Noontec Moviehome V7 Media Player Review
Review submitted by Richard Grainger, ClanCarnage
Regular AusPC visitors might recall seeing a review from me recently for the Noontec A3, which is a small media player that takes external USB storage and plays your movies and music on a TV over HDMI or composite video cables.
Today, I'm going to be showing you it's bigger brother, the Noontec MovieHome V7, which is a full HD 1080P media player that can take a SATA hard drive inside it for storing your movies and music. It's aimed at people who already have their content in another location and can transfer it by USB - unlike the earlier Noontec V8/V9 players, it does not include any networking or recording features, which makes for a cleaner user-interface, less complex user experience and a much lower price.
What you get in the box:
* Noontec MovieHome V7 media player without hard drive
* IR Remote control and 2x AAA batteries for the remote
* Composite Video and Audio R/L RCA red/white/yellow cable
* Short USB A-B cable (used to connect the V7 to a PC so you can copy things to it's hard drive)
* 12V 2A 100-240v Universal power pack (ed: if you want to use it with a 12v socket in a car/boat/caravan, a MP-3478 @ $39 from Jaycar should suit)
* Screws (for mounting hard drive)
* User manual and customer registration form for warranty with Noontec
Here's an unboxing video from Youtube:
Setup:
Before we get into details about connecting the V7 to your TV/theatre system, I’ll quickly cover how to install the hard drive. Noontec ship the unit without one, so that local retailers can supply drives and handle the warranty on them if needed. (Ed: AusPC sells this with some bundled drives at a discount, see the bottom of this page).
The mounting process is really simple and should take no more than a few minutes - there are four Philips screws located at the rubber feet of the V7, you unscrew these which reveal the bottom plate which has some mounting brackets for the hard drive. The V7 only supports 3.5inch SATA I/II devices so you have to line it up correctly with the mounting brackets and use the included screws to secure it. Once the hard drive is in place connect the SATA data and SATA power cables to the sockets on the hard drive, place it back into the case and screw the four rubber feet screws back in. That’s it!
To connect it to your TV, you can either use a HDMI cable (a HiDef digital connection that combines audio and video, not included) or the included analogue (red/white/yellow) cable for standard definition TV. If you have an amplifier, you can run a separate coax cable (not included) from the media player to your amp.
The V7 doesn’t have any on/off buttons on the front of the unit, just a LED that indicates its current state – red for standby and blue for in-use. Powering-on the unit is done via the remote control, the boot process is extremely quick and you are presented with a well laid out main menu.
The system will try to detect your TV type automatically, however I recommend double-checking your video output to make sure it is on the highest resolution that is supported by your TV, in case the unit does not detect the TV's maximum capability. Like the Noontec A3, there's a dedicated button on the remote top-right that lets you cycle the unit through a range of TV-signal types until you find one that works. There's also a setup menu that lets you choose from a range of different output resolutions, as well as other functions such as formatting the newly-installed hard drive.
Supported devices:
The V7 has two USB Type A host ports to let you connect USB thumb drives or USB hard drives to it, one on the side next to the MS/SD/MMC flash memory card-reader, and one on the back. I’ve tested the V7 with a SD card from my camera, my 16GB memory stick and an external 500GB Western Digital MyBook – all of which are read by the V7 without any issues. The box also claims that the V7 can support hard drives over 2TB in size - not having any of these yet, I installed a 500GB Western Digital caviar which was detected and formatted by the V7 in minimal time.
The V7 also has a USB device port on the back - this means that you connect the V7 to a PC with the included USB A-B cable, and copy files back and forth to it's internal hard drive at USB2.0 speeds of up to 30mb/sec - it looks like a removeable USB Mass Storage drive when connected to your PC. Handy if you have an existing collection of media already organised on your PC.
Ease of use:
As before with the Noontec A3, the menu system is extremely well laid out, allowing you to choose from movies, pictures and music straight off the front menu. A dedicated Home button on the remote takes you back to this location too. There is also a content management system called “File Manager”. This allows you to see all connected USB or flash memory devices and play media from them, or copy it from one device to another. A really great feature that they have included is the option to select multiple files, which is really handy when you want to copy batches over, such as pictures off your digital camera.
All actions are done via the included remote, all the buttons are well placed and where you would expect them to be. I’ve experimented with watching standard definition .AVI files, .MOV files and high definition .MKV movies, as well as a range of pictures and audio tracks – all of which have played back without any stuttering or lag. Movies will auto-resume from where you left off if you stop viewing part-way through.
Here's a video of the V7 in use from Youtube:
Wrap up:
If you’re currently in the market for a new media player that supports a SATA hard drive, but don't need to network it, then the MovieHome V7 is something you should look at. I was very impressed by the loading times when cycling through and loading media, as well as the menus. It handled all the different media types I could throw at it with ease
+ Great loading times
+ Intuitive menu system
+ SATA I/II hard drive support
+ Huge list of formats supported (H.264, MKV, Dixv HD, MPEG 2-TS, VC-1, WMV9, MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, AAC, LPCM, FLAC, and more)
- No hard drive installation instructions included (might be a bit daunting for non-technical users - AusPC can assemble these if you request it)
- No HDMI cable (Ed: AusPC will bundle a 2m HDMI cable valued at $12 for free with each V7 sold whilst stocks last)
You know you want one if you've read this far - here's the buy info:
See more specifications and buy the Noontec V7 without the HDD here
You can also buy a V7 and save between $21 and $28 in the following bundles:
* V7 bundled with a 1Tb Hard drive and HDMI cable