Review: Patriot Box Office PVP (Page 1 of 2)
Written by
Steve Lake
Posted on: Feb 17, 2010 at 02:35pm
Section:
Hardware
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Today I'm going to be taking a look at the Linux powered Patriot Box Office (PBO), a Personal Video Player (PVP) designed for the home entertainment or theater system. The device is small, easy to use, and provides all the basic features that someone would want in a PVP system. So, let's move on to the system and take a look around.
UnboxingHere's a quick overview of the PBO shortly after it's been unboxed.
As you can see, the PBO comes standard with screws (for mounting the hard drive), a composite audio/video cable, power brick, remote, the PBO unit itself, a user cd which includes the manual and a transcoding tool for Windows users, an HDMI cable, batteries for the remote, and a quick start guide.
As an additional added feature, you can pick up their special wireless adapter for use in the device for those who prefer to use wireless networking. Now, from here on out I won't have any other screenshots, as there's no easy way for me to get them, and taking pictures with a digital camera just doesn't work and really does not do the PBO any justice.
OverviewThe PBO has an impressive list of specs for a simple Linux powered device. Here's some of the benefits and features the device offers:
- Works with any USB storage devices
- Expandable internal storage (IE, you can add a HD)
- Network Streaming - Stream media files through your wired or wireless (optional Patriot wifi adapter required) home network from any PC or file server with SMB access.
- File transfer - Copy or transfer files between USB, NAS, Networked PC's, and the HD.
- BitTorrent downloading - Download and manage up to 5 torrents at once through your PBO.
- Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) - Support for UPnP streaming on UPnP cabable devices such as Sony Playstation® and Microsoft Xbox®.
- Picture viewing - You can create slide shows to present to your family.
- Movie preview - Preview movies prior to playing them.
- Full function media playback - Fast forward, rewind, pause, zoom, pan, etc.
- Full HD Media Playback - Resolutions up to 1080p!
- Supports subtitles - So if you have a movie with subtitles, it'll support it.
- Music playback - Listen to your entire music library with fast forward, rewind, pause, repeat and shuffle options.
- HDMI and composite video connections
- Full support of AC3, AAC, DTS digital audio
- and much more!
The unit also supports a wide range of media formats. Here's a list of what's supported.
Supported video formats: MPEG1 (AVI/ MKV/ TS/ DAT/ MPG/ MPEG/ VOB); MPEG2 (MKV/ DAT/ MPG/ MPEG/ VOB/ ISO/ IFO/ TS/ TP)/ M2TS; MPEG4 (AVI/ MP4/ MKV/ MOV/ WMV/ ASF); DivX 3/4/5/6, Xvid (AVI/ MKV/ MP4/ MOV) H.264/ AVC TS/ AVI/ MP4/ MKV/ MOV/ FLV)/ M2TS; VC-1 (TS/ AVI/ASF/WMV)/M2TS/ WMV9 (ASF/WMV) REAL VIDEO 8/9/10 (RM/RMVB)
Supported audio formats: MP3, MPEG, Dolby® Digital, DTS™, WMA, PCM, LPCM, ADPCM, FLAC, WAV, AAC, RA, OGG, MKA
Now, while it wasn't listed, I got a nice surprise when I found that it would even play an OGM file, which is awesome, given how rare that format is. The fact that it also supports MKV's was a huge plus. The device outputs video in either composite or HDMI. Data transfer is handled via either USB or network, or you can hook up the device directly to the computer as a portable hard drive of sorts. Well, the PC treats it as such. There's even a USB host port in the front for connecting pen drives and the like.
Another neat feature is that the device has a power off switch in the back. So no more need to unplug the device if you don't want it on. Of course, if you *do* install a hard drive into the unit (or even if you don't), the device is incredibly portable. It's only 5.5"x5.8"x2", and could easily fit into a jacket pocket, a purse (a normal sized one, not those wallet sized purses), a bag, etc, and could go with you anywhere you wanted.
All you need is the unit, the power plug, and if they don't have either HDMI or component cables where you're going, you could bring those along too very easily. The whole thing could easily fit into a bag or pouch no bigger than a quart freezer bag. Although, given the static those put out, I'd be sure that whatever you carry it in doesn't have static issues.
Home ScreenThe Home Screen consists of three options: File Copy, Browser, and Setup. File Copy allows you to copy files between the Hard Drive (HD), Network, and a USB pen drive or external hard drive. First off I want to say that the home screen looks awesome, even on my crummy old SD TV. (just FYI, I tested this both on an SDTV and an HDTV) The screen is snappy, responsive, and has good popup animation. Now, let's look at each of the different sections this offers.
