Thats what I have currently, or one of the lower end models.As with everything, there is a downside. Basically no remote control. To use it with the big tv, I would have to use a bluetooth mouse for the remote part, and a bluetooth keyboard. I think there is some wifi or bluetooth tv remotes, but thats a cost factor that has to be added to the price of the unit.
Declan
I have a small, wireless (USB adapter) combined keyboard and trackpad. Link
This works fine with my RaspBMC setup, and i assume it would be perfectly decent for the small-form-factor PC as well. And because it combines keyboard and trackpad in one, it only takes up one USB slot. It’s not as small and convenient as a proper remote, of course.
The reviews suggest that this USB remote works for Windows Media Center and for XBMC. It’s less than 20 bucks, which seems pretty good.
The LG BP340 is worth looking at.
Well, from what I can gather from researching on the internet is that BP540 is a newer version of BD670 that mhendo suggested. It has a few more features that BD670 doesn’t have and plays a few more file formats as well. The one thing it cannot do is to directly read files on a local network like BD670 can, only through DLNA. I’m not sure how much of a difference this makes but not having to use a client server sounds more reliable.
I’ve noticed many user reviews complaining about LG QC, whether it be the hardware just conking out or Wi-Fi suddenly not working. LG, (and Samsung for that matter), are minor brands in Japan, and honestly, I do have some reservations regarding the perceived notion of their low quality. Any comments that support or refute this?
As i said, i’ve had the LG BD670 for almost 4 years and it’s still going strong.
Every so often, when i turn it on, it will refuse to see the network. When this happens, the only way to fix it appears to be to unplug the unit and plug it back in, so it can go through the boot process again. Just turning the unit’s power switch on and off doesn’t fix it.
This happens about once a month, and the reboot process takes about 30 seconds, so it’s not exactly a major inconvenience. Just a bit annoying.
For a while, about a year ago, we had some problems with Netflix streaming. It would stutter and lag, and it was clearly the player and not our internet connection that was at fault. A firmware update appears to have fixed that issue though. I’m guessing it was a problem with the Netflix app on the player.
The wifi never worked great, but i’m not sure if that was LG quality control, or simply because the player was downstairs and at the opposite end of the house from our router. Also, the router we had when i first bought the player was pretty weak. I have since added a much better wireless router (Asus RT-N66U), so maybe things would be better if i tried using the wireless now, but i have my network wired using powerline ethernet adapters and never bother using wireless for my media playback.
Physical media playback has never been a problem at all. CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, and DVDs with AVI, MP4, and MKV files all work flawlessly.
Thanks for the feedback, mhendo.
I’ve learned, over time, to be a bit fatalistic when it comes to choosing electronic equipment. You can drive yourself crazy reading online reviews where people complain about how this or that piece of equipment never worked properly, or died too quickly.
While some brands are clearly more reliable than others, the fact is that just about every brand produces some lemons. My experience with my LG blu-ray player has been good overall, but anecdotal evidence of reliability doesn’t mean very much. Some other guy could come along tomorrow and post about how his LG is the worst, most unreliable piece of shit he’s ever seen, and he’ll never buy from them again.
My strategy now is generally to find a product that is in my price range and has the features i want, and then cross my fingers and hope i get a good one. So far, i’ve been pretty damn lucky with my equipment. The only things that have crapped out on me before their time in the past five years or so were the graphics card in my computer and a hard drive (out of about six that i’ve purchased in that time). The graphics card was out of warranty, but it was a cheap card and didn’t cost much to replace. The hard drive was under warranty, and was replaced without a problem.
By the way, i ordered the Zotac small-form-factor PC that i linked in yesterday’s post. It should arrive in the next couple of days. Once i’ve got it up and running, i’ll report back on how it performs.
I think you will like it
Couple of things on mine, none of the four usb ports at the back will run the usb wifi dongle. Ethernet works great, but I don’t want spagetti when I set it up on the big tv. On mine, the headset inputs are on the front of the unit, and mine at least I have to run the zbox through the hdmi cable, which was a bit of a bummer, as I am running both computers on a kvm switch at the moment.
If you dont have one, an external DVD reader is a nice thing to have.
Declan
Well, my little Zotac PC arrived yesterday, and i’ve been getting it ready to serve as our HTPC. It’s currently connected to one of my computer monitors; i want to get it all set up before i take it downstairs and hook it up to the television and the stereo equipment. In particular, i want to make sure that it’s easy to operate for my wife, and for any visitors who might have occasion to use it.
