HMB 130

The 130 has a more refined design than the rest of HMB's multimedia hard drives.  An aluminum frame gives it a solid appearance, and the glossy finish on the front adds a sophisticated touch.

There's no screen on the front, so you'll need to switch your TV on to navigate through the interface to listen to your music.

HMB includes a full-size remote, which is not too bulky and the buttons are sensibly laid out.

Although the on-screen interface looks pretty flash, they work in a very traditional way.  

One nice detail is a thumbnail preview of every image or video that appears as you roll the cursor over it.  It's neat, but we would have preferred a general thumbnail view of all of the photos and videos in a folder.

The weak spot of the interface is its general unresponsiveness.  Opening a folder requires you to wait two seconds, a task which is almost instantaneous on some other systems.

This same slowness is the same across the interface, with every operation lagging behind some of the competition.

Compatibility

While some manufacturers stick firmly to one set of chips, HMB likes to chop and change with every model that it produces.

In this case, HMB has chosen a Realtek RTD1262DA, something of an interesting decision given the middling performances of the 130.

You can watch HD videos encoded as DivX files, but the H.264 and MKV codecs aren't supported.  Even more irritatingly, the 130 can't read Microsoft's WMV format either.

The only formats that are on offer are MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 (DivX 6 + HD, XviD 5.1) and OGG.  For photos, JPEGs and BMPs can be shown, and the majority of sub-title files can be shown (SRT, SUB, SSA and SMI).

Connectivity

The 130 has plenty of options for connecting to external hardware.  All of the standard options are there, including component and composite video, as well as HDMI as well as a SCART adapter for older TVs.

There are two USB ports, allowing you to plug in an external hard drive or a flash memory drive.  An Ethernet port, meanwhile, allows you to connect your HMB 130 to your home network.