Digital Media Player Buyer's Guide

Digital media players are a convenient way to store and access videos, music, and photos without the expense of a computer. As consumers increasingly shift away from DVDs and other physical media towards downloaded digital content, the variety of digital media players on the market has grown tremendously. Aided by marketing efforts of larger vendors like Western Digital and Asus, the general public has become increasingly aware of this product segment.

At this relatively early stage, the market for digital media players may seem confusing to someone who has not kept up with the latest developments. Major consumer electronics manufacturers such as Sony and Panasonic have yet to make any serious entries into this market nor spent any marketing funds for buyer education. There are bits and pieces of information floating on the web regarding digital media players, all valuable but much of it is disorganized and often very technical in their presentation. This buyer's guide will present an introduction to the digital media player market in general layman's terms as much as possible. Hopefully, this will serve as a foundation on which buyers can continue to build their product knowledge through additional more focused research.

What Are Digital Media Players?
This guide specifically deals with media player devices that are designed to be used with an external display such as a TV or monitor. These media players are primarily used for video playback though they are also convenient for listening to music or viewing photos. They support a wide range of video file formats and provide a menu based user interface and playback control that is similar to other consumer audio/video electronics such as DVD players. The media files can be played back from a variety of storage types, including internal hard disk drives, USB drives, or flash memory cards.

Digital Media Players Are "Solution" Based
Just as computers are built with common hardware and software components, digital media players are built around common platforms referred to as "solutions". For example, the popular Western Digital WD TV media player is based on a Sigma Designs 863x solution, which consists of the 863x hardware, and the basic firmware that goes with it. Western Digital used this solution as the foundation and added some customizations to result in their finished WD TV product.

Like the WD TV, every digital media player on the market is similarly solution-based. There is currently a number of competing solutions on the market, each with its own set of strengths and weaknesses.

The benefit with solution-based media players is that it brings a certain degree of comparability to the marketplace, where it is safe to assume that different media players using the same underlying solution will have comparable performance capabilities. Media player manufacturers can and often do enhance hardware and firmware features by adding their own customizations, but there is a limit to the type of enhancements that can be added. For example, video format support is nearly impossible to add by the media player manufacturer if the underlying solution doesn't already support it. Towards this end, media player manufacturers have shown a great deal of innovation in their customization efforts, sometimes adding important features that are missing from the underlying solution. Understanding the common shared features between media players, what their limitations are, as well as the customized differences are key to picking a media player that best meet the buyer's needs.

Entry Level Solution
The current dominant solution for entry level digital media players is the Amlogic AML8613. Released in early 2009, this solution's key strengths are low cost, small size, and excellent stability. Inexpensive AML8613-based players on the market like the NBOX player sell for less than $40, which is cheaper than what a low end DVD player costs. The Micca Slim, also using the AML8613, packs an internal drive bay for a 2.5" hard disk drive and additional circuitry for providing HDMI output, all in a portable form factor that is barely larger than a portable hard disk drive. AML8613 based players require only 5-10 watts of power, allowing them to run for extended periods of time with excellent stability.

AML8613 based media players support most modern video formats, including important MPEG4 formats such as Divx and Xvid that continue to be the most popular for standard definition video files. Where AML8613 based players fall short is support for HD video content. With its video decoding resolution capped at 720x576 and no support for H.264 and MKV files, AML8613 based players are not able to playback video files in 720p or 1080p resolution. Mitigating this shortfall somewhat is AML8613's ability to upscale and output video to 720p with excellent results, making the most out of the standard definition video files that it does play.

Entry level media players like the NBOX and the Micca Slim are ideal solutions for general purpose use where DVD-quality video is good enough. They are inexpensive enough that one can be put where ever there's a TV in the house while taking up much less space and doesn't require shelf space like DVD players. The Micca Slim also has an optional car power adapter for use on the road - who needs a stack of disks when you can just bring along a small hard drive full of videos?

Mid Level Solution
Western Digital can be credited with bringing the mid level media player market to the attention of the masses with its popular WD TV product. Priced between $90 and $120 depending on features, mid level media players pack a lot of value and performance with very little in the way of compromises. Consequently, this is also the most crowded market segment in terms of solutions:

Sigma Designs can be characterized as the market leader and benchmark for digital medial player solutions. Its 863x solution was one of the first of its type on the market and offered the key strength of broad video format support, including full 1080P decoding and H.264/MKV file handling. More recently, the updated 864x/865x solution provides additional enhancements in terms of performance and features. In general, Sigma Designs players are expected to provide the most complete support for video file formats and the best visual output quality. Representative products using Sigma Designs solutions include Popcorn Hour products and the Western Digital WD TV series (except the WD TV Mini, which is an entry level product that uses the AML8613).

