Mar
Patriot Box Office 1080p High-Definition Media Player PCMPBO25 (Black)
Filed Under (Patriot) by admin on 04-03-2010
Tagged Under : (Black), High-Definition, Office, Patriot, PCMPBO25, player
Here is what you might know about the PBO:
------------------------------------------
Pros:
-----
- Realtek based (1073DD): enormous media compatibility list (same chip inside Asus O!Play, ACRyan PlayON, and the list goes on), DTS/DD stereo downmix.
- The support community : Excellent user based community, every issue has been addressed and resolved, every possible how to has been written.
- Manufacturer support : whether the PBO is a Chinese clone or not, Patriot memory headquarters are located in California and not half the way across the globe, they are very prompt when it comes to RMA like services.
- Firmware : 6 firmwares already released (latest released mid July), with external DVD support (and resolved the Toshiba HDMI handshake issues).
Cons:
-----
- Realtek based (1073DD): so and so wireless streaming, no support for BR menus, hardware bug rending it impossible to pass through HD-Audio.
- The support community : Being all fellow owners, they are all supporting the product out of thier own good heart and believe in the box, thus there is no obligation (for them) that your issues will be promptly addressed and there is also no guarantees that it will be resolved.
- Manufacturer support : if your issue isn't hardware related, good luck getting it resolved with Patriot, they simply don't know that much about the software side of the box, its just another hardware unit that they sell and thats as far as it goes.
- Firmware : due to the support point above, firmwares are released whenever they are ready, there is no change/bug/feature list included, NO one knows what issues is a firmware supposed to fix or when is the current reported bugs will be fixed if at all. The firmware released is always as close as it can be to the reference firmware that Realtek supply with the boxes (not that much customization except for PBO logo at the box bootup).
bottom line: though very comparable to any other Realtek based media player the PBO sinks deeply down the list with the lack of development support from the manufacturer and the crippled stock firmware that comes with it.
What you might (most probably) not know about the PBO:
------------------------------------------------------
Regardless of the lack of any real investment in the software development of this product, Patriot memory is offering what it can to satisfy their ranting and nagging customers. Thus PM (perhaps because they couldn't care less) has (and continues to release) manufacturer materials that is not typically released to average Joe media player owners.
Results : PM has shared enough knowledge and material with its users that made the box literally "unbrickable" (unless its a hardware failure), while other media players users don't even know what a bootcode is, PM has released 3 different versions of RT bootloaders for 1073 devices, things like "I have bricked the box during firmware update" are no longer an issue, because you can resurrect your box for of materials and 6 minutes in time. This enabled the PBO owners to liberally experiment with the underlying linux machine on which the PBO interface runs, adding functionality and even fearlessly testing lots of the "unlocked" firmwares available from other boxes (based on similar chipset).
Conclusion:
===========
With the proper mods, PBO can easily be cross flashed, and further unlocking lots of features, online content, support for external optical drives, even YAMJ and TVIXIE jukeboxes. Even for those who wont be interested in cross flashing there tons of free applications that will add features like more powerful torrent client, NFS server, UPNP server ..etc. This is all at considerably lower price than all the other RT based players and beside you don't have to worry about sending the box back to china in case you bricked it.
Color: Black
Model: PCMPBO25
Patriot Box Office High Definition Media Player is an All-In-One Media Player which supports 1080p playback from various files sources such as VOB, H. 264, ISO, WAV, etc.
- All anodized aluminum
- Full 1080p Media Play back
- Support 2.5-Inch HD
- Support H. 264
- Support HDMI
List Price: USD 106.99
Lowest Used Price: USD 78.00
Lowest New Price: USD 98.99
An excellent versatile media player
I have owned this product for over a month now, and it has worked flawlessly.
This Box Office has played every format I've sent its way:
audio: mp3, aac, wma, wav, flac
video: iso, avi, mpg, mov, wmv, iPod mp4, m4v
pictures: jpg
Positives:
+The box office supports playing media from an optional 2.5" SATA internal HD, a USB stick, or from a network share. I play movies from a USB stick or from the network.
+Network browsing of your home network is seamless. You simply choose Net, your workgroup name, computer name, then Public. No password was needed to browse the Public shares on my Windows 7 box. Videos play fine over wired Ethernet.
+ISO files play fine and appear to be full DVD quality. Chapters are accessible with the Prev and Next buttons.
+Playing a partially-viewed movie will prompt to resume playback so you can continue from where you stopped. The stop position is retained even after power-off.
+The menus allow for switching between 4:3 and 16:9 widescreen formats, 1080p 24Hz output, and the box automatically detects composite connection (Red White Yellow cables) and HDMI. I have used composite to watch movies on an old CRT TV, and HDMI on an LCD 1080p TV, and both work great. It's a little disconcerting to see the picture scroll out-of-sync during startup on a composite connection.
