With the PlayonHD! mini, AC Ryan presents a mediaplayer which - according to the manufacturer - should be able to stream Full HD content to your telly. The looks are nice so device really fits into a living room but is it also easy to use?
On the following pages we will show you what the AC Ryan's PlayonHD mini can do.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - User Interface |
| Page 2 - Specifications | Page 6 - Freigaben udn Features |
| Page 3 - Preview | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - How do we test? |
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Specifications
| Functions |
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| A/V out |
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| Storage |
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| Network |
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| Videos | AVI / MKV / TS / TP / TRP / M2TS / MPG / MP4 / MOV / M4V / VOB / ISO / IFO / DAT / WMV / ASF / RM / RMVB / FLV Resolution up to 720p / 1080i / 1080p / BD-ISO |
| Video Codecs | MPEG-1 / MPEG-2 / MPEG-4 SP/ASP/AVC (H.264 | x264) / XviD / DivX / WMV9 (VC-1) / Real Video 8/9/10 (up to 720P) |
| Audio Output |
|
| Pictures | JPEG, HD JPEG / BMP / GIF / TIF / PNG |
| Subtitles | SRT, SMI, SSA, IDX/SUB, SUB |
| Subtitles Language Sets | Unicode (UTF , BIG5 (Traditional Chinese), Western, Turkish, Central European, Greek, Cyrillic, SE European, Hebrew |
The possibility that the PlayonHD! mini can play Full HD content via streaming we want to underline. Also the vast majority of codecs out there are being supported which makes it possible to play almost any video file available.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - User Interface |
| Page 2 - Specifications | Page 6 - Freigaben udn Features |
| Page 3 - Preview | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - How do we test? |
Discuss this article in the forum [pagebreak]
Impressions
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - User Interface |
| Page 2 - Specifications | Page 6 - Freigaben udn Features |
| Page 3 - Preview | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - How do we test? |
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How do we test?
Testenvironment
| Model | AC Ryan PlayonHD mini | WLAN Adapter |
| Operating systems | Windows 7 Professional / Ultimate | Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron |
| Shares | Windows Shares | Samba Shares |
| Storage | 250 GB FAT32 Western Digital 2.5" | NAS Synology |
The PlayonHD! mini has been tested using different storage solutions and operating systems and we were therefore looking at accessing Windows as well as Linux shares. Furthermore we were watching Full HD movies and also movies encoded with different codes.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - User Interface |
| Page 2 - Specifications | Page 6 - Freigaben udn Features |
| Page 3 - Preview | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - How do we test? |
Discuss this article in the forum [pagebreak]
User Interface
AC Ryan succeeded in creating a very easy to use GUI. After a successful start and setup you'll be lead to the mainmenu where you can choose the different options via the remote control. Following we will mention the most important options the interface offers.
Features
AC Ryan implemented some nice features into the Playon HD! mini's firmware. There are for example a RSS-Reader as well an Internet Radio. Regarding the RSS Reader we would appreciated a more convenient way to enter a URL then by using the remote control and the on-screen keyboard. With the Internet Radio it is about the same. The Radio itself works perfect but the entering a URL might take some time.
The menu point you'll use most is the browser. Using it you can search the network for shares and therefore playable files as well as directly connected mass storage. All this can be done intuitively and you also wont have to wait for a long time when a file list is being loaded.
Einstellungsmöglichkeiten
All the different settings can be done in the setup menu. The audio settings have been correct right from the beginning which means we didn't have to change anything. In the video settings the screen size needed adjustment but everything else again worked perfectly. Never the less AC Ryan provided the PlayonHD! mini's firmware with a lot of different settings which allows an individual configuration.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - User Interface |
| Page 2 - Specifications | Page 6 - Shares and Features |
| Page 3 - Preview | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - How do we test? |
Discuss this article in the forum [pagebreak]
Shares and features
Windows shares
As soon as you create a Windows shares with guest right it is possible to access files on your computer using the PlayonHD! mini's browser. The only restraint is that you have to configure your workgroup as "WORKGROUP" otherwise accessing files can become quite a challenge. Unfortunately with one system we had problems with the shares. Windows 7 was on this computer and it was in a homegroup. Although the workgroup was set to "WORKGROUP" we simply couldn't access the share. To be honest we've been a bit astonished that this small device is capable of playing 1080p movies smoothly. As soon as the movie files are bigger than 8 GByte we recognized that from time to time there is stuttering but fortunately it isn't that bad and it can be tolerated.
NAS functionality
If you attach an external hard drive to the PlayonHD! mini you can access it using you PC. Configuring and accessing the NAS functionality is piece of cake. It is also possible to connect to a NAS which already exists in your network. To do so you open the Playon's browser and select NAS.
External hard drive
We also connected a FAT32 formatted 250 GByte hard drive to the PlayonHD! on which we had music and movie files. It was possible to play the files without experiencing any stuttering.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - User Interface |
| Page 2 - Specifications | Page 6 - Freigaben udn Features |
| Page 3 - Preview | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - How do we test? |
Discuss this article in the forum [pagebreak]
Conclusion
The PlayonHD! mini from AC Ryan overall really is a good product. To an attractive price you get a device which streams movies in Full HD quality onto your TV.
The userinterface is really simple only the popups during configuration can be a bit confusing because sometimes the don't contain all the text which should be in there. Regarding configuration and features there really are a lot of possibilities to configure the PlayonHD! individually. Also very good is that you can take the device out of the box and most of the settings are already as would have configured them yourself. If you for example want to get an IP adress from your router you'll just have to navigate into the corresponding menu and the PlayonHD! mini does everything by itself.
There are lots of possibilities to watch a movie, listen to music or browse fotoalbums with PlayonHD! mini. In most cases the works really fine. The only exception in our case occured with a Windows 7 system that was configured for a homegroup. Furthermore also the playback of file located on a USB stick or an external hard drive works perfectly well.
If you're looking for a media player which fit into your living room then the PlayonHD! mini is definitely worth a try. The easy setup, the fact that it produces no noise and that it support almost every single video format out there makes it an interesting candiate.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 5 - User Interface |
| Page 2 - Specifications | Page 6 - Freigaben udn Features |
| Page 3 - Preview | Page 7 - Conclusion |
| Page 4 - How do we test? |
Discuss this article in the forum
Author: p.graf@ocaholic.ch Copy edited by: Fabian Niederer, f.niederer@ocaholic.ch und Marc Büchel, m.buechel@ocaholic