Earlier this year I had posted about Media Browser 3 and some big changes that were coming. Well, just a short while ago a public beta was made available for both Media Browser Classic and Media Browser Server. Here is the developer’s recent post:

I just posted links on our download page for public beta versions of both MB Server and MB Classic (the Windows Media Center client).

Whew!

It has been the better part of a year since Luke first approached me with this hair-brained idea to completely re-build Media Browser for the future.  I have to say I was skeptical to put it mildly because the task he put before us seemed monumental and beyond the capabilities of a couple of guys in their spare time.  Well, here we are at a public beta launch for a couple of the core components of the new system.

In truth, it was a monumental task and we aren’t done yet — not even close.  But, we wouldn’t be even this far if not for the help of a relatively small group of folks who have given selflessly of their time and skills to get us this far.  I’m not going to try and mention them but they know who they are.  They are a group of amazing testers and thinkers and tinkerers and developers whom Luke and I will never be able to adequately repay and, without whom, Media Browser 3 would not exist.

So “Thanks” guys.  It’s been a fun ride so far and I think will only get better.

The public betas can be downloaded from here. I would expect this new structure where you have  a “server” and a “client” should feel similar to how My Movies and Plex handle, and should be much more user friendly for those households where multiple players are used.

If anyone gets a chance to try out definitely leave your initial thoughts in the comments section below. I am not sure yet when I will start testing. My new WS2012E server has been up and running smoothly (knock on wood) but I am not quite ready to start installing additional software on it (you can install the MB Server software on a PC but for me the appeal is to have running on my server)

CloudBerry Lab has released version 3.4 of their popular Cloudberry Backup for Windows Home Server (v1, 2011, and SBS 2011). You can get the new version here and the release summary is posted below. You can read the full release blog post at the Cloudberry site.

We are pleased to announce that CloudBerry Backup for WHS (v1, 2011, SBS 2011 Essentials and Windows Server 2012 Essentials) , the product that automates data backup directly to Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, Windows Azure and a few other cloud storage version 3.4 is released.

The new release comes with the following features.

FTP/SFTP server support
Cloudberry Backup now supports FTP and SFTP servers. With the new version users can backup their data to FTP and SFTP servers that are widely used for data storage. You can find more details in post covering backup to FTP and post covering backup to SFTP.

Master password
We added an ability to set master password in CloudBerry Backup. It may become very useful for IT administrators and users who need to lock software from unauthorized access. Once specified, master password will be required to access Cloudberry Backup, even if it’s already running in background.

Local backup speed improvements
Local backup is an option in CloudBerry Backup that allows backup to local drives, NAS, mapped network drives and network shares. Most of our users found local backup very useful feature but some complained on the low backup speed. In the new version we have improved local backup performance to allow users backup their data locally much faster.

Multiple emails notification
In previous versions Cloudberry Backup users were able to specify only one address for email notifications. From the new version users can set multiple email addresses to receive notification messages on backup completion status. You just have to write email addresses to proper line and separate them from one another with commas.

Clone backup plan
Also we introduced an ability to clone existing backup plans. Now instead of creating new backup plan from scratch users can copy an existing plan and modify it as required.

Ignore self signed SSL certificate
In previous versions backups to online storage with outdated SSL certificate were aborted by the software. Now your backup will run even if an issues with SSL certificate occur. This may be necessary for example for the local OpenStack Swift storage implementations.

Backup files < XX MB
We have also added new file filter based on a file size. Now users can specify the maximum size of the files to backup. For example you can set the application to backup only files that are less than 500 Mb, 1000 Mb, 5000 Mb or any other size that fits your requirements.

Check out our blog post for more details

If you’ve been holding off on purchasing a license for the Remote Notification Add-In for Windows Home Server v1, then now is the time as the price has been decreased nearly 50% to $8.00US. If you’re not familiar with Remote Notification you can download the Add-In and take it for a free 30 day test drive and even continue running it in the free mode after the trial period expires.

Visit RemoteNotification.com for more information, download the latest version, and purchase your license.

It has been a while since I did a writeup on metabrowser (since May 2011 to be precise), and a big reason for that is metabrowser just continues to do its thing in the background with very little intervention on my part. I am completely serious about this point as I have had metabrowser running on my WHSv1 server since 2009! The developer fatal has been hard at work over the years continually fine tuning metabrowser, adding in more features and improving stability. At this point I thought it would be a good time to take a look at what has changed since the last time I wrote about. I had hoped to also include some screenshots and walk through some of the enhancements but I am in the process of migrating my server over. Once that is set I will do another writeup which will also give me the opportunity to make sure metabrowser runs on Windows Server 2012 Essentials. For now here is a list of changes/enhancements that have been implemented over the past few years.

• Multi-select editing
  • Select multiple items of the same type (ie all movies or all series/episodes etc) and edit metadata
  • Only items of the same type can be multi-selected
  • Information Panel
    • Edit any information available
    • Items that have different values will be shown as <keep>
    • Items that have same values will show the value
    • Items that are empty will remain empty
  • Multi-value items (cast/crew/genres/studios/taglines/etc)
    • Remove all items from the list (ie delete all genres)
    • Add an item to the list (ie add the Genre “Family” to selected movies)
    • A combination of the two above (you cannot edit/delete a specific item when multi-selected)
  • Images
    • Delete any image for the selected items
    • Update images for the selected items by adding a locally stored image (all selected items will now have the same image)
• Multi Select  context menu
  • select multiple items of the same type and lock/unlock all etc
• Cast Image preview
  • similar to manually selecting posters/backrops…you can do the same for cast images now…select a person from the cast list and a button shows up over their image
• New UI
  • A fresher/cleaner look to the ui/windows
  • Mostly all windows are now resizeable and remember their last position (resize the poster/backdrop preview windows to show more images on screen)
• Hide Fields
  • The information panel can get pretty big b/c it holds information/ids for a lot of plugins (which you might not care about)
  • Right Click on the information panel and uncheck fields you do not wish to see
• Type Mappings
  • Specify what type a movie should be identified as based on extention and/or file size
• Episode Sorting
  • Added support for sorting based on air date (The.Daily.Show-2011-02-16.xyz.mkv) and sorting dvr-ms/wtv recordings with embedded metadata.
  • Added support for overwriting existing episodes if an existing episode was in the monitored folder but was of better quality (based on resolution) and/or contained keywords you are looking for
• Movie Sorting
  • Movie sorting is now available in metabrowser (similar to episode sorting)
  • F9 shortcut key brings up movie confirmation window
• New renaming constructs
  • $()$ is now available, which will help avoid blank characters from showing up if the metadata required for that rename is missing. You put your values in between the $( and )$ tags. (read here)
  • video resolution is also now supported as a construct
• Export List
  • Export list got a facelift, allowing you to select exactly what fields you want exported
• iTunes metadata tagger
  • New saver plugin
  • Tag your mp4, m4v, mov files with embedded metadata so they display nicely in iTunes etc
• Play Video plugin
  • Similar to the play trailer plugin…plays your movie in the external player specified in settings
• TV Schedule
  • A TV Schedule is now available to see when your shows will be airing next
  • Also has the ability to missing episodes, ie, episodes that you do not currently have on your hard drive
  • Add a series not currently in your collection to the tv schedule as well to keep track of next airing
  • Configure in Settings->TV->Schedule
• Music Support (very basic)
  • only reads/writes embedded id3 tags (no local metadata support)
  • Music support is still beta (it might be dropped)
  • Only supports MP3 files
  • The media collection list is built using Artist->Album->Song structure using existing ID3 tag information
  • No fetching is yet available, you can manually edit and save any metadata
  • Metadata is saved to the file itself using ID3 tags
  • No local metadata is saved or read
• Image panel context menus
  • Right clicking on any image pagel (ie poster or cast image) will bring up helpful context menu allowing you to copy/paste and or save locally or add a locally stored image
  • Right Click->Copy an image from Google Images and paste it into meta<browser/> (for those hard to find images)
  • Copy an image from meta<browser/> and paste it into your favorite image editor. Edit to your liking, copy from image editor and paste into meta<browser/>.
  • Please note that the copy/paste does not support transparency
• Fanart.tv plugin
  • support for fanart.tv logots/clear arts, thumbs for movies and tv
• Helpful tooltips
  • Hover your mouse over a person in the cast list or an item in the current trailers queue to get helpfull tips
• Resize Images Plugin
  • The resize images plugin now supports resizing of cast images
• iPad (tablet) centric web app
  • http://themetabrowser.com/boards/4/topics/5567
• Media center notification
  • If you are using episode or movie sorting and have the Add In installed on your media center machines, you can now send a message to your media center when new media is added to your collection.
  • Your media center must show up in settings->web service for it to send notification
• External subtitle file support
  • External subtitle files are not picked up by metabrowser and added to your media info
  • Support for multi language subtitle files (if named correctly)
• New installer which adds a “Launch meta<browser/>” checkbox at end of install/update and also takes care of adding permissions to the ProgramData\MetaBrowser 2.0 folder, although you still need to run as administrator if you are using the web service.
• XBMC Frodo plugin
  • With the release of XBMC Frodo comes a new local/saver plugin (available through Auto Update) to read/save metadata compatible with Frodo.
• TMDb Plugin
  • The TMDb plugin has been updated to use their v3.0 API. v3.0 adds some niceties such as ordering posters based on your preferred language, no more posters in different languages popping up b/c they are higher rated. Read here about TMDb API 3 which also lists some differences from v2.1.

