Just recieved mine, won't play my itunes .m4v, which is disappointing, because I bought mostly for that reason. I guess I'll buy the overpriced AppleTV that does less.
Strange. I tried playing a video that came with one of my albums off itunes also in the .m4v format and it played fine. It will of course, not play protected files. The digital copy of Zombieland for example is protected and only plays on my PC and synced iPhone, when I try to play the file over the box office I do get the "invalid format". But it should play any unprotected .m4v videos you have.
The device sounds interesting, particularly after the promised firmware updates hit. I had one lingering question though: it was tested it with mkvs, but I'd like to know if it handles mkvs/avis with subtitles included(either externally or embedded). I've always found this to be a challenge with media playing devices and even transcoders like TVersity/Windows Media Sharing usually choke, necessitating a manual encode to embed the subtitles.
Are there any plans for putting together a roundup of different boxes? I've never been able to find a place that has a good comparison of which ones are better for people who primarily want to serve their own media.
OT, When you're using My Movies in WMC, do you ever have the extra info (cast, synopsis, etc) not show up for random movies? Some of my movies it's blank, and I can't figure out how to fix it w/o deleting and rescanning everything.
I'd recommend this site for reviews of media players / NMT's. It has a ton of information and a great community. I hope it helps you with your decision!
I am interested in doing a media box roundup myself. As for budget HTPCs, d you have a model from a vendor as an example? Is $300 the limit of what would be consider "budget"? I have a HTPC as my main source of TV and movies, but it is anything but budget as I play a fair amount of games as well. Let me know which sorts of products you are most interested in.
This one is the most impressive looking I've found yet based on the same realtek chipset. I have a patriot and love it but this menu and net support on this version blows the patriots functions away and hopefully the next firmware from patriot will address and add these functions. http://www.xtreamerusa.net/index.html">http://www.xtreamerusa.net/index.html
I am also very interested in a comparison write-up. I would save me time and effort to do what you guys would do more properly and timely. Please keep us inform.
"Multi terrabyte harddrives"?
It's hard for me to believe you actually stuffed them with legal info, unless it's raw VOB or bluray rips!
A search engine is not necessary if you know how to organize your video's. I have anime series all organized like this:
- Anime
+ good
++ Anime 1
++ Anime 2
++ ....
+ Completed
++ Anime 3
++ Anime 4
++ ....
+ Uncompleted
++ ....
+ Bad
++ ....
+ Abandoned / Uncompleted
++ ....
- Disney
+ ....
- Movies
+ 1999-2000
++ ....
+ 2001-2004
++ ....
And regardless of what movie, I always remember where to find my data, because I arranged it, and I have seen it all (unlike some individuals who plug their pc into the net, and start downloading 24/7 until they have nothing more to download, and not know they actually are downloading each movie twice or trice; not even knowing if the movie they downloaded is the correct one).
When someone says to me they have "several 1TB harddrives full of movies" I seriously question the legitimacy of their actions.
It would take all the video's I've ever owned, purchased, or watched in my lifetime to fill 1TB of space (if they are around 700MB/1,5hrs movie). That'd translate to over 1400 movies, and not even my local movie rentals has that many in their store!
I actually have ripped all my regular DVDs and blu-rays as .VOBs and .iso's respectively. If you take into account that each blu-ray movie is about 40 GB on a disc, then within 25 movies you have used up 1 TB of space. Even if you rip just the video file and main HD audio file to an .mkv, your still looking at almost 20 GB per movie, so you'd get to 50 High def movies before you fill a TB drive. So yes, I have multiple terabyte drives. I could probably compress them down to 720p .mkvs with the HD audio track and not lose much quality, but I would rather just watch the .iso file and be done with it as I do watch the extras a fair amount.
As for the folder structure, I typically watch movies using PowerDVD 9 and My movies 3 in windows media center. Since you point My Movies 3 to the .iso file or .vob file for each movie, I have no reason to remember which drive I saved a specific movie too. I can simply load Windows Media Center, select My Movies, and pick a film as they are all displayed in alphabetical order with their cover art. When I add a new movie I simply add it to My Movies 3 and point the database to the file, and then I don't have to think about it again.
Hello, I have a question. I have a lot of DVD .iso images. Does the Patriot allow to navigating menù without uncoding DVD in ifo/vob files? I'm not talking about BR, just traditional DVD. Thank you. Pom
Am I the only one who has problems with the needed "fixes" to stream media from a Win7 system? If you're using LM hashes to store your password you can forgo anypassword immediatly, it's not as if that would stop anyone. Also what's with users who use passwords with more than 14 characters? LM Hashes don't work for those.
Probably not a big problem in a home environment, but nevertheless a bad solution..
The interface is strikingly similar, even identical in certain places, to the Asus O!Play HDP-R1, which has similar capabilities. I wonder if the products are somehow related.
Stream .VOBs in folders off of a WHS
Tune-in TV from HDHomeRun
Can connect to an oldish HDTV through DVI (probably w/ adapter) that only supports 1080i.
Hulu, NetFlix streaming
Perhaps even 'lite' browsing for in-a-pinch situations
I run gigabit ethernet and wireless
Play lossless WMA audio off WHS
Search/display/slideshow .JPGs off WHS
please add the spec of the system - cpu, memory and any other thing that might be relevant. Also, browsing the product on Amazon it says that the 2.5hdd is NOT INCLUDED, this is an important point. Other than this, great review. Straight to the point.
