Free reasoning on home media player
Recently, more and more interesting models appear home media players. Various manufacturers ranging from specializing mainly only in this area to giants (for example, Asus) strive to develop and present their vision for this sector of the consumer market in the form of their devices. As a result, competition for this sector of the market leads to a qualitative growth: prices fall, and the number of formats supported for reproduction, functionality and design are constantly progressing.
However, the overwhelming majority of reviews, and discussions of a particular model, invariably contain a "fly in the ointment": either the price is high, then there is no built-in hard drive, or the torrent cannot download, it is too noisy, and so on ... It is quite natural because how many people, so many wishes for the possibilities, and so many ideas about the ideal home player. But is there a universal option? Is it possible to satisfy the demands of all and at once?
IMHO, that without additional "gestures" at the moment this option does not exist. But if we consider the possibility of doing “everything” as a problem statement, then a completely logical approach to solving this issue could be to use a “designer” with the prospect of using certain functional capabilities without changing the material base. As such a constructor, an operating system can currently act. It allows to provide almost any possible functionality only by installing and configuring the necessary software (if hardware allows it).
That's how I argued when I thought about the issue of acquiring (assembling) a home media player. And that's what I did.
')
Due to curiosity, as well as the true Slavic desire to “dig deeper”, it was decided to build a media player based on MiniITX. And the first task I was thinking about was choosing a motherboard and processor. In the middle of autumn of 2009, the new Intel Atoms with embedded video were not there yet, so the Atom-330 was the most productive. The required performance for video decoding was provided by Nvidia's ION chips. That is the basis. Intel platforms due to the lack of ION were excluded from possible candidates immediately. Well, "explosive mixtures" with the presence of one and the second component on the market were represented by brands Zotak and Asus.
I will share the arguments on the basis of which I stopped at the second manufacturer.
The top platform Zotak IONITX-AE has (as for me) a number of disadvantages:
Still, I don’t really want to pay 230 USD. Only for a mother with a processor, even with the presence of 300 Mbps Wi-Fi and a silent external power supply. But audio outputs will not allow to get surround sound on “old” acoustics with finger plugs.
Now a few words about the second challenger: ASUS AT3N7A-I
The price is $ 150, which, compared to Zotak, is a good plus for me (having a wireless network for me in media players is a very dubious feature, and the PSU built in the case takes up much less space, and you can successfully deal with its noise) .
Very pleased with the presence of 6 finger sockets for full surround sound. In addition, Asus was pleased with the presence of "Sinezuba", through which the media center can be controlled remotely by improvised means. And the loss in performance to the direct competitor is insignificant.
Thus, having digested all the available information, I stopped at the second version, immediately replacing the fan on the radiator with a larger and silent one.
I chose the hull for my aesthetic reasons (there are no comrades for the taste and color) - CFI GROUP CBI-A8989TG . Also put 2 GB of memory (by the way, both platforms work with memory at a frequency of 800 MHz, and they can in dual channel mode) and 1.5 TB screw from Samsung.
As a result, I got $ 250. (excluding the hard drive) is quite productive media center connected to the TV via HDMI, with almost unlimited possibilities of expanding the software component, which I did not miss the opportunity to take advantage of. Namely, I installed LAMP for pampering with websites, Transmission, and also shared access to a media archive located right there on the hard drive. Outside configured access via vsftpd.
That's how I got a media center that works around the clock on my rating on p2p networks.
PS All of the above is my view on media centers and my version of finding the perfect media player, so please do not minus, but express your opinions.
Thanks for attention.
However, the overwhelming majority of reviews, and discussions of a particular model, invariably contain a "fly in the ointment": either the price is high, then there is no built-in hard drive, or the torrent cannot download, it is too noisy, and so on ... It is quite natural because how many people, so many wishes for the possibilities, and so many ideas about the ideal home player. But is there a universal option? Is it possible to satisfy the demands of all and at once?
IMHO, that without additional "gestures" at the moment this option does not exist. But if we consider the possibility of doing “everything” as a problem statement, then a completely logical approach to solving this issue could be to use a “designer” with the prospect of using certain functional capabilities without changing the material base. As such a constructor, an operating system can currently act. It allows to provide almost any possible functionality only by installing and configuring the necessary software (if hardware allows it).
That's how I argued when I thought about the issue of acquiring (assembling) a home media player. And that's what I did.
')
Due to curiosity, as well as the true Slavic desire to “dig deeper”, it was decided to build a media player based on MiniITX. And the first task I was thinking about was choosing a motherboard and processor. In the middle of autumn of 2009, the new Intel Atoms with embedded video were not there yet, so the Atom-330 was the most productive. The required performance for video decoding was provided by Nvidia's ION chips. That is the basis. Intel platforms due to the lack of ION were excluded from possible candidates immediately. Well, "explosive mixtures" with the presence of one and the second component on the market were represented by brands Zotak and Asus.
I will share the arguments on the basis of which I stopped at the second manufacturer.
The top platform Zotak IONITX-AE has (as for me) a number of disadvantages:
- PRICE!
- surround sound connection only via optical and coaxial SP-DIF outputs
- the only expansion slot is occupied by the Wi-Fi module
Still, I don’t really want to pay 230 USD. Only for a mother with a processor, even with the presence of 300 Mbps Wi-Fi and a silent external power supply. But audio outputs will not allow to get surround sound on “old” acoustics with finger plugs.
Now a few words about the second challenger: ASUS AT3N7A-I
The price is $ 150, which, compared to Zotak, is a good plus for me (having a wireless network for me in media players is a very dubious feature, and the PSU built in the case takes up much less space, and you can successfully deal with its noise) .
Very pleased with the presence of 6 finger sockets for full surround sound. In addition, Asus was pleased with the presence of "Sinezuba", through which the media center can be controlled remotely by improvised means. And the loss in performance to the direct competitor is insignificant.
Thus, having digested all the available information, I stopped at the second version, immediately replacing the fan on the radiator with a larger and silent one.
I chose the hull for my aesthetic reasons (there are no comrades for the taste and color) - CFI GROUP CBI-A8989TG . Also put 2 GB of memory (by the way, both platforms work with memory at a frequency of 800 MHz, and they can in dual channel mode) and 1.5 TB screw from Samsung.
As a result, I got $ 250. (excluding the hard drive) is quite productive media center connected to the TV via HDMI, with almost unlimited possibilities of expanding the software component, which I did not miss the opportunity to take advantage of. Namely, I installed LAMP for pampering with websites, Transmission, and also shared access to a media archive located right there on the hard drive. Outside configured access via vsftpd.
That's how I got a media center that works around the clock on my rating on p2p networks.
PS All of the above is my view on media centers and my version of finding the perfect media player, so please do not minus, but express your opinions.
Thanks for attention.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/88364/
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