Recently, I was chatting with a buddy at work about my woes trying to watch XVID videos on my TV. I don't have or want a dedicated computer in my theater just to play my video files. I have a lot of experience with different technologies in my attempts to find the right solution.
I first tried the Play@TV box. It's essentially a generic mpeg 2 decoder that uses your computer to covert other media formats into mpeg 2 on the fly. While it worked reliably, it was slow and didn't support high def. My main reason for abandoning it was that it just didn't offer a seamless experience. The menus were slow and it consumed a lot of CPU time on my computer while watching videos. There was also a long delay when starting media files (4-10 seconds depending on your buffer settings). Forget fast forwarding or rewinding as the buffer would have to start all over each time.
Next I moved onto using Windows XP Media Center 2005 with the Xbox extender. While the menus were zippy and the UI fairly decent, it only played mpeg 2 and Windows media files. No joy for my extensive xvid collecton.
I eventually upgraded to the Xbox 360 hoping it would offer xvid support. No such luck. However, hope was found in Transcode 360, a cool media center add-on that allowed on the fly codec conversion and streaming to the Xbox 360. It was a major pain to get working and updates to the software were slow. I did use it reliably for a couple months, with the occasional reboot required to kick it back into gear. When I upgraded to Windows Vista and the latest version of Transcode 360, the problems just got worse and I gave up the constant battle to keep the system working.
As I explained all this woe to my aforemention colleague at work, he mentioned the Zensonic Z500 digital media player. I read the feature list and was greatly interested as this product claimed to solve my needs without needing any software at all. I purchased it from Media West Distribution, the official US distributor. Their shopping cart system doesn't support SSL (weird, I know), so I purchased it over the phone for $239, plus $17 for 3-day Fedex. I'm happy to report that it arrived on time. Further, Media West deserves a major compliment for responding to an email on a Sunday.
The device is about 1U in height not counting the feet. It is the standard 19" wide and is sturdy enough to support another device on top of it. It offers composite, component, HDMI, and SCART video output. Coax, optical, and component are supported for audio output. I used the component and optical outputs in my particular setup. It supports 802.11b/g wireless and 10/100Mb wired ethernet. I used the wired ethernet to ensure the least chance of "hiccups" or bandwidth problems.
The unit took about 30 seconds to power up, boot, and load the menu. I suspect that it's running a stripped version of Linux or something. Once loaded, the menu was very responsive. The UI is plain, but functional and intuitive. I immediately went into the setup menu and checked the "info" section to make sure that the unit received an ip address, which it did. I then setup my video preferences (selecting 16:9 and 1080i/60 output). Last, I setup the device name and windows workgroup name. The default workgroup name is something odd, so I changed it to match my network workgroup name. The device depends on the workgroup name for share browsing, so I'm not sure how it would function in a domain environment.
Without any further configuration, I was able to browse to my video collection on my PC and start watching. It took about 2 seconds for the video to start playing. There is a commercial skip feature that works well, allowing you to skip at 10,20,30,40, or 60 second intervals.
The best part about this device is the picture quality. A standard 350MB, 45 minute xvid file looks stellar. The video processor upscales to HD resolution and does an excellent job of clearing up compression artifacts. It looks just as good as standard defintion television. A 650MB file created from an HD source looks amazing and retains much of the HD clarity. Unlike previous methods of streaming these files, the Z500 showed very little flaws in the files.
Sound levels are appropriately loud, a nice contrast from previous times where the Play@TV was too quiet. I briefly tested the music playing capabilities as well. 192Khz songs played instantly and sounded just fine. I didn't notice any album art displayed, but I didn't play with the audio functions much.
My wife and I watched about 7 hours of TV shows between yesterday and today and had absolutely zero troubles. One small gripe is that I seem to have to hold the remote above my head to get it to work. This is either due to the IR sensor being blocked, not sensitive enough, or the remote lacks decent power. In any case, I didn't try new batteries or adjusting the position of the unit so this may be an issue on my end.
In conclusion, this device works as advertised. It's easy, simple, and just plain works. For $239, it's a bargain considering the stellar video quality and the long list of features and supported codecs. I recommend this product without hesitation.
Mood: Wincing in pain due to my broken toe. Mild nausea from meds.
Listening to: My wife singing in the kitchen at the top of her lungs.
Watching: House Season 3
Reading: Dragonlance Chronicles by Hickman and Weis
Labels: media, xvid, z500
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