No support for FLAC or other lossless codecs? That's a huge miss. With storage costs so low, it's hard to believe people still rip or buy their music with lossy codecs.
Yeah, I agree. Alot of my .mkv files use FLAC or AAC for audio encoding. The WD TV Live! supports both of those plus a truckload of others (like OGG). Then again, this unit is meant to be pretty cheap price wise so I guess they had to cut down on audio support to bring the cost down?
After a bit of research, I decided on the WD TV Live. For $119 at newegg, it is passive, does FLAC, and there are plenty of wireless N USB adaptors that work with it. So far I can do DVD vobs and Blu-ray MKVs, no stuttering. Very happy with the purchase. The only thing that would benefit it is 480i using component video for us dinosaurs with old TV sets.
That really seems to be the route the industry is pushing the desktop into. You have a large home server that contains your storage space, and then modular devices to tap into that content, like a media box, and a notebook for productivity etc.
I don't think Boxes like this are meant to replace an HTPC as the hub of the home entertainment network.
For me personally, most of these boxes lack enough internal storage space to hold all my movies, music pictures etc, so I need to have a desktop or server for that anyway to stream off of. I really like the 360s capability to stream my media center interface and watch my recorded TV, a feature I think I will use more with the launch of the Ceton cable cards next month. http://cetoncorp.com/products.php">http://cetoncorp.com/products.php But it lacks support for .iso and many other popular movie formats. Boxes like the Patriot are able to play just about all of my local content but cannot play my recorded TV. There always seems to be something missing so in the end, I just hook up the desktop directly to my receiver and call it good. The I also have easy access to Hulu, netflix and Boxee on the PC, and if you have an Iphone you can use an app like Hipporemote to control the various programs(love that app!)
What Boxes like this are useful for, is streaming content for the main home theater to a bedroom television or something of that nature. The living room is currently the center of my home entertainment experience, with movies, music and games ampily supplied by a PC. But for $100 a box like this a great way to get some of that content into the bedroom or a game room etc.
I use Windows Home Server in a smaller ATX box that fits, with an extra 3x5.25" enclosure that fits 4x3.5" HDs, a total of 9 HDs. I buy 1-2 new drives each year and retire the oldest smallest drive at intervals. Windows Home Server is superb in the way you can just keep adding storage seemlessly.
I use a PS3 to play my media, using the http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/">http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/ to repackage and/or recode on the fly from the WHS based on format. It handles every format I've ever tried (it can also serve XBox, mobile devices etc!). The PS3 sees the WHS/PS3MS as a media server and I just play from there.
and none of them can at least read if not record DVB-S.
Why would i need this box, when i need another box playing real time TV and switch for them? Just another useless device built in huge quantities around some new multimedia all-in-one chip.
I am talking from experience here, wireless g is unacceptable for movie streaming.
Only wireless N can stream movies.
wired naturally works well. Although its better to have the files locally.
This thing could really use an open source OS (which means it will get upgrades even when a newer version comes out) and netflix streaming.
So I have to ask: what sort of router do you use for you 11n network? I've gone through a LinkSys, a D-Link, and now I'm on a TrendNet. Granted, all are "Draft 2.0" 11n routers, but I'm not sure if the finalized spec would help or not. My problem is this:
From my home, I can see at least five other networks. My local WiFi is the best signal, and the others are secured, but they seem to cause a lot of interference. If I enable the dual-channel 11n support in my router(s), I get regular drop-outs of WiFi, and the only recourse is to reboot the router. So, I've now dropped down to 20MHz 11n/11g and it doesn't crash as much. If I really want it to stay stable, I need to run in 11g only mode.
Now, with 40MHz dual-channel 11n, I can transfer at up to ~9MB/s (close to 100Mbit Ethernet), but that's only if I'm transferring wired to wireless; transfer between two laptops and the rate drops to about 2-3MB/s.
In short, 11n WiFi has been hugely disappointing to me. I'm trying to determine if it's my neighborhood, router, or a combination of those. If you've had a lot more success in a neighborhood with several visible WiFi networks, like I said, I'd love to know what router you're using! (And let's not even get into my 2.4GHz wireless landline phone blasting away my network.... Gotta upgrade that for sure!)
I use the D-Link DIR-655 and consistently get real-world transfer speeds of 25MB-33MB/sec (megabytes) over the wireless anywhere in the house (two stories) or out in the seperated garage with my N-devices. My G-devices are always maxed out. I even let my next door neighbor leech off me. It sits in the basement under the kitchen floor (centrally located).
I loved it so much that I bought for my parents and installed it in their house. Same results. We each run Atom 330 Windows Home Servers and use them for backups and streaming. I can stream Blu-Ray rips effortlessly to multiple devices at once.
It was on sale for $85 on Newegg last week, I think. I highly recommend it.
Oh! One thing to note, you have to go into the settings and double the rate from 20Hz to 40Hz in order to get the higher speeds. Also, I run mine in mixed mode. Good luck!
I've been through a few N routers myself and also live in a very noisy area (on average I see ~9 other networks) but I've been happy with the Linksys WRT600N (which they don't make any more, unfortunately) ever since they upgraded the switch firmware. For good results with the Linksys (and the other routers I've tried) I found that I had to completely disable all 2.4GHz functionality on the N-router and use an old G-router for devices that don’t support the 5GHz band. With 2.4GHz off, The WRT600N consistently gives me ~110Mbps when doing file transfers and can easily stream BluRay movies; with 2.4GHz on, I get dramatic speed spikes, connection drops, and router crashes.
