 "What gives? No GigE network?" | 2009-11-17 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2OONV61AEHX8L |
I have always liked ASUS from my days of DYI PC modding and it's great to see them expanding their products.
I have not yet purchased this product, but have been in the market for a while. Functionaly it looks solid, supports a wide range of formats and has received great reviews, but guys, this is 2009. Without a wireless network, which I can live with, 10/100Mbps for a wired connection? You have to be kidding me.
I have a GigE network for my devices and did not want to "sneakernet" my HD files. This is my only gripe and that's the only thing preventing me from buying this device. |
| |
 "Exactly What I was Looking For !" | 2009-11-17 |
| - Reviewed By aligator_98 |
I was looking for something affordable, and that played .AVI and .MKV formats to name a few of them, and it does, It is incredibly easy to use, at first I wanted one with a built in hard drive, but this unit works with external sources like thumb drives , external HDD's, which might be a blessing in disguise in the long run, you can use a usb, or esata external hard drive, and you can network the asus unit to your computer to transfer files right from there, it is NOT wireless, but for all it does, its well worth the money, the remote is awesome, very straight forward and functional.
on avi files, the quality is going to depend on how much compression is put into a dvd rip, so most movies at around 700mb are acceptable, anything less may seem pixilized, but blue ray is AWESOME! even at 720p.
To sum it up, ASUS has a winner in the O' Play, absolutely no issues with any tv's using this, you can use HDMI Cable or RCA cable, and sound is awesome, its a good buy all around. |
| |
 "Half-baked product that was rused to market with BETA firmware! AVOID!!!" | 2009-11-15 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1JC9FHKBQUAJ2 |
This started out as a good player, yes it plays everyone of the video/audio formats, WHEN it works.
After the first couple of times using this player, Every time I would turn it back on it would default to 480P? It would stay on this until I unplugged/replugged the unit. Now I have audio dropouts, 1080p issues, and not being able to stream files over the network, and now the USB port does not work! This is not a hardware issue, it is defective/beta firmware ASUS tried to pass off as final by apparently rushing this product to market.
- ASUS Support is pretty much non-existent, just go here if you don't believe me:
[...]
Pretty much everyone on this official ASUS forum is pissed off at ASUS' lack of communication! I really don't understand why this product is getting such high reviews!
Go with something like a WDTV Live or Xtreamer if you want a quality product with actual support from the company. Now I am stuck with a $100 paperweight! Maybe ASUS will release a better firmware in the future, but I'm not holding my breath! |
| |
| "O!play replaced my Media Center PC" | 2009-11-10 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2QONZY44MP8PF |
I love Amazon.com!!! I ordered the product last Friday and received following Monday on regular free shipping!!!
I've been tinkering with custom made media pc, network media devices (including hard drive based media players), but far this is what I've been wanted all along.
I reviewed the customer reviews on Amazon.com and did thorough research, and was sold on Asus O!Play because it's ablility to play vast arrays of file types, esp FLV and ISO types. I thought about waiting for newer model (with wifi and media card reader), but I already have a network bridge and usb card readers, so wasn't really missing anything, so I went and order it from Amazon.
Here is a list of few things that I found that I would hope to be a help when you consider this device.
Likes:
1). Solid and beautiful design. It's a shinny black box with 2 blue LED. I place the unit under my plasma tv and the blue LED didn't bother me. 2 port on side for external SATA and USB 2.0 (one each). HDMI, optical, and LAN connector on the back (don't really care for RCA ports).
2). setup was done in a few clicks - very easy setup and the unit was up and running in no time. I have connected the unit to a wireless N Bridge. Able to pickup other PCs as soon as I connected.
3) this little guy plays anything except the new Microsoft Windows7 Media center live TV recorded files. I have a lot of flv files and it has no problem playing all!!! I actually think the resolution is better on 50 inch plasma with 1080p settings than my 28inch monitor.
I have three boys and I always make backup of my purchased DVDs because the way my boys handle DVDs - gets too much scratch after a few play. No problem with this Asus O!Play. It plays ISO for both DVD rips and BlueRay rips!!!!! Now I can backup as ISO or VOB file and no need to purchase blank DVDs. It's much cheaper per mb to purchase hard drive than blank medias.
4)Photos are absolutely gorgious. My plasma TV has builtin SD card reader and picture view function, but this unit seems to display pictures in more detail and clarity. I guess it's compatible to my PS3.
5)runs cool and no fan noise because it doen't have one
6)I see lots of potential because the OS it runs is Linux.
