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Television Media Entertainment Games Hardware

Review: QCast Tuner for PS2 185

Posted by pudge from the synergy-for-the-whole-family dept.
With TiVo's release of the much anticipated Home Media Option (anticipated by me, anyway), I renewed my quest to find a way to integrate my computer's media files with my TV. TiVo's solution is not an option for me, because I don't have a Series2, and even if I did, the TiVo solution doesn't work with DirecTV units (for now, anyway). So I looked into something I saw a few months ago on ThinkGeek: QCast Tuner for PlayStation 2.
QCast Tuner is software that plays audio, video, and image files from your computer to your network adapter-equipped PS2. There are two pieces to the software, the PS2 DVD and the computer software (on a separate CD), for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. I used the Mac OS X version, of course. There's a configuration utility to set up what you will share, and to what users/IP addresses. Then a separate program launches the server, which serves up the files and playlists. It's all written in Java, which means the UI stinks, but it seems to work well.

It can handle many media formats; to me, the most important are MPEG-1, MP3, and JPEG. But it also handles DivX, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, Ogg Vorbis, and PNG, and can be updated to handle other formats. But it doesn't handle the majority of my movie file archive, which are QuickTime, and that's a shame. And if you try to open a file it can't read (I changed some .mov files to .mpg, as it filters by name), it seems to hang.

I got the PS2 Network Adapter installed first, popped it onto the back of the machine, and ran the setup disk to configure it. Then I played a game of Madden 2003 online. I scored a touchdown on a tight end slant on the first play, then got one more play at the end of the half (a 30-yard reception to Troy Brown), and then didn't take another snap. Stupid 1-minute quarters. I lost 14-7.

Then I remembered I had this QCast Tuner thing, and I installed it on my PowerBook G3/500, where I keep my images, my MP3s, and my EyeTV recordings. It didn't take much to set it up, same as with the initial setup: I manually entered my IP address, router address, etc. and the IP address of the PowerBook G3. The software on the PowerBook updated and configured the PS2 software, and restarted it, and I was ready to go.

From the main screen you can elect to view pictures, or play music and video. I tried music first, where I had shared my iTunes directory, which has one directory per artist (except for compilations, which are in a separate directory). I have 293 directories in this directory, and there is no good way to skip to the bottom of the list; you can go one screen at a time, but that takes a little while. So I picked Ben Folds to start out with.

The user interface, apart from not handling long lists well, has several usability problems. To go up a directory, you select the ".." directory, which is something that Unix geeks know, but most PS2 users would expect to use the triangle button or something.

You cannot play songs from these lists, either; you need to add them to the playlist, then hit L1 to switch to the playlist, and then play from there. To get the ID3 tags to show up, you have to hit L1 again, and select that option (along with the shuffle and repeat options). And if you leave the playing screens (which makes the music stop, so you can't manage playlists while playing music) and come back, those options get reset.

You cannot get the time remaining of a song, and the UI doesn't show the full track name -- or track number -- if it is too large for the available space (it has trouble even with track "1/10", though "1/9" fits). And you can't scan forward or backward in a song or movie (which is often the case with streaming software), you can only pause, play, stop, and skip to another file.

To make it easier to find what you want to play, you can make playlists. Select the files you want to play in the interface, and save the playlist, which is stored on the server. I didn't want to do this for all my MP3s, but I had an easier solution: I wrote a small Perl script to create symlinks to my MP3 artist directories in other directories beginning with the first letter of the artist; and I share that directory of directories of symlinks instead. So instead of going down a list of 390 artists to get to Wesley Willis, I just select W, and he's right there.

My problem with EyeTV was greater: as noted in my review of EyeTV, the filenames bear no resemblance to the contents of the files, unlike the MP3s. But the solution I wrote for EyeTV was easily modified to serve me here, too. The playlists are just text files with the path (relative to the share point) on one line, and just the filename on the next line.

I thought I could change the filename line to be any arbitrary text (like "McLaughlin Group 2003.04.11") and have one playlist for all my EyeTV recordings, but that didn't have any effect; the display still showed the filename. So instead, I created multiple playlists, one for each program. So the playlist "EyeTV: McLaughlin Group" has paths for each McLaughlin Group recording I've got saved. It would have been nice to have an EyeTV playlist directory, instead of naming the playlists "EyeTV: ", but I could find no way to make nested playlists. If a playlist is not in the root playlist directory, it is not recognized as a playlist.

I can now watch the shows I used to have to watch on the computer, on the TV. It makes me feel kinda dirty, like it should have been on the TV all along. Oh well. And any changes to my music and TV recordings are regularly updated, as the two programs run via cron every half hour (and I can even begin watching a program that is currently recording).

