Customer Reviews

Sony SMPU10 USB Media Player (Black)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This falls short of expectations for several reasons. Too bad, since I've always been a SONY fan. I received my unit last night (paid $59) and hooked it up to our main media center and attached an external 1 TB drive containing a large library of movies and video clips to test it out. For comparison, I have the WD TV HD Media on one HDTV, Mac Mini (OS X 10.6) setup on another running Boxee, and a quad-core PC running Windows 7 Windows Media Center and Boxee (PC) for comparison. Here are my observations:

1. Looks - not bad (typical SONY styling), small footprint, muted blue LED which isn't too bright which is a common problem with a lot of new gadgets, a bit flimsy and light such that when you hook up either an HDMI or component cable the unit will lift off the surface because of cord bend (I had to make sure the cables were not twisted and even had to add a weight on top of the media player to keep it stable)

2. USB design - lousy, there's only one USB port and it's located on the front which looks terrible on my media center by having a cord or thumbdrive sticking straight out. This is where the WD TV HD wins out since it has 2 USB ports (one in the back and one on the side which hides your connections). You can attach any USB device up to both ports and access both at the same time.

3. Ugly menu interface - I was really disappointed that the software team for this unit did not make a more user-friendly and visually appealing menu. The menus are all in a bland VCR-menu font and if you have a folder with a lot of files, it only shows a few at a time and the scrolling is very slow. It would have been nicer if they had designed a faster scrolling intuitive menu like on the PSP rather than the current large font menus that aren't even in HD resolution and have no ability to sort your files. Again, the WD TV HD stands out with a superior menu system that also includes generating thumbnail pictures. Truthfully, the SONY menu system reminds me of an old VCR or digital camera menu. My Mac Mini setup with Boxee is the nicest by far using wireless streaming from a HP Home MediaSmart server, but it's more complicated to setup and obviously much more expensive.

4. Video formats - this is where the unit really falls short. I used a 1 TB WD Prestige external drive and loaded a library of various formats including DVD iso's, DIVX, avi, mov, mp4, H.264, etc. I'm not a video tech expert, but suffice to say that > 95% of my video files were recognized and played perfectly on the WD TV HD player, while only ~ 50% of these files would play on the SONY media player and you frequently get an error or unrecognized file message. The SONY player is unable to read H.264 formatted video files while the WD TV HD has no problem.

***(5.) Netflix/Pandora streaming content - obviously this unit is not network-ready, but I thought it would be worth mentioning that using either a small-form Mac or PC with proper specs and HDMI output that you can run free apps like Boxee of just use the Windows Media Center (Windows 7 version is very stable and quite nice) to get internet HD streaming content in a nice packaged interface which is far better than all of the specialized media players. The other option is getting a network player like WD TV HD Live, Asus O'Play, or Roku. Another advantage of using a computer media center is that you can take advantage of a wireless network to avoid cable clutter and be able to run applications and games.

Conclusion - I'm moving this player to the bedroom flat screen and using the WD TV HD on our main media center. Disappointing since our our primary media center includes mostly SONY components. My overall impression is that this unit was rushed out too fast for the holiday season and deserved more refinement. Take a look at my review on the WD TV HD Media player for comparison.

*** Have been using this for a few days now and can confirm that H.264 files are incompatible with this player which is a major flaw considering this is the most common format for HD streaming and HD camcorders. On the other hand, no problem playing Divx formats. Unlike other media players, this one only plays in "near HD quality" (read specs) and does not play 1080p. ***

Update 2/2010 - this player is virtually useless since it handles only limited file formats and has been moved to the guest room. The standard video settings that I typically use for HandBrake conversions are not compatible with this player. The price has ranged on Amazon from ~ $30 - $60 and for those lucky to get it at $30, it's not a bad deal recognizing that you may have to spend some time converting your video files. On the other hand, at the current price of $50 I'd still recommend spending just a bit more to get either the WD HD or Asus O'Play models which can be purchased at other sites ~ $70 and will handle virtually all file formats. Some of these models can be easily modified to accept a USB wireless adapter to give wireless access to give further flexibility (google it).


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Update 4/2010 - this unit is on its last legs with several sites selling this for only $19.99. The media player market is very competitive now with a lot of new options. I still think the most useful criteria is the ability to handle multiple video formats, followed by network-capable. Many units can be "modified" to accept USB network adapters to gain wireless video streaming which the new routers can handle even HD streaming.

Bought this over the WDTV mini for a Christmas present. It will do the job, as it plays Divx files and such. Menu load time was slow off the ext. HDD. It has no MKV support. It looks pretty cool and the remote is well-built. Just seems like it was not very well thought out when released.

I had purchased this item from Amazon for $35 (lightning deal plus cc promo), with the expectations of being able to watch some of my downloaded movies (.avi), shows (.vob), and home videos (.avi) on it. I finally just got around to setting it up, and surprisingly, the initial setup was much easier than expected. I truly didn't expect that to go so well, with the TV, Cable Box, and VCR/DVD players hooked up. I took the easy route first, using an HDMI cable, hooking it to the Sony unit and my Proscan TV (HDMI-1 port was available). I put a .vob and an .avi onto my 4gb PNY flash drive. While I too was unimpressed with the look of the menu, I was able to figure out right away how to manuever it and play. For my current needs, it works fine. Reading the other reviews tells me that some of my movie formats won't be able to be viewed (.mkv, I believe), but at the moment, that doesn't matter to me. I can always try to convert it if need be. I have no regrets for the time being. If any issues do arise, I'll modify this review as needed.

