Customer Reviews

Noah Company MediaGate MG-M2TVD Digital Media Player HDMI Full 1080P with DTS 2.0 Digital Audio Out (Black)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As the other reviewer noted, the fan is super loud, more noisy than my PC with 3 fans. Granted, there is a mod over on the yahoo group to modify it so the fan is less loud, it also means I have to open up the box. I buy the box to be ready to use. Not acceptable IMHO, so I took out one star for that.

The next bad thing is that there is no easy way to change the screen resolution on the fly during play back, other similar product from chinese manufacturer has that feature. It is very useful to swap between 4:3 vs 16:9 material. There are also some files has no sound when play and it does have sound on the computer. That is the reason why I only give it 3 star.

It is great that my parents can plug in the SD card directly from the Digital Camera and see everything on TV, photo and movie.

I have the WD HDTV. This MG-M2TV beats pretty much every aspect one can think of.

MG-M2TV has RGB component out for older HD TVs out, WD HDTV does not.

MG-M2TV has build-in SD flash memory reader, WD HDTV does not.

MG-M2TV has a HW on/off switch, WD HDTV does not.

MG-M2TV has an active cooling fan, WD HDTV does not. The fan is noisy however. It tuns out better not to have one. :)

MG-M2TV has both coaxial and optical digital out, WD HDTV only has optical.

MG-M2TV has a cover on USB ports, WD HDTV does not. I know not a big deal.

WD HDTV remote is higher responsive than MG-M2TV, use AAA rather than button lithium on MG-M2TV.

MG-M2TV remote however has more functions like zoom, slow, volume...

MG-M2TV has a richer menu with preview file copy, which however makes MG-M2TV a bit more complicated to use for grandma.

MG-M2TV can decode DTS-HD. WD HDTV will give you an unsupported audio stream message.

MG-M2TV can play RMVB, WD HDTV cannot.

There may be a few more but I think it is a K.O. already.

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Update:

It turns out there is a plastic protection cover on the remote receiver. Once removed remote is much more sensitive now.

Te little fan in the back is loud, as loud as a hair dryer.

Pros:

- Great Picture Quality

- More video formats than other boxes

- full DTS support

- EXT3 support

If you are looking at reviews and vendor offers for this device, be sure to note whether the item in question is the older "M2TV" or the new "M2TVD". The "D" stands for full DTS support, which was lacking in the M2TV and the fan got quieter, even though not quiet enough. As a rough time mark: if the review is before mid-September 2009, it will be about the older unit. My review is for the M2TVD

The box simply works as advertised, even though there are still some rough edges (see cons). So far, it has digested each and any video format I have thrown at it, including HD MPEG2, DVD ISO Images, MKV, AVI, DiVx and more. The picture over component and HDMI is both superb, Video output is adjustable (480p to 1080p, 50Hz/60Hz). Audio via TOS-Link to my Yamaha DSP-A1 works flawlessly.

On the USB-side: even though not in the docs, the box supports EXT3 filesystems, which is a big plus for Linux-people like me.

Cons:

- The fan is still too loud

- Box hangs after "Standby" from Remote Control

- Many small rough edges, see below.

OK, the fan is not as loud as the reviews for the M2TV imply. But it is still quite audible during low-volume parts of a movie from 15 feet away. Bearable, but still not good.

After you shut down the box from the remote, it will hang when you try to turn it on again. You need to turn it off/on at the box itself.

Subtitles mostly default to "On". Not a big deal, but an annoyance to turn them off all the time.

On a few files, bringing up the audio or subtitle menu you will cause a video glitch after which your audio is out of sync (several seconds). Rewinding for a few seconds will resync the audio.

For DVD navigation, there does not seem to be a key equivalent to the "Menu" key on a DVD-Player. This is quite annoying.

Summary: a good box, even a steal at the price. If the firmware gets more mature, a great media player.

Update (a year later): I have changed my rating from four to two stars. Why? Because firmware support by this company is virtually non-existent. Over that year, a single firmware update came out (when they brought out the WLAN module for it) which changed a lot and did not address many bugs while introducing new ones.

Here are some of the more annoying unfixed problems:

- Still does not reliable recover from standby, requiring a hard power-cycle

- does not reliably support compressed MKV streams (no picture with some files)

- sometimes crashes on preview of ISO files while navigating the files on disk

- has trouble with some XVID files ("unsupported GOP")

For these reasons, I would suggest you spend your money on another player. The M˛TVD could have been great, but time showed that the company doesn't stand behind it.

