Customer Reviews

Hauppauge 1340 MediaMVP-HD Digital Media Player

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

 

 

For the price paid (less than $75), it's not half bad. I connected it to my LAN and HDTV, configured for DHCP, and was easily able to detect my Ubuntu Linux based Mediatomb server.

When I attempted playback of various media, I wasn't able to get sound over HDMI. I then tried component video (YPbPr) successfully. I went back to HDMI, lowered the bit rate for the sound, and had it up and running fine (including 720p .MKV playback).

From time-to-time the screen goes blank when you've been wandering around in the menus for too long and as of now, I have not been able to make use of the USB port (always reads folder empty no matter what's connected). I have a trouble ticket in with Hauppauge, will update with results.

Pros:
Low price
Played every video format I threw at it
1080p HDMI Output
Decent WAF (Wife Approval Factor)
Instinctive remote control (could be better)
Intuitive on-screen menus
Easy network setup
Automatic video setup built into the software

Cons:
Unit itself could look better
OSD needs polishing: speed, smoothness, fonts are big & blocky (can't really complain for the price)
Has to reboot after some setting changes
Screen goes blank every now and again while in the menu system
No automatic audio setup


Conclusion:
Setup could have gone more smoothly. For the problem I had with sound over HDMI, there was nothing in the manual, on the website, or in any of the forums that gave me any insight on this problem. I literally stumbled onto the fix. The problem was likely due to the limitations of my HDTV, but the average consumer might not catch that. Although it's not important to my intended application, I'm still waiting on an answer for my USB port issue. All-in-all, for what I purchased it for, (multi-format Upnp/DLNA player w/ HDMI output) it's not horrible when you take into consideration that other comparable consumer products cost anywhere from $30 to $125 more and a custom-built PC with an HDMI output could cost upwards of $400 to $500 at a minimum.


Update (12/20/2010):
I've not heard anything beyond the initial response (addressing my already resolved audio over HDMI issue) from Hauppauge support. I've also discovered that the MediaMVP-HD cannot play OGM video. The format is summarily ignored by the media browser (as in doesn't even show up as unknown). Although it's not advertised as one of the supported formats, I'm still disappointed. As for .MKV playback, if you have an MKV video with multiple audio tracks, there's no way to switch betewwn the two tracks. I also contacted Hauppauge about this and have gotten no answer. Prehaps I'll have better luck after the holidays.

Update (03/30/2011):
Still no response from Hauppauge, I've moved on to using a PC with XBMC Live installed. The MediaMVP will still serve as a spare in my workshop, but isn't quite smooth and polished enough (software-wise) for my living room system. Eye candy is important.

I've had a Hauppage HD PVR for about a year now, and I've been recording my HD TV programs (I have a library of TrueBlood, Lost and Heroes) from my Fios box and burning them onto a CD for playback on my Blu-ray player in my living room. But I've wanted to just simply play the recordings back to my HD TV in the living room instead of going through the "record/burn" steps.
So I picked up one of the MediaMVP-HD's. It basically did just what I wanted.
I hooked up the MVP up to my HD TV set in the living room (I used HDMI to connect to my Samsung "B" series LCD TV). I have an ethernet connection in my living room, so the connection for me was pretty simple. I then scanned my network and found both my PC where the HD PVR is connected and also my laptop computer. In about 5 minutes I was able to play the HD PVR recordings from my PC to the HD TV set.
I like the fast skip buttons (you hit 0 to 9 on the remote control to go to different spots in your recording) and I like being able to adjust the volume from the MVP remote control.
The video quality on my Samsung is incredible, I guess due to the HD PVR recordings but also (I assume) to the HDMI output on the MVP.
Wireless would be nice to have on the MVP, though I didn't need this on my TV set in the living room. I have another HD TV in the bedroom which does not have an ethernet cable, so I'd need wireless there.
Also, I liked the front panel USB port on the MVP, where I've been plugging in my digital pictures which I keep stored on my thumb drive.
In my opinion, if you have an HD PVR, you need to get a MVP so you can avoid burning blu-ray disks when you want to play your HD PVR recordings onto your HD TV set.

I bought this player based on the review and price. It took me a while to setup and got it working after a struggle. I have Gigabit network in my home. First the network cable was really loose and did not get connected then one of the cable with support connected to the network. Photo browsing did not work as a 4MB file took 15 minutes to load and the software froze. Only good thing was the video played well accessing the files from the network. It did not play .MKV files. The software indicated as "Beta" while trying to play .MKV files and did not have audio. I will not recommend this hardware. I returned this hardware in a week after trying everything possible.

I have the Hauppage WinTV-HVR-1600 running on one of my PCs. The other PCs I have are too old and slow to playback the video files it creates. Then along came this little gem. It was very easy to setup and use. The only drawback is the video playback controls. The fast scan backward and forward does not work very well at all. I am going to try their beta firmware and see if this corrects the problem. The picture and sound from this is goes way beyond my expectations, though. I am very happy I bought this and will be ordering another soon for my other TV.

Update: I am no longer happy. I loaded the beta firmware and box no longer works to playback video. I tried reloading the old firmware and it will not accept it.

Let's see what their tech support comes up with.

12/21/10
Hauppauge tech supports response was not acceptable so I returned the product to Amazon. Amazon gave me a full refund demonstrating their dedication to customer service/satisfaction.

I bought this mostly to watch TV shows recorded to my Win7 PC using the Hauppauge 1213 WinTV-HVR-2250 PCI-E x1 Dual TV Tuner. My thinking was that, being the same brand, I could be assured of compatibility with the file format (TS, transport stream).

