Since replacing the HDD and doing the USB mod, I have a large number of kids programmes burnt on to DVD in rawish TS MPeg2 format (after a little trim and tidy with Videoredo). These play fine on my Yamada dvd player, but it's getting to be a pain juggling all the DVDs. Particularly with girls who aren't the most careful with disks, and who are likely to change their minds on a whim!

I'm now thinking of getting a standalone media player to sit under the tv, with a big HDD that I can put all of the content from the Disks and DHD4000 on. Something with a remote control, and a simple interface that will allow you to browse the filesystem and hit play!

Has anyone got any recommendations for a simple enclosure with USB and LAN connections and either VGA, DVI or component outs that will handle an MPeg2 (.TS) file with aplomb? The Sumvision Aqua looked like a good option but have since read on usenet about it being unable to play files from a Humax (I presume they are in a similar format to those from the Thomson).

Would a Freecom Mediaplayer-35 or the Sweex equivalent fit the bill. Or do I need to look at all singing and dancing HD players, or building an MCE machine?

TIA - Rufus (running out of space again)

The itunes tv box is fantastic, not entirly sure that its what u want though

I use one of those http://www.pixelmagicsystems.com/pro...d_mediabox.htm
Alan

The HD Mediabox looks fantastic, but at £300 + a HDD, the cost is a bit more than I was hoping to spend, and I doubt if there is much benefit rendering over compressed CBeebies content in glorious Hifi HD.

Think I'll try a cheap and nasty randomly selected Korean "media" enclosure and see how I get on.

Rufus.

You should read the reviews in this US forum.(theyve had more time to play with HD)
http://www.mpcclub.com/
the latest reviews are found in the right most column.

This one is highly recommended and available in the UK.
http://www.mpcclub.com/modules/Revie...oworld_n35.pdf
£185 without a hard disk

*Falls in love* sees Autdirect have them for nearer £140, flexes plastic a little more than intended!

Rufus.

just pennies less than £150 in total from eclipse computers
Hope it all works out for both of us

cheers,
marko a.k.a HavanaLaff(mpcclub)

As a follow-up to this thread having had the first N35 RMAed as it was DOA, I now have a replacement Rhapsody N35 sitting on the shelf below my Tommy.

First impressions are very impressive. It looks good, simple, but effective UI, and does SD to HD (720p on DVI) upscaling much better than my Hyundai Q321 natively does!

However more importantly of all, from the installed internal HDD it happily plays .avi files freshly generated by VideoRedo from their source DHD4000 .ts files (tips hat in Karl's direction). Even plays the odd Divx that I might have *cough* mumble.... from my NAS (an elderly NSLU2).

Should keep SWMBO / kids happy for a while, until they fill the 400GB HDD.

Rufus.