Mare sure to head over to the main themetabrowser site and at a minimum give the trial a shot if you are still on the fence.

I have been kicking around the idea for a while of building a new server to replace my current WHSv1 server (codename: Shawshank Redemption). I built Shawshank back in August of 2009 and aside from a few hiccups along the way it has been rock solid. Naturally this brings up the question, if it ain’t broke why fix it? Well, right now I have a few reasons for wanting to upgrade:

1. Support for HDDs greater then 2TB (I realize there is a hack/workaround for this in WHSv1 but it just seems like too much work, I rather have a solution  that just works out of the box)
2. Software development/support is slowly fading from WHSv1. A perfect example, My Movies stopped supporting WHSv1 a while ago, which means any new features or enhancements get missed out on
3. Consolidate hardware. I ran out of space in Shawshank so I added on an enhanceBox  eSata enclosure which has worked well. However, this adds another device to the mix which means one more variable to take into account if a problem occurs. Also, I have run into issues getting SMART data from the drives in the enclosure which leaves me feeling a little unsettled.
4. I’m a geek who likes to run the latest/greatest

Now here is the main roadblock. Unfortunately I cannot simply upgrade Shawshank from WHSv1 to another O/S, it needs to be a clean install. This is a bit of a daunting task because of the amount of data Shawshank holds, so I can’t just simply transfer my files over to an external drive, install the new O/S, and then copy the data back. Instead, it looks like I will need to do an entirely new server build, get it up and running (while Shawshank is still running as well) , and then start slowly copying the data over. I don’t know when I will do this as time is at a bit of a premium right now, but I just can’t get rid of the itch to do something soon. Here is what I am thinking:

Operating System:

I am leaning towards Windows Server 2012 Essentials. This is obviously a more expensive solution, but since I have access to a copy for free that helps to lessen the blow. The downside with moving away from WHSv1 is I lose the built in DE functionality. I am not looking to do any sort of RAID and Storage Spaces just doesn’t seem all that reliable, so I will probably look to a 3rd party add in such as DriveBender or Stablebit.

Hardware:

This is where the fun will be had, choosing the hardware. Since I use my server for transcoding duties I will probably go with a core i7 CPU. I haven’t looked at motherboards yet, but if the one I go with does not have an Intel NIC I will add on a dedicated Intel NIC card (which is what I do already for Shawshank, or I could simply move over the Intel NIC from Shawshank once the data transfer is complete).

Probably the most difficult decision right now will be choosing the case. Since I require the ability to utilize a lot of hard drives for storage, this automatically eliminates a lot of potential cases. My server is located in my office at home, so a rack mounted case is not an option (thus eliminating options like the popular Norco cases). I was looking at some of the Chenbro, Rosewill, or Supermicro pedestal cases, but I may just go crazy and get  the Lian Li PC-D8000 which can hold 20 3.5″ hard drives internally and has 5 5.25″ external bays that could be converted for additional HDD storage. With the internal drives I lose the hot swap ability, but given I rarely have to move around drives I am fine with. Also, not needing some sort of hot swap backplane just means there is one less component I have to worry about if something goes bad.  I am still not 100% set on going with this case (and need to do some measurements as it looks to be a beast as you can see from the pics below).

The last thing I will need to sort out (aside from a PSU which I will definitely go with a modular version) will be what RAID cards to use. In Shawshank I am using the Supermicro SASLP SATA RAID cards, but I am not sure about their compatibility with WS 2012 E. This is something I will need to do more reading on before I make  decision.

Final Thoughts:

As of now I think I have a rough outline of what direction I want to move in, and now that I have written about it I am even more anxious to get something started.

Have any of you done a new server build of late (whether new or migrating from another server platform)? If so I would love to hear from you about your build and experience.

I know there have been people patiently (or impatiently lol) waiting for my Dune HD TV303D review, so the time has finally arrived . How does it fare against the previous Dune models such as the Smart D1 or BD Prime 3.0? Well, you will need to read below!

Specifications:

Price: USD 199 (available here)