QCast is bitten by the iTunes ID3 comment bug whereby data is stored with a frame header of "COM ", which is illegal. So QCast doesn't recognize any of the ID3 tag at all. I can't blame QCast for Apple's bug, especially since it bit my code too; this was the final straw that made me convert all my tags to ID3v2.2.0 (only v2.3.0 and v2.4.0 are affected). Maybe the QCast people can fix that problem when they add QuickTime support (he says hopefully).

The final issue I have is how to integrate it into my TV "experience." I don't want to have to turn on the PS2 and wait for it to boot every time I want to listen to music, so do I leave it on whenever I am around? And my system isn't set up to easily switch between PS2 and TiVo and DVD; my switch box has no remote, but does switch to a device that is turned on, which is nice for DVDs, but useless for when you leave the PS2 on all the time. I could plug the PS2 into the spare inputs on the VCR (which is on a separate input to the amplifier, and has its own button on the remote control), but that is kinda sloppy. And do I buy an IR remote control for the PS2? Is there an IR remote that can turn the PS2 off and on? These are problems mostly inherent in the design of using PS2 for multimedia, and there's not a lot I can do except to try to figure out ways to do things that work for me.

Basically, QCast Tuner is a nice idea, and it works well despite its UI and design flaws (some of which can be fixed on subsequent updates, I imagine), if you can fit it into your setup (or change your setup to suit it). I'm still undecided on using it long-term, but I am going to keep trying it out for awhile and see how it goes.
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Review: QCast Tuner for PS2 More

Review: QCast Tuner for PS2

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  • I can just play media content off of my dreamcast (running linux) for less $$ =P

  • Uhm... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:02PM (#5738590)
    Doesn't your Powerbook have a video out jack? I think it would have been much easier and cheaper to buy an S-vid cable.
    • ...when you can spend so much more.

      Isn't that why mac's were created in the first place? (Ducks for cover)

      Sorry guys a part of me just had to say that.
      • That is one option I've worked with in the past, but, basically, the text of most apps are unreadable on the TV. Right now I use an iBook hooked up to the stereo, and am going to likely replace that with an old PowerBook with S-video out, but it just isn't a great solution because it is just too fuzzy.
    • Well, I don't have a Powerbook, and hooking my laptop up to my TV is a major pain since I have to modify my laptop's screen settings, and even then, the picture is fuzzy - even using s-video. (this is using a Dell Inspirion from 3 years ago - maybe things are better now?)

      Even so, most people aren't going to want to have their laptop connected to their entertainment unit, so the QCast + PS2 solution fits well.
      • Same way on mine, Latitude C810 with GeForce2Go. You have to dig around in the Advanced part of the Display Properties to enable nView, then change the resolution to 640X480. Too cumbersome, except when I have a large file on my laptop and nothing else to play it.

        Thanks to XBMP 2.3, this is no longer a problem =).
      • Things have gotten much much better. We now have HDTV sets coming in under $1,000. The problem is the interlaced modes, and yes, that includes 1080i you're only getting half the immage per frame. PCs are not generating slowly moving pan & scan passively viewed video. Because they need every bit of data to be shown each frame, interlaced video looks like crap.
        Fortunately 720p and 1080p supporting HDTVs make hooking a computer to a tv something that No Longer Sucks Ass!. BTW I've only seen projecti
        • Since I was bored I decided to look around a little harder. It is true that 1080i model HDTVs are more prevalent than 1080p, But the starting range for 1080p is ~$2,000 on up. Although the $2,000 units seem to be the low-end of such 1080p HDTVs.

    • Re:Uhm... (Score:2, Redundant)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      I have video out on my PCs and I would still prefer this method. I wouldn't have to run RCA cables for three miles from my PC to my TV. I don't have to fuck around changing to TV-output in Windows. I have easily accessable movies and music in one program.

      I am still thinking about MythTV or Freevo instead though. I can tuck the PC behind a chair and not have to run the cables that far. I won't have to pay $50. I like the fact that it is FREE and I can do what I want w/it.

  • Standards? (Score:4, Funny)

    by swordboy ( 472941 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:03PM (#5738608) Journal
    What ever happened to industry standards?

    I mean, sure, open-source has got a million different projects going. Microsoft has their version. And all the little private companies out their are developing their own.

    If we could all just get along...

    What ever happened to the Sony/Matsushita deal for an open-source solution to all this? Backed by these behemoths, I think that this would finally bring some consolidation and organization to this crap.
    • "If we could all just get along..."
      • Let's check in and see what
      • Rodney King [heraldtribune.com] is up to these days.

