MediaGate MG-25

[logifuse]

When I travel I usually stay somewhere with a TV that has at least composite inputs & I've ofetn thought, "what I need is a portable media player device with a remote control that plugs in to the TV."

Well, I was wandering throught the Capitol Square Computer Centre in Sydney earlier today having a look at some cases & TV tuners & I came across the MediaGate MG-25 - it fits the bill nicely. It was $130 (I've seen it for less on Static Ice now) & when you add a 160GB drive to it, you're looking at around $250. It plays every format I'd need (although DVR-MS would need to be converted to MPEG2) & it even does component!

So, anyone have any experience with one of these? If not, how about the MG-35 model.

Justin

[drturner]

I have one. Works well with xvid/divx & DVD files - good picture & sound, but when I tried mpeg2 files converted from dvr-ms digital with videoredo, the sound would never play.

I've since updated the firmware a couple of times, but haven't retried the mpeg2 files again, so it may now work.

Be nice if it played h.264 files.

[logifuse]

Thanks for that.

It's probably worth a shot even if it doesn't play mpeg2 from DVR-MS - I'll convert to AVI if I have to. Christmas in rural SA never looked so good!

Justin

[logifuse]

Just a quick question, do you know if it does 720p/1080i @ 50Hz? I imagine it does (when set to PAL) as they seem pretty popular in Europe.

Thanks,

Justin

[logifuse]

Just an update to this.

I stumbled over an auction on fHarbour for a Netkia DX Mini - it only had 10 minutes to go, so after some snap research I swooped in with 30 seconds to go & picked it up for $36!

Delivery was very rapid, so I chucked an 80GB drive in it & got-a testin'. Initial results were a bit disheartening. DVR-MS converted to mpeg2 in VRD played back, but it stumbled every few seconds. AVI played fine, but anything with an mp3 soundtrack sounded bad.

I also discovered that the output was 4:3 only & that mpeg2s were centre cut only. Time for some lateral thinking & research.

First up, I did an mpeg2 output from VRD & changed to sound to mpeg2 (from ac3) & tagged it as 4:3. The playback still had a bit of a stagger, but the whole image was displayed & aspect could be controlled by the TV (i.e. a 4:3 TV was set to letterbox & a 16:9 TV was full screen).

Further research indicated that things might improve if the drive was formatted in FAT32 instead of NTFS. A quick reformat (thanks to FAT32Format allowing me to go beyond the XP 32GB limit) & I found that I was in business - playback was perfectly smooth.

Now to AVIs. Running them through Super with no changes to the video (stream copy) & conversion of the audio to AC3 & I was in business on the AVI front too!

Next problem was AVI aspect ratio on a widescreen TV. 2.33/2.35:1 played back @ 4:3 on a 16:9 TV (if you can follow that) looked very squashed. I calculated that I'd need to change the aspect ratio to 1.75:1 to get it right. Easier said then done with an AVI - I'm open to suggestions. Eventually I found that if I set the TV to 4:3 & then zoomed, it was perfect. My TV scales really well, so that's no prob, but on other TVs the results might not be satisfactory.

End result - for $36 this is an awesome device. For $120+, I might be a bit disappointed. It does composite, s-video, component & VGA, & it does stereo audio (via RCA). All cables included.

Unfortunatly Netkia are playing the firmware cards close to their chest. I'm pretty sure that the aspect ratio & centre cut problems could be easily solved with an updated firmware, but Netkia are telling me to go to the distributor - sorry Netkia, but that business model has long gone.

All up, I'm probably 8/10 happy. Not a device for a novice though.

Edit: Just tried an mpeg2 with ac3 on FAT32 - plays smoothly, but FF is still a bit dicey.

Justin

[dgaust]

Sounds like a royal pain in the butt.

I know VMCE can be a little bit of a pain, but for a device that purports to do what it does and then require all the fiddling seems like a bit of false advertising to me.

I just bought a new laptop, so that'll have to do me on my travels.

[logifuse]

Not really (for me). Once I worked out the ground rules it was fine. I agree that it should be simpler, but with a gazillion different codecs & formats around, it's difficult to have a killer device that plays all.

I hate travelling with a laptop, so it's a good option for me. Besides, I can load it up with shows & just plug it in to my parents TV & then it's simple enough for them to use.

For most people, the NTFS/FAT32 thing would be the biggest issue as XP/Vista will push you towards formatting the drive in NTFS.

Justin

[FrAsErTaG]

my portable media player
by BlueEye
is a 3.5 Sata/IDE jobby
was $90 plus the drive
it doesnt have the problems you described however that may be partly due to teh fact it would work with a NTFS drive, FAT32 only
anyways it plays divx,vob, mpeg 1 and mpeg 2.

The thing that annoyed me about this was, it has 4 sections
My Videos
My Photos
My Music
Folder

The My Videos and Photos section are useless, if you go into them it thumbnails 4 the first 4 items it found by scanning the drive, it does it alphabetical and there is only go forward or back one page not skip to letter or anything.
That said the Folder View works excellenty it works like a standard folder structure and i have all my avi's organised neatly.

Sure its not the Media Centre, but the fact its small enough to stash in the bottom of a suitcase when you go on holiday is just brilliant. Also has a Card 5 in 1 card reader built in.
Keep the kids entertained and setup takes less then 5 mins.