AC Ryan Veolo

AC Ryan is back on the media centre market with the Veolo. What added value does it offer? This media streamer includes Android Market and all its applications. AC Ryan hasn’t stopped there however. The Veolo is a very comprehensive product: 1 GHz ARM processor, gyro style remote with a keyboard and Gigabit network. It should, then, have plenty of ammunition to stand down the challenge from its main competitors.

Remote: not very practical

The AC Ryan Veolo is rather small and a bit of a looker. The glossy plastic shell is well made but shows up finger marks and dust all too easily. As this is a media streamer, there’s no internal hard drive and no slot to add memory on.

The gyro style remote allows you to pilot the cursor by moving your hand in the manner of a Wiimote or the Freebox Revolution remote. The result isn’t all that convincing and not really precise enough. Clicking on a small button can sometimes be a real task and we advise you to use a wireless keyboard / mouse kit (or a mini-keyboard with a built-in touchpad) for any Internet navigation or even for working your way around the menus.

The remote includes buttons however and can be used like a standard RF remote. You then have to use the menus and sub-menus to change audio tracks, subtitling and so on. It also has a QWERTY keyboard, which is very practical for entering IDs in applications.

Disappointing media interface

Widgets and shortcuts can be placed on desktops
 

It can’t really be said that AC Ryan has done much work on the media file interface. There’s no automatic jukebox – which you do find on the TizzBird F30 (Android 2.3) or the Popcorn Hour A-3000 and Popbox V8. The display is old school but with a few video options all the same: list, thumbnails or coverflow. This is a real issue and we hope that AC Ryan will look at it, though perhaps they’re waiting for a charitable soul to develop an application for Market.

               File browser, list format
 

Videos from whatever device you're using (SD card, USB peripherals) are displayed in a single block which very quickly makes it impossible to find what you're looking for, especially as unnamed videos from cameras are also listed.

The music file display is indexed, which is a bit better and allows you to search according to album, track or artist. Album covers are however only displayed during playback and only when they’re integrated in an m4A file.

 

 
Music playback / The three display methods for videos.
 

Photos are displayed in miniature form. Once again, the display is far from original: all the photos are in one block but classed by folder. The problem lies more in the way they’re displayed on two lines when they could be displayed in four or more.

In any case, a more conventional file search tool allows you to browse the folders and this is the most practical way of sourcing your videos and photos. You also still have the option of downloading more complete applications on Android Market.

 
Photo display
 

Media compatibility down on other AC Ryan products

AC Ryan had got us used to an excellent level of media compatibility but the Veolo, while still very good on this score, is a little down to what we’ve seen in the past. Let’s start with the positives: high throughput HD videos can be played without any jumpiness and DTS HD and Dolby TrueHD bitstream works marvellously. More generally, current video and audio codecs are played with just a few exceptions.

Less positive is the absence of Dolby TrueHD decoding (downmix stereo). If you want to listen to these audio tracks, you’ll have to use an external audio out. Still looking at the audio, Flac files cannot be played though they are recognised by the system.

Find all our readings in the media centre face-off
 

In video playback, colour tones are rather warm and Blu-ray and DVD backup support is really poor. ISOs don’t launch and the system offers to handle them like RIPs. Even then the service is minimal: you don’t get the menus and only Blu-ray subtitles are played. Lastly, whatever the container, you can’t access handling of chapters.

Good network link-up

The connectivity is minimalist and means the Veolo can only be used on an HD TV: HDMI 1.3 socket, optical and composite stereo audio outs. An SD card reader and two USB Host 2.0 ports allow you to link up to peripherals.

 
 
Android Market is included and you also get an efficient Internet browser.
Facebook and Google Maps on a full-HD TV.
 

The Veolo uses a Gigabit type network and does better than any ‘100 Mbps’ centre - here we get 13.3 MB/s (computer to external hard drive plugged into the Veolo). HD video playback is very fluid, even where throughput is very high. The wi-fi n is very slow and won’t allow HD video playback without considerable jumpiness.