    • Everything always gets sold out. Look at whats happening to IBM after that started adopting Linux in a big way. Because Linux and other "OpenSource" programs are so scattered, and there really is no backbone behind them (like a major conglomorate) they dont get as high off the ground as they should, and could.
    • What ever happened to the Sony/Matsushita deal for an open-source solution to all this?

      You used Sony and open-source in the same sentance? Thanks for the great laugh. Sony makes MS look like a great proponent of open source, and pro-fair use too.

      My reaction to the article was that looks great, but too bad it's based on Sony crap. If this were for the xbox or gamecube, it would be worth getting the console and the software just for the set-top divx player.

      Jason
      ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
      • Why use a streaming solution for XBox? I've heard you can get a hack which will let you load a Divx player onto the HD directly and play CDRs directly?
        • You can do this so you do not have to store the video files directly on the hard drive, saving space for more games! Anyhow, you normally downloading video files from the internet, so why bother having to copy the files again just to get them on the Xbox when you can just stream them over your underutilized home network anyhow?
      • nice astroturf!

        BTW, you misspelled "sentence".

  • His comment about the .. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:04PM (#5738622)
    The user interface, apart from not handling long lists well, has several usability problems. To go up a directory, you select the ".." directory, which is something that Unix geeks know, but most PS2 users would expect to use the triangle button or something.

    Seems to me that with all the effort required to get things setup (e.g. manually entering ip addresses, having the mp3/divx files to begin with) that you HAVE to be somewhat of a computer person to even get the thing up and running, so this particular comment seems out of place.

    Interesting concept, though overall they seem to drop the ball as far as usability or they decided to target the serious nerd market. It would be interesting to see what Sony themselves could do with this kind of product (or even Apple).

    • Re:His comment about the .. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SlashChick ( 544252 ) <erica AT erica DOT biz> on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:22PM (#5738760) Homepage Journal
      Just because something is hard to set up doesn't mean it has to be hard to use. Most computers are hard to set up, but people use Windows and Macs because they are easy to use.

      If I were in the market for a home media center, I'd want anyone who sat down on the couch to be able to use it. Usability problems such as this, although minor, prevent other people from being comfortable using the system. In the end, it doesn't matter who set it up, but who is able to use it easily... and this product doesn't quite cut it for usability.
      • Just because something is hard to set up doesn't mean it has to be hard to use. Most computers are hard to set up, but people use Windows and Macs because they are easy to use.

        I agree, but his comment related to the user not knowing what the ".." meant, not that having ".." was a usability issue. The usuability issue here really is that you can't use the triangle to go back, not that the ".." exists. AAMOF, if the triangle was enabled, having it could be a usability issue because of the poor way it ha
    • ".."? In MacOSX, I just use the up arrow button to go up, or scroll sideways if I'm in that long stretched out view. What's this ".."?

      ".." is a special operator on a file operator on unix systems. On mac os 9, it was :: Sure, any chucklehead can figure it out afte ra while, but isn't the point of a good user interface, is a good user interaface? One that is easy to understand?

      Took me a while to figure out how to turn off my iPod. You have to hold down the play button. It took me a while to think,
    • The difficulty in setting this up is slightly overstated. You need to know the IP address of your computer, but in the manual there are pretty detailed directions on how to get that.

      The user interface is still rough, from reading the forums it seems like they wanted to get something out rather than wait for the perfect product.

  • Interesting difference (Score:5, Insightful)

    by japhar81 ( 640163 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:05PM (#5738625)
    I find it interesting that Sony endorses (i.e. they digitally signed a CD for mass production) such an application, whereas Microsoft has fought several companies trying to do the same with XBox (wish I had links). Not meaning to start a flamewar, anyone have any thoughts on why the differing strategies? Is it that MS wants to push Windows Media Center and Sony has no product to pitch in the space so it doesnt care, or am I missing something blatant?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • well, I'm not sure I'd consider them really, really liberal... They censored BMXXX or whatever it was called, so that you can't see the nudity. Xbox allowed the full nudity. Now, I'm not trying to support MS in any way shape or form, I fully believe that just touching an Xbox may give me the plague... but that is one conservative decision Sony made, regardless of whether you personally see it as a right or wrong choice.
      • I think you might be referring to the vibrator stick attachment that syncs up with that music game. Looks pretty liberal to me :)
    • It may be that the PS2 is already a mature product and adding capability (that may or may not compete with Sony's other products - eg Vaio series computers) won't hurt their bottom line. MicroSoft does seem to me more aggressive about keeping control of their platform to what THEY want it to be, whereas Sony seems to be a bit more mellow about letting the consumer use the hardware for their own purposes.

