Customer Reviews

Mvix Ultio Pro Media Center

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Read the positive reviews and you will notice that they sound like they were written by salesmen, not users. I fell for buying the first generation Ultio. Product arrived broken and I had it RMA'd. They took so long to fix it that the warranty expired before I got it back. When it arrived broken again, they wanted to charge me to fix it! I was threatened by a customer support manager that they would not work with me unless they were allowed to try to fix it again. No refund would be given. At that time the forums on the MVIX site were full of similar experiences like mine. I was so disappointed by the service that when the unit arrived back over 2 months later, I just left it in the box. I bought a Popcorn Hour C200 which does work well. Just this weekend, nearly a year after I originally purchased the unit I plugged it in as I had a TV that I wanted to see a movie on in another part of the house. I was not surprised that the unit had no audio and the picture shuddered and stopped as if I was running HD video on a 486 PC! I figured I would try an update to see if that would help. Well, after loading the 3.0 firmware, I was greeted by a saturated green screen and no audio but it was nice to see that the interface had become much more responsive. Well, this is going back into my closet for another year and we will see if it actually functions when they release 4.0. PLEASE spend your money with another company! It may be a neat looking machine but it is an expensive paperweight. I noticed today that the negative posts in the forums on the MVIX site have been taken down including mine. Smart move by the company.

Lately I have been looking at different media boxes for televisions and I have an interesting history with them. About a decade ago I modded my original XBOX to have XBMC on it, it played movies and games right from the internal ATA hard drive. Fantastic device really, limited by it's 720p resolution and non-HDMI output (it had component, but HDMI is audio & video and much easier to work with =).

So the quest continues a decade later, now with the Logitech Revue Companion Box with Google TV and Keyboard Controller, Apple TV MC572LL/A (2010), Roku XDS Streaming Player 1080p, and Boxee Box by D-Link devices -- none of which have hard drives -- and I would like to have a portable media device that does not rely on just internet to play videos/audio (as you can see I have higher expectations due to past experiences).

A friend told me about the Mvix Ultio Pro (MX-880HD) Media Center w/PVR so I thought I would give it a shot -- had someone buy me it for Christmas. The un-boxing experience wasn't too shabby, it's not like opening an Apple product but it is nice to see that they offer multiple power adapters and audio/video cables. The remote is a nice full sized remote with a lot of options and the hard drive is a breeze to install (warning here, the hd has to be formatted by the device after putting it in).

Loading up the unit on the TV is where everything went down hill; the first picture on the 720p monitor is of a 2-5 color MVix logo, then a main menu that looks like it's 240x480 stretched to fit a 720p screen -- a pixelated mess really. Instantly you can see that the interface was either an after thought or not very well thought out. Upon performing the firmware update -- which is almost impossible to read the version on the unit -- the graphics get a little more sharp but still have a XBMC / Plex want-to-be but not well thought out design.

I moved a few videos over the network to the unit using the clumsy menu's and confusing language (don't get me started on the lack of feedback) with the loading icon that looks 2-bit and pixelated. The movies play however you can not move out of a playing video without completely loosing your place in that video. Where other TV based units will continue to play or pause the video while you flip through menu's, this one simple stops all video playing.

There is a Flickr add-on, I have a Flickr Pro account -- I can't access my photos on this unit, it just posts random photos from Flickr... Useless. I go to the YouTube plug in and again the menu's are useless and look like someone's first programming project in high school, no real thought on how the user might actually USE it.

Then I went to see how the news appeared on screen, completely blacked out background with a white san-serif typeface... awesome.

Overall at this point I was completely turned off by the unit and would have much rather spent my money on a Boxee Box and external hard drive (for the same price as this unit).

Another Note: It concerns me that all the 5 star reviews of this unit are from people on Amazon who have only reviewed THIS product, another Amazon user Daniel Flick has also commented on this and I also agree this appears to be a marketing sham. You can not find a community online for these at all, there is nobody talking about it and the company themselves have removed negative commentary from their own personal forums. This device is a joke, and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody because their are much better devices on the market with people who work hard to make the user experience fantastic. I almost cannot believe that a unit like this can actually be sold like this these days and rest assured I have saved this review and if it gets removed I will re-write it and blog it myself.

I had the 780HD for a while and once I finally hooked it up via HD cable, the picture was all messed up. Customer support said they could not help me since I was a week or 2 out of warranty, and they wouldn't even offer the option to pay to have it repaired. Their service was also quite rude. I'll never buy another MVIX product again. If you want a media player, just buy a HTPC.