I am actually in the same boat as you are. I cannot get a reliable wireless singal, and the range on my 5GHz band is terrible. I was already researching setting up gigabit eithernet in my home when I came across this.
It's a remarkable device and the added wireless adapter is a bonus. This device has been around for almost half a year so why did it take so long to get a review? I was considering it when amazon first had it for $100 after rebate with the adapter. It's now $66 after rebate and cashback at circuitcity. What a steal!!
Anyway, there are BD players with the bulk of this functionality built-in. Because the cheaper BD players are about this same price, it seems almost as if it is meant to suppliment them.
Is there any chance that this thing may soon support BD playback off a USB BD-ROM drive (not ripped; containing full protections)? THAT would make it worth $100 to many.
With the encryption intact, selecting the .mt2s file for the main movie in a blu-ray disc gives an "Invalid File" message. However, if you enable AnyDVD, the .mt2s files in the stream folder will play on the Patriot Box Office directly off the original disc.
Does the machine suppoer exfat formatted USB drives?
Most non-PC systems seem to only read fat32..which means a 4GB file size limit..and with HD movies coming in at 10-15gb that doesn't quite work...
Can you test to see what's the subtitle support (SRT/SSA/ASS) like?
The thing looks pretty cheap (the power switch being tilted is quite jarring), but that's a minor issue. The working bits seem solid, and if subtitle support is good, could be just what I'm looking for.
ART and SSA are definitely supported, and switching is actually quite easy, same goes for the audio. I didn't have anything available with ASS subtitles. But browsing through the manual I saw the following...Box Office supports srt, sub, smi, idx+sub, ssa, ass. So it looks like you should be covered
A couple of media streaming boxes (ahem Netgear) won't stream from W7 machines, something to do with the way Samba shares work on windows 7. How did this box go?
This Patriot media device doesn't sound up to par with the Popcorn Hour line of media players or even the WD TV Live. I'd go with one of those before going with this thing.
With the D-Link Boxee Box and Sybas Popbox coming out soon, this Patriot media box is dead in the water. It seems like 2010 is the year of stand alone digital media players, I wonder which one will come out on top.
If Microsoft and Sony would have made the X-Box 360 and PS3 into true digital media players, there would be no market for stand alone players like Popcorn Hour, WD TV Live, and all these others coming out. It would have been great if I could have filled up a portable hard drive with movies in several different codecs and just plugged it into a USB slot on my X-Box 360 and have it play everything back perfectly, but the X-Box 360 doesn't even support movies that have 5.1 audio, FAIL!
Microsoft and Sony could have really made their console systems great and gave people another reason to purchase them. I wonder why they don't add a plethora of video codec/audio support? All they need to do is send out an update to add the support, imagine being able to play back every digital file you have through your game console and not have to buy a separate box just to do that, come on Microsoft and Sony, what is stopping them?
OK dude, look at the price of a Popcorn versus a WDTV or the Patriot. Different class of player and not a fair comparison.
And I think one big selling point that was overlooked is the fact that the Patriot box fully supports DVD Menus for your ripped movies (and I think for Blu Ray as well - if not right now then with the coming firmware). I don't think ANY of the WD units do that.
If they can get full BR menus and/or HDA bitstreaming with a firmware update, I’d be extremely impressed. They aren’t the first company to use this chipset (it’s all over out there) and they aren’t the first company to have their customers ask for menu support and HDA bitstreaming.
That said, they also wouldn’t be unique if they promised new features would be added with a future firmware update only to string their customers along for months on end… (PCH I’m looking right at you….)
Popcorn Hour C-200 supports retail (encrypted) BD's and DVD's. Thus also menus. But I'm sure Patriot will not release anything of the sort. Simple BD is possible though I guess.
I think Realtek deserves a lot of credit here. Bringing out a multimedia decoding chipset with this kind of capability at this price? A year ago, to get HDA on the PC required the purchase of $100 blu-ray software, and then a $200 soundcard.
If you could get your hands on a wireless->wired bridge, it'd be nice if you could use it to nail down where the wireless performance problem is coming from, your network or the device - not even being able to stream a DVD is ridiculous.
Is that a fan on page 2? I would have expected passive cooling from such a low-powered device. If it is a fan, a comment on how loud it is would be nice - the shoddy alignment of the power switch makes me nervous that it might be pretty cheap and noisy.
I definately think the streaming problem lies with my router. When I moved the PC and the router within 5ft I was still get 76% signal on the 5GHz band. I switch the 2.4GHz band to WPA2 only AES, and to 802.11n only and didn't see any improvement. I am suffering from some throughput issues with this router. Maybe that's what I get for buying the D-link DIR-825 instead of the DIR-855. Netgear has a high end 4X4 MIMO 802.11n bridge lauching this spring. I'll revisit the streaming tests then.
There is an internal fan which has been the subject of quite a few complaints on the Patriot forums. Apparently alterations were made to reduce the fan noise. i for one, sitting about 10 ft. from my television could not really hear the fan noise at all. I could hear the high pitched whirring if I put my ear directly against the device, but otherwise, i would not consider this a noisey device by any means.
The fan was the reason I sent it back. Although it isn't that loud it's clearly detectable in calm sequences and it isn't that nice a sound. Even my wife complained and she's far less sensitive of these things.
I used an USB stick filled with different content and was quite pleased with it (audio and video (don't have the equipment for surround). Didn't try the network capabilities after deciding that it's too loud for my taste (would have been wired ethernet for me).
