Which media streamer? Boxee TV, jailbroken Apple TV or something else?

[kinda]

Hello,

I wondered how the video and audio quality of the Boxee compares to 'real' AV components like you BluRay / DVD player?

I had hoped the RaspberryPi with RaspBMC might let me clear the shelves of my DVDs by ripping them to a NAS. I've bought the add on MPEG2 license so I can play ripped VOBs, but not ISOs, which isn't a nightmare as I'm always a bit torn on whether I want to have a full ISO on there considering the space, (maybe ideally I would just for some disks). The library management and artwork and information it fetches for each film is brilliant.

The problem is the Pi while pretty good in isolation just looks rubbish if I go straight to playing the same from say my Humax box. It seems to be an upscaling issue for the Pi, and there doesn't seem to be a passthorugh configuration, so it always scales. Also, there is some issue with frame jerk for some VOBs. It's not the VOB and not the network, and I've failed to identify any configuration that might solve it. I can't fault it at the price, but nevertheless it's not quite what I need.

My BluRay player by the way does play VOBs over the network fine, but fails to recognise anamorphic VOBs so they're squashed. The Humax plays them great, but has dodgy fast forward and rewind functionality. So, neither is ideal, and I'd like to have all the flash artowrk and information if I can.

So I'm wondering if the Boxee might be ideal, especially at its current price, if the AV quality is good?

 

[bigboss]

I have not ripped any of my DVDs or blu rays so cannot offer a direct comparison. The was a bit of judder when I watched a film the other day, yet was eminently watchable. The other 2 films I watched did not suffer from judder.

 

[bretty]

I have a Boxee and it is has many strengths (My fave is that it scans my hard drive, finds all the movies that it contains, then goes to IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes web sites to find the movie artwork, reviews and synopsis for all of the films. Very nice touch)but one massive flaw. if like me, you are using it solely to play downloaded movies: there is no 'delete' function. You can remove the file from the Boxee's library, but when it rescans your hdd, it will replace it. the only way to properly delete a file is to do it through the pc, which is a bit of a faff.

 

[bigboss]

Is there any media player that plays off a NAS drive & you can delete a movie from the media player but let it stay on the NAS drive?