Nov 5 Podcast #451: Nixeus Fusion HD Review
Podcast, Review Tags: Media Server, Streaming, Video 
We love Media players! So when we we given the opportunity to review yet another player we took it. By the way, with so many players on the market it can become difficult to know all the players. Thanks to a cool spreadsheet that Veronica Belmont got started its a bit easier. Check out the Networked & Set Top Boxes Google spreadsheet. Its like a program for set top boxes!
Dolby Ultimate Home Entertainment Contest
Listen to the show
Today's Show:
News:
- Redbox planning to expand onto the Web next year
- First Ever Rankings Of 3d Performance Show Plasmas Offer More Realistic Images Than LCDs
- Philips Shuts Down Pronto Business Unit
- Here Comes the HDTV Price War!
Other:
- 70% of Slingbox Users Don’t Placeshift TV Content Outside Their Home
- Accell ProUltra® Supreme High Speed HDMI® Swivel Cable with Ethernet
Nixeus Fusion HD (MSRP $220)
The Nixeus Fusion HD is not unlike many other players. It plays music, video, photo slide shows, and content off the web. With DLNA and UPnP support its easy to set up and enjoy. It took us about 10 minutes before we had video playing on our TV.
Features:
- Full HD 1080 Playback up to 1080p60hz
- Wireless 802.11n
- DLNA 1.5 Certified and UPnP 1.0 Compliant
- DTS 2.0 Digital Out and Dolby Digital Certified
- Real-time Weather and Clock
- Online Entertainment - YouTube, Fusion Channel, RSS, Flickr, Live 365, and SHOUTcast
- Web Browser - Built-in Web Browser allows you to surf the Internet (Google, Yahoo)
- BitTorrent - Built-in BitTorrent Client allows you to download your latest torrent files
- USB 2.0 Host and Client Support
- Supports Serial ATA (SATA II/3G up to 2 TB) hard drives
Setup
We litterally took the unit out of the box, connected power, HDMI to the TV and joined the wifi network in about 10 min. Shortly after that it found all the DLNA servers and networked drives. The Fusion HD ships without an internal drive but it has space for a 3.5" SATA HDD. We also plugged a USB stick and external USB drive to the front of the unit. Over all setup was easy.
Performance
The Fusion HD played everything we through at it. In fact the Fusion HD supports almost all known media formats. The full list of media support is listed on their site under the tech specs tab. Videos looked good. The device didn’t adversely affect the content. The bottom line is the quality of what you see is dependent on the quality of what you give it. Music sounded no different than if we were playing it in iTunes or any other player. Over all the unit does what it is supposed to do.
There is also Internet connectivity with support of Youtube, Flikr, Live 365, and BitTorrent.
There is also a browser so you can check in with Facebook and Twitter. We did not find those functions that appealing to use on the device. They were probably thrown in just because. Youtube worked fine but the interface was pretty basic. In fact was one of our biggest complaints of the entire experience. The GUI looks like something you’d see in devices built in the 90’s. There was just no excitement about using it.
It does have a BitTorrent client if you are into that sort of thing.
Conclusion
The Nixeus Fusion HD is yet another device vying for a spot in your media room. Its does what it says it does albeit with an uninspired user interface. At $220 its going to be a tough sell unless you are really into BitTorrent.
Reader Comments (6)
iPad couldn't have killed the Pronto. Philips started trying to sell the business in 2009 and the iPad wasn't released until 2010. That seems kind of obvious.
Is that google spreadsheet shared? I get access denied....
Hi Roger,
A few people have been saying that. I don't know why that's happening. Try logging out of Google Docs and then back in. I have no idea if that will work but why not give it a try ;-)
Ara
Guess my two votes on Podcast ally this month have been waisted as I never got a conformation email back and now when i try again it says that i have already voted..
The iPad/iPod Touch, for most people that don't have an interface between their equipment and their network, is just a remote consolidator. Instead of picking up the remote you need, you have to switch apps. On it's own it is not an integration remote. When it's coupled with a brain of some sort (Control4, Crestron, Global Cache, etc) then it becomes more programmable, but still not enough so for the average joe to really make macros and activities work. Even most installers cannot make changes to the interface because most of the time the app is closed to the developers.
The Pronto/Harmony/Universal Remotes of the world are user and installer programmable and are a true user installed universal remote. Pronto died because they stopped iterating on their model far before it was thoroughly ironed out. They kept revising a clumsy remote and it was never innovative beyond color icons. Their death had absolutely nothing to do with the iPhone and everything to do with the way they handled their business. The iPad and iPhone will also never threaten true custom remote controls because the price of the remote is a fraction of the cost of the system and software it controls.
Eventually I think Logitech will probably release a Harmony app & interface for the devices and that might eat into sales of lower cost universal remotes.
I love my Squeezeboxes. I guess you could call it a "poor man's Sonos" as it is lower cost entry into whole-hoome audio if you already have a PC you can leave on 24/7.
I have two Squeeboxes: Squeezebox Radio and Squeezebox Boom. I also have an older Roku M1001 that will emulate an older Slim Devices Squeezebox (before Logitech bought them). The Roku works with most functions of Squeezeserver, however, the device sync is flaky. In addition to running the Squeezebox Server app for on-demand music streaming, I also have 8 internet radio stations running using Winamp's Shoutcast streamer.
I didn't hear this mentioned in the Podcast, but there are Android, iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad based remote apps for the Squeezebox. These work over WIFI and in many ways much better than the Logitech remote.
Squeezecommander works great for all of you Android users.
http://www.squeezecommander.com/
iPeng has two seperate apps one for the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad.
http://penguinlovesmusic.de/ipeng-the-iphone-skin-for-squeezecenter/
Squeezepad is another greate app for the iPad
http://www.squeezepad.com/
As Braden mentioned, there is an open source desktop PC Squeezebox emulator called SqueezePlay. It can be a bit flaky at times, but for the most part, it runs flawless. If you have an old laptop or some other low-power PC that you can leave on all of the time, hook it up to a pair of speakers and control it with one of the apps I mentioned above!
Hope this helps!
- Mark