Oct 16 Podcast #395: brite-View CinemaTube and Philips Prestigo SRU8008
Podcast, Review Tags: DLNA, Dolby, Harmony, Media Server, Remote Control 
We'll admit it, there are other companies that make remote controls. We decided to try one this week. The Prestigo 8008 is a cool remote with a color screen, but how does it stack up to the entry level Harmony 510? Excellent question.
And we had a chance this week to take a look at the CinemaTube from brite-View. It's a network media player that supports full 1080p/60 video and Dolby Digital and DTS audio, so it's right up our alley. After all, who wants to stream video if you can't get it in high def?
Listen to the show
Today's Show:
News:
- Netflix: DVD primary movie format for next two years
- Western Digital WD HD Live
- Plasma TV Makers to CA: Stop Lying About Our Record!
- Samsung Announces Amazon Video On Demand Coming to Select Samsung HDTVs
Other:
- Ryan's Penthouse Home Theater
- John's $1500 Home Theater
- Mitsubishi demos 155-inch OLED TV
- Petitions to keep Defying Gravity alive
Philips Prestigo SRU8008 Universal Remote Control
We'll admit it, there are other companies that make remote controls. We decided to try one this week. The Prestigo 8008 is a cool remote with a color screen, but how does it stack up to the entry level Harmony 510? Excellent question.
Design
First of all, the Prestigo has a color screen, so it looks a little sexier than the Harmony's circa 1974 green screen. The Prestigo's button layout is nice, and it even has a jog wheel for any device that may need something like that. The Harmony's button layout is pretty straight forward, so there's really no clear winner on that side. Overall the Prestigo probably looks a little cooler.
Programming
You program the Prestigo directly on the remote. At first you may think this is an advantage over having to install software and connect the remote to your computer like you do with the Harmony. After going through the steps to get it programmed, though, you realize the software is the right way to go.
To get the Prestigo all set you go through and add devices one at a time. Using the jog wheel, for each device you spin until you find the manufacturer. Then press some buttons so it can figure out which of the manufacturer's codes to use and that device is set. You come back later to set up activities. After doing this for a while, you realize how simple a mouse and keyboard really are.
Use
The Harmony is activity based, making it an ingenious device to control your home theater. The Prestigo on the other hand, is really more device based. You can program activities, but an activity is really just a sequence of button pushes (turning everything on for example), and then switching the remote to control a particular device. If you want to control a different device to say, adjust volume, you have to go old school with it, switch devices to receiver, adjust volume, then switch devices back to your set top box.
Philips Prestigo SRU8008, $59
Logitech Harmony 510, $80
Conculsion
The Prestigo is a really nice looking remote, better looking than the Harmony, and it costs less. But for an extra $21 you get a true activity based remote that will change the way you interact with your home theater. The Prestigo is really just an old school universal remote in a fancy new package. We happened to get our from Woot.com for $25, so in that case it makes a pretty sweet remote for a secondary room. But in our opinion, the extra $21 is worth it for the Harmony.
brite-View CinemaTube Review
We had a chance this week to take a look at the CinemaTube from brite-View. It's a network media player that supports full 1080p/60 video and Dolby Digital and DTS audio, so it's right up our alley. After all, who wants to stream video if you can't get it in high def?
Setup
Getting the CinemaTube up and running is trivial. Connect an HDMI cable into your home theater and away you go. Of course if you want the network side you'll need an Ethernet cable as well. It's really that easy.
There is updated firmware on the website, so they recommend you apply that before using the player, but that's just as easy. Simply download a couple files to a USB drive, plug the drive into the CinemaTube and select the 'software update' menu option. The whole procedure takes three minutes tops.
Use
Some of the early video players we tried were pretty rough. They typically had very ugly, cumbersome menus and often the video playback was sub-par. The CinemaTube is certainly a step up from those early models. Sometimes it pays to wait a bit an get it right.
When you get down to it, the menu interface for playback is really just directory browsing, so you have to make sure your shared libraries are organized efficiently. But brite-View has done alot to make the overall appearance and interactivity much more than just a folder browser. There are some nice icons and even a preview window. Any video you browse to plays in the preview window, so you can get a quick taste before hitting play. Very nice.
Video playback is solid as well. We played everything from Internet video content to 1080p movie clips and they all looked as good as we would have expected. There isn't much you can do with some of those Internet videos on a big 1080p screen. Overall we didn't have a single problem with playback - even FF and Rew worked as expected.
