Nero fiddles while Twonky burns?

When Nomad bought the Linksys Kiss 1600 it came with a disc containing Nero MediaHome CE. Evidently MediaHome CE is a cut down version of MediaHome. For some reason Nomad had never got round to finding out what this did.

In terms of performance MediaHome CE proved to be an improvement over Twonky. Typical performance with a high definition file started with approximately 65% processor loading but then dropped to approximately 25%, presumably after the buffer had filled.

MediaHome CE successfully played MOV files as well as the standard MP4 files. It did not like FLV or M4V files.

The problem with MediaHome CE was that the names displayed on the Media Player appear to come from tag information. Most of the files seem to lack this data and therefore the user is presented with a long list of files which are all described as “video” or something similar. This made it impossible to select the desired file. Not good.

Clearly MediaHome CE was not working out and it was time to see what MediaHome 4 (the full version) would do. The trial version of MediaHome 4 can be downloaded from the web for free. MediaHome 4 worked fine displaying the filenames where the tag information was missing. Unfortunately it also ran at close to 100% processor load with all the files Nomad tried and the display was the same old stop/start with no sound, as seen with Twonky.

Clearly neither of the versions of MediaHome fit the bill but the search for suitable media server software will continue in a future edition of this exciting saga.