New Mvix Media Center Includes BitTorrent Client

Written by Ernesto on January 19, 2008 

What is a media center without a p2p-client, or more specifically, BitTorrent? This is exactly what the people over at Mvix must have thought when they started working on one of their latest models, the Mvix MX-780HD.

mvix-mx780hdToday, there are many ways to download files with BitTorrent without using your PC. From BitTorrent-compatible NAS-devices to wireless routers with BT capabilities, new products are constantly developed to improve your downloading experience.

Oddly enough, there are no media centers that come with a built in BitTorrent client. Strange, because this could be one of the most fruitful and convenient combinations.

There have been attempts though. In 2005, a Dutch company introduced the “Lamabox”, the worlds first “p2p compliant” media player. The device was capable of connecting to all the popular p2p networks (including BitTorrent), and users could search, download and play all the files they could find. Unfortunately the “Lamabox” was discontinued, and up to now, I haven’t seen any BitTorrent compliant devices like it.

This is likely to change with the release of the new media center from Mvix, which will have a built in BitTorrent client. With the yet to be released Mvix MX-780HD you will be able to download movies, music and/or TV-shows directly onto its hard drive or an external USB-drive, no need to use a PC for that anymore.

The new Mvix Media Center has a wireless connection to the Internet, but you can also use it to access your local network and stream audio or video files from your PC. In addition, it will support a wide range of audio and video formats, subtitles, and comes with a HDMI output.

There’s been no official announcement yet, but the news comes from Grahm Skee, who got it first hand from a Mvix representative at CES. He writes: “I spoke with a Mvix rep and he told me that the firmware programmer was finishing up the torrent client on the way over to CES on the plane, so it’s still probably beta. This feature will likely be coming later on, so don’t expect it to be included at the time or release (but it might)”.

In 2006 we speculated about an upcoming boom of BitTorrent compatible media centers, let’s hope it will finally happen in 2008. Below we list the specifications of the Mvix MX-780HD as showcased on CES, although the model is not listed on their website yet.

  • Video Formats: DivX, XviD, DVD (ISO/VOB/IFO), MPEG, VCD(DAT), WMV(WMV-9), ASF(WMV-9), TP, TS, TRP
  • Audio Formats: MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, PMC, AC3, M4A, DTS decoding (down-mixing / Pass though)
  • Image Formats: BMP, JPG, PNG
  • Subtitle Support: SMO, SRT, SUB
  • Video Out: HDMI, Composite, S-Video, Component
  • Audio Out: RCA, Digital Coaxial, Optical
  • TV System: NTSC, PAL, Auto
  • HD Support: 720p, 1080i, 1080p
  • Networking: 802.11b/g (WEP/WPA), 10/100 Ethernet, NDAS
  • Internal Disk: 3.5″ IDE or SATA
  • USB: Slave (for connecting to computer) and Host (for additional storage)

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    41 Responses

    1 Jan 19, 2008 at 14:54 by Elliott99

    Nice!

    2 Jan 19, 2008 at 15:06 by 2

    SECOND

    3 Jan 19, 2008 at 15:08 by fr3ak

    … but still no x264 containers, where’s the native mkv or mp4 support. bleh.

    4 Jan 19, 2008 at 15:15 by Brandon

    That’s interesting… I never thought of how an industry of P2P media centers would pop up from Bittorrent until now. Actually I never would’ve connected the two together (P2P and Media Center) if I hadn’t saw this earlier.

    See where the competition takes us….

    5 Jan 19, 2008 at 15:18 by Anonymous

    Price? I see the similar MX-760HD goes for $329.99

    6 Jan 19, 2008 at 15:49 by serrebi

    awsom,

    7 Jan 19, 2008 at 15:50 by I think

    No support for FLAC or MKV!

    This is a shame, they are behind the times therefore as usual streaming from my pc remains the primary option over these types of devices, a step in the right direction though.

    8 Jan 19, 2008 at 15:54 by Superior1

    No support for .avi or .mkv ? WTF? In what age are these people living?