• Processor: Sigma Designs 8672/8673
• RAM: 512 MB
• Flash memory: 256 MB
• Connectors: HDMI 1.4, 2x USB 2.0 (1x rear, 1x side), composite, component, analog stereo outputs, optical S/PDIF, coaxial SPDIF, USB 3.0 slave, Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mb/s, Wi-Fi 802.11n, SD card slot (side), power input, power switch (back), LED indicator (front)
• Internal storage: Internal HDD rack with hot swap function for SATA HDD 2.5″. USB 3.0 slave interface and provided USB 3.0 (slave-host) cable allow fastest possible way of transferring data between PC and player
• Media sources: external HDD (USB), external optical drive (USB), USB devices (USB flash drive, USB card reader, etc), built-in SD card reader (SD/SDHC), PC and NAS in local network (SMB, NFS, UPnP, HTTP), other Internet and local network media sources (HTTP, multicast UDP RTP)
• Web Browser: Opera, WebKit
• DLNA: DLNA (1.5 or 2.0) client support
• Adobe Flash: 3.1 (Lite, standalone) supported
• DRM options: PlayReady, Verimatrix, Secure Media. Other DRM can be added by request
• Video codecs: MPEG2, MPEG4, XVID, WMV9, VC1, H.264; support for very high bitrate video (up to 50 MBit/s and higher)
• Video file formats: MKV, MPEG-TS, MPEG-PS, M2TS, VOB, AVI, MOV, MP4, QT, ASF, WMV, BDMV, DVD-ISO, VIDEO_TS
• 3D Video Support: MVC, Side-by-side, Top/Bottom
• Video output modes: wide range of supported output resolutions (up to 1080p) and framerates (including 23.976p, 24p, PAL, NTSC)
• Video output framerate: automatic (according to the played content) and manual
• Audio codecs: AC3 (Dolby Digital), DTS, MPEG, AAC, LPCM, WMA, WMAPro, FLAC, multichannel FLAC, Ogg/Vorbis; support for very high quality audio (up to 192 kHz / 24-bit)
• Audio file formats: MP3, MPA, M4A, WMA, FLAC, APE (Monkey’s Audio), WV Pack, Ogg/Vorbis, WAV, AC3, AAC
• Subtitle formats: SRT (external), SUB (MicroDVD) (external), text (MKV), SSA/ASS (MKV, external), VobSub (MP4, MKV, external SUB/IDX), PGS (Blu-ray, TS, MKV)
• Hardware 3D Graphics Acceleration: OpenGL support
• Picture file formats: JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF
• Playlist file formats: M3U, PLS
• Photo viewer functions: slideshow, transition effects, picture rotation, zoom, browse playlist, repeat, shuffle Audio playback functions: browse playlist, repeat, shuffle, ID3 tags, plasma TV burn-in prevention
• Filesystems: FAT16/FAT32 (read-write), EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 (read-write), NTFS (read-write)
• Ethernet: 10/100/1000 Mb/s
• Wi-Fi: Internal Wi-Fi (b/g/n) module
• Dune Network Playback Accelerator: special optimizations ensuring best-in-class network playback performance for the Sigma Designs 864x-865x-867x platform and enabling smooth playback of any supported kind of media content via any network protocol (including NFS and SMB) even in 100 Mbit/s Ethernet networks.

Hardware:

The box …

At the front of the box you will find the IR LED

On the left side of the case is a bay to slide in an internal 2.5″ hard drive.

On the right side is a USB 2.0 and SD card input

To the back you will see your usual array of inputs and outputs.

Here is a picture of all the goods, which includes a USB 3.0 slave cable, HDMI cable, Wireless antenna, IR extender cable, remote control w/ batteries, and power plug.

You may be thinking that the case looks awfully familiar, and you are right, as it is the same case used for the TV301 I reviewed last year. It is a very simple and sturdy fanless aluminum case. It won’t win any awards for design, but has the perfect form factor to hide away in a cabinet or even attached to the back of a TV (with the benefit of the IR extender).

UI Appearance:

The UI has undergone a bit of an overhaul from the previous Dune series, going with a simpler icon view (although you can switch back to the previous UI by changing the skin)

Once you get past the main menu though navigating around has the same look and feel as the previous Dune models.

One of the biggest changes with the TV303D versus the previous Dunes (with the exception of the previous TV series) is the removal of full BD Menu support (thanks to Cinavia). This means that the TV303D relies on BD lite when playing back Blu ray folder rips. When you go to play back a Blu-ray folder rip (or ISO) you will be greeted with all available playlists to choose from (sorted by timecode, so the main movie should be the first playlist).

Since there is no full menu support, while watching a Blu-ray folder rip a simplified BD Lite menu will appear that will allow you to navigate between chapters, audio tracks, subtitles, etc… The only downside I can see from this, if you are watching a full disc rip you will need to stop and re-select the movie if you want to choose a different playlist.

So as you can see, the UI is relatively basic and clean. One of my biggest criticisms in the past has always revolved around the UI, where the user is forced to navigate around in hopes of getting to a jukebox. Well, with the TV303D (and hopefully coming to all other Dune players in an upcoming firmware update), there is a new feature which allows you to boot directly into your jukebox of choice (see the Third Party Jukebox section for more information).

Responsiveness/Remote Control:

The remote control is IR based which means direct line of sight is needed. The layout is basically the same as all previous Dune remotes, with just a few different buttons (There is a “TV” button in place of the “Eject” button). Previous Dune remotes work without an issue as well with the TV303D. Also included is an IR Extender which I am a big fan of, especially since due to the size of  the TV303D you could easily mount it behind a TV or out of site.

Navigating around I found the TV303D to be relatively snappy, feeling a little quicker then the previous Dune models in moving around the various menus/settings. There was not a big jump in performance, and I saw no difference when accessing my jukeboxes which are stored on the network.

Network Performance:

The TV303D has a gigE NIC and was able to recognize smb set up on my Windows Home Server. For whatever reason though I could not get it to see my nfs set up (nor have I ever been able to with any of my Dunes), so testing will be done solely via smb. Using the infamous “bird scene” from Planet Earth I was able to play back without issue the 100 Mbps clip via smb, with the same results using a jellyfish clip. The smb performance is markedly improved via smb over the previous Dune models (where I would top out at 70 Mbps).

Of course, the main question, how does the TV303D handle playback of high bitrate content over the network, in particular Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray rips (both ISO and folder rips). Using smb, 2D Blu-ray played back with very little issue, which was to be expected. Since I couldn’t get nfs to work (which has been the only protocol I have been able to stream Blu-ray 3Ds effectively) I was concerned that smb wouldn’t cut it. I was pleasantly surprised to see that smb on the TV303D was up to the task, playing back Blu-ray 3Ds. I won’t lie, I am still a little skeptical about Blu-ray 3D over smb (maybe because I have seen it fail on the other players I have tested), but it appears that Dune’s outstanding smb performance on its previous players carries through here.

Audio/Video Playback:

I tested playback using the latest TV303D public firmware at the time of this post , and below are the results:

• mkv w/ chapters – (PASS)
• mkv w/ 480p internal IDX/SUB subtitles  (PASS)
• mkv w/ 1080p internal IDX/SUB subtitles  (FAIL-1)
• mkv w/multiple SSA subtitles – subtitles are not displayed properly (FAIL-2)
• mkv w/ internal PGS subtitles (PASS)
• HD Audio downmix to stereo – DTS(MA) (PASS) / TrueHD (PASS/FAIL-3)
• HD Audio downmix to multi channel PCM (over HDMI) – DTS(MA) (PASS/FAIL-4)/ TrueHD (FAIL-4)
• mkv w/ forced subtitles –  (PASS/FAIL-5)
• mkv/(m2)ts with DTS(MA) – bitstreamed - (PASS)
• mkv/(m2)ts with TrueHD Audio Track – bitstreamed - (PASS)
• mkv/(m2)ts with Dolby Digital Plus – bitstreamed  - (PASS)
• mkv w/ VC-1 encoded video – played (PASS)
• Forced Subtitles in a BluRay Structure (2D and 3D) – (FAIL-6)
• BluRay ISO (main movie only) – played (PASS)
• BluRay Folder/ISO (entire disc, both 2D and 3D) – played movie, only main movie with bd lite menu support (PASS). However, if the BluRay is a seamless branch (i.e. the main movie is broken up into multiple files) playback issues were encountered (FAIL-7)
• DVD ISO and/or Folder Structure – played with full menus (PASS/FAIL-8)
• 1080p quicktime (.mov) trailer – played (PASS)
• 1080p WMV w/ WMAPro Audio – (PASS)
• avi/mpeg/m4v/mp4 clips – played (PASS)
• mkv w/ FLAC – played w/ multi channel PCM (PASS)
• mkv w/ header compression – played (PASS)
• 3D SBS mkv – played (PASS), and signal to switch TV to 3D mode sent as long as file is named properly (filename.3DSBS.mkv / filename.3DTAB.mkv)
• 3D mvc mkv – audio but no video (FAIL-9)
• 1080p60 mkvs- played (PASS)
• L5.1 mkvs – played (PASS)
• 16 Reference Frame mkvs – – played (PASS)

From looking above you can see there are some interesting test results.

