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02-Dec-2009
Media Player Roundup [December 2009]
The flow of new players has continued. There have been several new Realtek 1073 players (including the cheapest one yet), one HTPC/Media Player hybrid, and an updated WDTV based on the WDTV Live. On the firmware front, the Realtek SDK2 firmware has been rolled out to a couple more players, the WDTV Live got a minor update, and we've had a tantalising glimpse from ACRyan of what might be Realtek SDK3.
Media Players launched in November: Ellion Labo 110, WDTV (mk2), Myka ION, Sumvision Cyclone MKV, Prodigi PD-100N, Hisense MP800H. We've also added the Fantec MM-FHDL and Brite-View HDPrimo BV-6000P
Sigma 8635 Media Players
All Media Players launched in the past couple of years can be split into categories based on the chipset used. These categories are Sigma 863x, Realtek 107x/128x, Sigma 864x, and Sigma 865x. More information about Media Player chipsets is available here. As with last month, we are going to dicount all the Sigma 8635 players. They are lacking in power, expensive, and use two year old technology. For a longer justification of their omission please see last months article.
One thing we will say in their favour is that they are still the best option if you require DTS HD-MA and Dolby TrueHD passthrough. As we discovered this month when we went through every player establishing the true HD Audio capabilities, none of the newer player firmwares have yet matched the older firmwares for comprehensive HD Audio support. The best of the new players are now very close however, and we'd hope that by next month the following will have full support (Popcorn Hour C-200, Dune HD Base 3.0, Xtreamer, ACRyan Play!On, WDTV Live, WDTV mk2).
Best Budget Media Player (Under $180 / €150)
This category is where all the action is. In total there are 30 players, with 27 Realteks and 3 Sigma 865xs. All of the new players this month except the Myka ION and Fantec MM-FHDL are included here. The Ellion Labo 110, Sumvision Cyclone MKV, Prodigi PD-100N, Hisense MP800H, and Brite-View HDPrimo BV-6000P are all Realtek 1073 based. As there are now so many Realtek players the new additions will have to do something different in order to stand out.
Of this new bunch, only the Ellion Labo 110 and Hisense manage to do this. The Ellion has a superficially improved user interface and the Hisense is the cheapest Realtek Media Player so far, coming in at £61. The Hisense as a unit is nothing special, the firmware is the basic Realtek (albeit with regular updates) and the build quality has been reported as not being that impressive. But it is basically identical to the rest and is only £61! The Ellion Labo 110 impresses by utilising a new and slick Realtek user interface. It is certainly an improvement in looks over the other Realteks even if the Ellion firmware is some way behind the best in features and functionality.
Of the other Realteks, the big mover this month has been the ACRyan PlayOn!HD. The latest v7.06.r2388 firmware release catches up with the Xtreamer is all the key areas (HD-Audio, BD-ISO, DVD support) and when you add the torrent downloading feature that has always been present in the Play!On, it makes this player well worth a look. A forum post this month showed some pictures of what is supposedly the next ACRyan firmware. It looks very nice and shows that ACRyan are planning for a shiny future. Whether this is Realtek SDK3 (so other players will also get it) or not is something we will only find out over the next few months.
The Xtreamer fan issue has largely been resolved. Reports are that the newer units are quieter than those from the intial batches, and there are now a couple of relatively inexpensive passive coolers you can fit that let you turn off the fan completely. In resepct to this, as far as we can tell nobody has managed to permanently break an Xtreamer by running it in it's standard configuration with the fan turned off. Interestingly, some Realtek players have fans and some don't. It seems that the Realtek chip can be run without a fan, albeit running relatively warm.
The Xtreamer has had a number of incremental firmware releases this month, continuing it's impressive release schedule. Our best player from September, the Brite-View CinemaTube BV-5005HD is starting to lag seriously behind in terms of firmware releases. It is still using Realtek SDK 1 and has poor HD-Audio support compared to the best Realteks. We are dissapointed in this player since the Briteview people are so vocal and promise so much on forums.
The other Realteks are very much of a muchness. They all have similar interfaces on top of near identical hardware with uncertain firmware update prospects. The problem (if it is a problem) is that the basic Realtek firmware is technically very capable. Hence every Realtek player is a very capable Media Player with great performance and format support. It becomes very difficult to differentiate between them. We advise that you look at our product pages for a player you're interested in, check out the forums, and make your choice.
The one non-Realtek budget player launched this month was the new WDTV. It is without any network capability but uses the same Sigma 8655 chip from the WDTV Live. Performance is therefore better than anything else at this price but it is lacking in the same areas as the Live (no DVD ISO, RMVB). The difference in price is not large enough between it and the Live for us to see it as a good deal. If you want a WDTV we think you should get the Live,you just might end up using the networking and component output.
On to the behemoth itself. The WDTV Live has had one fairly insignificant official firmware update and several unofficial releases courtesy of B-Rad. The limitations of the Live (DVD-ISO, RMVB) are unlikely to be solved officially so it is good to see problems being addressed by third parties. In this respect the WDTV Live stands head and shoulders above all the other players. It is an advantage that it is unlikely to relinquish since it's user base and market presence are so large. Late edit: On 02-Dec Xtreamer released the source code for their player to the public. This could elevate Xtreamer above the WDTV Live in terms of third party support depending on what quality of developer decides to have a go at improving things.
