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03-Mar-2009
Media Player Roundup - March 2010
It has been a quiet month. Perhaps a post Christmas hangover, perhaps a lull between player generations. There is a lot of anticipation being built up for the BoxeeBox and the PopBox, so this could just be the calm before the storm.
The articles for past months will also be relevant if you're interested in information about players: Feb - Dec - Nov - Oct
On an iboum.com note, there has been a vast improvement in the Media Player database part of our site. Index pages and product pages are now automatically created from the central database allowing for greater accuracy and easier updating. The index sorting has also been dramatically upgraded, now allowing drill-down filtering.
New Players
Realtek: Envivo, Traxdata MM Station, DViCO Tvix N1, EGreat EG-R1B. Sigma: Bevix BV8088, Allure M3.
Six new players have launched, a low total by recent standards. The Traxdata MM Station is a rebadged MViX Ultio / Sumvision Cyclone MK2 and warrants little mention except for it's very low price, €85 is a record low for a HDD Media Player priced in Euros. The Envivo is similar in being a budget model with nothing about it particularly standing out. It does at least support DTS downmix and it appears to be getting good firmware support. The EGreat EG-R1B is simply the old EG-R1 with an internal HDD bay added. Again, it's OK but nothing to get excited about.
The one Realtek left is the most interesting, if only because it comes from a well respected manufacturer in DViCO. The Tvix N1 is an unusual looking player, following the chopping block design style of the Tvix 7000A. Unfortunately it suffers from the usual problem with the DViCO players in being much too expensive. Fundamentally it is exactly the same as many other Realtek players albeit with slightly improved software. In our opinion this does not justify being double the price.
The two Sigma 864x players are both Chinese brands and neither are available outside Asia. Both have outstanding specifications but until they are readily available for purchase they aren't going to figure in any of our deliberations.
Developments of Existing Players
Again, this area hasn't seen much movement. The Realtek players have not more generally followed ACRyan's lead in adding YAMJ to their players and we have not seen any sight of Realtek SDK3. This has been a dissapointment as all the Realteks are crying out for an improved graphical interface. The ACRyan Play!On and Mede8er reamin the two stand-out players in this regard.
News broke this month that none of the Realtek 1073 / 1283 players will ever support lossless HD-Audio passthrough owing to a hardware fault with these Realtek chips. This has caused much upheaval, owing to many players having been advertised as supporting these standards. In our opinion it is not the end of world since very few people actually use lossless HD-Audio and it will be a long time (if ever?) until it is widespread. The specification tables on our site have been accurate in this regard for many months.
The HDX-BD1 and Popcorn Hour C-200/A-200 have been receiving a steady stream of firmware updates all month without either having arrived at a fully satisfactory end result. It seems the newer Sigma chip has problems with Gigabit LAN (present on both players) and lossless HD-Audio passthrough (Popcorn Hour). Despite there still being issues we are impressed with the commitment shown by both manufacturers to sorting out their products and both players will be considered in the 'best player' sections below.
Best Player (non-HDD)
Nothing has happened this month to cause any change of ranking from February, therefore all deliberations from last month still stand. The Envivo comes closest to breaking into this list with it's DTS support and low price, but we would want to see more evidence of support levels before we consider it a rival to the other budget Realteks like the Asus O!Play HDP-R1.
The Asus O!Play HDP-R1 remains a bargain. It is one of the best specified Realtek players (with eSATA and DTS), is widely available from a big manufacturer, and is almost the cheapest Realtek player you can buy. For these reasons it remains planted at the top of the list.
For the month of March 2010 the iboum.com non-HDD Media Player ranking is:
| 1. | Asus O!Play HDP-R1 | $90 |  $87.99  £81.72  €91.95
| Great price. Great format support. DVD menus. eSATA. |
| 2. | WDTV Live | $120 | $119.00 £97.75 €108.95
| Loads of power at a superb price. |
| 3. | ACRyan Play!On HD Mini | $120 | BUY NOW | Great format support. DVD menus. Good ongoing feature development. |
| 4. | Ellion Labo | $140 | BUY NOW | Great format support. DVD menus. |
| 5. | ASUS O!Play HDP-R3 | $130 | $129.99 £119.99 €146.00
| Internal Wi-Fi, SD Card ports, eSATA. |
Best Player (HDD)
Whilst most of the players launched this month fit in this category, none of them are contenders. They are all either nothing particularly special (Traxdata MM Station, DViCO Tvix N1, EGreat EG-R1B) or not available for purchase (Allure M3 / Bevix BV8088).
