Thorsten.
I just started a little project to get my Atom330 ION act as multimedia hub.
Until now video on a PC was not my main focus since a 100$ blu-ray player IMO does a better job overall then the majority of PC based setups I've seen so far.
In my case the time of simple audio players like foobar, cplay etc. is over. Those are to me unacceptable for a family/living room usage.
If it has to be audio-only, the Squeezeboxes do the trick for me.
The server/client archititecure ( servers can run on a NAS - no need for PCs), its flexibility and control (iPad/iphone/android) and not to forget
the associated cost I consider outstanding. However. It's audio only.
I do own a JRMC license for years and still consider JRMC the best
All-In-One MC solution.
They do put very much focus on quality and also on sound quality.
Do we need media centers any longer? That's another question.
New style TVs are able to stream via UPNP/DLNA.
So, theoretically you just put all stuff on one server feeding your Squeezeboxes( or other audio streaming clients) and TV sets.
No need for an HTPC with external media center anymore. Ok. I know. That'd be the perfect world. We're not there yet. The TV-sets probably will
have a hard time to do a lot of processing.
Back to your suggestion.
This media portal app looks interesting. Though it's opensource and community effort.
Honestly I'm fed up with flawed opensource software - especially in Linux land - after all those years fiddling around with such a software.
I rather pay a couple of $ and have something with professional look & feel and support in front of me. But you never know. Perhaps they've done their homework.
One question regarding media portal.
Does Media Portal run 1080p-AC3-h264 material on your Atom330 without any hickups? Does it support codecs such as e.g. coreavc?
Thx.
Cheers
I just started a little project to get my Atom330 ION act as multimedia hub.
Until now video on a PC was not my main focus since a 100$ blu-ray player IMO does a better job overall then the majority of PC based setups I've seen so far.
In my case the time of simple audio players like foobar, cplay etc. is over. Those are to me unacceptable for a family/living room usage.
If it has to be audio-only, the Squeezeboxes do the trick for me.
The server/client archititecure ( servers can run on a NAS - no need for PCs), its flexibility and control (iPad/iphone/android) and not to forget
the associated cost I consider outstanding. However. It's audio only.
I do own a JRMC license for years and still consider JRMC the best
All-In-One MC solution.
They do put very much focus on quality and also on sound quality.
Do we need media centers any longer? That's another question.
New style TVs are able to stream via UPNP/DLNA.
So, theoretically you just put all stuff on one server feeding your Squeezeboxes( or other audio streaming clients) and TV sets.
No need for an HTPC with external media center anymore. Ok. I know. That'd be the perfect world. We're not there yet. The TV-sets probably will
have a hard time to do a lot of processing.
Back to your suggestion.
This media portal app looks interesting. Though it's opensource and community effort.
Honestly I'm fed up with flawed opensource software - especially in Linux land - after all those years fiddling around with such a software.
I rather pay a couple of $ and have something with professional look & feel and support in front of me. But you never know. Perhaps they've done their homework.
One question regarding media portal.
Does Media Portal run 1080p-AC3-h264 material on your Atom330 without any hickups? Does it support codecs such as e.g. coreavc?
Thx.
Cheers
Hi,
Possibly. My Projector is only 480P 16:9and I have an ancient Tube TV, so no comments on HD performance.
Due to the current location I tend to use a lot of downloaded content, cheap blue-ray/dvd players do not do that well.
Agreed. I found them unacceptable in 2006 for that.
Well, the cost for one of these is more than my media PC, it needs me not to buy a smartphone to contol it, its audio quality is not great without major mods and I do not need an extra NAS etc., nor does all of this need to be made work all the time.
Unless I want to rip CD's or DVD's or need to add movies etc. to the database I don't even need networking enabled or connected...
Yes. For ease of installation and setup and the given functionality JRMC is indeed excellent, I do recommend it to people who want something straightforward.
Using an MCE Remote, All In One Touchscreen PC, Windows 7, JRMC and Fidelizer plus an async USB DAC/Device makes a fairly easy, quick and very usable music system.
Good question.
Yes, indeed. However the usability of this kind of setup (I find Squeeze-box borderline unusable, the menu system on these TV's is so bad, it makes foobar2k look good) is so basic at the moment, I'd not spend my money yet...
Your call, I have been using MP for quite a few years and if you stick to stable versions there is little issue.
I also have JRMC 16. Installed. Paid for.
