Need something like an xbox 360 to play mp4 on tv

[avalanche165]

so i brought my 360 home and my dad loves that he can plug his usb into it and watched all his movies. with the media update you can play avi, mpegs, mpv, mov, wmv, etc.

so im looking for something where he can still do that without the 360. any help is greatly appreciated i figured this is the best place to start.

http://www.galaxymetalgear.com/Products/3500tvisto.html is what im looking at now but cant find many reviews. thanks

[neomaine]

Avanlanche165,

Guess you don't want to share with daddy, do you? If I were him, I'd ground you and keep the 360!

Have him pick up a used 360, then you wouldn't have to tote yours back and forth. Hook up a live camera at both ends and you could teletalk over xboxlive instead of the phone. Heck, even play games with or against each other when you're gone. Does he have an old/outdated DVD player? The 360 is an excellent upscaling DVD player.

If you haven't guessed, my son who's heading off to colege in the fall will have a hard time convincing me to take the 360 him. His brother and I have a thing or two to say about that...

And remember, father's day is right around the corner. Might even be able to talk your mom or a sibbling into splitting the cost.

[Krispy Kritter]

He could get his own 360 or more specialized hardware such as those offered by popcornhour or mediagate.

[jman98]

The following boxes might be what you are looking for:

http://www.popcornhour.com
http://www.istarhd.com

They are functionally identical (same chipset) with the iStar being sold in the USA and Popcorn Hour being sold in Europe (will cost you more to ship it to the USA).

The iStar website has 2 reviews. Look at:
http://www.istarhd.com/productpage/reviews.html
The first review I read some months ago. It's very honest about what the box can and can't do. You should get a real good idea from that if it will meet your needs or not. I would skip the 2nd review, which is shorter and less technical.

I own neither, but I have considered getting the iStar. I just don't have enough stuff to play on it right now to justify buying it.

I am not sure, but I think the Xbox can be hacked to play MP4, but I seem to recall that it won't play anything above 720p either at all or else it will play it, but not very well. I'm pretty sure that 1080i/p MP4 are a no go on the Xbox, but I could be wrong. You should definitely double check that.

[dun4cheap]

Here is another box for $99, it is wireless/lan/usb2/internal harddrive and does hd and sd.

http://shop2.frys.com/product/5393408?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

There are also a lot of phillips dvd players that can dor this for $40-70.

[neomaine]

jman98,

Actually, it will play 720p/1080i/p just fine. For me, this is over a 100mb wired connection. I would expect it to be the same or better over a local connection via USB.

Its the audio you have to look out for. Sometimes vbr works, sometimes it doesn't others while cbr almost always does. The xboxlive site has a list of comptible combination of video and audio codecs. Divx vs mp4 vs wmv - ac3 vs aac.....

[jman98]

Here is another box for $99, it is wireless/lan/usb2/internal harddrive and does hd and sd.

http://shop2.frys.com/product/5393408?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

There are also a lot of phillips dvd players that can dor this for $40-70.

Well, it can upconvert stuff to HD output, but in fact this device only supports playing MPEG-2 video in HD. No MKV support. No HD WMV. No HD Divx/Xvid. That makes it a no go for many of us. Also, no Philips DVD player supports any HD video format or MKV containers.

Thanks for the follow up, neomaine. That's good to know.

[dun4cheap]

The original poster did not ask about HD formats, but the klegg box can play divx hd. I personally use the Buffalo Linktheaters myself. This box does play everything the original poster asked about and more for $99.

[dun4cheap]

The other cool thing the klegg does is play dvd iso including menus and all.

You could backup a lot of your dvds on to a 500gig hard drive and never have to get up to get a dvd.

At this point I don't think the xbox 360 can play mkv files even with tversity, there still seems to be an audio problem. I can mkv files with my buffalo link theater and TVersity, but know audio.

I am not sure there is a perfect solution out, they are all still a little hit and miss. Phillips will be releasing a Blueray player with DIVx and USB support soon, but I am not sure it will be able to play mkv either.

The best real solution is still a media center PC, which I utilize as well.

[jman98]

The original poster did not ask about HD formats, but the klegg box can play divx hd. I personally use the Buffalo Linktheaters myself. This box does play everything the original poster asked about and more for $99.

True enough, but others may care about the lack of HD support in this model who read this post. The original poster himself may even care for all we know since not mentioning HD does not per se mean he has no interest at all in playing it. You get what you pay for and I stand by my comment that the lack of HD support makes this a no go for me and others, despite the cheap price. If it meets your needs or the orignal poster's needs though, so much the better as it seems to be very cost effective.