Customer Reviews

MVIX (MV-5000U) Multimedia Player (w/ FM Transmiter)

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

 

 

This is a great device and I'm quite pleased with it. Be advised that you need a Windows computer to get the files onto it that you want to play. I run Linux and assumed that I could ignore the usual "Windows only" warnings for this product because I know that I can use a USB hard drive easily with my computer. The Mvix will not accept files from a Linux computer in spite of trying everything I could think of (the manufacturer's website comfirms this). I ended up using a USB drive enclosure to format the hard drive and to put the files on it, then I put the hard drive in the Mvix and everything plays ok. It's a lot of trouble, but it works. Want more files? Take the drive back out of the Mvix and put it back in the USB drive enclosure. Repeat as desired.

I love the device, but if you're not a Windows user, there's a tad of trouble involved.

Recd. this player last month. Here are some of my experiences

Format Support - This alone probably worth all the "stars". It supports virtually all formats, including Divx, Xvid, MPEG etc. And it DOES support ISO's as well, although it's not documented anywhere. MP3's, Picture JPEG's, original DVD (VOB), etc. - I have tried it all, and it handled everything without any problems. The NTSC/PAL capabilities makes it one the best "region free" players in the market. If you have 1000's of MP3s, remember to organize them in multiple folders - thats the right way of using a HDD-based media player. It reduces seek time and increases performance.

Design - I like the nice and sleek design of this player. It's thin, and the nice matte silver color nicely compliments my Sony Wega TV that I connected it to. It really looks elegant with that shinning LCD at night.

Price - I think it's well worth it, especially if you have a lot of "homemade" DVD's.

I am basically unhappy that you have to carry this player to your PC everytime you want to transfer a file. A wireless connection will be a valueable addition to this. I wish the designers used the Radio freq. remote than the IR remote. Isnt IR old-fashioned already?? - and Oh! the portable bag that comes with it - what a waste - my wife uses it to carry her old cosmetics in it.

Thanks to this player, I am getting into the mode of organizing all my media files at one place... thats what such devices should do.

To sum it up I am very pleased with this product... this is exactly what I was looking for.

Read the other reviews for what the Mvix can do. I just want to jot down a few notes here about some nagging problems I have encountered:

If a DVD title contains parental controls, the Mvix cannot proceed beyond the screen telling you so. If you are ripping your own DVDs, you'll need to find a utility called FreeDVD which will remove these controls from the DVD files before they'll work on the Mvix.

If you like to RIP your DVDs to an mpeg-4 format such as DivX or XviD, the Mvix will display blocky artifacting around any medium to bright red objects in the video. If you use a utility such as mencoder, and use the LAVC codec instead, these artifacts are absent and the video looks terrific. However, LAVC has nearly non-existant bitrate control so its easy to create movies which exceed the Mvix's ability to keep up with video data. I realize this probably sounds like incomprehensible geek mumbo jumbo to most readers of these reviews, but suffice to say, if you are in the habit of downloading movies (which are primarily in xvid format) the playback on the Mvix will be marred by these artifacts. I've been in contact with Mvix support and hope to see a resolution to this issue, which should be solved by a firmware update.

Aside from that, the one thing not mentioned in other reviews here is the spectacular quality of the output from the Mvix. If you hook it up to your television with the component connections, the image quality is superb.

My friends and I all bought this item and have been experimenting with it. To date I am quite pleased with it and would recommend it to others. I coupled it with a Seagate 320GB HDD and find that it is plenty of space. Prior to this I was using my X-Box to play all my downloads but used to dread having to hook up to the ethernet and transfer the files at snails pace. The MVIX 5000 is USB 2.0 so the transfers are now really fast. I download a lot of TV series from the US (I'm in Australia) and my only real nag about this system is that any copying / deleting of files must be done in the PC hookup. You can't watch an episode and then delete it without hooking up to the PC. The only other gripe is with the DVD or ISO formats. I find that when you try to fast forward or rewind in these formats that the device often hangs. This does not happen in DVIX/XVID formats. You will be hard pressed to find another device that has so many output options, including DTS pass through. I also bought the optional car kit for an extra AUS$40. This way I can connect to the kids DVD player in the car, just to use the screen. I can control the movie selection from the front, and send the sound thru the car stereo speakers using the FM transmitter. When the kids aren't watching I can play the MP3's. My suggestion would be to also get hold of a 2nd power supply. It is a 12volt 3 amp supply, similar to many computer LCD monitors. That way you can leave one connected near your computer and the other next to the TV so you don't have to drag the cables etc from one room to the next or clamber under the computer desk trying to plug/unplug from the powerpoint.

I purchased this great little gadget 6 months ago and it has served me wonderfully. I have even left it on for weeks at a time constantly accessing and playing file and as far as i can tell there have been no detrimental effects.

I have had two issues so far though.
1. when i purchased the device the fan was not connected but that was easy enough to remedy as i simply reconnected the fans power cable from where it had been disconnected.
2. about a month after i got it the remote stopped working. after some research i found out that i had gotten the EU version of the remote and had used the US/Canada firmware upgrade which broke the remote function.

I would recommend this to any one looking for a small user friendly multimedia center. Mvix also announced that they will eventually release the Firmware source code which will allow for all sorts of user modifications and addition of alternative formats.

I have also found MixUSA's support staff and team to be very friendly and responsive to problems. Many of hte problems given by other reviewers have been solved or reduced via firmware updates available from mvix's website.

