sergie's no1 fan Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 If it was a straight choice between the HDX and the Nexus 7, I would go for the Nexus everytime. Its slight, but only slightly, lower spec than the HDX but you get vanilla Android, which means more regular updates and none of the crap Amazon have added/want to sell you. Im not a big fan of Apple products, but I know what you mean about the ipad. Up to you if you want to pay the extra really You shouldnt have any trouble watching "special" websites, unless they use Flash, but then they wont play on an ipad mini either. ETA - if SkyGo is particularly important, stay away from the HDX - clicky I have the original Nexus which does the business with Skygo,BT, TVCatchup etc tethered to phone for quiet times at work. Cheers guys. I'm still reading customer reviews on them haha. The Nexus has excellent write ups then i looked at the bad reviews and it does frighten me a bit. Can get a 32gb Nexus 7 for £10 less than a 16gb mini Ipad. Its mad. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YER SISTERS YER MAW Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 Can anyone offer help? I'm with BT and can only access my e-mail via my phone and tablet, whenever I try to access via my laptop, all I get is a white page. I phoned BT and it's definitely a problem at their end which their working on to resolve. You can access your e-mail in the meantime at www.mail.yahoo.com and just log in as normal. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Archer (Raconteur) Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 I phoned BT and it's definitely a problem at their end which their working on to resolve. You can access your e-mail in the meantime at www.mail.yahoo.com and just log in as normal. Cheers. You won't believe this, I have just logged onto Yahoo prior to coming on here. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sergie's no1 fan Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 No way The Hut are doing the 32GB Nexus for £119. That might just sway it for me 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHallSaint Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 I have a nexus 7 and its superb. Had no faults, still runs as smooth as when i got it and couldn't recommend it higher. I had an iPad and tbh i would get another nexus before an iPad. And no problems watching "special" sites 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 No way The Hut are doing the 32GB Nexus for £119. That might just sway it for me Thats the original Asus version. You should be able to pick those up pretty cheaply anywhere. Its not as well spec'd as the new version, obviously, but might be enough for what you need 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sergie's no1 fan Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 Thats the original Asus version. You should be able to pick those up pretty cheaply anywhere. Its not as well spec'd as the new version, obviously, but might be enough for what you need I read the specs last night and realised emailed them just to make sure it's the old one. Complete rip off if they are selling that for £240 normally. This is why I hate making these kind of decisions ha ha 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 I read the specs last night and realised emailed them just to make sure it's the old one. Complete rip off if they are selling that for £240 normally. This is why I hate making these kind of decisions ha ha If you dont want to make a decision, buy the ipad I think the original Asus Nexus 7 would be fine for what you want to do. Its still a great tablet, its just not as good as the newer one. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisGRAEME Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 Right, so I've been looking into setting up XBMC, but as I'm not totally sure how much use I'd get out of it, I'm loath to spend a great amount of money on it. If I pick up a barebones/second hand desktop, that's likely to run it, right? I had a dig through the XBMC forums but pretty much every suggestion is 'SPEND MONEY', which is fine, really...but I'd rather not until I know its what I want. Additionally, is it worth setting up plex & XBMC? Simply as you can get a plex dev kit for a NOW TV box..which appeals. Ta! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 (edited) Right, so I've been looking into setting up XBMC, but as I'm not totally sure how much use I'd get out of it, I'm loath to spend a great amount of money on it. If I pick up a barebones/second hand desktop, that's likely to run it, right? I had a dig through the XBMC forums but pretty much every suggestion is 'SPEND MONEY', which is fine, really...but I'd rather not until I know its what I want. Additionally, is it worth setting up plex & XBMC? Simply as you can get a plex dev kit for a NOW TV box..which appeals. Ta! Plex and XBMC are kind of the same thing. Plex is an off-shoot of XBMC, although both have moved on quite a bit, in different ways, since. You can run both on the same machine but Im not totally sure why you'd want to. From what Ive read, XBMC is the more flexible and configurable but that also means its more difficult to set up. Plex, on the other hand, is incredibly easy to setup but not as configurable. Ive been running Plex as a server on my PC for a few weeks now and its fantastic. I've just started looking into getting a NAS or building a dedicated machine for it. The issue Ive come across is that to transcode at 1080p you need decent CPU power. The minimum Id have to pay for a NAS, for example, is about £1000! Id imagine XBMC is pretty much the same. So, you can run it on a second hand desktop but depending on what you want to achieve will depend on the spec you need. If you have devices that can play the files in the format they are in, for example, you wont need to transcode so could run it on pretty much anything. If you only have one device you'll be using to view then you wont need multiple streams so, again, wont need a high spec machine. This link has more info, although it is for Plex ETA - you might also need to watch out for what architecture you go for depending on which 'channels' you intend to use. Im not using Netflix or anything like that through Plex, so it doesnt really make any difference to me, but Im sure Ive read that Netflix and others wont work on certain chipsets Edited April 10, 2014 by Mr X 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisGRAEME Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 That's pretty useful, thanks. Ultimately, its for ease of use connecting through various devices, if that makes sense. For example, I'm keen to get the TV Addons for our main living room TV, which I'd need XBMC to run, as Plex doesn't have that functionality. In addition to this, I'm looking to share the media I have through the xboxes, iPads, Laptops and Now TV box I have in the rest of the house, which is most simply achieved through Plex, I think? Having read more on Plex this morning (which I'd used in the past, but only briefly), I think it might be the better way to go. Ultimately, I was to get something like this: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/dell-desktop-computer-p4-26ghz-1gram-40g-hdd/1056266668 as it seems to meet the minimum system reqs for Plex, at a low price to see whether I'd actually get the use I think I would out of it, and I could just continue to use plus1hd for my football watching... But at the same time, the benchmarking score of the Pentium 4 is woefully low in terms of suitability for transcoding. Potentially need to up my spending expectations, somewhat. Thoughts?