The emphasis for mainstream devices has shifted onto usability. In this respect, the Realteks generally lose out. Even with the highly developed Xtreamer firmware, you are still navigating file lists with no possibility for thumbnail browsing of movies or ordering anything by artist/year/etc. Being able to view information about the movie you are about to watch ala XBMC or YAMJ is a million miles away. The two Sigmas are much better in this regard with thumbnail browsing and pleasant to use media browsers.
There has been far less change in our rankings when compared to last month. The two best Realteks are still the Xtreamer and ACRyan Play!On, with both amply demonstrating through firmware releases over the month why they are in the top position. Of these two we still favour the Xtreamer. Firmware support is marginally ahead and it is slightly cheaper. The fight for top Realtek was very close this month though, so all to play for in 2010. The first player to get us SDK3 will be looking good for top ranking. Of the Sigma players, the clear leader is the WDTV Live. The Eminent 7075 has continued it's complete invisibility and the new WDTV lacks networking. Whilst Western Digital's firmware release schedule has not been spectacular, we never expected it to be, and this is more than mitigated by the release of third party firmwares (B-Rad).
For the month of December 2009, iboum.com's Best Budget Media Player award goes to the WDTV Live. Both the Xtreamer and ACRyan Play!On are pushing it hard, and both are more feature rich than the Live. But the better raw technology of the WDTV Live combined with the very active third party support make it the winner. It also has the more user friendly GUI with no prospect of this changing until Realtek bring out SDK3. It should also be noted that although we don't now consider fan noise to be a major issue for the two Realtek players, the WDTV Live is fanless and silent. Finally, the WDTV Live is cheaper.
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Amazon $119.00
Amazon £97.75
Amazon €114.97
Amazon C$169.99
Best High-End Media Player
This is going to be a short section this month. Everything said last month still stands regarding the only two serious contenders in this category, the Popcorn Hour C-200 and Dune HD Base 3.0. Both are still suffering from poor availability and buggy software. Of the two we favour the Dune since it has at least managed to implement full HD-Audio passthrough (however it has several other big problems).
The two players released this month that fall into this category are the Myka ION, and the Fantec MM-FHDL. The first of these we will get to in a moment, so we will deal with the Fantec first. It is a Realtek 1073 player with no real standout features yet is priced at €200. The player itself is perfectly functional and it has a nicer case than most, however this does not justify it being almost twice the price of the similarly specified and better supported Xtreamer.
The Myka is a more interesting propsition, if only for the avenue it leads you down. Calling the Myka a Media Player is a marketing ploy. It is in fact a Nettop style Mini-PC, without a keyboard or mouse, and using the new NVIDIA ION (GeForce 9400) graphics chip. Because it is a PC running Linux / Windows you can run all PC applications, all codecs are available, and it allows you to run powerful software like Mythbuntu / XBMC. The software side is therefore much superior to any Media Player. This would be great if the Myka was the only such machine, but it isn't, and this is where the marketting ploy aspect comes in. There are many similarly specified ION Nettop PCs that will work equally well or better than the Myka, and many are cheaper. If you're interested then our new Mini HTPC section gives coverage to these machines.
The high-end Media Player section is in a state of crisis. Even the cheapest Media Players will now play every file perfectly and are receiving very active support, making the case for spending 2 or 3 times the amount on something high-end very dubious. To compound this problem the high-end is also getting attacked from formerly much more expensive HTPCs. The NVIDIA ION chipset is allowing tiny, great looking, and powerful HTPCs to undercut the high-end Media Players. When we look at the capabilities and versatility of the Dune HD Base 3.0 (€320) compared to an Acer Revo 3610L (€200), or a Blu-Ray equipped Popcorn Hour C-200 (€400+) compared to a AS-Rock ION 330-BD (€400) there is only one winner in every case.
The two areaa in which the Mini HTPCs currently fall down in comparison to Media Players are simplicity and HD-Audio. The first of these is a matter of choice. The price you pay for ultimate flexibility is more time spent setting it all up. Whereas with a Media Player the firmware comes with all format support bundled up, with a HTPC you will be spending some time downloading correct drivers. The second is more fundamental. There are few Mini HTPCs that can offer full HD-Audio passthrough.
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Comments There are 3 comments
December 18, 2009 - 01:49
Iboum, December 13, 2009 - 06:11
Iboum, I do like the Xtreamer, but... December 14, 2009 - 10:46
Even the highest bandwidth streams are much less than 100Mbit/s, so 1000Mbit/s ethernet is overkill for streaming. Most players therefore omit it to save money. The big advantage of Gigabit ethernet in these players is for transferring large files across a network. For instance transferring 500GB between your PC and a disk inside the Xtreamer. The 2.5" HDD thing is a valid criticism of many of the the budget players. I guess it's to do with size. The Xtreamer, WDTV Live. etc are tiny. Very portable. There are a load of physically larger players that take 3.5" drives. I'd suggest the ACRyan Playon. We've not commented on the drive size in the article because the price difference isn't huge and a lot of people will never use an internal drive anyway.. Leave a Comment
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