Hardware Asus O!Play Air HDP-R3 Media Player Review

Asus tries to muscle in on the media player market with this dinky little device. Kitted out with 802.11n WiFi, Ethernet, HDMI 1.3 and mkv support - is its software and hardware a match for its strong competitors?

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/me.../asus-o-play-air-hdp-r3-media-player-review/1

 

whyy does everyone continually say the HTPC is dieing when clearly looking at all the forums around more and more people are trying to build one

Not only are they much more customizable than this but the interface / Metadata is much better

a lot of work still needs to go into the automation of media ripping i.e. DVD to MKV/ISO on insert of the disc and meta data grabbed automatically and stored in a tidy location

but this will come over time (also BD is still an issue on most HTPC software)

whitlst i agree that this may be easier you still need to know how to put media onto an esata drive and if you can do that you should be able to configure an HTPC

 

Well it seems that A.C. Ryan's offering is considerably more expensive, though the Western Digital media actually seems fairly priced and remarkably good value overall. For me Asus products have always either been amazingly brilliant or a complete failure and this one goes in to the failure bin for me.

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductID=1132287 Try that one. It's also very good, but we have yet to write a review.

 

ion nettop + xbmc is practically the same price, these products feel like a con Oo

 

i was looking at that after reading this review, it seems to be identical to the non-mini Bit-tech reviewed, just without the hard drive bay and 40mm fan.

really tempted for my parent's TV, it's a fanless mini solution that seems to work very well.

Ion nettop costs more than £200, these costs around £100 and includes a remote.

 

Nope. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167153

 

oh, okay, i was thinking Pinetrail machines, rather than the original Atom machines. thanks.

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. When they sort out a media streamer that does spotify and last.fm (and has a decent quality audio output) I'm in, not before.

 

+ cost of a Win 7 license to make use of DXVA

 

Ugh, have you guys heard of Xtreamer? I have one and I find it much better than the one you just reviewed.

http://www.xtreamer.net/xtreamer/overview.aspx

Its cheaper than WD's offering and it has the ability to be equipped with an internal 2.5-inch hard drive.

 

xbmc linux has had hardware accel. for donkies years...

 

I looked and looked for the perfect media player to fit my needs. They all seem to have some fault or another so I went with the Acer Revo 3610 mini-HTPC instead and extremely happy I did. Sure it cost $300 (U.S.) but it does everything I need without worrying what formats it supports.

www.pauljroberts.com/acer-aspire-revo-3610-atom-ion-330-review

Windows 7 came with mine.

 

I have an xtreamer as well. It's just a fantastic piece of hardware. Never had problem with it and I read enthusiastic reviews everywhere.
Bit-tech review was the only one with thumbs down.

Strange reviews at bit-tech lately.

 

Loved the failstastic xD

 

WOW aside from the main interface, everything else interface wise is exactly like Patriots Box Office, although the Box Office supports ISO playback which was added with a simple update so I would suspect the same is possible with the O!Play.

I like the addition of weather and online content, as well as gigabit and wireless N, I dont know why most of the others are 10/100. So if ASUS updates this to have ISO playback then I think it would be ideal.

 

You won't see a decent Atom Ion nettop with HDMI and S/PDIF and a remote for this type of price. In most cases XBMC requires some configuration. I have a Western Digital WDTV and I just plug it in and turn it on. It plays every MKV I toss at it.

 

All of them have HDMI (with audio), S/PDIF is ancient.

 

I have my xbox 360 connected to my main PC via ethernet and just watch everything on that..its fine.

 

Really? So if you have a set of speakers with decoders, Z-5500 for example, how would you connect them via HDMI?