I'm running Media Portal stable instead.
As far as I can tell on my 480p projector, it does.
Note, I use a recent ATI Radeon GFX card which has 1080p capable h264 hardware decoding, which is a bit beefier than ion and ion 2 GFX, the atom may have issues decrypting blue-ray though, I do not have drive or disks.
If you want to, you can use it. I prefer SAF 5 which uses FFDShow DVXA decoder, works great for me. But you can set decoders as needed.
Ciao T
Possibly. My Projector is only 480P 16:9and I have an ancient Tube TV, so no comments on HD performance.
Due to the current location I tend to use a lot of downloaded content, cheap blue-ray/dvd players do not do that well.
Agreed. I found them unacceptable in 2006 for that.
Well, the cost for one of these is more than my media PC, it needs me not to buy a smartphone to contol it, its audio quality is not great without major mods and I do not need an extra NAS etc., nor does all of this need to be made work all the time.
Unless I want to rip CD's or DVD's or need to add movies etc. to the database I don't even need networking enabled or connected...
Yes. For ease of installation and setup and the given functionality JRMC is indeed excellent, I do recommend it to people who want something straightforward.
Using an MCE Remote, All In One Touchscreen PC, Windows 7, JRMC and Fidelizer plus an async USB DAC/Device makes a fairly easy, quick and very usable music system.
Good question.
Yes, indeed. However the usability of this kind of setup (I find Squeeze-box borderline unusable, the menu system on these TV's is so bad, it makes foobar2k look good) is so basic at the moment, I'd not spend my money yet...
Your call, I have been using MP for quite a few years and if you stick to stable versions there is little issue.
I also have JRMC 16. Installed. Paid for.
I'm running Media Portal stable instead.
As far as I can tell on my 480p projector, it does.
Note, I use a recent ATI Radeon GFX card which has 1080p capable h264 hardware decoding, which is a bit beefier than ion and ion 2 GFX, the atom may have issues decrypting blue-ray though, I do not have drive or disks.
If you want to, you can use it. I prefer SAF 5 which uses FFDShow DVXA decoder, works great for me. But you can set decoders as needed.
Ciao T
Hi,
As someone in the industry it would be inapproriate to make recommendations, either for products that I have a hand in or those of competitors.
As it stands I know nothing off the shelf at low cost that works really well without significant prior modifications. I have not tried a few or the more far out stuff though (Halide/Devilsound) which looks cute.
I doubt many here would be willing to pay the money for products by High End Companies (say Ayre, Wavelength, Weiss or AMR or even the modified musiland stuff going through diyhifisupply).
Ciao T
As someone in the industry it would be inapproriate to make recommendations, either for products that I have a hand in or those of competitors.
As it stands I know nothing off the shelf at low cost that works really well without significant prior modifications. I have not tried a few or the more far out stuff though (Halide/Devilsound) which looks cute.
I doubt many here would be willing to pay the money for products by High End Companies (say Ayre, Wavelength, Weiss or AMR or even the modified musiland stuff going through diyhifisupply).
Ciao T
Hi,
Can i ask, what is the modified musiland stuff at diyhifisupply, the Morello or the Cleo Max?
Cheers
Can i ask, what is the modified musiland stuff at diyhifisupply, the Morello or the Cleo Max?
Cheers
Hi,
It is still early days. I am sure more options will become available in time.
The musiland devices are not that hard to modify. I wrote about some of my early work over in the Computer Asylum at AA.
Ciao T
It is still early days. I am sure more options will become available in time.
The musiland devices are not that hard to modify. I wrote about some of my early work over in the Computer Asylum at AA.
Ciao T
Thorsten..
Just to mention it Fidelizer won't work on 1080p on my ION platform.
It's made for audio. I tested it. None of the options work on HiRes video.
And it makes sense to me. The Fidelizer guy prioritises audio tasks. That for sure will slow down your video tasks. I suggested to introduce a special setting for video.
That one should take all video&audio related stuff in consideration.
Back to my current setup.
My main optimisations to get 1080p running for now are:
1. ramdisk (dataram) : All JRMC caches and temp paths refer to the ramdisk
2. Indexing and other W7 services off ( see also BlackViper tuning recommendations)
3. Automatic Restore off
4. Wlan off
5. Aero Off
6. CoreAvc decoder
7. All stuff kept clean and defragged (CCleaner and Dfraggler)
8. Fresh rebooted system
9. Data disks are e-sata and main system is SSD
My 1080p works pretty well now. Hickups are down to an acceptable level. They still happen once in a while.
