Gadgets

HDX 1000 Networked Media Tank Player

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief April 30, 2009 · 1 min read

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Another favorite in the networked media player market is the HDX 1000. A relative of the Popcorn Hour (similar hardware platform created by Syabas), the HDX 1000 comes in a black brushed-metal chassis that houses a terabyte of photos, music and hidef videos.

Just got the demo unit yesterday and I’m testing it out on my new 42″ Toshiba Regza LCD TV. Aside form the pretty packaging, the menu/interface of the HDX 1000 seemed more responsive compared to the Popcorn Hour I tried a year ago.

hdx 1000 bluray player

They even have the same wireless remote control. Will have to go thru a couple of days of movie marathons before I could get a review up. As for the retail price, will update this post once I get the final figures.

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Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

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34 Comments

rommel · 17 years ago

My sister recently bought an HDX-1000 and installed a 1TB internal drive. After installing the application from a USB drive, she connected the TPLink WN821N Wireless dongle. However, the system was unable to detect the wireless device. Has anyone experienced this? Is there a separate driver that need to be installed with the wireless?

Cheers.

Robert · 17 years ago

Which one is the best and which one should I choose? the HDX-1000?,eGreat EG-M32B ? or the ZIO MARKUS-800 ?.Thank you for your help.

Eric Yu · 17 years ago

EJ, if you click on my name (in this post), it should bring you to the HDX Philippines homepage.

You can find contact information there.

Eric Yu · 17 years ago

To contact the distributor or for a list of resellers, please check out the HDX 1000 Philippine website at http://www.hdx1080.com.ph

You can email me directly at sa****@hdx1080.com.ph if you need any assistance.

EJ · 17 years ago

Is the HDX 1000 available in the phil? If yes? where can we buy?

Eric Yu · 17 years ago

There has been an irksome delay in securing the DTS license for the HDX 1000. The good news is, everything has already been ironed out.

DTS Downmix will be available very, very soon – there will be a free firmware upgrade for all HDX 1000 users. This will enable you to play content with DTS audio on equipment that does not have DTS decoding capability.

In the meantime, full DTS audio (including DTS-MA 7.1) is supported as a pass-through to DTS-capable audio/video receivers.

John · 17 years ago

i think the PCH is the only player that has DTS decoder..i’m very satisfied with my PCH A-110 too :)

eat1ng · 17 years ago

@mel: Thanks for the info, but i meant difference between PCH-A110 and this HDX 1000. And oh, please add that WDTV is equipped with HDMI v1.1, while PCH with v1.3, which implies the latter being able to send lossless audio (DTS-MA, Dolby TrueHD) signals to the amplifier.

Eric Yu has answered my original question. Thanks, man. Except for the looks (and maybe the price) of the HDX1000, i dont really regret buying the PCH just about 3 weeks ago.

Eric Yu · 17 years ago

Both the HDX 1000 and the Popcorn Hour A-110 are powered by the Syabas chipset and firmware. The software functions are virtually identical; it’s in the hardware implementation that we see marked differences. Here are the major differences:

* The HDX 1000 has a thick aluminum housing that draws heat away from the chipset and any internal hard drive, much more efficiently than any other NMT. The all-aluminum body results in a large surface area, acting as a radiator that dissipates heat very effectively. It cools the unit better than the thin metal or plastic bodies of other makes.

* The HDX 1000 build quality is much better than that of any other networked media tank. If you line up all the networked media tanks next to each other, you can instantly see that the quality control process is much more stringent for the HDX1000.

* The HDX 1000 is the best-looking NMT in the market today. Its brushed aluminum body gives it the appearance of an expensive piece of equipment. It closely matches the general appearance of the audio-visual equipment in your living room or home theater.

* The HDX 1000 has a built-in memory card reader on the front panel. It’s perfect for people who take photos and shoot videos. The great thing is that you can disable the card reader and have full use of not one, but two USB Host ports.

* The HDX 1000 has both coaxial and optical S/PDIF digital sound output connections at the rear. These ensure compatibility with older surround-sound systems. Other brands usually have only one or the other.

