The Media Center Showdown Part 3

Today on part 3 I will be covering which file formats the devices support. A good media center needs a lot of formats and 2 of the devices really shine through here. A lot of techbabble with diffrent formats will be presented to you in this part, I'm sorry but I feel it's necessary to post the info for you so you can see what the devices are capable of. So I hope you all don't get too bored.

File Formats Supported


Apple TV

As we all know Apple likes to have a tight control of there devices and how they are used. Apple TV is no exception. It's sad when you look at what file formats it support:

Picture : GIF, JPG, TIFF

Sound: AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, MP3, WAV (PCM)

Video: H.264 video up to 720p, MOV, MP4

As you can see the Apple TV barely supports any formats. That makes it a quite horrible media center. A media center that doesn't support 1080P shouldn't even be considered a media center. Shame on you Apple!

Score 3 out of 10

WD TV Live

I would like to call the WD TV Live an old school media center. An old school device that (Popcorn hour and Tvix are 2 other) basically supports anything you'll feed it with and WD TV Live does it brilliantly.   I haven't fed it with media it wouldn't take. Everything I ever played on it have worked just fine and that's the advantage WD TV Live have if you thinking of buying one. 

Picture: JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG

Sound: MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA/WMA Pro, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS.

Video: AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264,AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9.

Subtitles: SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI.

Quite impressive huh? About time WD TV Live had a bit glory in this review. Well done Western Digital!

Score 8 out of 10

D-Link Boxee

The D-Link Boxee impresses even more. Same thing here. Boxee has played everything I've given it. Fasten your seat belt here comes all the formats it supports:

Picture: BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, MNG, ICO, PCX ,Targa/TGA

Sound: AIFF, WAV/WAVE, MP2, MP3, AAC, AACplus, AC3, DTS, ALAC, AMR, FLAC, Monkey's Audio (APE), RealAudio, SHN, WavPack, MPC/Musepack/Mpeg+, Speex, Vorbis, WMA

Video: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (SP and ASP, including DivX, XviD, 3ivx, DV, H.263), MPEG-4 AVC (H.264, including Nero Digital), HuffYUV, Indeo, MJPEG, RealVideo, QuickTime, Sorenson, WMV, Cinepak.

Containers: AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, M4A, AAC, NUT, Ogg, OGM, RealMedia RAM/RM/RV/RA/RMVB, 3gp, VIVO, PVA, NUV, NSV, NSA, FLI, FLC, ISO, RAR, DVR-MS.

Subtitle: AQTitle, ASS/SSA, CC, JACOsub, MicroDVD, MPsub, OGM, PJS, RT, SMI, SRT, SUB, VOBsub, VPlayer. 

Wow!! Can you believe it? How capable is this device? My goodness, it's limitless. Worth mentioning is that the Boxee can read packed files such as RAR (See above at containers list for more). No need to unpack in order to view the media.

Score 9 out of 10

Conclusion

The D-Link Boxee once again concur the 1st place. It's just amazing how competent this machine is. So many formats it can handle it's almost unbelievable. The WD TV Live comes in a honourable 2nd place and proves that even though it hasn't got a lot of fancy features and apps, it's certainly a very competent media center that will serve you loyally with brilliance. The Apple TV........no comment. 

 

Missed part 1, 2 or 4? They can be found here:

>> The Media Center Showdown Part 1
>> The Media Center Showdown Part 2
>> The Media Center Showdown Part 4
>> The Media Center Showdown Part 5
>> The Media Center Showdown Part 6