When it comes to sound devices. I'm gonna stick with RME PCI-E cards. I wouldn't go for an external device on a HTPC.
These cards are multichannel and no hazzle with USB or other stuff. I won't buy an
interface that got just a two channel limitation anymore.
The RME driver support is outstanding and the sound is IMO more than sufficient for Video and audio. (I still got the Squeezebox feeding a DAC to push my audio limits)
I btw. also got a thread running over at AA about getting an Atom330 to play 1080p on JRMC.
Cheers
Just to mention it Fidelizer won't work on 1080p on my ION platform.
It's made for audio. I tested it. None of the options work on HiRes video.
And it makes sense to me. The Fidelizer guy prioritises audio tasks. That for sure will slow down your video tasks. I suggested to introduce a special setting for video.
That one should take all video&audio related stuff in consideration.
Back to my current setup.
My main optimisations to get 1080p running for now are:
1. ramdisk (dataram) : All JRMC caches and temp paths refer to the ramdisk
2. Indexing and other W7 services off ( see also BlackViper tuning recommendations)
3. Automatic Restore off
4. Wlan off
5. Aero Off
6. CoreAvc decoder
7. All stuff kept clean and defragged (CCleaner and Dfraggler)
8. Fresh rebooted system
9. Data disks are e-sata and main system is SSD
My 1080p works pretty well now. Hickups are down to an acceptable level. They still happen once in a while.
When it comes to sound devices. I'm gonna stick with RME PCI-E cards. I wouldn't go for an external device on a HTPC.
These cards are multichannel and no hazzle with USB or other stuff. I won't buy an
interface that got just a two channel limitation anymore.
The RME driver support is outstanding and the sound is IMO more than sufficient for Video and audio. (I still got the Squeezebox feeding a DAC to push my audio limits)
I btw. also got a thread running over at AA about getting an Atom330 to play 1080p on JRMC.
Cheers
Hi,
Fideliser and my hole Touchscreen PC recommendation was for AUDIO ONLY.
I agree, fideliser does not help video, the opposite I'd say...
I find no need for that.
Indexing I shut down on ANY machine I use. I never found it to help when in use for searching enough to warrant the performance hit at all other times.
I also always turn automatic restore off, as well as Aero on an AV machine.
I have had enough bad results using WLAN on AV machines, non of my AV Stuff has wireless or has it on where usable.
Even my internet radio uses ha rardline, I use devolo Dlan for all connections around the house, excluding portables of course.
If your GFX Chipset is sufficiently supported and has the decoding power, try FFDShow DVXA decoder as well.
All my machines run defraggler, scheduled. So all my machines are always clean.
And of course, my AV Machine has exactly Win 7 with essential parts disabled, SAF, VLC, Mediaportal and all it needs and JRMC installed, plus some software so I can switch between the different screens (TV, Projector, Local) from my MCE remotes.
I do not actively seek 1080P material, a lot of TV Show downloads are 720P though, I have some 1080P stuff I watched (my Projector accepts 1080P, it just scales it to 480P) and I did not notice anything major.
Once thing I noticed with a lot of heavily compressed Video, slowish pans are not smooth, but I even notice it on TV Broadcasts and with all sorts of hardware based stuff and super powerful machines, so I am tempted to put that down to the encoding side and an excessively low Bitrate ceiling...
Well, colour me badd, I had surround sound in the late 90's. I went back to 2-channel.
Surround sound, even in really good systems and installations, feels to me even more fake than these load them on sunday and shoot at full automatic without letup through the whole week guns everyone in hollywood movies seems to use.
It works okayish in big cinemas (like IMAX), but in living room sized spaces it is offensive (to me).
So I would never pay money for a sound device with more than 2 -Channels.
😀
Ciao T
Fideliser and my hole Touchscreen PC recommendation was for AUDIO ONLY.
I agree, fideliser does not help video, the opposite I'd say...
I find no need for that.
Indexing I shut down on ANY machine I use. I never found it to help when in use for searching enough to warrant the performance hit at all other times.
I also always turn automatic restore off, as well as Aero on an AV machine.
I have had enough bad results using WLAN on AV machines, non of my AV Stuff has wireless or has it on where usable.
Even my internet radio uses ha rardline, I use devolo Dlan for all connections around the house, excluding portables of course.
