Pivos AIOS HD Media Player Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Pivos AIOS HD Media Player Review - HardOCP readers have been building and placing PCs in their living rooms for many years now to serve up entertainment media. Manufacturers have been trying to push into this market for some time now with some success. Today we see a new media unit from Pivos and see how it works out.
 
They are trying to count their profits for that almighty return on investment before making sure the thing works. . or even is released to market properly. ..epic fail is the correct conclusion IMO.
 
Maybe HardOCP needs to add a rating below Fail called Epic Fail. I can see a few issues here and there but this thing is far beyond fail.
 
What dumpster did you pull this thing out of? It looks like one of those Chinese joke products like the pop station pro, except in this case they knocked off a WD Live or Apple TV.
 
Wow.. and I thought the Patriot Home Box Office or WD stuff had crappy UI's. I've been trying to "cut the cord" at home for about 4 years now and with a wife and kids its impossible. No way they would put up with using crap like this..

I have at least 6+ devices for media streaming/viewing and none of them are that great. Sony, WD, Popcorn Hour, Patriot, Logitech, Roku, AppleTV and more and even just finished building a new kick as HTPC. Even that is a pain. Finding software that can do it all and a control device (keyboard, mouse, remote, iphone whatever) is a joke. I have lots of pieces but no full experience that I would try to show the family how to use.

Why do people put out crap like this? Some serious attention to the user experience and you could have a real winner but instead you end up with a huge turd.
 
I already had a feeling they'd get an [H] fail when I saw that they got the 'composite' spelling wrong. I might as well just buy a Zune HD than this really.
 
What is the custom firmware modding community like for the AIOS media player?

Like most of these products, I never look at their UI or firmware because the factory firmware are usually utter garbage.

Besides the chipset, I want to know what custom firmwares are available for it. Users of WDTV and Patriot Box Office will know what I mean.
If you own one of these players and using the standard firmware you are really missing out.
 
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Morphy said:
What is the custom firmware modding community like for the AIOS media player?

Like most of these products, I never look at their UI or firmware because the factory firmware are usually utter garbage.

Besides the chipset, I want to know what custom firmwares are available for it. Users of WDTV and Patriot Box Office will know what I mean.
Click to expand...

Like most units using the Realtek RTD1185DD, you can install Xtreamer and other firmware on this unit.
 
I was kind of interested in this when I saw the review up today. Not something I specifically had considered but after a second I though it could be handy......I guess I will take my interest and wait a bit for a better product. Good to see someone else getting some mileage out of the Fail logo.
 
You need to install the "composit" cable to the 'browser" in order to use "3TB HDD".....



"I KNOW"

Fail.

Steve, how much does this POS retail for?
 
$99.99 U.S.


No one had higher hopes for this thing than I did...AND...we gave the company every opportunity to address the issues we found, it just got to the point where I honestly felt like I was beta testing (not reviewing) the product. :(
 
Sounds like a perfect recipe for a false advertising law suit. Citing 3TB HDD support and not having or know when/if they will be able to support that feature...or having an IE logo on there with no IE browser...

Definately a [H] Fail (for the product, not Hardocp, lol).
 
Insomniak said:
even just finished building a new kick as HTPC. Even that is a pain. Finding software that can do it all and a control device (keyboard, mouse, remote, iphone whatever) is a joke. I have lots of pieces but no full experience that I would try to show the family how to use.
Click to expand...

Actually, I've been pretty happy with Media Center on my Windows 7 64bit HTPC. Not quite as easy to use as my old Replay TV units, but easy enough that the wife/kid where able to use it after just being shown the basics.

It did take a bit of work to setup & get everything working correctly. Biggest hassle was getting the audio to work over HDMI the TV, yet still allow 5.1 audio to pass through the TV to the optical connection to my receiver.
 
We gave this unit a go because one of the main guys that was involved with the Patriot Media player brought this to us. We figured they had moved significantly forward. Guess not. :(
 
What a piece of junk. Then again even the best out there short of a full blown HTPC, Boxee Box, still has issues here and there. Although It's nothing like the issues on most other players. Heck even my old argosy 355 is still one of the better players out there. Although it doesn't do much more than play HD movies, it does play damn near any format I throw at it.
 
I still use that Patriot media player today. It kicks ass.
 
Have you all ever reviewed Popcorn hour? They look like they have their stuff order. I don't know about that patriot media player based on what you said Kyle I'm going to be taking a hard look at the Box Office. I need to free up my main rig for other things
 
I agree though It'd be awesome if the Hard would start reviewing these things in a big way. There is so little good honest information out there about them.
 
