Hi All, Yesterday I received my Cyclone Micro, and decided I would write a bit about it. Official Website For those that don't know about it, it is roughly £30 and once connected to a TV it allows you to view videos and pictures, and listen to music from USB pen drives, USB HDD's and the built in card reader. Although this is limited to about four different card types that can be read. The Sumvision website claims you can connect a USB card reader for other formats, but I haven't tried this. It is connected to a TV via the supplied composite video cable or a HDMI cable, not supplied. When connected via HDMI it can upscale to a documented 1080p. The box is simple. A colorful sleeve over a plain white box. Opening it reveals the main unit. Lifting the cardboard which contains the main unit reveals the rest of the contents. These are the power cable, composite cable, manual CD and the remote control. The CD which contains the manual is on an 8cm CD. This may cause problems for some people who can only use the normal larger sized discs in their drives. Looking around I couldn't find any pictures of the included composite cable. Fortunately I had a spare scart adapter for the composite cable, as one isn't supplied, and the TV I am using it with only has scart connectors. (3.5mm Jack from device) (Composite to TV) The remote has all the buttons you need. It might be the way I hold it, but I found the corners dug into my hand and after browsing menus and getting acquainted with the device it become slightly sore. But as I said this may of just been me. (Here it still has the protective plastic wrapping) I've seen the pictures of the main unit on the internet in the palm of a hand, but I still wasn't prepared for how small it actually is in real life. It's tiny. (Inches) (Centimeters) I have used it for a short while on a CRT TV with the composite cable. I watched a video and listened to music from a USB pen and viewed some pictures from my cameras SD card. Everything played smooth without any problems. Whilst viewing the pictures it seemed to choose a random effect whilst switching, some took some time to finish. This may be a setting I can change but I haven't looked. I have seen customer reviews on website which sell this device about it getting hot and I can confirm that it does get very hot. I wouldn't want to leave it on a surface which may get damaged by prolonged high temperatures. More information and pictures can be found on the Sumvision website. All in all its a nice piece of kit if, like me, you don't want a fully fledged media center PC to view videos, photos and listen to music. I left out pictures of the main unit as there are plenty available online if needed. If you would like pictures of a particular item included in the box, just ask and I'm sure I will be able to take some for you. Thank you for reading. Brads
Does it play video well? The website says the max res. is 720x480, could you test that out? EDIT: Seems to be UK only, CCL and Scan carry it.. I'll continue saving for a WD TV. :-|
It does work and from what I've used of it, it works well. I will try some other video formats when I get the chance. For £30 its pretty good. Would probably be worth someone with the appropriate knowledge and equipment to do some kind of cooling modification. Unfortunately I can only test it using the included composite cable as I have no HDMI cable
Hey, can anyone tell me how well it handles mp3 files? Is it just by folder / filename or can it read id3 tags? Also, how smooth is the playback... any stuttering? Cheers, Will
It is by folder/filename, you can set it to sort by Name. Time or Size. I haven't noticed any stuttering during playback of videos or music, from USB Pen or USB HDD. Brads
Sumvision Micro - only one issue Bradders..... problem I have with this box is as follows...... Assuming the film file format is good-to-go this box will play some movies perfectly ok, but others it gets about two-thirds of the way thru and simply halts and flicks back to main menu. Very Annoying ! I have downloaded the correct firmware from Sumvision site, and placed it onto my USB mem stick, but I cannot ascertain what the process is to perform the upgrade to the box. The file downloaded was (when extracted) a .bin file - no issues. The user manual, nor their web site, nor the 'setup' part of the menu structure of the box, appear to tell me how to do the firmware upgrade which I believe (and hope) will fix this premature ending to films. Have you any ideas or pointers about how to perform the firmware upgrade please Brads ? Thanks. G
I have a SumVision Cyclone Micro HD Media Player. (The original, not the '2') Audio does not work when connected by HDMI lead to my Panasonic TV, but works fine using the red,white, yellow leads. Works fine with an LG! It appears this is a known problem and I am hoping somebody knows a fix for it. Incidentally, I have tried all 3 HDMI inputs on the Panasonic using the SKY HD box and the same HDMI cable. All work fine. Wondering if there is some sort of HDMI cable adapter available? Cheers