EDIT 01/25/10: Had issues on the PNY flash drive. 1/2 hour into the .vob file, which btw, is readable in a DVD player, bombed out due to a DATA ERROR. It also wouldn't read .avi files created on my Creative Vado HD cam. I will try again using an external hard drive. I was able to watch an .avi movie using the external hard drive, a Western Digital Passport, without any errors or problems.

This media player failed to meet my rather modest expectations. I can understand only being able to read certain formats, but when we ordered it there was nothing that said it would have trouble reading non-supported memory storage devices. Some people got their external usb devices to work, mine just came up as "unsupported device". I'm not investing more money in another external just to get this device to work.

I'm sending ours back.

This would be a great addition to a modern multi-media system if it supported NTFS file system and file types as Western Digital USB Media Player. The Sony system only supports FAT 32 file system and very few file types. I expected more from Sony.

The unit does the job and that is all. You cannot fast forward or change chapters. You have to watch from the start. Also the labels were installed upside down. If I could do it over I would have bought the western digital unit.

I love Sony products and 80% of my electronics are Sony Brand included my 46" LCD TV, but this SMPU10 USB Media Player is a big failure Sony design thus far. I bought 2 and returned them both. I don't have to tell you much about this Media player if compare to Asus O!Play and Western Digital there's no competition. 50 percent of my video format are not playable from Sony Media Player, then I purchased Asus O!Play for $[...] buck and tara play unlimited, I mean play every files that I have in the library included Real Player format.

Hooked up my 320 gig external drive, took about a minute to load all files, presto- played all my video's and pictures, none were div-x as it said was compatable. AVI ,WM, etc played well and that was with component cable, can't wait to get my HDMI cable to see this better, also a blue ray from my drive worked !!

UPDATE: NEW REVIEW:

LOVE THIS FOR >> MY << NEEDS & GOT IT FOR TWENTY BUCKS ... WHICH IS ABOUT ALL IT'S WORTH.

I am not HD and use standard TV. Anyway, I can play MP4 movies that I have recorded either from TV/Satellite as well as previously recorded on mt DIRECTV DVR (which was getting full) and they play JUST FINE via FLASH DRIVE ..... OR BETTER YET, You can play directly from a SDHC or mini SHDC card and a decent very inexpensive card reader.

Note: The larger the Flash Drive/SDHC (above 8GB) seems to be too much for this unit and it glitches more often.

GOOD FOR: 4-8GB of MP4 movies you want to watch (I record them on inexpensive Sandisk Media recorder) and I prefer using SDHC 4GB or 8GB card rather than a flash drive because it seem to work better for me.

THIS IS >>NOT<< FOR PEOPLE LOOKING FOR FABULOUS DIGITAL PLAYBACK. On regular Cathode Ray TV's (the regular old kind of TV - not flat panel) the quality is comparable to watching it directly via DirecTV into the set.

CON: DOES NOT FUNCTION LIKE A DVD
- No Chapter / Chapter Skip
- SLOW Fast Forward/ Rewind is max 4x (2,3,4x)
- THE LONGER/LARGER THE MP4 (i.e. the longer the movie), The more often regular FAST FORWARD & REWIND cause skipping and crashing errors (not that big a deal - fast reboot/restart ... but slow fast forward if you are 2/3 into the movies you are watching)

PRO: WHEN IT WORKS - IT'S GREAT! I have far more trouble with DVD scratching/skips. Also with a 4-8GB card, you can put 5-9 movies (depending on size) on one card and not change DVD's every time you choose a movie to watch.

The slowest part for me is loading the MP4 movies from my laptop to the card or a flash drive. It takes 2-4 minutes per movie. But so what.

Try to find it for twenty bucks if you can.

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Just got it today. Rushed to try it.
1. SIMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE! TO OPEN, PLUG IN, AND GO!
GOT MP4 TO PLAY WITH NO PROBLEMS From MEDIA I RECORDED MYSELF. HAD A FEW GLITCHES/SNAGS PLAYING SOME FILES ... BUT WILL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHICH CODECS AND PROGRAMS I USED TO CREATE THE FILES THAT WOULDNT PLAY.
ONLY TRIED 2 .mpeg files downloaded long ago from internet .... and they played.
Had to power off and back on to resolve freezes ... BUT IT RESETS VERY FAST AND PLAYS INSTANTLY ... unlike the long time a DVD player does reading and analyzing disks.
SUM _ DONT BUY THIS UNLESS IT IS AT A VERY LOW SALE PRICE AND THINK OF IT AS A TEMPORARY SUPPLEMENT TO WHATEVER MAIN MEDIA SYSTEM YOU ALREADY HAVE. I dont travel, but it seems ideal to travel with and play your own movies anywhere there is a tv.

This has been a great Product easy to use and setup. Was able to purchase a cheaper on amazon. I would recommend this product to save time and hassle.