If your GFX Chipset is sufficiently supported and has the decoding power, try FFDShow DVXA decoder as well.
All my machines run defraggler, scheduled. So all my machines are always clean.
And of course, my AV Machine has exactly Win 7 with essential parts disabled, SAF, VLC, Mediaportal and all it needs and JRMC installed, plus some software so I can switch between the different screens (TV, Projector, Local) from my MCE remotes.
I do not actively seek 1080P material, a lot of TV Show downloads are 720P though, I have some 1080P stuff I watched (my Projector accepts 1080P, it just scales it to 480P) and I did not notice anything major.
Once thing I noticed with a lot of heavily compressed Video, slowish pans are not smooth, but I even notice it on TV Broadcasts and with all sorts of hardware based stuff and super powerful machines, so I am tempted to put that down to the encoding side and an excessively low Bitrate ceiling...
Well, colour me badd, I had surround sound in the late 90's. I went back to 2-channel.
Surround sound, even in really good systems and installations, feels to me even more fake than these load them on sunday and shoot at full automatic without letup through the whole week guns everyone in hollywood movies seems to use.
It works okayish in big cinemas (like IMAX), but in living room sized spaces it is offensive (to me).
So I would never pay money for a sound device with more than 2 -Channels.
😀
Ciao T
I'm not talking about surround sound in particular.
My subwoofers need to be driven properly. 😉
It's rather an active filtered/crossed-over system.
Cheers
My subwoofers need to be driven properly. 😉
It's rather an active filtered/crossed-over system.
Cheers
Hi
DACs is be an area with a lot of promising products coming out (but are they good .. .)
Cheers
DACs is be an area with a lot of promising products coming out (but are they good .. .)
Cheers
So you haven't kept up with the developments (third party stuff included) in foobar since 2006 and permit yourself to judge?
I have to assume this post will be deleted as it will be considered bickering.
F...k this forum, really.
Hi,
There we have the catogorical talking based on hearsay and inference combined with a complete lack of knowledge of facts that some have disliked of krauts...
Why do you draw such a conclusion?
I am professionally involved with Audio and also PC Audio. Of course I am VERY WELL aware of what software is out there (not just FB2K, but also Linux systems), what they can do and what not.
If you feel that in fact Foobar can offer a user interface and user experinece such as Media Portal, Album Player or JRMC for Music, why not illustrate that it can do so and prove and my claims wrong?
But it is far easier to throw in some swearwords (disguised from the censor) and go huffing and puffing.
Ciao T
There we have the catogorical talking based on hearsay and inference combined with a complete lack of knowledge of facts that some have disliked of krauts...
Why do you draw such a conclusion?
I am professionally involved with Audio and also PC Audio. Of course I am VERY WELL aware of what software is out there (not just FB2K, but also Linux systems), what they can do and what not.
If you feel that in fact Foobar can offer a user interface and user experinece such as Media Portal, Album Player or JRMC for Music, why not illustrate that it can do so and prove and my claims wrong?
But it is far easier to throw in some swearwords (disguised from the censor) and go huffing and puffing.
Ciao T
Before I have myself removed permanently...
I had the portal thingy installed and found it rather awkward to setup and to get to do anything. I found the set - up choices in foobar much more intuitive - once you get the concept how to do it - and foobar also starts with an easy to use first screen that lets you play right away.
The portal when I tried to set up the screen crashed so badly I could not enen get into the task manager any more. Had to do a reboot, and uninstalled the portal right away after that lovely experience.
Not even my worst player - media monkey - managed to do that.
If you could read and understand - I did not swear at the contributions, I swore at the policies to remove contributions.
As to your claim -apparently you are not aware of what foobar can do as a media player (or you just do not like the process of how to set up and include plugins) and a music server otherwise you would not ask me to tell you what it is capable of. I use it as a server, and I can highly individualize the setup from the straightforward to the complex including info regarding artist, album, lyrics, search functions, scripting, layout, spectrum analyzers, wave form seek bar, various GUI's, etc. etc. It allows VSP plugins w/o any problems ( I use ambio processor and several third party equalizers), have album display of selectable sizes....
Whoever calls foobar a simple player is just one thing - clueless.
So, thanks for all the fish...
I had the portal thingy installed and found it rather awkward to setup and to get to do anything. I found the set - up choices in foobar much more intuitive - once you get the concept how to do it - and foobar also starts with an easy to use first screen that lets you play right away.
