Customer Reviews

Patriot Box Office 1080p High-Definition Media Player PCMPBO25 (Black)

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

The unit arrived today, and I tested it for several hours so far. It's hooked up to a secondary bedroom 32" Sony LCD via HDMI (cable included). Other included items are : remote w/batteries, wall wart adapter, cheap composite cables. The wireless LAN USB dongle came included as part of the promo in a separate package, inserted either in the front or back full sized USB port.

I have yet to RTFM which is found on a CD, so any missteps or errors on my part may have been avoided had I done so. It offers a ton of features with the price point just right.

Right then, my main use of this MP is to stream video from a networked media center separate from my home theater. I did test direct playback from a portable HD, in this case a WD Passport powered directly via USB. Playback proved flawless of any content I had. Mostly this consisted of mkv container files of 720 & 1080p content. Audio codecs included AC3 and DTS with no discernible difficulty. I was unable to play some archived .iso files, but playback of these were never confirmed on other machines.

The image quality almost rivals my dedicated HTPC (albeit its hooked to a much better TV). The Patriot defaults to an "Auto" noise reduction (NR)function which I left on. Fast panned and action shots displayed smoothly. On the setup screen you can specify TV resolution up to 1080p with or without 24HZ playback. As is the case with stand alone MPs, it does not recognize an attached CDROM.

Audio remained synced with video from mkv containers as well as other files. Pause/play response was quick.

After testing direct playback from USB drive I set up the wireless. It recognized my network, and prompts for ID/PW which you type in via a displayed virtual keyboard, after which it stores (if you so chose) the info. I had trouble logging on to a Windows 7 PC (would not accept info) but had no issues with an XP PC and separate networked drives, including shared CDROM drive. I had no trouble with UPNP setup. Streaming audio and all the usual video formats worked perfectly.

Toggling through the shared content on different PCs was quick and I had no difficulty in accessing the media. Note this is wireless G, not N, so connection speed varies. Best I could achieve in continuously smooth playback was 720p content. It struggled a bit with DTS audio but this mostly depended on the source material. At these times intermittent desync of audio became briefly noticible . 1080p playback proved inconsistent and not advised wirelessly. If this is important to you then running a CAT5 directly may do the trick- I haven't tested it on the Patriot.

Standard DVD play just fine via wireless. Just identify the .ifo and press play. All standard DVD functions including menu navigation work as normally would with any DVD remote.

The remote is decent with all commonly used functions readily available. The response however is inconsistent, sometimes it requires several presses to work a function especially during playback at which time lag is horrendous. Its range is semi decent and has little room for off axis recognition. I like the zoom function up to 8x as I recall-which really showcases the auto digital NR- really great quality. Comes in handy for some 4:3 or 2.35:1 formats if you prefer 16x9 viewing.

Maybe discrete codes are available to program into a universal remote. As far as the quality it's decent enough.

Other features: excellent subtitle handling (Unicode UTF8, and several languages). Adjustable font size, color and screen placement all easily accessible.Build quality is acceptable, light metal not plastic. The price imo is worth the quality and features it offers. Comparing it to the Seagate Theater which I returned to a box store recently, the Patriot's playback quality is noticibly superior which, in the end, is what matters.

So in conclusion, I can see myself using the bedroom TV more and more considering the versatility and quality of playback. The wireless capability does leave room for improvement- as time passes I may decide to extend a direct ethernet to the Patriot if it's worth it and I can't tweak my wireless setup to satisfaction. Also annoying was the occasional slow and inconsistent response of the remote during playback, including FF/Rew and other buttons. With the unit on, some may find the slightly audible hum distracting, but that's subjective. I also have to figure out accessing the Windows 7 PC.

****UPDATE:*****

The unit continues to work great. Since my initial review, I've updated the firmware several times with the benefit (among others) that now external DVD/CDROM drives are recognized via USB. Also, the remote seems much more responsive.

I now own the Asus O!Play and the Patriot Box Office. They use the exact same Relatek chipset so there is virtually no difference in the picture quality.

The main reason I bought the Patriot was because it had the wireless feature which the O!Play does not and you can also add an internal hard drive.

I have tried to stream media wirelessly to the Box Office, but it is simply unwatchable due to all the flickering and pausing. It uses wireless g which is simply not adequate to stream movies. You can forget about streaming HD movies wirelessly because it is unable to adequately stream even regular resolution movies.

