AC Ryan Play On HD2 now available at leading home theater shops. AC Ryan is a company with huge experience in media player products. Speaking of the latter, they tend to make HTPCs look like dinosaurs and threatened them with extinction. If you only want to watch movies, listen to music or even download Torrents then a media player is a far more convenient/economic solution than an HTPC, since it’s dead easy to operate, costs less and consumes very little power. However if you want to play video games along with all above, sitting on your living's room couch, HTPCs are still the way to go.
The latest addition in AC Ryan’s arsenal is the PlayOn!HD2 (ACR-PV73700), the successor of the original PlayOn!HD (ACR-PV73100). Although the new PlayOn! shares almost the same external design with its predecessor, their differences are far too many. The most significant change, without any doubt, is the upgrade of the CPU from Realtek RTD1073 to the new RTD1185DD which is 25% faster, running at 500MHz. Also the inclusion of a USB3.0 port along with Gigabit LAN and the new easier HDD access port are some of the new features of PlayOn!HD2 that raise the bar.
Besides the new CPU the updated model has twice the memory compared to the old Playon!HD. The new EZ-Drive slot along with the Gigabit Ethernet and the USB 3.0 port are also noteworthy. Speaking of gigabit, we noticed that some users at AC Ryan's official support forum complain about the poor performance of the supposed Gigabit interface and an explanation that was given is that gigabit speeds are achieved only when data is streamed. For local network traffic (e.g. while copying data to the player's HDD) speed comes down to 100 Mbps (theoretically of course). This sounds really weird and in our tests we will find the truth!
The dimensions of the new unit remain exactly the same with the ones of the older model. What we didn't like so much is the short, two-year, warranty. In Europe two years is the minimal warranty period that a manufacturer must provide for its products.
The unit comes in a small but quite heavy, for its footprint, package. On the front we find a photo of the unit itself and a small badge that informs about the two years warranty. On the front top-right corner we are also informed that a green 1 TB hdd is included in the bundle. On the one of the two sides of the box we find a photo of the unit's rear side where most of the I/O connections reside while on the back side of the box we find brief information about the features/characteristics of the media player.
The PlayOn!HD2 is well protected by two pieces of packing foam and a synthetic bag, so even if it has a rough trip till it falls into your hands, it won't likely end up with a scratch. In the packaging there is a smaller box where all accessories are stored. Inside you will find a good quality HDMI cable, an AC adapter (12V/2A), a remote control along with two AA batteries, a component and a composite cable, a USB 3.0 cable and a quick guide. We would prefer to see a full manual included but with the recent software updates of the GUI this would be rendered outdated very quickly.
When we first saw the PlayOn!HD2 we thought that AC Ryan had made a mistake and sent us the older model. The two units are almost identical, only the glossy finish of the new PlayOn!HD2 distinguishes it somewhat from its predecessor. To tell you the truth we wanted to see a new design, not because we didn't like the old one, but just for facechange.
The front of the unit follows a minimalistic design so you will find only the power button which uses LED lighting, red when the unit is in standby and bright white while it's active. On the rear side we find the grill of the 40 mm fan, the power input and most of the I/O connections. Namely the latter are two S/PDIF sound outputs (coaxial and optical), a gigabit LAN port, an HDMI 1.3 video/sound out, a composite audio/video out and a component video out. On the one side of the player we also find a USB 3.0 slave port, two USB 2.0 host ports and a memory card slot which accepts SD/SDHC/MMC/MS/MSPro cards. The inclusion of USB 3.0 along with the Gigabit Ethernet port are the two major upgrades of the new player, compared to the old one. Finally, on the other side of the player we find the Ez Drive Slot which allows you to easily install/remove the HDD. However if you attempt to remove the HDD for the first time you need to apply excessive force. After several in and outs the mechanism softens and the drive is removed easier.
Although the exterior is almost the same with the previous PlayOn!HD the interior is completely different. The main PCB is very small and occupies only a small portion of the roomy interior. We are pretty sure that AC Ryan could make the PlayOn!HD2 far smaller but for a weird reason they chose to keep these dimensions. It seems that they had some spare cases to use.
The heart of the system is the RTD1185DD which runs at 500MHz, 25% faster than the processor used in its predecessor (RTD1073). The new CPU is accompanied by 256 MB of DDR2 ram (NT5TU64M16GG-AC) while the older player had only 128 MB. Also a Hynix 512 MB NAND flash memory (HY27UF084G2B), located on the solder side of the main PCB, stores the GUI of the unit. Near the RTD1185DD there is also a mini PCI extension slot for an optional WiFi card.
Once you hit the power on button on the remote, or the button on the face of the player, a PlayOn! logo welcomes you and you have to wait for about 33 sec until you see the player's main menu. Quite a long time, we expected much less from a media player.
