I was interested to see which player everyone feels is the best.

Let me start by saying, this player will be used 60% of the time for fan sub anime, 30% blu-ray, 10% music. Networking is not important, I currently have two 1.5TB Seagate extremes (esata) external hard drives for media storage.




First: EG-M32B (http://www.egreathd.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50&Itemid=59)

Pros:
1: HDMI 1.3 with 7.1 Uncompressed LPCM, Bitstream DTS-HD/DTS-Master, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus pass through.

2: USB and eSATA host and slave (Which would allow me to take advantage of the esata connection on my external Hard Drives)

3: DTS downmix (stereo)

4: The ability to add an slim line DVD drive to the player.


Cons:
1: I can't find a lot of info about this company and people who own these devices.

2: A big question mark for me about the EG-M32B is if it handles vorbis.

(A large number of anime use Vorbis. The WD TV had a problem of not being able to decode vorbis, this problem was fixed with the newest firmware.)

3: Looks large in size, also has an LED light around the bottom (and lcd display on the front). I watch movies/anime in a light controlled room, so it would be an unwanted light source. (If you can turn those two lights off it isn't a factor, but I don't know if you can.)



Second: Popcorn Hour A-110 (http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog&task=info&item_id=6)

Pros:
1: HDMI 1.3 full support of HD Audio pass-through for DTS HD-HR, DTS HD-MA, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD.

2: From reviews people seem to be very happy with this product.

3: Website shows Vorbis support.


Cons:
1: Does not have external Esata connection, so unable to take advantage of my

2: Unknown of it offers DTS downmix (Source: Poster Reply: does offer DTS downmix)


Third: WD TV (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572)

Pros:
1: I know it can play vorbis. (and most anime I throw at it)

Cons:
1: No esata

2: No 1.3 HDMI

3: No DTS downmix




I'd love to see which everyone thinks is the best. I'd also like to hear from owners of the Egreat EG-M32B, because I haven't seen many opinions of this player. Also price isn't a major factor in my decision. I've allotted 300$ for a media player, and all of these are under that amount.


Thanks for your time reading, and your replies. :)

buy the m32b is the best for what you want

the software is the same than the popcorn so isnt better or worse....is the same :)

buy the m32b is the best for what you want

the software is the same than the popcorn so isnt better or worse....is the same :)

Thanks for your reply, another unknown for me regarding the egreat is if it supports .ASS subs. It is commonly used with anime, and the WD TV does support that sub format.

#2 con for pch can be removed as it does downmix dts.........

#2 con for pch can be removed as it does downmix dts.........

Thanks for the info, I will add that. :) I wasn't sure if it did or not, so I put unknown, rather than it doesn't (like WD TV). ;)


I'd love to hear your opinion of which you would suggest as well. :D

I watch alot of korean/japanese dramas with english soft subs. I have a 60" crt which overscans the picture just enough to sometimes edge out the subs from the far left or right of my tv screen. My question concerning the popcorn and the Egreat is this ---Can you adjust the video smaller just slightly/enough to get all the subs without shrinking the picture. With the WDTV you shrink it and it's a pretty drastic reduction even on a 60" TV. Also I think I read that the Egreat will let you adjust the line level of the subs which is a big plus because on my TV the subs are just a hair too low forcing me to move the entire video up one notch on the WDTV. So if anyone has some kdrama or jdrama experience on an crt that overscans please respond. Thanks

I believe you can purchase a adaptor to hook up the drives you have to the egreat or pch via usb. I have the pch, I use it for blue ray playback mostly. I rip my bd disks using any dvd hd. It works great. I have a dts capable receiver so I don't use the down mix a lot but some times I hook it up in other rooms or take it with me on the road and connect it directly to the tv, thats where it shines. I tried a wdtv and did not like it as movies with true hd or dts would not play with sound, you had to convert to ac3, too much work for me. Hope this helps some............Brian

I believe you can purchase a adaptor to hook up the drives you have to the egreat or pch via usb. I have the pch, I use it for blue ray playback mostly. I rip my bd disks using any dvd hd. It works great. I have a dts capable receiver so I don't use the down mix a lot but some times I hook it up in other rooms or take it with me on the road and connect it directly to the tv, thats where it shines. I tried a wdtv and did not like it as movies with true hd or dts would not play with sound, you had to convert to ac3, too much work for me. Hope this helps some............Brian


Brian: Thank you for your reply. :) My external hard drives also have Firewire and USB ports in addition to the Esata I mentioned. So, I wouldn't need an adapter to hook them up to the Popcorn hour.

The reason I added Esata as a "pro" for the EG-M32B is because Esata is a much faster connection wire than USB. However, I'm unsure if that would really effect anything. Does having the hard-drive connected to the player via Esata allow the player to connect to the hard-drive faster?



While looking over the Egreat page, I did come across the EG-M33A.
This one caught my eye, it seems to have all the features of the 32B (minus the DVD ability, which I wouldn't use.) The M33A maybe a fourth option for me. So here goes,


Fourth: EG-M33A
(Link) http://www.egreathd.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=60

Pros:
1: HDMI 1.3

2: Esata (on the back of the unit)

3: DDR DRAM :Hynix 64-bit 512Mb (It seems all the other units use 256MB)

4: External NOR Flash :Spansion 16-bit 256Mb (It seems all the other units use 128MB)

5: DTS downmix

6: Lists Vorbis as supported

Cons:
1: Bright blue light display on the front. (Unsure if it can be turned off)

2: Does not list .ASS sub support (However, after some research I found out all NMT's don't fully support .ASS. They will play .ASS subs back, but have problems. IE: Dialog subs will be overlapped by song subs if both are occurring at once.)