Realtek 1073/1282 is a late 2009 entry into the media player market that has gained a healthy market share for its exceptional price to performance ratio. Slotted somewhere between the older Sigma Designs 863x and the newer 865x in terms of performance and features, the 1073 solution is an attractive alternative due to its lower price, with media players like the Asus O!Play selling for less than comparable Sigma Designs based media players. By trading off a few not-often-used features such as Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD pass-through, 1073 based players like the Kaifa EP5000 are able to include other more useful features such as an internal hard drive bay and Wi-Fi networking at a lower price point. One often noted advantage of 1073 players is their support for RM and RMVB video files, a feature that Sigma Designs solutions lack. The Realtek 1282 solution is similar to 1073 in terms of playback capability but adds recording functions that allow the media player to act as a digital video recorder.

Amlogic 8626H is the most recently announced mid-level media player solution and the market is still waiting for the first products using this solution to show up. At least on paper, it appears to promise even lower prices while providing a level of features and performance that is just below the Realtek 1073. It is prudent to wait until actual products begin shipping to perform an assessment of 8626H based players. The one currently known flaw with this solution is that it does not support VC1 encoded videos, and while this is a much less popular format than H.264, its omission can still be potentially a notable weakness.

Media players in the mid-level market segment pack a lot of features and capability at around the critical price point of around $100. By offering the ability to decode and playback full 1080P HD content, these media players are a good fit for casual to serious home theater use and enjoy a certain degree of being future-proof. Even as 720p remain by far the most popular upper resolution limit for digital video contents, the ability to handle 1080p is important for handling the occasional visual tour-de-force video. In addition to this high level of performance, mid-level media players often have network based features such as being able to play media files stored on another computer on the LAN, or acting as a media file server. Some also come with a built-in BitTorrent client for handling P2P downloads.

In terms of size and power usage, mid-level players are typically similar to a hard cover novel and draw about 20-40 watts depending features. While they are not particularly large, they are also far from being portable and are not convenient for use on the go, especially since most come with sizable power bricks.

High End Solution
When Sigma Designs first released is 863x solution, its then-high cost relegated it to being a high-end solution, with finished media players selling for over $200. Even today, it is normal to find 863x players selling for $170 or more. However, the market has shifted slightly due to the reduced cost of Sigma Designs solutions, as even mid-level media players can incorporate the latest 865x solution at a price near $100. In response, high end market media players have shifted their focus towards additional features and capabilities above and beyond the basic playback functions.

In particular, high end media players may pack in more robust networking capabilities, with gigabit Ethernet or 802.11n Wi-Fi built-in rather than available as an option. Many high end players also either include or have an available optical drive bay for decoding and playing commercial DVD and BD disks. The underlying solution chipset are a variant that handles these encrypted disks with the appropriate decoding keys. With the ability to add large amounts of internal and external storage, high end media players have the potential to become a true central media hub for even the most demanding users. Priced from $200 and up, these players are often made with higher quality materials and are designed in larger form factors that mimic traditional home theater equipment in appearance so that they fit right in as part of an equipment stack.

Media Players for Tweakers
As long as there has been electronics that contain small computers, there has been tweakers who learn in fine detail about these electronics and tune their operations through hardware and software modifications. The same is true with digital media players.

Helping matters somewhat is the fact that most of the mid-level media players, including Sigma Designs and Realtek based players, run on an open source operating system based on Linux with publicly available source code. A sizable culture of tweakers of these media players has thus emerged. By customizing the software, they are able to introduce additional features and fine-tune performance of the players.

Another avenue for tweakers are the DIY crowd who take inexpensive and common PC hardware and install an open source media player software package such as XMBC. While this can be more expensive and time consuming than purchasing a mid-level media player, the resulting system is often more versatile and can be used for multiple purposes other than just a media player. The popularity of this method has grown dramatically within recent months due to the availability of the Ion platform for the low-power Intel Atom processor family. With numerous inexpensive small form factor "bare bones" packages available in the $150 to $200 range, it is possible to put together a customized 1080p-capable media player using XMBC and other free software tools at an attractive total cost.

Conclusion
The shift from physical media to downloaded content is taking place at a rapid pace, but it is all still at a relatively early stage. Digital media player awareness and usage is still limited to the tech savvy group of consumers who tend to be early adopters of emerging product segments. However, the digital media player market has now landed solidly into the second generation of products, with a third generation just over the horizon. Many products on the market are reaching a level of polish and maturity that make them suitable for use by the general public. Price for lower end solutions have also decreased to the point where finished players sell for very affordable price levels in comparison to traditional DVD players. The stage is well set for digital media players to experience rapid growth in popularity as mass consumers get a better understanding of how these devices can enhance their enjoyment of digital media.

Updated 3/2/2010 for freshness. For any questions regarding this buyer's guide, please email support@miccastore.com