HD Networked Media Tank (NMT)

[phantom76]

Found another one!!

WD TV HD Media Player ( WDAVN00 )
It is from western digital. Almost half the price of PCH and Elektron. If only I can get this shipped to India!

Negative point is it does not have ethernet or Wi-Fi connectivity. So you have to copy new content using USB, but that is not a big problem for me. $129 is a very enticing price and I think there will be some cheaper deals for Black Friday.

 

[reju]

Found another one!!

WD TV HD Media Player ( WDAVN00 )
It is from western digital. Almost half the price of PCH and Elektron. If only I can get this shipped to India!

Negative point is it does not have ethernet or Wi-Fi connectivity. So you have to copy new content using USB, but that is not a big problem for me. $129 is a very enticing price and I think there will be some cheaper deals for Black Friday.

Hey this good. Trimmed version for lesser price.

A quick insight to pros & cons of this player.

Pros:
1. Good branded product.
2. Low price.

Cons:
1. Does not have provision for using internal hard disk. (Putting hard disk inside the player)
2. No component video connection.
3. No digital coaxial.
4. Only one USB port.
5. No ethernet
6. No option for Wi-Fi.


Conclusion: Value for money!

 

[Kapz]

Some good products out there. Front runner is TVix at 26K and great looks. Elektron seems to be right balance in performance and paisa. WD has a HDMI out but no co-axial/digital audio out. That in my book, is a serious shortcoming as it will not allow you to enjoy high def movies with atleast a DTS or DD 5.1 audio through an amp.

Reju, will be nice if you can give a heads up on performance of Elektron so far. Has any one succeeded in ordering it online at a bargain suggested by Reju? TVix although costly, provides one year warranty in India.

Processor based HD products are beginning to look very interesting indeed.

 

[reju]

Some good products out there. Front runner is TVix at 26K and great looks. Elektron seems to be right balance in performance and paisa. WD has a HDMI out but no co-axial/digital audio out. That in my book, is a serious shortcoming as it will not allow you to enjoy high def movies with atleast a DTS or DD 5.1 audio through an amp.

Reju, will be nice if you can give a heads up on performance of Elektron so far. Has any one succeeded in ordering it online at a bargain suggested by Reju? TVix although costly, provides one year warranty in India.

Processor based HD products are beginning to look very interesting indeed.

I thought WD has optical out. At least the picture of rear inputs seem to show it? But nowhere it is specified that it has optical out!!

Elektron is a classy product, of high quality, NOT all a typical China cheapo.
It performs without any hiccups. I mostly play 720/1080p movies. So I am very happy with 25-30% better clarity than my HTPC.

The only drawbacks I have seen is that it does not "bookmark" mkv/ divx videos. (bookmark possible for DVD videos) Also the "rewind" does not work for these files (again works for DVD video).

I understand that Tvix does not have these shortcomings. But in Elektron you can reverse skip @ 30 sec/ step. You can also press 1 to go to 10% or 9 for 90% etc.

But I feel these features can be added/ corrected with firmware upgrades.

Another fact to be noted that none of these media players are able to play CSS encrypted DVD videos. (Original Region 1, 2 English movies etc.) Sigma 8635 chipset does not decode this. I have connected external DVD ROM to play most of my HD content, as I prefer to store cheaply on DVDs rather than external hard disks, which is 5 times more expensive.

I have very few original DVD videos in my collection, so play them thru my HTPC.

I don't think anyone on this forum has made a purchase online with Elektron. I will check with a member in another forum from Chennai who has ordered Popcorn hour, about his experience, custom duties if any etc.

So go for these media players, they are worth it. Works flawlessly, cheaper than most HTPCs, and most important: It's user friendly!Even your granny can operate. That is not possible with HTPC

 

[eummagic]

.................................................I don't think anyone on this forum has made a purchase online with Elektron. I will check with a member in another forum from Chennai who has ordered Popcorn hour, about his experience, custom duties if any etc.

So go for these media players, they are worth it. Works flawlessly, cheaper than most HTPCs, and most important: It's user friendly!Even your granny can operate. That is not possible with HTPC

Hi reju,

I have purchased PH A-110 and got it delivered by DHL on 26th Nov. My total landing cost was $215 + $49 shipping @ 45.36 x $264 = 11975/- + 3502/- (customs duty - didn't expect for this product) + 6000/- Western Digital 1TB WD10EACS harddisk (purchased locally - Ritchie street, Chennai), totalling to Rs.21477/-. Supports all formats as stated in Elektron, in fact uses the same Sigma SMP8635. Has optical output instead of coaxial in Elektron. The Audio/Video quality is very good. Upscales any type of format to 1080p, video output mode can be adjusted from setup menu. Moreover, PCH supports web services like:
Video : YouTube, Veoh, Videocast, DLTV, Cranky Geeks, Bliptv, PodfinderUK, Vuze, Break Podcast, Revision 3, CNN The Larry King Podcast, CNN Anderson Cooper 360, The CNN Daily, CNN In Case You Missed It , NBC Meet The Press, NBC Today, CBS Face the Nation, NBC Nightly News, Mevio
Audio : Live365 Radio, iPodcast, Radiobox, ABC News, BBC Podcast, CNN News , Indiefeed, Jamendo
Photo : Flickr, Picasaweb
RSS feed : Bloglines, Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo Traffic Alerts, Traffic Condition, Cinecast, Yahoo! News, MSNBC News
Peer-to-peer TV : SayaTV
Internet Radio : Shoutcast

The best part is that the firmware upgrades are totally free to download and hence on every release features are added like support for DTS downmix etc. and any bugs reported is rectified. Iam yet to test the web services in PCH, will give a detail report once done. Will update on any other features and developements.

