I just got my M34a last friday
TY richie
Heres my initial impression:
The M34A the newest of the Egreat Family is about 6” x 4” x 2” in size and is very light. In its back portion from left to right are the following slots; power, HDMI, optical, component, composite audio/video, and the 2 USB slots. There are some holes in its side and probably these are holes intended for air. You can almost see from these holes all the internal parts of the gadget. Also located in the back portion of the device is the on/off switch. In its left side panel is an elongated hole for the SATA cable. There are not much good things to see in its front panel besides the little display window and some markings which will give the idea that it is 1080 capable and that the model is M34A.
Looking at the gadget without an idea what it does, you may not be impressed at all and probably you will end up thinking that it is just another project of students in a basic electronic class. The shiny black box is better looking I think. Anyway, very noticeable and with pride in one side of the box is the fact that this is MADE IN CHINA. Once you open the box you would see the small device. Taking the gadget off from the box, you will see the accessories and cables that come with it such as, the remote, power adapter, power cable, SATA converter cable, HDMI, Optical cable, and a software CD.
Connecting the Egreat and the 1TB HD to the rest of my HT is easy. After connecting this to the power outlet I immediately powered it on through the main switch at its back. The remote does not come with a free 2 pcs of AAA battery. So I had to pay my son to run for a battery in the sari-sari store not so near our house. While waiting for the battery, I immediately switched on my Panasonic AX100. In time when the 2 pcs of AAA battery were placed in the remote, the PJ was already full bright. The loading of the file in the M34A was not fast. It took about a minute before I can view and play with the menu. When the unit was tested in E-home, I had the settings saved so I did not do much more of the settings anymore.
This device I think is dependent mostly on the remote. For this reason I immediately thought of buying another remote just in case, if it is available in E-home.
Not so familiar yet with the remote, I just contented myself with the directional arrow and the enter keys. I tried to navigate slowly because I want to read all the settings I chose but since I could not memorize them all, I just pressed and work with the arrow and enter keys, at the end, I finally saw the title of the selected movie. I pressed the enter key and immediately, the “buffering” prompt appeared. For about 5 seconds the movie played.
I have been into bluray movies for quite a time and what I have in mind to compare with the M34A is the PQ of the bluray disc. I also have R1 and R3 DVDs and several DVD 9 bluray sidewalk discs (You know what discs are these), hence I may use my impression on these media as benchmark for comparing this to the PQ of the M34A. Personally if I rank these discs according to my liking, this is how I will rank them. Bluray; DVD9 sidewalk DVDs, R1, R3. I don’t know but based on the number of DVD9 sidewalk blurays I watched, in my AX100 PJ, it seems to me that these sidewalk bluray DVD9 that are made in China are so far better than many of the R1 collections I have. More if I have to compare these to R3 DVDs.
I do not have the ability to present a detailed comparison of the PQ of this device with the discs I mentioned like what we read in some reviews. There may be some information that I cannot mention. But I will try to present what is best better or good for me.
The movie playing was the Gladiator. Having now in mind the PQ of the discs I have mentioned, the video was generally impressive, although I failed to see the crispiness and the sharpness and detail that can be observed in bluray discs. The remote has an option to go to a specific time of the movie, so playing with these buttons (0 + any number[ 1 represents 10 min/ 2 = 20 min, etc.]) it helped me navigate throughout the movie.
I tried and scanned some other movies and my impression is similar. The bluray is still the best in terms of PQ. Overall impression after scanning several movies is that the PQ of the M34A is somehow similar with the sidewalk bluray DVD9s. If the PQ of bluray discs is outstandingly best, the PQ of the M34a, like a sidewalk bluray, is outstandingly better. By the way just an additional info, while toggling on the remote I discovered that by pressing setup while the file is playing, a prompt to adjust the brightness, hue, contrast, etc of the movie will appear. Some of the movie files are dark so I had to adjust brightness appropriately. I can also adjust colors through the PJ, so this will not be a fatal issue.
One observation though, the PQ of animation movies like the Kungfu Panda is excellent. I have seen the bluray of the movie in my friends’ 42” Panasonic and with what I noticed I don’t have concerns with the detail and sharpness of the file. If there may be difference, it may not be the type of difference that is immediately observable.
Not so familiar with the use of optical connection in my receiver, it took me real bad time to set it up and accept digital audio signal from the optical cable. After several liters of perspiration, at last I already can hear the audio signal on my 7.1 speakers as processed by my pioneer receiver. I am not so critical on the audio and not as much as the video part. Another thing, I really can’t hear any difference in terms of the AQ of the HD file on the M34A as compared to the AQ of all my discs. My Sony S301 can process True HD and can relay that signal to my receiver by analog but it is not a disadvantage if I use digital instead. Some reviews here indicate that the DTS of the Egreat is more subtle than the DTS on the disc, but as of this moment, I haven’t reached that conclusion yet. For me, they are all the same.
Until now I am still exploring possibilities through the remote.