    9 Jan 19, 2008 at 16:57 by ano

    [quote comment="267269"]No support for .avi or .mkv ? WTF? In what age are these people living?[/quote]

    avi mkv are containers not codecs

    10 Jan 19, 2008 at 17:03 by bob

    there is no need for flac support
    only oink elitist use flac on a regular playing basis
    The rest of us use it how it was ment
    to ARCHIVE music

    11 Jan 19, 2008 at 17:04 by Anonymous

    well they can’t be perfect, there taking a risk as it is trying this, tons of people have no idea how bittorent works or wat it is.

    12 Jan 19, 2008 at 18:28 by Superior1

    [quote comment="267314"][quote comment="267269"]No support for .avi or .mkv ? WTF? In what age are these people living?[/quote]

    avi mkv are containers not codecs[/quote]So? They mention containers in the specs, except for those.

    13 Jan 19, 2008 at 18:41 by woot

    most .avi are either DivX of XviD…

    14 Jan 19, 2008 at 18:45 by Superior1

    [quote comment="267380"]most .avi are either DivX of XviD…[/quote]
    No. They are MPEG or x264.

    15 Jan 19, 2008 at 19:27 by um ya

    [quote comment="267384"][quote comment="267380"]most .avi are either DivX of XviD…[/quote]
    No. They are MPEG or x264.[/quote]
    Still wrong, MPEG is MPEG & x264 is mkv…

    But I’m bummed for no h264, x264, mov & mp4 support along with no FLAC support…

    16 Jan 19, 2008 at 19:30 by Anonymous

    I would have to agree that most .avi,s are divx or xvid. More and more newer ones are becoming x264 though. Every aXXo rip I have is xvid in an .avi container. Plus what is wrong with XBMC. That plays just about every format under the sun as long as it isn’t HD. Plus you can pick up a regular xbox to run it on for like $80 at gamestop or cheaper on ebay. Supports streaming from PC as well.

    17 Jan 19, 2008 at 19:40 by Superior1

    [quote comment="267314"]avi mkv are containers not codecs[/quote]
    iso or VOB are not codecs either. They mention “formats”, not codecs.

    Like many others here I’m amazed that there seems no support (or not yet anyway) for AVC/x264, which would not be so hard to implement, since there are open source libraries for it.

    And no, MPEG is not .MPEG, it’s usually contained as .mpg or .avi
    Also, mkv does not require mp4 or x264 either.

    18 Jan 19, 2008 at 20:14 by say592

    It looks good.

    I like the ability to support DVD ISOs.

    Like most people, Im burning all my DVD “back ups” before I can watch them on my TV.

    Last year, I used close to 350 DVDs (between me and the ones my friends were given).

    It would be nice to not have to burn ones for me. That would save me 200 DVDs a year, at least.

    With DVDs being $0.15 each, and DL-DVDs being $0.50, thats significant savings. Maybe over the course of 10 years it would pay for itself! lol

    19 Jan 19, 2008 at 21:11 by anonymous

    [quote comment="267453"]It looks good.

    I like the ability to support DVD ISOs.

    Like most people, Im burning all my DVD “back ups” before I can watch them on my TV.

    Last year, I used close to 350 DVDs (between me and the ones my friends were given).

    It would be nice to not have to burn ones for me. That would save me 200 DVDs a year, at least.

    With DVDs being $0.15 each, and DL-DVDs being $0.50, thats significant savings. Maybe over the course of 10 years it would pay for itself! lol[/quote]

    um, a 1 TB hard drive would cost you upwards of $250
    which means each gig is about $.25.
    which means each movie you burned would be a little over a dollar.
    which means it would be cheaper to burn them to physical DVDs, for archival purposes.

    so stop complaining.

    20 Jan 19, 2008 at 21:22 by Colin Dean

    The last Mvix DMA I used had a horrible menu system that was laggy, unattractive, and unintuitive. It completely ignored any shred of usability. I hope that Mvix has remedied this.

    21 Jan 19, 2008 at 21:41 by Anonymous

    I looked at one of these about a year ago, it didn’t support nearly as many formats back then, this is a vast improvement over the previous versions.

    Yes formats, not containers…

    H.264/X.264 and MOV are MPEG, MKV and AVI are DivX/XviD, OGG is FLAC.

    Wikipedia is your friend.

    22 Jan 19, 2008 at 21:53 by aussieburger

    Still no x264 codec support :(

    the wait continues …

    23 Jan 19, 2008 at 22:22 by Anonymous

    http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/?title=XBMC_Features_and_Supported_Formats/Codecs

    24 Jan 19, 2008 at 23:03 by Anonymous

    @22

    Read 21.

