July 15, 2008 by sharky
After servicing me faithfully for almost three years and through thousands of disks, my DivX-certified Toshiba SD-7980 DVD player finally (and thankfully) kicked the bucket. She had been extremely temperamental as of late - DVDs that used to play fine would no longer; movies that had perfect playback on my PC could not be trusted to do the same. The media itself also became an issue - if there was a smudge or small scratch, presto - the disk was pooched. The Toshiba became an embarrassment to my techie prowess. It was long overdue to snatch up a new DVD unit.
But not so fast - I wanted something capable of HD playback, as well as Blu-Ray compatibility. I also needed something capable of playing my 700-disk strong DVD movie collection (consisting mostly of XviD/DivX *.avi files - 6 movies per disk). Certainly, there are now a handful of Blu-Ray players that are DivX-certified and could possibly handle the job quite nicely. However, I don’t even own any retail Blu-Ray disks, nor have I been to a video store in years. I came to the realization that I don’t need a Blu-Ray player - my entire collection entails stuff I’ve downloaded from the ‘Net. What I need is something that will seamlessly playback media files from my PC to my Sony 32" HDTV.
After some careful consideration, I decided to opt for a unit that would stream any type of movie file straight to my television, without the headaches involved with HD demux/remuxing, converting, and DVD media disks. But the real deciding factor is all those HD & x264 Blu-Ray rips that are popping up all over BitTorrent sites, perhaps a precursor to the eventual phase-out of DivX/XviD. For less than half the price of a DivX-compatible Blu-Ray player, I opted for the HDX-900 Networked Media Tank Player for $219 USD. I was not let down.
Functionality — Virtually All-Format Playback
After setting up the HDX-900, the first thing I wanted to do was see I could stump it. I threw it every video container format I could find, and it played them all - and more. Right out of the box, it plays *.MKV, *.MPG, *.AVI, *.TS, *.WMV, *.MOV - even all those High-Def variants (codecs) of each. (*.MKV being the crux of the sale, as it’s the preferred format for professionally done Blu-Ray rips in the pirate/BitTorrent circuit). It’ll even play raw Blu-Ray "rips" (*.MT2S files) and DVD "ripped" VOB and ISO files. It even supports subtitle files that accompany your downloaded movies (*.SRT, *.SUB, *.SMI, and *.SSA).
The HDX-900 is powered by Sigma Design 8635 chipset that is used in today’s Blu-Ray player for decoding Hi-Definition content. It’s no slouch when it comes to audio playback, either. Supported formats include *.MP3, *.MPEG audio, *.WMA, *.WAV, *.AAC, and *.FLAC (yes, even lossless audio).
HDX-900 — The Setup
The HDX-900 uses a "middleware" known as Network Media Tank, from Syabas. To oversimplify it, NMT is a GUI (interface) that connects the HDX to your PC, and also to the Internet. It’s the go-between for the HDX and your PC to the TV, including the software (such as the built-in BitTorrent client) and any other peripherals (hardware) that are attached. We found it somewhat similar to the Media Center in the XBOX 360 or the PlayStation 2/3 interface. If you’re able to manoeuvre through the menus of an XBOX or PS2, you’ll find the transition to NMT almost seamless. And if you have no idea what we’re talking about, you’ll nonetheless pick it up really fast - it’s intuitive and easy to learn.
Installing the unit was straight-forward - it comes with a nice "Quick Guide" to walk you through the basic hookup. We ran into one snafu when installing the internal hard drive - it was set to "slave" as I’d ripped it out of a spare computer - and NMT didn’t seem to pick it up. A quick change over to "master" solved the problem.
HDX-900 — So Much More Than a Media Streamer
Aside from its uncanny ability to play just about everything, the real bargain becomes apparent when you check out the endless list of features.
- • Add an internal SATA hard drive, or an external one via 2 USB ports / 1 SATA connection. You’ll be able to download directly to your int/ext harddrive via BitTorrent.
- • Hook up an external USB DVD Player and play your existing DVDs, including those "data disks" that contain DivX/XviD *.avi files (or any other media type).
- • Connect your HD display panel (i.e. LCD HDTV) via HDMI at up to 1080p (1920×1080) depending on your display panel capability.
- • VGA output to connect to your VGA devices (PC monitor).
- • If you have a receiver or home theatre system, there’s 2 output options via Coaxial or Optical output.
Hook up the HDX-900 to your Internet connection through your PC, and you can:
- • Browse your private BitTorrent sites, and remote-control / download your torrents through it.
- • Browse online video and audio streaming sites, such as YouTube, Veoh, Picasa, Flickr, SayaTV, iPodCast, Google Video, RadioBox, Live365, and a variety of RSS feeds, and more.
All things told, the HDX-900 is a complete home theatre package that’s definitely worth the $219 pricetag, even if we had to wait a couple of weeks for it to arrive. And if you end up downloading a bad copy of a movie, you can just delete it instead of throwing away the DVD - you won’t be stuck with all those silvery beverage coasters costing you 50 cents a piece.
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