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The Playon!DVR HD arrives in a very flashy box with a high resolution picture on the front as well as specifications on both front and rear.
The unit is sent shipped in a protective wrapper with thick foam on either side to protect it during shipping. All other accessories are inside a seperate white box.
- Composite A/V cable
- Component Y/Pb/Pr Video Cable
- AC Ryan HDMI Cable
- DVB-T Antenna
- USB cable
- Remote Control
- Remote Control AA Batteries
- AC/DC Adaptor / Power cord
- HDD Mounting screws
- User Manual
The package is comprehensive with cables to cater for every requirement. We also like the fact they include a high quality HDMI cable in the box, as this adds £15 to the product value.
The remote has undergone a reconstruction and one which is worth mentioning. In the image above right you can see the DVR HD remote on the left, next to the remote which is shipped with the standard Playon! HD unit.
Obviously there are new buttons for recording on air shows, however the more observant among you will immediately see that A.C. Ryan have listened to user feedback and have shifted the pause button to the same position as play. The older remote was a little inconvenient as pausing playback involved moving your finger to the bottom left of the controller. Sadly A.C. Ryan have omitted the instant replay function button which was one I used very often.
The Playon! DVR HD ships with a protective wrap on the front which is a nice touch. The front of this unit marks very easily so it is good to see all precautions being taken.
The Playon! DVR HD is a very attractively designed product, simple in design and immensely appealing. There are a row of buttons on the front if you need quick access and don't have the remote handy.
Be aware that the glass style front fascia will be in frequent need of cleaning with a high quality cloth as it attracts fingerprints very easily.
At the side are two USB 2.0 ports (USB-A) and a card reader. There is also a USB 2.0 Slave Port (USB-B).
As with the Playon! HD unit, the rear is home to the majority of the connectivity. There is however also a Dual Digital DVB-T Controller inside so there are connections for that daughtercard on the right hand side above. e-SATA is also supported, so it already gets bonus points.
Underneath is access to the internals of the DVR HD by removing two screws.
Our unit shipped with a high quality 1TB Samsung drive, which according to the buy now page on the official website adds 70 euros to the asking price (229 euros/299 euros). Misco are selling the 1TB model in the UK for £239.99 inc vat. Otherwise you can easily install an inexpensive, high quality 5,400rpm 1TB drive for only £47 inc vat if you buy the basic unit.
Connecting a drive is as simple as a desktop PC, it just needs bolted to the door and then a SATA and power connector attached. After a simple format procedure within the operating system you are ready to rock.
The insides are based on the same hardware that we noted last time – a Realtek processor which is passively cooled in the middle of the PCB. At the rear are two daughter boards which handle connectivity such as the USB ports, and the front panel receiver for the remote controller. The memory can also be seen here. In the image above right you can see the Dual Tuner daughtercard which is obviously exclusive to this product.
Everything is cooled by a 40mm low noise fan – which helps to flow some air over the heatsink and keep the hard drive operating within specifications.
Above left is the Playon! DVR HD (left) next to the Playon! HD unit (right). The family all follow the same, very sleek design ethic. Above right is the unit with the antenna on top, this is magnetic.
The image above shows the antenna/aerial ontop of our Panasonic NeoPDP 600hz Plasma TV. Thanks to the magnetic base it sticks to the fascia without the need for any messy materials. Very nice touch from A.C. Ryan.
What a fantastic product, im really tempted to get this.
I bought the mini from the last review here – I might use it in a different room and get this one. I see misco have no stock though? whats up with that?
That is a really good price with the 1TB unit in it. glad to see they aren’t using crappy drives either. weird point to bring up I know, but samsung are always good to see !
Great review again Zardon. I like the front design of this. I always though the playon HD was really quite naked looking but I like the readout. Obviously AC ryan are clearly spending a lot of time on the firmwares/OS which means this is the only one to get. Pricing is very competitive also.
Fantastic. I dont really need one of these myself, but its a brilliant idea. like the fact you can use it as a NAS also.
Brilliant, i have been waiting on a review of this for ages now. Have already mine preordered 🙂
Their support is great. I have an older version of this and have been waiting on the new one to be released.
The firmware updates seem really good on these devices. Asus for instance never update theirs. just buy the hardware fromr realtek, mod it a little, and thats them done forever. AC RYAN seem like a company with their finger on the pulse. I am going to get this as I dont use my cable box much in the UK and only want sky news. glad to see you can get it (great review!)
This looks so good powered up. the other ones look a bit ‘bleh’.
No stock in Misco? maybe best ordering from AC Ryan directly?
wonder why they dont do a 2TB version? Also bit disappointed they didnt upgrade the LAn to gigabit after the last 2 products. It would be a very slow NAS system. Surely it cant add much to the cost?
