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Gear / Technical Help => Playback Forum => Home Theatre & HDTV => Topic started by: carlbeck on January 18, 2009, 01:50:09 PM

Title: Best way to stream digital movies from my Hdd to my TV?
Post by: carlbeck on January 18, 2009, 01:50:09 PM

So I am looking for something like a Squeezebox for movies. I want to be able to stream movies from my hard drive to my TV. 

Title: Re: Best way to stream digital movies from my Hdd to my TV?
Post by: BJ on January 20, 2009, 10:49:09 AM

something like this work? http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,115355.0.html

Title: Re: Best way to stream digital movies from my Hdd to my TV?
Post by: bl6216@yahoo.com on January 21, 2009, 03:43:54 PM

I think you can use apple tv for that.

Title: Re: Best way to stream digital movies from my Hdd to my TV?
Post by: Lil Kim Jong-Il on January 21, 2009, 09:03:44 PM

Quote from: bl6216@yahoo.com on January 21, 2009, 03:43:54 PM

I think you can use apple tv for that.

from http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

Quote

Video formats supported

H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): Up to 5 Mbps, Progressive Main Profile (CAVLC) with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps, 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

iTunes Store purchased video: 320 by 240 pixels, 640 by 480 pixels, 720 by 480 pixels (anamorphic), or high-definition 720p

MPEG-4: Up to 3 Mbps, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 720 by 432 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

So not a very good coice for existing libraries or libraries of real HD content.  It was pretty much designed to only stream highly compressed content from the apple store.  It doesn't seem to support MPEG2 and the H.264 decoding is only supported for low bit rate streams.  So anything you get from ATSC or DVD can not be played without first converting to h.264

Title: Re: Best way to stream digital movies from my Hdd to my TV?
Post by: Lil Kim Jong-Il on January 21, 2009, 09:18:48 PM

I forgot to ask, are you looking for an off the shelf solution or are you willing to build something?

If you have a PS3, there are several UPnP AV server applications that will stream content off of your hard drive.  XBMC is good and will run on your PC or Linux box serving content.

Title: Re: Best way to stream digital movies from my Hdd to my TV?
Post by: BC on January 22, 2009, 01:09:46 PM

slingbox??

Title: Re: Best way to stream digital movies from my Hdd to my TV?
Post by: carlbeck on January 25, 2009, 09:01:58 AM

Looks like I may need to go wired, I am not seeing many positive reviews for the wireless systems out there.