The big change in the HDD ranking comes from the two players excluded last month because their firmwares were in such an early state. Over the course of February both the HDX-BD1 and Popcorn Hour A-200 have seen rapid firmware development that has eliminated most of the bugs. As players to purchase today, we are confident that either will represent value over time.
The HDX-BD1 is now the best value now if you want full Blu-Ray support. It is about half the price of the Dune Base 3.0 (price in $ on 03-March) and $100 cheaper than the Popcorn Hour C-200. Over the month it has also managed to fix HD-Audio support so now offers the same full HD-Audio coverage as the Dune. HDX are well regarded in the Media Player community and have shown themselves to be committed to ironing out the few remaining issues.
The Popcorn Hour A-200 is priced just above the best 3.5" HDD Realteks (e.g ACRyan) but offers a faster chip, better applications, and the imminent prospect of the new Syabas firmware (which is looking spectacular). Despite the reservations about current firmware the A-200 looks like having a massive future.
The Dune Base 3.0 remains a formidable machine but has not been helped by it's price increasing considerably over the course of the month. Demand must be high.. but it now looks too expensive.
For the month of March 2010 the iboum.com HDD Media Player ranking is:
| 1. | HDX BD-1 | $220 | BUY NOW | Does everything, including Blu-Ray, and does it relatively cheaply. |
| 2. | ACRyan Play!On | $170 | BUY NOW | Format support, YAMJ, 3.5" HDD, lots of firmware updates. |
| 3. | Dune Base 3.0 | $450 | BUY NOW | Does everything, and does it extremely well. Full Blu-Ray support, full HD-Audio support. Now looking very expensive |
| 4. | Popcorn Hour A-200 | $180 | BUY NOW | Loads of promise, powerful hardware. |
| 5. | Xtreamer | $135 | $145.00 €132
| Good price, format support, lots of firmware updates. |
Best Media Player (Combined)
This ranking is very difficult to make because we are comparing very different players at very different prices. All the products mentioned in the two tables above are the best you'll find at their pricepoints and specification so any of them would make a good purchase.
We are sure that the Popcorn Hour A-200 will rank higher in months to come. In many ways it represents the best value for money already. Our big hesitation is that much of the promise rests on the new firmware. The quicker Syabas can get this out the better.
The Xtreamer loses it's place in the overall top five for the first time since we started compiling these lists. It remains good value but we have now been waiting a while for a better graphical user interface. When this arrives it will probably move higher again.
The top position this month goes to a new entry that utilises the newest Sigma chipset and offers every feature imaginable, the HDX-BD1. For half the price of the Dune Base 3.0 you get almost all of the functionality.
The final combined iboum.com Media Player ranking for March 2010:| 1. | HDX BD-1 | $220 | BUY NOW | Does everything, including Blu-Ray, and does it relatively cheaply. |
| 2. | Asus O!Play HDP-R1 | $90 | $87.99 £81.72 €91.95
| Great price. Great format support. DVD menus. eSATA. |
| 3. | ACRyan Play!On | $170 | BUY NOW | Format support, YAMJ, 3.5" HDD, lots of firmware updates. |
| 4. | Dune Base 3.0 | $450 | BUY NOW | Does everything, and does it extremely well. Full Blu-Ray support, full HD-Audio support. Now looking very expensive |
| 5. | WDTV Live | $120 | $119.00 £97.75 €108.95
| Loads of power at a superb price. |
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Comments There are 3 comments
April 08, 2010 - 19:19
anxiously waiting an April Update April 08, 2010 - 20:05
It may be a while. There have been so few players launched, and not much by the way of firmware upgrades, that it's not really worth it. The best we'll be doing is a short update on the improvements to existing players. The market is in a post Xmas lull. The ratings on the main index page are updated regularly so the current iboum ranking is our current opinion regards best player. Combine that with the user ratings and you get a very good guide. The more formal best player articles will return when there are some more significant changes. Popbox / BoxeeBox / Whatever is new.. March 10, 2010 - 01:45
Useful for your monthly review/update to cover your Mini HTPC/Nettop category. The Revo 3610L looks closest to my requirement, but lacks the Composite or S-video O/P I want. Do you know if an improved version of that 3610L spec, eg. a bit faster CPU and ION2(16shader version) imminent ? Leave a Comment
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