      Personally, I think I'd just run an S-Video out from my video card to my TV if I wanted to do this (I a
    • Actually it isn't that surprising. QCast refuses to support non-Sony NICs. Everyone, like myself, who was an early adopter and used a USB NIC is screwed. Most net-play enabled PS2 games support USB NICs, but QCast blames problems supporting the wide range of USB NICs. Let's see... Sony agrees to sign the QCast CD, and then QCast says they can only support the Sony NIC.

      Damn, I hate to be the paranoid guy!
      • While a USB NIC might be sufficient for game play, I highly doubt that USB 1.1 throughput is sufficient for Over-the-Lan video playback. It's not even really adequate for USB connected tuners (relatively low res). That's probably the reason for the lack of support.

      • I don't believe that's how it works at all.

        Sony has built their rock NIC to work with their games and their products. Others have made an attempt and will keep attempting to make alternatives which currently work with the currently shipping games. However, in the future, Sony will move to other networking stanards which will eliminate those particular compatibilities.

        BroadQ does very well supporting the PS2 NIC, but is spending time in developing their product with Sony's hardware, not to support each a
    • Sony has always pushed the Playstation as becoming the center of your entertainment system.

      The PS2's built-in ability to play DVD movies is the first step towards this, with rumors of the PS3 being capable of operating as a PVR.

      A QCast-like product makes a lot of sense, since many people will already have a large collection of media files on their PC, while also having a nice entertainment setup elsewhere.

      Sounds like all that is needed now is to work on the UI and functionality issues.
      • Blah blah blah, I've done this about 8 months ago with my Xbox, for cheaper and easier. xboxmediaplayer, matrix mod chip, and that xbox streaming software. For PS2 owners, this might seem "cool", but it's old hat for Xbox folks. While we're at it, remember, the Xbox comes with the ethernet adapter built in.
    • It's similar to the difference in their approach to the network gaming. Sony lets the publisher's handle their own network servers, while MS insists on doing it all in their data centers, a strategy that has cost them some quite lucrative relationships (e.g. EA). Basically, I see it as the difference between a mature, responsible company, confident in their ability to profit and prosper in their market, and a megalomaniacal control freak out to dominate every market.

  • I think this might be a worthwhile investment for me. I have been in search of a simple media center solution for a while now. I was waiting until the Linux-on-Xbox revolution matured a bit, but now I think I can use this instead. I'm glad that it supports DivX and Xvid, I had naturally assumed it would only play MPEG based content. I am glad I was wrong.
  • I think you can use the L1/R1 (or is it L2/R2?) buttons to page up and down on lists. At least that's what I read on the Qcast forums the other day. I don't actually have it myself, but was thinking about it (my UK beta-test PS2 network adapter is sitting in the mailroom!).

  • WTF? (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by L. VeGas ( 580015 )
    Hey, this is a review of a ViewSonic V150 AirPanel! Not a QCast Tuner for PS2!

  • Nowhere in that article did the reviewer say that the MS Tablet PC sucks! see prev article [slashdot.org]
  • Series 1 DirecTiVo units are completely hackable to include extraction/remote viewing of video streams.

    http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/forumdisplay. p hp ?s=&forumid=23

    There's also a MythTV module that completely integrates the series 1 units.

    http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php ?s =&threadid=23380

    You can also have hacks to do caller ID reporting, sports scores, weather, etc.

    http://shelob.mordor.net/dgraft/ (Follow link on the left to DirecTiVo)
  • Qcast's main competition is this: Xbox Media Player [xboxmediaplayer.de]

    It requires a modchipped xbox to run (relatively easy to do, with the 007 hack that has gotten press on /. lately), but it supports many more formats (DivX, Xvid, WMP9, with quicktime and real coming soon - basically everything mplayer supports is being worked on) and at better resolutions than the Qcast can support. It's got audio visualization for MP3 and OGG, an IMDB interface, DVD navigation, VCD and SVCD playback, and can stream video, audio and pic

  • goldfish (Score:5, Funny)

    by EpsCylonB ( 307640 ) <.moc.bnolycspe. .ta. .spe.> on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:15PM (#5738710) Homepage
    I got the PS2 Network Adapter installed first, popped it onto the back of the machine, and ran the setup disk to configure it. Then I played a game of Madden 2003 online. I scored a touchdown on a tight end slant on the first play, then got one more play at the end of the half (a 30-yard reception to Troy Brown), and then didn't take another snap. Stupid 1-minute quarters. I lost 14-7.