1) No surprise but 1080p IDX/SUB subtitles don’t even appear an an option to choose in an mkv. I don’t know though how common these subtitles are since 1080p PGS subtitles would most likely be more commonly used (if I recall IDX/SUB subtitles are typically what is used with DVDs).

2) The subtitles in my SSA sample appear, but just as standard text (if played back correctly the subtitles would appear in multiple colors, sizes, and positions)

3) DTS(MA) in both mkv and Blu-ray structures downmixed to 2ch stereo. TrueHD in a Blu-ray structure downmixed to 2ch stereo. However, TrueHD in an mkv did not get downmixed, but instead was bitstreamed through. This has me thinking that downmix of standalone TrueHD tracks is not supported (in the case of a Blu-ray structure there is an embedded AC3 track which the Dune can use to downmix, no such track exists in a TrueHD mkv).

4) For HD Audio over HDMI, the TV303D does not downmix to multi channel PCM natively, only 2ch stereo. Using the custom patch you can add back multi channel decoding of DTS(MA), but for TrueHD you still only get the original TrueHD track bitstreamed (as mentioned above)

5) The TV303d does not support forced subtitles in mkvs natively. However, user ScottJ comes to the rescue with a custom patch that brings forced subtitle support.

6) Forced subtitles did not appear to work on Blu-ray folder rips (using District 9 as my test). This is a common issue with BD Lite. This applies to both 2D and 3D Blu-ray rips (Folder and ISO)

7) Using my Toy Story 3 Blu-ray rip for seamless branch testing, the TV303D would pause for a few seconds in between each jump to the next m2ts file. Right now this seems to affect all players  that rely on BD lite for playback. This applies to both 2D and 3D Blu-ray rips (Folder and ISO).

8) I wasn’t expecting this one, but playing full DVDs caused some issues. For one DVD ISO the menu would freeze. During playback there was stuttering or jumping (possibly during the transition from one VOB to the next). I should note that I was experiencing some hard drive issues at the time that may have affected this, so I need to go back to reconfirm my results, and once done I will update here.

9) 3D mvc mkvs are a relatively new product. Currently  the TV303D plays this file with only audio and no video.

To further clarify, HD audio tests and tests on Blu-ray structures apply to both 2D and 3D structures (both as ISOs and folder rips)

*** There is one issue not highlighted in the tests that needs to be mentioned. For anyone who has owned any of the newer Sigma players, one consistent bug has been severe audio drops with DTS(MA). Unfortunately the TV303D suffers from the same bug. Playing back my Star Wars I Blu-ray, within the first minute I started getting audio dropouts. I had to shut off the player quickly because the pops on the dropouts got so loud on my rear channels that I thought I was going to blow a speaker. Switching to a secondary AC3 track fixed the issue, but obviously this is not an ideal situation.  Sigma only recently fixed the DTS(MA) dropout bug in the SMP8911 chip, but it appears they are just dragging their feet on the previous Sigma chips for over a year. Hopefully Dune can start pressuring Sigma to fix this bug as it has a pretty negative impact on the player in my opinion.

Now keep in mind, there is no way I can test every possible file, and once you start getting down to files that have been encoded there are a myriad of variables involved that can affect the playback and compatibility (so just because I show for example an mp4 file as passing doesn’t mean all mp4 files out there will pass since an mp4 is simply the container). To be consistent I try  to use the same files for all my testing while adding in some new ones over time.

Third Party Jukebox:

All third party jukeboxes that worked with the previous Dune models (such as Zappiti, yaDIS, and 10Muse to name a few) function in the same manner with the TV303D. Since I have gone into detail already on some of the 3rd party jukeboxes I won’t focus on with this review.

However, there is one item worth nothing. The biggest complaint with the 3rd party jukeboxes is that the user still had to navigate to and launch the jukebox manually. Well, now you will have the ability for the user to have the TV303D boot directly into your jukebox of choice. I think this is important as it makes the TV303D more user friendly (in particular family friendly) and seamless since the user never has to see any of the other Dune related menus. To do this all that is needed is to add your jukebox of choice to your favorites, the same process used for the previous Dune models. Once this is done, simply hit the “Pop Up” button with the jukebox in your favorites selected and choose the “Launch on Power On” option

You can also manage this from the Power Management settings:

Now when I turn the TV303D on I am greeted by the familiar Zappiti jukebox:

Online Content

Really not too much to talk about here. There are just some basic apps available right now. Of course, the answer to the question everyone wants to know is no (is there Vudu, Hulu +, Netflix, etc…)

Misc:

There are a couple other items I wanted to touch on:

1. 2D / 3D Playback – I had mentioned a similar note in my PCH A-400 review. One thing I liked about the Mede8er 1000X3D is the ability to switch between 2D and 3D by simply bringing up the BD Lite menu during movie playback. With the TV303D the only way to do this is to manually turn off 3D on your TV. This is a PITA in my opinion. I never use my TV remote, and with my TV you actually have to navigate through the settings to turn off (unlike some other TVs that have a 3D button on the remote) . Hopefully this is something that can be implemented into the BD Lite menu down the road.

2. Full Blu-ray menu support – As mentioned already, the TV303D does not support Blu-ray menus. This is expected as adding support for would mean also bringing in Cinavia, but is a big departure for current Dune owners who are used to having full Blu-ray support.

Final Thoughts:

Overall I would say I have some mixed thoughts with the TV303D. On a positive note, network performance is excellent which is critical for anyone looking to stream HD content (especially Blu-ray 3D) over a network. However, there are some critical issues that need to be addressed. The most notable one is the DTS(MA) audio drop out issue. This falls squarely on the back of Sigma as they have been releasing chips with this bug for over a year. Hopefully now that Dune has a lot riding on the newer Sigma chips, they can pressure Sigma into providing a fix relatively quick.

The next issue revolves around the use of BD Lite, which is affecting all players that use currently. The two issues are proper support for seamless branch and forced subtitles, and it is not entirely clear if either of these issues can be resolved.

Lastly, from my testing of mkvs with TrueHD audio it would appear that the TV303D does not have a license to decode TrueHD. I find this to be a big issue because I see the TV303D as being an ideal secondary player because of its size. Odds are though if using as a secondary player you would be connecting directly to a TV which means if you play back a TrueHD mkv you will get no sound. The then developers of the SageTV 300 had a creative fix, where as long as you had a secondary AC3 audio track the device would automatically switch over. This may be something worth investigating by the Dune developers.

With all this, this is where I think things get tricky for Dune. One of the biggest selling points for myself as well as other current Dune owners is reliability/stability of their players, as well as the ability to seamlessly handle playback of Blu-ray rips (folder and ISO). Now that BD Lite has to be relied on though, all this comes into question. Unfortunately I don’t know much about the behind-the-scenes of BD Lite to know if this can be fixed. If it can be fixed then hopefully Dune can throw their resources behind quickly to get working as this would allow for the smoothest transition for folks who already use the current Dune media players. If not then focus should be placed on getting mkvs working 100%, which means native forced subtitle support and support for mvc mkv.

