Media Players

[Macy]

Anybody using a media player to play downloaded files on their tele?

At the moment I'm burning them to DVD and playing on (my now old) DVD player, but they are freezing a bit (not sure whether it's the player, download or even the individual burn). I suspect it's the player, but if it plays normal DVD's fine there isn't a whole lot of difference in cost between a DVD player that plays avi's and a media player that I can hook up to my external hard drive. I'm looking at the Western Digital TV HD 1080P Media Player.

We still have a crt TV, so via a laptop/ vga won't work (I've tried but can't get the screen resolution down low enough). But the model above should furture proof us when that eventually dies (hopefully not for a long time) - it has hdmi out and composite out.

I'm pretty certain to go for the above, but anyone had issues with these things? How are they for non techie (even compared to me) missus'?

[dahamsta]

PS3 ftw. ;)

[tetsujin1979]

I have a (legally) modified XBox with XBMC, and it's a joy to use
my brother has something similar to what you're using, and he has no problems with it

[Macy]

Just to follow up on this, I got the Western Digital Media Player yesterday. Haven't had a full chance to play with the features, but very impressed so far. It's a very small unit and comes with a remote. My external harddrive is a mybook, so no idea whether that helps connectivity, but can't fault the quality - much better than burning avi's onto DVD. Given the size, it'll be handier the bring away than a DVD Player and DVD's for the kids as well - they'll be no problem fitting it in the external hard drive bag I already have.

Only issue I had was that I couldn't get it from Amazon - it was a product they wouldn't sell into the state. I ended up getting it for elara for only a couple of quid more (as I could collect). Next on the list is a 1tb drive...

[tetsujin1979]

Only issue I had was that I couldn't get it from Amazon - it was a product they wouldn't sell into the state.
AFAIK this has something to do with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEED) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment_Directiv e

[Dodge]

How much did you spend on it macy?

[Macy]

It was €100, collected. Was as good as I could find at anywhere I'd buy from. There are other cheaper options, but went with the "brand" this time for the sake of the difference, it should be future proof for a few years and none of the reviewers had any issue with the type of files I'll be playing (short term anyway). Very easy to use, so should be missus proof too - it'll be my folder structure that has the potential to cause issues would be my initial reaction.

[dahamsta]

AFAIK this has something to do with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEED) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment_Directiv e

Amazon ship electronics to Ireland now, so that's unlikely unless it's miscategorised (not unheard of, they had their own-brand 2m HDMI cables miscategorised recently, trying to get them to fix it was incredibly frustrating). More likely it was being sold by a Marketplace vendor, who tend not to ship overseas. Top tip, choose Amazon as vendor on the left-hand side to cut out the Marketplace crap.

[Macy]

Amazon ship electronics to Ireland now, so that's unlikely unless it's miscategorised (not unheard of, they had their own-brand 2m HDMI cables miscategorised recently, trying to get them to fix it was incredibly frustrating). More likely it was being sold by a Marketplace vendor, who tend not to ship overseas. Top tip, choose Amazon as vendor on the left-hand side to cut out the Marketplace crap.
Defo was Amazon, not another vendor. I didn't follow up to see whether it was an error, just assumed it was like play.com was/is over WEEE.

[dahamsta]

Miscategorisation then. For future reference, they'll fix it, but they overcomplicate the crap out of it. First they'll send a stock response, then they'll send a second stock response when you point out that they haven't actually read your request, then it'll be "escalated" to an officious muppet who'll tell you that they'll "hand it to our engineering team for review, I'll revert in 10 days". And they won't.

It's toggling a single field in a database like. Just nonsense.