(again, ta! Super helpful!) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 That's pretty useful, thanks. Ultimately, its for ease of use connecting through various devices, if that makes sense. For example, I'm keen to get the TV Addons for our main living room TV, which I'd need XBMC to run, as Plex doesn't have that functionality. In addition to this, I'm looking to share the media I have through the xboxes, iPads, Laptops and Now TV box I have in the rest of the house, which is most simply achieved through Plex, I think? Having read more on Plex this morning (which I'd used in the past, but only briefly), I think it might be the better way to go. Ultimately, I was to get something like this: http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/dell-desktop-computer-p4-26ghz-1gram-40g-hdd/1056266668 as it seems to meet the minimum system reqs for Plex, at a low price to see whether I'd actually get the use I think I would out of it, and I could just continue to use plus1hd for my football watching... But at the same time, the benchmarking score of the Pentium 4 is woefully low in terms of suitability for transcoding. Potentially need to up my spending expectations, somewhat. Thoughts? (again, ta! Super helpful!) Im not sure I would even bother with that, it looks like it would struggle with any transcoding at all! You're talking about a few hundred on the benchmark score per stream, even more if you're going to be viewing HD. I've just been playing about on parts picker and this is about the cheapest I could get to, that Im pretty confident will transcoding full HD without any issues http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3pk0m I did originally have less RAM but having read up on FreeNAS, it needs at least 8Gb! I probably could cut that down and just use a linux OS and I could probably go for a slightly cheaper CPU which would save, maybe £30-£40. That build has no HDD as I already have one sitting in a USB drive just now 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisGRAEME Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 Im not sure I would even bother with that, it looks like it would struggle with any transcoding at all! You're talking about a few hundred on the benchmark score per stream, even more if you're going to be viewing HD. I've just been playing about on parts picker and this is about the cheapest I could get to, that Im pretty confident will transcoding full HD without any issues http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3pk0m I did originally have less RAM but having read up on FreeNAS, it needs at least 8Gb! I probably could cut that down and just use a linux OS and I could probably go for a slightly cheaper CPU which would save, maybe £30-£40. That build has no HDD as I already have one sitting in a USB drive just now Aye, that's what I was thinking! I was hoping I'd be able to put something together for an insignificant amount of money, but I'll have a we swatch at what I've got next pay day and probably go with something along the lines of what you've suggested. Cheers! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 Aye, that's what I was thinking! I was hoping I'd be able to put something together for an insignificant amount of money, but I'll have a we swatch at what I've got next pay day and probably go with something along the lines of what you've suggested. Cheers! No problem. Make sure you let us know how you get on, if you decide to build something. Im wondering now if its really worth it I dont have a huge amount of media on disc anymore, I use Netflix and Sky anytime for most of the TV stuff and all my music is on Google . Might just stick to switching my PC on when I want to use Plex 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Archer (Raconteur) Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 BT e-mail back online now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YER SISTERS YER MAW Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 BT e-mail back online now. Ta! I wish it was still Yahoo e-mail. Their homepage was miles better than BT's. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I read the specs last night and realised emailed them just to make sure it's the old one. Complete rip off if they are selling that for £240 normally. This is why I hate making these kind of decisions ha ha Have you bought anything yet? Im tempted to get a new Nexus 7 now. Especially as it has QI wirless charging 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotThePars Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Is there any way on conventional media players like Windows or VLC to merge videos together so that they're almost playing seamlessly after each other? We've got a projector set up for a party where we're hoping to have about 10 videos playing back to back ideally without any real delays transitioning between videos. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Thompson Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 (edited) Is there any way on conventional media players like Windows or VLC to merge videos together so that they're almost playing seamlessly after each other? We've got a projector set up for a party where we're hoping to have about 10 videos playing back to back ideally without any real delays transitioning between videos. Not on the players, no, as they are players not editors. If all you want to do is join videos together then something like Windows Movie Maker would probably be enough. If you want to do more advanced editing then you're looking at something like Sony Vegas or Lightworks. I doubt you'd need either of those though ETA - having said that, you might be able to set the videos up as a playlist and set the playlist to not have any gaps. Edited April 17, 2014 by Mr X 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotThePars Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Not on the players, no, as they are players not editors. If all you want to do is join videos together then something like Windows Movie Maker would probably be enough. If you want to do more advanced editing then you're looking at something like Sony Vegas or Lightworks. I doubt you'd need either of those though ETA - having said that, you might be able to set the videos up as a playlist and set the playlist to not have any gaps. Having videos just playing one after the other without any gaps would be sufficient, aye. Ideally being able to slightly cross fade them would help. I'll have a look on Movie Maker. Cheers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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