Sigma Designs has yet to reveal their latest flagship HD decoding chipsets but the SMP proved to be more than capable to surpass the latest RTDDD in terms of image quality something which can be easily seen if you compare the posted screenshots with the ones from the R RTDDD by Egreat we reviewed a while back. However this is pretty much the only place where the new Sigma Designs chipset beats the RTDDD since i failed to see or hear any other significant differences.
Bellow you will find 4 different screenshots from the 4 specific MKV media files i mentioned above featuring a bit rate between 20 and 35Mbps. The resolution has remained unchanged however the files are compressed to JPEG to save space on the server at x Because of that i had high expectations from the TVA and luckily it didn't disappoint me.
The picture quality is amazing, audio is equally great, the GUI is well designed and easy to navigate although perhaps too in-depth for some people and you also get a plethora of features and connectors all in a compact media player which you can move around easily.
The TV series is a brand new product so you may not be able to find them everywhere at this exact moment however the recommended retail price is set at USD for the USA while in the EU it currently retails at around Euros. On top of that add the very tempting price tag and you've got yourself one of the most complete cost-effective media players in the market today and that's why it steals our Platinum Award. This website uses cookies to manage authentication, navigation, and other functions.
By using our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device. Share this post. Two product images are also present at the right side. To the back you will see your usual array of inputs and outputs.
A few inputs worth noting, there is a USB 3. Here is a picture of all the goods, which includes a USB 3. Overall the TV is a nice little machine. There is no fan so it is silent. The casing is aluminum and feels sturdy. The small size means you can put this nearly anywhere, and the inclusion of an IR extender means you can get creative with where you place including mounting on the back of a TV.
There is an option to change the default skin a variety of colors come pre loaded and rearrange some of the view, but otherwise the UI is fairly basic. As you can see in the screenshot below, when you select a Blu-ray folder you will get an option to play lite , Open, or Cancel. Assuming you choose to play you will then be presented with a list of playlists to choose from. In most cases it should be easy to choose the main movie playlist, but as many of you who are reading this know, the playlists for full rip Blu-rays can get tricky and in particular if you are looking to play back an extra feature it becomes trial and error.
The remote control is IR based which means direct line of sight is needed. However, an IR extender is included which will allow you to conveniently tuck the TV out of sight yet maintain full control. We are not talking lightning speeds, but it is noticeably smoother with operations such as scrolling through a list. One area where the Dunes have always excelled is in network performance. Testing over smb you can see how I set up here , I did not have any issues playing back all my high bitrate content on the TV I did have Fast SMB enabled called Dune Network Playback Accelerator and I believe it is recommended that all users who play content over the network enable this feature in the settings.
Tests will be broken into 2 sections. The reason for this is because out of the box the TV does not support HD Audio bitstreaming, and decoding is done to 2. There is however an unofficial patch which adds this functionality back. The first section will be based on tests using the OOTB support, and the second section will be to highlight any changes using the patch. When bitstreaming, TrueHD would get downmixed to 2. For multi channel PCM though, the audio gets sent through as multi channel.
However, in doing this playback gets very jerky and unwatchable. Since there is no internal media jukebox, reliance on 3rd party jukeboxes is needed for those looking for a better way to manage their media collection. Really not much to report here. The usual requested online services such as Vudu, Netflix, Hulu, etc… are not present. Overall I found the TV to be a nice little machine. As with any new chip there are expected to be bugs at first, such as periodic issues with HD Audio dropouts.
Also, although growing in popularity, BD lite use with Blu-ray folder rips still suffer from some noticeable issues, including skipping during playback of seamless branch Blu-rays and lack of support for forced subtitles.
When it comes to HD Audio it is a tough call. If you decide to go with the patch you regain HD Audio bitstreaming and decoding to multi channel, but will run into issues for any TrueHD mkvs.
As well, since the patch is unofficial it is unclear what other affects it may have either now or with future firmware updates. The key thing to remember is that the TV is not meant to replace the current Dune series of players.
The current players the Smart and Premium series are meant to be the flagship models. Hi, my name is Damian, and I'm tech gadget addict! Although I always had some interest in technology, it wasn't until I got my EX and more importantly found Mediasmartserver. When I am not writing for Mediasmartserver. What are the biggest differences between those? Also, since the other Dune players are running the older chip, this has allowed for time for the fw to mature, so more stability.
User Name. Spending less than 3 hours with the retail version of Diablo III finally in 4 days is not really what i had in mind for the 14th of this month certainly not after waiting for so long but for good or bad business comes always before pleasure i know, i know especially when you have a schedule to keep.
Now how many of you recall me saying that so far there have been more media players delivered to us inside than any other year in one of my last media player reviews?
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