User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Good, but not for everything
I have one of these and while it works very reliably for some things (Motorola cable box and Roku box), it very reliably FAILS to work with my Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player and my Oppo 981 DVD player. Symptom is picture appears for a few seconds as the DVD player turns on…then nothing.

Called Monoprice (on line chat) and their answer was “sometimes things work and sometimes they don’t”.

Wow!

Great customer support.

3 Stars Handshake problems
My switch is connected to a cable box, Apple TV, and a Roku box. The output goes to a 1-year old LG LCD TV. Monoprice has been very quick to respond to my emails, but have no fix for the sound dropping out intermittently. They have told me to return the unit (at my expense – they don’t pay for return postage when the issue is compatibility) and try another model. I can see where this is going. I will do one iteration with them. Hopefully it will work, but I’m skeptical.

5 Stars Great HDMI Switch Box at a great price
This is a great box at a great price. I first bought a piece-of-crap switch box from CircuitCity that kept introducing interference on my 47′ Polaroid flatscreen HDTV whenever I wanted to display 1080p content.

Unlike the the unit I purchased from CircuitCity, this box is well constructed out of metal, not plastic, and handles every format that I send to it without any problems. Plus the remote works well too or I can just let it auto-switch between components.

5 Stars Very reliable – excellent value
This unit works great for switching HDMI inputs. I am using all 5 device ports and they all make solid connections to a 75foot HDMI cable run to my video projector.

I found that I needed a better quality cable for my Blu-ray player but all the other devices work without issues. One nice feature is that it seems to automatically select which ever input is active. Very handy if only one device is powered on.

I expected to have to pay twice what this unit costs so this is truly a great value.

I agree other reviewers that the LED indicators are too bright when displaying red, but that can be resolved by angling the box away from the viewer.

2 Stars Not working with Tivo Series 3 DVR
So here’s how this switch does not work with a Tivo DVR:

HDMI switch detects Tivo Series 3 DVR after switching from another source, and promptly about 10 seconds later the switch acts as if the Tivo is not currently active. And the HDMI switch continues to do this as many times as a person wants to repeat the process, selecting the input for said DVR. In other words, if you start to watch your Tivo, ten seconds later your video/sound turns off.

The only way to keep the Tivo source active is to unplug the power cord in the back of the switch, and plug it back in again. Switch to any other connected HDMI device and then back to Tivo and the behavior I’ve described above comes back 100% of the time.

This one’s going back. If the switch worked correctly, the 5 HDMI inputs would be a great deal. (Presently, I’m looking at the Oppo HDMI switch. Future expansion is on my mind, and that one has fewer HDMI ports.)

Why two stars for the Monoprice switch instead of one? It is possible that this switch works just fine for some people’s equipment. But a Tivo is a pretty standard chunk of hardware for many people. Gamble on this one knowing you might need to send it back.

(Equipment in the mix: Pioneer plasma, Tivo Series 3 DVR, Philips upsampling DVD player. I did not attempt to see how the switch works or does not work with my Sony PS3 due to not being able to get by the problem with how this switch reacts to a Tivo DVR. The DVD player did work just fine through the switch. Switch back to Tivo and… SURPRISE!)

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User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars Not working with Tivo Series 3 DVR
So here’s how this switch does not work with a Tivo DVR:

HDMI switch detects Tivo Series 3 DVR after switching from another source, and promptly about 10 seconds later the switch acts as if the Tivo is not currently active. And the HDMI switch continues to do this as many times as a person wants to repeat the process, selecting the input for said DVR. In other words, if you start to watch your Tivo, ten seconds later your video/sound turns off.

The only way to keep the Tivo source active is to unplug the power cord in the back of the switch, and plug it back in again. Switch to any other connected HDMI device and then back to Tivo and the behavior I’ve described above comes back 100% of the time.

This one’s going back. If the switch worked correctly, the 5 HDMI inputs would be a great deal. (Presently, I’m looking at the Oppo HDMI switch. Future expansion is on my mind, and that one has fewer HDMI ports.)

Why two stars for the Monoprice switch instead of one? It is possible that this switch works just fine for some people’s equipment. But a Tivo is a pretty standard chunk of hardware for many people. Gamble on this one knowing you might need to send it back.

(Equipment in the mix: Pioneer plasma, Tivo Series 3 DVR, Philips upsampling DVD player. I did not attempt to see how the switch works or does not work with my Sony PS3 due to not being able to get by the problem with how this switch reacts to a Tivo DVR. The DVD player did work just fine through the switch. Switch back to Tivo and… SURPRISE!)

