2009 Media Player Roundup
- 1. The Year Of The Media Player
- 2. Popcorn Hour C-200
- 3. ViewSonic VMP70
- 4. Patriot Box Office
1. The Year Of The Media Player
These new devices help you bring tunes and video files to your TV from your PCs and drives around your house. Which one is best?
The year is almost at an end. While the year was chock full of praise-worthy trends in technology and consumer electronics, one new fad emerged that took our living rooms by storm: stand-alone media players have become a must-have accessory for any home-theater setup. Ranging in price from $90 to $300 or more, these typically small boxes bring a PC-like media experience to your television set. Whether you want to watch your collection of ripped DVDs and Blu-ray discs or listen to your library of 1980s metal, media players allow you to stream content over the network and play files from USB or internal hard drives that attach to the devices.
While most media players have features that can be roughly explained in a few sentences, the similarities between them are often swept to the side by the presence or absence of must-have perks, such as BitTorrent clients, Internet services like Pandora or Flickr, and file support so robust you won’t possibly be able to take advantage of it fully.
We got our hands on five different media players from Western Digital, ViewSonic, Patriot, Asus, and Popcorn Hour. All of the players share the same basic functionality, but each was designed with the hopes to separate itself from the pack through innovation, convenience, and drool-worthy bonus features.
Each media player is evaluated based on five primary categories:
Connectivity: The more connection options there are the better. HDMI, Ethernet, and USB are almost standard now, but we want to also see composite, digital-optical out, WiFi, eSATA, and other connectivity options.
Interface: Since most media players share a basic functionality set, the user interface is what separates the contenders from the wannabes. Just as important as the software user interface (UI) is the physical interface. This includes the remote control and whatever buttons there are on the media player itself.
File Support: Again, most media players are going to share similar file support, so this category will distinguish the players that go the extra mile. This includes supporting files like Flash video (FLV) and RealMedia files.
Picture/Sound Quality: What’s the point of streaming and supporting 1080p video at 60Hz if it looks bad? Hopefully, the picture quality in these media players is solid across the board, but we will still look for poor quality across a range of file types.
Extras: Another way for media players to distinguish themselves is by offering extras that aren’t available in competing devices. This includes features like BitTorrent clients, Internet services like radio and photo sites, and the ability to act like a media server or external hard drive.
Each category is worth up to five points. After the points are tallied, we also figure in other factors, such as overall value, ease of use/setup, and firmware updates. May the best media player win!
Best prices for tested products
- Next Popcorn Hour C-200
- Latest Digital Entertainment News
- 07/16 – Toshiba in Hot Water Over Free Laptops Offer
- 07/07 – VIDEO: A HDTV Made Out of iPod Touches
- 06/28 – This is the World's Smallest Digital TV Tuner
- 05/25 – LG Reveals 84'' UHD 3D Panel; 3840 x 2160 Res
- 03/05 – Intel Developing DTV Antenna; Coupons Resume
- All Digital Entertainment news
- Latest Digital Entertainment Reviews
- 07/19 – The Verdict
- 07/19 – Hauppauge WinTV HVR1950
- 07/19 – Elgato EyeTV Hybrid
- 07/19 – Diamond Multimedia HD750
- 07/19 – 3 Tuners For HDTV on Your Computer
- All Digital Entertainment reviews
-
Latest Patriot Reviews
- Gearing Up, Road Warrior Style
- 2009 Media Player Roundup
- USB Flash Drives: Speed Vs. Capacity
Nice story.
WD Live does support Ralink wireless dongles which work fine in my secured home wireless network.
I have a WDTV 1st gen and love it... picked it up for about $70 and it has the same file support and video quality as the Live. It doesn't have any network support but there is an active custom firmware community out there that has added it (you can also add... ftp, web server, torrent client, etc). Right now I have a wireless N adapter (about $40) attached that I stream movies/videos from another computer in the house (get around 30mb/s from it). It really is a great little unit. The one big draw back is that it doesn't have DTS down mixing so you need to attach it to an audio unit that can handle that... This was corrected in the second gen and the Live.
Just to be clear...several of these players support wireless through the use of external adapters. My comments on the conclusion page are geared towards integrated wireless. 2010 is coming up quick, so I would love to see the next wave of media players come with built-in wireless instead of making consumers go out and buy a $20-$40 adapter/dongle.
