More than I expected, for the price this is a great product, it has played every format I have in my external 500GB HDD with great video and sound quality.These are the Pros I want to highlight:
1.Video & sound quality, this streamer supports up to 1080p and do it great, using HDMI cable the sound's great too.
2.Video modes, I like to watch my movies in full screen mode even if they come in 4:3 or 16:9, this device supports many video modes like: movie mode, subtitle mode, full screen mode, wide screen mode, etc, so no matter how is your movie formatted, you can always get your HDTV screen full.
3.Subtitles, I live in Costa Rica and although I'm doing OK with English I really like foreign films, especially oriental, and this device has no problems with subtitles, you can change position, size and even color.
4.Menu, it comes with a nice menu (isn't the PS3 menu, but come on), and I think the response time and reception from the remote is good, you don't need to be right in front of the device to make it work
5.Additional features, I just wanted a media streamer for the movies and videos in my HDD, however this device has some more features like Internet Radio, Picasa and Flickr access, UPnP streaming from PCs on your LAN, photo and audio files streaming, All of them works OK
And these are the Cons I found:
1.This device can read DVD .ISO images and load the entire menu on your screen, this is a really cool feature and it works most of the time, however I've had issues with some particular images, sometimes I can't enter to all the features on the menu, and sometimes it won't read the file at all, I don't know if there is some particular reason for that, maybe the software you use to make the image or something.
2.You must be careful when watching a movie to avoid touch the Menu of any other button on the remote that take you out of the movie because I haven't found any way to come back again to the point I was watching.
3.Don't lose the remote since there's no way to use the device without it.
Overall I really like this device, it's very functional, cheap and has cool features, I recommend this one if you're looking for something that do the job really well and is not so expensive.
The device itself is nice.
The GUI is easy to navigate and is visually appealing enough.
Remote is nice too but again limited in its function(no skip forward, or file info)
It will play virtually any kind of mp4, avi, mkv you name it. Internet radio features work fine. Playback/pause/ff/rew work great.
Firmware upgrade was a snap. Although I'm not sure what it accomplished as nothing really changed with functionality.
Here are the cons: UPNP is the only method of streaming your videos over a network. This is a disaster as UPNP has proven to be mediocre when it comes to streaming hd video on these players and you have to mess with your windows library (yuck!)
There is no way to discover shared folders as they have to be added to your windows library for upnp to stream the content. This is fine except the quality is poor compared to open source folder sharing. A Huge difference in playback from usb drives. Lots of skipping/stuttering when streaming over a network in 1080p or even 720p but nearly flawless with media from a external usb disk or flash drive. And the system will not show you simple file attributes like size or resolution which is always good. No slo-mo.
As a simple media player for use with external devices and flash drives its awesome. As a network media player it fails hands down.Hands down this Micca MPLAY-HD Net has been the perfect addition to our home! From being able to play everything we have asked it to do and even more. Had a WD HD TV player and this blows it away when compared to what it can do and it actually comes with a FULL sized remote and many cool features. Received this item 3 days earlier than expected date!! YEAH! Easy to hook up and update the firmware (you have to D/L the firmware from Micca online and use a USB drive)Has media slot for card reader and that is so cool when wanting to see on your TV photos you just took. HDMI hookup and user controls were awesome! Clarity, ease of use and simple straight forward menu choices makes it so much easier to understand and find what you wan to view or listen to. Wow.. tried the internet radio features and this is outstanding! Hooked up to 2 usb drive (1TB and 2TB) and had no problems in loading and finding all connected devices. Playback was so clear we thought we had a new TV! You can also copy and delete files from the drives too! That is amazing! (wish it could read PDF files... maybe in a future firmware update.. we hope!) So much more to try out.. but as of now.. this totally is exactly what we wanted and more! Yes, we would totally recommend this to family and friends. (even those who aren't electronically inclined or device impaired!)So far it's run all my HD and AVI files. Easy to use. The only downside, as some others have said is that the remote control is a little weak and you have to point directly at the box. Very happy with this device.If you are like me, you may have thought this version of The MPlay could stream wirelessly. It can not... Well, not as of yet. There is an Icon that's on the set-up screen for wireless adaptor, but if you attach one it will show, "Unknown Device." This is a big minus for this device, and Micca on their homepage,in their mannual, and on blogs have stated that they "may" make one which works with The MPlay, but as of now, there is none available for it. Some of these blogs and discussions go back almost 2yrs.;so maybe they don't plan on making one compatable with this device. I just thought you might like to know that if you are thinking of purchasing this device, you will have to wire it up via ethernet cable to your router to get it onto your network, which may steer many customers elsewhere. At the time of this review, The Net version is $5.00 more than The regular MPlay-HD... so dicide for yourself if it is worth waiting another year for them to make a WiFi dongle for this device or another reviewer finds a dongle compatible with this version of the product. Micca does make a dongle for its EP series media players, but it will not work on this version, according to reviewers. Patriot makes a dongle for their media player box. and there is one commonly used by WDTV Media Box users,but made by a Diff. company(AirLink 101).There is also a plethera of non-branded WiFi adaptors. One of these options may work,but I don't know for sure. Another obstical may be, it needs a firmware update to use this function. I have ordered a few nonbranded (cheap)adaptors to test out. I will repost if I find one that works. Right now, don't buy this product,unless you don't mind tethering it up to a long messy ethernet cable to use any of its network functions, such as facebook, internet radio etc. UPDATE: Micca Dist. sent me an email stating that the processor chip in this model is not powerful enough for WiFi. So there you have it. If you need a model that streams wirelessly on your network, you need to step up to The Micca EP line or get The Patriot Box Off., or WDTV Plus or Non Plus.
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