Paul Petch

AC Ryan PlayOnhd home network media player

I picked up a new addition to our living room yesterday, a swanky AC Ryan PlayOnhd high definition (HD) media player. I’ve been waiting some months for this unit as they are rare here in New Zealand so I was stoked to get a call to let me know that it had arrived.

At home, we have watched media in our living room for a few years now on Xbox 360 via wireless streaming or by simply plugging in an external HDD. Things were sweet with no real issues until the lack of codecs and ability to play true high definition (HD) media and other file formats were just not working. For sometime now I’ve been converting media to a format that the Xbox could play but aside from the loss of quality when it came to HD media, It has been a real hassle too. Converting media is not so much of an issue on a mac, but it is the management of it that has become a pain with multiple copies of media across the home network. I’m not sure about you, but we tend to watch stuff and then delete it, so we are keen to de-clutter our harddisks!

With 1080p output over HDMI or component, support for streaming media or USB mass storage, the ability to tune into “internet feeds.” and even “torrent downloads” directly the PlayOnhd has a lot to offer. Cost wise, I paid $304.00 that included a WiFi dongle, but no internal harddisk.

Setup & usage

When I opened up the box I was quite impressed with the mix of cables and nice looking remote. Infact, the 1.8M HDMI cable alone would usually cost at least $50. I had a 500GB SATA hardisk that was originally used to transfer media between machines, so I threw that in with minimal fuss. Having a fairly basic home theater setup, things were up and running in just a few minutes with minimal “cable rage” and things were looking good. After being prompted to format the disk drive- and a restart,  the un polished GUI interface that I was greeted with is fairly basic but functional. What  I did notice though- is how QUIET the fan is compared to the Xbox…..which is a refreshing change when watching media!

After plugging in the USB WiFi dongle I then went straight to setting up the wireless network and this is where I had issues. I use MAC address filtering on my wireless network (alongside WPA) and after setting it my end,  I followed the on screen prompts and I could just not get the unit to join the network. After about the 6th attempt I even had to read the manual! lol. Googling it revealed that others were experiencing the same issues and a recent firmware update may fix it. The PlayOnhd has an update option via USB and a few minutes later the 91MB was rocking away…..with more menu options feeling faster overall. With fingers crossed, it was back to the setup screen and this time the wireless setup was successful. It was then time to actually watch something!

What really stood out when watching a movie was that it is so much brighter and more vibrant than the Xbox. Media that would not play on the Xbox had no issues either…..which were mainly MKV, 720p & 1080p. The PlayOnhd boasts the ability to play 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 so this is clearly the units strength.

As for the remote control, it seems to be easy to use with quite a few options. There are standard play, pause, forward/ backward etc as well as a selection of “quick buttons” to the major parts of the menu and also the ability to adjust the volume through the amplifier. This feature alone made me smile as having to keep the amplifier remote at hand during movies is just annoying. I’ve only had a quick play with this remote- and there seems to be a heap of options that I have no idea what they do. But for a novice- the controller is simple and easy to use…..which suits me and my Wife :) One feature that I will miss though is the ability to view the remaining time of the current media that is playing. But then, you can preview media before playing it and also delete/ transfer files….so I’m happier with that. With a commitment from A.C. Ryan to launch future firmware updates and a very active user community- who knows what other features and user interface improvements will appear in the future.

Specs

* Full HD Media Player
* HDMI up to 1080p (Full HD)
* Realtek 1073 processor
* Enjoy Full HD video (H.264, MKV, RM/RMVB) on TV
* UPnP Media Streaming
* Wired & Wireless Network
* Store all your media files centrally
* Network Drive (NAS)
* Listen to Internet Radio
* Enjoy a Slideshow of your favorite photos

For full specs visit the Official PlayOnhd site

Initial Impressions

My early thoughts are quite mixed. The package is really impressive and has everything I needed to get it plugged in and going. It even comes with remote batteries….which is good :) The GUI is really poor in my opinion, but coming from the Xbox 360 and years of using Macs- my standards are very high. This is where the unit needs more work I reckon as it borders on the “to hard basket” for the average user- who is my Wife :) On a positive note though, it has more features and options for the “budding geek” in us all……so if I have more time I can utilize the unit fully and “embrace” the options on offer.

Talking of the average user- I did not expect the unit to not work out of the box on the wireless network. This was disappointing. Thankfully I work in IT so had a pretty good understanding of what I had to do….and after updating the firmware things were fine. But would others in your household know what a firmware update is?

Aside from the annoyances, and poor and ugly interface- the PlayOnhd seems to play everything! Aside from full HD media, what other off the shelf unit plays ISO’s? Amazing. I could continue to convert media to a format that the Xbox plays- but we just want to store and play media. The AC Ryan PlayOnhd media centre does just that so I’m happy.

I’m yet to setup network sharing and the Bitorrent client for downloading Linux releases (ahem) but I’m not expecting it to be to tricky.  Either way, I’ll be sure to blog about it in the next few months. Hmmmm shiny….

Update: network sharing on the mac is as simple at Command + K and then smb://x.x.x.x/ (where x is ip address of the PlayOnhd unit) and it is done. How easy is that!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 10:26 am and is filed under Misc Ramblings and tagged with ac ryan playonhd, boys toys, gadgets, Geekery, high definition, media centre. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.