However, when wired up to a LAN cable it works great and is basically the same as the O!Play with the benefit of being able to add an internal drive. It is also the same price as the O!Play at $99 (after rebate) so it is definately worth ocnsideration. Just don't buy it if you want to stream wirelessly.Patriot Box Office 1080P High Definition Media Player PCMPBO25 (Black)

I have tried WD Live TV, Asus O! Play, and Patriot Memory Box Office. I would say, Box office is the best one.

Pros:
1)easy to set up;
2) supports 1080p 60f/s and 1080p 24f/s;
3) has seamless playing function ;
4) has preview capability;
5) network share folder ( it can easily find share folders on Windows XP computers; for Windows 7 computers, please install the software "Transcode Server" then add your folders, you should be able to find them in Box Office . You can save your network login. Then next time, you just need go to the short cut folder, click on the link, the media player will automatically log on. )
6) support almost all the popular media formats ( I have tried avi, mkv, ts, m2ts, divx, rmvb, wmv, mpg, mp4; flac, mp3, ape, wv, ogg, mpc. It has problems with flvs)
7) HDMI cable included
8) support DVD format ( ISOs and DVD folders)
9) it can resume from the place that you stopped

Cons (actually not cons, should be future improvements):

1) interface is too simple, not attractive as WD Live TV;
2) subtitle setting (Cannot change default setting, it will automatically display a subtitle, no matter you like it or not);
3) doesn't support Internet contents ( I hope the future firmwares can support Youtube, or just internet browsing function;
4) picture quality could be better. Compared with WD TV live, the Box Office's picture seems a little washed out.
5) it doesn't support Windows wtv or dvr-ms files

I was excited to try out this low-priced media tank because it uses the same Realtek chipset and OS that powers the very capable and inexpensive ASUS O!Play, but now with the added capability of internal storage. This is a huge selling point because it means now you can copy gigs of files and bring just the player over to a friend or relative's house for movie night without having to lug along an external hard drive as well. The PBO offers yet another nice touch -- an all-aluminum housing. Neither of the major contenders in the home media player market offer these features: The Western Digital WD TV Live and both Asus models are plastic and lack internal HDD bays. There's a number of other manufacturers like Popcorn Hour, Brite-View, and A.c. Ryan, but I won't be discussing them.

I own the WD TV Live and both variants of the O!Play. I rated all 3 devices very highly because of their versatility and ease of use. As stated above, the PBO is powered by the same guts that drive the O!Plays, which has proven itself as a solid technology platform. The PBO has all the same playback versatility as the O!Play, but also all the same annoyances. You can read more about the playback capabilities on the O!Play review page (Realtek chip'll play anything you throw at it), so I'll discuss some of the major differences instead.

My reaction to the device is mixed. It certainly is a very capable machine, but it's also very user-unfriendly. Patriot Memory is a newcomer to the home electronics game and it shows. The interface is built around the same homely, boxy, no-frills DOS-looking OS as the O!Plays, but Patriot kicked it down a notch and made it a bit worse. It is less responsive when selecting certain options, klunkier, and even less intuitive. As one example of the unpolished workmanship, the setup menu has a stray white pixel under the menu bar, just floating in space. It doesn't affect the functionality, but it just shows that the engineers didn't exactly go over the product with a fine eye for visuals. I had hoped to be able to give this device to my dad to watch movies and non-English TV shows on, but due to the cumbersome nature of the menus, I cannot.

For starters, the homepage of the device has a row of 3 icons on a spartan black background: COPY, BROWSER, and SETUP. For a home user, they're not going to care about COPY and BROWSER (which Patriot thinks is a verb, by the way). Contrast this with the O!Play, which has All Media, Movies, Photos, Music, On-Line Media, File Copy and Setup, arranged in a rotary configuration all on a bright blue swirly background with very big, easy-to-see icons. This is user-friendly and makes it easy for non-technical users. One level down from this, both devices display ugly black and white text menus, but this is where the PBO gets very very ugly. It shows an alphabet soup of abbreviations: USB, HDD, UPnP, NET, PLAYLIST. This is fine if you're a rather technical user, but not fine if you're an average person. The rest of the setup menus, file directory listings, and popup dialogs (e.g. for subtitles and media metadata like bitrate and current time) are functionally and visually the identical or very similar to the O!Plays. The PBO was definitely designed by programmers and this is the same criticism I have for the O!Play. All the extra layers of complexity and overly technical menus should be removed or streamlined so non-technical people can use this player. Like the O!Plays, the device will perform a mandatory network speed check every time you try to play a movie, which delays response by one or two seconds.