For $99, its a pretty good deal, considering their are many media players out their over $300, and only because they include a hard drive, when clearly its not needed. Good review
thanks Anand
Certainly, if you play DVDs in .VOB format and select the .IFO file it utilizes the menus as per the disc. The .iso I used (the Dark Knight) went straight into the movie, and I didn't check if the menu's functioned as normal. I will test that this evening when I get home from the office and post back here.
Selecting the .iso the Patriot Box Office launches straight into the main movie. You can select the audio and subtitles via the remote, but sadly it is not possible to get to the main menu.
Hello, I have a question. I have a lot of DVD .iso images. Does the Patriot allow to navigating menù without uncoding DVD in ifo/vob files? I'm not talking about BR, just traditional DVD. Thank you. Pom
Hello, I have a question. I have a lot of DVD .iso images. Does the Patriot allow to navigating menù without uncoding DVD in ifo/vob files? I'm not talking about BR, just traditional DVD. Thank you. Pom
You should really check out the LG BD390 Blu-Ray player. It's discontinued and very hard to find now, but it does nearly everything this box does (even 1080p MKV), but it also plays discs locally, and has built-in Netflix, Pandora, Youtube, Amazon, etc...
I'd recommend the BriteView (www.brite-view.com) BV-5005HD.
$99 (same as the patriot) and $24 for the optional 802.11N adapter.
Wired, wireless, all video/audio formats, EXCELLENT Customer service and a few features this Patriot doesn't have.
This unit suports bittorrents... just drop a link into a folder and the unit downloads until done....with zero-K upload.
Search is included, playlists, file/copy, support for two USB drives or a USB drive and wi-fi dongle.
Online or USB updates for the firmware.
The customer service is excellent...helped resovled a problem I was haivng (my fault...the unit didn't like drives formatted in 64k clusters.) The customer service help me identify the problem and put it on the "to-fix" list for their engineers.
Actually they should still look at some of those LG/Samsung players.
The newer LG's should also support MKV/H.264 fine, they state MKV support in the specs. Also has as said Netflix and other services, not only warez. Watching retail material is worth something. So it wouldn't hurt looking at something like BD570. A Popcorn Hour (C-200) which does BD menus, DVD menus and commercial discs cost more. (Which in itself might be better if you like a option of on-board hdd.). It's important to understand though that most companies releasing media players don't really do any engineering themselves, the chip already come with software to support all the various video formats and they might only be able to do minimal changes to the system.
So for many people a LG BD570 with BD, MKV, network and Netflix support might be a better match. They just miss Amazon VOD there. If we only could have those kind of services here in Sweden... Your lucky in the states. We can't get anything like this in our living rooms, IPTV boxes with a "video store" of 600 old movies isn't exactly moving forward. We got cheap WDTV Live HD's for the warez though :) Any way you have much to choose from. And you should utilize all those online services.
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79 Comments
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VideoGrabber - Friday, March 12, 2010 - link
I'm confused. The review says,> As long as both my source PC and the Box Office were on wired ethernet I could play _full bitrate Blu-ray on the Box Office over the network_. <
Then, in two other spots, it refers to a need to transcode the BR material down to 720p, to be able to play over the network. So, which is it? Thanks.
BCarr - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Just recieved mine, won't play my itunes .m4v, which is disappointing, because I bought mostly for that reason. I guess I'll buy the overpriced AppleTV that does less.ajlueke - Friday, February 26, 2010 - link
Strange. I tried playing a video that came with one of my albums off itunes also in the .m4v format and it played fine. It will of course, not play protected files. The digital copy of Zombieland for example is protected and only plays on my PC and synced iPhone, when I try to play the file over the box office I do get the "invalid format". But it should play any unprotected .m4v videos you have.Bloodx - Saturday, February 20, 2010 - link
HDI Dune player is the only streamer that works. Unless you can play ISO bluray rips with the real menus and hd bitstreming audio the box is useless.Sanctusx2 - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
The device sounds interesting, particularly after the promised firmware updates hit. I had one lingering question though: it was tested it with mkvs, but I'd like to know if it handles mkvs/avis with subtitles included(either externally or embedded). I've always found this to be a challenge with media playing devices and even transcoders like TVersity/Windows Media Sharing usually choke, necessitating a manual encode to embed the subtitles.QChronoD - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Alan, I loved your write up.Are there any plans for putting together a roundup of different boxes? I've never been able to find a place that has a good comparison of which ones are better for people who primarily want to serve their own media.
OT, When you're using My Movies in WMC, do you ever have the extra info (cast, synopsis, etc) not show up for random movies? Some of my movies it's blank, and I can't figure out how to fix it w/o deleting and rescanning everything.
scoobymich - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
I'd recommend this site for reviews of media players / NMT's. It has a ton of information and a great community. I hope it helps you with your decision!http://www.mpcclub.com">http://www.mpcclub.com
bobbozzo - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - link
I'd also be interested in seeing a budget-htpc article... I think you guys started some mini-itx articles but never finished.I know there are lots of little pc's around $300 that can do 1080p h.264 playback and use very little power.
thanks
ajlueke - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
I am interested in doing a media box roundup myself. As for budget HTPCs, d you have a model from a vendor as an example? Is $300 the limit of what would be consider "budget"? I have a HTPC as my main source of TV and movies, but it is anything but budget as I play a fair amount of games as well. Let me know which sorts of products you are most interested in.scboley - Monday, March 1, 2010 - link
This one is the most impressive looking I've found yet based on the same realtek chipset. I have a patriot and love it but this menu and net support on this version blows the patriots functions away and hopefully the next firmware from patriot will address and add these functions. http://www.xtreamerusa.net/index.html">http://www.xtreamerusa.net/index.htmlThe0ne - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - link
I am also very interested in a comparison write-up. I would save me time and effort to do what you guys would do more properly and timely. Please keep us inform.ProDigit - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
"Multi terrabyte harddrives"?It's hard for me to believe you actually stuffed them with legal info, unless it's raw VOB or bluray rips!
