Just two words on my first impressions of the two machines.

The principal diffrence is that the A110 handles Blu Ray rips perfectly (ripped using ONLY DVD Fab Express Beta), but it cannot handle the in-DVD menu structure of Standard Definition rips (again using DVD Fab Express).

This is really annoying, A110 is so close, and at the price its great. Tonight I will test the NIC inside the A110 to see what size MTU it can handle before packet fragmentation, the 4100 manages a maximum of 1500.

Ok, the A110 menu is ugly, but that doesn't bother me as there are plenty of alternatives ot there, but the playback was not what I expected.

Now, I did read this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1051272

But I still struggle to splash out on a M-6500A for "testing" purposes...the A-110 has a Sigma Designs SMP8635...same as the M-6500A...but the 4100 has a Sigma EM8623...

Now the big question is...is there anybody out there who owns a M-6500A and has flawless Blu Ray rip playback?

I have istar mini (popcorn hour A-100 clone) that handles dvd menus fine.

I have istar mini (popcorn hour A-100 clone) that handles dvd menus fine.

Well there you go, why would that be? There is nothing bizarre with my file structure DVDName -> Video_TS -> *.ts

With the A-110 I need to select the independant *.vob

I am running the latest firmware.

I have istar mini (popcorn hour A-100 clone) that handles dvd menus fine.

Had a little play an in fact you have to follow a very specific process to let it handle the menus, namenly going through the "video" selection rather than "folder" selection.

Anyway, I have ordered the 6500 and we'll see how it goes. At the moment the interface is a huge problem.

Considering that there is only GBP 100 of diffrence between the two, in my humble opinion the A-110 isn't worth the extra hassle of loading a 3-rd party GUI. Unless that is what you like doing in your spare time...

Judgement to be reserved until the 6500 arrives...