This thing SUCKS. I have returned it twice, logged so many support tickets and wasted hours updating firmware after firmware, at times waiting months for them to update to get basic stuff to work, like the included Bit Torrent client, and the thing keeps having trouble with basic operation. The support staff are rude, blase, and seem to relish in your bad experience. I have wasted HOURS AND HOURS TRYING TO GET THIS TO WORK, it is just a bad product, bad company, waste of money. You are better off buying DVDs!!!!!!!!! If I could give it negative 5 stars I would because owning this thing is like owning a black hole.

these units do not do what they promiss have lots of problems and their techsupport is the worst in the business.

Very bad policys that are designed for the manufacturers protection totally screwing the customer.

If you buy a rotten lemon then you should be able to get adecuate support or to return the item.

The internal parts are the cheapest you can find anywhere.

There is no pride in this company no real support and only greed.

They will fish for more of your cash just like a real thief while all you want is a unit that does what it promisses and what you payd for allready.

You want a player that works, go with Popcorn Hour or something just do not trust Mvix

I purchased one of these. The hard drive failed immediately. I was told I had to take the device apart and send the drive to the manufacturer! Mvix would not warranty the system and drive, which I bought from them!

They point me to some obscure webpage on their site stating that if the hard drive fails, I need to send it to the manufacturer. Basically, touch luck - deal with it.

If you are not technically inclined - do not buy one of these. Certainly don't buy one for a family member that is not a computer geek.

If you attempt to update the software you can "brick" the unit. Then you have to get some other software to try to "unbrick" it. None of this is easy or straight forward.

Oh and don't bother calling customer service...

Basically, when it works, it is only OK and when it fails - and it probably will, good luck!

Stay away!

Man I wanted to like this because I have one of the first machines ''different model'' they built and never had a problem with it. But this P.O.S. didn't work correctly from day one. Got it for my son for Xmas and had nothing but problems. The thing stopped working all together rite after the warranty was done. I called and they said 50 dollars.......Damn that's half of what I paid for the stupid thing. Well I opened it up and the fan had stopped working and that's all it took from Radio Shack to fix the thing. The fan stopped and the whole machine stopped. Real good machine hahaha. That's the last machine I will buy from Mvix. To bad because there built in VA I hear.

This is the second mvix that I have owned. Both failed! Had numerous problems with the older style MX800 Ultio. Last month I wanted to send it in for repair and was told no parts were available so to bad please throw the $175 unit in the trash. I was then stupid enough to purchase the newer model MX880 Ultio Pro. It didn't have audio on the HDMI connection out of the box. Tried the component outputs and the red color smears and make picture green close to the red. Customer service said check the connections and try another cable. Cable worked fine with DVD player so it is the unit that has the problem. I wasn't really suprised about that based on my experience with this company. I am now sending it back for a refund and hoping I don't get a hassle with that. These guys have a good idea but they can't make their hardware work. There seem to be some other units available on the market that will do the same things this one will do so I suggest doing some more research and buy any other unit but this to save yourself some headaches. Will update with resolution of refund attempt.

yes i can say this player can play many type of videos but i really do not know why i cannot play any video from Youtube directly while it connected to internet.

I was a long time mvix customer, back when the 760HD was the only kid on the block that had all the features. It worked great, until one day it died after a year and a heavy burning scent.

When the Ultio came out - I bought the first batch. After 30 days it died (power issue - wouldn't keep hard drive on). Took lots of troubleshooting to get to the point where they would accept the RMA. It took almost a month to get it back, they sent back the same unit! Still had issues, sent back again and finally they were able to replicate the problem and sent me a new one.

That one worked, for about 6 months until the hard drive died. Of course, I had to deal with Hitachi with that one. They send me a new drive and everything was working again (a pain in the neck, since I had to recopy everything over to the 1tb drive).

As other reviewers stated, product quality it very poor. Just looking at the solders and connections shows dirt cheap engineering. This might also be poor heat dissipation, or inadequate power for the hard drive. The Bittorrent would start flaking out, the unit would turn on and no hard drive would show without multiple re-boots.

They claim Upnp support via Playon - but this is a joke, the navigation is so slow, making it utterly useless. The interface to browse files is also very poor. In the end, I wanted something my wife could turn on and use and something I didn't have to constantly troubleshoot. I trashed this POS and bought a Boxee box which streams content beautifully and it always works. I also use a small barebone PC to bit torrent and hold files without the need for a power thirsty computer.

The Ultio always had an advantage of hard drive integration, but the customer service and the rest of company has a lot to be desired.