First of all, I have to tell that apart from the fears the unit works on Slovenian DVB-T (is someone else is interested). It works first time. And works good, we have audio and video OK.

Let me tell you that I am used to Kiss DP-558 legendary recorder. Everybody competing with it has a hard time, becuuse apart of the fact that I needed to solder the PSU of the unit 8standard problem) every 6 months, the unit was a pleasure to use.

I have bought ACRyan because it is the ONLY unit I know of that has DVB-T and I mean DOUBLE the fun and has ethernet and is able to play my files over the ethernet. Only Dreambox with DVB-T tuner does the same and is in my opinion a better and more flexible machine, but it costs a 1200+ EURO!

Let me tell up front that I have some issue with the unit, the connector where the power goes in is loosing contact and I am not sure how to fix it. If it is inside to the end it doesn't work at all, I have to be carefull when sticking it in )) I would not like to send it back for that.

Unfortunately I do have old 4:3 CRT TV and the first experience is quite bad. Everything is flickering, fonts are too small etc. The fact that the browser for files is using half screen for preview is not making it any better, I can hardly knw which episode I will play. I set this to no preview but there is also half screen unused if I set it like this. I suppose that on a FULL HD TV things are much better... I can only hope.

The good news is most of the things work as expected. The online feeds are really on the thin side and I am not sure how to easily add my own, but... Everything I could think of feeding the unit from my NAS is working with subtitles and our special characters are also working, the 蚞ȊŽ. Great!

There is another big praise. ACRay is th only unit which plays my Dreambox 800 TS stream files correctly. By that I mean it even plays the DVB subtitles!!! I have yet to find a program on PC which does that, i am searhing for 2 years now. The subtitle streams are marked as 1 - No stream and 2 - No stream, but if I select them I have subtitles and our characters work. Unbelievable. I just sat there and stared at the screen ))

The TV is ok I guess. The channels move too slow, but I think this is Digital TV problem in general. I really do miss something like I had on Kiss, the scheduler I could feed to, like Tvxb. I know here is EPG, but in Slovenia it is non existant almost ;-( I would really like some XML parser I could feed to have scheduler. The EPG that is there and the channel menu doesn't work wih 蚞ȊŽ btw.

I haven't tried anything exotic yet, it does boot a little long from standby.

There is a little thing I really HATE. That is that when device is booted I see menu and picture in the back. I don't dare to show this to my wife. She would have to press enter every time she turns on the device. Let it be like VCR, when on, default action is TV. Why menu???

There are other things that can surely be improved in software, gladly the new beta has fast search much better in files. Some things can be only improved in HW like gigabit ethernet.

But all in all I do hope ACRyan will not abandon this unit and make a new version too soon, because I look forward to new firmwares and improved things, I think from the market state it is almost perfect.

I have plugged in a DVD external and it works perfectly! Unfortunately (yes, yes, I know why that is) it doesn't support protected DVD's (( This is the only thing mising so I could have ONE device for everything (my Kiss for TV, Xbox modified for files etc.).

I give this unit a 8/10 and if you make it that it defaults to TV I will give it 9/10 ))

Thanx for such a great unit and reading my thoughts.

Jerry
Slovenia

very nice review and thanks for posting it

let`s now hope in the next firmware to come the unit is indeed going to show the digital tv instead of the menu.

Hehe, or make option where to start. Or remember what is last selected and start there

Ok, it is a minor thing but it really bothered me to not get the feeling of a VCR replacement this way

But all in all a wonderfull product that can be improved with new firmware, because the main potential is there. My worst fear is to get a new recorder out too soon and forget this one.

The reading of satelite TV transport streams .ts WITH DVB-S2 subtitles I really allmost had to sit down. I was in positive shock! I can watch my dreambox files in another room with subtitles. I can not do that on my computer and you know computer plays almost anything, more than any such machine

well i do think even if there comes a new player the support will continu,
as it is with the playonhd and the mini.

I have to update my review now I got Samsung 40C652 TV.

1. The browser half screen for filenames and half screen for preview (or nothing if I set preview to off) still leaves too little space to read series names comfortably

2. Major dissapointment comes from the TV tuner. On this TV it is clearly seen that the tuner is not the same quality as Samsung tuner of the TV. Around subtitles there are a lot of artefacts which comes from compression. Samsung TV tuner does have a lot less of this. Picture quality of SD is much worse using AcRyan than TV tuner (( Why is that? Is ACRyan doing some internal compression? Switching channels also take much longer to tune and the up/down channel mode is not very intuitive.

This is a big dissapointment for me.

in majority i find a 40" screen way to big for sd material.
but that is personall i guess.
it wiil strech the video out too much.

why is this not with the tuner of the samsung?
well probably the samsung uses some sort od upscaling for it`s own tuner.

what about the browser screen and the preview/
in the r4415 for the mini there is anew option in which it is possible to set
the browser screen to list,
in which the preview screen is gone,
and browsing will then use more of the screen and long
filenames are better shown.

we can only wait and hope that in the DVR this will come as well.

Oh, that would be great, set to list, I really miss the list mode. Please ACRyan

Perhaps you are right yes. Samsung TV is knows for good upstreaming of SD material. But why not upscale ACRyan tuner picture that it gets also?

Anyway, it may not be so bad, as one day we all have HD channels and we live hapilly ever after...

indeed,

about the list function i really hope it does come for the other players as well,
we have to wait