Final thoughts and rating
Whether or not the A.C. Ryan Playon!HD - or any network media player for that matter - is for you, will ultimately depend on your needs as a consumer.
For users wanting to stream the occasional MP3 along with an image slideshow, a £30 WD TV Mini will do the trick.
At the opposite end of the scale, today's modern games consoles offer a reasonable range of streaming features, along with integrated support for on-demand services such as BBC iPlayer and Sky Player. The Xbox 360 can be had for as little as £140, and as a system it offers a whole lot more than just network media playback.
So why pay £10 less for a Playon!HD that doesn't support any on-demand programming and offers little in terms of web-connected functionality?
Well, there are a couple of reasons, but let's not beat around the bush. Despite the questionable legality of ripping original media, the Playon!HD works best as a jukebox for your backed up collection of CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays.
And that's ultimately where both models shine. With an extensive set of supported formats, users needn't worry about jumping through hoops in an effort to find a codec that'll work.
The fact that DVDs - complete with fully-functioning menus - can be played back from a simple image file is a selling point, and although the interface can at times feel counterintuitive, any small frustrations quickly fade when you hit the play button.
Our pick of the two - the Playon!HD mini - is impressively small, competitively priced, silent in use and perfectly suited to the living room.
The Good
Plays almost everything you could throw at it
Playon!HD mini is silent in operation
Small, compact design
Easy setup
Revamped user interface is imminent
The Bad
No Gigabit Ethernet
No built-in wireless
Current interface isn't pretty
HEXUS Ratings
 A.C.Ryan Playon!HD |
 A.C.Ryan Playon!HD Mini |
HEXUS Awards
A.C.Ryan Playon!HD Mini
HEXUS Where2Buy
The A.C.Ryan Playon!HD and Playon!HD Mini are available to purchase from SCAN.co.uk priced at £129.94 and £89.99, respectively.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
Paula Stevenson, PR and Marketing Director at A.C.Ryan Europe, has kindly issued the following right2reply:
Firstly can I say, the right2reply option is great, being a woman, I will certainly take advantage of this as we generally feel it is our prerogative anyway. So....
No built-in wireless functionality.
Currently built-in wireless connectivity solutions perform poorly and are unreliable when it comes to data transmission due to signal reception issues. This results in players with built-in wireless having an unacceptable wireless performance.In our labs, we are working on possible solutions to have built-in wireless that can perform better than current solutions. When we are able to do this, we will consider implementing built-in wireless into the players. In the meantime our optional Playon! wireless-N USB Dongle is available to users and is the more reliable, affordable, high performance option, at the end of the day AC Ryan will always deliver to market hardware that provides the best user experience.
Limited 10/100 Ethernet port
The Realtek 1073 and 1283 chipset are capable of decoding up to 80Mbps for MPEG2 coded and around 40Mbps for H.264 coded.
As for streaming via network, the same rates apply but subjected to network conditions and whether the bitrate is a constant or variable kind.
It will be easier and smoother to stream constant (fixed) bitrate videos rather than streaming one with a variable bitrate.The main bottleneck comes mostly from the Realtek 1073 and 1283 chipset where they are unable to decode the high bitrate portions fast enough during streaming conditions. Playing the same video off the internal HDD or via a USB2.0 storage will be more suitable for such case.
So, in a nut shell, it is a current generation chipset limitation.
LED: We are working on users being able to disable this display on the Player, can’t promise anything though, some people actually love it. It is a very personal thing, like Birkenstocks, you either love them or cross the street when you see someone flipping towards you in them.
Remote: Once again, appreciate the feedback, we are already in the process of re-designing our remote. Users should have a new streamlined remote along with USB 3.0 included in the new series of players that we are currently developing. The new series is not a replacement of the current series, but rather an extension of the Playon! family due to user demand.
Graphic User Interface: As mentioned and presented to some of the Hexus crew at Computex , we are implementing a new unique GUI. There was a delay on the release of this due to Realtek releasing a new SDK. There was no point in coding the new GUI into the current SDK, when a new SDK would be released with more functionality. We have recently received the new Realtek SDK 3.X platform and are working on implementing the new GUI in an upcoming firmware. So don’t worry we are working hard on making the Interface as easy on the eyes as the site of Angelina Jolie running towards you on the beach!
On demand Content: We are currently speaking with a number of content providers across Europe and should be able to confirm a number of exciting inclusions shortly. Watch this space!
Firmware: The latest official firmware releases for the Playon!HD and Playon!HD Mini was actually April and May respectively with 13 Beta firmware releases for the Playon!HD and 7 for the Mini this year. The reason for so many Beta Firmware’s is that community feedback is very important to AC Ryan. We have a strong, loyal community, the largest of all the media player manufactures, this is largely due to our interaction and responsiveness to our end users. AC Ryan releases on average monthly firmware updates including beta firmware so that the community can give their feedback and be involved in the development, in that sense we are consistently delivering functions that improve our users experience with their player. While not possible to meet everyone’s wishes, although if we could get the player to bring you a coffee in the morning we would, we do listen to the voices of the community, together with our other channels of feedback, we gather the information and implement the wishes that most users require. In addition, we are prioritising and working on Internet firmware updates.
Power Consumption on the Playon!HD: You will be pleased to know that AC Ryan’s Playon!HD and Playon!DVRHD now include only eco-friendly, low noise, low power consumption hard drives. The GreenlifeTM series of Playon! media players and recorders will be pre-installed with only eco-friendly hard drives that:
Reduce power consumption by 30% - 50%, reducing energy consumption.
Reduce heat generation.
Reduce noise generated by the hard drive by 10% - 30%.The Playon! GreenlifeTM series are now shipping and all packaging for the Playon!HD and Playon!DVRHD models with eco-friendly hard drives will now display the GreenlifeTM sticker.
In a nutshell: The Playon! series is easier to use than Paris Hilton and supports more file formats & codecs than all of Tiger’s indiscretions combined. You are going to wonder how you have lived without a Playon!