* The HDX 1000 has a dedicated ON/OFF power switch. Other NMT’s require you to unplug the power adapter when you want to turn off the unit or to perform a hard ‘reset’.

mel · 17 years ago

@eat1ng

Major differences:
– PCH Firmware developed by Sayabas, used by all Networked Media Tank (NMT) including the Egreat, HDX (among others), is the heart of the hardware. Seeing as NMTs are essentially mini-computers, their functionality is dependent on the quality of software available. The PCH firmware has been around for over a year and has undergone major revisions/improvements. Compared to the WD player which has only been with us for a short while: in short, the PCH firmware is proven while the WD’s firmware quality has yet to prove itself
– Form factor: the WDTV can only accept external hard drives, whereas the NMTs usually provide space for an internal hard drive; so while the WD TV might prove to be smaller, the NMTs might prove to be more ‘portable’
– connectivity: the WDTV is limited to composite and HDMI video out. The NMTs provide component and in some cases S-Video out
– Sound format support: the PCH (and soon, other NMTs) provide DTS decoding, something the WDTV does not support. In addition, it also decodes AAC (also not supported by the WDTV). Granted that AAC encoded titles are rather rare, so as not to be a factor in your purchasing decision (at least, not a big factor)
– Web Services: you can use the NMT’s built in software such as its Bit Torrent Client, as well as it’s ability to view Youtube and other web services directly
– Additional Functionality: your NMT can act as a Network Drive, as well as an external drive
– Storage Options: this is particularly important if you’re going for a digital video library — once you have 2 or more external drives, managing content may become more of a chore. With networking capabilities, it will be easier for you to establish one or more network drives allowing storage capacities in the multi-terabyte realm

eat1ng · 17 years ago

@Rodney Garcia: You can get the WD TV HD for only P5800 at Trinoma Mall in QC.

I have a PCH A110 but i’m curious if this is any better. Is there any significant difference?

Eric Yu · 17 years ago

You can order the HDX 1000 with or without an internal hard drive. External hard drives can be attached via USB port. Network Attached Storage (mass storage devices on your network, usually connected via wired Ethernet) as well as hard drives on various network-attached computers can also be accessed by the HDX 1000

You need an internal hard drive in order to enable NAS functionality (to share the hard drive over you network using SMB, NFS, FTP, http shares) and to install and run NMT Applications such as Media Services Portal, Torrent and Usenet Servers, etc.

If somebody provides you with Torrent files on an external hard drive, USB memory stick or memory card, then you do not need a PC to download content from the internet. Usually, you WILL need a PC to browse for and to download Torrent files of your own choosing; after you upload the Torrent files to the HDX 1000, you can turn off your PC. The HDX 1000 will download the content on its own.

The unit has an wired Ethernet 10/100 port. You can opt to plug in a TP-LINK TL-WN821N Wireless-N USB adapter if you want Wi-fi. This is currently the only Wireless-N USB adapter that’s supported by NMT’s belonging to the Syabas family.

LEADERINPROGRESS · 17 years ago

Does this unit come with an internal hard drive?

@Eric Yu – So basically I can have this download torrent files even if I don’t have a PC?

Does it come with wifi or lan for internet?

Eric Yu · 17 years ago

The HDX 1000 is so much more than a mere high- definition media player.

It functions as Network Attached Storage (NAS), enabling you to share your hard drive over your network.

It has both BitTorrent P2P and a Usenet client, enabling you to download content from the internet even when your PC is off.

The Media Services Portal offers up over 40 online services like YouTube, cnet, CNN, etc.

You can empower the HDX 1000 with many add-on applications such as movie and music jukeboxes. On-screen displays and menus can be customized using various ‘skins’.

Not to forget – the HDX 1000 will play back your hi-def videos beautifully.

Rodney Garcia · 17 years ago

I have been shopping around for a media box for my audio, video and photos. What I’ve seen sold in computer shops are the Western Digital Media boxes which you need to purchase a separate hard drive. You can get the unit for 7K. You can use any hard drive or thumb drive as source.

Are there others out there?

Let’s think straight · 17 years ago

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