A.C. Ryan Playon!HD2 - The Show Goes on

Introduction

A.C. Ryan cut its teeth on the media player market with the Playon!HD and the Playon!HD Mini. While both players were lauded for their solid performance, A.C. Ryan has not been resting on its laurels and has refreshed its media player lineup with the aptly named Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini 2. We first caught a glimpse of the new boys in town at the IT Show 2011 and were curious as to how they would perform.

Priced at S$269, the Playon!HD2 seems to be aimed at those who are willing to pay a bit more for their media players. With TV manufacturers churning out sets capable of accessing Internet content, the HD2 will be facing newer threats other than its direct media player competitors. Boasting the ability to play most video formats such as AVI, MKV, TS, RMVB, BD-ISO, FLV at up to 1080p resolution, will the Realtek 1185DD-powered HD2 impress us? Read on for the details.

 

Taking a Look

There's something about media players, and well most AV equipment in general, to be dressed in black and to come in the shape of a box or cube. Though the design of the HD2 will not stick out from the rest of your AV setup, we do feel that perhaps it is time for manufacturers to shake it up a bit in terms of design. One thing we don’t like about the glossy plastic on the HD2 is that it tends to display fingerprints, smudges and scratches all too clearly.

Measuring in at 23cm by 16.5cm with a height of 6cm, the HD2 isn’t exactly dainty. The reason for its bulk is because the HD2 allows a 3.5-inch hard drive to be installed as internal storage. In fact, we found this EZ Drive feature to be one of the easiest ways to insert and remove a hard drive, as no dismantling or additional equipment was needed. All you need to do is undo the two catches on the bay cover and you can slot your 3.5-inch drive in.

Playon!HD2 is etched on the top of the unit, while a lone power button adorns the front of the player. On the left side of the player is the aforementioned EZ Drive to load up your own hard drive, and on the right side of the player is a card reader (SD, SDHC, MMC, MS, MSPro), two USB 2.0 ports, and a USB 3.0 slave port.

Well, all the USB ports in the world won’t help if the media player is limited by its outputs, and this is where the HD2 doesn’t pull any punches. The back of the player includes composite and component video output jacks, a single HDMI jack for those opting for digital video, digital audio is served via optical or coaxial, and a Gigabit Ethernet port to transfer, stream and use the internet.

A.C. Ryan included the necessary cables to ensure that you would not need to make an additional trip to your local electronics store just to get your device up and running. An HDMI cable, composite and component video cables are all included, and a PC-Link cable was thrown in as well for good measure.

The HD2’s remote is sleek and long, a stark contrast to the player itself. But this works in its favor as the longer shape of the remote makes it easy to hold. The remote has a really useful D-pad which we preferred over the four-way arrow D-pad of some other remotes, though we did feel that the buttons can be slightly unresponsive.

Another plus point for the remote is that while some players opt to include certain functions and playback options in the user interface, all these options and functions can be accessed via buttons on the remote. One example is the presence of a GoTo button/function, which allows us to skip to a specific timing in a video without ever exiting the video or accessing too many submenus. In fact, one can probably guess the options offered by the HD2 by just taking a look at the buttons on the remote!

 

You Don’t Need to be a Rocket Scientist

We were greeted with the home screen once we got the player up and running. As with most of the media players on the market, the various media types are assigned their own submenus so navigating around your own media shouldn’t be a problem. We found the user interface (UI) to be simple to navigate, and the UI's shade of blue does remind us of Microsoft's Windows for some reason.

The responsiveness of the UI is not the fastest among the media players out there, though it definitely isn't the slowest. Just don't expect your selections to register instantly while returning to previous screens can suffer from some lag.

In order to keep up with the competition, the HD2 also offers Internet services. In fact we were surprised to find that the HD2 offered quite a number of such services like Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. These Internet services all function similarly to their PC counterparts, which make them hard to navigate if you do not attach a mouse and keyboard to the HD2. In this instance we were glad A.C. Ryan added the USB mouse and keyboard functionality for we tried navigating the browsers with just the remote and it took all our self-control to not hurl it across the room.

There's no multi-tasking when it comes to using these services, so you will have to open it again if you wish to use it later. The HD2 also launched standard versions of the website, albeit displayed on your TV. As such, the sites are not optimized for viewing or for use on the TV, and they feel slow and sluggish. One exception was the YouTube app - it worked fine though text input without a keyboard was painfully slow. The YouTube XL app however would open up a version closer to the version on the web, which obviously is not remote-friendly and thus requires a keyboard. 

HD Performance

The HD2 got off on the wrong foot as it took 43 seconds to boot up and reach the home screen. Though this was not the longest time we ever waited for a media player to boot up, staring at a loading screen for 43 seconds wasn't exactly a thrilling experience. However all was forgiven when we got down to testing the video performance.

Testing out the streaming video portion was a no-brainer, all we had to do was survive the painful text entry speed before we connected a USB keyboard in frustration. The HD2 passed our vdieo streaming test as videos played back without any stutter on our office's LAN connection. Next up we decided to test the player on some local video content. The HD2 played every thing we threw at it;  it did not falter playing a 1080p AVI trailer nor did it skip a beat when we loaded a  H.264 encoded MKV file. Some players might not be able to play RMVB videos due to their chipset support, but the HD2 played a 720p RMVB file with no fuss. Lastly, we loaded a BD -ISO and the HD2 managed to pull it off too, though we would like to add that the player only plays the video file, the Blu-ray menus were obviously not accessible. Audio files were obviously of no trouble to the player and fast forwarding the video files did not cause the player to hang or crash, though the player could only manage to only forward to a 2x speed for our OGM video file. The HD2 does not disappoint as a capable media player and we were pretty pleased with its video playback performance.

Curtain Call

Having put the player through its paces, we can safely say that the Playon! HD2 is very good at what it is supposed to do. Playing all manner of video files, it even surprised us as it effortlessly played a BD-ISO. From H.264 AVI files and MKV files to 720p RMVB files, the HD2 never failed to pull through. Looks-wise we can't really complain; though it isn't a looker, it sure isn't ugly either. The handy remote and simple UI meant that there was never a moment  when we would wonder how to go about executing a certain command.

If we were to really pick out a few faults, it would be the HD2's slow boot up time, size and price. Though we do understand that the size of the player is to accommodate a 3.5-inch drive, it's pretty much a design and feature choice for the HD2. As such, you might be hard pressed to find a place for the HD2 if your AV setup is already taking up most of the available space. If size is your main issue, perhaps, you might want to consider alternatives such as the Playon!HD Mini 2 or the Playon!HD Essential that don't feature a hard drive intake.

At S$269, the HD2 is also on the pricey side, especially when that price does not include a hard drive. But given the fact that the HD2 does its job admirably well, you might consider forking out the extra bit more for this competent media player.

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