Don't likes
1)Has issue looking up files in Windows7. New Firware resolve access issue, but you still have to play with Windows7 share/permission for the device to see the file and play them.
XP has no issue and works right out of the box. I was running file off of a Netbook and there was no delay or buffering in playing!!!!
For Windows7 you have to grant full read/write to "everyone," which I don't like to do, to be able to view shared directory/file.
It also display hidden (with $) shared directory. I tried to hide "R" rated movie from my kids, but since it pickup all the shares, they can see them. And you have to give full access to "everyone" they can access them as well. so I had to disable the share and move the movies to my eSATA drive.
2)100mb LAN. I prefer to have a Gig LAN so I can have bandwidth for my Blue-ray playback. I have not connected this unit to my switch directly so I cannot totally blame the 100mb speed, but since I'm using Gig switch, N wireless, and N bridge, I would think the bottle neck is on 100mb LAN port on this unit. Blue-ray play back over network suffers.
3)No LAN username/password management. If you enter incorrect user name and password and SAVE them, there is no way you can go back and edit user name/password. You have to reset to factory default. Unless there is option that I don't know and the manual is no help.
4)Full manual is on CD only and it does not help you much. I had to Google to get my Windows7 issue resolved. Asus web site is no help and everytime I download something, I have to enter the silly codes.
5)Preivew: When you are browsing files, it tries to buffer to play preview (although it's a few sec, it gets pretty annoying). Unless it's ready to play preview, you cannot move to other files.
6) Does not support camera RAW format! 90% my pictures are in Nikon RAW NEF format. I cannot convert it to JPEG for it'll take a long long long long long long long long long time (~200GB+).
Wish List
1)Internet browser. I don't see why this is not possible since the OS is Linux.
2)Internet TV!!! there are thousands of re-runs on the net.
3)Keyboard port or wirelss keyboard option (bluetooth or radio). The password input is hidden (****) so I cannot verify this as I enter them using the remote. Although the O!Play screen offers QWERTY keyboard it's hard to navigate using remote. Also people can watch your password when you enter as you stay on the key and click as * mark show up as confirm. Also once you save the username/password, you cannot modify them unless you reset the unit. WTH?
4)support for Windows7 TV recorded format
5)1Gig LAN port
6)Support for Camera RAW format.
7)Support for Windows7
Conclusion
Asus O!Play is a great media device. It's very simple to setup and use. It offers amazing video quality. You'll probaly enjoy using this device than more expensive media pc, if all you do is watch movie, view picture, and play music.
There are few things that to be desired, but it's still an excellent choice for playing medias on your hard drives on a big screen tv for the price. With its support of multiple array of file format you can't go wrong with this unit.
I highly recommend!
|
| |
 "Good potential, bad initial results" | 2009-11-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3BEKB5600XOSG |
I was more than hopeful about the capabilities of the O-Play, however I was greatly disappointed in one area and mildly disappointed in other.
1st the really bad news:
While the O-Play easily found the network shares on my Windows7 and Windows XP systems at home it could not find my NAS drive. Technical support was horrible, as the guy no the phone did not even know what a NAS drive was. They suggested a firmware update, which I completed with no change.
Reading the Asus forums many others had my problem and a Linux guru found a solution. Unfortunately, this requires Telnet-ing into the O-Play and modifying the run_tail. This script makes the O-Play think my network share is a USB virtual drive. The drawback from this hack is that I always need a dummy USB device plugged in to make the script work.
The mildly annoying:
Without support for playlists the O-Play is far from ideal for music. Since playlists seem like such an easy feature to implement, I'm sure this will be arriving shortly as a FW update.
The good:
It's the cheapest of the bunch, but I would gladly pay $20 for the next higher priced model if the above issues were taken care of.
|
| |
| "Almost perfect" | 2009-11-08 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1TVIYMKLLSCPD |
The O!Play has handily replaced a dedicated media center PC in my living room and the result has been better sound and picture, while drawing much less power and getting rid of annoying fan noise. This is by far my favorite purchase in the last year. It had been able to play all the media I've thrown at it so far, and even streams hi-def video without issue. If you want to stream media to your TV, and you have a network jack nearby go get the O!Play.
I gave it four stars because its software, while functional, is poorly designed. There's no DVD Menu button on the remote. The system doesn't remember where your music, movies, and photos are stored so you have to browse from the beginning every time you turn the unit on. The song and video titles are given less than half the width of the screen so long titles are hard to read even while most of the screen space is unused.
Fix the interface and add some things like streaming music support (Pandora, Last.FM, etc.) and this device would be FANTASTIC. As it is, it's merely really, really good. |
| |
Expedited Available
