After fighting the good fight, I've given up. I hate to have to break encryption, ISO it, then convert, and/or convert/transcode just to play media I own. And then have 2 copies of the same movie if I want to have the original available digitally for archive/future use. My last hope was that I could take my BD ISOs as is (after AnyDVD HD), and use a media server to play them back from the PS3 or 360. Tversity handles ISOs horribly (have to add each ISO individually), and PS3 Media Server only seems to work with DVD ISOs. BDs ISOs are apparently in the works, but you still have to deal with the ISO folder navigation issue and no branching support. Doable for me, but not necessarily for others who want to start up a movie on their own.
Looks like the
Popcorn Hour A300, with the latest firmware update, now has full BD menu navigation support for ISOs, instead of just simple navigation. And that's exactly what I need. Something that can read an ISO from a share, and give me the full disc experience (after a little help to disable unskippable sections with AnyDVD). So, I'm following Joker's route and going to streamline my entire media setup and make some other changes.
- Media Server:
- Windows 7 (soon to be 8) running Windows Media Center
- Centon 4 Tuner Card with Multi-stream Cable Card
- Mirrored Drives for ISOs (no more re-encodes)
- XBox 360
- Used for Live TV via Media Center Extender (ditching the Tivo/Cable DVRs)
- PS3
- Used with TVersity/PS3 Media Server for already recorded shows.
- Used for Hulu/Netflix/Crunchyroll playback on TVs
- Popcorn Hour A-300
- Used for all movies. ISOs pulled straight from media server.
Very pleased with Windows Media Center as a central DVR for the house. Very nice interface, simple setup, and with the mCard integration with cable is seamless. Have some performance tuning to do to find a powerful video card that doesn't take up 2 slots (due to the fan). I noticed some difference in speed in menu navigation from the extender end when a better video card is installed. The box I have it in (an old quad-core ML115 G5) doesn't have a lot of slots, and the 16x slot is spaced relatively close to next PCIe slot. Which I'll need to use for an external HBA to a DAS for expansion space (BD ISOs eat up space quickly).
With 360s available for so cheap, they make a great Media Center Extender (well, the
only Extender at the moment). Since I pretty much have a 360 under every TV already, using the 360 lets me eliminate the dedicated DVR box. So, I'm dropping the Tivo/Cable DVRs. Was in love with the Tivo at first, but that feeling quickly faded the more I used it. 1/2 the interface is still clunky and SD, and lacks the live TV box (granted, its the 1/2 of the menu that's not used very often much). And it still has some performance issues in certain situations. And the cable DVR is, well, adequate at best (at least the ones I have from Comcast). Dropping those will save a pretty penny. Along with lowering the cable package, as I tend to use Hulu/Crunchyroll/Netflix a whole lot more now.
The PS3 won't play much of a roll in my new setup, despite still having my interface of preference for media browsing and playback. With PS3 Media Server and/or TVersity, I'll be able to watch back WMC recorded TV shows. I haven't decided on which of those I'll ultimately settle on yet (still testing them).
EDIT I forgot that for the most part all of my Hulu/Netflix watching is done of the PS3 (even more than the PC). I don't keep my Gold Live subscription very often, and I haven't checked into playing them through an Extender via WMC. Although TVersity has a WMC plug-in and Hulu/Netflix support, I think.
Which just leaves the A-300. Don't have it yet, but it looks like that will be the last major piece of the puzzle as it takes care of eliminating the need to have multiple copies of my ripped media, and can just keep the original high quality copy. Don't have to rely on transcoders, or wonky ISO navigation either. And its a lot cheaper than the C-300. Which is what was originally holding me back from jumping into the Popcorn Hour camp after Joker mentioned them because it (the C series) was the only one with full BD menu support (I think) until now. I don't need hard drives or a BD drive, so, the C has nothing I'm really looking for.
The only issue I haven't figured out, is mobile playback. Something I rarely do, but would like to have the option of. Creating a portable copy of all my ISOs is not going to happen, so, I just might not have a solution for that yet. Not a big deal. The new simplified setup is well worth the trade off. Maybe someone will release an Android app out there for BD ISO playback over the network.
