Media Player?
 

Hi all im after some advice, i travel away with work alot to Saudi Arabia and before i go i usally download avi's etc before i go as the hotel Tv service is shocking,
Im after a small unit that i can transfer files on to play through tv HDMI port?

Will this work?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sumvision-...item3a6ebb8318

many thanks:)

Re: Media Player?
 

Do you not have a laptop?

Re: Media Player?
 

yeah but i like to use my laptop for work and games while films etc are playing

Re: Media Player?
 

Laptops can do more than one thing at a time these days...

Re: Media Player?
 

not while using an hdmi output genius

Re: Media Player?
 

Depends how much CPU power the applications need. It's not always practical.

Should do fine. You need to think about storage though.

Re: Media Player?
 

it may be worth thinking about the newer 2, or 2+ version, or version 3

http://www.ebuyer.com/342378-sumvisi...-cyclonemicro3

plays mkv as well. I've got the Ion Vortexplus which is more or les the same as the Cyclone2

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Elec...rlrefer=search

and is great at playing xvid, divx etc off usb stick or sdhc card

Re: Media Player?
 

Yes while using HDMI output genius.

---------- Post added at 17:37 ---------- Previous post was at 17:36 ----------

Admittedly true, but it's generally fine in the vast majority of cases since almost all laptops with HDMI outputs also have hardware acceleration for video decoding, putting CPU use for the video playback bit at 5% or less.

Re: Media Player?
 

if you're using the HDMI output for an external monitor/screen, why not just dual screen the laptop it have the video on one and your app on the other? what spec is the laptop? save yourself some cash.

Re: Media Player?
 

Is it worth it for £20 and the cost of a memory card? Especially when you bear in mind that some games don't run well with something else using the second monitor.

Re: Media Player?
 

I didn't "need" my media player, I could hook up the laptop to the tv each time I want to watch a media file my tv/blu ray player doesn't support, but it's so much easier to just copy the files to usb stick/memory card, put in media player.

Also, those media players do an excellent job of playing media files larger than 2gb with no problem.

Re: Media Player?
 

I'm was in almost the same position. I had a load of media files that I wanted to play on my TV. I have a Macbook that was (and is) perfectly capable of playing them through the DVI connector on the TV, but I still got an external media player because it frees up the laptop to do whatver I want while the movie is playing.

Not to mention the fact that if I just want to watch a quick video, I can do it in a few clicks on a remote control, where as with the Macbook (and any PC), I would have needed to start the computer up, start the program then go hunting through the media files.

Re: Media Player?
 

the thing is, for £20, i would personally be really dubious about the quality. might be worth putting a bit more money into it, perhaps? as for the games not liking a second monitor running, it's never been an issue I've come across in 10 years of running dual screens when gaming, so it's not an issue I'm aware of.

Re: Media Player?
 

Well, I do have this player's big brother, and while the video quality is never going to win any awards, and neither is the user interface, it's certainly watchable, as good as the video quality from any laptop I have seen, and a lot more convenient.

Re: Media Player?
 

Yeah, but the OP is talking about travelling (with his laptop) to various places including hotels and hooking it up to their TVs. At which point connecting a laptop is no harder than connecting a laptop and a media player (easier some might argue) and he won't have to copy stuff off the laptop to the media player as well. I see no point in carrying around two devices when one does the job, especially if one has to travel light.

In your own living room where the weight doesn't matter and it's plugged in once and left indefinitely, it's a different matter.

Re: Media Player?
 

but we are talking about the little brother... if the big brother isn't great, I'm now definitely dubious about the quality of the little brother!

---------- Post added at 19:52 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------

what he said.

Re: Media Player?
 

But you missed or ignored the bit where I said the quality was "as good as the video quality from any laptop I have seen". I don't think most Laptops or desktops would win awards for video playback either.

Re: Media Player?
 

I'm not sure there's any such question of quality when we're talking about digital reproduction of an identical digital bitstream.

Either what the laptop outputs is an exactly 100% perfect bit-perfect representation of the original, or there's a fault in your system. There should be no question of quality. The data is exactly the same, the decoder (if properly following standards) should output exactly the same thing, and the HDMI interface which is also digital should transfer the output bit-perfectly with no loss or change of anything. There is nowhere for "quality" to be gained or lost.

Nothing in the middle - e.g. RAM, processor, or I/O busses should be modifying the data in any way and if it does anything that could lose quality, you'd have bigger problems than video playback - your system wouldn't even boot to begin with.

Re: Media Player?
 

You forget one thing. All Mpeg 4 based compression systems are lossy. This inevitably introduces errors or artifacts into the compressed data. A system with good decompression will minimise the effects of those artifacts.

And just in case the discussion heads this way, in general, I don't agree that more expensive cables and components automatically make for a better digital reproduction.

Re: Media Player?
 

But that has nothing to do with the hardware or device, it's entirely up to the software used. Every laptop or media player with the same decoder will output the exact same data with the exact same artifacts, and you can always change the software on the laptop, it's nothing to do with the laptop itself.

Re: Media Player?
 

Except if the decompression is done in hardware, or is hardware accelerated.

Re: Media Player?
 

Well that's another argument of laptop over dedicated media player then, in that the laptop you can freely choose the software you use, and the drivers for the hardware which determine it's decompression characteristics can also be freely changed. You can also freely choose whether to use the hardware acceleration or not. None of which is easily done on a standalone player.

Re: Media Player?
 

Cheers stuart thats what i was hoping, plus when im at home i can use it on my tv there hassle free, its nice to see sarcasm isnt always required!;)

Re: Media Player?
 

Here's a great little tool for those wanting more than just a media player when on holiday or away on business..

http://www.saverstore.com/product/20...r-Media-Center

Re: Media Player?
 

lol - the irony

Re: Media Player?
 

Pwnd.

Re: Media Player?
 

So I guess I could be able to connect a USB HDD to it and the unit to a TV?

Re: Media Player?
 

I travel a lot and use my archos 705 which I can watch a movie in the airport or plug it into the scart socket of most hotel tv's. I am up to season 3 of "house md" I can also plug in a usb stick/card reader for any other movies I travel with.:)