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New article now available: Best Current Media Player, December 2009
02-Nov-2009
Best Current Media Player [November 2009]
The past month has seen the usual flurry of new players being released, including a couple that are significant and will feature heavily in the rest of this article. On top of this, we have seen some big developments in firmware for existing players. Realtek firmware 2.0 has started to appear with some of the sought after improvements in interface and performance.
Media Players launched in October: DViCO Tvix 6600, Eminent EM7075, Patriot Box Office, WDTV Live, eGreat EG-R1
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.
The Sigma 8635 is now almost two years old. It suffers universally from being less powerful than the rest and not having a processor capable of providing a fast user interface. The 8635 players are still capable of decoding most of the latest video files, and some have managed to find workarounds for the inherent limitations of the chipset (such as being HDMI 1.2 only and not supporting DTS decoding). It must also be said that the software for these players is more developed than that for any of the newer machines, exactly as you would expect after a couple of years. A player such as the Popcorn Hour A-110 or will provide a very pleasant user experience and have lots of online support providing every application you could every want.
As with last month though, we are going to discount all the Sigma 8635 players. For some reason, every 8635 is priced far above the newer Realtek and later Sigma chipped players. The newer chipsets are far more powerful than the 8635, allowing more video files to be played and the user interface to be smoother. On top of this, they are usually about half the price. We could never recommend an older, less powerful player over something newer and technically better. Yes software is important, but it is something that can always be improved upon. Hardware is fixed for the life of the machine. The new Realteks and Sigmas have already shown themselves to have no big bugs and at least the same format support as their predecessors.
Best Budget Media Player (Under $180 / €150)
This is the most hotly contested category and takes in most of the recently launched players. It is also the category that three of the four players launched this month go into. Last months winner was the Brite-View CinemaTube BV-5005HD, using a Realtek chipset and being commended for it's low price, silent operation, and apparent commitment to customer support and firmware updates. Since last month the CinemaTube has had a new firmware release in response to customer requests and therefore has not disappointed. The question is, have other players caught it up?
The bulk of the players to be considered use the Realtek chipset, either of the 128x or 107x variants (identical for Media Player purposes). So we are looking at about 20 Realtek players, all of very similar decoding performance and format support. Differentiating between them is difficult, which is partly why we chose the cheapest last month as the best. This month it is different, with some clear differences emerging in the level of firmware development away from the base Realtek effort. We have also seen many more players either having their price reduced or being launched in the $100-150 price range. Prices have been driven down aggressively over the past 4 months since the Xtreamer launched.
In the budget price range, there are only 2 players with full-HD user interfaces, a feature of Realtek SDK 2.0. The Mede8er MED500X launched in September with such an interface and has now had it's price reduced, and the Xtreamer is at beta4 of it's HD 2.0 firmware. Whilst this is not in itself a sign of good support, we have been very impressed by the commitment shown to firmware updates by Xtreamer. The fact that they are at a 4th beta on the new Realtek SDK whilst no other player has yet attempted a release speaks for itself. Other players to have seen significant firmware updates are the ACRyan PlayOn!HD (torrent support, HD-Audio passthrough), Brite-View CinemaTube BV-5005HD (fixes), and Asus O!Play. Of the many non internal hard drive Realtek 1073 players (Emtec N200, AStone AP100, MediaNow MNP-101, Poppstar MS30) there is very little to differentiate them in either performance or price. None of these appear to be receiving firmware updates. We are unsure yet of what level of support the Mede8er MED500X will receive. The firmware update history is hidden on their website, so we are waiting to see what updates and communication with users is forthcoming.
The newly launched Patriot Box Office is a standard Realtek box using the most basic early Realtek firmware. The eGreat EG-R1 is more interesting, having an eclectic selection of external AV interfaces. As far as we can tell it's not properly available to buy yet, but it is one to watch for the future.
The biggest news this month was the long awaited launch of the WDTV2, or as we now know to call it, the WDTV Live. There had been much speculation as to what hardware this would use but it was still a surprise when it finally appeared sporting the brand new Sigma 8655. There had been no build up to this from Western Digital, they just dropped a few units into Best Buy on one sunny October day. The WDTV Live was not actually the first Sigma 8655 Media Player, that honour went the the largely invisible Eminent EM7075 a few days earlier. The other big surprise was that both these players launched at just over $100. The combination of the new chip and low price was astonishing.