Note: i did not purchase this product through amazon. I purchased from a competitor who shall be left unnamed but i felt that this device should have its merits told of.

I've been running this player for about 2 months now and everyday it feels that I have just scratched the surface of this intriguing device. Everyday i learn and explore new features of this player. The only reason I forked out the money to purchase this little guy was because I just had too many DVD files ripped to my hard drive... when I ripped them, I thought I would be watching all - but it never happened. Watching them alone sitting in front of my PC isnt all that exciting.

Here are some of my experiences with this unit:

Pros:
- Design-wise, this player is quite practical and stylish. I have got some rave reviews from friends about this. It does look like some tech-gadget and not a piece of cake sitting next to my TV.
- No-screw case design makes it easier to swap HDDs - you will need it if you had as many movies as I do.
- One of the very few players which plays Xvid files! This feature was very important for me.
- Playing VOB(IFO) files was absolutely flawless - no stutters or artifacts. This means that i do not need to compress any of my DVDs anymore. Just drag and drop all DVD files on the player's disk and its good to go.
- Never had any fan-issue - that others are complaining about. I dont even hear it.
- pretty small for an upgradeable device.


Cons:
- You have to disconnect the USB cable from the PC before you can play the files.
- Does not support WMV files.
- Only supports ATA/ATAPI HDDs. Supporting SATA HDDs will be good.
- Wirless Support will be nice to have!

Bottom Line:
It's a great little player for getting your Media files into your living room. If you thought DivX looked cool on your computer monitor - you've seen nothing yet!!!

Well... I love my music, videos and photos! I have a set of cool philips speakers and a projector in my room which I use to hear music and play all videos. Recently I decided to separate all entertainment from my PC and was on a look out for a solution. Was thinking of buying an extra Hard Drive and a cheap computer to connet to my TV/Projector to play all my media.

Till I came across MVIX. I had a recently purchased an internal HDD and going by what the unit promised, I thought this would be a more elegant, compact and a cheaper solution, tho I was not sure about the quality and capabilities of such units.

and having used it for a while.. I LOVEEE IT!! although I wish the menu was a bit more better, this thing is amazing when it comes to play all videos and mp3s.plays all my xvids, divx, mpeg3 and 4's! i only have mp3 as audio format so donno much about all the audio formats this unit handles.

It looks very very sleek, and pretty easy to use, tho i shd say I am good with electronics but then, anyone who has used a PC and a DVD player can easly use this thing. I wish we would have a network ready solution so that I could use this to play all media w/o wires and use my ideal LAN.

Overall.. this thing rocks.... a good value for your money and its a great gift for someone who enjoys and has a good media collection like I do.

hope the above review helps,

I thought the specs looked good on the MVIX 5000 so I got one a little over a month ago. I love the idea, but I am dissappointed with the current implemenation in several ways:

(1) NO LOSSLESS AUDIO support! I bought this after reading it supported wma so I figured I could rest assured I'd be able to use lossless wma for archiving.
(2) HUGE gaps between audio tracks. I'm talking seconds not ms... Why is it so hard for manufacturers to understand that albums with seemless track transtitions really do need to be played that way?
(3) The front display keeps switching to an annoying and useless "DIVX" message after you stop pressing any buttons on the remote for more than a few seconds, making browsing your music files an exercise in sheer frustration.
(4) Considerable fan-noise (seems to actually be less with the unit's cover off, so probably a box resonance problem).
(5) Can't play 20-30% of the DVD backups I've tried. Usually can be fixed by recompressing the DVD, but very annoying to have to do so.

Appart from the fan-noise, my hope is that much of this might be addressed with future firmware updates, but until then I'd strongly recommend looking at alternatives.

Those that made the comments about the size - they were right on. I too thought this baby was much bigger - the promotional guys need to have a better picture on the site - almost looks like the size of a computer tower on the web site. Instead, it is no more than half the size of a single ream of paper. On the flip side, I disagree with the customer service comments. My response time and advice has been better than good.

I bought it because it was cheaper than a projector and I was interested in looking at my computer downloads on something other than my tiny computer screen - it certainly did the trick. I don't know about all these different movie formats but so far everything I have tried has worked and it's certainly much better than the tiny computer screen.

Supposed to have video upscaling for playing on a plasma or LCD television but I have just used it with my 32" standard screen. Wondered if that feature really worked - anyone got one of these hooked up to a high definition set?

I agree with the remote complaints - it says an ergonomically constructed remote but I think that just might be the technology version of meaning small. It is better than getting up mind you, but I keep pushing more than one button at a time.

Given the price, I am definitely pleased. And I still have much more to try out.

Opened the box, ten minutes later I'm watching my first Xvid movie on my large 56" Samsung DLP. Oh boy! What a pleasure it is... to finally use all those "ripped" movies on a larger screen than the PC screen. Now I am wondering how I even watched those flicks on that tiny screen.

I have had this unit up and running for last 2 months and I am extremely happy with it. Transferring my prized collection of 22 DVDs onto this unit was a piece of cake and it plays flawlessly. The unit has an LCD screen which makes it very easy to navigate through folders and files. Very pleased with the quality and functionality. Don't expect it to do miracles for you.... And you will be happy you got it.

I am sure their Manual and instructions could take a couple of rounds of editing. Otherwise, I'm delighted - I guess the true multimedia equipments are here to stay. Now lets start a pay-per-download movie site to really enjoy these units!