Quick and Easy way to choose a HD Media Player

If you just want to connect your HD Media Player to a TV to watch videos from your USB Hard Disk Drive, below is a quick and easy way to pick a HD Media Player. I am assuming you either use a HDMI cable to connect to your HDTV or the RCA cable (red, white, yellow) to connect to your old analogue TV. Thus you are not concerned about the sound quality as long as there is sound coming out of your TV.

Currently the two most popular media player chipset used is the Sigma and the Realtek and they come in different models as well. As an example we will pick the Sigma 8655 and the Realtek 1073DD which is in the midrange price and some of the major HD Media Players that use them are


Sigma 8655 - WDTV Live, WDTV (mk2)


Realtek 1073DD - ACRyan PlayOn!, Asus O!Play, Apacer AL460, Hornettek Phantom, Patriot Box Office, Seagate Theatre, HDPro, Noontek A6


(There is a third chipset, the Amlogic 8626 but this cannot support WMV,VC-1 videos. Examples of media players that use this chip is the Kworld and Modeo. These are in the lower price range and usually not full 1080p but since things are moving so fast, there may be models that can output full HD. Check the specs.) 

There is another group of media players and they are the high-end stuffs such as the Popcorn Hour, Dvico 6500, HDX BD1 and HDMax which has better audio handling capabilities but since we are only concerned with basic sound, these are not considered as they are more for HiFi buffs.

Anyway, from the above you can see that there are more players using the Realtek chipset than the Sigma. Since the chipset is the brain of the media player, it determines what it can or cannot do. Thus the functions of all the media players using the Realtek 1073DD will be basically the same. One major difference is that the Sigma 8655 cannot play RMVB files. These are mostly TVB serials files and other Chinese programmes so if you intend to play these files, forget about the WDTV and just pick any of the others that fancy you.


For playing the other common formats, which (the Sigma or the Realtek) has the better video quality? Based purely on measurements, the overall results seems to be in the Sigma's favour but from users point of view, many prefer the Realtek. So this is really quite subjective and depends on your eyes and your preference. This also sometimes depends on the HDTV set that you are using since some brands seems to work better than others with a particular chip. The media player itself can have adjustments for brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, etc so you can fine tune to your heart's content. (Some will have more adjustment than others.)

Thus once you know a player can support the format of your video files at the resolution that you want, just pick the cheapest one that you can find using the same chipset, bearing in mind the above points about the chipset used. Again, this is just for watching videos with sound from the TV set. But if you need other features and has other considerations, then you need to investigate further and wait for my future posts. HeHe.

Ronald Kwok

Choosing a Media Player

Media player is one item that has mushroomed recently and as more and more brands appear, buyer find it very difficult to make their choices. Hopefully this Blog will make it easier to pick one that is just right for you. As the title of the Blog suggests, this is only about HD Media Player. Here HD refers to High Definition and not Hard Disk as this can also be confusing. What is High Definition? In the HD video world, this is any resolution from 1280x720 (720p) to 1920x1080 (1080i or 1080p) which is full HD.


Points to consider in choosing a HD Media Player
1. What do you want it primarily for? Obviously you want to watch HD videos. If it is just for listening to MP3 music or watch JPEG photos, you can buy the cheapest normal media player you can find and it will do. All HD media player can play MP3 music files and display JPEG photos and it is in the area of HD videos that each media player function a bit differently. But if it is some exotic music or photo format, check to make sure.
2. What video format will you be watching? Make sure the file format is supported by the player and it is best to have a sample file and test it on the player itself if it is possible. The WDTV series cannot support RMVB so if you need to watch video with this format, look elsewhere.
3. How do you connect to your audio visual equipment? The simplest will be via HDMI to your HDTV or just the RCA connector (blue, red, yellow cable) to older TV sets. Or you may want component connection (red, blue, green) and audiophile may want coaxial and optical connections. Look at the back of the player to see if what you need is provided as not all are available.
4. How do you want your sound? For most users, as long as there is sound it is OK. (Actually, sometimes there can be no sound for certain player running certain video format, hence the need to test). But for the more serious, they need DTS5.1, true HD, etc and these should be pass through to their amplifiers to do their job. This is difficult to test in the shop since you cannot bring along your Hi-Fi gear to do an actual test.
5. Do you need the player to house a Hard Disk Drive(HDD) internally? What physical size, 3.5" or 2.5"? All players can connect a USB external HDD though.
6. Do you want to have networking? Most can have physical LAN connection, some can work with WiFi either built-in or using USB dongle.
7. Do you need a built-in card reader? But it is easy to plug in one via USB.
8. What is the physical built and does it blend it with your other gears?
9. How does the graphical user interface (GUI) look and what other bells and whistles are available?
10. What about firmware update and after sales support so that your player is kept up-to-date? Anyway there is only so much you can update before a new chip comes along.
11. And finally the price. Do I get value for money?


So you never thought that buying a HD media player can be so complicated and this is only a summary. I'll go into more details in my later posts. Good luck in your choice. 

Ronald Kwok