A search engine is not necessary if you know how to organize your video's. I have anime series all organized like this:
- Anime
+ good
++ Anime 1
++ Anime 2
++ ....
+ Completed
++ Anime 3
++ Anime 4
++ ....
+ Uncompleted
++ ....
+ Bad
++ ....
+ Abandoned / Uncompleted
++ ....
- Disney
+ ....
- Movies
+ 1999-2000
++ ....
+ 2001-2004
++ ....
And regardless of what movie, I always remember where to find my data, because I arranged it, and I have seen it all (unlike some individuals who plug their pc into the net, and start downloading 24/7 until they have nothing more to download, and not know they actually are downloading each movie twice or trice; not even knowing if the movie they downloaded is the correct one).
When someone says to me they have "several 1TB harddrives full of movies" I seriously question the legitimacy of their actions.
It would take all the video's I've ever owned, purchased, or watched in my lifetime to fill 1TB of space (if they are around 700MB/1,5hrs movie). That'd translate to over 1400 movies, and not even my local movie rentals has that many in their store!
ThePooBurner - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
My cousin owns 1400 DVDs. And since this is a HD streaming unit, i highly doubt that they are talking about crappy quality 700mb rips.ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I actually have ripped all my regular DVDs and blu-rays as .VOBs and .iso's respectively. If you take into account that each blu-ray movie is about 40 GB on a disc, then within 25 movies you have used up 1 TB of space. Even if you rip just the video file and main HD audio file to an .mkv, your still looking at almost 20 GB per movie, so you'd get to 50 High def movies before you fill a TB drive. So yes, I have multiple terabyte drives. I could probably compress them down to 720p .mkvs with the HD audio track and not lose much quality, but I would rather just watch the .iso file and be done with it as I do watch the extras a fair amount.As for the folder structure, I typically watch movies using PowerDVD 9 and My movies 3 in windows media center. Since you point My Movies 3 to the .iso file or .vob file for each movie, I have no reason to remember which drive I saved a specific movie too. I can simply load Windows Media Center, select My Movies, and pick a film as they are all displayed in alphabetical order with their cover art. When I add a new movie I simply add it to My Movies 3 and point the database to the file, and then I don't have to think about it again.
pomatoso - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Hello,I have a question.
I have a lot of DVD .iso images.
Does the Patriot allow to navigating menù without uncoding DVD in ifo/vob files?
I'm not talking about BR, just traditional DVD.
Thank you.
Pom
Voo - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Am I the only one who has problems with the needed "fixes" to stream media from a Win7 system? If you're using LM hashes to store your password you can forgo anypassword immediatly, it's not as if that would stop anyone. Also what's with users who use passwords with more than 14 characters? LM Hashes don't work for those.Probably not a big problem in a home environment, but nevertheless a bad solution..
vshah - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
The interface is strikingly similar, even identical in certain places, to the Asus O!Play HDP-R1, which has similar capabilities. I wonder if the products are somehow related.spacemonkey211 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
This really isn't that new of a category. There are at least 5 players in this ~$100 price point...Roku player, WD TV (gen 1, 2 and Live), Prodigi Player, ASUS O!Play, CinemaTube, etc...
In fact most reviews that I have read show that the Patriot Box is really mediocre compared to the competition.
mcnabney - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
So which player is best for me?I have/need:
Stream .VOBs in folders off of a WHS
Tune-in TV from HDHomeRun
Can connect to an oldish HDTV through DVI (probably w/ adapter) that only supports 1080i.
Hulu, NetFlix streaming
Perhaps even 'lite' browsing for in-a-pinch situations
I run gigabit ethernet and wireless
Play lossless WMA audio off WHS
Search/display/slideshow .JPGs off WHS
KoVaR - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I find it disappointment that it only supports 100Mb EthernetBelardA - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Its free, it works. OGG video and audio support please.Need more devices like this...
ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Again, while not listed on the official website,http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/groupdetailp...">http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/g...amp;grou...
OGG, like AAC and FLAC is listed as supported in the manual. Not sure why there is a discrepancy.
The manual can be found here.
http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/manuals/boxo...">http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/manuals/boxo...
marc1000 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
please add the spec of the system - cpu, memory and any other thing that might be relevant. Also, browsing the product on Amazon it says that the 2.5hdd is NOT INCLUDED, this is an important point. Other than this, great review. Straight to the point.StevenG - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
No support for FLAC or other lossless codecs? That's a huge miss. With storage costs so low, it's hard to believe people still rip or buy their music with lossy codecs.ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Actually, In the manual, not on the official website it says that both FLAC and AAC are supported. Guess I'll have to give it a try.King of Heroes - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Yeah, I agree. Alot of my .mkv files use FLAC or AAC for audio encoding. The WD TV Live! supports both of those plus a truckload of others (like OGG). Then again, this unit is meant to be pretty cheap price wise so I guess they had to cut down on audio support to bring the cost down?strikeback03 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Not really, as most people don't have the equipment or ears to tell the difference.cknobman - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
But Im lazy and my xbox 360 already streams everything I want just fine (although my shiatty wireless g network can be slow at times).greenguy - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
After a bit of research, I decided on the WD TV Live. For $119 at newegg, it is passive, does FLAC, and there are plenty of wireless N USB adaptors that work with it. So far I can do DVD vobs and Blu-ray MKVs, no stuttering. Very happy with the purchase. The only thing that would benefit it is 480i using component video for us dinosaurs with old TV sets.Pjotr - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Man, you need to stuff your HDs into a Windows Home Server!ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
That really seems to be the route the industry is pushing the desktop into. You have a large home server that contains your storage space, and then modular devices to tap into that content, like a media box, and a notebook for productivity etc.I don't think Boxes like this are meant to replace an HTPC as the hub of the home entertainment network.
