TrulyObscure - article - gadgeteer - scenes - Cirago - Roku: Media Players and More

Posted by Greg May Feb 26, 08:22 PM to gadgeteer : scenes -

If you’re reading this, chances are that you have a fair bit of digital content- movies, pictures, music- stored on your computer, and enjoy web video as well. You probably also have a TV that you use as your primary screen for watching films and television, but may not have a good way to connect the two. We’ve got gigabytes of data, torrent files galore, but always enjoy the lean-back experience of our 50-inch HD screen over the smaller monitors attached to our PCs. Media players offer a convenient way to enjoy other content, without needing to build a power-sucking and expensive home theater PC (that typically don’t fit next to your receiver). Sure, the Xbox 360 and PS3 offer decent media player functions, but both have issues with various codecs and files, not to mention require additional remote controllers and can be annoying to navigate.

We’ll start with the Roku HD-XR, model N1101. Offering a few advantages over it’s sister models, it capably plays high definition video and has HDMI (unlike the SD version), and offers built-in wireless N (unlike the HD). It’s still fairly small and compact though, about the size of a paperback book, and the sleek black won’t look out of place next to or below your home theater gear. Originally introduced as a great player for Netflix On-Demand, the Roku boxes still handle that service quite well, but have expanded to a whole host of other features. Connectivity options include the aforementioned HDMI, but also optical audio, component video, S-Video, and composite video ports. The video quality is only 720p, but that’s still plenty for most applications. Audio is uniformly excellent, depending on your source material of course.

We plugged the HD-XR in using HDMI, juiced it up, and went through the network setup. Our wireless router was automatically detected, and since we were using wireless-N, it connected at the highest speed (older networks are perfectly supported as well, of course). If you don’t have wireless-N or aren’t sure, it’s probably best for you to purchase the slightly lower-end model, as the upgraded capability is really the only advantage. If you do have 802.11n, you’ll notice the difference. The included remote is tiny and fairly easy to lose, but offers the basics. An iPhone and iPod Touch remote application is available though, if you’d prefer! There is a few second delay when playing a movie or unpausing to allow the video to buffer, but it was quite good, and of course depends on your broadband speed (1.2 Mbps is the minimum recommended). Navigation was also seamless, as the box was built for pretty much one task only.

And that’s the downside- not a lot of extra features. It also offers Amazon Video on Demand (essentially pay-per-view), as well as some neat audio services like Pandora, pictures from Flickr, and some web video services. Notably absent are Hulu and Youtube though, nor can you use content from your computer or any plugged-in source (despite the USB port). There isn’t any built-in storage, no DVR capabilities, but as a simple and effective Netflix box, it works quite well. $129 is a bit steep, in our opinion, since it’s not that much more for a Blu-ray player that offers many of the same capabilities (or even an Xbox 360 or PS3). However, Roku does offer two other models at sub-$100 pricepoints that should tempt you to the couch to best enjoy your Netflix membership and Pandora account.

If it’s extra features you want, Cirago has you covered with their CMC2000. Now, you can’t use it for Netflix or Amazon Video on Demand. But you can do the following:

• Use SD, MMC, MemoryStick and MemoryStick Pro cards to view your photos
• Turn the CMC2000 into a network attached storage device
• Listen to internet radio stations
• Record video via the inputs, simultaneous playback and recording, and even time-shifting (DVR)

Just a bit larger than the Roku, this one offers built-in storage of either 500GB or 1TB- enough for plenty of your favorite media. Two USB ports complement the whole host of other assorted inputs and outputs, offering expandable storage capacity- simply plug-in your USB hard drive or thumb drive to view or transfer files. No S-video, but HDMI, component, composite, and optical connections offer plenty of support. Wired internet offers more stable bandwidth at a higher speed than wireless, or use the optional wireless-G adapter (no 802.11n support, unfortunately). We loved that all of the cables were included (you need to buy some with the Roku box). And the remote here is on the other end of the spectrum, plenty large, if a bit complicated and still lacking back-lighting. The box itself looks unassuming, but at least offers a front-panel memory card slot. The USB ports are located, a bit unfortunately, on the rear.

The best part of it all is the price- $175 or so for the lower-capacity version. That price is quite fair, considering that it can do almost anything a home theater PC can, with the notable exception of serve as a BitTorrent client. The NAS functions aren’t great, and require a bit of configuration, but complement a well-rounded feature set making it a pretty great little multimedia center. We wouldn’t knock the Popcorn Hour down just yet though, because the UI on the Cirago is a bit awkward and especially browsing movies can be slow and tedious.

Either way, these are actually nicely complementary devices- the Roku for streaming video from internet and subscription sources and the Cirago to serve as a network media player and server, plus DVR. Perhaps the feature sets could overlap a bit more, but for the moment, either way you win- it simply depends on your viewing habits.