    Then I remembered I had this QCast Tuner thing,

    ahh, that famous american attention span.

  • I have one (Score:5, Informative)

    by schulzdogg ( 165637 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:17PM (#5738718) Homepage Journal
    I bought mine about two weeks ago.

    One glaring flaw in the Review: If you hit R2/L2 you can page up and page down on long lists of files, making scrolling long directories painless.

    In general I've loved it so far. It saved me the hassle of setting up something to stream MP3's from my computer.

    I run mine over 80211b and it works fine. I've watched full length Divx movies and they streamed fine.

    Audio wise it's as good as your MP3's.

    There are several UI problems and most are noted in the review. Not being able to play songs while you build your list is a bad one, but according to Qcast there's nothing they can do about it. I'd also really like to be able to watch slideshow's while MP3's play but that's a later release according to broadq.

    Speaking of
    BroadQ [broadq.com] they maintain an excellent forum, which is regularly read by developers.

    One thing the reviewer failed to mention is that the software is updateable remotetly. A new version is set to ship "any day now". Any updates that require a new cd broadq has provided free of charge to existing users.

    I love mine, and use it all the time. Just for streaming MP3's around it would be worth the $50 bucks, but being able to watch my family guy episodes on a full TV makes it a bargain. If you have an internal network and a PS2 save yourself the hassle of trying to build a box yourself and just drop the $50 bucks on this thing. It will be well worth it.
    • ...but being able to watch my family guy episodes on a full TV makes it a bargain.
      It should be noted that the first 28 epsidoes (seasons 1 and 2) of Family Guy are now available for purchase (starting today) on R1 DVD.

  • You bought the QCast Tuner from thinkgeek.com, and you didn't send them an action shot [thinkgeek.com]!? Thinkgeek thrives on action shots. It's people like you that have made this world into the inhospitable place it is today. :-P

    .:Jon:.

  • Updates? Quality? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pergamon ( 4359 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:24PM (#5738771) Homepage
    Can anyone comment on:

    a) How the 'updates' get applied?
    b) What the quality of the video and audio is? Any sync problems? Does it only handle up to a certain bitrate/resolution?
    • I guess I wasn't explicit: the quality was as good as can be expected. MP3s and audio sound as good as they are recorded/encoded, and as good as your speakers can handle. No sync problems that I experienced (one thing I meant to say is that QCast plays the EyeTV recordings better than EyeTV, especially in regard to A/V sync).

      As to video resolution, it handled whatever I threw at it, which is not a wide range of things. Mostly EyeTV recordings. I don't have a lot of high-quality video files around.
    • a: The disc itself contains a bootloader. The bootloader downloads the app from your computer and then runs it. So updates are downloaded to your computer (and yes it does phone home to do so), then next time you run the new application is loaded to the PS2.

      b: MP3 quality is good. I can play it loud enough to annoy the neighbors and assuming a 192K rip it sounds fine. I can't speak on the video quality though, I'm not a videophile and I've only used that part a few times. Check the forums for a real
    • You download updates to the server, the client downloads updates to the application automatically whenever it starts up. Client updating is painless.

      The Linux server (I guess the others, but haven't tried them) is written in Java. For me not 100% stable -- seems to fall over after a while, and sometimes hangs.

      The client software hangs more often than it should. Not that often, but a lot more often than you're used to seeing your PS2 hang.

      The spec details you're after are here [broadq.com].

      Haven't tried a lot of

    • a) How the 'updates' get applied?

      The server-side app phones home and gets the updates for both server and client over the Internet. The client-side app is booted from the PS2 CD, with updates stored on a small portion of a standard memory card. Whenever the client-side boots, it checks the server for updates and downloads them to the memory card if necessary.

      b) What the quality of the video and audio is? Any sync problems? Does it only handle up to a certain bitrate/resolution?

      Overall, the playbac

  • A console with a tuner... MS's worst nightmare (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:32PM (#5738845)
    Ever wonder why MS is so fascinated by the video game market? Sure it has the potential to be profitable one day, but that's not the entire story about why it matters to Microsoft. I doubt Microsoft would want to stake their future on such a fickle industry.

    Keep in mind for a moment that televisions are in a central room in the house, they are getting much better resolution and features (HDTV), and they are near one of the two big data pipes that comes into the house (Cable). This makes for a pretty compelling location for a computer.

    MS is interested in this market in part because it is possible that if set top boxes take over what PC's do today to any significant degree, that could be a huge threat to Microsoft's future. Imagine a PS2 with a cable converter that can also do word processing, surf the web, etc. That's potentiall pretty compelling and it doesn't require Microsoft at all to happen. Microsoft created the XBox at least in part as a hedge against this future. It's not so tough to get into the market now but if it took off, Microsoft could find themselves high and dry without a console they control.

