O2media MR5000

Note: the Hyundai M-box R3150 and the O2media MR5000 are actually identical. The product reviews are therefore very similar. The only small difference we noticed was that the O2media MR500 had a slightly older version of the internal software when we tested it. Here are the differences we noticed as a result:

- The O2media wasn't able to read Dolby Digital TrueHD audio or to convert it to stereo.
- The O2media wasn't able display a screen of DVD cover thumbnails
- The O2media offered no multi-channel PCM audio output (except HD audio)

---

On paper, the O2media MR5000 looks like a pretty decent media centre. It has a built-in Freeview tuner for watching and recording digital TV, as well as an SDHC card reader, a VFD screen and a well-designed hard-drive loading system. It looks promising, but how will the MR500 stand up to our product test?

Hardware: good but could do better

The MR5000 is designed to resemble a classic DVD/Blu-ray player. It's well made but it isn't highest quality media centre we've ever seen. There's a small VFD screen on the front of the device, but it's not particularly useful as it only displays playback time and can't be used to navigate through the device's menus with the TV switched off.

Inserting a hard drive is really easy thanks to the draw-style rack at the back of the device. Just pull out the drawer, install your hard drive and then close it again: what could be simpler? Plus, you can add a second hard drive inside the media centre. This time you'll have to take the device's lid off, but that's really not too complicated.

This media centre gets up and running very quickly (around 10 seconds) and doesn't consume an excessive amounts of power on standby (1.4 W). However, when the MR5000 is on standby, a bright orange circular light does stay switched on, which could bother some users.

You control the device using a chunky remote control. It's pleasant enough to hold and the most useful buttons fall naturally under your thumb. Although the buttons are phosphorescent, the remote still isn't that easy to use in the dark. You will, however, have no trouble finding the thing in a dark room.


Now on to the internal menus. It could be tempting to think that O2media has just made do with the basic interface supplied by the processing chip's manufacturer. However, although still fairly basic, a real effort has actually been made to help tart things up a bit. To give credit where it's due though, this interface wasn't developed by O2media but by Ellion, the media centre's actual manufacturer.


Unlike the Hyundai M-box R3150, which had a more recent version of the firmware when we tested it, you can't display all your DVD covers to pick out films more easily.

Plus, like I said, the graphic interface is very basic stuff both in design and functionality. First of all, the general appearance is really quite poor and colours seem to have been chosen somewhat clumsily. The quality and overall effect is nowhere near as good as the kind of interface you'd find in a LaCie LaCinema HD or a WD TV.

You can forget about displaying all the photos in a folder as thumbnails, and music lovers will be disappointed to learn that only MP3 tags are supported and that album covers aren't displayed, no matter whether or not they're contained in the audio file. Finally, the interface is a little slow and unresponsive, as we found ourselves often pressing a button twice, thinking that the device hadn't registered the command the first time when it was actually still thinking.

Compatibility: quite good

This media centre can read most of the popular and recent audio and video formats. We were particularly pleased to see that pretty much all DTS and Dolby Digital formats could be decoded and downmixed to stereo. That's handy for anyone using TV speakers rather than a home cinema set-up. You can also bitstream sound to an external amp via the HDMI, optical or coaxial connections.

Rips of DVD and Blu-ray discs are more or less supported, depending on the format. Copied DVDs can be played as ISO or RIP files and the menus, soundtracks and subtitles are all maintained. For Blu-rays, only RIP files are compatible (copied files in a folder). Access to the menus is lost but soundtracks and subtitles are still available.



A 24p mode keeps the picture smooth and flowing in films recorded at 24 frames per second. It's certainly practical, but you'll have to switch it on and off manually depending on the video you're watching. There's no specific mode available for 23.976 fps videos.

Connections: SDHC, USB and Ethernet

There's a good choice of connections on the back panel, with HDMI, component, composite, optical and coaxial to choose from. There are also three USB Host ports for connecting flash drives and external hard drives, two of which are located at the rear of the device while the third is on the front.

One very annoying bug, though, is that when you don't use a connected USB device for a few minutes, it automatically disconnects. You therefore have to unplug it and then plug it in again to access or transfer content. It's very annoying!

You can copy files from a USB peripheral onto a hard drive you've loaded into the device. File transfer is carried out at 11.6 MBps, which isn't that impressive. Things get a little complicated when trying to play HD media directly from a peripheral too, as if the bitrate exceeds 38 Mbps then the video is full of glitches. In this case, you're better off copying the video onto the device's internal hard drive.

There's a 100 Mbps Ethernet port for networking with an average speed of 4.7 MBps. That's really quite slow, and you'll need to be very patient when transferring large video files. It's also possible to play a film stored on a networked computer. Beware though, as if the bitrate exceeds 28 Mbps the video will once again be full of glitches. You're better off with 720p or SD videos.

A BitTorrent client is included for downloading files. A web-based interface allows you to manage the whole thing via a web browser. It's basic and not particularly attractive in design, but it does the job.