For me personally, most of these boxes lack enough internal storage space to hold all my movies, music pictures etc, so I need to have a desktop or server for that anyway to stream off of. I really like the 360s capability to stream my media center interface and watch my recorded TV, a feature I think I will use more with the launch of the Ceton cable cards next month. http://cetoncorp.com/products.php">http://cetoncorp.com/products.php
But it lacks support for .iso and many other popular movie formats. Boxes like the Patriot are able to play just about all of my local content but cannot play my recorded TV. There always seems to be something missing so in the end, I just hook up the desktop directly to my receiver and call it good. The I also have easy access to Hulu, netflix and Boxee on the PC, and if you have an Iphone you can use an app like Hipporemote to control the various programs(love that app!)
What Boxes like this are useful for, is streaming content for the main home theater to a bedroom television or something of that nature. The living room is currently the center of my home entertainment experience, with movies, music and games ampily supplied by a PC. But for $100 a box like this a great way to get some of that content into the bedroom or a game room etc.
Pjotr - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - link
I use Windows Home Server in a smaller ATX box that fits, with an extra 3x5.25" enclosure that fits 4x3.5" HDs, a total of 9 HDs. I buy 1-2 new drives each year and retire the oldest smallest drive at intervals. Windows Home Server is superb in the way you can just keep adding storage seemlessly.I use a PS3 to play my media, using the http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/">http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/ to repackage and/or recode on the fly from the WHS based on format. It handles every format I've ever tried (it can also serve XBox, mobile devices etc!). The PS3 sees the WHS/PS3MS as a media server and I just play from there.
snKorst - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
none of them have VGA or DVI outand none of them can at least read if not record DVB-S.
Why would i need this box, when i need another box playing real time TV and switch for them? Just another useless device built in huge quantities around some new multimedia all-in-one chip.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Umm, for a media player device HDMI seems to be a perfectly reasonable connection.chdude3 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Not to mention that with a physical adapter you can connect HDMI to DVI... Essentially, anything with HDMI *does* support DVI.taltamir - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I am talking from experience here, wireless g is unacceptable for movie streaming.Only wireless N can stream movies.
wired naturally works well. Although its better to have the files locally.
This thing could really use an open source OS (which means it will get upgrades even when a newer version comes out) and netflix streaming.
ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
In regards to the open source OS, you can download it here...http://patriotmemory.com/products/manuals/boxoffic...">http://patriotmemory.com/products/manuals/boxoffic...
legoman666 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Indeed. I've found that I can stream up to 100mb/s on my wireless N connection, which is more than enough for any HD movie.JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
So I have to ask: what sort of router do you use for you 11n network? I've gone through a LinkSys, a D-Link, and now I'm on a TrendNet. Granted, all are "Draft 2.0" 11n routers, but I'm not sure if the finalized spec would help or not. My problem is this:From my home, I can see at least five other networks. My local WiFi is the best signal, and the others are secured, but they seem to cause a lot of interference. If I enable the dual-channel 11n support in my router(s), I get regular drop-outs of WiFi, and the only recourse is to reboot the router. So, I've now dropped down to 20MHz 11n/11g and it doesn't crash as much. If I really want it to stay stable, I need to run in 11g only mode.
Now, with 40MHz dual-channel 11n, I can transfer at up to ~9MB/s (close to 100Mbit Ethernet), but that's only if I'm transferring wired to wireless; transfer between two laptops and the rate drops to about 2-3MB/s.
In short, 11n WiFi has been hugely disappointing to me. I'm trying to determine if it's my neighborhood, router, or a combination of those. If you've had a lot more success in a neighborhood with several visible WiFi networks, like I said, I'd love to know what router you're using! (And let's not even get into my 2.4GHz wireless landline phone blasting away my network.... Gotta upgrade that for sure!)
therealnickdanger - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - link
I use the D-Link DIR-655 and consistently get real-world transfer speeds of 25MB-33MB/sec (megabytes) over the wireless anywhere in the house (two stories) or out in the seperated garage with my N-devices. My G-devices are always maxed out. I even let my next door neighbor leech off me. It sits in the basement under the kitchen floor (centrally located).I loved it so much that I bought for my parents and installed it in their house. Same results. We each run Atom 330 Windows Home Servers and use them for backups and streaming. I can stream Blu-Ray rips effortlessly to multiple devices at once.
It was on sale for $85 on Newegg last week, I think. I highly recommend it.
Oh! One thing to note, you have to go into the settings and double the rate from 20Hz to 40Hz in order to get the higher speeds. Also, I run mine in mixed mode. Good luck!
