I have to admit, with the half a dozen or so media players that I’ve tried and used, the Mede8ter brand is something really unfamiliar to me.
The media player was developed/originated in South Africa though the manufacturing and assembly are all done in China (not a big surprise there).
The MED500X2 is the very latest model of their line-up and one of the very few media players in the market that’s able to support and handle hard disk drives with capacities of up to 3TB.
The fist time they gave me the media player, there wasn’t any HDD inside so I plugged it to an external drive. When they sent me a 1TB HDD, I opened the box and screwed in the HDD inside the cover. I also tried the 1TB WD for laptops and the only way to put it in place was to stick it into the inside of the back-plate with a 3M sticker.
Most of the ports are found at the back — S-video, HDMI, USB Host, Coaxial, and Optical. On the right side, there’s also an additional USB Host and USB 3.0 Slave port as well as an SD card reader.
There’s also a LAN port you can connect the player to the internet and run services on your TV. The built-in browser is simple but usable. You can stream videos, podcasts and even watch YouTube. An optional USB WiFi dongle can be bought if you want to connect it to a wireless network. You can also get an additional wireless keyboard so it’s easier to navigate when browsing the web.
Aside from the usual/standard file formats, Mede8er can also play the latest codecs like MKV-H264, BDMV, BDISO and M2TS.
Mede8er MED500X2:
Realtek RTD1185
256MB SPI Flash
256MB DDR2 SDRAM
HDMI 1.3
Component Video
Composite Video
Stereo RCA audio for analogue audio connection
SD / Sony Pro Duo Card Slot
SPDIF Optical
Co-Ax Digital Audio Outputs
2 x USB 2.0 Host port
1 x USB 3.0 Slave port
RJ45
3.5″ SATA 2 HHD up to 3TB
Remote Control
Support for GigaBit LAN is available via firmware update (have not done this on my unit yet).
Video Formats Supported: AVI, BDMV Light, BDISO Light, MKV, TS, TP, TRP, M2TS, MPG, MP4, MOV, M4V, VOB, ISO, IFO, DAT, WMV, ASF, RM, RMVB, FLV
Video Codecs Supported: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 SP, ASP, AVC (H.264), XviD, DivX, WMV9 (VC-1), RealVideo 8/9/10 (up to 720P)
Audio Codec Supported: MP3, MP2, OGG Vorbis, APE – APE Cue, PCM, LPCM, AAC, RA, Dolby True HD – DTS MA Passthrough on HDMI Dolby AC3 Downmix & Passthrough, DTS Downmix & Passthrough , FLAC up to 24bit 192Khz (HDMI & Co-Ax Digital only) Flac Cue, WAV, WMA Standard (DRM, & Advanced Profile not supported)
Photo format Supported: JPEG, BMP, PNG
File System Supported: FAT32 (up to 2TB), NTFS (up to 3TB), MAC HFS+ (USB Drives only)
Movies and other files can be transferred from the player to a PC (and vice-versa) via the USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 port (just have to make sure you use the USB cable that came with the player).
It’s great that this player also comes with a built-in torrent client (accessible via browser over the network) so you can download files and movies straight into the internal storage.
The user interface (UI) is simple, easy to understand and intuitive. Nothing too fancy and really easy to use. Here’s how the UI should look like although mine didn’t have all those movie thumbnails to go with (I got the tutorial on how to create the cover art but did not have time to do it).
What I really liked about it is that the player has physical navigation and menu controls right into the device, aside from the remote control. It was very useful when I misplaced the remote and was still able to use the player for a week before I found it again.
There’s a JukeBox function for managing the files (sorting and filtering) in the player. You will nee some additional work to be done if you want to use this feature but I reckon it should really be useful when you have hundreds of movies, music and photos downloaded into the player.
I hooked it up to the 47-inch LG LED 3D TV that was loaned to me last month and it worked great. Since then, it sits in the corner of my bedroom and plugged to the 42-inch LCD TV from American Home (they haven’t picked up the units for months now so I’m not complaining). It was pretty easy to use, almost plug and play, boots up really quick and plays almost any imaginable video formats. The size is a little bulky but that’s because it was made to accommodate an internal 3.5″ HDD.
The Mede8er is being distributed by Sanji Electronics in the Philippines and the MED500X2 is currently selling for under Php9,000 in stores (internal HDD not included).
