Has anyone here got one of these and can comment on;
1) Video quality
2) %age of CPU time required (P4-3GHz)
3) Ability to play a wide range of files
Ta.

"Simon Patten" wrote in message
...
"Grumps" wrote:

Has anyone here got one of these and can comment on;
1) Video quality

Excellent, I'm very pleased with it, much better than trying to use
the TV output from any video card that I've tried.

2) %age of CPU time required (P4-3GHz)

No problem at all with that CPU, it does its own decoding of MPEG
files but it will use your processor for decoding DivX files.

3) Ability to play a wide range of files

MVP = Music, Video, Pictures so it displays all the standard formats
easily. As I said above, it needs help for DivX but is good for most
others, although I don't think it will display Windows Media formats
as the box is essentially a Linux computer.

The only real problem I have with it is that with me living in a PAL
area but having quite a few NTSC videos, it doesn't resize them to the
screen so they display smaller with black bands filling the space. I
find this quite annoying but if it's not an issue for you, I'm sure
you'll be very happy with it.

The supplied software is pretty good but I'd highly recommend GB-PVR
which can output through the MVP and makes an even better HTPC system
(http://www.gbpvr.com). The only significant drawback with this
configuration is that it can't play DVDs as the MVP can't handle them
but read the GB-PVR forums for help and hints.

Ok. Thanks for the comments.
So it only has hardware decode of mpeg-1/2. But it can play mpeg-4 and DivX?
(I seem to have quite a few mpeg-4 and divx stuff - mostly old tv shows)

"Simon Patten" wrote in message
...
"Grumps" wrote:

Ok. Thanks for the comments.
So it only has hardware decode of mpeg-1/2. But it can play mpeg-4 and
DivX?
(I seem to have quite a few mpeg-4 and divx stuff - mostly old tv shows)

Yup, on-board hardware decoding for MPEG but software decoding on your
computer for AVI files. I haven't tried it myself but apparently it
works OK (mind you, I'm not sure if that's in native mode or via
GB-PVR, as I said, I haven't tried it but if you buy one, GB-PVR is
well worth installing too, it's free and gives many more facilities).

GB-PVR eh? I remember that I tried that in the past, but it didn't work. So
I've just tried it again. It all installs ok, but then it complains "failed
to locate configured BDA capture device". I have selected the correct
capture device, Twinhan-DTV-T, but there must be something else needed.

"Simon Patten" wrote in message
...
"Grumps" wrote:

Ok. Thanks for the comments.
So it only has hardware decode of mpeg-1/2. But it can play mpeg-4 and
DivX?
(I seem to have quite a few mpeg-4 and divx stuff - mostly old tv shows)

Yup, on-board hardware decoding for MPEG but software decoding on your
computer for AVI files. I haven't tried it myself but apparently it
works OK (mind you, I'm not sure if that's in native mode or via
GB-PVR, as I said, I haven't tried it but if you buy one, GB-PVR is
well worth installing too, it's free and gives many more facilities).

Any idea how much network bandwidth is used when playing an AVI that the PC
has to render?