Now that we've had a few weeks to establish the performance of the Sigma 8655 we can say for sure that it is a hugely impressive chip. The WDTV Live is capable of decoding video that other Media Players fall over in a stuttery mess when confronted with, notably the notorious Planet Earth 16 reframe scene. In pure performance terms the two 8655 players are a fair distance ahead of the Realteks. Performance, however, is not the be all and end all. Media Players have developed to such a degree that all of the players we are looking at here are capable of playing virtually any file you'll find in the real world. A notable exception to this is the WDTV Live not being able to reproduce DVD ISO menus. The files will play fine but with no menu.
Both the new Sigmas are capable of decoding DTS audio, as are almost all the Realteks. HD-Audio is still a mixed bag for all players and is not something we would consider a requirement in our best budget player category. There are varying degrees of existing support and coming soon promises of HD-Audio compatibility across all the players. If this area is a particular requirement then visit our HD-Audio Formats page. The comparison table or individual product pages also give a detailed picture of HD-Audio capability for each Media Player.
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.
This month has seen significant developments that will result in a change in our ranking of the best Media Player. The CinemaTube is still a great piece of kit but has now been equaled in price and overtaken in firmware development. Both the new Sigma 8655 players deserve commendation for the incredible power/performance combination. These two players also have some of the most attractive firmware of any Media Player. Of the two, it is difficult to recommend the Eminent simply because everything about it is so low key. You can only buy it from a couple of obscure European websites and it's website looks fairly neglected. If distribution and presentation can improve then the Eminent is looking good. On the other hand, the WDTV Live has an all singing and dancing website and is more widely available (pending current post-launch stock shortages). Future firmware support for the WDTV Live is an area of concern based on past experience of the WDTV. However, the firmware is complete already with few niggles for updates to resolve, so we don't see this as a big problem.
Of the Realteks there is now one clear leader. When Xtreamer launched there were a lot of people doubting it. The website looked poor and Xtreamer made many big promises which they struggled to keep. It is now clear that they are very serious about becoming a force in Media Players and are progressing with firmware development at a fast pace. The next version of the firmware should add a movie library (XBMC alike?) and they are steadily resolving all niggles. The big hardware flaw (noisy fan) can be mitigated and great strides are being made to eliminate the problem once and for all with a passive cooling solution. Availability to the US is soon to be improved with a US stockist selling via Amazon USA for $140
For the month of November, iboum.com's Best Current Media Player award goes to the WDTV Live. It has both the most powerful hardware and the better user interface backing it up. We are also going to award second place to the Xtreamer because of the impressive ongoing development of their device. If the fan problem gets sorted and we get the promised movie library then the WDTV Live had better watch out..
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Amazon $119.00
Amazon £97.75
Amazon €114.97
Amazon C$169.99
Best High-End Media Player
The high-end category is much smaller, consisting of one Sigma 864x player and a few Realteks. Most of the Sigma 8635 players fit into this category but, as explained in detail above, they are all being excluded. You shouldn't disregard them completely though, some feature AV outputs and configurations that you won't find anywhere else. They are just not future entertainment technology.
Last months winner, the Popcorn Hour C-200 has proved something of a dissapointment with continuing major software problems and hardware shortages meaning zero availability. We still think it has all the ingredients to be a fantastic Media Player/Blu-Ray hybrid but the pace of development and the poor state of software at lauch means we are not going to recommend it this month. We expected a faster resolution of issues than is happening. The long awaited Dune HD Base 3.0 (using the same Sigma 864x as the C-200) has had it's delivery time pushed back again so is still not available. Latest information is that a limited number are being shipped for testing and a full release should happen at the end of November. If Dune can produce a working firmware then this player will be a strong contender next month.
The few Realteks that are priced above $180 / €150 do not particularly offer anything over and above the budget players so cannot be recommended. The DViCO Tvix 6600 has a better user interface than most Realteks but this isn't worth the price premium, especially when much cheaper players are rapidly catching up (Xtreamer, CinemaTube, Mede8er MED500X).
To conclude, we are taking the controversial decision this month to not award any player the Best High-End Player award. There are no players out there that justify the price premium over the best budget efforts. Prices have been pushed down to such an extent over the past 6 months that the best players are now all inexpensive. To win in the high-end category a player must offer something above and beyond what you can get in the budget category. The C-200 and Dune HD Base 3.0 will potentially offer this but neither are yet the finished product. Maybe if the Conceptronic Yuixx ever launches with it's Intel CE3100 processor this category would become more interesting.
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