ASUS O!Play HDP-R1 media player gets the hands-on treatment
By Laura June 
posted Jul 25th 2009 2:27AM
posted Jul 25th 2009 2:27AM
Our amigos over at Engadget Spanish have managed to get their hands on ASUS' O!Play HDP-R1 media player and they've taken it for a spin. The player, which supports a HD video playback in a multitude of codecs, including MPEG1/2/4, H.264, VC-1, and RM/RMVB in a multitude of packages including .mp4, .mov, .avi, .divx, and .mkv (and that's not an exhaustive list by any means). There is still no word on pricing or release date in the US, but the one Engadget Spanish laid hands on seemed to be for sale in Taiwan for around €119, or about $169. There are a few more shots after the break -- but hit the read link for a full gallery.
[Via Engadget Spanish]
[Via Engadget Spanish]
109 euro in the netherlands.
no mentioning of the audio formats it plays along with the supported video. a dutch review mentions it can play dts over hdmi though.
my remote sensor on my tv is broken, can I just get a box like this with its own remote that can let me watch regular tv?
wow 169 if thats true is a great price. What is the storage size though I wonder? Or is it just an enclosure? Even if that is the case, it's not a deal.
It has no internal storage, nor room for any. It has 100Mbit LAN and an eSata connector to feed it.
>multitude of packages including .mp4, .mov,...
should be
"multitude of containers including .mp4, .mov..."
Digital Video standards are confusing enough to most people, it helps to use the right terminology.
@HONZA
"it helps to use the right terminology"
No, it really doesn't help at all.
These gizmos are getting nice. If it can play off an external, that's a solid piece of gear.
It plays .vob and .ts files, but not .iso? How strange.
how is that strange? .vob is a DVD file. and ISO is a disc image that can have absolutely nothing to do with video.
Perfectly complimented by a Composhite cable.
And a "very appealing" monster cable discount voucher, perhaps?
I wish it came with a remote that doesnt look like that . . . youd think a little more innovation and style could go in to it than . . . THAT.
I'm using the brando HD media player. About half the cost and seems to play everything. Plug in a hard drive, USB stick, SD card, and get out HDMI or A/V. Pretty neat, small. It's a bit weird using 1TB hard drives like floppies, but it does work.
Seems to be an improvement over the WD Media player, adding an e-SATA port and LAN connection. Might be worth it if I had an NAS and some cat6 in the attic.
Since there's no mention of HULU or NetFlix, I assume it's only half what I'm really looking for.
Seriously... why cant we have one device to do netflix and play our own files.... besides an xbox.
I shot a bunch of pictures at the computex. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndevil/sets/72157619242728092/
The menu was pretty bad though, i hope I can get one and test it.
I'm still sticking out on WD HDTV media player..only $99 usd on new egg..and better menu and public support on Mods..inwhich some Mods for WD HDTV makes it possible for streaming via wireless is possible from downloading from the internet and streaming video.
Though the E-sata port and LAN connection is a plus..but still got to wait and see how much support this product will get from Asus and the public..
Doesn't really seem to compare well with WDTV at a little north of $110 US... which has more codec and sound support and is already well hacked....
Is this the same sort of device as the PopCorn Hour? ie good to hook up to a bedroom PC and pull movies from a media server?
What advantage is there in S-ATA support over USB? Sice it has no internal memory speed is irrelevant or am I missing something?
very nice, and for those complaining about it already and put the WD up higher than this, what you are missing is that it has native network support. no hacking to hook this up to your network and stream. this is what a lot of us have been wanting.
Thing is, most people who bought the WD don't want or need the network support. If they did, they would have bought something else.
Really, it's a box dedicated to play media files. Why would I want to keep another computer/file server on in order to stream content, which may or may not work well at HD resolution, when I could just copy the stuff to a drive and play it there?
And one thing that I really don't get: The PS3 and the Xbox360 both are supposed to be HD media-friendly. Yet both don't support NTFS (or anything other than FAT32), which means no files can be over 4GB in size, which means very short movies, and very limited functionality media-wise.
Yet here we have devices from WD which support NTFS. Samsung LCD TVs support playing HD content from an NTFS drive. Yet the super-advanced PS3 and the device from Microsoft itself don't support NTFS.
May or may not work at HD resolutions? Streaming wirelessly with a WDTV would be an real I would apply "may or may not work." And now I have to copy something to a drive? I see your point but you seem to wanna argue points for the WDTV that are actually drawbacks. Firmware hacks and adaptors to be able to stream dont seem like huge pluses to me. Slap a HDD into a PCH, load up its clients and voila, no need to have a computer on all the time (honestly I never turn mine off anyway).
Apple tv is nice. but this is cool... download and play direct. i have a WDTV love it.
but if this shud come sooner i wouldve bought this rather than WDTV.
you mean you'd pay rather 3 times the amount for the same features and with a partially eaten apple, logo.
Popcornhour still reigns.
I just like having it on the network instead of having to fool with external drives.
uhm except apple tv doesn't support hardly ANY file formats
Me
me me me!!!!
Pinche Gringos and their region coding.
a big question is always the usability of the interface and ethernet.
if WD just released a version with ethernet capability, specifically downloading directly to that networked drive they'd have a lot of happy new customers.
Thanks a lot for sharing...
I got the WDTV and love it, together with a sata dock it just rules. I just saw this and liked that it had the network that the wdtv lack. However now I read that this does not support ISO, wich for me is a major drawback, since I storer all my Kid movies as ISO files for safty and comfort, (Small kids + DVD´s = bad), with the wdtv they can now easily choose a movie without risking scratch. I could ofc. convert the DVD´s to AVI or somthing else this device supports, but there are certain drawbacks, first it takes about 2-10 min tops to rip a dvd to iso, while a convertion takes close to forever, second the iso preserves all the dvd funktions audio/subs.
So basicly this is a great product, but the lack of ISO support is a major drawback. Put in ISO supprt and you just sold 2 more :), so until then WDTV is my friend :).
It supports ISO......