The portal when I tried to set up the screen crashed so badly I could not enen get into the task manager any more. Had to do a reboot, and uninstalled the portal right away after that lovely experience.
Not even my worst player - media monkey - managed to do that.
If you could read and understand - I did not swear at the contributions, I swore at the policies to remove contributions.
As to your claim -apparently you are not aware of what foobar can do as a media player (or you just do not like the process of how to set up and include plugins) and a music server otherwise you would not ask me to tell you what it is capable of. I use it as a server, and I can highly individualize the setup from the straightforward to the complex including info regarding artist, album, lyrics, search functions, scripting, layout, spectrum analyzers, wave form seek bar, various GUI's, etc. etc. It allows VSP plugins w/o any problems ( I use ambio processor and several third party equalizers), have album display of selectable sizes....
Whoever calls foobar a simple player is just one thing - clueless.
So, thanks for all the fish...
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Hi,
Actually, it works fine out of the box, however some reading of the manpages especially for the plugins can be of use.
I agree however, Media Portal is not the easiest to set-up for best quality, which why I would not suggest as universal choice for people that want a simple music player (Album Player and JRMC are better in that case and while not free they are cheap).
Normally it is easy to find the answers in the community pages.
If you need help you can ask, even me...
Interesting, I have used MP for ages on a wide range of HW and SW and it never did that to me. Are you sure you where installing the stable version, not an SVN build (these are often very buggy, but they are really only for developers). Or are you running Cripple-Win (loads of services disabled etc. - this is not a good idea with MP and warned against under system requirements)?
Since Version 1.1 the installer and plugin maintainance system is also drastically improved, it is however still the weakest part...
Ciao T
Actually, it works fine out of the box, however some reading of the manpages especially for the plugins can be of use.
I agree however, Media Portal is not the easiest to set-up for best quality, which why I would not suggest as universal choice for people that want a simple music player (Album Player and JRMC are better in that case and while not free they are cheap).
Normally it is easy to find the answers in the community pages.
If you need help you can ask, even me...
Interesting, I have used MP for ages on a wide range of HW and SW and it never did that to me. Are you sure you where installing the stable version, not an SVN build (these are often very buggy, but they are really only for developers). Or are you running Cripple-Win (loads of services disabled etc. - this is not a good idea with MP and warned against under system requirements)?
Since Version 1.1 the installer and plugin maintainance system is also drastically improved, it is however still the weakest part...
Ciao T
Just seen this thread. I don't use a music player on my laptop. I, like alot of people archive there music in a high quality audio format, but i don't, i use an ISO image program and save my CD's as an ISO. or UIF. file. Then i mount and un-mount using the image program when desired. I'm using a program called MagicDiskISO.
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Thorsten.
Again a little off-topic.
I just introduced madVR (freeware) as video renderer on JRMC. That one also uses Cuda. You might want to try it.
My system runs quite nice stable on 1080p now ( fast camera moves though do cause problems) and it also sounds quite good. I'm kind of satisfied.
I can tell you, that for now Foobar, VLC or whatever won't replace that setup. These programs are just not able to cover it all the way JRMC does.
If somebody would offer a nice remote app for JRMC ( as e.g. iPeng for Squeezebox), I'd even consider to throw out my Squeezeboxes right
away.
Though I do think that my processor and 4GB RAM are not sufficant for running 10u0p. Those are driven pretty much on the edge with 1080p. Every little incident gets the system out of balance. It's probably time for an upgrade. I'll better forget about Atom based media renderers.
Those run out of steam at the first corner.
Cheers
Again a little off-topic.
I just introduced madVR (freeware) as video renderer on JRMC. That one also uses Cuda. You might want to try it.
My system runs quite nice stable on 1080p now ( fast camera moves though do cause problems) and it also sounds quite good. I'm kind of satisfied.
I can tell you, that for now Foobar, VLC or whatever won't replace that setup. These programs are just not able to cover it all the way JRMC does.
If somebody would offer a nice remote app for JRMC ( as e.g. iPeng for Squeezebox), I'd even consider to throw out my Squeezeboxes right
away.
Though I do think that my processor and 4GB RAM are not sufficant for running 10u0p. Those are driven pretty much on the edge with 1080p. Every little incident gets the system out of balance. It's probably time for an upgrade. I'll better forget about Atom based media renderers.
Those run out of steam at the first corner.
Cheers
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