Play it again...Samsung
This is why I read the reviews. Never likely to buy stuff, but I love the throw-away irreverence.
Excellent
Samsung’s BD-D6900 3D Blu-ray player is a curious hybrid. Not only does it play Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs but it also has a Freeview HD DVB-T2 tuner and connects to the company’s new Smart TV apps portal. It will even double up as a PVR if you tether it to an external hard drive. It’s not so much a disc spinner as an entertainment …
Well I say "exactly" but what I actually mean is "that's quite close to what i want". If only it had twin tuners and you could record to a USB stick and play it back on a lap top - in fact what i would really like is an internal hard drive but also the option to record to a USB stick for when I fancy watching Alice Roberts somewhere other than my living room.
Now i've gone and said too much.
Anyone know of anything like that on the market at the moment?
Used to be Very crappy, now after updates a lot better and more reliable...
£199 will buy you:
wifi included box with IP tv and iplayer and skyplayer.
will play content from DNLA media servers.
Twin HD+ tuners and internal HD.
Will export recordings (DRM Free on standard Def - not tried HD) to usb stick.
has an internal webpage that allows you download recording directly over the network.
has an external (Fetchtv account reqd) webpage so you can set recordings remotely.
If you have two on the network then content is swapable.
Will do what you want, but its not a perfect machine.
...that as of late Samsung seem to be getting their EPG layout and menu systems pretty much spot on. Yes, there are still an few odd quirks but overall they're pretty good and quite attractive. I was also quite surprised by the amount of video formats one of their TVs would play from USB (HD MKV, MP4, AVI, DIVX, FLV and even 3GP!). The TV itself was one of their cheaper 40" models but I was very impressed with the features and thought that had gone into it for its price range.
Anyhoo, does this device support AnyNet+? I was also pleasantly surprised when the Samsung TV usurped command and control of a Panasonic Blu-Ray player over HDMI, dispensing the need for multiple remotes. Having never previously heard of AnyNet+ I think its a fantastic feature and certainly one that I'll be looking out for with any kit in the future, but it NEVER gets mentioned in ANY reviews here on El Reg or anywhere else for that matter.
Oh, and is 80% the new black here at El Reg? ;)
It all sounded so good until the detail was exposed..
I'd love a device that could record direct to my medfia servers network share, so that I could watch my recordings elsewhere, say the TV in the bedroom. Though they'd need to be in the 'old fashioned' style you know without drm.. like the good ole VHS days.
Wifi = Win
Remote Record = Win /USB only = Fail
HD freeview = Win / 1 Tuner = Fail
Apps = Win / No iPlayer = Fail
DLNA Media = Win / Crappy implementaion = Fail
BluRay =Win / Poor DVD upscale = FAIL (need to change HDMI Res each time you change disk so the TV will upscale instead?)
Far too many fails to make it worthwhile.
Most of these devices will only record HD content locally due to DRM issues. You can't be certified for Freeview HD or Freesat HD without implementing some fairly draconian DRM. Even if they allowed you to record to the network, you wouldn't be able to play the file back on anything else. I've tried taking the disk off my C-class Samsung TV and reading it, but the file is nonsense to any of the players I tried.
That said, my 2010 TV seems a bit better at DLNA playback than this 2011 BD player. Maybe a step back for Samsung there? I've yet to have any compatibility problems, but then I am streaming from a PC and the software I use (serviio) has Samsung as its primary target platform.
WTF no DivxHD/MKV support? Isn't LG supposed to offer this feature in their bluray players since forever? How many years does Samsung need in order to catch up with the rest of the industry? And a nonperfect- USB implementation in 2011? Are there guys serious?
Yeah its got a TV tuner that's rendered unusable by the draconian DRM, but the rest of the package is unimpressive. This is why i don't buy Samsung. They look good on the first look, but if you look closer... not so good.
I wish reviewers would ask one simple questions. Is it multi-region? If the answer is no, then I'm not interested in anything else it does since I won't buy it. If it is multi-region then I'm interested in the rest of the review. Since I'm a Brit who recently moved to the US, this is a complete deal breaker. All my existing DVD/Blu-Ray collection is region encoded for Europe, but any new things I buy will be region encoded for the US. The region encoding is one of the most irritating and pointless things the industry ever did.
"I wish reviewers would ask one simple questions. Is it multi-region?"
For Bluray players, the answer is dead simple: IT IS NOT. Region lockout is a mandatory part of Bluray's DRM system. Bluray's DRM is very draconian (=tough to break), so NO company in the world is going to risk and go with a reversed engineered version, like many chinese companies did with DVD (which has an easy to crack DRM). So, you can bet your car that every Bluray player in the market implement region lockout.
If you want a multi-region player, just get an MKV player that has a USB port and NTFS/EXT3 support , and then rip all your blurays to MKV files with the help of AnyDVD HD and RipBot264. or by a media center PC and install AnyDVD HD on it.