    25 Jan 19, 2008 at 23:17 by Anonymous

    No .rar support.

    XBMC ftw!

    26 Jan 19, 2008 at 23:50 by anonymous

    #21, you are an idiot.

    flac is contained by ogg, not the other way around.
    vorbis is the parent company.

    27 Jan 20, 2008 at 00:03 by BongWizard

    ok for all the idiots here that dont know the difference between a codec and a container, i am going to explain this to you.

    A container is the file format (ie the file extension) that is used for the storage of media files. Aptly named, you can think of a container file as the box that holds your data.

    A codec, on the other hand, is the program which is used to encode, compress, order, and eventually play the data in said media files. Codec is short for coder-decoder or compressor-decompressor, and, in essence, it does just that.

    Some examples of popular containers and codecs are given below.

    Containers: 3GP, AVI, ASF, MPEG, MKV, IFF, MP4, RM, MOV (notice all of these are file extensions)

    Video Codecs: DivX, FFmpeg, RealVideo, XviD, x264 (this is the codec, h.264 is the algorithm, don’t get confused), WMV (which is also a container using the WMV algorithm… Microsoft just can’t come up with more names)

    Audio Codecs: AAC, AC3, MP3 (again, this is a container aswell), FLAC, WMA (another example of Microsoft’s lack of creativity)

    So anyways, no that I’ve got that out of the way, I just hope this thing has a BT client with streaming support, because it sounds like it’s gonna be running a custom client. The codecs (and containers) can be fixed easily enough, but if you change the built-in client, shit ain’t gonna work right.

    28 Jan 20, 2008 at 00:04 by ERROR404

    @ 21: FUCK WIKIPEDIA !

    29 Jan 20, 2008 at 00:05 by BongWizard

    I guess I should have noted in that post above that the FFmpeg codec comprises both MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 algorithms.

    30 Jan 20, 2008 at 00:20 by Brano

    XBMC forever. ppl who knows…they just laugh :)

    31 Jan 20, 2008 at 00:27 by lulz

    #26 vorbis is not a company, the whole thing belongs to the xiph foundation. Ogg is a container, vorbis, theora, flac, speex are codecs.

    32 Jan 20, 2008 at 00:51 by Anonymous

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg

    (top right side of that screen)

    Container for: Vorbis, Theora, Speex, FLAC, Dirac, and others.

    33 Jan 20, 2008 at 00:55 by b

    Wow, formats aside, this is a great innovation.

    Though what I’d most likely to see is a portable MP3 (and/or Ogg, AAC, FLAC, whatever) player with built-in mesh wireless support. Share songs with everyone in the vicinity.

    34 Jan 20, 2008 at 03:16 by Meh811

    Wow that’s butt ugly

    Usenet support would be nice, BT speeds can be ridiculously low

    BT is still the poor man’s Usenet :P

    35 Jan 20, 2008 at 03:25 by shhh

    Shhh… Usenet doesn’t exist anymore, remember?

    36 Jan 20, 2008 at 06:53 by usenet

    torrent sites blow, USENET still exist , there are tns of ways of gettign whatever you want if you do some research

    37 Jan 20, 2008 at 06:54 by usenet

    everyone is hanging out on the usenet and NEWSGROUPS, go there and police that along with the torrent sites

    38 Jan 20, 2008 at 07:14 by pro

    A NMT http://www.popcornhour.com looks a better option

    39 Jan 20, 2008 at 15:01 by Kane

    “Oddly enough, there are no media centers that come with a built in BitTorrent client. Strange”

    How is that strange?
    Apart from the fact networking support is the exception rather than the role with media players, your article mentions no way in which you can use said BT client.

    Unplug your mouse and see how useful your PC-based BT client is. How hair-pullingly mind-fuckingly annoying it is to use.

    How’s this any more desirable when we remove the keyboard from the equation as well ?

    40 May 18, 2008 at 12:57 by anyone

    any of you guys know where to buy a nas that does support HDMI(output),Bittorrent client, and x264?

    41 Jun 21, 2008 at 20:11 by noone

    sure - google for popcorn hour a-100 or check out the hdx 900 at http://www.hdx1080.com

    There are a couple of other boxes based on the same platform.

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