BIggest reason why WDTV and not Egreat and PCH is the Cost, and priary reason why they are more expensive than WDTV is becuase they can be directly connected to internet at wala naman kame sir mabilis na internet just the PLDT 990 50kbps/sec lang ang download speed. But if PCH and Egreat have better picture quality inspite of their higher tag price I think mag bago kame ng isip
Recent din ang acquisition ko ng Egreat through a trade with a fellow member. Hopefully, he’s as elated as I am right now. Personally, the networking capabilities of the Egreat is not relevant to me, and the only function that matters is the playback capability. So far, all the contents Ive thrown on the Egreat worked absolutely great and it still amazes me that such a diminutive device can match the mkv processing powers of a full sized desktop.
Since I don’t have a WDTV, you can consider this a hearsay. But a nice friend who happens to own a WDTV informed that there are random issues with some mkvs but mukhang hindi naman marami. Besides, you can always find a lighter or more efficient 720p encode which the WDTV should be able to handle well. In other words, the usability factor of the WDTV is very high, however, the Egreat it seems, is even higher. Whether such playback advantage of the NMT is worth the extra money is the big question.
Also the thought of having it all in just 1 or 2 HDD kesa magpagawa pa ako ng new rack kasi pun na rack ko really plays a big part into getting one.
The ultimate question is, does it replace BD player? Same picture quality ba sir? Ang thinking kasi namen is, why but a BD player whcic costs at least 20k then buy discs na ang mahal pa kung makakakuha naamn ng WDTV then download its contents.
Gumugulo rin ang management once you start collecting hard drives, unless you invest on NAS..hehehe.
If the question of legality is not a concern, then I’d say practically yes. But the legal implications should NEVER be set aside in a mature discussion, so it’s better not to ask that question in the first place. Same picture quality – NO, of course not – but not too far off depending on the quality of encode. On a 50V monitor, 1080p MKVs and even some 720p ones are plainly beautiful enough, certainly a “big leap” compared to DVD – what more can you ask for relative to the price of acquisition? Lossless audio – NO – but I personally, I still haven’t figure out what’s wrong with lossy DTS or DD, if any, as applied to movies. Bottom line is, the overall quality is scarily excellent for those who are in the business of selling BDs and DVDs.
Lastly, kung 720p naman native resoultion ng tv namen, and if we were to choose between 720p and 1080p ( which will be eventually downscaled to 720p din naman) files, ano ang dapat namen piliin? Si 720p kasi mas maliit ang files nya at mas madaming mailalagay kesa sa 1080p na 2x tyhe files size ni 720p na eventually madownscale din naman? alin ang mas magandang picture?
There’s another way of looking at mkvs. The higher the video bitrate, the lesser the compression. So whether or not the HDTV would downscale a movie to fit its screen, the quality of 1080p data being fed into it is “richer” to begin with. I’ve been thinking of a good analogy and although this thought is not an exact match, probably it can help in the understanding better. Let’s say you want to print a picture in 5R. Would you shoot at overkill highest resolution/highest quality settings of the DSLR or set it to an intermediate resolution/quality that is closer to that of 5R size?
Anyway, pinapahirap ko lang yata ang mundo ng PQ, so my simple advise is, there are merits to getting 1080p files (if you can conveniently obtain them) regardless of the limitations of the monitor or the player. Color saturation tends to be closer to the source, blocky spots in homogenous portions of the video are less. If a 32-inch HD CRT (which has essentially an “indeterminate” resolution –it’s more like a trying hard high def monitor - hehehe) manages to show the difference, what more a 42 inch digital TV. Nothing wrong with trying.
And as I understand, you and 2 other friends are planning to buy together, so I suppose that’s 3TB of data amongst yourselves. 3TB is like over 300 1080p titles which should be good for many months (even a year or so) of viewing, unless you suddenly stop your normal daily routine and get stuck inside the TV room. So why save HDD space for 720ps?
BTW, you dont need an internal drive sa Egreat all the time (ewan ko lang kung gagamitin yung networking functions). You can readily play from an external drive.
Well, best of luck.
