Topic: Xtreamer Media Player and Streamer

[iPhat]

Can you post the file name of the movie that you are playing and also the file name of the subtitle file?

sir ok na, dapat pala same file name and folder... thanks po...

[MaCMeL]

sir ok na, dapat pala same file name and folder... thanks po...

Glad to know that you got it working, just didn't want to jump into conclusions. Hence, why I asked for the file name of the movie and srt file as I suspected that the file names were not the same.

PS:

Replied to your PM 

[Bitstream]

Thanks BitStream!

I have another question - I started "digitizing" my existing DVDs using ISO format, and xteamer plays most of them with no problem.

For my original concert dvds though, while I was able to convert them to ISO without any problem, the xteamer couldnt play them properly - audio and video playback was very slow and jittery. The common thing among them was that these files were about 5 to 7 GB each.

Do I need to convert to another format other than ISO? What would be the best format to convert to for best quality?

I don't think the file size has anything to do with the problems you are encountering.

I don't make ISO rips, so I'm not really qualified to advise you on the subject.  Pls post more info so that forum members can help you out.  The following would be helpful:

  1. Software and version no. that you use for ripping
  2. Are your original discs copy-protected by Macrovision?
  3. Is the software you're using capable of defeating the copy protection on your original discs
  4. Sample titles of your original concert discs

[MaCMeL]

Thanks BitStream!

I have another question - I started "digitizing" my existing DVDs using ISO format, and xteamer plays most of them with no problem.

For my original concert dvds though, while I was able to convert them to ISO without any problem, the xteamer couldnt play them properly - audio and video playback was very slow and jittery. The common thing among them was that these files were about 5 to 7 GB each.

Do I need to convert to another format other than ISO? What would be the best format to convert to for best quality? But it doesn't matter if you use makemkv as it will do the decrypting for you.

Try MakeMKV, it creates mkv files out of your DVD (You will probably end up with the same size). But if you want to make it smaller and have a lot of time (takes time to encode), use TMPGEnc Express to encode it to DiVX. You have a DVD decrypting software installed right?

MaCMeL

[joeyrodil]

Fernando I'd give a 1TB HDD full of 1080ps to anyone who can actually prove that this works well enough.  That's how confident I am that it doesn't work (yet).

Lay the LAN wires for the time being, or buy a lot docks, or if you really insist on wireless streaming, stick with 720p contents.

i agree, ill give a 10TB also full of HD movies if anyone can play all 1080ps flawlessly in a wireless network, even 720p also had a lag nga eh, 1080p pa kaya, minsan nga kahit wired may konti pa lag, kahit saang player ito mapa pop-corn hour, egreat, xtreamer or any NMT i think, maybe its because its limited to the bandwidth of data that the wireless communication can give

[iPhat]

Can i download youtube videos in my xtreamer and save it in my internal HD?

[jungie]

anyone got it to work with torrents na?

[Grimlock]

@ Bitstream- Sir, you got PM. re: arrangement for tomorrow. TIA

[HDMI]

anyone got it to work with torrents na?

Xtreamer doesnt support torrents.

[eksi]

i agree, ill give a 10TB also full of HD movies if anyone can play all 1080ps flawlessly in a wireless network, even 720p also had a lag nga eh, 1080p pa kaya, minsan nga kahit wired may konti pa lag, kahit saang player ito mapa pop-corn hour, egreat, xtreamer or any NMT i think, maybe its because its limited to the bandwidth of data that the wireless communication can give

WOW ang daming HD nito

[fernando_montalban]

i agree, ill give a 10TB also full of HD movies if anyone can play all 1080ps flawlessly in a wireless network, even 720p also had a lag nga eh, 1080p pa kaya, minsan nga kahit wired may konti pa lag, kahit saang player ito mapa pop-corn hour, egreat, xtreamer or any NMT i think, maybe its because its limited to the bandwidth of data that the wireless communication can give

I figured this would be the case. Actually, I'm not surprised that wireless HD streaming would not be smooth. I was just hopeful that the xtreamer would fit my requirements -- based on real world experiences from first hand users.

I've been always peeking at several forums regarding NMTs for that one feature/requirement that I need, no luck with that yet. I've been wanting to go with an NMT for quite some time now, but I can't seem to escape the HTPC route, for now, at least. I don't know how wireless standards work though or the hardware and software involved. Right now, the HTPC seems capable enough to stream HD media. But, like I said, would want to replace it with an NMT.

[MaCMeL]

Can i download youtube videos in my xtreamer and save it in my internal HD?

if you mean download the videos using the youtube app in Xtreamer, no

but if you mean, download the videos via PC and upload it to the Xtreamers HDD, yes

MaCMeL

[hoc]

Try MakeMKV, it creates mkv files out of your DVD (You will probably end up with the same size). But if you want to make it smaller and have a lot of time (takes time to encode), use TMPGEnc Express to encode it to DiVX. You have a DVD decrypting software installed right?