Been waiting for a product like this for sometime. It's simple to set up and plays every format that I use. If you're like me and download obscure videos to watch later, this is the ticket. Don't care so much about the quality of the picture and sound, so I can't really comment on the high end HD aspect. Plus my plasma doesn't have an HDMI input, I'm running the component through my receiver then to the TV. Prior to receiving this unit I was streaming my downloads to my DirectTV HR-21 through TVersity and it worked fine, but there was no way to stop and resume, ff or rewind a program, so you to make sure you were ready to watch whatever you downloaded. Or if your connection got interrupted, you had to start all over. Not so with this little unit.

Tried avi's on a thumb drive. No problem. Hooked up a 500 gig HDD via USB and plays multiple formats no problem. SDHC card no problem

The thing to consider with this is what you plan on using it for. If you are a total videophile and hyper analyze everything piece of equipment then this is probably not for you. There are higher end models with internal drives that are probably more suited for that type of person.

This is portable, easy and plays nearly everything. Has Composite, Component and HDMI outputs for nearly every situation. Very impressed.

First off, I read the reviews below and was reluctant to purchase this item. Then I figured if it's not good I will return it.

To my surprise this is a GREAT PRODUCT!

It is Super easy to use. I have an older HDTV without HDMI and through component output I can do 1080i 60hz. Bluray rips looks amazing on my TV. It plays everything I have thrown at it.

The fan is not loud at all. Having a fan is a good thing so it will not overheat.

SD card slot is convenient for showing pictures to friends and family of trips.

The unit itself is very small and very portable. Great for bringing on trips or to a friends house.

The only bad thing about the unit is the remote is not great. But on most new electronics the remote stinks so it is not that important.

I give it 4/5 and its a definitely buy for people who want to watch HD content easily!

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Edit after 1 year and 2 months, the remote stopped working. I was really feed up with this company. The player had a huge problem turning on and off, and sometimes would freeze.

It was basically cheap crap.

DO yourself a Favor and buy the WDTV Live Plus, Will not be disappointed.

I bought this product a few weeks ago. it has played every single file (MKVs, ISO, MP4, AVI divx, avi h.264).

Pros:

1 - great image over HDMI 1.3 (1080p movies looks amazing)

2 - DTS support with a receiver

3 - it reads iso files, no need to burn more DVDs

4 - reproduce mkvs with high bitrates (more video quality) with no probs

5 - it can also reproduce m2ts (blu-rays) besides blu-ray rips

COns:

1 - cheap remote

2 - the box has some bugs when you turn it off with the remote (you have to turn it off directly from the box otherwise, it wont turn on again)

3 - When a movie has many subtitles, the box wont show a separate srt, ssa subtitle file even with the same name of the movie. It only happens with movies with many subs

In general this product meet my expectations, it's reproduced all the mkvs i have found on the internet with DTS, AC3 audio, etc.

It delivers exactly as promised. It is compatable to a bunch of file formats and it simply works. Video quality is very dependent on the source of the video file. So, it you have a high quality 1080p video file, the video is excelent. If your watching something that has been converted several times from one video format to another, it isnt as nice to watch.

For under $100, this is an excellent media player. Played all video and audio files I had using pen drives, sd cards and an external usb hdd. Image quality is very good at 1080p! Yes, the fan is a bit noisy, but I can stand that.

I been searching for a Media player can play both RMVB and WMV 1080p a long long time, is always when you have WMV 1080p support then you cant watch RMVB or if it support RMVB then it will not support WMV or any 1080i/p HD clips, this one is by far the best I own and it support almost every file in my computer, WDTV is nice, but it does not support RMVB which is a big different for me.

Pro:

-RMVB and 1080p file (MKV, H.264, WMV) support

-Memory Card Reader built in

-File to File Copy (USB1 to USB 2 to Memory Card)

-Easy setup (took me....3 min)

-will have wireless N support in the near future (I confirm that with one of the sales who work at MediaGateUSA after I read the review above)

-Really nice looking with piano finish (it looks great with my LG HDTV)

-support alot of diff languages support english, spanish, chinese, japanese, korean...and more

Con:

-remote does not use AAA battery

I Just got this thing for 2 weeks, so far is great, and I will keep making update if I see something different~

This looks like Mediagate's first foray into hdd-less MediaPlayers and looking at other reviews, it looks to best the WD TV in every way. Just received an email saying they released a Korean language firmware as well ;-)

Pros:

-Very Easy to Use (i think this is the only tech above a VCR my mom will will be able to use for her soap operas...yea RMVB support)

-SDHC Card Reader for photos

-HDTV HDMI 1080p output

-DTS pass-thru

-Will Play Everything You Throw At It

-Tiny!

Cons:

-Remote Tiny as well...

-No HDD inside but not really a con since you can attach your own USB hdds

-no wireless yet (read there is a wireless N dongle coming soon though)

Bought mine through the marketplace with xPCgear since i've bought stuff from them before and it's coming in a couple of days so i will update review.