File CopyThe File Copy section is fairly straight forward, and allows you to copy files from either a USB pen drive or hard drive, the internal hard drive, or from the network to any of those three devices, or the trash can. To copy files you first browse to the files and folders you want to move and select them, then move over to the destination and select where they should land.
Honestly, I believe this section of the unit is nifty, but after playing with it, I find it both redundant, and needless as, aside from the USB to HDD/Network copy ability, I find no need for this section, as there are other, better ways to copy files.
And speaking of file management, since we're on the subject, I actually installed a hard drive into this unit, and then copied over my media files to the device over the network. It took 2 days. Yes, 2 days. I only got a network speed of 1.5mbps up to 2mbps. No 100mbps that my network is capable of. The nic is supposed to be 10/100, but I did not get that. I got at best 2.5% of my network's capabilities. I've got a geriatric old file server that does file transfers faster than that, and it's an old beast that has half the processing power and an OS twice as heavy duty, and despite that it gets 90mbps hands down without trying. So something is wrong with the way the PBO handles network file transfers to it.
And it doesn't matter if you use SMB (samba) to copy files from your pc or media server directly to the device, or if you grab the files directly from the device via the file copy section. That's a huge thumbs down for me. But once all the videos are loaded, you're golden.
Also, file copies directly from the PC via the USB connection are fine. Go figure that one out. So in short, if you copy files from a device to a device, using the system interface, or you copy them over the network to the PBO, it takes forever. But if you pull the unit aside, and plug it into your PC as though it were a portable Hard Drive, files just transfer over like lightning. Go figure that out out. Which then begs the question, why is the only fast way to copy over files also one of the most seemingly tedious and ridiculous ones?
Now if you're just doing updates, file copies to the unit over the network won't be so bad as you won't be transferring such large amounts of data. It's only when you're first setting up the unit and loading fresh data onto the hard drive that it takes a long time, and faster speeds are really necessary.
BrowserThe Browser is the systems way of browsing files. And no, it can't go on the web with it, so don't ask.
The browser allows you to browse files from five sources: USB, HDD, Network, UPNP, and Playlist. I wasn't able to test the UPNP function, as this really only works with things like the Playstation and the Xbox, but it's there if you want to play with it.
Browsing both the USB or the HDD is essentially the same. And before I go much further, I want to say that having a video preview pane here is completely silly. To add insult to injury, it's taking up half the screen and serves no purpose in this section. That should go away. So should the file type sorting options above, as those serve no purpose in the source selection screen, but they will both come in handy later on.
Another thing that doesn't need to be there in the HDD or USB screens is the device selection step. There's only one device, so why do I have to select it? Anyways, once you're into the next screen you're given a list of files and folders that are on the drive. This screen here allows you to start file and folder browsing. Now I don't mind sorting through multiple levels of folders here, as that's my own poison I created and thus I have to live with it. But if there's one thing that I hate, it's needless steps. (I'll have a few ways to cut out a few unneeded steps later on at the end of this review that will correct that.)
Once you browse to a file you want, you're given the option to play it. But not until it preloads the file and gets the file information. And I have to say that, so far the speed is just amazing. Other than obvious lag caused by network or hard drive/usb delays, the system itself is extremely snappy. Now that's not to say that this area couldn't use improvement, but I'll leave that until the end of the review.
Now, while in this window, and before playing, you're given four sort options at the top of the screen: All, Music, Photo, and Movies. Selecting them both automatically refreshes the file list, and sorts based on known formats that fit those search criteria. You can also build playlists via the browser, and then go back and access them via the Playlist option available on the first screen of the browser. Due note however that you'll need a hard drive in the unit in order to take advantage of this.
SettingsThe settings screen has five basic areas: Audio, Video, Network, System, and Misc. Under Audio you can chose between Night Mode and Digital Output type. Video allows you to set the aspect ratio, brightness, contrast, digital noise reduction, TV system (ie, NTSC, PAL, 480p, etc), and if you want to do 24hz resolution at 1080p.
Network allows you to specify how your device will communicate over the network, either via the wired connect, or wirelessly via the wireless adapter shipped by Patriot (that's available separately). This includes setting up static IP's for use on the network, wireless AP information, and more. System allows you to setup the menu language, text encoding (IE, how the text will appear or be interpreted), login control (only available if you have a HD installed), BT and Samba (allows control of the bittorrent and samba file sharing system, but only if a HD is installed), system update (you have to download and update manually via a file from patriot's website), time, HDD format, and restore defaults.
And finally, Misc has resume play (a nice feature, but poorly executed compared to other methods of doing this), slide show timing, transition effect, Ken Burns (a rather nifty little feature that allows zooming and panning of an image or video), seemless playback (allows you to move between videos without stopping after each video), background music (you need to have mp3's already on the system, and a source folder specified for this to work. It also only works when in the browser screen.), screen saver, and movie preview.
