Emtec N200: My new Mediaplayer

Replacing my PS3 as HD-Mediaplayer with the N200 was a good choice.
The PS3 was loud and picky, while the N200 plays most everything I tried, noiselessly.

German: Der lautlose N200 hat meine PS3 auch bzgl. unterstützter Formate aus dem Wasser geschlagen, und ist daher mein Haupt-Mediaplayer geworden.

Even so, like most devices more powerful than a calculator, it has a few addressable shortcomings. On the other hand, with the right 'glue' this device could be even more. This device, and compatible devices have already gathered quite a community, and some extensions to the Linux-based system have already been published.

German: Leider hat dieses Gerät, wie die meisten modernen Elektronikgeräte, einige Eigenarten. Glücklicherweise lassen sich viele davon durch Firmwareupdates beheben, oder sind es schon. Für dieses, und einige andere kompatible Geräte gibt es schon ein paar Foren, und Erweiterungen für dieses Linux-basierte Gerät sind auch schon im Umlauf.

Note: This post is not finished, come back soon
Edit: Added some German text

Excerpt from my current iPhone apps list

Categorized, though mostly focused on remote controlling and media access, along with some notes:

[Remote] Media Control/Playing:

• MPoD - controls mpd, my Home Stereo system.
  
• dreaMote - controls your DreamBox DVB Receiver.
  
• XBMControl - controls XBMC, the great Media-Center.
  
• (non-free) PlugPlayer - UPNP Media Control (Experimental).
• (non-free) iMediaSuite - UPNP Media Control (Experimental).
• iLirc from daspider - LIRC Integration, unfortunately not (yet?) in the App Store, so currently only usable on phones with removed App restrictions. (Thus currently non usable for me)
  

Generic remote control applications:

• Touchpad (non-free) - Use your iphone as external wifi touchpad.
• TouchTerm - SSH Client with some nice features.
  

WebDAV-related, and not bound to specific providers:

• Disks - Supports SSL Connections. Still testing.
  
• DAV-E free - Still testing.
  

Communication:

• XSPhone - SIP VoIP Client, configurable for other providers.
  

If you know any noteworthy additions to above list, or have any other hints or notes, like free functional equivalents to the non-free applications, feel free to drop me a comment.
I will update this post as time progresses. Thanks for reading.

Media consumption - Source of bliss and frustration

We've been playing back music on our Home Stereos for several decades, it's a common scenario. Videos too. Chances are, you've done one or both today already.

But, media playback for regular consumers has -with few (mostly costly) exceptions- been severely limited by One-to-One relations between participating components, e.g. Your DVD player outputs to only one TV at a time, as does your satellite receiver, you have (in most cases) 1 remote-control per device, and it usually only works in 1 room. Most existing playback devices can only hold 1 Media like a disc at a time.
You can probably also see the pattern.
And this is just one of the many annoying problems media playback chains have (inherited).

What we can already do with media is great, don't get me wrong. And most people are happy with the Status Quo. Most people can't even imagine all existing functions, let alone understanding or using them. They seem to be happy with the limited functionality they can elicit from their specific combination of devices and media. I am not!

In my Opinion, above points are justs some of the symptoms of -what I call it- Multimedia Hell.

Now, advancing technologies have lessened or eliminated these pesky limitations, or at least have the potential to, but we're not quite there yet.

I'm working on it. Come back soon for more musings on how UPNP, Mpd, PCM, TCP/IP, and some other sexy akronyms might help us (or at least me) win this battle.

So, thanks for reading, see you next time.