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The AC Ryan Playon! HD2 is very similar in design when compared directly against its predecessor. The front looks almost identical with the name of the company highlighted above a large power button. There are four large rubber feet underneath the unit to hold it steady on a variety of surfaces. It is 230mm x 165mm x 60mm in diameter and weighs 590g.
On the side of the HD2 there is a card reader, two USB 2.0 ports and a single USB 3.0 slave connector. This unit can be connected directly to a PC for quick transfer of media files. This is a great idea and we love the USB 3.0 connectivity, as we hate waiting for large media files to copy.
The rear of the product covers all bases. There is a HDMI 1.3 port which can output up to 1080p @ 60hz. There are also composite video and audio connectors, component video connectors, and a Gigabit capable lan port (10/100/1000). Digital audio out is also offered with coaxial and optical output.
On the other side of the unit there is a ‘quick access' hard drive panel. This means you no longer need to whip out a screwdriver to get access to the hard drive bay, for example if you are upgrading storage.
Excellent range of products these guys put out every year.
I love the piano finish. Interesting idea to add USB 3.0, cant see myself using that much as i would leave this in a network position all the time, not next to a PC? more next to a TV. Dissappointing about the gigabit lan performance, I was expecting much faster times to internal drive over network.
Looks great. The pricing is hard to beat. USB 3.0 option would actually be useful for me to transfer a lot of content over, as I dont really have a good home network.
I wish one of these could act as a 24/7 nas with good speeds. no one makes one yet. 🙁 means you could download on the PC< move it to the NAS connected to the TV and watch the stuff later. they are all far too slow.
They do the styling well, reminds me of my pioneer limited edition amplifier with piano finish. I think I spent more time polishing it than using it.
korn, why not just copy them to a NAS, and then stream them to the media player later?
I keep meaning to buy a media player like this, just havent gotten around to it. ive a ton of spare HDs. the bare one would make more sense for me.
AC Ryan told us “The processor is unable to handle large data packets via the same Gigabit Ethernet port. For a standalone NAS system, the chipset used is better meant to handle data transfer, and Gigabit Ethernet improves this by providing a larger bandwidth.
This is not an uncommon problem with media players, with the current Sigma processor also handling high bitrate streaming via their Gigabit port, but data transfer is relatively the same as our players on Realtek. At the moment Realtek is tweaking the data packets configuration to improve in this area, but it will not achieve the intended data transfer rates due to the processor limitation.”