MEdia Player with internal 3.5 hdd support

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6pack

Mastermind
I need a media player which has support for internal 3.5" hdd.
Keeping pc on to play these files is becoming costly in electricity usage.

Almost all my media consist of hd files encoded in h264, avc, aac, ac3, dts, dolby truehd, flac, & vorbis codecs.
I Need something which can decode such codecs in 1080p,720p, flawlessly along with awesome sound.

should support reading ntfs format since all my media is stored on internal drives in ntfs format.
hdmi out required. 2.1 or better sound out required. headphone jack required.
budget would be below 5k preferably.
 
do those normal media players like Asus O!Play mini which support external usb drive support a usb hdd dock? i mean, if a hdd dock with internal 3.5hdd is connected to the media player will the player be able to browse and play files from it?
 
i dropped my preferences for an internal hdd bay and have decided to buy the Asus oPlay mini. Seems to play everything. does it support playing files via a hdd dock?
 
Asus oplay mini will downgrade dolby true hd to dolby but it will downgrade dts hd to stereo.

Otherwise it is fine.
 
The WDTV players support all the requirements that you seek. Not sure about local pricing being below 5k
 
Praks said:
Check out ASUS O!Play HD2, Best one.
Click to expand...

Even I was looking for ASUS O Play HD2 as it has option internal HDD ( not included). Cost was around 9000. HDD will cost around 4000-5000 separately.
If you are planning to buy a HDD also separately better option can be WDTV Live Hub which is around 12000 and comes with 1TB HDD. Same was the reason I finally decided to go with WD.
One downside of WD is HDD is not removable (or atleast easily without voiding warrenty)
 
6pack said:
i dropped my preferences for an internal hdd bay and have decided to buy the Asus oPlay mini. Seems to play everything. does it support playing files via a hdd dock?
Click to expand...

Yes, I have the Asus Mini. It played my 2.5 Seagate 500 GB Hard disk. But you need to wait for nearly 1 minute to populate the media files/images. But you can stop the auto search then play via filemanager instantly.
 
I received the POHD Essential yesterday. Quickly unpacked it to see the contents and was pretty much satisfied by the build quality and looks of it. Supports an internal 3.5" drive OOTB and a 2.5" drive with the bracket (additional accessory available for cheap). Haven't tested the performance but the reviews are positive. Cost me Rs. 5350 inc. of shipping. Shipped using Tirupathi Couriers and the consignment was beautifully packed.
 
Congrats Gannu the POHD certainly seems like the BEST BUY for a quality product (elsewhere on another forum someone paid almost 10K for another product http://evotv.amkette.com/ - also without an internal HDD).

We would be keen to know what are the boot-up & ready to play time (compiling media information) on this device - especially if you have loaded it :) - an internal + external drives too and with at least 50 percent load capacity.

Cheers
 
Thanks.

Although, it may take a while since I've shifted to another residence and have been busy for a while. Hardly get any time to unpack the stuff once I reach home. All my setups are inside its respective boxes still lying packed in the drawing room. Once I do, I'll have the media player tested using one of my 2TB backup internal drives. Those are completely filled.
 
Gannu said:
I received the POHD Essential yesterday. Quickly unpacked it to see the contents and was pretty much satisfied by the build quality and looks of it. Supports an internal 3.5" drive OOTB and a 2.5" drive with the bracket (additional accessory available for cheap). Haven't tested the performance but the reviews are positive. Cost me Rs. 5350 inc. of shipping. Shipped using Tirupathi Couriers and the consignment was beautifully packed.
Click to expand...

Congrats @Gannu .Looks great and reasonably priced. Can you share source also please.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
maxms said:
Congrats Gannu .Looks great and reasonably priced. Can you share source also please.
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Where-to-buy

[TABLE="width: 1037"]
[TR]
[TD]Sl. No.
[/TD]
[TD]Part #
[/TD]
[TD]Part Description
[/TD]
[TD]Unit Price in INR
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1.
[/TD]
[TD]ACR-PV73200 P+
[/TD]
[TD]AC Ryan Playon!HD Mini FullHD Network Mediaplayer ( With Out Wifi Dongle )
[/TD]
[TD]6500.00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ACR-PV73200 P+ & ACR-WN10001
[/TD]
[TD]AC Ryan Playon!HD Mini FullHD Network Mediaplayer ( With Wifi Dongle )
[/TD]
[TD]7500.00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2.
[/TD]
[TD]ACR-PV73100 P
[/TD]
[TD]AC Ryan Playon! HD Full HD Network Mediaplayer ( With Out Wifi Dongle )
[/TD]
[TD]7800.00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ACR-PV73100 P + & ACR-WN10001
[/TD]
[TD]AC Ryan Playon! HD Full HD Network Mediaplayer ( With Wifi Dongle )
[/TD]
[TD]8800.00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