Great review, well done on the software side of things, thats incredible functionality.
Why oh why build this and then hamper such a great product with 100mbit LAN ! wireless is faster and this should never be the case.
a good gigabit lan controller could add 20 quid to the price, but in this case I think its a move they need to make, especially for a NAS option and for moving files to local storage. I wouldnt fancy moving a bunch of 10GB 1080p MKVs to this drive.
Wow, around here you have to pay $15 (10 quid) a month for something similar a month. Was amazed when i found these things listed to be honest might suggest these to my parents
Very good price point on these units. Might invest in one nearer christmas as a treat for myself.
Very good review of what appears to be a brilliant product. Worth buying.
Another great review Zardon. This looks to be something I would enjoy. Shall probably pick one up soon.
Looks nice, the glass front is very attractive. good price really when you weigh it all in, seems much better than the asus one you reviewed last month.
Hey, long time lurker, first time poster (well under this account anyway)…felt the urge to post today as I wanted to ask how can you guys do so many quality reviews when other sites struggle with one a week? They really are mince, especially the ones who nick your ideas and try and claim them.
Its really great to see such quality reviews up here amongst ye others !
Another media player… and a memory cooler… really helps split up the indepth analysis of the other items.
I really like this product, looks like a good price too. Shame about lack of gigabit lan support tho.
Excellent, these really are great.
Guys what a brilliant review – really looks like this is a fine piece of hardware with a good interface. I might check it out later in the month if I can wrangle the money together. Keep up the awesome work !
Very cool idea from AC Ryan, good price point.
Hello everyone,
Glad you seem to like this player of ours as well! 🙂 I just wanted to answer some of the questions that turned up in the comments. If you have other questions after feel free to post here and I’ll try to reply to them,
The reason we don’t support 1GB Ethernet is due to limitations on our chipset. Our players hardware simply could not handle those networks speeds, in particular if multi tasking, by watching a movie/downloading a torrent etc.
If we would change the hardware to be able to perform those speeds then the price would go up drastically. If you are in need for a large file transfer you can connect the player either with USB or even eSata for optimal transfer speeds. USB is the ‘slower’ of these two and I’m having around 17-23MB/S in average transfer speeds with it.
If you are looking for the 2TB version. I see that we are sold out in some of our re-seller in the UK. You can see our re-sellers list here: http://www.playondvr.com/en/#uk
I know we do have stock if you order the 2TB version directly from our homepage as well.
mmmm thanks Mikael. I would like this device myself but 100mbit is too slow for a NAS system which is one of the features. Can you not implement a system when you are watching a file that no copying can take place? I cant see how having gigabit lan while watching a movie would make a different for just playback, its still going to stream at the same speed anyway. right?
Hello Dave,
I understand your request. I would also prefer 1GB Ethernet port since that would make it possible to stream highest quality files over network, but most importantly deal with huge transfers much better. However, the reason it’s not currently possible is because the chipset cannot handle those speeds and stream/encode a movie, even if you would disable the copy like you suggested. It would just not be stable to stream and watch a movie at those speeds and that is one of the players main purposes. Still have to try and remember that you pay quite little for these players.
I’m hopeful that the next generation chipset will handle 1GB Ethernet. We will see!
Br,
Wheres the HD recording options?? we use DVb-t2, not available on this model. Its 2010 not 1999. And also recording from svideo sources.. otherwise quite good. GBe not needed as you have USB slave (connect direct to computer via USb) and Esata to transfer stuff. Also DarK Blue is the New black. See to it.
From website “so you can enjoy DVB-T broadcasts in every country regardless of which DVB-T format is broadcasted. ” UK HD freeview mpeg4/aac over DVb-t2, not supported in this unit, sadly.
I just bought the device with 1.5 TB Samsung Harddisk and wireless dongle for RM950 (equivalent to euro 226) in Malaysia after reading this raving review. The device is fantastic and the wireless works fine on my PC too. Have hours of fun playing it on TV. Absolutely no regrets. Cheers
Mikael, am i correct in saying that the Dual Tuners are Digital only, not HD?
Currently I can only access Picasa, News, Flickr & Weather on the internet. Would appreciate if anyone could tell me how to access Youtube, Google Mail, etc.
Thanks and Regards
My AC Ryan is hard wired to my computer and this way I have access to my drives both internal and external.Unfortunately when i add a new external drive it prompts me for the user name and password (which I have forgotten!!!!). Is there a way to either bypass the user name password system or if not ,to enter a new username and password?
Hope you can help me
Kind regards
James K Greenham