I don’t mean to paint such a bleak picture as I feel the TV303D did a relatively solid job at launch where aside from some of the bugs I could still use it for normal use (as opposed to some other players which were essentially paperweights for me at launch). With Cinavia we are in sort of a transition period for media players, so it will take some time for the dust to settle. For now if you currently own a Dune based on the SMP8642/8643 and don’t need Blu-ray 3D support, I would hold onto that player for dear life and even possibly pick up another as the supply is getting thin. The TV303D has the potential to be a great little media player if some of the issues I brought up get addressed in a relatively quick manner.

Also, 2 things that have been asked of me before is how does picture quality compare and why don’t I focus on music/photo playback. When it comes to picture quality I just go simply on how it looks to my eyes. There are so many variables that could affect picture quality that it is really hard to give a concrete answer. I know there are a variety of PQ tests I could run, but honestly I am just the type of person who likes to pop on a movie and enjoy it without over analyzing every detail. If there is something that sticks out I would definitely point out in a heartbeat.

With Music/Photos, this is an area that I just don’t use media players for (I use Sonos for all my music playback). I prefer to keep my reviews focused solely on how I use the player as I feel this allows me to give the best, most detailed feedback. I do understand that for some people this leaves my reviews feeling a little incomplete, but for the most part I feel that most folks reading my reviews are probably using their media player in the same fashion as myself.

Thanks to Mike and DunePlayer.com for providing me the TV303D to review.

Media Browser, my go to HTPC front end, is making some big moves as it looks to expand its role beyond Windows Media Center. Here are some of things you can expect when Media Browser 3 is released:

Media Browser will become a client-server application beginning with version three, and will be targeting multiple platforms. The server runs on Windows 7/8 and Windows Server 2008/2012. There are currently six client applications in development. Leading the way is Media Browser Theater, powered by VLC, which is the replacement for MB2 and runs as a stand-alone application on Windows 7/8.

I am a big fan of the client-server setup, so this shows a lot of promise. More importantly though, Media Browser will be breaking out of the WMC mold. The biggest drawback of this would be for those people who use WMC for live TV as you will still need to rely on WMC (talking specifically about CableCard setups). If you are using unencrypted live TV, the plan is to have this incorporated into Media Browser. Unfortunately WMC appears to be on its last leg, and my guess we aren’t too far off from seeing MS abandon completely, so becoming a stand alone app is critical IMO to the survival of Media Browser.

The big question with Media Browser as a stand alone app is how video playback would be handled. The developers have decided to go with VLC because in their opinion it is the most stable player around, plays just about everything without any setup, and has an incredibly robust api. It is embedded into the application using libvlc. I honestly have only used VLC briefly as I prefer MPC HC as my video player so I can’t comment on how well it works (I believe right now the main issue for us HD Audio guys is that it does not support bitstreaming HD Audio, although it is something being worked on). Also, many folks who use MPC HC do so because of the ability to go with custom filters (MadVR, LAV, etc…), so I don’t know if this is something that can somehow be incorporated into VLC. You will still have the ability to use 3rd party players, and there is the possibility if MPC HC comes out with a robust API it could be incorporated into Media Browser in the same fashion as VLC.

Then there is the Dashboard, a web-based client, which runs in any HTML5-enabled browser. This houses the server’s configuration interface and will also provide the ability to browse the library and play content. In addition, Media Browser will be coming to Android, Windows RT, Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8. 

All you mobile fans will be happy to see Media Browser is coming to several of the mobile platforms such as Android and Windows. The server application will have a transcoding API which will allow for the ability to play your media collection on a variety of platforms without worrying about file compatibility (similar to Plex or Remote Potato)

Last but not least, and perhaps most importantly, we now have a public web-based API and are actively seeking developers to create new plugins and help bring Media Browser to even more platforms. iOS, Roku and DLNA remain very high on our wish list. Community members who would like to contribute are encouraged to utilize the API in any manner they wish, even to accomplish smaller goals than building a client application.

I always find that many of these applications live and die by the community, so opening up the API to the public should hopefully attract a lot of developers. This should help to take Media Browser to the next level in terms of custom-ability and feature-rich offerings.

As of now, there is a limited beta planned for March, with a public release hopefully shortly to follow in April. Pricing will work the same as with the current Media Browser platform (the core will be free with a marketplace for the various plugins).

The official Media Browser 3 site should be live in the next hour (9am EST). For now here are some images for your viewing pleasure:

Android:

HTML:

Media Browser Theater:

Windows 8:

Windows Phone:

Another day, another PCH review  This time, let’s take a look at the new Popcorn Hour A-400.

Specifications:

Price: USD 249 (available here or here)

Connectivity

• Bonjour, UpnP SSDP, UPnP AV, Windows Media Connect, Windows Media Player NSS, Samba, NFS.
• BitTorrent P2P, Usenet downloader
• NAS Access : SMB, NFS, FTP

Supported Media File Formats

• Video containers: MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V),MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG, DAT, VOB),MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS),AVI, ASF, WMV, Matroska (MKV),MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4, 3D BD ISO
• Video Decoders: XVID SD/HD,MPEG-1, MPEG-2 MP@HL, MPEG-4.2 ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC, MPEG-4.10 (H.264) : BP@L3, MP@L4.0, HP@L4.0, HP@L4.1,WMV9 : MP@HL,SMPTE 421M (VC-1) : MP@HL, AP@L3
• Audio Containers: AAC, M4A,MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA),WAV, WMA, FLAC, OGG
• Audio Decoders: Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS,WMA, WMA Pro,MPEG-1 Layer 1, 2, 3, MPEG-4 AAC-LC, MPEG-4 HE-AAC, MPEG-4 BSAC ,LPCM, FLAC, Vorbis, TrueAudio, APE Audio
• Audio Pass-Through: DTS, DTS-HD HR, DTS-HD MA, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD
• Other Formats: ISO, IFO navigation, Simple BD navigation
• Photo Formats: JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
• Subtitle Formats: Open-subtitle support, SRT, MicroDVD SUB, SSA, SUB/IDX

Chipset

• Sigma Designs SMP8911 Dual-Core 800Mhz with 512KB L2 Cache with VXP Video Processor

Memory

• 512MB DDR2, 256MB SLC NAND Flash

Audio/Video Outputs

• HDMI, Component, CVBS, Stereo Audio, S/PDIF, Digital Optical

Other Interface

• Power LED and Standby LED, 2x USB 2.0 Host, 1 x USB 3.0 Slave, 1 x eSATA, quick dock mounting for 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA HDD, Infra-Red Remote Control, SD card reader.

Network

• Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbps

Power

• 12V DC, 3.5A Max

Dimension

• Width x Depth x Height : 182mm (W) x 158mm (L) x 56mm (H) (7.2″ x 6.2″ x 2.2″)

Weight

• 1.3kg (2.86lbs)
• Casing designed by Silverstone aluminum Case, fanless Operation

Package Content

• 1 x Popcorn Hour A-400, 1 x Remote Control, 2 x AAA Battery,
  1 x HDMI Cable, 1 x eSATA Cable, 1 x USB 3.0 Slave Cable, 1 x AC Power Adapter,
  1 x Quick Start Guide, 1 x Warranty Card

Hardware:

The box …

At the front of the box you will find the IR LED

On the right side of the case is a tray for an internal hard drive along with a USB 2.0 connection.

