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Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

kawo — Fri, 04 May 2007 08:38:23 GMT

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Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

Mr10Percent — Fri, 04 May 2007 06:34:54 GMT

I think one of the biggest areas B&O could make a hit would be with dedicated music recorders/servers - lıke the Olive Opus.

Combining a high-quality CD ripper, lossless and B&O's know-how in interfaces and multi-room, they can recaputure a lot of lost ground. Considering the very high price of the Olive and linn systems, I doubt a BL5 class price would be much of a head-turner afterall.

10%

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

nlb — Fri, 04 May 2007 04:17:50 GMT

Roger, interesting. I think B&O should go "high-end" with BM2 and focus on the interface rather than machanical (old fashioned) magic. What we all want these days in the digital age is "interface magic" and it would be great to see B&O lead in this field (to overtake Apple for usability). But as we now live in a throw away age, especially with techno products and Hi Fi, I think B&O should consider the "low-end" position very carefully as well! nlb.

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

Roger — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:45:49 GMT

It will depend on the route they select. Some of you may be aware of the BeoCenter "5" (aka AV1), a product that could be developed on a MultiMedia-PC platform with more focus on the on-screen interface than on mechanical marvel. This concept was originally planned to be a high-end product (to go along with the BeoLab 5, BeoVision 9 etc) with a price tag in the neighbourhood of the BL5's.

Roger

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

nlb — Thu, 03 May 2007 16:51:30 GMT

Roger, will the beoMedia 2 cost more or less then the BM1 ? Just hoping to get an idea of its position in the B&O product range. nlb.

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

jk1002 — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:48:03 GMT

I have the Imac with Frontrow and IRTRANS/IRED so I can control it from Beo 4. It's not perfect and I am considering switching to Beoport now that BMLINK 1.5 is out.

For link rooms I don't think there is a good solution yet, unless you have a TV there as well. I would take a look at the 2 way remote that keyspan is bringing out to control Itunes, I would also take a very close look on getting multiple Ipods and the Ridax Ipod Dock. You just sync em up every once in a while with your Itunes Library, get Beo 4 control and get around the navigition problem that most other solutions have.

If I would have to built my setup from scratch I would probably do Imac or Mac Mini for main room, Beoport and then Ipods and Ridax Docks for the link rooms.

Cheers

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

Beonut — Thu, 03 May 2007 07:55:55 GMT

Regarding lossless I guess but dont know that beoport could do the same. To get lossless files onto beomedia 1, I rip the cd on my pc using Windows Media Player 10, with the library directory set to my beomedia 1, and the quality set to lossless. I do this because beoplayer dosnt seem to support ripping at lossless quality. The ripped tracks are quite big though a cd = about 400mb, a track = about 30mb. Hence the nice big 250gb disk in the beomedia 1 is helpful.

Cheers

Peter

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

Razlaw — Thu, 03 May 2007 07:16:45 GMT

You mention lossless music files. Is the quality of music stored on Beomedia the same or better than music stored on a pc with Beoport?

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

Roger — Thu, 03 May 2007 05:58:29 GMT

I have been a long time user of the BeoMedia 1. I was not a fan at first (BeoLink Media two-box), but must admit that the usability of the box is addictive. The user interface on a BeoVision 7 is good but not great, very B&O: simple and classy. If you have too many albums you have to learn a few Beo4-tricks to navigate (<< and >> acts as page up/down etc). When you activate it using the "PC" command you will get the wrong speaker configuration (speaker 3 or 5, depending on your default setup of the BeoVision) but this is easily corrected with the Beo4. When you press N.MUSIC or N.RADIO you will get speaker 2 (or 4 if this is your default setting on the BeoVision).

The not-so-good part is the operation via my BeoCenter 2 or in a link room via Beo4 only. Sure, the lady that tells me I have selected "album" is nice enough - but finding a special album or song is a bothersome process.

The Beo5 has the potential to correct this, but you may find that the current version (which is about to be released in the EU) may be missing the functionality some of you may have seen on pre-production versions. This will hopefully be corrected/updated/fixed very soon.