LIKES:
- HDD installation was easy. Only took a few minutes to get the case off, slide the drive in and zip everything back up. 4 screws total. It saw the shared folders on my Mac and had no problems playing back the 720p MKV files, as expected. Unlike many products, this comes with a free HDMI cable.

- I like the Go To function a lot. You can go to any time in the movie. But this comes with a trade-off. The ASUS lets you skip ahead/back in fixed increments of 1/5/10/etc mins (you choose one in the setup) by pushing left or right on the remote, which I frequently use. Oddly, the PBO does not have this feature. You can Fast Forward or Fast Rewind up to 32x (1.5x, 2x, 4x, 8x, 32x), but not skip ahead in increments.

- Another handy feature is the subtitle location and size nudger. If the video has subtitles, Up/Down controls the location of the text. Left/Right controls the size. You can cycle through audio tracks with the AUDIO button, but not subtitles with the SUBTITLE button.

- Like all players I've tested, the PBO remembers the last time you played a file and will offer to resume. This works even after you power off the device.

- One feature I REALLY like and this makes up for a lot of the product's flaws: Being able to connect to the player via SMB. I'm copying over several gigs of TV shows right now directly onto the drive from my iMac. Turn off Login Control and turn on SMB/BT, then login as Guest. This is the easiest way to copy files over. Don't try to do it via the device's menus. With the device's copy system, I have no idea when the transfer will finish. It shows the flying folders animation (Windows users, you know what I'm talking about).

- You can attach an external DVD drive to this, allowing for even greater playback flexibility. I don't have one to test with though.

ME NO LIKE:
Where to begin?... I guess with the atrocious remote. It's a crowded mishmash of small, confusingly arranged buttons. By comparison, the ASUS remote which I also complained about, looks like a work of genius. All the buttons on the PBO remote are the same size (i.e. tiny), giving you no sense of hierarchy, importance, or spatial placement, making every use of the remote a frustrating experience. Without exaggeration, each button is about the size as a lentil (.20 to .25 inches across). The most commonly used buttons are scattered on four corners of the remote. HOME, which gets you back to the main menu, is all the way at the top. Then there's a similar button called BROWSER in the lower third, another confusing button on the opposite side called RETURN, which gets you back to the menu system. This is in addition to STOP which stops playback and goes back to the menu. MUTE is next to 0 on the number pad instead of grouped with VOL + and VOL -. All the buttons feel and look the same and are inadequately spaced for human thumbs, forcing you to look down at the remote every time, not convenient in a dimly-lit room when a movie is playing.

Inexplicably, the ENTER button doubles as a ZOOM button during playback, yet useless when copying. To mark a file for copying, you have to use not the ENTER button, but the tiny SELECT button in the lower right, grouped together with the DVD playback controls.

Next is the awful firmware update support site. It currently lists 7 separate firmware files, with no revision history, feature/bug fix list, or notes. For that, you have to go to their support forum, which now lists 9 firmwares, with confusing explanations about Bootcode version. You have to figure out which bootcode your device has and download the correct firmware. This is not in the System Info display where it should be. Instead, you have to push STOP and PAUSE simultaneously from the device home page. I don't expect much after-purchase support from companies, but one thing I do demand is painless firmware updates. This is pretty basic and Patriot has managed to failed the test. Google "Patriot Box Office firmware" and see if you can make sense of that page and figure out which firmware you need. ASUS is no prize pig (you can't even find them by googling "ASUS O!Play firmware update"), but at least their firmware section is clearly organized by date and version, with a detailed features/bugfix list for each firmware release. There's no potentially device-bricking "bootcode" to worry about. Patriot: Please make just 1 firmware.

I saved the best for last. My unit does not properly power off when I push the POWER button. The TV goes dark and says "No Signal", but all the LEDs on the device are still lit and the fan and hard drive still spinning, even when left in this state for several minutes. Pushing POWER again does not boot the system back up. I have to manually flip the switch on the back of the unit every time I want to turn it on or off. I tested this on two units and neither of them turn off. This is a MAJOR problem.