GeorgeH - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I've been through a few N routers myself and also live in a very noisy area (on average I see ~9 other networks) but I've been happy with the Linksys WRT600N (which they don't make any more, unfortunately) ever since they upgraded the switch firmware. For good results with the Linksys (and the other routers I've tried) I found that I had to completely disable all 2.4GHz functionality on the N-router and use an old G-router for devices that don’t support the 5GHz band. With 2.4GHz off, The WRT600N consistently gives me ~110Mbps when doing file transfers and can easily stream BluRay movies; with 2.4GHz on, I get dramatic speed spikes, connection drops, and router crashes.ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I am actually in the same boat as you are. I cannot get a reliable wireless singal, and the range on my 5GHz band is terrible. I was already researching setting up gigabit eithernet in my home when I came across this.http://www.quantenna.com/pressrelease-01_05_10.htm...">http://www.quantenna.com/pressrelease-01_05_10.htm...
Sounds pretty promising. Guess I'll wait a bit and see if this product from Netgear can deliver the goods.
ther00kie16 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
It's a remarkable device and the added wireless adapter is a bonus. This device has been around for almost half a year so why did it take so long to get a review? I was considering it when amazon first had it for $100 after rebate with the adapter. It's now $66 after rebate and cashback at circuitcity. What a steal!!CZroe - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Wrong "your/you're" in that last paragraph. ;)Anyway, there are BD players with the bulk of this functionality built-in. Because the cheaper BD players are about this same price, it seems almost as if it is meant to suppliment them.
Is there any chance that this thing may soon support BD playback off a USB BD-ROM drive (not ripped; containing full protections)? THAT would make it worth $100 to many.
Patrick Wolf - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
If I have a BD-ROM in my PC, could I just put the disk in and play it using this device without having to rip it to a storage device?ajlueke - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - link
With the encryption intact, selecting the .mt2s file for the main movie in a blu-ray disc gives an "Invalid File" message. However, if you enable AnyDVD, the .mt2s files in the stream folder will play on the Patriot Box Office directly off the original disc.puffpio - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Does the machine suppoer exfat formatted USB drives?Most non-PC systems seem to only read fat32..which means a 4GB file size limit..and with HD movies coming in at 10-15gb that doesn't quite work...
ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
After formatting a USB stick in exFAT format and plugging it into the PBO, the USB option remained greyed out. Doesn't look like exFAT is supported.chdude3 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
It supports NTFS so >4gig files are fine that way at least.ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
NTFS is definately supported. I can format a USB stick into Exfat and see what happens this evening.GokieKS - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Can you test to see what's the subtitle support (SRT/SSA/ASS) like?The thing looks pretty cheap (the power switch being tilted is quite jarring), but that's a minor issue. The working bits seem solid, and if subtitle support is good, could be just what I'm looking for.
ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I'll take a look at it this evening and post the results back here.ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
ART and SSA are definitely supported, and switching is actually quite easy, same goes for the audio. I didn't have anything available with ASS subtitles. But browsing through the manual I saw the following...Box Office supports srt, sub, smi, idx+sub, ssa, ass. So it looks like you should be coveredDirector - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
A couple of media streaming boxes (ahem Netgear) won't stream from W7 machines, something to do with the way Samba shares work on windows 7. How did this box go?Cheers
strikeback03 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Umm, that is made pretty clear both in the text and the conclusion that a few registry tweaks are necessary on the Win7 machine for streaming to work.gigahertz20 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
This Patriot media device doesn't sound up to par with the Popcorn Hour line of media players or even the WD TV Live. I'd go with one of those before going with this thing.With the D-Link Boxee Box and Sybas Popbox coming out soon, this Patriot media box is dead in the water. It seems like 2010 is the year of stand alone digital media players, I wonder which one will come out on top.
If Microsoft and Sony would have made the X-Box 360 and PS3 into true digital media players, there would be no market for stand alone players like Popcorn Hour, WD TV Live, and all these others coming out. It would have been great if I could have filled up a portable hard drive with movies in several different codecs and just plugged it into a USB slot on my X-Box 360 and have it play everything back perfectly, but the X-Box 360 doesn't even support movies that have 5.1 audio, FAIL!
Microsoft and Sony could have really made their console systems great and gave people another reason to purchase them. I wonder why they don't add a plethora of video codec/audio support? All they need to do is send out an update to add the support, imagine being able to play back every digital file you have through your game console and not have to buy a separate box just to do that, come on Microsoft and Sony, what is stopping them?
chdude3 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
OK dude, look at the price of a Popcorn versus a WDTV or the Patriot. Different class of player and not a fair comparison.And I think one big selling point that was overlooked is the fact that the Patriot box fully supports DVD Menus for your ripped movies (and I think for Blu Ray as well - if not right now then with the coming firmware). I don't think ANY of the WD units do that.
Suntan - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
If they can get full BR menus and/or HDA bitstreaming with a firmware update, I’d be extremely impressed. They aren’t the first company to use this chipset (it’s all over out there) and they aren’t the first company to have their customers ask for menu support and HDA bitstreaming.That said, they also wouldn’t be unique if they promised new features would be added with a future firmware update only to string their customers along for months on end… (PCH I’m looking right at you….)