    A PS2 with a cable converter frankly is an unholy alliance as far as Microsoft is concerned.
  • is a Tivo that can record to dvd, play ps2 and xbox and gamecube and windows and linux pc games, has access to kazaa and gnutella and every other p2p network, wifi, a pda/remote that can control it from anywhere in the world as well as instantly alert me to new shows that I might like, and a menu system that doesn't pause for 3-30 seconds everytime i issue a new command (damn you hughes). Did I mention it has to be HDTV and pal and ntsc and dolby digital and dts and divx and ogg vorbis compatible. And thx c
    • That's a good start, but it should also fit in your pocket, be water and shockproof, run for a month on a single battery charge (and it should charge in less than a minute from a tiny solar panel while it's in your pocket) with enough juice to jump-start a semi, have a built-in fold-out 20" HD screen, and a pop-up projector lens for larger display. It should do GPS, FRS, GMRS, GSM, GPRS, 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, 802.11a/b/g, 802.16a, bluetooth, IR, ethernet, firewire, and USB 1/2. It should take perfect audio, vid
      • You both forgot to include the ability to have a direct nural uplink to your brain, be able to read other people's minds, especially that cute chick you just thought of asking out but didn't know how, so it can give you all the .nfo you need. oh, and it should have a full nanotech assembly plant, this would ally it to more easily instantly upgrade to the latest in semiconductor technologies, as well as be able to send out a swarm when needed to completely clean you and iron your clothing, without needing t

  • Tivo.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:33PM (#5738857) Journal
    With TiVo's release of the much anticipated Home Media Option (anticipated by me, anyway), I renewed my quest to find a way to integrate my computer's media files with my TV. TiVo's solution is not an option for me, because I don't have a Series2, and even if I did, the TiVo solution doesn't work with DirecTV units (for now, anyway).

    I have a DirectTV Tivo, Better than a normal Tivo (can record 2 shows at once), but still wont allow you to download video. Picked up a ReplayTV with Ethernet jack, output my tivo into the replay TV, and then used DVArchive to copy the videos over to my PC or MAC. For TV output, I just plugged my 2nd video port out from my Ati 9700 to the SVHS in on the tv.

    Seems to work ok, thou the video quality is far from perfect quality that the digital Tivo records in. I was tempted to see the quality on video in on the Ati all in wonder 9700. But too expensive at the moment to try. I have an mpeg1/2 hardware encoder, but it looses audio sync after 45 minutes (known dazzle problem)

    The main problem with using a 3rd party machine, (other than tivo) is you miss applications or file support on your PC. (not the use of qcast...) Even with a cheap 300 dollar kit pc with video out/in and a nic/wifi seems to better solution than software and ps2/xbox.

  • WTH? (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by OrenWolf ( 140914 )
    Pudge! What is *that*?

    That's a review? You complain about a feature that exists (page up/page down in the interface), but don't comment on the technical capability of the thing itself?

    I know you're a mac guy and all, but seriously - the interface doesn't make the app - especially when the app's purpose is to obfuscate the interface in the case of video/images, which is the primary purpose of the tuner.

    I'm usually very supportive of what you write, but there's no "review" of the technical capabilities of
  • I've been watching the QCast forums since maybe Christmas. I've wanted it, but it doesn't have the performance to play decent resolutions yet. Most of what I want to watch is anime, usually encoded at 640x480. Sounds reasonable. But as of yet, the highest resolution video stream supported is 512x384. If they can get the resolution going, I'll likely buy and get rid of the really slow laptop sitting beside the playstation.

    I'm copy below a posting from their forums.
    ---
    http://forum.broadq.com/6/ubb.x?a=t p c
    • Most of what I want to watch is anime, usually encoded at 640x480. Sounds reasonable. But as of yet, the highest resolution video stream supported is 512x384.

      Just FYI, video looks fine at 512x288 (512x384 with the letterboxing cropped) on the QCast. I have QCast, and I also have got a ton of anime, including the entire Neon Genesis Evangelion series that I've ripped from DVD. It is encoded at 352x256 and it looks great! Most of my anime features like Akira and Ninja Scroll are encoded at 512x288 and l
  • but the linux kit, albeit more expensive than you r solution, it will allow you to customize your PS2 to your needs.
    plus you can store files locally and avoid streaming delays.

  • QCast vs. SliMP3 (Score:2, Informative)

    by eldamitri ( 19790 )
    I recently acquired the QCast tuner, thinking it would serve a similar purpose as my SliMP3 player, but with a lot more features. Unfortunately, the SliMP3 kicks QCast's ass in terms of usability.

