Wyplayer

There’s a quiet revolution going on in home entertainment that is bringing the media on your home computer into your living room via an ever-expanding selection of little black boxes. We’ve been covering these in Web User for a while, but we’re expecting an avalanche of players to come out over the next few months, from both networking and hard-disk companies. Even the relatively slow-moving home-entertainment behemoths are starting to get in on the act.
This latest device is from a French company called Wyplay that’s little known in the UK. But its first British product has a set of features that could see it taking on the likes of the Popcorn Hour A110 Media Tank, to which we gave a Gold Award back in Issue 212 (http://bit.ly/products1220).

Features
Top of the features here is a dual Freeview tuner, which means you can use this instead of a Freeview set-top box and record one thing while watching another. TV programmes are recorded onto the hard disk but we found it a bit tricky to navigate the TV guide for making future recordings, and there doesn’t appear to be a series link function, though you can manually set repeat recordings.

The device will also play video (including HD content) and music, and display photos. These can be stored on its hard disk, on USB storage or streamed from another device on your network. It was able to play everything we threw at it, which is very impressive – most rival players trip over one format or another.

Performance
The performance of the device is excellent. Its Ethernet connection means streaming content is restricted only by the speed of your network, though it has 802.11n Wi-Fi too, if you’re the wireless type. The device can play video in 1080p format through the HDMI socket (cable supplied) and the quality, as you’d expect of HD footage on a compatible TV, is breathtaking.

Ease of use
Setting up the Wyplayer is very simple and the built-in software guides you through the process. Browsing for files is just as simple and the interface is beautifully presented – easily the best we’ve seen on a player of this type. Its internet capability is a bit fussy – you have to register for it via a website on a PC, which is a bit convoluted, though there is a YouTube channel so you can watch YouTube video without going through this process.

Value for money
The biggest issue here is the price – it’s a lot pricier than the Popcorn Hour, which shaves about £100 off the Wyplayer. It’s not directly comparable though, and the extra expense is more than compensated for by the Freeview tuners, the internal Wi-Fi and the comprehensive file format support. If you can afford the Wyplayer, we doubt you’ll be disappointed, but it’s worth thinking about exactly what you want it for – if you don’t need the Freeview recorder for example, because you’ve already got a better one, you could save quite a bit of money.

VERDICT
The Wyplayer marks an important shift in the general quality of these set-top media players – its interface is a pleasure to use, partly thanks to a remote control that’s cut down on buttons but not on usefulness. However, there are still a handful of niggles that stop this being perfection and all this media luxury comes at a top-end price. It’s almost certainly worth it, but we could do with a price war to make these things a bit more affordable.