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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Xajel - Monday, June 14, 2010 - link
I think that Input & Output and all connectivity features are very important along with any remote interface ( network interface ) they may have... + if they can be used as a PVR or not...ganeshts - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link
Xajel, Thanks for your suggestions.Currently, I believe that no shipping media streamer has PVR capabilities. The upcoming ZaggBox fits your description, but it is nowhere close to shipping :|
We will consider your concern about connectivity options and remote interfaces in our reviews
Hubble70 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link
Actually, The Moxi DVR and its extenders can do PVR duty and coupled with Playon it can do Hulu and with Tversity I think it can playback your local content as well but I'm not sure about that.No standalone unit can do PVR duties, but coupled with SageTV Server software running on any computer in the house (widows, Linux, WHS, or OSX) the SageTV HD200 media streamer can be a PVR and playback your local movie content.
morpheusmc - Monday, June 14, 2010 - link
Congrats for the media streamer roundup, I believe an Anandtech-class article is very much needed to clear up the this area.I would like to see the performance of media streamers over a wifi network. Most of them support 802.11N USB wifi adapters, but do not exceed even 802.11G speeds. I have had a bad experience with an eGREAT M34A and had to return it because of it.
I am interested in finding out which is the cheapest device to play at least 720p MKVs (4,38GB/movie) over wifi (assuming a Wifi Access point (G or N if needed) is installed).
My 4 year old (dual core) laptop plays 720p fine over 802.11g by the way, so 25Mbps ought to be enough, IF the device can actually achieve such speeds.
Keep up the great work!
morpheusmc - Monday, June 14, 2010 - link
Forgot to mention that I would like to see speed tested with WPA2 enabled. Not sure it makes a difference, just want to be sure though.Bottom line, I would like to see if any of those devices can function as a drop in addition in a house with an encrypted wireless network and a NAS/file server. Assuming of course that all the other components (NAS/File server, access pint etc) can support the required bitrates.
My experience up to now says no, but I haven't tested any of the more expensive devices. Although spending 300-400$ for a media player seems a lot, considering the prices of cheap, but HD capable laptops/netbooks.
ganeshts - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link
morpheusMC, Thanks for the pointers.Wireless network performance will also be a point for us to consider in the review if it is part of the original specifications of the player. Some versions of Asus O!Play support 802.11n natively, and your suggestions will be handy while reviewing them. For units such as the WDTV Live, it wouldn't make sense, because we would be introducing third party additions to the hardware platform (yet another variable which could go wrong!) to enable this feature. Of course, wired network performance will definitely be tested thoroughly.
vol7ron - Monday, June 14, 2010 - link
As I said in an email to Anand,I would like to see the Ceton InfiniTV reviewed. I think you can stream up to 4 live HD channels at once. Not too sure if the $399 price is justified, but this might be something to consider as an option in the future, since you only need one CableCARD.
ganeshts - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link
vol7ron,We will be having a separate series of articles in the same section which will cover the TV tuners / recorders / PVRs and DVRs. CableCARD products like Ceton's will be dealt with in that series.
Best Regards
glugglug - Monday, June 14, 2010 - link
I have a Jasper XBOX being used as a media center extender. Your power consumption estimate of 140W only applies to the original XBOX, not the Jaspers currently being sold. The Kill-a-Watt tells me it is using just over 90W no matter what it is doing (unless its off). Sitting idle uses the same ~ 90W as playing HD video, and it doesn't go up past 100W during gaming.Also, I have yet to encounter a video that was too high a bitrate for it. U.S. HDTV is MPEG2 @ around 15-16Mbps (max 19Mbps). This bitrate of MPEG-2 yields the same quality as roughly 3Mbps H.264. So 10 is actually overkill. Blu-ray rips may have this overkill, but they play just fine. I played an Avatar x264 rip at 20Mbps on the XBOX with no issues. The official maximum bitrate may be 10Mbps, but generally higher bitrate stuff still works. Otherwise you would see a lot more people who use it as an extender complaining in Europe, where their broadcast TV is H.264.
ganeshts - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link
glugglug, Thanks for bringing this to our attention.We quoted the official lines on the Xbox capabilities. Still, 90W is very high for a media streamer. There are much more capable media streamers which perform the same task for less than 1/10th the power consumption :) (Agreed, HD playback isn't XBox's main agenda).
We may touch upon HD playback capability when covering any new Xbox versions that MS decides to put out in the future.