Cyclone Primus HDMI MKV Media Player Enclosure Caddy Media Centre 1080P

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Anybody got one of these, its available here

Cyclone Primus HDMI MKV Media Player Enclosure Caddy | Enclosures | Buy Online Now!

for £36.95 plus postage.

Seems to do everything I need and cheaply. (put films on and it plays everything) and I can forget about it. Its for a kids bedroom.


The Sumvision Cyclone Primus Media Player Enclosure allows you to play videos, MP3s and view images through your TV by just adding a 3.5inch SATA Hard Drive (No Hard Drive Included). This may look a bit like a standard external hard drive enclosure, and it can be used as that, but this media player is in actual fact a great addition to your home entertainment system.

Sumvision Cyclone Primus Media Player Enclosure features:
Supports All Popular HD Video:
The Cyclone Primus supports many popular 1080p HD video formats currently on the market.
Formats supported include H.264/ MKV/ DivX HD/ MPEG 2-TS/ RMVB (up to 720p) and WMV9

Supports SATA HDD and USB Host:
Built-in storage unit allows you to add your own SATA HDD to store all your media files.
Supports hard drives of up to 2TB.
With USB 2.0 support you can plug storage devices such as HDD; flash drives or mp3 and play them directly through the Cyclone

HDMI Digital Output:
With the HDMI interface you can enjoy superb digital video and audio quality playback on your TV.


Sumvision Cyclone Primus Media Player Enclosure specifications:

Hard Disk Drive Support
Standard SATA 3.5" hard drive.
Supports up to 2TB.
Interface
USB 2.0 Hi-Speed USB host x 2
Memory Support
2 in 1 card reader.Supports SD, SDHC and MMC.
Firmware
Upgradeable
Languages
English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and Dutch.
Audio
MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, AAC, LPCM, FLAC, AC3 and APE.
Video codec
H.264, MKV, WMV9, MPEG 1/2/4, HD DivX, Xvid, FLV and RM/RMVB
Video file
MKV, TS, M2TS, MTS, TP, WMV, VOB, DAT, AVI, MPG, MP4, MOV, RM, RMVB, DivX, Xvid and FLV.
Video Resolution
H.264, MKV, WMV9, TS and HD DivX supports up to 1920 x 1080p at 30fps
RM/RMVB supports up to 720p
Subtitle Text
SSA, SRT, SUB and SMI
Photo Format
JPG, JPEG, BMP, PNG and GIF
Video Output
CVBS, HDMI
Audio
Stereo R/L, Coaxial, and HDMI Digital
LAN
No
Remote Control
Yes
Panel button
No
Power Adapter
AC 100 ~ 230V 50Hz
 
yes i saw this too, seems to be very cheapo, only question i have is does it decode dts audio or does it only bitstream it?
 
would also be keen for thoughts on this... am in need of a backup 2tb drive.

Cost difference between a 2tb external drive and this caddy with a 2tb drive is only £15 so if it could function as a backup and also be an occasional player that would be smashing!
 
I ordered one yesterday. Will post my thoughts when I get it! Couldn't find reviews myself so decided to take the plunge with the 1TB model. Seems like great value for the amount of storage! Plus i didn't want an external HDD hanging around an already crowded tv stand. :rolleyes: I'd presume it'll just bit-stream the DTS / Dolby.

**UPDATE** Hasn't arrived yet i'm afraid! Stupid snow! Dispatched from Edinburgh. Target is Dublin so it'll prob be Monday at best. Will try to test everything and upload some snaps ASAP.
 
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This is very interesting and priced at where media players should be. You shouldn't be paying £100 for one as I had been arguing a year or so back.

Unfortunately it's not the right time to be investing in these as there will be new faster chips coming out in the year...

iboum.com : Future Entertainment Technology : Chipsets in Media Players

The gigabit realteks should boost performance a little.

On second thoughts for £35 you can't go wrong - it's barely more than the price of a disk enclosure :thumbsup:
 
Did you get yours yet Conorino?

Found a review here that suggests it downmixes the HD audio tracks. Can you confirm or deny?

Also can it simultaneously output over composite and HDMI?
Cheers
Adam
 
I ordered mine when I first posted this and still not revived anything yet.
 
yeah... i have one on order but nothing yet... will post a mini review compared with my WDTV Live as soon as I get it.

Michael
 
Unboxed and looking good so far! Fitted HDD is a Hitachi 7K1000.c 1TB (Twin 500GB platters). Loading up videos and will update with results (and answers to Q's) later tonight. :D
 
Would someone be kind enough to let me know how much memory this box has ?

