HDX BD-1 review

For this review, we tested about every Windows UPnP server we could find. None of them worked properly, or as well as myiHome does for the Popcorn Hour boxes. We aren't sure yet if HDX will be making its own media-sharing software. We really hope it does, because the products available otherwise just can't seem to do what we need them to. Take TVersity, for example -- the set-up process appears quite simple, but the reality is that we couldn't persuade it to share any video at all, although it did show in the HDX menu. That's more than we can say for other software we tried, which refused to show up at all.

USB media
Because of the above problems with networking, we used USB thumb drives and hard drives to test the video capability of the BD-1. We had no problems at all in this regard, and everything we tried to play on the BD-1 worked a treat. MKV files were smooth and stutter-free, and we didn't notice any problems with audio being out of sync or frames being dropped. This is great news, because it means that HDX isn't relying on firmware updates to make this machine run at 100 per cent of its capability.

Internet functionality
The move away from the Popcorn Hour firmware means you lose the Internet services that are available on that platform. All you get on the BD-1 is a simple, Linux-based Web browser with some quite limited Flash support. You also need a wireless Bluetooth keyboard to operate the Web browser, and one isn't included. Annoyingly, the remote control was no help to us at all as concerns this part of the box.

Video and audio quality
As with all media streamers, the quality of what you get out will depend on what you put in. The BD-1 will handle everything from MPEG-2 from DVB or DVD right up to Blu-ray-quality MKV files with high-quality audio. Putting a 320x240-pixel video clip in is likely to produce fairly poor results, but a 1080/24p Blu-ray rip, or disc played with an external Blu-ray drive, will look stunning.

We tested as much video as we could find, and all of it looked excellent. Like the Popcorn Hour C-200, this machine has a great deal of skill when it comes to playing back video. We really can't fault it, and that's great news -- it's the most important aspect of the machine.

Audio will also sound great, as long as your source material is up to the job. FLAC is supported for music, as well as a whole bunch of other popular formats, so there's no excuse for not maintaining maximum quality. For movie soundtracks, Dolby Digital and DTS can both be decoded by the machine internally, which means you won't need an AV receiver to enjoy movies and TV shows with those audio formats. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA are also supported, but can't be decoded internally, so you'll need to have an external audio system that understands them to get lossless audio for films.

Conclusion
Ignoring the problems we had with getting this machine to stream video over the network, we think the HDX BD-1 is a very good piece of kit. The networking issues could be resolved with some simple software, and would improve the experience no end. If you're prepared to use USB drives, though, you'll have no trouble at all with this machine.

The picture and sound quality are both excellent, and we liked the menu design and layout. The Popcorn Hour C-200 remains a strong competitor, although the points it scores for good network streaming are lost because of its fairly appalling audio-syncing problems with certain video types.

Edited by Charles Kloet