The hard drive tray unlocks with t he use of a hex key. Simply remove, place hard drive in tray and secure, and put the tray back in the A-400.

To the back you will see your usual array of inputs and outputs.

Here is a picture of all the goods, which includes a USB 3.0 slave cable, HDMI cable, eSata cable, remote control w/ batteries, and power brick.

I must say to date this is my favorite case of all the PCH models. The silverstone aluminum case used has a very solid feel, it is fanless, and has a small footprint.

UI Appearance:

I am not going to spend much time addressing the UI of the A-400 since it is the same as the A-300 I reviewed . Here are a couple of shots from that review.

The A-400 no longer supports full Blu-ray menus, but instead relies on BD Lite menus (which you can see below)

Responsiveness/Remote Control:

The remote control is IR based which means direct line of sight is needed. The layout is exactly what you would expect from a PCH remote, and being backlit is always a positive.  I found the A-400 to be responsive to the remote.

Navigating around I found the experience to be very similar to the A-300. Scrolling through a list was relatively fast, but would hang periodically for 5-10 seconds (so not completely fluid). The bigger issue I ran in to with navigating was the system hanging up, at times for over 1 minute as I tried to navigate around. I believe though this to be more a network related issue with the A-400

Network Performance:

The PCH A-400 has a gigE NIC and was able to recognize both smb and nfs set up on my Windows Home Server. Using the infamous “bird scene” from Planet Earth I was able to play back without issue the 120 Mbps clip via smb and the 100 Mbps clip via nfs. I got the same results when using a jellyfish clip. The smb performance is markedly improved via smb over the A-300 (where I would top out at 70 Mbps).

Although these results seem rosy, there was some items worth noting. First off, it appears that NFS implementation is actually worse then smb (typically it is the other way around). When I tried to play the bird scene or jellyfish beyond 100 Mbps over nfs it would either lock up the A-400, or the screen would just go blank, and then return to the menu. Other users I have talked to as well have noted poor or inconsistent performance over NFS.

The bigger issue I encountered, and I touched on briefly in the section above, I would get the “loading circle” frequently when navigating around my files on the network . I am not even talking about playback, but just moving the cursor from one file to the next. At times this loading circle would run for over 1 minute before getting access back. This alone made reviewing the A-400 one of the most frustrating reviews I have done, to the extent that some days I would try testing, and within 5 minutes I just walked away.

Of course, the main question, how does the A-400 handle playback of high bitrate content over the network, in particular Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray rips. Using smb, 2D Blu-ray played back with very little issue. However, 3D Blu-ray was a completely different story with some very inconsistent results. Some 3D Blu-ray ISOs were unwatchable from the start (stuttering, loading cirle,etc…), such as The Avengers while others played with only occasional stutters. I played back  the same files using an attached drive and they played fine, so it is definitely a network issue.

On a positive note, so far I have not noticed any issues with dropped network connections. On the A-300 and Popbox v8, periodically the device completely loses connection to my network and requires a reboot, nothing so far with the A-400.

Audio/Video Playback:

I tested playback using the latest PCH A400 public firmware at the time of this post (18-Jan-2012 / 05-01-130118-24-POP-422-000), and below are the results:

• mkv w/ chapters – (PASS)
• mkv w/ 480p internal IDX/SUB subtitles  (PASS)
• mkv w/ 1080p internal IDX/SUB subtitles  (FAIL)
• mkv w/multiple SSA subtitles – subtitles are not displayed properly (PASS/FAIL)
• mkv w/ internal PGS subtitles (PASS)
• HD Audio downmix to stereo – DTS(MA) (PASS) / TrueHD (PASS)
• HD Audio downmix to multi channel PCM (over HDMI) – DTS(MA) (FAIL)/ TrueHD (FAIL)
• mkv w/ forced subtitles –  (PASS)
• mkv/(m2)ts with DTS(MA) – bitstreamed - (PASS)
• mkv/(m2)ts with TrueHD Audio Track – bitstreamed - (PASS/FAIL)
• mkv/(m2)ts with Dolby Digital Plus – bitstreamed  - (PASS)
• mkv w/ VC-1 encoded video – played without issue (PASS)
• Forced Subtitles in a BluRay Structure (2D and 3D) – (FAIL)
• BluRay ISO (main movie only) – played (PASS)
• BluRay Folder/ISO (entire disc, both 2D and 3D) – played movie, only main movie with bd lite menu support (PASS). However, if the BluRay is a seamless branch (i.e. the main movie is broken up into multiple files) playback issues were encountered (FAIL)
• DVD ISO and/or Folder Structure – played with full menus (PASS)
• 1080p quicktime (.mov) trailer – played (PASS)
• 1080p WMV w/ WMAPro Audio – (PASS)
• avi/mpeg/m4v/mp4 clips – played (PASS)
• mkv w/ FLAC – played w/ multi channel PCM (PASS)
• mkv w/ header compression – played (PASS)
• 3D SBS mkv – played (PASS), and signal to switch TV to 3D mode sent as long as file is named properly (filename.3DSBS.mkv / filename.3DTAB.mkv)
• 3D mvc mkv – plays only in 2D (FAIL)
• 1080p60 mkvs- played (PASS)
• L5.1 mkvs – played (PASS)
• 16 Reference Frame mkvs – – played (PASS)

Although the A-400 was able to play back a large majority of files, it was a bit of a mixed bag.

1) Audio issues with HD Audio – when  the A-400 was first released, it suffered from the DTS(MA) audio bug, which for me at least made the A-400 unusable since a large portion of my library is Blu ray rips with DTS(MA). Close to a month after release the bug was finally corrected (although still present in the 300 series), so that was a big fix IMO. However, it appears along with this fix there are now some issues with TrueHD (audio sync and audio drop issues). Syabas has acknowledged these issues in the latest firmware release notes, so hopefully a fix is right around the corner.

2) Using my Toy Story 3 Blu-ray rip for seamless branch testing, the A-400 would pause for a few seconds in between each jump to the next m2ts file. Right now this seems to affect all players  that rely on BD lite for playback. This applies to both 2D and 3D Blu-ray rips (Folder and ISO)

3) Forced subtitles did not appear to work on Blu-ray folder rips (using District 9 as my test). Similar to point #2, this seems to be a common issue with BD Lite. This applies to both 2D and 3D Blu-ray rips (Folder and ISO)

4) For HD Audio over HDMI, the A-400 can either bitstream or downmix to 2ch stereo (an issue for those who want the HD Audio decoded to multi channel PCM).

5) 3D mvc mkvs are a relatively new product. When first released, the A-400 would play this file with only audio and no video. With a recent firmware update, this file plays back now, but only in 2D.

6) There are some conflicting reports with SSA subtitles. The sample file I test with does not play back properly on my A-400. The subs start to appear and then stall. If i stop the file and restart the subs appear again, but appear to play catch up and eventually overlap. Another user tested the same file. The subs appeared exactly as expected, although he did notice overlapping towards the end.

7) Just to clarify, the tests above for BD structures and HD Audio relate to both 2D Blu-ray rips (folders/ISOs) and 3D Blu-ray rips (ISOs). Over the network 3D Blu-ray ISOs struggled to play back properly, but once connected directly to the PCH A400 (using a USB 2.0 drive) they played fine.

