 An excellent wireless update to the Asus O!Play HDP-R1 |
| Review Date: February 14, 2010 |
| Reviewer: buru buru piggu, New York, NY USA |
Only a few short months after the debut of the ASUS O!Play HDP-R1, Asus gives us the O!Play Air (HDP-R3). It adds wireless connectivity and a media card reader to an already solid media player. For users in search of a versatile wireless media device, this is a serious candidate for your entertainment dollar.
Physically, the Air is identical to its predecessor. It's the same boxy plain-Jane black housing except with a new LED indicator (for Wi-Fi) on the front and 3 media reader slots on the left side (CompactFlash, SD, Memory Stick). Inside, it is the same Realtek chipset and software, therefore, it inherits all the strengths of the R1 as well as all its flaws. For more details on the usability issues, please read my review on the O!Play R1 page.
Instead, I'll focus mostly on the wireless playback capability of the Air, since it is marketed principally as a wireless media player. If you don't need wireless, by all means, save yourself some $ and go with the R1. But if like me, your router and storage devices are too far from your media player/TV and you don't want to be running wires all over the house, then the Air is for you. An alternative is to use powerline ethernet technology, which sends network traffic through your home electrical wiring, but such adapters like the ZyXEL PLA401 200 Mbps Powerline HomePlug AV Wall-plug Adapter (Starter Kit--2 units) are an extra $80-150 to start (and you need at least 2).
Like the R1, set up was a breeze. Do you have to supply your own HDMI cable though (only a composite is included). The AC adapter is very smartly designed and is a regular 2-prong plug like a laptop adapter, not an awkward wall-wart that blocks other sockets. A side benefit of this design is that it affords you about 12 feet of extra cordage to position the Air at a convenient spot on your desk or entertainment rack. Upon plugging it in, it goes to the configuration screen where you enter the video and network settings. It took several tries to find my SSID and connect to my network initially, but once configured, it works without a hitch and connects instantly upon powering up. It's now happily streaming hi-def content off my media servers in the basement (a DNS-321 and DNS-323 NAS (network attached storage)). The interface is still ugly, spartan, and a bit obtrusive (it'll do a needless connection speed test for EVERY file before you can play it), but now I have all the power and flexibility of the R1 without being tethered to a router.
As reported by the unwanted speed test, I get anywhere from 11-17 Mb/s on average from my D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router running in mixed mode (g/b/n). Sometimes it's higher, but it's adequate for all my content which are mostly 720p MKV files ranging from 4GB to 11GB. It is able to see my Mac on the network and connect to it, but it couldn't see any files.
Comparison to WD TV Live:
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I'm pleased with the ASUS O!Play line so far, and there's definitely a lot of room for improvement, but you are probably wondering how it stacks up against the Western Digital WD TV Live, its main rival. First, the Air gives you wireless connectivity straight out of the box. With the Live, you need to purchase a separate compatible N dongle (about $30), giving the Air an edge on price. With RMVB playback, a media reader, and an e-SATA port, the Air is a better value pound for pound, but it is twice the size of the Live and not much to look at.
The Live has the edge on overall polish, design, and user-friendliness. The interface is beautiful and very intuitive. I don't have to drill down several layers through redundant network folders just to get to the videos directory. On the O!Play, I have to jump through a series of hoops. From the main menu I have to select: Movies -> Folder -> Network -> Workgroup -> DNS-321 (my NAS) -> [login popup dialog] -> then finally the drive volumes -> file listings. If you tell the player to save it as a shortcut, it's still a series of hoops: Movies -> Folder -> Network -> DNS-321:/ -> drive volumes -> files. The first 3 menu layers are totally unnecessary and this is a major impedance to usability, particularly if you are trying to explain this to less tech savvy users, like my dad.
Note: It is important to use the Network browser menu option, not UPnP, which is spotty on all devices I've tested. UPnP just doesn't work at all for me. Only a handful of files show up on the list. With Network, all the files are there.
The Air's remote is big, but a bit oddly arranged. The remote on the Live is small, making it easier to lose, and skipping ahead is quite awkward. With the Air, you can set it to skip at a fixed interval (1/5/10/15/30 mins) and just push <- or -> on the remote. On neither device, however, can you go to a specific time code.
The Air lets you change the encoding of external subtitle files on the fly, sparing you the hassle of re-saving files as UTF-8 that you'd have to do on the Live. If you're dealing with non-Western characters, this is important. Subtitles are easier to read on the Live, however, because it puts an outline around text. On the O!Play, I found myself having to change the colors repeatedly when I was watching one movie because it kept blending into the scenes.
Lastly, the Live has YouTube and Pandora streaming, giving you access to web content. It can also check for update itself and install them. The Air has no access to the outside world.
Overall, I like this player a lot. The ASUS has proven itself to be a versatile and capable media player in my home, despite all its warts and rough edges. The Live and the O!Plays are the only two serious contenders in the home media player market, in my opinion, and you can't go wrong choosing either one of them.