SUMMARY:
I sounds like I hate this device, but I really don't. It certainly has a sizable share of problems, which you may or may not be willing to tolerate. My rating may improve over time with future firmware releases, but as of now, with the latest firmware installed, I can only recommend this product for those with patience and users really wanting internal HDD storage. Home electronics should be easy to use, and with this, it feels like I'm jumping through hoops. I consider myself a gadgets guy and I found this very cumbersome, unintuitive, and difficult to use because of the bad remote and excessively layered menus. It lacks the internet TV capabilities of the comparably-priced O!Play and the YouTube/Pandora/Flickr of the more expensive WD TV Live series. WD TV Live Plus, an upgrade to the regular Live, has Netflix support. If you're fine with external USB storage, then I enthusiastically recommend the WD TV Live (or Live Plus), or one of the ASUS players.


With the exception of the remote and maybe the power-down issue, most of this product's problems can be fixed through a firmware update. Patriot just needs to get their act together and hire some usability consultants and address these QA nightmare. I'm looking forward to being able to upgrade my rating.

I bought the Patriot Box Office and was very impressed as soon as I took it out of the box. This unit is equipped with a stylish brushed black anodized steel case, indicator lights with USB connector in the front and the back of the unit is complete with an 10/100 Ethernet port, USB port, HDMI port, optical (audio) port and composite ports (audio and video). I got even more excited when I discovered another box underneath the unit contained a complete set of accessories including:
- fully functional remote control (with batteries)
- 1 HDMI cable (SCORE!!!)
- AC adapter
- composite cable
- usb cable
- quick set up guide
- CD that contains the device manual

I immediately hooked the Box Office Unit up to my Samsung 46" 1080P LCD TV using the HDMI cable, connected the Ethernet cable and powered up the unit. The built in GUI looked pretty mediocre yet easy to use and navigate. I'd rather have a simple GUI that does the job rather than a fancy looking one that takes a rocket scientist to operate IMO.

Configuring the settings was seamless and was very user friendly and self explanatory. It took me only a few minutes to get the Box Office connected to my network and immediately identified my PC's media files under the UPnP menu. I was able to view the pictures, music and movies that were loaded on the Windows Media Player and was amazed how the Box Office played them without a single stutter or a "black cat deja vu" experience.

So far, I'm super impressed by the Box Office performance. The only thing that I was bummed about was when I was streaming my movies from my PC, the quality was sub-par and they came out slightly pixilated. That's only because I was playing compressed movie files (designed to view on a 17" notebook display) on a 46" LCD TV display. I was eager to test out how the Box Office handles HD movies so I decided to download the Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin's Creed 2 HD trailers from youtube and was I blown away!!! I am now fully convinced that my hard earned cash was not wasted on this product. *patting myself on the back*

I continued to test the Box Office and installed the wireless USB adapter (free during promo period) to the back of the unit but noticed that the USB plug would only go in half-way. The case of USB drive was hitting against the Box Office case preventing the USB from doing a full connection. So I decided to connect the wireless USB to the front of the Box Office instead and it fit fine. Again, set-up was super easy. The Box Office was wirelessly connected to my N-router in seconds after punching in the SSID and the WEP key. I began playing back the same movies from my PC and the video playback quality and performance were excellent as if it was streaming through a wired Ethernet cable.

There are several other features available on the Box Office including playback from a USB Drive, an internal 2.5" SATA hard drive or SSD (optional), and access to the "NET" feature on the menu. I haven't been able to figure out how to access through the NET because it kept asking me to enter my NET user ID and password which RTFM doesn't help me either. I decided to post this on Patriot Memory's forum and hope to get an answer from the members or from the technical support reps soon.

Here are the "pros and cons" summary of the Patriot Box Office

PROs
-High Audio and Video Quality streaming via wired and wireless connection
-Offers several ways to access your media files, physically and virtually
-Very User friendly GUI
-Super easy to configure and set up
-Fully Functional Remote Control (similar to most DVD remote controls)
-Stylish Design. A nice addition to your Media Center that won't look atrocious or out of place.
-Comes with an HDMI cable!! Saved me a trip to the liquor store to get one ;)
-Plays most or all media file formats including ISO (access to DVD menu screens)

Cons
-"NET" feature not compatible with Windows 7. Can't bypass the NET login name and password
-I need another one for the TV in my bedroom. Too bad they don't have a BOGO Free Sale.

The Patriot Box Office is a wonderful device. The menus are nice, the remote works well, and networking this was a breeze. I didn't use the supplied software because it requires a HD installed and I didn't have one available. I just shared the drives on my PCs, created a generic users/passwords, and logged in once to each PC.