    Granted, these two devices don't really compete feature-for-feature. Slimp3 is only for mp3's, while QCast can handle mp3, ogg, slideshows, videos, etc. But their client/server model is very similar: each relies on a server on another machine to expose media content to the client across a network. Since I had alre
  • What a crappy review.

    The interface isn't half as bad as pudge makes it out to be. It might have been easier for him to use if he had read the manual first. His complaints are the equivalent of saying "Unix sucks because when I type ls in a long directory it all goes by too fast for me to read."

    The review seems to focus more on pudge's crappy home theatre setup than on the QCast Tuner. It's hardly BroadQ's fault that his home theatre setup is convoluted and inconvenient.

    Finally, the review doesn't touch on any of the important benefits and drawbacks of the QCast software.

    Benefits:

    • Cheap as hell (less than $50), and with automatic updates for life. BroadQ has even promised to send new CDs free of charge to existing customers who request them when they finish their next CD pressing run.
    • The server software is cross-platform and runs on most Java-capable OSes.
    • The software automatically updates itself fairly often, usually fixing annoying bugs and adding new functionality in the process.
    • The video and audio quality is very nice, even with relatively low bitrate DivX on my 46" widescreen HDTV.
    • The interface (once you learn how to use it) is intuitive, simple, and very clean.
    • BroadQ is very responsive to user requests and feedback.
    Drawbacks:
    • High-bitrate or high-resolution DivX movies often freeze due to processing power limitations of the PS2 (although BroadQ is working their asses off to fix this).
    • While OGG audio files are supported, OGG audio streams within DivX movies are not.
    • Video output is limited to 4:3, with no option for 16:9 televisions. Most widescreen TVs can expand and stretch the image, but this results in lower image resolution.
    • Limited fast-forward and rewind support. (though this is on the "features to be improved" list)
    • No subtitle support (yet).

    All things considered, I love QCast. It has its faults, but BroadQ is working hard to fix the ones they can, and the others are offset by the fact that for the money, this software does incredible things. I highly recommend it.

  • Hold on here... I already have Linux... and a PS2... and ~15GB of Ogg Vorbis files...

    So far I've not had a decent way to play the Ogg files, which are on a computer in another room, through my suh-weet stereo system - other than a 36-foot RCA audio cable, which we all know preserves the sound quality so well...

    So you're telling me that with this thing I can just share my Ogg files, play 'em through my PS2... which I can hook up to my stereo with an optical cable if I want... and get as good of a sound a

  • PS2Linux (Score:3, Interesting)

    by r4lv3k ( 638084 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:51PM (#5738993)
    I own the PS2/Linux kit, and would have liked to get vlc to work on my PS2. I have since heard about QCast but sounds kind of disappointing.

    However, it does work with MPEG-1 streams and probably MP3 would work as well (I've played MP3s on my PS2 but not over vlc).

    The problem with MPEG2 and DiVX are processing power. Unless you program the builtin MPEG decoder, you are using the weak EE risc processor to decode MPEG-2, and it drops frames badly.

    If someone were to port these formats to the native HW, PS2Linux would be a viable alternative.

    r4lv3k

  • REAL Review of the unit (Score:5, Informative)

    by OrenWolf ( 140914 ) <ksnider&flarn,com> on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @03:55PM (#5739037) Homepage
    Prior to my Qcast, I use the video out from my Geforce4 to view various forms of video on my TV. I wasn't always happy with the quality of the output, so I picked this thing up, in the belief that my PS2 can do a better job.

    And it can.

    The interface is some sort of whacked-out neo-70's style thing, that aside from looking odd as hell is reasonably functional - you can navigate directories fairly easily, L2/R2 provide page up/down, and L1/R1 provide movement between "functions" (that is, between the filelist, playlist, and settings).

    You can save your playlists for later playback, so oftimes you need only setup your initial playlist and run with it.

    Sound: For just playing audio, the system is great - the current version does not use the 5.1 digital capabilities of the PS2, but this is forthcoming. However, it did handle my mp3/ogg collection with little difficulty, and allowed me the standard options one would expect (random play, shuffled playlist, etc.),

    About the only features missing are the ability to add to a playing playlist (apparently never going to happen - technical limitiation of the PS/2 they say), and the ability to have the timer show time remaining, rather than elapsed.

    Images:

    The image viewer is excellent. You can control the scaling of the images, speed of the slideshow (or run it manually from the controller) as well as thr transitions between each image. Supposedly upcoming is the ability to run an image slideshow while playing music - a very cool addon.