Cheers!!!

 

[reju]

Hi! Nice to see you that you are member here as well!

This is fantastic. You are lucky to have got the ROE @45.36. It has always been around 48-50/USD. Customs duty I feel is OK. I was more worried if they charge some penalty for importing this?

You are right, even I have noticed very good quality of audio from this player. It has similar firmware as Elektron, the latest is dated 23rd Oct. I have already updated! But follow instructions carefully.

The network connection is very confusing. I tried to instally NMT software on the hard disk. I didn't find it user friendly at all! So I simply re-formatted the HDD and use it only as external HDD now.

Blu-ray players are more expensive na? 30-40k? Anyway, we have so many HD movies, so max use is to play them only. BD media is very expensive too. I wouldn't burn my pocket trying to buy them. Moreover the MKV quality is almost (maybe 80%) the same as BD.

Enjoy your PCH!

 

[grubyhalo]

Thanks for your opinion guys, appreciate it. However for me, it just may not be the ticket as I need WAV and FLAC playback. Looks like I'm back on the HTPC bandwagon...

 

[Kapz]

Nice buy Eummagic. At 21K it is definitely cheaper than TVix. I guess it is better to have an uncle abroad who can bring it on as a gift . Elektron comes with HDD, rest all products are devoid of built in hdd. So I guess a little more wait till prices fall further. As of now, i d/l HD stuff and burn it as DVD. It reduces the resolution to 480P but Pioneer 525 is able to updacle via component video.

The movies that i really want to watch on HD; like LOTR and Matrix, i am storing on HDD as well for that eventual day when I actually get my hands on a HD player.

 

[ajinkya]

Thanks for your opinion guys, appreciate it. However for me, it just may not be the ticket as I need WAV and FLAC playback. Looks like I'm back on the HTPC bandwagon...

Gruby,
I think PCH plays FLAC and WAV back equally well. Where seems to be the issue?

 

[madbullram]

Hey this good. Trimmed version for lesser price.

A quick insight to pros & cons of this player.

Pros:
1. Good branded product.
2. Low price.

Cons:
1. Does not have provision for using internal hard disk. (Putting hard disk inside the player)
2. No component video connection.
3. No digital coaxial.
4. Only one USB port.
5. No ethernet
6. No option for Wi-Fi.


Conclusion: Value for money!

i am in US now and almost bought this then realised it supports only Dobly 22 channel which was a total bummer for me. Whats the point of playing a blue ray or HD h268 content on 1080p with 2 channel sound. This was the only point that stopped me from buying this.

Anyone knows if there is solution for this?

 

[reju]

i am in US now and almost bought this then realised it supports only Dobly 22 channel which was a total bummer for me. Whats the point of playing a blue ray or HD h268 content on 1080p with 2 channel sound. This was the only point that stopped me from buying this.

Anyone knows if there is solution for this?

You mean Dolby 2 channel? I don't believe this!

 

[madbullram]

You mean Dolby 2 channel? I don't believe this!

Fine print from WD TV site:
Note:
- MPEG2/4, H.264, and WMV9 supports up to 1920x1080p 24fps, 1920x1080i 30fps, 1280x720p 60fps resolution
- An audio receiver is required for surround sound output. AAC/Dolby Digital decodes in 2 channel output only
- JPEG does not support CMYK or loss less.
- BMP supports uncompressed format only.
- TIF/TIFF supports single layer only.

 

[moserw]

How do these network players compare to a multimedia HDD say from Iomega? https://iomega-eu-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/iomega_eu_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=19429 is available at Reliance Digital for 10K. Has anyone used this and if so is it recommended? I want to know how does it compare to a network player in terms of performance.

 

[Kapz]

Madbullram is right. WD player doesn't have an onboard DD or DTS decoder. So even if you have an amp, best you can get is DD ProLogic. As far as Iomega product goes, it is good for Divx, avi and DVD files (vob). There is something funny about Iomega though, in specifications it says it needs a windows PC. That would mean it is just an external drive without any onboard processor.

 

[cmsajith]

If you have a AV Receiver with HDMI in, then you can use WD for DD / DTS.

 

[reju]

How do these network players compare to a multimedia HDD say from Iomega? https://iomega-eu-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/iomega_eu_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=19429 is available at Reliance Digital for 10K. Has anyone used this and if so is it recommended? I want to know how does it compare to a network player in terms of performance.

Very ordinary. Not for HD.

 

[madbullram]

If you have a AV Receiver with HDMI in, then you can use WD for DD / DTS.

Just spoke to the tech guys, it will pass through Optic link, So your received needs to have an optical input. My HTB doesnt, do we get Optical to Coax convertors in india?

 

[reju]

Just spoke to the tech guys, it will pass through Optic link, So your received needs to have an optical input. My HTB doesnt, do we get Optical to Coax convertors in india?

Yes, made by MX. It costs about Rs. 900.

 

[madbullram]

Yes, made by MX. It costs about Rs. 900.

OKay all, update bought the WD TV, Optical Cable, Optical to Coaxial convertor and Digital Coaxial cable. Played MKV, MP4 et all. Looks very good. Will reserve till I play in a HD tv a dowloded MKV file with DTS encoding.

Its look DAMN CUTE...just palm size

 

[diplomat]

pl pass on the details of price and from where in chennai u bought this unit with contact details ... Also pl share ur review on this product for HD contains and confirm the optical audio out for the unit.
Thanks in advance