Devices > JRiver Id -- Hardware by JRiver
POLL: Would you consider the JRiver Synapse (a PC to TV connection device)?
prod:
I've tried the whole PC-TV thing and using the PC as a PC while it's plugged into the TV is just plain annoying and gave me headaches, as well as annoying to anyone in the room who wants to watch the TV or talk to you, or talk to each other while you're using it.
However, it's all about content. If you can easily access on-demand TV, sport, movies and music videos from this thing then great. But then you have to compete with a lot of very cheap (and many times "free") media providers.
I voted not interested - there are solutions out there that are more specialised and therefore better suited than a PC.
Doof:
Here's the thing about hooking a PC running MC up to a TV. I've done it. And the experience has been a mixed bag.
First of all, it's nice to be able to access all of my music, pictures, and videos from the comfort of my couch using just a remote.
Unfortunately, that's kind of where it stops.
I built the PC with the intention of sticking an HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo drive in it, confident that MC would support both formats. In the end HD-DVD went away so the support never came. So I waited around for Blu-Ray support. About 2 months ago I gave up waiting and spent about $400 on a Blu-Ray player.
So now I have Dish Network (our cable provider here really sucks) and am using their ViP 622 DVR for TV. I have a Sony Blu-Ray player to watch DVD/Blu-Ray movies. I have the PC with MC running to listen to my music, view my pictures, and watch my videos. And I have the Xbox 360 which plays HD-DVD and lets me stream movies from Netflix.
I'm clearly willing to spend the money. But I don't want or need another PC running MC, even if it is a fraction of the size of what I'm using now.
What I really want/need is one box that can do all of that stuff, from one interface, using just my remote. It's the dream of the HTPC and as far as I can tell, it's never really been fully realized. I can't really use MC as my DVR as I'm using satellite. I could throw a Blu-Ray drive in there and watch Blu-Ray movies, but I'd have to drop out of Theater View to do it. I can stream Netflix movies, but I have to bust out a keyboard and mouse and fire up a web browser to do it. No thanks.
I'll admit I haven't looked at any of the more expensive Windows or Linux software packages out there in quite a while, so maybe it's possible now. What I have now gets the job done, so I really haven't been looking. But I voted "Maybe" because, if all these things I listed above came to be, then it would be very attractive to me.
darichman:
I could only commit to a "maybe", I'm afraid. Like some others, I've set things up so that I've strayed away from using a TV at all. Sometimes I'll hook my laptop up (and I'll still use MC) on the big telly, but generally I'm happy with my 26'' LCD monitor.
That's not to say that I think such a project is a bad idea, however. I actually think it's something that might appeal to a wide user base. As long as it'd be ready to go with minimal user input and came preconfigured with all the important codecs etc, you might have a winner. The key is idiot (read: wife, mother/father, sister-proof :))
Another advantage I can see is the ability to take with with you (photo slideshows or movie nights at a friends?)... I'll be keeping an eye on progress, at any rate ;)
park:
How would you deal with getting all the right directshow filters installed? I think if you could get it et up so that it would have all that stuff installed (auto updateable) and configured for seamless playback in MC you'd be onto a winner. I'd get one. I bought the sony vaioo tp1 for exactly that purpose (a MC computer for the living room).
A couple of things that the sony remote does well:
It has a "Close appilcation" button which will take you out of MC, and then if you keep pressing it, close MC and then bring up the "shutdown options". You can use this button to quickly shutdown the computer.
It also has a "application switcher" button. So when something steals focus from MC you can just use that button to get back into MC quickly.
The wireless keyboard and it's trackpad are also useful for when you want to use a mouse to use the seekbar whilst in big screen view.
JimH:
--- Quote from: park on December 23, 2008, 10:47:11 pm ---How would you deal with getting all the right directshow filters installed? I think if you could get it et up so that it would have all that stuff installed (auto updateable) and configured for seamless playback in MC you'd be onto a winner.
--- End quote ---
We'd install everything we think is needed, and the box would be able to update itself.
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