John Enters the HD Age, Sort Of

I’m a bit of a luddite, primarily by circumstance rather than choice. I don’t own a cel phone, iPod, or Zune. I still watch an analog TV. I don’t own a BD player. And my desktop computer is now so old that it won’t adequately play video in resolution higher than 480p. I don’t need certain technological upgrades; others I go without because I can’t afford to upgrade. Remaining an anime fan with outdated technology, these days, is getting increasingly difficult and frustrating. So I found an ideal affordable solution. After discounts and a mail-in rebate, I’ll have paid about $80 for the ASUS O!Play HD Media player, a seemingly perfect solution to bridge the gap between my access to anime and my ability to play it.

The O!Play HD Media Player is a small black box, just a bit smaller in size than three stacked DVD cases, that will play practically any and every type of media file an anime fan will ever want to watch. Connect the O!Play to an analog TV via coax A/V cables or to a digital TV via HDMI. Then connect a thumbdrive, external hard drive, or desktop PC for the instant ability to play practically any anime file on any TV. The O!Play supports file formats ranging from RMVB and FLV up to MTS, TS, and Blu-ray ISOs. It has no trouble playing files in resolutions including full HD 1920x1080p. It supports h.264. MOV, WMV, and RM video formats and a variety of audio formats including even DTS. It doesn’t seem to currently support .ASS subtitles, but it does recognize SRT, SUB, SMI, and SSA external subs. I’m not sure if it recognizes the OGM video format, but I can’t imagine very many people would consider that a deal breaker.

I’ve been using my O!Play Media Player for two days now. I’ve been thrilled to find that not only does it support MKV files with optional subtitles, it has a variety of useful subtitle options. The user can pause video with subtitles on screen then adjust the text size of the subs, incrementally increase or decrease the vertical positioning of the subtitles on the TV screen, and scroll through a variety of selectable subtitle font colors including white, black with white outline, blue, red, green, and yellow. I’ve noticed that the O!Play has trouble handling multiple simultaneous subtitle streams. For example, if two characters are speaking simultaneously, or if sign captions and dialogue subtitles appear simultaneously, sometimes the O!Play will properly display both, sometimes the O!Play will display one subtitle for an instant before switching to the other, and sometimes the O!Play will only display one of the two subtitle streams. It’s a very minor flaw that’s easily forgiven.

I was very pleased to see that the O!Play recognizes and displays Unicode file names without any hesitation. It also has no trouble at all with long file names that many DivX supporting DVD players dislike. The system has an optional video preview pane which I think is pretty nifty. I’ve read complaints from users who claim that the video preview is sluggish and slows navigation through available files. I haven’t noticed that at all. The video previews, for me, have been instantaneous and haven’t slowed file browsing in the least. The remote control offers the ability to fast-forward and reverse in multiple speeds. The O!Play also allows the user to set incremental time skips, for example, jump forward one minute at a time, or five minutes at a time, or ten minutes jumps with each button press. A resume play option that actually works is quite handy. (By comparison, my Philips DVP642 DVD player says that it has a resume play function, but it’s never worked on any DVD or DivX file.) The O!Play Media Player also adjusts for a variety of TV aspect ratios, so that combined with the ability to adjust subtitle positioning and size eliminates annoying problems with TV overscan.

An increasing number of otaku are taking to watching anime on their PC monitors. I don’t have objections to that, but most anime is designed to be watched on a full sized television screen. That’s the way I prefer it. I’m aware that an inexpensive video card will allow an individual to stream anime from the PC onto the TV, but that option keeps the PC busy and only works well if the PC is able to play the video without stuttering or losing synch. The O!Play eliminates the need to rely on the PC for playback. Furthermore, since the O!Play Media Player has no moving parts, it runs on a minimal electric drain. I know that I’m not the only viewer that has appreciated the availability of SD encodes and re-encodes of contemporary fansubs. Now I don’t need to worry about ensuring that my hardware can handle certain encodes or codecs any longer. I can download whatever I want to a thumbdrive now, knowing that I’ll be able to watch it play smoothly and conveniently on my TV, thanks to the O!Play Media Player.

This isn’t a corporate shill. I have no affiliation with ASUS. I’m just a satisfied customer that wanted to share my experience. The O!Play HD Media Player lists at $99.99, although shopping around will turn up prices as low as $97. Consumers that buy an O!Play during the month of April 2010 are eligible for a $20 mail-in rebate. I’m not encouraging everyone to get one of these, but anime fans with technological limitations similar to mine should definitely give the O!Play some consideration.