Telnet {ip address of the box}

Username root
no password

Type in 'free' (without the quotes) once logged in.

Cheers
 
Unboxed and looking good so far! Fitted HDD is a Hitachi 7K1000.c 1TB (Twin 500GB platters). Loading up videos and will update with results (and answers to Q's) later tonight. :D

do you have any mkv's with DTS audio... would love to know if the box downmixes to the RCA sockets...

Michael
 
/mnt # free
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 120188 101664 18524 0 60
Swap: 32 0 32
Total: 120220 101664 18556
/mnt # uname -a
Linux Venus 2.6.12.6-VENUS #1 Fri Dec 18 12:20:41 CST 2009 mips unknown
/mnt #


Oops - First posting and I screwed up - didn't realise you were discussing a newer version of the MkV enclosure. The above is from the 'original' flavour h/w. I got to your thread looking for info on what tweaks you could do to the software build of a cyclone in the vague hope I could add DVR-MS support - and perhaps add a log of what the box has played to keep an eye on my kids viewing !
If anyone could point me towards any Linux/Perl hacking threads for the Cyclone I'd appreciate it.
 
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What difference does the on board memory make ?
Mine turned uptoday via city link. Got. 1tb to drop in. Will get it set up tommorrow or Friday night
 
Right... I've tried plenty of movies and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. Toy Story 3 1080p MKV (8.7GB) looks as smooth and crisp as (if not better than) anything I've seen on my Sony Blu-Ray Player! Tried mp4 (720p & 1080p), avi's of all shapes and sizes and a lots of mkv. No visual issues yet! Great to see stuff the recently bought laptop can't handle at all going full pelt. I needed an external HDD anyway so this is a huge bonus! Playback in general (especially 1080p MKVs) is amazing! :)

One issue is DTS audio, however. I have a coaxial cable going from the Primus to the amp of my Logitech Z-5500 surround system, and audio option set to SPDIF on the media player. Amp is only picking up PCM 2.0 though. Hoping it's just that the audio on the file is DTS-MA, which the amp can't handle. At least then, I could demux it. Otherwise, the obvious explanation would be that the media player is downmixing the DTS regardless. :( Not a huge issue since most DTS MKVs have AC3 soundtrack as well and the Pro-Logic II on the amp is pretty good at sending channels where they should be. Will try to answer this question soon by trying older "original DTS" sources.

Another thing you should be aware of is that browser is based on folder tree only so some consideration is needed if uploading mixed media. Just keep the folders sorted.

All in all, seems to be the equivalent of a Sumvision Cyclone Micro 2 player (with extra ports & digital audio if I can get it working) built into a piano-black plastic HDD caddy. It's a little prone to pawprints but looks great on the tv stand. Has "Cyclone Primus" and a smaller "Sumvision" on the top in white but invisible if viewed from the front. Only a blue LED on the right to show the power is on.

@Adam: Sorry, composite and HDMI together is a no-go. One or the other.

@Michael: Good news! Definitely downmixes DTS on MKVs for RCA playback. Looks and sounds great on composite!

@Subliminal_Aura: It doesn't have LAN so can't Telnet into it.

Hope this helps! :D
 
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Sounds like another Boxchip F10 device, So media compatibilty should be the same as the sumvision micro 2.
 
ok

i just got on of these and am having no luck. threw an ntfs 1.5TB drive in there and it'snot picking it up at all. it works as an usb enclosure (windows mounts the drive just fine) but the on screen display has the internal drive greyed out. if i plug in an sd card, it sees that, but not my hard drive

same with usb disconnected as well. the drive is a WD green.

anyone got any ideas what's up with this thing?

edit

ok, a smaller 160gb drive worked. does this thing not like large drives or WD greens?
 
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Cool thanks Conorino, just need someone with a HD capabable amp to answer that one now then.
Cheers
 
ok

i just got on of these and am having no luck. threw an ntfs 1.5TB drive in there and it'snot picking it up at all. it works as an usb enclosure (windows mounts the drive just fine) but the on screen display has the internal drive greyed out. if i plug in an sd card, it sees that, but not my hard drive

same with usb disconnected as well. the drive is a WD green.

anyone got any ideas what's up with this thing?

edit

ok, a smaller 160gb drive worked. does this thing not like large drives or WD greens?

I take it you tried formating the drive in the machine. As these are linux based, presume the HDD format would be EXT3 not NTFS
 

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