MaCMeL

I found theright SW to address my problems - DVDFab6 =) I think the problem was with encryption. DVD Fab6 allows me to backup my DVDs to ISO format, which xTreamer supports. 1 consideration I had for choosing ISO is that everything is intact, including menus and special features. I tried converting to MVV and what I noticed is that it only converts the movie portion, not the menus and the extras that come with the DVD (please correct me if Im wrong)..

[scifi-fan]

i agree, ill give a 10TB also full of HD movies if anyone can play all 1080ps flawlessly in a wireless network, even 720p also had a lag nga eh, 1080p pa kaya, minsan nga kahit wired may konti pa lag, kahit saang player ito mapa pop-corn hour, egreat, xtreamer or any NMT i think, maybe its because its limited to the bandwidth of data that the wireless communication can give

I read this post this morning when I woke up and I must admit it was a great challenge...

So this afternoon after I did my work at the office I went shopping to try and get it working.

Here's the test setup...


Here's where the content will be coming from...

- Popcorn Hour A-100
- TP-Link 802.11N Draft2 MIMO capable router. This router supports channel bonding + QoS features.

And here's the xtreamer

- you'll notice that the TV says it's connected via WIFI and there's no wires except for power, wifi antenna and hdmi cable sticking out of the unit.

Here's the RESULTS after 4 hours trying out various movies I have in my drives...

- I was able to stream ANY AND ALL 720p movies.

The key to doing it successfully is;

1. xtreamer connects via NET (Samba, UPnP AV servers won't be reliable). This means your content should be on a NAS/NFS server.

2. Keep out ALL 802.11g or b clients out of your wireless network. Once a slower client connects (like a iPhone), it won't work coz' the wifi network slows down to accommodate the slowest client.

3. Turn off ALL unnecessary daemons to lessen overheads.


- As for 1080p

My success rate was only 50%. This is where the process involved in encoding matters. There are some encoding done wherein 1080p was achieved but with careful selection of parameters was still small enough and good enough to compete against more lazy encodes and therefore wastes file space.

As you can see from my test setup, the router is within line of sight of the xtreamer so I can't of course guarantee it will work once I take into account how other materials like concrete/glass affect wifi performance in the real world.

I can also experiment turning off more overhead using wifi by going unencrypted, pero real world application means you have to stay encrypted wifi lest you want your neighbors stealing your movies ha ha ha.

Do I win?  

P.S. Don't waste your time trying pricey wifi dual-band (2.4Ghz & 5Ghz) routers. The xtreamer's antenna only supports 2.4Ghz. Also, minimize other 2.4Ghz devices in your area like cordless phones or multiple wifi networks within your area to avoid interference. What you want is a router that supports advanced Wifi configurations like channel bonding (40Mhz) and good built-in traffic management firmware.

[Clondalkin]

Do I win?  

Very good effort Sci-fi Fan, but I think you only proved our contention that wireless streaming of 1080p doesnt work well (yet).     The requirements for "controlled environment" are very restrictive - possible but regular people wouldn't set-up and use their home network that way.   And that's only 1 side of the coin.  Various individuals and groups doing 1080p encoding, although following similar technical procedures, are practically unregulated - some like to keep it within DVD-R capacity; some dont care about filesizes at all -thus resulting in 1080p files that can range from 500MB to 40GB.

[joeyrodil]

ha ha ha akala ko mamimigay na ako ng 10TB of HD movies, unless a new technology will be develop in the future for new gadgets

[scifi-fan]

Actually...

There is still a way for me to win PERO it will entail costs that I think is prohibitive.

Equipment Needed;

1. Apple Airport Express (802.11n model)



2. Dual-Band Wifi router (2.4 + 5Ghz) like the linksys WRT600N, Apple Airport Extreme/Time Capsule.

What needs to be done is to setup the wifi router to work on 5Ghz mode only. This is enough bandwidth to realistically hit at least 150MB transfer speeds.

You then remove the default xtreamer wifi antenna and connect it to the Airport Express via ethernet cable.

You then setup the Airport Express as a bridge to the main wifi router which attaches to the internet/nas devices where the content is.

Costwise.. this will be in the 10k range at least BUT I am certain it will work even for content with 1080p or even blu-ray M2TS files with DTS-MA/TrueHD tracks. This solution was primarily intended for Mac users with Time Capsule which also requires high wifi bandwidth to actively backup the Mac wirelessly

[Clondalkin]

Actually...
There is still a way for me to win PERO it will entail costs that I think is prohibitive.

Will this set-up allow you to connect other devices to the network simultaneously?

Pero teka, you're planning to connect the Xtreamer to the Apple Express via ethernet.  Edi talo ka na agad?     Sabagay, having a wireless bridge somewhere in the network may imply that you are streaming wirelessly even though the player is wired to the wireless bridge.  

