Egreat A11 3.5" HDD, 2xHDMI, HDR UHD+BD+DVD ISO FULL MENU Home Theatre Media Box

To those of you who are looking for a one stop solution to play your copies of legally acquired DVDs (I still have a sizeable list: Monty Pythons Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder etc) Blu-ray's, as well as the new UHD discs, if you manage to rip them, there are some solutions on the market. Nvidia Shield and a host of other Android players, mostly based on Kodi, a dedicated computer, Dune & A500 (but limited to 4K 24Hz), Zappiti and probably one or two more. Some will have better image or sound quality than others. Some will be easier to use. Others will give you more advanced tools to organise your media collection. Some will give you DVD menus but will not open Blu-ray menus (the one exception until today - Dune 4K). But none will be able to give you the full 4K disc experience with menus. Right? Wrong. A11 can.It doesn't have the best movie scrapper - Zappiti or Yadis would be my first choice. It doesn't have the best image quality (in my opinion the top Pioneer Blu-ray players, LX58 and LX88, are still unchallenged and leave Oppo in the dust; also the Sigma based players have an edge compared to most other non-disc solutions), it has a good sound quality, better than most of the above plus my Oppo 103, but again inferior to Pioneer LX58.However it's compact, it's quiet (there is a fan and I expect that, with a HDD in the slot, it will come to life but so far I have not heard it), it's very well built (think A500 - solid, well finished aluminium case) and so far it has played everything I have thrown at it, including 4K 60Hz footage, over the network, without breaking a sweat. It froze once with 4K content but a restart did the trick. No problems since.It is not cheap and there are better alternatives for particular needs (best PQ, best SQ, best scrapper etc) but, as a universal solution, for those of you who like to save their discs as full copies and want the full experience with menus, I am not aware of anything better on the market today, since Oppo locked their firmware making it impossible to customise it. Unlike the Dune Smart series, this one can stream 4K content over a gigabit network and is fully compatible with the latest and greatest formats, including 4K, HDR (the TV switches automatically to HDR) and 60Hz.A big positive in my book is the dual HDMI output, which is mostly advertised as: watch 4K content on a 4K TV without upgrading your old 1080p receiver. But there is more to the story than this. Video and audio signal sent together through the same cable interfere. Separate them (as you would with a high-end Pioneer or Oppo) and you will see/hear a benefit. The video signal also takes a hit when passing through your receiver. I know many people will tell you otherwise. It is a digital signal and, as long as your receiver allows passthrough, with no processing, what goes inside your receiver should come out untouched and identical to the player output. Except my experience suggests otherwise. Running a signal, be it video or audio, through two cables, 4 plugs, two sockets and whatever electronics in between them (your receiver's video card) does impact picture / sound quality and if you don't believe me I invite you to undertake a simple experiment: unplug your Dune or A500 or Amazon Fire TV or whatever other video source from your receiver and run it directly into an HDMI input of your TV. Even if the explanation defies logic (although we could talk jitter, the benefits of separating circuitry and the likes) the difference is there for everyone to see.In this respect some receivers are better than others (read less harmful). The worst offenders in my experience are D&M (including the high end Denon 7200 and Marantz's AV8802A), Arcam is better, NAD M17 the best. But even with the best of the lot, the best path is the shortest path. One HDMI for audio connected to your receiver, one for video straight into your TV (no audio, no receiver in the path). Pioneer do this with fantastic results, Oppo does it as well but not quite at the same level because even if you choose to separate the signal in the Video Settings interface, the audio stream will still carry video and vice versa. A11 separates video from audio and, while I don't see a huge benefit for picture quality, probably because Dune 4K or Pioneer have a better video output, the sound quality took me by surprise in this price range and category. A11 easily surpasses Oppo and I would say is on par with the best disc players (Pio) out there.Now a word of warning for those of you who are going to buy one. The remote can control the player either via bluetooth or by IR but not both at the same time. The factory default is bluetooth, however mine wasn't paired and on arrival my player displayed a bluetooth error. To re-pair it you have to access the bluetooth menu from the player interface and in order to do this you obviously need a working remote, meaning you are stuck. My advice if this happens to you: press and hold the Stop button on your remote control until the activity led changes colour from blue (bluetooth) to red (IR) and then you can use it like any normal IR remote control. If however you prefer bluetooth, once in IR mode you can access the bluetooth menu, start the service and, while searching for devices, bring your remote control close to the player and press continuously Eject. After 10-20 seconds you should have a working bluetooth controller.A few negatives, the reason for 4 stars rather than 5.The scrapper is so so. I think all edits must be done directly from the player's interface using the supplied remote control (will it work with a bluetooth keyboard? I don't know. Maybe). There is no desktop / tablet app to manage it. If you have a sizeable collection it's a pain.Picture a bit dark compared to Dune / A500, which also have a slightly darker / less dynamic image compared to Oppo, which is not quite as good as Pioneer. So compared to a LX58, A11 is good but not that good. The output video resolution will comply to whatever you select in the settings menu. There is no direct mode or automatic switch. If you set it to say 4K 60Hz, everything will be upscaled. Comparing the results with the upscaling capabilities of my A1, Sony wins. So as boring as it sounds, before watching something make sure you play it at its native resolution (for instance select 1080p / 24Hz for Blu-ray). Also the settings don't seem to stick so, although I set it to 1080p and used it successfully at this resolution, once I switched it off and back on later, the output defaulted to 720p. Odd.

Egreat A11 3.5" HDD, 2xHDMI, HDR UHD+BD+DVD ISO FULL MENU Home Theatre Media Box This product is as good as it gets. I am currently playing it through an ONKYO TXNR1009 AV AMP, JVC DLA X7 3D PROJECTOR and MONITOR AUDIO 7.2 APEX 10's with 2 x SUB WOOFERS and it is as professional as it gets. Its ability to play full menus and download Film Art and Info within seconds simply adds to the finesse of this product. 4K and H265 as well, all thrown in to this Hi-Fi standard "brushed aluminium" metal box. It leaves its competitors standing.

Best player riight now!