The new GUI is completely different from the old one. Here we must note that with the recent software upgrade the new GUI is also available to the owners of the older PlayOn!HD. From the main menu you have access to seven sub-menus or you can play the most recently added music or videos immediately.
From the movies, music and photo submenus you have access to the respective folders on the internal HDD. Via the Files Manager option you can explore all attached, local or remote, devices. Internet Media gives you access to the online services that the PlayOn!HD2 supports. For easier access you can connect a keyboard and a mouse, but unfortunately there is no visible cursor, crippling the mouse's usability. The supported online media services include the famous Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Picasa, Buddy Link, Video Podcasts etc.
Continuing our trip to the main menu, next we find the Jukebox option. Through Jukebox you get many interesting details for your stored movies like covers, rating, actor names, brief summary, details about the movie format etc. In order to setup Jukebox on your player or on a remote network share you need to install YAMJ (Yet Another Movie Jukebox) and follow these instructions.
The next option in the main menu is the most crucial since through this you can setup the player. In the Setup option we find several submenus with system, audio, video, network and misc settings. For each submenu we will refer to the most vital settings.
Through system settings you can choose the menu language, text encoding, system fonts, set the time after which the screen saver will be enabled, scan storage for media files, format the internal HDD etc.
In audio settings you can enable night mode and set the HDMI and SPDIF outputs. If you have connected the player to a Dolby Surround amplifier through optical or coaxial SPDIF then you must select Passthrough at SPDIF output.
Through video settings you can set the aspect ratio, the resolution and refresh rate according to the TV set that the player is connected, enable Plasma mode, set the screen size etc.
Wired or wireless network connections can be configured through Network settings. You will also find some interesting features there like FTP server, Samba, UPnP Server, PPPoE setup and transmission.
Transmission exists in the newer firmaware (r3966) and substitutes the previous BitTorrent client. After you enable it through your favorite browser on a smartphone/PC/laptop, enter the IP address of the player followed by port 9091, for example: 192.168.1.20:9091. Then you will be redirected to the transmission page where you can add / remove torrents to download. Attention, in order to download torrents you need to have a HDD installed in the media player. As it seems you cannot send the torrents you want to download to a network share but only download them straight to internal storage and move them afterwards. Also we noticed that while transmission verifies the downloaded data of a torrent file, the menu response becomes really sluggish, rendering it unusable. However the playback of an 80 mbps MKV file, from the internal drive, while downloading with 1.2 MB/sec speed was excellent without any shutters.
The MSRP for AC Ryan PlayOn!HD2 with the 1 TB HDD pre-equipped is $229 and the Wireless-N 300 mbps USB dongle can be found online for $29.95
Supports all popular (and even more) video/audio formats
Very low power consumption
Managed to play even ultra high bit rate (80 mpbs) MKV files
EZ slot makes the swap of the disk an easy task
USB 3.0 port and a (supposed) Gigabit LAN
Good bundle which, among others, includes a good quality HDMI cable
Download torrents and watch movies at the same time
FTP server capability
Supports USB keyboard/mouse (but no mouse cursor)
Menu response sometimes sluggish, especially with high CPU or disk load
Fan is not temperature controlled
Gigabit LAN delivers only 100 mbit performance
BitTorrent client can be accessed only through browser and not through player menu (ver 3966)
Unknown quality capacitors could limit lifespan
USB WiFi-N dongle costs extra and had compatibility issues with our access point
8.3 I've been an owner of the original AC Ryan PlayOn!HD for a while, so it was relatively easy for me to spot the differences/upgrades coming with the new PlayOn!HD2. First of all, what matters most not only to me, but also to many users out there, is the greatly improved menu response. Although sometimes is still sluggish it's way faster in this model. For sure the new CPU and the larger RAM play a big part in this and also responsible for the extended playback capabilities. The original PlayOn!HD had trouble playing MKV files with 50mbps bit rate and above, while the new model played them flawlessly even the 80 mbps bit rate. In addition the inclusion of the new EZ drive slot and the USB 3.0 port highly boosted the player's usability.
On the other hand some issues we noticed in the older model still remain. Namely the fan still remains audible when you watch a movie with low sound volume. Also the menu speed is faster but still there is room for improvement. As for the Gigabit Ethernet, it completely dissapoints. It did not manage to deliver anywhere close to Gigabit performance in any of our tests, not file copy neither video streaming. Thankfully you can easily remove the internal HDD and attach it directly to your PC through a docking station and fill it with your favorite movies, so you will avoid the long transfer times. Finally, I would like to see a new, more elegant, design with smaller footprint. Since the PlayOn!HD2 uses a much smaller PCB I can't see any reason for it to be housed in such a big case.
Bottom line, the PlayOn!HD2 is a far better media player than its predecessor with lots of potential, which could be delivered through future software updates. If you don't mind the drawbacks we spotted and especially if you can cope with the noise that the small fan outputs then this player will be a good companion for one of your TV sets.