What about other "portable" n class router?  Im seeing a lot of those these days.  Probably cheaper than Apple's.

[scifi-fan]

Will this set-up allow you to connect other devices to the network simultaneously?

Pero teka, you're planning to connect the Xtreamer to the Apple Express via ethernet.  Edi talo ka na agad?     Sabagay, having a wireless bridge somewhere in the network may imply that you are streaming wirelessly even though the player is wired to the wireless bridge.  

What about other "portable" n class router?  Im seeing a lot of those these days.  Probably cheaper than Apple's.

Yes this will allow other devices in the network since the the bridge will be locked to 5ghz. The dual-band capabilities of the base station will allow 2.4ghz clients in.

I realized the problem was the limit of 10Mb/sec on the included wifi antenna and waiting for xtreamer to accept 3rd party dual-band wifi USB adapters was going to take awhile.

So again I am confident it's possible to stream even Blu-ray ISOs wirelessly basta there's enough time, effort and moolah to tackle it

[jNs888]

whew! 26 pages of backread took alot of effort for me! hehehe

anyway, i just got my xtreamer from accent micro. not bad yung price considering na almost all stores in parksquare makati sells it at 6995php cash or card/deferred.

they are selling it 6.2K cash price with free HDMI cable.

sir bitstream, sabi sakin 6months lang daw ang warranty. will you cover the remaining warranty if ever?

i also noticed that in the user guide color blue yung LED when the unit is ON while mine is:

red - off
blinking orange - while booting
green - On

may mali ba sa unit ko or green talaga sya while the user guide displays blue?

[HDMI]

i also noticed that in the user guide color blue yung LED when the unit is ON while mine is:

red - off
blinking orange - while booting
green - On

may mali ba sa unit ko or green talaga sya while the user guide displays blue?

The LED color-coding is the same as mine. Don't worry and enjoy your player.

[comet]

Does anybody know of an on the fly  shortcut key in the remote to change from 16:9 to letterbox 4:3? I usually would have to go to the setup button and that disrupts the film showing. Thanks in advance.

[Tempter]

Does anybody know of an on the fly  shortcut key in the remote to change from 16:9 to letterbox 4:3? I usually would have to go to the setup button and that disrupts the film showing. Thanks in advance.

I don't think there is one. This is what I am missing with xtreamer, this feature exists on HDPro.

[Bitstream]

whew! 26 pages of backread took alot of effort for me! hehehe

anyway, i just got my xtreamer from accent micro. not bad yung price considering na almost all stores in parksquare makati sells it at 6995php cash or card/deferred.

they are selling it 6.2K cash price with free HDMI cable.

sir bitstream, sabi sakin 6months lang daw ang warranty. will you cover the remaining warranty if ever?

i also noticed that in the user guide color blue yung LED when the unit is ON while mine is:

red - off
blinking orange - while booting
green - On

may mali ba sa unit ko or green talaga sya while the user guide displays blue?

Accent Micro is not one of our Authorized Dealers.  Sorry, we can't take responsibility for their warranty.

[gaol]

whew! 26 pages of backread took alot of effort for me! hehehe

anyway, i just got my xtreamer from accent micro. not bad yung price considering na almost all stores in parksquare makati sells it at 6995php cash or card/deferred.

they are selling it 6.2K cash price with free HDMI cable.

If you got it from a PC store, most likely the distributor is PC Trends, Inc. http://www.pctrends.com.ph/. Check with them (Accent Micro and PC Trends) regarding warranty but if I'm not mistaken they also provide 1 year warranty for the xtreamer. Hope this helps. Cheers!

[jNs888]

bitstream - thanks for the info sir

gaol - yes, i got it in their store in parksquare. ill visit their website for warranty options!

[ravencreed]

hi bitstream,

send u a pm inquiring about price packages.

planning to get one next week.

thanks

[dmag10]

what is better?......xtreamer,mede8er, or hd-pro
what is the prices today and where to buy?

[Tempter]

Anybody here who have tried the DDNS feature? In other words, to access xtreamer via web?

I can't seem to make it work, I already playing with port forwarding setting of both my DSL and Wireless Router but to no avail. When I try to access it via web, it was not able to forward it to the assigned xtreamer IP.

TIA

[MaCMeL]

Anybody here who have tried the DDNS feature? In other words, to access xtreamer via web?

I can't seem to make it work, I already playing with port forwarding setting of both my DSL and Wireless Router but to no avail. When I try to access it via web, it was not able to forward it to the assigned xtreamer IP.

TIA

@Tempter
@iPhat (sorry if I am unable to reply to your PM, bit busy lately - it's shopping festival here in Dubai )
What is the address that you are typing in your browser? I won't be able to check this till the weekend as I am currently @ work and my unit is around 150 KM away from me   but would let you know once I tried it.