FreeAgent Theater and GoFlexTV

[bodhi78]

- Regarding the HDMI setting, if you have a later model of HDTV, I would set it to Auto, or 1080p. This is because the FAT+ upscaling is pretty good. It's about the same as a good HDTV.

- I disagree with CFcrash's general statement about the upscaling! Generally a later model of HDTVs almost always have better deinterlacing and upscaling processor than a so-so DVD player. So the safest bet is to output the whatever the resolution the video format is (i.e. 480i/p for a DVD player) and let the HDTV do the upscaling. For the FAT+ I would use the FAT+ upscaling, because it is pertty good.

- About the NAS. This is a problem with DLNA server standard. I think it is acceptable (unfortunately) for a media server to claim UPnp DLNA compliance even though not all video formats can be streamed from that server. I'm not sure if this NAS is a closed NAS (which you can't add on or update, unless with FW). For other NAS I think you can add on, or update the media server when new version is realeased. But you should be able to use the NAS just like a normal file server, and share the folder where you store ISOs.

[hobartrus]

Regarding folder structure, when using the "Movies" icon on the FAT+ the folder structure is pretty much totally disregarded.  The movies can be neatly sorted into folders or scattered all over the place, the FAT+ won't care, it will group them all alphabetically.  It even does this if you have multiple drives hooked up such that you really can't tell which drive the movie files are on when you are in this view.

When you go into device view, however, the folder structure is maintained but thumbnails are not supported.

It's kind of annoying, but that's the way it is right now.

For my purposes I keep my movies sorted in folders by genre.

Regarding the thumbnails, I'm not sure how it works for ISO files because all of my movies are ripped directly to DVD folders (AUDIO_TS, VIDEO_TS.)  Each movie is in it's own folder and there is a gif thumbnail with the same name as the folder within the folder.  For instance, for the movie "Alien" I have a folder called "Alien" which has two subfolders (AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS) and a thumnail named "Alien.gif".  I believe that for ISOs you want to place the thumbnail image in the folder with the ISO and name it the same as the ISO (so for instance you'd have Alien.ISO and Alien.gif together in a folder) but I'm not 100% sure about that because that's not how I do it.  I get my thumbnails from dvdaf.com, the thumbnails in use on that website seem to work really well on the FAT+.

Even though I don't use ISOs in general I can confirm that the FAT+ will play ISOs over the network from standard network shares.  As long as you are accessing your NAS from the devices menu and not using it as a "media server" or whatever it should work just fine.

[awkwards]

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starnz wrote:

...maybe I'll need a new thread for this but, when I access the movie section on the FAT menu it lists the file name in it's own little box. Is there a way you can add 'movie art" similar to album art when you copy cd's to windows media player? Just curious but would be a nice reminder of what the movie is.

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I've had really fun results with thumbnails. I made a new post under "How I make movie thumbnails."

[CFcrash79]

Yes, if you have a 1080p TV you should select the output (Found in the "Settings") to 1080p.

The FAT+ will not generate thumbnails for your files like Windows does... it's up to you to include a JPG file in the same directory as the movie, with the same name. For example "Animal House.iso" and "Animal House.jpg"...then, when you select "View Thumbnails" it will show the image you select.

File structure doesn't matter actually, when the unit turns on, it locates all media, indexes it into a database that it stores in the ".theater" folder in the root directory on the drive. Of course, if you want to browse for a specific file through the "Browse Folders" menu or "USB" you may want to organize it. But when you select "Movies" or "Music" from the main menu, it just shows everything it found, no directory structure is displayed whatsoever. Your choice is to show "DVDs" or "All Movies" from the drop down menu, or "Browse Folders"... If you pick "DVD's" you will only see ISO files or DVD/VOB files... so things like home videos in AVI or MPG containers are not displayed.

I can't comment on the NAS behavior or ISO streaming... I don't use network storage.  I'm with you though, it doesn't make much sense why only some formats can stream.

[bodhi78]

Well, we do know why it's not streaming. It's just that it sucks when we connect a DLNA-compliant media player and a DLNA-compliant NAS together, they do not work well together ;-).

However, I would suggest you not to use the media server, anyway. As hobartrus and I mentioned above, for the FAT+ network streaming purpose, just use the NAS as a file server, then ISO streaming should be OK.

[Zelpheriz]

Winning combo would be

NAS used for file storage

FAT+ has a shortcut to the NAS IP address

FAT+ is set to View all media files

NAS will appear with directory structure (not necessairly sorted by name)

select what you want play .. and just hit that play button , this way you take the DLNA out and it will be up to the FAT+ to decode your media

one more thing ... USE the playdude cooked firmware , it has far greater abilities and been tested for stability.

[bodhi78]

Totally agreed about the ideal setup: NAS and FAT+.

That's what I have been testing with lately. Streaming from a NAS would be much better than streaming from PC. Since the later  model NAS draw very little power, it can be on 24/7. NAS serves as your backup storage and your media storage in RAID configuration. NAS does not have anything else running on it that can interferre with video streaming. NAS can run your Bit torrent client, too.

The reason Seagate would never provide the ability to write to the attached USB disk through network is that it would impact Seagate NAS sales. Who needs the NAS, if they can use the FAT+ in that way? playdude MOD FW really do provide NAS capability for free it just that a lot of people who are interested in the FAT+ as a media player are probably not really care or interetested in using a NAS.

Personally, I need a lot more storage and also RAID config so I use a real NAS. For people who only wants to stream video/audio I would say playdude FW is all they need  to be able stream HD videos without problem (because you're not really streaming, the HD files would be copied over to the USB HDD and played locally).

[Zelpheriz]

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bodhi78 wrote:

The reason Seagate would never provide the ability to write to the attached USB disk through network is that it would impact Seagate NAS sales. Who needs the NAS, if they can use the FAT+ in that way?

mate , all NAS manufacturer should watch out , there is a breed of NAS adaptors hitting the market hard that will make a full fledged NAS a diansour

granted its early to tell , but from what i am reading , it does give functionality of NAS maybe not RAID config yet ...  but who knows what the future holds...

now it gives , ftp , bit torrent .. some even offer media servers ....

[bodhi78]

Great info! any idea how much they'll sell these for? If it's less than $80 US, I'd say the NAS manufacturers better watch out :-)

[Zelpheriz]

Its dirt cheap

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=usb+to+nas&x=0&...

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bodhi78 wrote:

Great info! any idea how much they'll sell these for? If it's less than $80 US, I'd say the NAS manufacturers better watch out :-)

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