UPDATE: 2/15/2010 - Wow! ASUS just released a firmware update today (1.09) greatly expanding the capabilities of this player! (A corresponding update with the same features was also released for the HDP-R1). It adds internet radio, Picassa, Flickr, weather, and internet TV (but no YouTube)! I watched some educational programming from NHK about Japanese candymaking. The video is blurry, like most internet video, but this is a very exciting addition to the device! There are 100 channels on the list, from all over the world. The top ones on the list are from Asia, and further down, I saw sites from Egypt and other parts of the world. This won't replace cable by a long shot because of the low video quality, but it's a nice add-on for those who enjoy international programming and don't want to pay high cable fees for additional channels. (For me to add Japanese TV, it's an extra $25/month! That's for ONE channel.) I am upgrading my rating to an enthusiastic 5 because of this new functionality. The interface still needs a lot of polish, but the features definitely make the ASUS R1 and R3 an excellent value for your money. |
The Best Media Player
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| Review Date: January 17, 2010 |
| Reviewer: T. A. Ly, |
| I owned the WD HD media player, Iomega Screenplayer HD Pro and Popcorn Hour C-200 and none them performs like Asus O!Play Air. I did not try networking on this player yet, but so far it plays every file (m2ts, avi, mkv,vob, you name it, it plays it) I have on my hard drives. |
Makes Dedicated Network Attached Storage (NAS) Obsolete
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| Review Date: January 11, 2010 |
| Reviewer: NotaSecondTime, Ohio |
I received my Air R3 yesterday. Connected eSata, Ehternet (to my nearby Linksys 3700 wireless router) and then HDMI to the HDTV. Upgraded the firmware to 1.06, then turned on the power and logged in to my Win7 Home Network. All shares on all PC's then became available. The beauty of these media player is that I did not have to install any software or drivers. For wireless operation just but in your SSID.
The remote feels great and IS responsive. I played FLAC lossless audio files, and watched my jpeg digital camera pictures simultaneously. The xBox and PS3 transcode from 44 to 48Khz. This degrades the quality.
This player is so cool that it automatically compensated for the 0-255 range of digital cameras vs. 16-235 for video sources (The PS3 has to be set manually). Detail was outstanding.
Home movies played fine. ISO form movies where unpacked and looked excellent whether played local from the connected eSata drive or streamed wireless (must use 802.11n) from a remote PC.
The biggest test came when I put several home Blu-ray disks in my remote PCs Blu-ray player and then shared the drive over both 2.4 and 5GHz wireless "N". The result was absolute pristine picture quality with NO dropped frames. Amazing! Load speed was fast. I especially like the 5 or 10 minute instantaneous jump capability. The Asus plays Blu-ray at either 24 or 60Hz. The PQ rivals the Oppo 83.
This is the most revolutionary useful, convenient product I've ever used. I'm going to install one next to each of my three HDTv's and stream everywhere, all the time, at my convenience.
I've had zero problems integrating with Windows 7. It is most remarkable with no obvious technical issues for $129! I'm in awe :)
Original review
Lets face it, 802.11g wireless and USB 2.0 hard drives are both unacceptably slow for streaming large media files over a home network.
For my home's distributed architecture, I'm buying a $129 Asus O!play Air for each HDTV room, with a $90 1TB hard connected through the eSATA port. The ability to copy and play large media transfer's from a PC is paramount. The PC does not need to be on the whole time as files can be copied local ahead of time.
The beauty is that I control the files with no DRM or subscription required. I'm hoping that 5400rpm green drives will suffice to each serve one HD stream at a time.
The final highly important point is the O!Play Air makes dedicated, expensive Network Attach Storage (NAS) obsolete. Consider that in competing players the eSata port was omitted because it undercut their $$$ NAS products.
Combine this player (after the Win7 disk-mount fix) with a Blu-ray player and a networked PC, and you have it all. All this without running cabling between the rooms.
Here is a bargain USB wireless "N" adapter for $25:
AirLink101 AWLL7025 Dual Band Wireless 300N USB Adapter |
Only 1 thing about this unit drives me crazy
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| Review Date: February 9, 2010 |
| Reviewer: S. Raza, Woodland Hills, CA |
| the range of the IR sucks, when i mean range, i dont mean how far, i mean how wide the range/angle is....that you can utilize the remote, would have been nice to get around 180 degrees like any regular ir remote allows....its limited to about 90-100 degrees.... |
So far so good
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| Review Date: January 18, 2010 |
| Reviewer: H. Xie, |
A friend brought the non-wireless version and I got a demo. I decided to give this wireless version a try. Here is my setup: a NAS drive, a 802.11n gigabit rounter and this unit. The unit does not come with good documentation. Unless you are a computer geek like me, setup could be very challenging. Initial connection to play video stored on the NAS drive is very choppy. After a day of investigation (more like trial and error), I isolated the problem to the NAS drive. It had too many services running (e.g. FTP, HTTP, NFS, Media stream Server (for iPOD)). After turning off all services and leaving only CIFS running, the choppiness disappear.
My major complain to this unit is its lack of documention. This networked setup is not plug'n'play. The manufacture need to build a knowledge base for the networked setup or direct customer to some common wiki page. |
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