Media Servers ISTAR Mini Network Media Tank
| ISTAR Mini Network Media Tank |
| Written by Sandy Bird | |||||||
| Sunday, 21 September 2008 17:00 | |||||||
Page 5 of 5
What is not to like? Nothing is perfect. As mentioned above, the unit isn’t as fast as I would like. The current firmware only allows me to fast-forward at 8x(this may be fixed by the time this has been published), and as I mentioned before, it isn’t pretty. The remote is not as friendly as others but a universal remote like a Harmony will take care of that. Overall a minor set of gripes. Conclusions 
At $169, the ISTAR is a steal. There is a $215 dollar version that support HDMI 1.3 (and sending TrueHD and DTS-MA over HDMI), if you need those functions. I am sure the interface will get prettier and faster as new firmware is released. For now I would say this is one of the simplest most complete media extenders on the market. If you are thinking about trying one, just go order it. The re-sale value of these units on eBay is almost the same as the retail price, and whether you buy the ISTAR or the Popcorn Hour, I am sure you would be able to sell them if for some reason you were not happy. The Popcorn Hour unit is a little prettier so if you care about looks, that might be the way to go. Comments (9)
XBMC
written by KC , September 23, 2008 It takes a lot more work to get one up and running, but an original Xbox running XBMC (www.xbmc.org) does everything this ISTAR does and more... much more. (Okay it won't do HDMI, 1080i or 720p via component is the max resolution) Plus the Xbox boots up in under 15 seconds! :-) Check it out...
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written by Gregor Samsa , September 27, 2008 This might be OK for video, but it supports few audio codecs and none of those that employ lossless compression
The iStar rocks
written by Chung , September 28, 2008 Connect a portable usb bus powered drive to this thing and you got the makings of a ultra silent HD player. This thing will play practically anything. I love mine.
"This thing will play practically anything"
written by Gregor Samsa , September 29, 2008 "Practically anything" does not include OGG, SHN, FLAC, APE, WAVPACK, AIFF & ALAC, among others. Does it even do WMA lossless?
No FLAC?
written by RDaneel , October 01, 2008 No support for FLAC or Apple Lossless, the two major lossless audio formats? EPIC FAIL!
.VOB handling
written by Greg D , October 10, 2008 I would like to know how it handles .VOB files. Is it able to properly detect aspect ratio and chapter stops?
It does FLAC
written by Gijs , October 17, 2008 With the latest firmware update it will play FLAC as well. But for music the best way to go is SqueezeBox which doesn't require you to turn on your monitor/tv and offers superb audio quality. @KC: The XBox doesn't play .mkv and other HD formats, has no HDMI and is noisier and a lot bigger. This unit wins hands down... no comparison.
Mvix MX780 HD (If only we could burn BluRay discs.....)
written by Blaine , December 10, 2008 I'd love to see a review on this unit. Slap a 1TB SATA drive and it's portable - includes .11 b/g wireless. One downside - HDMI 1.2 support. Is that a deal killer? Video Support:DivX® (3/4/5), DivX® 6, AVI, Xvid, BivX®, MPEG, MPG, VCD(DAT), DVD(VOB, IFO), ISO, WMV(WMV-9), ASF(WMV-9), TP, TS, TRP HiDef Decoding: HD COMPONENT Y, Pb, Pr (480p, 720p,1080) / HD HDMI (720p,1080i, 1080p), WMV, ASF, AVI and MP4 formats, MPEG-2 MPat HL(720P/1,080I)MPEG-4 ASPat L5 (720p) and WMV9 MPat ML (720p) Audio Support: MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, PCM, AC3, DTS decoding including down-mixing, DTS pass through Audio Decoding: MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Layers I, II and III (MP3), MPEG-2 BC multi-channel layers I, II and III, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AAC-LC,WMA9 and WMA9 Pro decoding Write comment
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