XSReviews

AC Ryan Playon!HD Mini 2

Introduction

For those of you that took a look at the AC Ryan Playon!HD2 1TB and thought to yourself, well that looks great, but I already have a PC full of movies, why do I need one in my lounge too? Well, that’s a good question and here to answer it is the Mini 2, the storage free, networking content hub that you’ll soon want in your living room setup.

To find out why, the quickest thing to do would be to skip to the last page and read the conclusion; but we put a lot of work into our reviews here at XSR. Go on, give the whole thing a read, please?

Features and Specifications

A/V Out

  • HDMI 1.3 interface up to 1080p
  • Composite Audio / Video
  • Y/Pb/Pr Video
  • SPDIF Optical TOSLink (digital audio)

Storage Supported

  • USB HDD, USB sticks and other USB Mass Storage Devices
  • File Systems: FAT, FAT32, NTFS, EXT3
  • Network drives: USB2.0 PORTS: 2 x USB 2.0 (USB-A)

USB Supported

  • Add ports with USB hubs, USB card readers
  • 2x USB 2.0 (USB-A)

Network – Wired

  • Gigabit

Network – Wirless:

(Optional)

  • Wireless WLAN 802.11b/g/n 300Mbps via USB WLAN adaptor (optional, not incl.)
  • Supports WLAN security WEP, WPA
  • Supports WLAN Peer-to-Peer (connects wireless without router)

Network – Wirless Built-In

(Selected models only)

  • Wireless-N via a PCI-e port with dual antenna

Video Formats Supported

  • AVI / MKV / TS / TP / TRP / M2TS / MPG / MP4 / MOV / M4V / VOB / ISO / DVD-ISO / IFO / DAT / WMV / ASF / RM / RMVB / FLV resolution up to 720p / 1080i / 1080p / BD-ISO

Video Codecs Supported

  • MPEG-1 / MPEG-2 / MPEG-4 SP/ASP/AVC (H.264 | x264) / XviD / DivX / WMV9 (VC-1) / RealVideo 8/9/10 (up to 720P)

Video Output Supported

  • PAL / NTSC / 480p / 576p / 720p / 1080i 50Hz / 1080i 60Hz / 1080p 50Hz / 1080p 60Hz / 1080p 24FPS

Audio Formats Supported

  • MP3 / MP2 / WMA / AAC / FLAC / WAV / OGG Vorbis / PCM / LPCM / MS-ADPCM / LC-AAC / HE-AAC / COOK / RA-Lossless

Audio Output Supported

  • Stereo
  • Dolby Digital AC3 5.1 (passthrough & downmix to stereo)
  • Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 (passthrough)
  • Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (passthrough & downmix to stereo)
  • DTS Digital Surround 5.1 (passthrough & downmix to stereo)
  • AAC 7.1 (passthrough & downmix to stereo)
  • FLAC

Image Formats Supported

  • JPEG, HD JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIF, PNG

Subtitles Format Supported

  • SRT, SMI, SSA, IDX/SUB, SUB

Network – Wirless Built-In

(Needed for subtitles)

  • Unicode (UTF8), BIG5 (Traditional Chinese), Western, Turkish, Central European, Greek, Cyrillic, SE European, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Thai

Power

  • DC-IN 5V Standby: 0,3 W / Active: 8,2 W

Cooling

  • No Fan (Advanced Fanless Cooling for processor)
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6 responses to “AC Ryan Playon!HD Mini 2”

  1. Jan Vissers avatar
    Jan Vissers

    As a satisfied user of the old AC Ryan Playon! HD MINI1 “I wanted to buy new equipment because the gigabit data stream over my gigabit network, and thus the ‘heavy’ files to my TV set could stream without faltering.

    But what happens is that a downgrade rather than purchasing an upgrade.

    The menu where you must scroll through file consists of large icons, which only 8 fit on your screen.
    So, if you have many files in a folder, it may leave you a long scroll until you have found the correct file.
    (There is a ‘list’ button on the remote, but this is a detour, and not at all practical)

    Also it goes very wrong with the subtitles of mkv video files.
    The unit takes the first .srt-file from the folder, regardless of the video file. So you should always manually add your subtitle manually via the configuration sub-menu. (The name of video and subtitle are always identical, with no spaces or dots)
    The previous ‘Playon! HD MINI1 “I had it two years in my possession, I’ve never had this problem.

    Also the sound goes mute, and you can hit a few times forward and backward, to get the sound back.

    At first I thought it were beginners flaws of a new device, but these problems have existed since February 2010, and AC Ryan has still not be able to correct these problems through firmware updates.
    I’m looking for another media-player, because this unit is a bad buy overall. This unit has won prizes, but many buyers experiencing the same problems as me.

    Reply
  2. Jimbo avatar
    Jimbo

    This review is unacceptable. The main use of this product is streaming HD content. And you dont even test it and even say “If you don’t want wired, it can manage 300MB/s wireless with an optionally purchased wireless dongle. I doubt it’ll do 1080p at those speeds, but 720p might be possible.” True, the wireless dongle has to be purchased seperately, but every semi-decent review should test it. And you also provide wrong info since it DOES in fact stream 1080p without any stutter or lag (the original Playon HD could not over wireless).

    Reply
    1. Whoopty avatar
      Whoopty

      Thanks for the pointers Jimbo. We’ll take it on board and try and improve our next review.

      Reply
  3. Phil Roe avatar
    Phil Roe

    Purchased the AC Ryan Playon!HD Mini 2 with the wireless dongle
    WLAN 802.11b/g/n 300Mbps via USB WLAN adaptor.

    I am having trouble getting it to work. I have followed the set-up manual and am running it through a wireless network connection. PC with NETGEAR WN311B to a NETGEAR Wireless N-300 Modem Router DGN2200.

    What else do I need to do to get it to stream?

    Reply
    1. Whoopty avatar
      Whoopty

      Have you setup your network connection through the settings menu?

      Reply
  4. Jeff Sherwin avatar
    Jeff Sherwin

    No Ogg. No Way.

    Reply

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