Video content can come from a USB drive plugged into the back of the unit, from a computer or NAS on the network, or from a DLNA server. As a DLNA player, the CinemaTube will connect to your PlayOn server for direct access to CBS, ESPN, Hulu, Amazon VOD, Netflix and YouTube. We had some issues with Hulu from PlayOn, but we've had issues with PlayOn on the PS3 as well, so there's no evidence it was the CinemaTube's fault.
Other stuff
Among the hundreds of different formats the CinemaTube supports, you'll find the ISO file format. This means you can play DVDs, even browse menus and everything, right on the player. So if you're looking for an affordable front-end for a home video server that allows full access to the entire DVD, not just the feature, the CinemaTube will work for you.
This nifty little player also takes advantage of your live network connection to work as a torrent downloader. So while you're busy during the day not watching video at home, the CinemaTube can be busy working to get you more content to watch. You'll need to connect a drive so it has somewhere to download the content to.
Supported Formats
From the website:
"It supports multiple Video formats including VCD 1.0/2.0, SVCD, MPEG1 (DAT/MPG/MPEG), MPEG2 (MPG/MPEG/VOB/ISO/IFO/TS/TP)/M2TS, MPEG4 (MP4/AVI/MOV) , DivX 3/4/5/6, Xvid (AVI/MKV), H.264/AVC (TS/AVI/MKV/MOV)/M2TS, VC-1 (TS/AVI/MKV/WMV)/M2TS, WMV9 (WMV), FLV, Real Video 8/9/10 (RM/RMVB * up to 720p); multiple Audio formats including DTS and Dolby Digital.
It supports ISO files, so you can navigate the DVD menu and watch your video as if there was a regular DVD!"
Conclusion
Overall the CinemaTube will playback just about anything from just about anywhere, and it can even go out and get you more to watch while you're at work. If you're looking for an inexpensive way to get Internet video on your TV or create a home media network, the CinemaTube is a smart place to look for a nice front-end player.
brite-View CinemaTube MSRP $129.99, currently $114.99 w/free shipping.
Reader Comments (14)
Hi
If you want to have remote video (with sound) monitoring then you should check out icam (http://skjm.com/icam/). It works on your iPhone and also has motion detection and push notification support. You can also access the camera/s via a web browser which is free. The iPhone is $4.99 and $0.99 extra for push notification. I use this at home and at work to keep an eye my stuff. Great show thanks.
Russell
Thanks for the mention of the Defying Gravity, which starts on our BBC HD channel here in the U.K on Wednesday the 21st October at 9pm and will air the first 2 of the 13 episodes and no doubt be on a wekly basis from then on :)
Thanks for the info on the Amazon link. I buy a lot from them and try to use your site, but I often forget. This will make it easy as it's now in my bookmark. Rock on.
Thanks for the CinemaTube review. I hope you will compare it to the WDTV Live. I noticed that CinemaTube supports YouTube FLV files where as the WDTV Live does not seem to.
During the review you mentioned DLNA. I have a DLNA enabled computer but I have never understood how to use the DLNA feature. I wish you would do a show on what DNLA is and how to use it. I think I am suppose to be able to send video from my computer to my HDTV with DLNA, but my computer does not have an HDMI output so this does not seem possible to me. I guess I could use something like the CinemaTube, but if I do that what advantage is there to having DNLA on my computer?
Also, you mentioned that the two of you already have all sorts of devices to do everything the CinemaTube does. But, not every one has all the stuff you two have. So please do not think that since this is of no interest to you that the rest of us would not be interested. I do not have any way of getting video from my computer to my TV other than using a USB drive and the formats I can use are very limited.
Thanks again for your great show.
DNLA is a way to stream the media on your computer to a device conected to your tv or the tv its self that is capable of recieving it. This is done over your home network not over hdmi. I'm pretty sure they have done a show on dlna but when i searched i couldn't find it.
I use it to stream to my ps3 and have all my media backed up on my computer. It will depend on what components you have and might take a while to set up but once you have done it it is well worth the time invested.
Hi Rick,
Thanks for the DLNA info. My wifi router sits right next to my TV, So, can I use the DLNA over wifi and then connect the rounter to my TV with a network cable? That would be neat and simple. Can you send HD over the DLNA link or just standard definition? Can the DLNA video data be in any format, or does it have to be a special format so that the TV will be able to decode it?