-Suntan
Penti - Saturday, February 27, 2010 - link
Popcorn Hour C-200 supports retail (encrypted) BD's and DVD's. Thus also menus. But I'm sure Patriot will not release anything of the sort. Simple BD is possible though I guess.ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I think Realtek deserves a lot of credit here. Bringing out a multimedia decoding chipset with this kind of capability at this price? A year ago, to get HDA on the PC required the purchase of $100 blu-ray software, and then a $200 soundcard.piroroadkill - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
No clue. Seems like the logical thing to do.GeorgeH - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
If you could get your hands on a wireless->wired bridge, it'd be nice if you could use it to nail down where the wireless performance problem is coming from, your network or the device - not even being able to stream a DVD is ridiculous.Is that a fan on page 2? I would have expected passive cooling from such a low-powered device. If it is a fan, a comment on how loud it is would be nice - the shoddy alignment of the power switch makes me nervous that it might be pretty cheap and noisy.
ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I definately think the streaming problem lies with my router. When I moved the PC and the router within 5ft I was still get 76% signal on the 5GHz band. I switch the 2.4GHz band to WPA2 only AES, and to 802.11n only and didn't see any improvement. I am suffering from some throughput issues with this router. Maybe that's what I get for buying the D-link DIR-825 instead of the DIR-855. Netgear has a high end 4X4 MIMO 802.11n bridge lauching this spring. I'll revisit the streaming tests then.There is an internal fan which has been the subject of quite a few complaints on the Patriot forums. Apparently alterations were made to reduce the fan noise. i for one, sitting about 10 ft. from my television could not really hear the fan noise at all. I could hear the high pitched whirring if I put my ear directly against the device, but otherwise, i would not consider this a noisey device by any means.
Gir - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
The fan was the reason I sent it back. Although it isn't that loud it's clearly detectable in calm sequences and it isn't that nice a sound. Even my wife complained and she's far less sensitive of these things.I used an USB stick filled with different content and was quite pleased with it (audio and video (don't have the equipment for surround). Didn't try the network capabilities after deciding that it's too loud for my taste (would have been wired ethernet for me).
ValiumMm - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
For $99, its a pretty good deal, considering their are many media players out their over $300, and only because they include a hard drive, when clearly its not needed. Good reviewthanks Anand
gwolfman - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I agree.Anand, be sure to let us know when they update the firmware for HD audio codecs and test it out to confirm that it's working!!!! Please!?!?!
Also, if I mount the .iso (full blu-ray rip with menus), does it play/use the menus? or how does that work?
ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Certainly, if you play DVDs in .VOB format and select the .IFO file it utilizes the menus as per the disc. The .iso I used (the Dark Knight) went straight into the movie, and I didn't check if the menu's functioned as normal. I will test that this evening when I get home from the office and post back here.gwolfman - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Awesome, thanks!ajlueke - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Selecting the .iso the Patriot Box Office launches straight into the main movie. You can select the audio and subtitles via the remote, but sadly it is not possible to get to the main menu.pomatoso - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Hello,I have a question.
I have a lot of DVD .iso images.
Does the Patriot allow to navigating menù without uncoding DVD in ifo/vob files?
I'm not talking about BR, just traditional DVD.
Thank you.
Pom
pomatoso - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Hello,I have a question.
I have a lot of DVD .iso images.
Does the Patriot allow to navigating menù without uncoding DVD in ifo/vob files?
I'm not talking about BR, just traditional DVD.
Thank you.
Pom
gwolfman - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Sry, I mean Alan. :) Forgive me...therealnickdanger - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
You should really check out the LG BD390 Blu-Ray player. It's discontinued and very hard to find now, but it does nearly everything this box does (even 1080p MKV), but it also plays discs locally, and has built-in Netflix, Pandora, Youtube, Amazon, etc...therealnickdanger - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Oh yeah, and it's Wireless-N...Souka - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
I'd recommend the BriteView (www.brite-view.com) BV-5005HD.$99 (same as the patriot) and $24 for the optional 802.11N adapter.
Wired, wireless, all video/audio formats, EXCELLENT Customer service and a few features this Patriot doesn't have.
This unit suports bittorrents... just drop a link into a folder and the unit downloads until done....with zero-K upload.
Search is included, playlists, file/copy, support for two USB drives or a USB drive and wi-fi dongle.
Online or USB updates for the firmware.
The customer service is excellent...helped resovled a problem I was haivng (my fault...the unit didn't like drives formatted in 64k clusters.) The customer service help me identify the problem and put it on the "to-fix" list for their engineers.
My $.02
:)
Penti - Saturday, February 27, 2010 - link
Actually they should still look at some of those LG/Samsung players.The newer LG's should also support MKV/H.264 fine, they state MKV support in the specs. Also has as said Netflix and other services, not only warez. Watching retail material is worth something. So it wouldn't hurt looking at something like BD570. A Popcorn Hour (C-200) which does BD menus, DVD menus and commercial discs cost more. (Which in itself might be better if you like a option of on-board hdd.). It's important to understand though that most companies releasing media players don't really do any engineering themselves, the chip already come with software to support all the various video formats and they might only be able to do minimal changes to the system.
So for many people a LG BD570 with BD, MKV, network and Netflix support might be a better match. They just miss Amazon VOD there. If we only could have those kind of services here in Sweden... Your lucky in the states. We can't get anything like this in our living rooms, IPTV boxes with a "video store" of 600 old movies isn't exactly moving forward. We got cheap WDTV Live HD's for the warez though :) Any way you have much to choose from. And you should utilize all those online services.
RamIt - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - link
Says on that site that there is serious lag with any 1080 content using wireless n.Souka - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
1080p will always lag on wireless...perhaps if the router is in the same room it'll be ok...but otherwise go wired or usb drive.I have wireless on mine, but just use it to copy files to the 1TB drive I have attached to the media player.
Kensei - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
Good reviewthanks Anand
That would be Alan to you sir.