I must say that i’m pretty damn impressed with this little box. A fully-functional (if low-powered) PC with Windows 8.1 for 160 bucks seems like an absolute bargain to me. It came with the OS already installed, and no junk software added except for the standard apps that come with Win 8. It boots in about 12-15 seconds, is quiet as a mouse, and despite the low-powered CPU and the relatively small amount of RAM, it seems to do everything i need with complete aplomb.
This is my first experience with the Windows 8/8.1 operating system, and it seems like a perfectly decent OS, at least in its current 8.1 version. Shifting between the Start screen and the desktop is pretty intuitive, and i’ve been able to easily find all of the usual stuff that i like to tweak in Control Panel, Admin Tools, etc. Installing new programs is just as easy as in Win 7.
For my multimedia, i downloaded and installed Kodi (formerly XBMC), and it’s up and running with a bunch of new apps added for stuff like Netflix, Youtube, etc. I haven’t yet asked it to scan my NAS and import metadata for my music and movie files, but i’ll do that today.
To be honest, while Kodi is probably the best bet for running a HTPC, especially if you want to use a remote rather than a keyboard/trackpad combo, there are some things where it might be just as easy to use the Windows apps. For example, the Netflix app for Windows is fast, easy to use, deals with multiple accounts nicely, and takes fewer clicks to get to than the Netflix app on Kodi. The Hyper for YouTube app is also good on Windows.
For my music, i’m contemplating using my favorite PC software, MusicBee, rather than running my music through Kodi. MusicBee is a great program for converting, tagging, organizing, and playing music, and while it’s not quite as customizable as something like Foobar2000, it’s much easier to use and more fully-featured right out of the box. I refuse to have iTunes on my Windows PC, although it’s great on my wife’s Mac.
The computer saw everything on my network immediately, and once i entered my password i was easily able to navigate the folders on my NAS and play video files.
One of my few concerns about using the computer in PC mode (rather than booting straight into Kodi) is that my TV is a Panasonic plasma. I bought it for the picture quality, which is awesome, but it does mean that burn-in can be an issue, and leaving a computer screen, with all of its fixed icons and stuff, open for extended periods of time could be a problem. This is especially the case when playing music. Whatever software i end up using as a music player, i’m going to set up a screensaver on a short leash, like maybe a minute.
Anyway, apart from the fact that it can’t play physical media (but i already have a Blu-Ray player for that), this seems like it’s going to be the solution to all of the gaps in media playback found in other players. I’ll report back again once it’s been up and running for a few weeks, or if any glitches or problems become apparent.
I went out on Saturday and picked up whats advertised as a MyGica KR53 air mouse, since I am running ubuntu on the zbox, here in Canada, the model of zbox that I bought does not come with an OS preloaded or even a hard drive or ram, so you definitely scored with getting win 8/8.1.
So just my luck, that air mouse does not work with ubuntu, tried it on two separate boxes, to see if it might have been a bum usb port, but it does work on windows 8.1 and linux mint, which leaves me to wonder if its unity that it does not play well with.
I have to check out my TV, your point about burn in, never crossed my mind, as I usually switch it from the hdmi input selector.
Declan
Do you have a plasma screen also? I believe it’s only plasmas that suffer any burn-in problem; the more common LCD or LED/LCD models shouldn’t suffer from burn-in, i don’t think.
I wanted to just say I have the LG BD670 as well which i bought after I had a Sony that had a ton of problems and it works fine for me. That model is no longer available but I am sure LG has one that is basically the same.
Like the other poster, once in a blue moon I have to reboot is by unplugging it because it locks up but my Sony was crap. It only played half my disks. This has never not played a disk.
It plays MP4, sometimes. It’s very picky about what video files it plays (of any format).
But… If you have one you can install custom firmware on, the 3rd party player Showtime handles a lot more stuff than the built in sony players and would fit this (pretty old) need to a T.
They still put warnings about burn in in all the manuals, but this is either laziness (don’t want to rewrite the manual for different screen types) or CYA lawyer imposed stuff (don’t want a suit if someone somehow manages to actually get an LCD to burn in).
See, I’d have just gotten a Roku and used Plex to stream my library over wi-fi. That’s what I did for my sister. The Roku has built in h264 decoding, and Plex will transcode anything else.
It works with a library rather than with folders, however; although you could set up every folder as a separate library if you wanted to.
Reported.