So many things I do not understand. Even if you did a show on DLNA, I think many more people may be interested now. So maybe another show would be a good idea. Even if you do not, I have at least learned a little bit from you. Thanks.
I've become "The Remote Guy" at work, thanks to the line of Harmony remotes :p
Our Recreational Committee sprang for some decent home theater upgrades in our break room. I actually went in and did all the wiring and set up for them and I noticed that they were just using the "universal" remote that came with the HD DVR. Naturally, I wasn't about to let that stand!
I bought a really inexpensive (not even $30) Harmony 688 on ebay from Hong Kong. I was donating it, so I didn't want to spend a lot. But I knew that ANY Harmony would be better than controlling things on a device-by-device basis and not having access to several important commands since the "universal" HD DVR remote only used the pre-programmed codes type of setup.
Anywho, I spent a couple of hours tweaking the Harmony 688 and got it set up really nicely so that it was as self-explanatory as possible. We have a lot of non-tech or outright technophobic people at work. They all LOVED the simplicity of being able to switch between activities with a single button push. They loved it even more when they hit the single "Off" button and EVERYTHING turned off - lol
Ironically, it was the guys who THINK they know something about home theater who had the most trouble :p They all seemed more comfortable when they were screwing up settings by hitting lots of buttons. Now, all they had to do was hit "Watch TV" and everything would go to the correct input and the correct listening mode, etc. I also pretty much eliminated access to any buttons that could screw up the correct settings ;)
After experiencing how simple the Harmony made everything though, I got quite a few people asking me how much it cost and if I could set one up for them. I'm all too happy to help out people when it comes to home theater! I show them my Harmony One and find out if they're willing to pay the higher price for that model or the 900 or the 700. But many have opted for the cheap models that I import on ebay - which I can totally understand.
So I've set up 7 Harmony remotes for people at work now. But, naturally, while I'm over at their home, I also do a quick calibration of their TV and make sure that they have everything wired and placed as best as possible :) I quite like being the "go to" guy for home theater stuff. And it really all has happened because of the Harmony remote!
Hey - When are you going to be in Florida :) (Ft. Lauderdale to be exact)
I just set up the amazon bookmark. My wife and I use Amazon quite a bit but I often would forget to use your storefront. Now it should be easy to support the podcast. Thanks for the great show.
Craig
Yeh, it's me again. I have been looking at the CinemaTube and similar players and if I understand correctly, they do not seem to be able to play videos from the internet unless they are connected to a network that has a Computer that is turned on and running software called "PlayOn" which costs $40. Is this really the case? If so, that adds almost 40% to the cost. If this is true, it seems like the manufacturers should be a bit more clear about this.
Hi Peter-
Yes, the CinemaTube requires a separate server to access online content. We mention that in our review:
"As a DLNA player, the CinemaTube will connect to your PlayOn server for direct access to CBS, ESPN, Hulu, Amazon VOD, Netflix and YouTube."
The PlayOn team is constantly running discounts for the software, so if you keep an eye on it, you should be able to get it for less than $40. But one benefit of PlayOn is that you'll be able to get all that Internet content on any DLNA player in your house, including the Xbox360, PS3 and WII.
We have a few shows on DLNA. Episode 315 made it to the new site. Episodes 264 and 161 are now audio only.
Thanks for the help.
Sorry to hear about the break in. You mentioned doing home security with the insteon stuff. I looks like it is possible with all insteon. You might also be interested in HomeSeer.com, this is control software that will run on a PC, which integrates a large number of vendors products. There is a very active community of users, so support and scripting is readily available. I haven't been able to get my wife to agree to spend the money for a starter kit yet, but hope to soon.
Best regards,
Ken
Ara - Sorry about the break-in. As a Mac Geek you should check out Indigo from Perceptive Automation. It gives you total control via web browser, iphone app (FREE) and is totally apple scriptable and an awesome community. As far as camera apps, there are quite a few out there. I personally use a program called 'Evocam' ($25 when last I checked) where you can set motion and email notification. Currently I have a camera pointing at the front door and rear entry door. I have set up a motion box using Evocam and it can either send a picture via email or video for 'x sec.' The other popular program for video security is 'Security Spy' but I believe the cost increases per camera starting at $50