Media Streamer Platforms Roundup
by Ganesh T S on June 13, 2010 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Media Streamer
- Gadgets
A majority of the consumers in this market have been spoilt for choices since they come from a HTPC background, and stress their media streamers to the limit (even beyond the officially supported specifications). Sometimes, they are pleasantly surprised by some available unadvertised feature (like the TrueHD bitstreaming in WDTV Live, which wasn't part of the initial specifications). Most of time, though, various limitations start showing up, both in terms of hardware capabilities and software support. These are dealt with in the reviews of the individual products. The end consumer needs to look at his requirements before choosing a media streamer. In addition, reviews on the net should cater to what the market really wants, and not rehash the marketing speak from the companies. Anandtech is working on creating a comprehensive suite of test streams to identify the capabilities as well as shortcomings of the various media streamer platforms. Towards this, we have identified the following features which differentiate the various platforms, both from a hardware as well as software perspective.
- Audio & video container support (MKV / MP4 / MOV / AVI / FLV / WebM etc.)
- Video codecs (H264 / VC-1 / Real Media / VP8 etc.)
- Audio codecs (Dolby / DTS / FLAC / Ogg Vorbis / WMA Pro / HD Audio - Decoding / Bitstreaming)
- Multiple subtitle formats
- Interlaced video streams in different codecs
- Specific video & audio codec quirks (such as weighted P-frame prediction & unreasonable number of reference frames for H264)
- Maximum video & audio bitrate
- Maximum video frame rate
Readers are welcome to suggest other aspects which need to be added to this test suite.
While this roundup article may not have an analytical conclusion, I will bring it to a close by listing out the platforms which we will closely follow in the coming days with respect to the above features:
- Atom + Ion / Ion2 [ x86 + Nvidia custom HD decode engine ]
- Mediatek 8520 Series [ ARM11 + Mediatek custom HD decode engine ]
- Sigma Designs 86xx Series [ MIPS + Sigma Designs custom HD decode engine ]
- Realtek 1073/1283 Series [ MIPS + Realtek custom HD decode engine ]
- Nvidia Tegra2 [ ARM Cortex-A9 + Nvidia low power custom HD decode engine ]
- Samsung S5PV210 [ ARM Cortex-A8 + Samsung low power custom HD decode engine ]
- Telechips TCC89xx [ ARM11 + Chips&Media Boda series HD decode engine ]
- Intel CE4100 [ x86 + Intel custom HD decode engine ]
Stay tuned for exclusive analysis of the capabilities of each of the above platforms from Anandtech in the near future!
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ganeshts - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link
Modeverything, We are aware of the good reviews of Brite View on other channels and good user feedback too on AVS Forums. We will try to get reviews up for their upcoming product(s), but no guarantees :)Mumrik - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link
Crap! When I read the headline I anticipated a roundup-style review. Not an overview of the field :-/Montrey - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link
I was a little surprised that the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ (emphasis on the "+") was not mentioned in the article. I purchased one about 2 months ago after a fair amount of research on products that fit my needs. I have been extremely pleased with it so far. With it you can:Directly plug in a Seagate FreeAgent portable drive for hidden storage or transport
Use the USB port on the back for another storage device
Stream media over your home network (minor registry fix in Win7 to make it work)
Access YouTube, Netflix, and a variety of other streaming media that I never use, but Netflix works great
The main selling point for me at the time of purchase was that it can handle pretty much any kind of video file you can throw at it. I have yet to find anything it cannot read. You can even play a ripped DVD folder just as if it were a DVD. In fact, you can share a DVD drive on a networked computer, and play a DVD from that, eliminating a stand alone DVD player.
Best of all, for a 1080p USB and streaming media player, it is fairly cheap. I bought mine on NewEgg for $90 shipped.
ganeshts - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link
Montrey,The Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ also uses a Realtek chipset (similar to what is on Xtreamer). The platform is covered, but the product in particular may be investigated in detail in a future review.
shuck76 - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link
A couple additional features for your comparison list would be:ISO playback ability for DVD and Blu-ray
Blu-ray menu support
ganeshts - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link
shuck76,Thanks! Will add the following to the test suite:
(1) DVD / Blu Ray ISO Support
(2) DVD / Blu Ray Menu Support
fzzzt - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link
Please consider adding ISO images to your list of containers. Myself and others I know simply use images to play discs, getting all the features without any hassle.ruzveh - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link
Apart from flawless 1080p support for all files and codec we also want some more hardware support incl. Bluetooth 3 + HDMI 1.4 + 7.1ch support + better graphics and audio components and capacitorsganeshts - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link
ruzveh,We will probably see many features that you want in the next gen products.
7.1 channel support already exists on most players support HDMI 1.3 ; We will keep an eye out for the graphics capabilities.
ruzveh - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link
I also believe that todays media players should also support next level IPv6. And support all major online video and radio sites. What else can we ask in a media streamer.. ummmm??Maybe capability to add more accessories :D