Wired network was a snap. Just like a PC, recognized the router and was connected within 35seconds. For wireless, you NEED the HornetTek/Patriot adapter. Like most players, the factory adaptor is unique to the players. Good thing it was only $20. Had no problem getting hooked to my secured wireless router. NOTE: The "fat" wireless dongle doesn't fit in the rear USB. I had to plug it into the front USB. Later, I will get a short USB extension and move it to the rear. Maybe hang it up a bit higher for even greater reception!

My router is downstairs. This mediabox is upstairs. The wireless connection was FAST and I had no hesitation in the videostream.

The player plays just about everything! The only files it didn't play was the native MOD extension that came my HD camcorder. I had to convert them to MPG, and it played fine (not a bad thing because my video editing software didn't read MOD files, either). When playing ISOs, it mounts it like a DVD player and you have full controls to menus. When playing multiple VOB files, you have to choose the "VIDEO_TS.IFO" file, or it will not play seamlessly. I ran a 8GB ISO and a 4GB MKV, via wireless connection, and it was smooth as butter. As the box reads, it plays all of those.

Video and audio was almost perfect. When playing files, avoid playing small MOV, FLV, or WMV files. They get grainy and hard to see (like early YouTube). To get 1080p, you will need to use HDMI. I'm running HDMI and playing a 1080p MKV and it blew my mind! Awesome quality!

Menus were easy to navigate. The video preview is a nice touch, too.

Overall, I am very happy with the performance.

I am curious to how well the supplied software works. I was unable to test it, as it requires you to install a 2.5" SATA HD into the Media Player. Oh, did I forget to mention that? This player supports an internal 2.5" SATA HD. This is great for moving movies directly to this HD, then taking this box on vacation or in the family van for long drives!

There are three good things to also mention. The Patriot Box Office and the HornetTek Phantom are the EXACT same thing. Same remote, same physical hardware, same user manual. One makes the other. I'm confident that HornetTek is the original MFG. This is good to know for three reasons: 1) Patriot Wireless adaptors are somewhat hard to find in stores so you can use the HornetTek one. 2) The user manual for the Patriot is well written, where the HornetTek is written in broken English by some dude in China, who was "really" trying. 3) The Patriot Box Office comes with everything the HornetTek Phantom does, but also includes a HDMI cable.

Update 8/17/2011:
The PBO has only gotten better throughout the last year. The units got cheaper (can be scored between $35 to $55 after MIR in Canada), we got more custom firmwares available (from ACRyan, Mede8er and Asus O!Play boxes), the manufacturer warranty is now extended to 2 years instead on the typical 12 months, and many are reported that newly purchased PBO's comes with the 1073DD+ CPUs (as opposed to the original 1073DD) which is capable of bitstreaming HD audio via HDMI.

Original review 7/18/2010:
Here is what you might know about the PBO:
------------------------------------------
Pros:
-----
- Realtek based (1073DD): enormous media compatibility list (same chip inside Asus O!Play, ACRyan PlayON, and the list goes on), DTS/DD stereo downmix.
- The support community : Excellent user based community, every issue has been addressed and resolved, every possible how to has been written.
- Manufacturer support : whether the PBO is a Chinese clone or not, Patriot memory headquarters are located in California and not half the way across the globe, they are very prompt when it comes to RMA like services.
- Firmware : 7 firmwares already released (latest released late August), with external DVD support, better TV compatibility, HD-Audio downmix support and internet based content.

Cons:
-----
- Realtek based (1073DD): so and so wireless streaming, no support for BR menus, hardware bug rending it impossible to pass through HD-Audio.
- The support community : Being all fellow owners, they are all supporting the product out of thier own good heart and believe in the box, thus there is no obligation (for them) that your issues will be promptly addressed and there is also no guarantees that it will be resolved.
- Manufacturer support : if your issue isn't hardware related, good luck getting it resolved with Patriot, they simply don't know that much about the software side of the box, its just another hardware unit that they sell and thats as far as it goes.
- Firmware : due to the support point above, firmwares are released whenever they are ready, there is no change/bug/feature list included, NO one knows what issues is a firmware supposed to fix or when is the current reported bugs will be fixed if at all. The firmware released is always as close as it can be to the reference firmware that Realtek supply with the boxes (not that much customization except for PBO logo at the box bootup).

bottom line: though very comparable to any other Realtek based media player the PBO sinks deeply down the list with the lack of development support from the manufacturer and the crippled stock firmware that comes with it.

What you might (most probably) not know about the PBO:
------------------------------------------------------
Regardless of the lack of any real investment in the software development of this product, Patriot memory is offering what it can to satisfy their ranting and nagging customers. Thus PM (perhaps because they couldn't care less) has (and continues to release) manufacturer materials that is not typically released to average Joe media player owners.