    Video:

    This is what most people care about. This thing handles all the codecs they say they do - but they currently have some size limitations (It can't play a full-res DVD Rip currently, for example). Taken from their own support site, here is the amount they have to do to have the player handle larger streams (taken from their own forums):

    ===

    Our first, immediate goal is to get SVCD resolution files (480x480) working.

    Here's a quick table of the target resolutions, and how much additional performance we will need to achieve to get each level:

    512x384: 1.0 (this works today).
    480x480: 17% performance increase
    640x480: 56% performance increase
    720x480: 75% performance increase
    720x576: 110% performance increase

    For MPEG2 performance, we will likely have to rely more heavily on the IPU (built-in MPEG2 hardware).

    For MPEG4 performance, we will have to implement aggressive VU optimizations.

    ===

    Perhaps the coolest feature of the software is the great customer support and free updates via the web, handled automatically - the PC software (which runs on Win/Lin/Mac I might add) checks for updates and downloads it to the PC, for the PS2 to install the next time it is used.

    About the only missing Video feature I *really* want is FF/REW, and that is going to be pushed to us clients within the week, by the sound of things.

    All in all, I haven't looked back since switching from video-out to the QCast Tuner.
  • How about this?

    S-Video out and a cordless mouse.

    Don't want the pc in your sitting room?

    S-Video to scart connector, video recorder, 20 metres of telly cable, 15 metres of ps/2 extension cable and a cordless mouse (Possibly a usb to ps2 converter needed here).

    Another 20 metres of telly cable and a tv card and you've even got yourself a Personally-bodged Video Recorder :)

    PC to vcr to (sky digi/cable)box to (vcr to) PC. Just like tha' hahaha.

  • Is it just me... ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Twilight1 ( 17879 )

    Or is this QCast Tuner missing a tuner of some sort?

    If it's just networked media player software, why in Ford's Flivver are they referring to it as as tuner software? Neither the main slashdot review, nor any of the reviews in the comments mention the presence (or the lack thereof) of a tuner. The ThinkGeek information doesn't mention anything about a tuner in the specs either.

    While this sounds like a neat thing, it seems awfully limited... especially without any tuner to mention. Though I already hav

    • Your TV has a built-in tuner. What good would a PS2-based tuner do?

      • Indeed, but I haven't used a television set for anything other than a video monitor for years -- my televisions never leave the "A/V LINE" or channel 3. It's usually the VCR, cable box, or some other "set top" box doing the tuning.

        However, my interest would be in bringing this theoretical tuner hardware together with the PS2 Linux Kit. Local hard drive, plus LAN access... drop in Ogle, MythTV, and lots of other goodies in... and we're getting somewhere. :)

        It just strikes me odd that they would advertise

        • Technically, the word "Tuner" does apply, since (analogy time) the QCast software is to your networked media collection as your cable box is to the cable feed. But I can see where it would cause some confusion.

          I'm not sure the PS2 is really up to the task of being a multimedia workhorse. It's really not all that powerful of a machine; QCast already pushes it to its limits just decoding DivX video. Actually acting as a PVR and encoding digital video in real-time would take a pretty hefty performance hit.

    • What you refer to as "a tuner" should probably be called "a television tuner". From my reading (I don't own one) the QCast Tuner doesn't have that, nor would I assume it to, since it's a software product. What it does is let you access, or tune in to, media made available by the server (which is called QCast Station, get it?) software. Basically, they're using the word pair "tuner/station" without a connection to television tuning or television stations. Is this an example of abstract thinking, or am I simp
  • I picked up QCast a few months ago and was hoping to use it to watch stuff that I'd pulled off my TiVo. The bottom line is, they still have some performance issues to work out before you can watch high quality video. I've got a ton of stuff I've ripped from TiVo and up-sampled to Divx 640x480 from MPEG2 480x480 (SVHS - native TiVo aspect ratio for high and best quality video). They start to play okay, then it goes to slide show with audio, then it crashes. I spent weeks fiddling the Divx encoder trying
  • Who me? Pass up a chance to spam my lame site? Never!

    Enter to win a free QCast Tuner here! [glassheads.org]

    I have such little traffic your chances of winning are pretty good! :)

  • Region Locked (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sprayNwipe ( 95435 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2003 @06:00PM (#5739983) Homepage
    Can anyone outside of the US who's got one of these things comment on whether the QCast disc is region locked or not?

    For those of us outside the US who don't have the luxury of using something like a Tivo to store all of our digital media to watch on the TV without a PC nearby (let alone record!), this sounds like a perfect option.

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