DivX and Xvid encoded videos are mainstream. DivX compatible DVD players are ten a penny, letting you watch ‘downloaded’ videos in the comfort of your living room (the way nature intended) and not hunched up in front of a PC. But if you’ve got a library of videos sitting neatly on your PC, the chore of burning these to CD or DVD may not seem too appealing. The recent crop of media streamers let you browse media on a PC wirelessly in the comfort of your armchair, but what if you don’t want your PC switched on 24/7 just in case you fancy watching a copy of Lock Stock? What if your budget doesn’t stretch to a fully fledged Home Theatre PC or Media Center? Help is at hand with Freecom’s Media Player.
The Freecom Media Player comes in two separate flavours – one with a wireless network connection and HDMI port (the Freecom Media Player 350 WLAN), the other with a wired network connection (the Freecom Media Player 35) which we look at in detail in this mini-review. You can also buy the Media Player in a stripped down version without a harddrive and both can be used as an external harddrive.
The look and feel
It may seem strange, but there’s nothing quite directly comparable with Freedom Media Player. There are, of course, plenty of DVD players with DivX support and just as many media streamers that play PC files on your TV. But there’s very few players dedicated to playing back content directly from a harddrive, which the Freecom Media Player does. In fact the box is little more than a gloried harddrive enclosure with media connections.
Coming in at just a little bigger than a standard PC harddrive, the Media Player sits vertically on a stand, which does look slightly out of place amongst other traditional DVD players. At the front are rudimentary functions and three LED indicators (one for power, one for disk access and one for network activity). There’s also a rather large blue light on the navigation panel, which can luckily can be turned off. The front panel is grey, covered with clear Perspex and features two exposed screws, which gives the unit a rugged rather than sleek look favoured by most modern media units. It does suggest that Freecom pitched this as more of a portable unit than something to sit looking pretty with the rest of your AV equipment.
The unit ships with a small flimsy remote which is standard amongst most cheap AV hardware (most particularly freeview TV receivers). Although functioning perfectly well, I would have expected something a little more robust for the price. The rear of the unit features PC connections through both USB 2.0 and Ethernet. There are also AV connections including component (enabling up to 1080i) and optical out.
The user interface
The user interface is fairly basic, which makes it easy to navigate but won’t win any beauty competitions. It’s certainly puts functionality over looks which isn’t a bad thing given the poor and complex menus available on many modern AV units. The first screen gives you the option of either playing files directly from the Freecoms’ internal drive or connecting the unit to a network. In the case of the Media Player 35 the means the unit must be near a wired network connection. Although most households situate their router on the main phone connection, which is normally near the main TV, this can cause complications when the router is some distance from the Media Player.
However, although the Media Player has a network connection, this was originally designed for media streaming and the connection is therefore slow. It was only latter through a firmware upgrade that the unit was capable of copying files through the network connection. But due to the original concept of media streaming, the transfer rate remains slow. So if you’re in a hurry, the only way to transfer files is to use the USB connection. The size of the unit makes it fairly practical to move it to the PC, but the Media Player does have to be plugged in at the main to transfer files.
As a stand alone DivX player, the unit works very well. I’ve experienced no playback glitches or freezes for example.. Files load quickly and can be organized into folders on the harddrive – in fact the unit itself is really just a glorified harddrive enclosure. There are other functions on offer, but again these are fairly rudimentary and don’t really add much in terms of value (the picture viewer is basic and stretches all images on a widescreen TV for example.)
However, as a portable DivX player, the Freecom Media Player can’t be faulted. It does exactly what you need without being overly complex. There are limitations such as not being able to watch High Definition mkv files, but then for the price you can’t really expect much more. A sold unit which works exactly as advertised. Just don’t expect anything more than this and you’ll be happy.
