image, year or episode name, I edit the xml file and correct that, which also takes a bit of time.

Some guy also created images for the movies genre and stuff, they are quite nice an I use them too. It's nicer to have them displayed than the boring default folder icons.

Here's 3 images:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...iga/Horror.png http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...a/TVSeries.png http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18.../Animation.png

Until now I'm more than happy with the media player, and I was already planning to rip my DVDs to it. Will keep you updated.

Btw, it's also nice to watch a movie without a 40db fan in the background ;)