- Mar 31, 2006
- 519
- 0
- 19,060
Hi, (happy new year)
Well I just got a 5TB WD Elements external HDD which I put most our back-up (in .mkv format) blu-rays and dvd's onto. I then plugged it into our old Sumvision Cyclone media player and it only sees 6 films and nothing else. I've checked and pretty sure the Cyclone device does not support HDD's over 2TB.
After looking at a few options I'm now considering a very small PC something like a Zotac Zbox but I do not know much about them and there is a lot to choose from.
What I would like 1st and foremost is ease of use to play movies.
My father, who is old, only has one pleasure in life now and that is to watch movies. Unfortunately he can only just barely operate a remote and finds it almost impossible to get discs out of boxes. Plus I've seen him put discs on top of existing discs in the bluray player and he puts the wrong discs in the wrong boxes (which when you have 370+ originals is annoying). I won't even describe the crime he committed against the Lord of the Rings Special Edition box set
So, whatever the micro/nano PC does it has to be controllable by a remote control style device and not a mouse and keyboard. Is that possible?
It has to be powerful enough to play .mkv files.
It has to be accessible remotely in case I am out at work (I work away up to a week at a time) and he has problems, so I can reboot it, start a movie for him etc.
It does NOT need much internal storage, just enough for an operating system and VLCplayer.
It needs a good audio out selection in case we upgrade the sound bar in the summer.
It needs to have wi-fi for internet connection.
It has to be relatively cheap, I'm looking at hopefully no more than £320.00 but willing to go a bit higher if needed.
It needs to be an all-in-one, ready to use out of the box piece of kit as I do not want to be ordering extras for it to get it to work.
Can anyone one give me ANY feedback of their experience, suggestions, warnings, concerns, alternate options or just any comments are all welcome.
Well I just got a 5TB WD Elements external HDD which I put most our back-up (in .mkv format) blu-rays and dvd's onto. I then plugged it into our old Sumvision Cyclone media player and it only sees 6 films and nothing else. I've checked and pretty sure the Cyclone device does not support HDD's over 2TB.
After looking at a few options I'm now considering a very small PC something like a Zotac Zbox but I do not know much about them and there is a lot to choose from.
What I would like 1st and foremost is ease of use to play movies.
My father, who is old, only has one pleasure in life now and that is to watch movies. Unfortunately he can only just barely operate a remote and finds it almost impossible to get discs out of boxes. Plus I've seen him put discs on top of existing discs in the bluray player and he puts the wrong discs in the wrong boxes (which when you have 370+ originals is annoying). I won't even describe the crime he committed against the Lord of the Rings Special Edition box set
So, whatever the micro/nano PC does it has to be controllable by a remote control style device and not a mouse and keyboard. Is that possible?
It has to be powerful enough to play .mkv files.
It has to be accessible remotely in case I am out at work (I work away up to a week at a time) and he has problems, so I can reboot it, start a movie for him etc.
It does NOT need much internal storage, just enough for an operating system and VLCplayer.
It needs a good audio out selection in case we upgrade the sound bar in the summer.
It needs to have wi-fi for internet connection.
It has to be relatively cheap, I'm looking at hopefully no more than £320.00 but willing to go a bit higher if needed.
It needs to be an all-in-one, ready to use out of the box piece of kit as I do not want to be ordering extras for it to get it to work.
Can anyone one give me ANY feedback of their experience, suggestions, warnings, concerns, alternate options or just any comments are all welcome.
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