[TABLE="width: 1042"]
[TR]
[TD]Sl. No.
[/TD]
[TD]Part #
[/TD]
[TD]Part Description
[/TD]
[TD]Unit Price in INR
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1.
[/TD]
[TD]ACR-PV73800
[/TD]
[TD]AC Ryan Playon!HD Mini2 FullHD Network Mediaplayer ( With Out Wifi Dongle )
[/TD]
[TD]7500.00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ACR-PV73800& ACR-WN10001
[/TD]
[TD]AC Ryan Playon!HD Mini2 FullHD Network Mediaplayer ( With Wifi Dongle )
[/TD]
[TD]8500.00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2.
[/TD]
[TD]ACR-PV73700
[/TD]
[TD]AC Ryan Playon!FullHD2 Network Mediaplayer ( With Out Wifi Dongle )
[/TD]
[TD]9500.00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ACR-PV73700 & ACR-WN10001
[/TD]
[TD]AC Ryan Playon!FullHD2 Network Mediaplayer ( With Wifi Dongle )
[/TD]
[TD]10500.00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3.
[/TD]
[TD]ACR-PV73500
[/TD]
[TD]AC Ryan Playon! HD Essential
[/TD]
[TD]5250.00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Click to expand...

Contact:

Code: 
mumbai@aqtronics.com

Please note that Essential and few other models have been discontinued by AC Ryan but they will continue to provide support as mentioned in their forums. Besides, the units come with 2 year warranty.
 
@Gannu, wont the player format the hdd first? I seen many players that support internal hdd mention in their manuals that the disk will be formatted. I think such players dont support plug and play internal hdd support.

While reviewing it, could you check if this is able to play high bitrate 6channel audio files (around 1500KBps) along with video properly? dts true hd files are usually around this bitrate.
even ffdshow audio decoder cant play such files. the most it can handle is ac3 640KBps i think.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The Essential (and other Playons with an internal hard disk) partitions the drive with three or four (DVR-HD) partitions and formats these partitions with the applicable file system (NTFS, Linux swap, Ext3 and a proprietary file system for the DVR-HD). The non-NTFS partitions have a predetermined size and the NTFS partition will be assigned the remaining free space.
Click to expand...

Source

My primary intention with this media player is to play the FLAC files not the rips (or for the sanctity of the forum, 'blu-ray backups') because the latter is handled by my LCD quite well and almost never faced issue with the playback. The internal drive would thus have only the FLACs and I'd connect a 2.5" external drive through the USB for the backups.

As for the HD audio codecs, the first question I ask people around are (no offense to anyone!), do you even have the proper equipment to make use of them? I have a Philips receiver that decodes DTS and Dolby D/AC3 signals just fine. But decoding DTS-HD MA and Dolby Tru HD needs an AVR (worth at least some 25k?) or a receiver worth that much and 7.1 channel speakers to go along with it. I don't have that sort of equipment (at least for sometime now) so I am fine with rips that have the other codecs built in. But most backups that have the HD codecs also have the others so if you don't have the equipment, the other lower sound stream is chosen automatically.
 
I have a Kaiboer H1055+ with an internal 3.5" bay. Decodes DTS HD MA and Dolby True HD. Got it for 4.5k, Pretty sure it' s not being imported any more now though.
 
Gannu said:
Source
My .... automatically.
Click to expand...
I purchased ASUS O Play HD2 for someone I knew on monday from SMC . I also have Seagate FAT+ for my my own self and have put POHD in my office . @gannu why not POHD2 . There are some issues in POHD rendering some HD movies without audio or some no video . It is older model and it cannot run all the formats or codecs . Asus Play on HD2 till now has run everything , even which POHD couldnt . I have 1080 HD rips generally ranging from 10-17 GB each .

for flac yes POHD is also perfectly fine .

 
kuduku said:
@gannu why not POHD2
Click to expand...

Because it is expensive for my requirement. Like I said before, my primary requirement is FLAC playback and the digital output will be fed to a DAC and the output to the NAD amp.

Movie playback is handled by my display flawlessly including the decoding of AC3/DTS signals so movie playback isn't much of an issue. And besides, the recent firmwares have resolved the playback issues prevalent in the earlier firmwares which were shipped with the player.
 
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