5 Stars Great HDMI Switch Box at a great price
This is a great box at a great price. I first bought a piece-of-crap switch box from CircuitCity that kept introducing interference on my 47′ Polaroid flatscreen HDTV whenever I wanted to display 1080p content.

Unlike the the unit I purchased from CircuitCity, this box is well constructed out of metal, not plastic, and handles every format that I send to it without any problems. Plus the remote works well too or I can just let it auto-switch between components.

5 Stars Very reliable – excellent value
This unit works great for switching HDMI inputs. I am using all 5 device ports and they all make solid connections to a 75foot HDMI cable run to my video projector.

I found that I needed a better quality cable for my Blu-ray player but all the other devices work without issues. One nice feature is that it seems to automatically select which ever input is active. Very handy if only one device is powered on.

I expected to have to pay twice what this unit costs so this is truly a great value.

I agree other reviewers that the LED indicators are too bright when displaying red, but that can be resolved by angling the box away from the viewer.

3 Stars Handshake problems
My switch is connected to a cable box, Apple TV, and a Roku box. The output goes to a 1-year old LG LCD TV. Monoprice has been very quick to respond to my emails, but have no fix for the sound dropping out intermittently. They have told me to return the unit (at my expense – they don’t pay for return postage when the issue is compatibility) and try another model. I can see where this is going. I will do one iteration with them. Hopefully it will work, but I’m skeptical.

2 Stars Good, but not for everything
I have one of these and while it works very reliably for some things (Motorola cable box and Roku box), it very reliably FAILS to work with my Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player and my Oppo 981 DVD player. Symptom is picture appears for a few seconds as the DVD player turns on…then nothing.

Called Monoprice (on line chat) and their answer was “sometimes things work and sometimes they don’t”.

Wow!

Great customer support.

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The Asus HDP-R1 O!Play Digital Media Player offers stunning 1080p high definition visuals with the high speed file transfer of eSATA and LAN. Just play and share your music with one click and experience a hassle-free multimedia playback with no need for file conversions!

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars New firmware 1.11N is now available
I have this device for about 3 days. I noticed it failed to re-scan the attached USB harddrive after the machine is on for a while. As a result, you can see the drive but you won’t able to see the folders and files unless you recycle the power of the O!play to force a rescan again. It is annoying and I was about to return it. Last night, I went to ASUS website and found out they now have the 1.11N firmware for NTSC TV system. I downloaded and installed it and viola, the issue has been resolved. The new firmware also has some new features that is nice as well, such as sort by file date. You can also bring up the recent view files as a quick short-cut. I heard ASUS are also working on getting YouTube as well on the next upgrade. Hopefully more good things will come. For the price I paid for this, it worth every penny and more. It play every media files I throw at it and the picture is amazing. If you want to watch AVCHD files like those recorded on HD camorder, make sure you use the eSATA connection to your harddrive, the USB connection is not fast enough and the video can be choppy.

On the side note, you cannot download the firmware from the ASUS website like any other download. They force you to install their own download software first before you can download any files from them. I hate to install another piece of crap software on my computer.

4 Stars WD TV and ASUS O!play..
There are a few differences between the ASUS O!play and the WD TV player which set the benchmark for HD players.

First you Have to download and install the 1.11 firmware version, it will solve alot of issues like HDMI compatibility and the subtitle options, plus it will add the UPNP server option.

The O!play has network capability which the WD hasn’t.(they are both priced at $99)

The O!play supports more formats than the WD does.

With the O!play audio is played through the HDMI so you dont need additional audio cables like the WD TV does, you can choose 2 channel or RAW that plays the audio the way it was created, plus with the WD you need the fiber optics cable for some audio tracks, the O!play played them all.

The remote is much more responsive than the WD.

The O!play doesn’t have the picture preview of the files like the WD, instead it plays a preview of the file.(this option can be disabled).

Subtitle codes are the same as the WD but it has 6 colors to choose from instead of two and the size range is much larger.

Resume play is perfect with the O!play whereas the WD sometimes it doesn’t work.

Even after the firmware update the O!play still has HDMI compatibility issues, basically you CAN’T choose the 1080p option with some TVs,(Doesn’t work on a PHILIPS LCD but works perfectly with a SAMSUNG PLASMA!),Check out the ASUS forums, the WD worked on all the TVs I plugged it to.

The O!play is ALMOST double the size of the WD (check the picture I posted), it’s remote is too.