Overall, the A-400 did a solid job at playing back a majority of the files tested. The DTS(MA) bug which was present at launch and the type of bug I considered a show stopper has been fixed, although it appears at the sacrifice of TrueHD in some cases. Hopefully in the near future proper support for all HD Audio codecs can be addressed, cleaning up nagging issues with the implementation of BD Lite (seamless branch, forced subtitles), and full 3D support for mvc mkvs.

Now keep in mind, there is no way I can test every possible file, and once you start getting down to files that have been encoded there are a myriad of variables involved that can affect the playback and compatibility (so just because I show for example an mp4 file as passing doesn’t mean all mp4 files out there will pass since an mp4 is simply the container). To be consistent I try  to use the same files for all my testing while adding in some new ones over time.

Networked Media Jukebox:

The A-400 comes with its own internal jukebox called NMJ. Since I already covered this in my A-300 review, I won’t go into here (see screenshot below for UI). Instead, I will take a look at the NMJ Navigator App, which is available for both iOS and Android.

So what exactly is the NMJ Navigator App

The new NMJ Navigator screen app allows you to browse your movies and music collections with ease. Just connect your iPad® to your LAN with your Popcorn Hour A-400. The NMJ Navigator also acts as a soft remote, allowing you to have complete control over your Popcorn Hour A-400 with your iPad® or Android tablet. With Interactive menus, you can easily sort your collection, share what you are watching with your friends on social network sites, or browse for movie information.
Listening to music is also interactive! You can listen to your favorite album without turning on your TV, just scroll through the list on your iPad® while connected through your LAN to your Popcorn Hour A-400 and listen to it on your audio system.

The first thing to mention, even if you don’t plan on using NMJ on your PCH, you need  to have it set up and running to use the App. Once you have NMJ set up on the PCH, launch the app on your mobile device (I tested with an iPad). Assuming both the PCH and the tablet are on the same network the app should automatically locate your PCH. From there you can choose between your TV Show and Movie library.

Unfortunately NMJ did a pretty poor job with its metadata retrieval on my sample library (i.e. only half of the shows below are actually TV Shows). If you want to edit you will need to go back into NMJ on the PCH (i.e. you cannot edit directly from the NMJ app)

When you select a TV Show and season you will be brought up to the main synopsis for that show

Clicking on the “Episode” button in the upper right hand corner will bring up a list of all episodes to choose from for playback (personally I am not a fan of this type of layout for TV Shows, but that is just my personal preference).

Here is a view for Movies.

Similar to TV Shows, once you select a movie the movie synopsis will appear from which you can initiate playback.

If you want to turn your tablet into a remote for the PCH simply click on the “More” button and choose the “Remote Control” option.

If you are looking to use your tablet to view and initiate playback on your PCH, the NMJ app does a nice job. It can take some work  to actually maintain the jukebox (although there are 3rd party tools available to assist such as NMJ Toolkit), but it is a step in  the right direction. Of course it should be noted that you cannot actually play back your library on your tablet, this is solely for viewing and initiating playback of your library on the PCH.

Third Party Jukebox:

Nothing has changed here from the A-300 in terms of support for 3rd party jukeboxes, with the most common one used being YAMJ/Eversion.

My only request would be the option to boot directly into a 3rd party jukebox instead of having to launch via the App Market.

cHarOn99 just pointed out this thread, which allows you to customize the home screen, as well as booting directly into an app:

Online Content

Once again, nothing has changed here from the A-300

As usual the first question that typically gets asked is “Can I get Netflix, Hulu +, Vudu, etc…). At this moment the answer is still no.

Misc:

There are a couple other items I wanted to touch on:

1. VXP Video Processor – one of the big selling points of  the SMP8911 chip is the inclusion of the VXP Video Processor.

The Popcorn Hour A-400 features an all new Sigma Designs 8911 dual core 800MHz CPU with 512KB L2 Cache with VXP Video Processor, bringing video quality to the next level. By offering a best in class video processor for deinterlacing, scaling and image enhancement, separate video post-processing is no longer required.

From what I could tell, I saw no visible improvements when using the VXP Video Processor (but I would expect this would be geared towards SD content which I don’t view much of anymore). However, from what I have heard other members comment on who have used VXP Video Processing features in the past, this could in part due to not all of the VXP features being fully utilized in the A-400. Also, there could be potential conflicts along the chain that could make the output even worse (for example if the video signal from your A-400 goes through a separate device such as an AVR that does video post-processing as well). I just opted to leave this feature disabled.

2. 2D / 3D Playback – One thing I liked about the Mede8er 1000X3D is the ability to switch between 2D and 3D by simply bringing up the BD Lite menu during movie playback. With the A-400, to do this you actually have to go into the settings and turn 3D Output on or off (as you can see from the screenshot above) which is rather inconvenient. Hopefully this is something that can be implemented into the BD Lite menu down the road.

3. AirPlay – I personally see very little use for AirPlay, but I decided to give it a test on my iPad with the A-400. For the most part (and I don’t know if this is normal with other devices that support AirPlay) I found it to be rather clunky and unstable. I was able to send a YouTube video from the iPad to  the A-400, but after that kept getting failure messages for any subsequent videos I wanted to play. I tested out AirPlay by sending a movie stored on my iPad to the A-400 and it just hung up. I am not knocking the A-400 for this because I never use AirPlay and cannot comment on where the fault lies (iOS, PCH, or both), but I thought it was worth mentioning.

4. Full Blu-ray menu support – The A-400 does not support Blu-ray menus. This is expected as adding support for would mean also bringing in Cinavia (which would be a deal breaker for most people looking at the A-400)

Final Thoughts:

At the end of the day what are we left with when looking at the PCH A-400. On the outside there is a lot of appeal. A sturdy/fanless aluminum case with a small footprint, support for HD audio, support for Blu-ray 3D, internal jukebox with corresponding tablet app, high end VXP video processing, to name a few. However, when you dig deeper things are a bit more unsettled. Putting all the bells and whistles aside, the most important thing to ask (at least what matters to me most), can the A-400 play back my video library reliably? At this juncture unfortunately the answer is no. Blu-ray 3D playback over the network is a mess. There are still HD Audio issues (although between the two I would rather have TrueHD issues over DTS(MA), granted no issues would be optimal). Trying to navigate around at times is an incredibly frustrating experience (so much so that I had to walk away from the device while trying to test).

Now this doesn’t mean that things can’t get better, and by all accounts they have gotten better since first release. However, that is not going to make anyone feel better who purchased the A-400 only to have it sitting around as a paperweight in hopes of a fix. I do realize that not everyone is looking to play back Blu Ray 3Ds, Blu ray rips with HD Audio, etc… so they may not be affected in the same way. The fact of the matter though, playback of Blu-ray rips, HD Audio, and Blu-ray 3D is a big selling point of the A-400 IMO, and an area where it should have excelled in from the start, not piecemeal over months with firmware updates.

Just yesterday I posted a brief update on some various tidbits relating to Dune HD. After digging around, I was able to come up with a little more information that I thought would be worth posting about.

