Nov 16 2003
Oritron NPD3117 On Media Networked DVD Player
Ok, I admit it, I’ve got a problem with buying too many DVD players. But this time, it’s different…
I have a HDTV and have wanted to put together a Home Theater PC to allow me to
play high quality video from my computers on the screen.
This is fairly straight forward, except for the video output which must be in a high enough resolution to take
advantage of the HDTV. So I put it off and one day bumped into an ad from buy.com offering a networked
DVD player that does progressive scan. I did a little research to see what else was
offered in this category and did not come up with much. Funny, as I write this I did a google search
and today Slashdot has an article on the Oritron.
There is a product from Go that costs $300. I spent $160 on the Oritron and have been very happy with it.
The DVD player hooks up like any other HD component device. The trick comes in adding the right ethernet card and firing
up the streaming software. The specs are a little old, naming cards that may not still be in production. I had an old Orinico Gold,
so I was golden (as it were). I threw the On Media streaming software on an old P3 450, pointed it at the local drive containing
the media files and told it to scan. It chewed away while I ran downstairs to see if anything was showing up. Sure enough, I
was getting files. Using the arrow keys on the remote, I could pick music, pictures, or video files and they played fine.
A couple of issues:
I had some avi files that would not play. It turns out that the software senses the speed of the processor and if it’s lower than
1.2G, it disables the ability to convert avi’s on the fly (not sure what this means). I installed the server on faster box and had no
problems playing the files.
The software will only work with local drives. It does not recognize network attached drives.
I tried playing avi’s captured straight from digital tape (not encoded at all) and it didn’t like them. Still playing with this area.
All in all, I’m very impressed with the functionality of this cheap product. Now, what do I do with all the old DVD players?
Thanks for the info. I have been searching for a steaming Divx player for sometime.
I had been considering Pinnacle’s “Showcenter” player.
But thanks to your post I will reevaluate.
Bob
So who are you going to give it away toooo?
Do you still have the NPD3117? I have one and have been thinking about resurrecting it. It has collected dust for many years now, but now I have a uPnP dedicated device that has the Mediabolic server built in. So I wanted to see if I could flash the firmware to the GoVideo d2730 v3 firmware which supports uPnP (at least for music, not sure about video yet). Except I have 2 concerns:
FIRST I would like to get a copy of the NPD3117 firmware so I can restore it in case I’m not happy.
SECOND I would like to know HOW to flash the Oritron’s firmware with the GoVideo firmware. I can’t seem to figure it out and it isn’t documented anywhere.
Please help… any response would be great.
Thanks!
Hi – I do still have it, in my dust pile of old equipment as well.
How can I help?
D
This guy piqued my interest, so I’m digging around for info. Here are some links so far:
http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2004/01/gateway_connect.html
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/archive/t168339.html
Thanks! Sorry for the delay. Here’s what I managed to do. I flashed it with the GoVideo d2730 v3 firmware. I can browse to my media server and select files. HOWEVER I can’t get them to play. I just end up with a blank screen.
Did you have any luck with your setup?
Hi CW – I dug it out, but haven’t tried anything…