Ider q201s

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It's a Ider Q201s, a nice little RT1055 based media (based off the new SDK 4) player except this one has an external SATA w/power port so I can just pop out my SATA drive from my removable bay and use that, or I can use a SATA DVD-ROM or BD-ROM drive.

I don't need network access, and since I have a removable SATA bay in my tower this is well worth the money. I'm actually quite surprised how nice the PQ is, and so far it's worked with every file format I've thrown at it.

If you're interested in one, Meritline is selling them. The external SATA port makes the difference here.

I'm still fooling around with it. I couldn't get it to bitstream DTS-MA or True-HD lossless, it only played the lossy core. What is odd is it bitstreams DTS-MA HR and DD+ no problem, so clearly the hardware should be able to bitstream lossless formats as well (other RTK1055 based players can). I am in contact with the company over this- I'm curious to see what they have to say. Otherwise it seems to play back video files with lossless surround soundtracks like FLAC just fine.

Since it uses the standard Realtek SDK 4, theoretically someone should be able to mod it as well. The SATA port really makes this one.

The folks @ Ider already responded to me once, so they should get back to me.

For $60US it's hard to complain. It's the only one I could find which allows internal HD and DVD-Rom/BD-Rom SATA hookup, and it seems to work relatively well for my purposes. It's really convenient to be able to rip movies to my HD, just pop it out and hook it up to my device. I only have 1 TV so I don't need network capability. And at $60 it's not a big deal to upgrade.

I bought a cheap SATA DVD-Rom drive for this thing and it works quite well (would have bought a Blu-Ray ROM but it was too expensive). The remote even has a working eject button. It pretty much plays every format I throw at it, reads off my 2GB SATA harddrive (I have 2 hotswap bays in my case) and DVD-Rom. I would recommend this.

You can also choose to leave a harddrive hooked up permanently and if you hook up a USB cable to it's "PC" port you can transfer back and forth from the drive from your PC(albeit at USB 2.0 speeds). Easier just to use a hotswap bay, but for those that don't have one I can see this coming in handy.

It's unfortunate you can only hook up one drive at a time though, or I'd stick it in a case- this would make a nice little HTPC (albeit with no LAN support).