Dune Base 3D, TV303D, and Zappiti Player

• You can now pre order these models over at Duneplayer.com. The site lists the Zappiti player but I don’t think it is up yet on the site
• One thing you may wonder, what is the difference (aside from form factor) between the Base 3D and the TV303D? Well, from what I can tell it appears the one main difference is  the TV303D will not support HD Audio. It is not clear however what that means, will it only support just downmix to stereo of HD Audio? My guess this would be the case. The price difference is $100 so it really comes down to how important HD Audio support is. I could see the Base 3D being the player in your main viewing / home theater area with the 303D being great for a bedroom or as a secondary player. Either way  I should have a TV303D here soon to test

Dune Max 3D

• It will be based on an Intel chip, but the final chip that will be used will not be determined until they get closer to launch
• It is NOT an HTPC. XBMC is simply being used as purely the front end, there will be a separate playback engine  that will handle playback of all file types (so disregard anything you know about how XBMC handles file playback)
• There will be an optical disc that will be Cinavia enforced. This will affect people who are looking to play back copied discs (physical).
• There will be a separate playback engine for files. The question is really how unencrypted rips (i.e. BR ISOs or BR folder rips) would be treated. Would they flow through the Blu Ray engine (which would mean Cinavia) or would they bypass this (either via the alternate file playback engine or simply bypass the Cinavia checks if unencrypted).
• Price expected to be in the $500-700 range and expected release of Late Q2 / early Q3

The past year + has been interesting for Dune HD, or more importantly for the consumers as we try to decipher exactly what the future holds. Most recent was the announcement of the new line of Dune Media Players back in September, but details were scarce. One of the biggest issues was Cinavia. One thing the Dune players have been known for is their ability to play back BluRay discs/rips with full menu support. With the implementation of Cinavia it is nearly impossible to offer full support on many of the platforms, including Sigma, going forward (at least in terms of playing back content stored on a drive). There has been development to provide a software based solution for full menu support (you can see this in the DVDFab media player which I believe is based on an XBMC project), and it appears that Dune has decided to go that route with their flagship player (Max3D and Pro). Instead of Sigma, Dune has decided to move ahead with an Intel based player using the BerryVille CE5315 chipset (rumored, but nothing official) and running XBMC as the front end. At this point there is still very little information regarding, but if indeed true this could offer the ultimate solution many of us have been looking for in the media player market (a truly plug n play media player with a dynamic front end and all the bells & whistles). Right now the expected release date is sometime in the summer with a price tag projected to be in  the $500-$700 range.

Dune Base 3D or Zappiti Player, Which Do I Get?

The Dune HD Base 3D has been officially listed on the main Dune HD home page. As confirmed earlier, it will be running on the Sigma SMP8672 SoC

Dune HD Base 3D is the most affordable universal solution for Full HD video and audio playback as well as IPTV and VOD streams via the new Dune HD Portal. Supporting most all digital audio and video formats, codecs and file containers, including all modern 3D video standards such as MVC, SBS and Top/Bottom, audiophile uncompressed HD audio with high resolutions up to 24 bit /192 kHz, the Dune HD Base 3D sets an entirely new standard. Like previous models in the Dune HD Base range, the all new Base 3D is equipped with an internal 3.5” SATA HDD bay with hot swap function.

I believe both the Zappiti Player and the Dune Base 3D are expected to be released in the next month or so, and essentially the Zappiti is a Dune Base 3D rebranded by Zappiti. So naturally this brings the question of why get one over the other. The Zappiti player comes with the Zappiti UI, but what does that really mean since you can launch Zappiti on a Dune (and an upcoming firmware update should support launching directly into a jukebox)? The Zappiti player was initially supposed to be only sold in the European markets, but it appears they are looking to expand in to the US markets and beyond. The price appears to be the same for both players (EUR 299 / USD 299). Without truly knowing what it under the hood of the Zappiti player it is really hard to gauge which direction to go. When the specs for the Zappiti player were first released if I recall the audio support was a little vague, with reference to DTSHD being left out. It appears this may have been corrected, and the current specs list support for DTSHD. Below is the current audio specs for the Zappiti player

• Audio codecs: AC3, Dolby Digital (bitstream, PCM), DTS (bitstream, PCM), Dolby Digital Plus (bitstream, PCM), DTS-HD (bitstream, PCM)*, Dolby TrueHD (bitstream, PCM), MPEG, AAC, LPCM, WMA, WMAPro, FLAC, multichannel FLAC, Ogg/Vorbis; support for very high quality audio (up to 192 kHz / 24-bit).
• Audio file formats: MP3, MPA, M4A, WMA, FLAC, APE (Monkey’s Audio), Ogg/Vorbis, WAV, AC3, AAC

For the Dune HD Base 3D, the following is listed:

• Audio codecs: AC3 (Dolby Digital), DTS, MPEG, AAC, LPCM, WMA, WMAPro, EAC3 (Dolby Digital Plus), Dolby True HD, DTS HD High Resolution Audio, DTS HD Master Audio, FLAC, multichannel FLAC, Ogg/Vorbis; support for very high quality audio (up to 192 kHz / 24-bit)
• Audio file formats: MP3, MPA, M4A, WMA, FLAC, APE (Monkey’s Audio), WV Pack, Ogg/Vorbis, WAV, AC3, AAC
• HD audio support: pass-through (up to 7.1 channels) and decoding (up to 7.1 channels) of Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD MA audiotracks (Blu-ray, TS, MKV), pass-through (up to 7.1 channels) of multichannel LPCM audiotracks (Blu-ray, TS, MKV), decoding (up to 7.1 channels) of FLAC audiotracks (MKV, external)

One thing of interest to note with both sets of specs, it would appear that there will be the ability to decode the HD Audio to multi channel PCM (at leas the Base 3D specs seem to imply this, the Zappiti specs just say PCM which could just mean 2ch stereo). I bring this up because this is something that many media players no longer support, only downmixing HD audio to 2ch stereo via HDMI (my guess to avoid licensing costs). Even the current Dune lineup which used to support this had this removed in a recent firmware update.

I think until an official release date is announced for both players with confirmed pricing, availability, and feature sets, it is hard to say which player is the better choice. However, I would like to point out something very important. Many current Dune users are accustomed to the stability of the Dunes when it comes to playback (including full BR menu support, forced subtitle support, seamless branch, etc…). The Base 3D and Zappiti will rely on BD lite. What this means is there will be no full BR menu support. More importantly, there are some shortcomings with BD lite that currently affect all players that use (lack of forced subtitle support and lack of seamless branch support being the two notables). This is something to keep in mind if you are a current Dune user looking to make the leap, in particular if your library consists of full disc BR rips.

Side notes

Speaking of Dune I decided to add another Dune to my setup, this time going with the Dune Smart B1.

I wanted to set my Dad up with a media player, and initially gave him my PCH A-300. However, after having him deal with bugs I decided instead to give him my Dune Smart D1 which had been serving me well since I originally got. I decided to go with a B1 to replace it, and although I rarely use physical discs anymore I like having the option (One thing worth nothing with any of the players that have an optical drive, they may run into issues with playing new discs that have new protection schemes as it requires Dune to push through firmware updates to support . This is common for Blu ray players but as you can imagine Sony, Panasonic, etc.. have the resources to handle this relatively quick). Since the Dunes are heavily used in my house, stability is top priority so I didn’t even think twice about what player would be the replacement. As always, I purchased the Dune B1 from DunePlayer. I spoke with the owner Mike and he stated that he has the remaining stock of the current Dune players, so if you are interested now would be the time to pick up before the stock is gone.

Hopefully in the coming weeks we will be able to answer some of the questions about the Dune HD Base 3D, Zappiti player, and the mysterious Intel based Dune Max3D and Pro.