+Music plays using a basic filename listing. Files with id3 tags (MP3, AAC) display some data, but album artwork does not display. Genre is shown as a number, not text.
+Subtitles can be displayed but accessing them using the remote button is clumsy, requiring four clicks. It should be a simple on/off toggle.
+Power consumption is 6 watts during movie play.
Negatives:
-The fan is noisy and noticable during quiet periods of movie.
-The box will often turn on when a different remote sends some commands to the TV. I sometimes must flip the power switch on the back to keep it turned off.
-M4V (iPod video) files with chapter markers will play but you cannot skip to the next chapter. You must instead use the Go To feature and punch in a time.
The Version Information screen can be found with a press of pause and stop on the remote. My box was revision P02 and bootcode 18. It listed these audio decoders: AAC AC3 ADPCM COOK DTS DV FLAC A-Law-PCM u-Law-PCM LPCM LSD-(RA-lossless) MPEG MP4-HE-AAC MP4-LC-AC RAW-AAC VORBIS WMA WMA-Pro. I downloaded the newer update P05 and copied it to a USB stick, then used the menu to apply the P05. The P05 update added DTS-HD decoder and retained all the previous decoders. Functionality seems unchanged, with new menus for PPPoE and time setting.
Overall I am very happy with the product, and have recommended it to friends.
Beats all others in its price range!!!!
Compatibility:
The Patriot Box Office literally played everything I had, even when I was trying to break it. My main use out of the PBO was to watch anime with subtitles in MKV form, it did this like a champ. My only gripe with the subtitle function was that there is no option to have them on automatically, you had to manually turn them on every time. No problem here since you can just pause it and do your thing.
MKV container files with dual audio worked flawlessly also, and pretty quick changing on the fly. 1080p ran with no slowdown even on action scenes.
(Files I tried with no problems DIVX/XVID/MKV/MP4 all with different resolutions and audio)
Setup:
I run this through HDMI into a 52in DLP and have it set to 1080p, upscales and filters choppiness with SD way better than my ps3 could do and I might say maybe the best ive seen. I also slapped a 160GB 2.5" SATA 7200rpm hard drive in it.
I do not own a surround sound system to I couldn't test any DTS or AC3 audio through the fiber optic port or HDMI pass-through, but it does decode them into 2.0 perfectly.
The Remote:
Has volume, which I didn't expect and of good size unlike other media player remotes. What I liked the most was right by the pause and play buttons was the audio and subtitle options, this makes it very simple to change on the fly without tedious menu work.
Storage Options:
What pushed me to buy this one was the option to install a 2.5" SATA drive inside. It also supports USB and Network storage.
Here is my only gripe about the PBO, accessing the drive over the network and transferring files to it that way is incredibly slow. This may be due to my kinda wonky setup and using wireless G, but I was only getting like 500 KBps transfer rate. That is super slow even for my setup of going wireless into my router then wireless into a access point where my PBO is located on.
Another great plus is it comes with a USB cable so you can attach it to a computer just like an external hard drive and transfer files.
Overall:
The Patriot Box Office has the same Realtek chipset the Asus O!Play and the PlayOnHD. Originally I was going to purchase the O!Play, but its lack of internal storage steered me away from it. Otherwise there should be no compatibility or performance differences between these products, you can even cross-flash firmwares from different players that run the same Realtek chipset. The box runs on linux, this allows you to get certain Linux apps running on it with some tinkering. This product is a modders dream. (Check out the Patriot Media Player Forums first!)
Package included a HDMI 1.3a cable, USB cable, Composite, and batteries for the remote.
Pro:
- Plays near everything flawlessly even at 1080p
- Good subtitle support
- Option to add internal storage
- Realtek chipset
- Great for modders
- Good upscale
- Remote size and layout
- Small size with aluminum casing to keep it cool.
- NEW! with firmware P05 beta, you can hook up an external DVD to it to play any Data on it
Con:
- Slow network transfer speeds
- Interface a little wonky (This is more due to the Realtek options for GUI control, the same wonky interface exist on Asus O!Play also)
- No option for auto subtitles (I watched District 9 to the end without realizing there is Alien to English subtitles.....FAIL)
Not bad for the price
I bought this for my wife's TV and it plays everything I expected it to. However, she is not a techie and the UI on the unit isn't the easiest to get around, but after a day or so she is used to it.
However, I also bought the wireless USB key to go with it so we could transfer media across our network. That does not work well at all. It is slow and entering your security key with the remote is extremely tedious. Even worse, it forgets the key if the unit is unplugged or loses power. Apparently, the built-in Samba server is buggy, so the only way to reliably transfer media wirelessly is by pulling it from the unit rather than pushing it to the unit, which means I can't transfer media remotely. I ended up not using the key and transfer media to the HDD using a flash stick instead. It's faster, though a little inconvenient.
All in all, she's happy with it and I feel that it was worth the price we paid.