I'd like to see the Xtreamer included in the next round up. (http://www.xtreamer.net/) They usually throw its usb wifi 802.11n adapter in for free, and supports WPA2. I was looking at the original popcorn hour until I saw it. I think you should also mention the modding community behind the WDTV as well as the XBMC alternatives.
What about the Netgear EVA9150? Excellent product. Aside from it's weak GUI, it plays most formats and offers Wireless connectivity, internet access to youtube, etc. You ignored a very significant product.
What about the Mede8er? It is definately my ultimate choice. Solid remote, Solid hardware, Network Access(wired and wifi), NAS capability, NFS capability, uPNP, Internet services, etc. Very Very Very cool multimedia player.
Thank you for the review. It was a helpful intro to some of the differences between players. I only wish the review explained in detail which kind of display was used and which type of content was used to assess the differences in PQ. In other words, did the tester(s) notice a difference in 1080p content, 1080i, 480i/p, etc. They didn't explain the test methods or methods for assessing the differences in PQ.
For 1080p all players should strive to just decode the signal and pass it along to the display without extra processing/gimmicks. So in *theory* (although it's never that way in practice) the players should look very similar on 1080p content over HDMI. Noticeable differences in PQ should be more apparent when the players have to de-interlace/upscale content.
The Popcorn Hour C-200 sounds sweet i am going to get this unit hopefully on a right after Christmas sale. Is the drive cage a 3 1/2" or 2 1/2"?
The Popcorn Hour C-200 sounds sweet i am going to get this unit hopefully on a right after Christmas sale. Is the drive cage a 3 1/2" or 2 1/2"?
The hard drive cage in the C-200 is for a 3.5-inch SATA hard drive.
Also, we tested the media players on both 720p and 1080p displays.
i could have sworn C-200 has 10/100/1000 ethernet...
error on the article?
There is a very good reason why wireless has been omitted in these devices, and it's called good business. Wireless is rarely fast enough for playback of HD files.
The previous generation of devices like this (like those from D-Link) saw a lot of returns at retail due to wireless issues (mostly speed related). The current generation devices all take into account the lessons learned and are omitting wireless to cut down on returns and support costs.
Maybe some day when wireless is actually good for something other than browsing the web...
Will my AC3 5.1 sound stay that way on all the players or get mixed to 2 channel stereo? That's very important to me.
Also, I plan on playing my divx plus content (h.264 with Dolby TrueHD sound (preferred since its the unaltered source) or AAC sound in an .mkv container). Will that make it unaltered? I want great picture and great sound. I want the box to go to my stereo for audio surround and then have that passed through to the tv.
Neither the Asus or WD players support ISO files, which make them completely worthless in my mind (like I want to convert my DVDs to AVI or WMV). I have a pair of Xtreamer boxes and they work great, including support for ISOs and VC1-encoded files.
i could have sworn C-200 has 10/100/1000 ethernet...error on the article?
Correct! It has Gigabit Ethernet on board. I fixed it. Thanks!
-Devin
"a decent set of extra features like a BitTorrent client"
promoting piracy?
"a decent set of extra features like a BitTorrent client"promoting piracy?
How is that promoting piracy? There are plenty of legal uses for BitTorrent, including content that is public domain or content that is legally sold through torrent sites.
-Devin
I have both the ASUS O!Play and the WDTV Live. The ASUS O!Play supports the PGS (Blu-ray) subtitles while the WDTV Live does not.
The WDTV Live supports the Dolby TrueHD passthru while the O!Play does not.
The WDTV Live seems to lose the Windows share frequently and drops the connection. The ASUS O!Play has been very stable in this area.
Both the O!Play and the WDTV Live are the latest firmware level.
The O!Play will stay and the WDTV Live will be going back.
Do any of the units support up conversion so that your 480 You Tube feed looks OK on a 42 inch or larger TV?
I would love to see an article that discusses - in Utopia, what are the best components for a Digital Home. What basics should your TV and Stereo have? Upscaling in TV or Stereo feed thru? What should the network look like - wired or wireless (3x3 450n?). DVD/Blueray players with built in YouTube, Netflix, etc? Roku boxes? etc. Also consider Flip (Pure Digital) and their efforts in this area. Cisco did not buy them to sit back and merely sell $100 - $200 HD cameras. Flip Management is now running the Linksys Consumer division - what's next there?
There are so many choices now and more to come - so what should the entire ecosystem look like?
I was disappointed not to see a Mede8er reviewed with the rest. Top of the heap for the Realtek chip based players in my opinion.