Brett
21-04-2005, 07:44 AM
Does anyone here have experience with *Buffalo Technologies' LinkTheater
Digital Media/DVD player*? I'm posting to the HDTV forum, because I am
looking for a device like this that takes advantage of the full
capabilities of HDTV. First, a little background:
I recently liquidated a Gateway Connected DVD player on ebay -Gateway
made a big deal out of the fact that this DVD player could connect via
802.11b (or g) wifi or 10/100 Ethernet to a home network and stream
digital media off a computer. This was a great solution on my old
analogue system, since it would stream MP3s from my computer and send
the audio out the coax digital channel for my receiver to decode. But
there were two implicit drawbacks: first, the device depended on a
resident application to serve up media from the networked PC (a
painfully slow server applet that ran in the system tray) and maintain
the track tag info from a library of MP3s; second, the interface was
designed for 4:3 aspect screens. As long as you were browsing the MP3
content, that was no big deal, since the TV could stretch the 4:3 image;
but once you tried to browse images, you either had to settle for 480p
letterboxing, or distort the image -and no zoom capability, to top it off.
I discovered the Roku PhotoBridge HD1000 last month, bought one, and
have had nothing but problems with it since I plugged it in. The Roku
handles photos in full HDTV 1080i or 720p glory, and allows you to zoom
and pan around within them once you have them up on the screen, and the
user interface is designed for 16:9 screens -wonderful. However, the
included MP3 player is garbage. No shuttle control, no library to speak
of, no genre or artist browsing whatsoever. Strictly browse by folder,
and deal with whatever hierarchy you settled on when you built your MP3
collection. On the plus side, it features card slot readers on the
front for CF, Memory Stick, and SD media, coax and optical audio outs,
as well as component video pass-thru, allowing the Roku to act as a
screen saver when it detects still video from any device you try to pass
through it.
The biggest bragging point on the Roku (and, frankly, its greatest
weakness so far) is its open-source Linux-based operating system, which
allows third-party developers to build applications for playing MP3's
and managing ID3 track tag libraries. Unfortunately, there is only one
developer offering such an application, and it is problematic, to say
the least.
Back to the Buffalo. BT's LinkTheater DVD player again offers all the
same media connectivity that Gateway bragged of, but includes the HDTV
upscaling features needed to get the interface (and true 16:9
progressive DVD resolutions) onto the screen. It also boasts a USB
connector on the front (ostensibly for connecting external hard-drives),
and pulls its library info from either Buffalo's proprietary serer
applet (like the Gateway D5 Media server) or Microsoft Windows Media
Connect. My questions are:
1. Is the on-screen interface designed for 16:9 screens?
2. When browsing digital photos, does the player upscale them to 16:9,
or are they limited to 4:3?
3. Can you zoom/pan an image once it is displayed?
4. How fast is the MP3 library? How intuitive are the browsing features?
Thank you in advance for your feedback,
Brett D
Digital Media/DVD player*? I'm posting to the HDTV forum, because I am
looking for a device like this that takes advantage of the full
capabilities of HDTV. First, a little background:
I recently liquidated a Gateway Connected DVD player on ebay -Gateway
made a big deal out of the fact that this DVD player could connect via
802.11b (or g) wifi or 10/100 Ethernet to a home network and stream
digital media off a computer. This was a great solution on my old
analogue system, since it would stream MP3s from my computer and send
the audio out the coax digital channel for my receiver to decode. But
there were two implicit drawbacks: first, the device depended on a
resident application to serve up media from the networked PC (a
painfully slow server applet that ran in the system tray) and maintain
the track tag info from a library of MP3s; second, the interface was
designed for 4:3 aspect screens. As long as you were browsing the MP3
content, that was no big deal, since the TV could stretch the 4:3 image;
but once you tried to browse images, you either had to settle for 480p
letterboxing, or distort the image -and no zoom capability, to top it off.
I discovered the Roku PhotoBridge HD1000 last month, bought one, and
have had nothing but problems with it since I plugged it in. The Roku
handles photos in full HDTV 1080i or 720p glory, and allows you to zoom
and pan around within them once you have them up on the screen, and the
user interface is designed for 16:9 screens -wonderful. However, the
included MP3 player is garbage. No shuttle control, no library to speak
of, no genre or artist browsing whatsoever. Strictly browse by folder,
and deal with whatever hierarchy you settled on when you built your MP3
collection. On the plus side, it features card slot readers on the
front for CF, Memory Stick, and SD media, coax and optical audio outs,
as well as component video pass-thru, allowing the Roku to act as a
screen saver when it detects still video from any device you try to pass
through it.
The biggest bragging point on the Roku (and, frankly, its greatest
weakness so far) is its open-source Linux-based operating system, which
allows third-party developers to build applications for playing MP3's
and managing ID3 track tag libraries. Unfortunately, there is only one
developer offering such an application, and it is problematic, to say
the least.
Back to the Buffalo. BT's LinkTheater DVD player again offers all the
same media connectivity that Gateway bragged of, but includes the HDTV
upscaling features needed to get the interface (and true 16:9
progressive DVD resolutions) onto the screen. It also boasts a USB
connector on the front (ostensibly for connecting external hard-drives),
and pulls its library info from either Buffalo's proprietary serer
applet (like the Gateway D5 Media server) or Microsoft Windows Media
Connect. My questions are:
1. Is the on-screen interface designed for 16:9 screens?
2. When browsing digital photos, does the player upscale them to 16:9,
or are they limited to 4:3?
3. Can you zoom/pan an image once it is displayed?
4. How fast is the MP3 library? How intuitive are the browsing features?
Thank you in advance for your feedback,
Brett D