Results : PM has shared enough knowledge and material with its users that made the box literally "unbrickable" (unless its a hardware failure), while other media players users don't even know what a bootcode is, PM has released 4 different versions of RT bootloaders for 1073 devices, things like "I have bricked the box during firmware update" are no longer an issue, because you can resurrect your box for $6 of materials and 6 minutes in time. This enabled the PBO owners to liberally experiment with the underlying linux machine on which the PBO interface runs, adding functionality and even fearlessly testing lots of the "unlocked" firmwares available from other boxes (based on similar chipset).

Conclusion:
===========
With the proper mods, PBO can easily be cross flashed, and further unlocking lots of features, online content, support for external optical drives, even YAMJ and TVIXIE jukeboxes. Even for those who wont be interested in cross flashing there tons of free applications that will add features like more powerful torrent client, NFS server, UPNP server ..etc. This is all at considerably lower price than all the other RT based players and beside you don't have to worry about sending the box back to china in case you bricked it.

I bought this item and there are few to nothing that it can't do. I upgraded the firmware and now everynthing I threw at it plays flawlessly. My main interest was Matroska MKV support, and eberything works great. I also needed DTS downmixing which this box has. I was scared by some reviews that claimed the image quality is a bit below the WD Live. I had both of them for a few days and I noticed that if the Box Office is set on the default image setting (something like HDMI select) in some instances it's image might be different than that of the WD Live. However if I specifically select 720p/ 1080p based on what the file is encoded in, the images are absolutely the same. To be very sure of this comparisons, I projected the same stand still from a paused HD movie and phhotographed a portion of the images. I then loaded them in paint and compared them pixel by pixel. The diference, for the default setting of the Box Office, was very small, almost indiscernable, but I can definately say there was NO difference whatsoever between the HD Live and Box Office when the correct setting was selected for the Box Office. Other than that, after 2 weeks of heavy use I still did not encounter any bug in this little box...

I am sorry for the few who are not technically inclined you will be left in the dust in this world today...

Last year or so I was looking for a media player... I was tired of using a full pc for media playback... I searched the net and this came to me in a result. I started to read reviews first... thats where the real dealio is. I saw all the goods and bads and weighed everyone of em.

Firstly the few who are knocking this on the wireless streaming... you are idiots... simple... wireless G for streaming... get real... when a firmware update comes out for N300 support then we explore that.

Secondly the few who could not get it to access their network... it was pretty simple... in Windows 7, password protect sharing is on by default... just put a password on your account or create another account and put a password on that. Use the File Copy mode and goto browse Network Neighbourhood... when you attempt to connect it prompts you for name and password... you enter that... and voila. I have a 5GB file copying now. It is not super-fast though.... a gigabit port would be nice as my network is gigabit.

Playback is flawless on every format I tried. The interface could be snappier but that is easily overlooked... and yes a slim dvd/bluray burner works like a charm. I see plenty potential for this device... just need a particuar consortium to show interest and start putting out some modded firmware to make it sassy.

Dump the batteries that come with this and pickup some dura you know who. When I think about getting an HDMI cable with it and composite and usb, makes you wonder how they made money on this thing... it is a steal.

PS. I forgot to mention my 500GB Seagate Momentus inside... install was a breeze... just let the device format it...

I've been trying to find a relatively inexpensive way to play ripped DVDs, music, and other files from my computer or from a USB stick on my TV. When I bought my TV, I was stoked to read that it accepted SD cards for playing files. Unfortunately, it only displayed pictures and it was not compatible with videos. I own an Xbox 360, but I was never able to properly set up my network to allow streaming from my computer to my xbox to my TV.

Along came the Patriot Box Office, which I was able to get for a great price as a result of a mail-in rebate offer. After setting up the device and connecting the ethernet cable, I was instantly able to stream videos from my computer! 1080p files play perfectly fine, without any stuttering. Needless to say, I'm incredibly pleased with this purchase. I'm planning on discontinuing my standard cable TV service soon, as with all the solutions available to me at the moment, I have no need to pay $80 a month for TV! The Patriot Box Office was the final piece of the puzzle.

One gripe I have with the device is that it sometimes does not "see" my computer on the network, forcing me to restart my PC. I have a feeling this has something to do with my router or the sharing permissions on my PC, so I can't blame the Patriot device completely.