The O!play has one USB and an esata/USB port whereas the WD has two USB ports.

When using an external hard drive it turns off when you turn the O!play off, with the WD it doesn’t.

The O!play stays clean and doesn’t attract fingerprints or scratches, the WD .. OMG!

For 720p and 1080p files both played the files perfectly.

Conclusion..

I really can’t decide which one is better, they both have thier pros and cons, my guess is that it will be decided with upcoming firmware updates.

2 Stars Not quite there and Windows 7 Users beware for now
I purchased this unit in part due to the excellent reviews on Amazon. I should have checked the ASUS Forum first.

Windows 7 users have all kinds of trouble with shared drives and files. I finally got it working with Windows 7 by doing a Registry Edit provided on the ASUS forum. Not quite plug and go, right?

The documentation states it plays most all file formats, however it will not play many of my WMV high quality files (these play fine on a PC and windows media center so it is not the file)

ASUS Support on this device is non existent… check the forum and there are cries for help everywhere.

User Interface has a long was to go as well.. functional but not great.

Perhaps with future firmware updates it will improve over time, but for now be advised.

4 Stars Plays everything thrown at it, connecting to network shares still seems lacking.
A few things. I am giving this thing a 4 out of 5. It seems to play everything I throw at it. A previous reviewer on October 21 mentions that “The slightly annoying thing is that as you scroll through a list of movie files it tries to instantly play a preview.” You can easily disable this by going to the setup panel of the O!play.

[...]: [...] Make sure you download the appropriate firmware for your region. NTSC or PAL. I recommend opening this in Internet Explorer because when I used firefox; the download would never start correctly.

With this firmware I have successfully connected to and streamed MANY different formats via PS3 media server. (a UPNP server) I’m not sure why you would want to do this when connecting to a simple file share seems to be the stated goal of this player, but I digress, it’s a feature that some seem to want.

Now, I have had nothing but trouble connecting to file server shares. This includes both a Windows 7 box and an Ubuntu Linux box with Samba. I have tried everything and the shares won’t even show up in the list under Network. All machines are in the same broadcast domain, and I am able to connect to both servers with ANY other client. So with that being said i’ve been relegated to manually mounting the shares so they show up as LOCAL DISK(s). Yes you read that correctly. So now when I go to play files I go to the Storage Device option appropriate category and my server(s) shares are listed as locally connected disks.

Here’s how you do that:

telnet 10.1.1.243 (ip address of your asusO!play)

username: root

password: (<--nothing)

you need to edit the run_tail file

vi /usr/local/etc/dvdplayer/script/run_tail

vi isn’t an easy text editor google “vi cheat sheet”

(*in the below listed example 10.1.1.31 and HDmovies are variables that can be ANYTHING, they are your choice and must be set based on your own home network*)

add something like the following:

mkdir -p /tmp/ramfs/volumes/HDmovies

mount -t cifs -o username=yourusername,password=yourpassword //10.1.1.31/HDmovies /tmp/ramfs/volumes/HDmovies

now reboot your player and browse to Storage Device under the appropriate category and you’ll see your network share(s) mounted.

3 Stars great idea, still some issues
I bought this box based on many positive reviews here. My experiences differ a little though.

Yes this unit plays pretty much anything. That’s a big plus. The interface and setup is also very simple and easy. You really don’t need a manual for it. The image quality is great, both SD and HD movies look excellent.

I have a collection of 400+ movies on my server, in various formats. The O!Play plays them all. The slightly annoying thing is that as you scroll through a list of movie files it tries to instantly play a preview. This causes a slight delay in which it doesn’t accept any input from the remote. This makes it a little hard to quickly go through a list of movies.

The bigger issue I found was that it stops to play back in the middle of a movie. It happened on every movie I tried it on so far, so it’s not a random issue. Pressing Stop & Play again will restart the movie just fine, so I really don’t know where the issue is. Unfortunately it doesn’t continue where it stopped

The very same server on the very same network cable plays any movie fine and without interruption on my PS3. On the PS3 there is also no delay browsing through a list and the PS3 starts playback quicker than the O!Play. This indicates that all these issues are not with the server.

Another thing I want to mention is that the O!Play does not see media servers.

Bottom line: very impressive that it plays pretty much anything and the quality is great and I love the simple use and setup. But the issues of stopped playback are very annoying and make it almost useless. I haven’t given up yet. Maybe a new firmware will help. Using a local HD is not an option, that defeats the concept of having a central media server.

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