Video PlaybackSo let's say you play a video. It will load the video very quickly, and the video playback is incredible, no skipping, no lag, and no problems whatsoever. Even the lag and load time when automatically switching between videos is incredibly fast. SD and HD quality of the video is excellent as well. And yes, I admit I'm not a videophile, and while videophiles might find something to nitpick on the quality of the video produced by the unit. But for the other 95% of viewers, it's more than good enough. In fact, it's great.
I tested all of the supported formats, and aside from a couple of videos that failed to load, every one of the supported formats loaded. Even OGM formatted files. Given how little that format is used, that left me pleasantly surprised. The one format I had the biggest issues with was WMV files. Of course, given that Microsoft changes their video encoding standard every time they bump their version number, and that only WMV9 format is supported, that doesn't surprise me. So that's an issue that can only be blamed on Microsoft.
Also, video up to 1080p is fully supported on the player, and yes, it plays even video that big without a single issue, skip, any lag, etc. I'm extremely thrilled and pleased with how well it played. There's also a reasonably good playback information screen you can bring up.
Photo and MP3 playback was also good, and very simple to navigate and use. The biggest problem I had in this section, (and many others as well) was the fonts. They're decent sized in some areas, but could serve to be larger. In other areas they need to be a LOT bigger. Some of the dialogs have fonts far too small to read, and even at a reasonable distance they required me to squint or get out of my chair to read them. Same is true with the video information popup.
That's something that really needs to be fixed. If nothing else, they need to all have consistent sized fonts. Preferably large and easily readable on a 25" screen. I say for a screen that small, because with component out, 19-25" screens will be the norm for people using this on older SD televisions.
Also, some people will ask if the player has DVD or BlueRay iso support. Right now, no. However, the beta firmware coming in the near future will have that support, although it will only be preliminary, but will improve over time.
Another thing that will bum out some people is that there is *no* thumbnail support in video preview or the file browser. Also, I couldn't get any confirmation if that would come in future versions of the firmware, but given how popular it is, I can easily see that coming.
And lastly, the PBO does support chaptering on MKV files, but it's rather flaky and doesn't always work, and when it does it's only basic support.
Other Stuff, Problems, and GripesFor all the great stuff this player has, it also has its problems. The first thing is the way the remote is setup. For one, the buttons are *sorta* laid out in a logical fashion, and yet there's buttons mixed in with other buttons that are completely unrelated. Take for instance the bottom grouping of buttons. There's a skip function in there that doesn't belong in there, but rather up with the playback buttons.
Same with the slow key. The setup button is tossed in with the playback and volume keys (I'd say it would be a good idea to swap those two). Most of the rest of the groupings of buttons are alright, but they really need to improve the organization and groupings of the buttons, and especially the sorting of them by relevance. That's something I think would do a lot to improve the remote.
Honestly, if you want a great example of a great remote (and the FOSS community will likely shoot me for saying this), take a look at the Microsoft Media Center remote. All of the most important buttons are fat, easy to work with, and the layout is not complex at all. Just point, click, use. I have yet to find another remote as nice as that one. And no, it's not because it's a Microsoft remote. It's simply because they got their remote right the first time.
Another gripe I had was how the image spills off the screen. Not just a little. I'm talking that it spills off the screen a lot. About 5% of the image on both sides, and in some cases 5% of the image at the top disappears off the screen, regardless of what view setting I have the unit set at.
Another gripe is the browser screen template. That need some serious improvements. I'll be giving some suggestions on how that can be done later in this review in my recommendations for improvements section. (these would be recommendations for Patriot to consider undertaking)
Another gripe is how the system handles fonts. Or more specifically, how they're sized. The fonts on the main screen, the browser, and in the system settings is fine. They are not fine in the dialogs, as they're very small and hard to read. I had to lean forward and squint to read them. The video information screen also has fonts too small to read properly.
Another thing is how it handles rewinding videos. Previous and next work great, and so does fast forward, but rewind really has issues. It's like the device is fighting against the play function which wants to move the video forward. So you have to go to 4x rewind in order to properly rewind the video.
Now on a positive note, despite all the downers I've listed here, the USB wireless connection worked beautifully and actually played nicely with my sometimes picky network. So that was a huge plus for me, even if I only use wireless sparingly. The reason this is good in my book is not on my account, but rather that it means other people who have wireless will have an easy time using it.
Aside from those few things, I really didn't find a lot that I didn't like about the unit. I really found it to be a great PVP overall. Yes, it needs a few improvements to its existing features, but overall it gets two thumbs up from me.
(continue to page 2 for more useful information)
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