I think this review comes at the perfect time of the year. Let's face it, with winter here, holidays over, it's a great time to sit down and watch a movie. These media streamers are just fantastic as far as I'm concerned. What really makes them so exciting is that you do not need a computer. A good media streamer will have built in internet front ends for Hulu Plus, Netflix, Vudu HD, etc. For me personally, what I really look for a media streamer is the remote and UI. Both have to be comfortable and easy to use. The internals, at the stage in the game "should" play everything. Manufactures look to 3rd parties to provide these chips. Over the years, we've seen a few reviews of these media streamers. I think the HardOCP community would greatly benefit from the review of a few of the top-end well regarded media steamers out there on the market. My girlfriends dad didn't have cable and doesn't own a computer but had a nice little 19" LCD tv he had won through his company. We got him a Roku and he is just amazed at what it can do without a computer and a mid tier internet connection. All these media streamers with built in internet apps require at least 1.5Mbs.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
What dumpster did you pull this thing out of? It looks like one of those Chinese joke products like the pop station pro, except in this case they knocked off a WD Live or Apple TV.
Click to expand...
None of the $99 solutions look great either imho, and if anything this one looked halfway decent with black brushed aluminum and lots of inputs on the back.

It's larger in size so it can hold an internal hard drive, which is so much nicer than having to use an external HD with all of the extra cables they bring.

Too bad about the epic fail, just another junky media streamer amongst hundreds of other failed models...
 
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I have a popcorn hour A210 - they've since come out with a A300. They're good but I am not sure that they are worth the price. Also have setup several Patriot boxes for friends and family. For a fraction of the cost of a popcorn hr ($70-$80) I can get it looking pretty good displaying jukeboxes with moviesheets and tvsheets using shizzl's firmware. For the price the patriots are a great value esp. if you have family that just want something easy to use without navigating thru a maze to get to the movie they want.

For my own needs l still like windows media centre with the media browser plugin. As bad as the Aios was it is still nice to see more reviews of media streamers.
 
Morphy said:
As bad as the Aios was it is still nice to see more reviews of media streamers.
Click to expand...
Agreed, media streamer reviews are fun to read, whether they turn out good or bad imho.

Thanks for the review Hard OCP
 
Problems that are still present through all three firmware updates:

AIOS packaging has Composite spelled wrong
Click to expand...
It would be a pretty neat trick if they could fix errors on the packaging with a firmware update.
 
PCH looks like a good product, but be prepared to wait a month for it to arrive. They build them in batches. I cancelled my last order after three weeks.
 
Clearly a case of management rushing a product out the doors for holiday (Xmas) coin before it was anywhere near ready. (IMHO). Good way to burn a rep, if indeed they had one. Sounds a lot like the video gaming bizz now-a-dayz. :rolleyes:
 
Any time you see a product with USB ports that doesn't have an official USB logo, you should probably walk away. A friend of mine works as a graphic artist for a company that makes document scanners. He says that the licensing for use of the USB logo is something like $30k-$50k a year. From his experience, only the cheapest of cheap Chinese hardware manufacturers make their own unofficial USB or CD/DVD logos.
 
I own one of these Pivos media streamers; ok for playback is ok, but all the reviews and comments are correct, quite a hassle when you try to use the special features noted in the box... arghh! wireless has been a headache.

I am trying the Belkin basic N usb adapter Belkin F7D1101 - is this the one that worked per the Review?

any help to salvage the $90 I spent.
 
terwong said:
I am trying the Belkin basic N usb adapter Belkin F7D1101 - is this the one that worked per the Review?

any help to salvage the $90 I spent.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Belkin F7D1101 v1 worked right out of the box.

Also, try messing around with other firmware like the Xtreamer etc., it is simple to flash your system / flash it back, so it is definitely worth checking out.

As far as you $90, I feel for you bro...I really do. :(
 
Gee, sounds like they either don't have enough software guys working on the project, or the software guy(s? maybe it's just one?) didn't have enough time to get everything production-ready. Seems like the hardware is pretty good, though
 
I bought 2 of these + wireless (the Pivos USB wireless stick worked like a charm)... and to me they're pretty good, I've had MediaGate's, Asus OPlay's, Avix's in the past and I like the UI on the Pivos the best, except for when browsing files in the file manager. They look very nice too as opposed to other vendors (if you care about aesthetics and what not).
 
I agree with everything you said in the conclusion comments section of the review. I returned this player 3 months ago for the very reasons you mention.

Pivos is good at making their promises, yet nothing ever appears. Its the worst user interface of any media player. Using "custom" firmwares causes even more bugs, plus you are using a hacked firmware that a company wrote for another device, which brings up legal questions.

All of the Dune media players are far better, even their cheapest one. The Dune has several different 3rd party people who create very customizable addon programs like Yadis, Zappiti, DFI, and others that are 1000x nicer looking for custom movie wall interfaces.

One thing I have noticed though, is that *all* of these media player companies give poor support.
 
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