Here’s another media player brand that cropped up recently in the market. Noontec is one of those brand from Shenzen, China who has been manufacturing media players for quite some time along with enclosures, drive bays, and other storage accessories.
The Noontec MovieDock A6II is not a full-blown media player in the sense that it doesn’t have a drive bay nor a full set of video output. Noontec has the MovieHome V8 media player for that. The A6II lies in-between a portable media player that you can lug around and a full NAS/media player that sits comfortably beside your TV and router. It is an upgrade of the previous and smaller A6 which doesn’t have a SATA connection and uPNP functionality.
Enough about the intro, let’s see how this Noontec A6II which I’ve been using for a couple of weeks.
Design
The Noontec A6II has a squarish form that looks like a very slim waffle maker. Nice and simple actually but still too big if you want to pack and bring it somewhere. Top is bare save for the power button so you’ll have space for your action figures.
Up front you’ll only see the infrared receiver for the remote control. On the left side is a USB port for your flash drives and other USB storage devices. There’s also a SATA port for internal SATA HDDs which you probably won’t use much since you’d be exposing your hard disk unless you have an enclosure with a SATA out.
At the back is the rest of the ports. There’s the DC-In, composite connection, coaxial output for 5.1 audio, HDMI, LAN port and another USB port. What’s missing is a component output (RGB) so if you’re stuck with a TV without HDMI (like me), you’ll have to make do with standard definition.
Here’s what’s included in the box.
A SATA cable, USB cable, remote control with batteries, composite cable and the manual. HDMI cable is missing so you have to provide for your own.
Ease of Use
User interface on the A6II is simple and uninspired. At least you won’t be intimidated by the number of choices.
The Videos, Music, and Photos will activate when there’s a storage device connected. It will scan all your files and display them all in one place. If you want to view your files via folder, you can use file management instead. There’s also the option to view your files with a preview, as thumbnails or as a list which is significant when dealing with long filenames.
Setting up the network is easy as enabling auto-DHCP when connected to my router via an ethernet cable. What’s not easy is joining the workgroup or creating a shortcut to other PCs in the network. For some reason, this media player won’t detect my shared folders unlike previous media players that we used. I can create a shortcut to the IP address but I can only use Up and Down arrow to enter my IP. Try that for 192.168.0.192! No thanks!
There’s a web admin page for the A6II to setup FTP, Samba, NAS and other network management settings. Even with Samba on, I can’t see the USB storage connected to the A6II using Windows Explorer on my PC. I can connect to the media player but no shared storage is found for easy drag and drop of files from within the network. Again, a problem we didn’t encounter with previous media players.
If you want to transfer files to and from the storage device attached to this media player, you can do it via an FTP client. I’m sure there’s a way to access it via Windows Explorer but I guess I’m not that techie enough to do it.
Pre-loaded internet sites didn’t pose any problem. I was able to browse for some MadTV clips on YouTube and watch it on my TV via this A6II. I wasn’t able to try torrent download because I don’t have a spare HDD I can format but it’s done via eDonbutton (easyMULE). Would’ve wished it uses BT Transmission instead which is much simpler to operate.
Well I didn’t have any problems with playing all sorts of videos even those with subtitles including IDX. Here’s a list of supported video files by the Noontec A6II.
mkv, ts, m2ts, mts, tp, trp, wmv, ifo, iso, vob, dat, avi, mpg, mp4, mov, rm, rmvb, xvid, flv
iMediaShare
Like other current Realtek-based media players out in the market, the A6II also benefits from iMediashare which is an iOS/Android app that allows you to project videos or photos from your handheld device such as an Android phone or iPod touch onto the big screen using WiFi. There are also quite a number of videos sites on the iMediashare app which you can access and view on your TV.
Since the A6II and my iPod Touch is in the same network, I was able to project my video into the TV. There’s a bit of stuttering but I blame it on my Wireless G network.
Verdict
The Noontec MovieDock A6II is still a decent media player despite the lack of component output. It’s necessary to maintain the smaller form. It’s very easy to setup as a media player but the NAS functionalities require a bit more technical know-how to operate.
What you’ll get from the A6II compared to other basic media players out there is the Ethernet port which gives you the ability to transform your TV into a pseudo-internet TV. It would be nice if sharing and accessing network folders can be an easy affair to further maximize it’s networking capability.
With an introductory price of Php4,999, the Noontec MovieDock A6II is priced very competitively, on the lower price spectrum even for its class. Right now, you can buy this media player from 5Th Ave. stores and Infromax in V-Mall. For further inquiries, you may e-mail noontec.ph@gmail.com.
Item | Contents |
---|---|
Video decoding format | H.264, MKV, WMV9, MPEG 1/2/4, HD Xvid, FLV, RM/RMVB |
Support video files | mkv, ts, m2ts, mts, tp, trp, wmv, ifo, iso, vob, dat, avi, mpg, mp4, mov, rm, rmvb, xvid, flv |
Video decoding resolution | HD movie: Up to 1080p, Internet movie RM/RMVB: Up to 720p |
Support Subtitle formats | sub, smi, ssa, srt, idx + sub |
Audio format | mp3, wma, wav, ogg, aac, lpcm, flac, ac3,cue,ape |
Picture format | Digital photos JPG, JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF, GIF |
USB host | USB2.0 high-speed interface, can be connected with external hard disk or flash disk |
Support flash disk format | FAT16 or FAT32 format |
Video output | HDMI HD interface, component output interface, composite output interface |
Video definition | HDMI HD interface: 1080p |
Audio output | HDMI HD interface, optical cable output, coaxial line, AV stereo |
AC input | AC 100 ~ 240 V, 50Hz |
DC output | DC 12V/2A |
Appearance size | 189.7 x 189.7 x 26.4 (L x W x H) |
Weight | 740g |
SRP | Php4,999 |