So, yes, the BeoMedia 1 is a clever box that does a tricky job in a very simple fashion. Kids, husband etc can all sort it out in no time. The BeoMedia 2 could be a very different product with a price tag to match, but this is still far from being ready for launch.

Is the BeoMedia 1 worth £1.500? That will depend on you bank account, but I do feel that most of us would have been happy to pay 50-75% of that price for what you actually get. But you do get at least 5 years of free software upgrades. But as I said initially: I found it to lack features and to be too expensive when launched - then I got one, and now I would rather ditch the rear speakers in my main room than letting go of the heavily used BeoMedia 1.

Roger

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

Beonut — Thu, 03 May 2007 04:39:15 GMT

I have been very pleased with my beomedia1, I have had it since January. It has 90gb (5000 tracks) of lossless music files on it and 6gb (3000 pics) of photos, and still has loads of space left. It was set up in about 10 minutes no problem and it works just great on my main system and my link rooms.

I agree it is lacking some features, but it really does the basic job very simply and very well. I am sure as most of the features are software based these will be enhanced over time. I agree it seems a bit pricey compared to commodity PC items but there isn't a single B&O product that this couldn't be said about.

I hope this helps

Cheers

Peter

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

beo-ap — Wed, 02 May 2007 19:54:03 GMT

More than 40gb of music is a lot! But a 40gb hard disk really is very small by today's standards.

Don't know how many digital inputs you have on BV7 vs the number of digital A/V sources.

Lintronic has not quite solved the fast scroll, you are right. However, they have made it possible to more easily and quickly scroll through 1 or multiple screens at once. Not as good as Fast Scroll, but better than one line at a time.

Let us know how things go.

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

GSHaigh — Wed, 02 May 2007 18:15:48 GMT

peria:

Why not try AppleTV. The price is low. Using Lintronic you have complete control!
If you use iTunes it will sync to the AppleTV local hard disk. You will not need to have your PC on.
If you want Link Room control you will need more than one Lintronic.
With AppleTV + Lintronic you will still pay less than BeoMedia.

Granted the price is low, but I have over 40GB of music so that sort of rules it out. I don't believe the fast scroll options has be fixed on the Lintronics box either. And how integrated is it? Another issue I have recently thought about with this is how do I connect it to my BV7? I have Sky HD on DVI and my xbox on component HD.

Greg

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

beo-ap — Wed, 02 May 2007 17:49:29 GMT

Why not try AppleTV. The price is low. Using Lintronic you have complete control!

If you use iTunes it will sync to the AppleTV local hard disk. You will not need to have your PC on.

If you want Link Room control you will need more than one Lintronic.

With AppleTV + Lintronic you will still pay less than BeoMedia.

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

Razlaw — Wed, 02 May 2007 17:16:33 GMT

I have the exact same questions and concerns as you. Our PC and Beoport are located elsewhere in the house. I think the inability to navigate causes us to use it less than we would otherwise. Upgradeing from the Beosound 3000 to a BC2 or BS4 is one possibility but still would yield only a small display, not usable without getting up close. Beomedia would allow the full functionality we want, but it just seems like it should do even more than it does. It seems like just an expensive version of Beoport with no added functionality other than the image on the television screen, which is greatly needed and desired, but the cost for it is a bit much.

Re: BeoMedia 1? Or not?

GSHaigh — Wed, 02 May 2007 16:50:52 GMT

Thanks for the reply. I have seen the discussion around BM-Link 1.5 and find this interesting. I just wonder how integrated this really is? How will it integrate with the new Beo 5?

As I see it here are my choices:

Go with BeoMedia 1
Go Mac Mini
Upgrade BS3000 to BeoCentre 2
Wait a further 12 months and see what happens

Option 4 seems a little defeative to me, option 3 is probably the least expensive (does anyone know how much the non-DVD version will cost and when it is due for release), to be honest option 2 scares me a little as B&O don't really support this and option 1 seems expensive from the outset given the only real benefit is titles on the screen (unless anyone can tell me different?)

Greg