A silent wee streamer with a lot to like, but shy of
perfection
A trimmed down
version of the AC Ryan PlayOn! HD2 networked media player, the HD2 Mini is
almost identical in terms of specs -with one obvious exception. There's no
internal hard drive. The HD2 Mini is a pure streaming device, which finds
videos and music from local computers and NAS boxes via UPnP, network shares or
from a selection of internet sources and puts them on your TV.
That means
it’s cheaper than the full PlayOn! HD2 and also smaller.
Smaller than, say, an Xbox controller. And its glossy
black lines are sleek and uninterrupted, save for a glowing logo on the front
and a selection of connectors round the back. These include Ethernet and HDMI,
as well as surround RCA audio jacks, optical S/PDIF and a pair of USB 2.0 ports
for attaching portable hard drivesfull of films or alternatively an optional
Wi-Fi adaptor.
It’s silent, and
the picture quality is good. If you’ve got a lot of videos on a networked
drive, what’s not to like?
Lacks polish
Just like the
PlayOn! HD2, our biggest complaint with the HD2 Mini is the lack of polish
that’s gone into the interface. It's even worse here, though, since the main
menu has lots of redundant options carried over from its bigger brother.
Selecting
'Video', for example, tells it to search a hard drive that isn't there. So it
does nothing. Getting to a film held on a UPnP share,
meanwhile, is just as tedious as on the HD2. There are no less than six levels
of menu to cut through, each of which takes a few seconds to load, before you
can get to the file you want to play.
What the HD2
Mini should be about is navigational polish and speed. But boot times from
standby are just as slow. The litmus test for a separate media-streaming device
must be that it’s quicker and simpler than firing up a laptop and plugging that
into the HDMI input of your TV. The HD2 Mini isn't and that's a problem. We’d
also like to see a UPnP server built into both the HD2
and HD2 Mini for when USB drives full of files are attached.
If all this
sounds negative, it’s only because the HD2 Mini is so likeable in almost every
other way. It's a charming size, can stream almost every codec known to man and
the picture quality is very good, especially over Ethernet. But it's up against
a lot of competition for space by your TV, and there's definitely room for
improvement.
It’s slow to
start up and the selection of internet sources is very limited, but the main
problem is that the interface just isn't as well thought through as it should
be. Redundant options and a long-winded process to get to a
shared drive let down an otherwise peerless player.
Easy set-up
It’s tiny,
silent and a cinch to set up, though. As well as HDMI out and gigabit Ethernet,
there’s a full suite of analogue and digital audio connectors, USB ports and a
Wi-Fi option. Most importantly, the PlayOn! HD2 Mini finds network files easily
and playback quality is great.
Price:
$148.8
Manufacturer
AC Ryan
Web:
www.acryan.com
Video
output: H DM 11.3, Composite, Y/Pb/Pr Video
Audio
output: 5/PDIF Optical TOSLink
Network:
Gigabit ethernet, optional Wi-Fi
Storage
support: USB 2.0 storage
Dimensions: 151
x 102 x 42mm
