Snazio & My New Rig

Villain

Well I received my Snazio SZ1350 (review here) Friday, so I set it up and all I can say is OH MY GOD, this is a great piece of equipment.

I connected it to my Marantz 7200 receiver and set it up to my wireless network which now includes my wooden pc (pic attached) where I have all my video and music collection stored. I can now play absolutely anything from my PC using the Snazio over the Wireless network, I also can play anything from my external hard drive using the USB port on the front (now supports NTFS). It really is that simple you connect your hard drive and select your movie or music and it plays straight away and this unit supports any format.

I'm currently arranging to become a reseller of the product I believe in it that much, I hope to be able to sell them at about €350, it really is a great unit. It has a DVI connection and supports High Definiton formats so you can actually make real use of your HD Ready TV's. I don't have a HD Ready tv but the sample files I played looked amazing even on my LCD and Projector. It also upscales current DVD's to 720 and 1080 and 2 simple unlock codes make it region free and remove the CSS LIcensing allowing DVD playback over DVI in all resolutions!! I have it connected to my Marantz 7200 using the optical cable and the sound I get through my Mission speakers is awesome.

Heres a pic of my setup

Sparky

oh yeah, i remember that player, its quite a kick ass player, it has loads of functions i would like, but did you get your from america because thats where i heard of it been on full retail.

Villain

Nope I got it from a UK distributor, I need to be careful here as I don't want to get kicked for advertising, but I can sell any Board members one of these units for €350 cash.

TCP/IP

http://shop.inside.nl/product_info.php?products_id=141

293.28 euro from this crowd great product through

Villain

Well if you pay Vat and postage there it will cost you: €369.83
Sub-Total: €293,28
Shipping fee (Handling fee Europe without Estland, Ieland, Latvia, Litouwen and Portugal.

The shipping fee of the rest of the world would be calculated after ordering.): €17,50
19% VAT: €59,05
Total: €369,83 !!!!!!!

Gilgamesh

good luck with the sales

bbbbb

There are LOADS of products in this space, prices & specs change fast, so I wouldn't go filling up my bedroom with boxes!

I quite like the look of the stuff from Kiss technologies. e.g.
http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/52990/art/kiss/dp-1500-dvd-divx.html
Doesn't do HD (but there's no media on HD yet anyway?), and would need a wireless card as an extra, but it's only € 132 + 13 delivery !!!
Will play DVDs, media from another PC or stream internet radio.

Villain

Ya Kiss have some nice products out and with Cisco and Linksys owning them I'm sure they will get better. The DP1500 you linked to doesn't have a USB port though, I find this very good with the Snazio no need for a computer at all just connect the unit to your tv and connect the hard drive and play away.

The reason I like the Snazio is everyone is going into stores buying HD TV's but don't have anything to take advantage of the improved image, the upscaling in the Snazio does that along with have ability to play HD files from the USB port.

bbbbb

A regular upscaling DVD player would be cheaper though, think I've seen them in the shops in Dublin for about €150 or so.

Of course you can always go the xbox 360/playstation 3 route, wait 6mths or so & you'll get blu-ray!!!

Villain

bbbbb wrote:

A regular upscaling DVD player would be cheaper though, think I've seen them in the shops in Dublin for about €150 or so.

Of course you can always go the xbox 360/playstation 3 route, wait 6mths or so & you'll get blu-ray!!!

Oh you can get blu-ray now it just costs you €1500
Having an upscaler DVD player along with a network player and a USB port is the best all in one system and for €350 it's very good value.

bbbbb

Yup but the PS3 will have blu-ray for about €350 or so.

monkeyfudge

I have one too. I got mine off TCP/IP actually.

It really is a very nice piece of kit. It's really taken all the hassle out of playing DIVX files for me.

Although I have found a few files that it won't play properly.... but in general it's fine.

WizZard

I would've bought one before Christmas if it had WPA! Even with the new firmware it doesn't support it. That's it's one flaw for me - I don't want to have to reconfigure my wireless network, especially if it's less secure.
Supposed to be a great player apart from that.

How do you find the UI irish1?

If SnaZio bring out WPA support you will be getting an order from me

The only player that could trump this is the KiSS Dp-600 - which is still not available...KiSS :rolleyes:

Villain

The UI is simple and very easy to use, even my mother can use it!, you can also change the theme for eash server you connect to, I quite like the simpsons one. I have it connected via a wired connection now so WPA support isn't an issue for me, actually my wireless network is open coz the only the cows in the fields around me are in range to connect

TCP/IP

dont touch the kiss products they are terrible have a look at www.mpcclub.com for more info on all these players

Gilgamesh

bbbbb wrote:

Yup but the PS3 will have blu-ray for about €350 or so.

yeah and the games will be for free :rolleyes:

where the hell did you get that info from?

bbbbb

Gilgamesh wrote:

yeah and the games will be for free :rolleyes:

where the hell did you get that info from?

The link I posted above gives a spec comparison, apparently the PS3 will have blu-ray.
Xbox 360 is between €300 & €400 at the moment, so can't see the PS3 being much outside this.

WizZard

bbbbb wrote:

Xbox 360 is between €300 & €400 at the moment, so can't see the PS3 being much outside this.

You're not really following the pre-launch info then.. :rolleyes:

It's expected to retail at around the €500 mark initially, AFAIK.

Sony have stated that it will be so good that people will want to work overtime to get one, and therefore are pricing it as such.

Villain

The PS3 will have a Sony Blu-ray drive when it is released in the Spring, to compete Microsoft will release an external HD-DVD drive by the end of the year.

bbbbb

WizZard wrote:

Sony have stated that it will be so good that people will want to work overtime to get one, and therefore are pricing it as such.

Brilliant! I wonder what marketing guy came up with that one:)

Speculation seems to be around $400-$500 for the US alright, which probably translates to the same in €. Still, would expect some price competition. When the Xbox was launched, even though it was technically better, they priced it the same as the PS 2.

Anyway going off on a tangent a bit, but I think my original point of other cheap HD sources being available, and prices/features constantly changing still holds.

(In any case, I've no plans to upgrade to HD soon)

Gilgamesh

just have to say, I got one of these puppies of irish1 last night and am really REALLY impressed. the pictre quality is amazing, and was easy enough to setup, just have to get a DVI to HDMI cable today, but even through SCART it has great picture quality. the only thing I have noticed is that WMV HD with WMA Pro sound doesn't get passed through the Opto cable to the Receiver, hence no surround sound through it

DivX HD and stuff is great though. Hooked up my Sony NW A3000, on which I had some Stargate parts on and it piced the player up straight away without a hitch and also registered it as a Sony Walkman

looking forward to messing around some more tonight

Villain

Glad you like it, the reason WMA pro doesn't play through the optical is currently there isn't any support for WMA Pro+ via Optical connection.

Support of WMA Pro via optical out wouldn't help you anyways unless you have one of the few newer receivers that can decode WMA Pro. For now, I know Pioneer has some receivers that do this, but I don't know of any others. That is why it is so important for a player like this to have the 6ch analog outs.

Gilgamesh

so over the 6ch it works?
might have to give that a try, or hit my wallet and get a new receiver.
otherwise the Player rocks

Villain

Gilgamesh wrote:

so over the 6ch it works?
might have to give that a try, or hit my wallet and get a new receiver.
otherwise the Player rocks

Yep connect through regular rca connectors on the back and choose PCM audio in the setup menu.