Well, it turns out that file format compatibility isn't very good, and that's the least of this unit's problems. In short, the hardware appears solid, but the software is genuinely terrible. (By the way, I was upgrading from an old Hauppauge MediaMVP Digital Media Receiver (Model 1000), so I thought I knew what I was in for. Wrong.)

Physical setup on the box itself was pretty easy. Just plug and go. Software and network setup was terrible, and following the instructions in the manual just plain did not work. The setup screens are poorly organized and confusing, even for someone like me who does tech for a living. I puttered around with it for quite a while before I could get it to see the network.

Setup on the computer was also a drag because I chased a bunch of wild geese until I read in the fine print that they had a utility on their web site which could do the configuration automatically. I sure would liked to have known that before I started. Even so, the utility added a bunch of default folders that I don't use, and wouldn't get rid of them even if I specifically set it up to do so. As a whole, the manual's description of the software setup process wasn't even close to what I ended up needing to do.

The unit has a physical power switch which is a major nuisance. Don't get yourself too comfortable on the couch before checking to see if the unit is powered on. If it's not, you'll need to get up and physically hit the switch. The real problem here is that the unit also has a "standby" mode which looks identical to the "powered down" mode. In other words, you can't tell by looking at it whether it's on or off. You have to press the power button on the remote to find out. Then either it will come back to life (the green light will come on, meaning it was in "standby") or it will not (the green light will stay off, meaning it was "powered down"). I can't think of a reason why you might ever want to power the unit down, so I can't figure out why they would put a physical power switch on this. It's just dumb.

The box plays a lot of different file types, but sometimes drops audio or stutters for no apparent reason. CPU load appears to have something to do with it (playback invariably fails when my backup software runs), but it happens at other times when there is no load on the CPU. (My system is fast, and brand new.)

Some features on the remote simply don't work. For example, it's impossible to scan forward or backward at any speed other than 2X, despite what appears on the screen. Tabbing forward or backward by 30 seconds usually works, but multiple presses don't work unless you wait a few seconds between them, and then sometimes it just jumps all the way to the beginning or end of the file, sometimes a forward press jumps backward, and sometimes it looks like something is happening on the screen, but it continues playing from exactly the same spot. You can pause a video, but when you restart it, you completely lose the ability to either scan or tab in either direction. The numeric keys sometimes work to jump forward or backward as described in the manual, but sometimes they don't.

There's no rhyme or reason to why it works or does not. Trying to skip commercials in a program is a nightmare.

I've found that I can sometimes get certain files to work better if I transcode them to standard MPG files, but that takes time and is a hassle, and is no guarantee.

The menu and navigation is pretty terrible. The main menu defaults to Music, even though this is chiefly a video device. Once you select any option, you have to navigate through a whole bunch of submenus to finally get to the folder containing your video files. This is true even if your folder is in the root of the drive because the first level of menus makes you select between the USB slot (which I leave empty), the network (an option which just doesn't work), and "Shared Folder", which ultimately leads where you want to go.

Frankly, any other solution out there would be more elegant than this one. My spouse and kids used to watch videos on the old unit (which defaulted to the video folder I had selected with no navigation required), but the learning curve on this one is just too high. They can't figure it out, and it's not worth the work for me to try and train them.

I will say that the picture quality is very good when it does play. I gave it two stars because, with patience, it does work, and I am able to watch recorded shows (though no one else in the family can without my help). I have not tried it with DVD rips, as I have a Blu-Ray player also attached to the TV.

It is possible that Hauppauge will someday fix the firmware (yes, I checked to make sure I was running the latest version). They did periodic updates on the old model which genuinely improved it. I think some of the remote functions might be fixable this way. But they can't fix the physical power switch.

Considering it as a whole (hardware and software), this product is a real dud. My advice to you is to skip it altogether.

I bought a Seagate 2Tb NAS to feed this thing and make it easy for my wife to play movies.
When I upload movies to the NAS it's a hit and miss for the 1340 to even "see" them and when do do show up, the folder shows empty half the time.
Playing DVD's only works by going into the folder where the .VOB files are and select "play all" on the remote. There's a little freeze between files, but I can live with that.
Audio: Lots of problems playing back the newer audio formats (anything beyond AC3 and DTS). I would have expected this box to at least down-convert those to AC3 or DTS, but no such thing. Just crappy stereo.
After hours of messing around we watched a total of 3 movies from it. After the last freeze halfway the 4th movie I unhooked it.

Overall not a bad unit. It hooked up and set up easily enough. It found the network without problems and navigated through my folders. The biggest problem for me and the reason I sent it back is it can't play iso files nor does it correctly identify dvd folders. To play the latter one has to begin with the first vob and when it's done with that it goes on to the next one but the timeline reflects each vob and not the entire movie.

Got this for "Mothers Day" and hubby set it up... if he had read the directions, I am sure it would have been faster. [g] We've been playing with it and seeing what it can do. FUN!

I received the item last night, hooked up the HDMI cable, plugged it in and attached an external drive with photos, videos and music files. Within half an hour (the biggest struggle was getting behind the TV mounted on the wall to attach the HDMI cable), I was looking at photos on my TV, watching German television programs I have downloaded and listening to music. I'm not technically or mechanically inclined and if I managed to hook this up it is simple. I just wish the HDMI cable were longer.

Update: It worked well for two months, then started showing some problems. The company had a download to take care of some issues but when I updated the device it quit working all together. I'm sending it back.

I am so glad they created this product. I am using it almost daily.
I just wish it had a wireless network adapter as not all networks are connected to the TV or close enough to connect with wires. The USB capability really helps with that though - so mostly that is how I am using the player.
Thank you very much Hauppauge!