ASUS O!Play Live TV Live Streaming Media Player, Wi-Fi, Full-HD, Dolby TrueHD Digital Surround Sound

Pros: This box plays just about every format you throw at it, that's about it.
Everything else would not be a pro IMO.

Cons: Screen saver!!! The screen saver does not work while using any of the internet media programs, such as Netflix. This is very bad, for example... You are watching a movie on Netflix, you fall asleep and hours later you wake up to find the movie over and your tv screen burned in on the Netflix menu. So if you want to watch a movie on netflix, you had better not fall asleep if you like your TV. FIX THIS ASUS!!!! Also the remote is not very responsive most of the time and sometimes over responsive, it just sucks.

Other Thoughts: THIS DEVICE WILL BURN IMAGES IN ON YOUR TV. I wish i had not bought this, the Asus support is non-existent. The screen saver only works in menus which is useless.

Pros: Works great for me no problems at all. Just purchased a second unit. I use various drives 2.0/3.0 2TB and under, WDs and Silicon power. Excellent performance with easy operation. I have ASUS laptops/netbooks and find their products to be top rate as well as this media player. I also own an ASUS Mini o'play which is an excellent unit. I must say that looking at the other comments/reviews I find it hard to comprehend the problems indicated.

Cons: NONE

Pros: You can watch any video file that you want on your TV.

Cons: Will not connect to the internet, wireless or wired.

Pros: none

Cons: Very Misleading.The unit comes with pre-installed Software that is VERY LIMITED.It is basically a Netflix player.No choices other than the half dozen very limited software installed.HUGH WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!

Other Thoughts: I was blown away at the total rip off this product is considering it carries the ASUS label.I've allways been pleased with my ASUS purchases in the past.

Pros: For its time it was a pretty brilliant piece of electronics and I can't fault it when it's working right. You can't expect to play blu-ray through the wifi link - for that you'll need to hard wire it to the network or use a local drive via the SATA input. Useless for online streaming; great for photos and home-videos.

I liked it enough that I have two of them however.



Once, when I was trying a firmware upgrade, the thing crashed beyond recovery and I thought I had a 'brick'. However, I opened it up and hooked it to a hyperterminal and was able to reset the internal software - instructions of this are online but it isn't for the faint-hearted. If it happens to you, know that it is likely a software problem and you don't have a brick.

Cons: The organization of the menus is extremely tedious to work with and it often drops the wifi link at start up (never while running).

The worst feature is the response to the remote - you often have to press a selected button multiple times to get a response and sometimes it give you the wrong response - getting subtitles to work is a pain but ultimately do-able. The instructions are very poor and the online support is dreadful.

Other Thoughts: If ASUS have learned from their experience with this product in the new version (The O!Play BDS-700) then I am very interested.

Pros: Works well with hard drives up to 2 terabytes and thumbdrives. I have purchased numerous asus products (motherboards, ram, video cards and an o'play) and have been completely happy till today!

Cons: WILL NOT WORK WITH A 6 TERABYTE HARD DRIVE! BUYER BE INFORMED THAT ASUS PLAYERS DO NOT SUPPORT LARGE DRIVES. I WISH I WOULD HAVE KNOWN BEFORE I PURCHASED TWO 6 TERABYTE HARD DRIVES THAT THE SOLE PURPOSE FOR THEIR EXISTENCE IN MY HOUSEHOLD IS FOR MOVIE STORAGE AND NOW I CAN ONLY ACCESS 2 TERABYTES ON EACH DRIVE. ASUS BOARDS AND SUPPORT DO NOT HAVE A NEW FIRMWARE TO SUPPORT LARGE DRIVES. QUIT BEING CHEAP AND WRITE SOME NEW CODE ASUS!

Other Thoughts: IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON STORING BLU-RAY THEN I WOULD SAY CHECK INTO ANOTHER PLAYER THAT WILL ALLOW A DRIVE LARGER THAN 2 TERABYTE TO BE FULLY ACCESSED.

Pros: Player will play any format that I throw at it, wireless to desktop and visa versa all excellent but needed care setting up. I find the menu's great and flexible; C drive just like computer. I connected via HDMI cables to TV, Superior picture and sound. All external portable drives, cards etc work well. No complaints at this point 4 months in. Would purchase another no problem.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Amazing unit

Pros: Would be a great buy if it worked!

Cons: I was never able to get a wireless connection, could have lived with that. After about 2 weeks audio feed got a little fluky, periodically lost sound on replay from external hard drive. Finally, after another week or so would be able to get sound for a whole 1 hour show about once in fifty tries. These are known issues with Asus media players, they have issued firmware updates to the older models with mixed success. The only reliable solution seems to be to connect to your system with composite video cables and a Toslink optical audio cable. Since this unit does not have that capability it's going back. When will these manufacturers stop putting this stuff on the market with known issues expecting the consumer to wait for firmware fixes sometime in the future?

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Capt Dogfish,

I am sorry you were not satisfied with your O!Play Live. You have a 3 year warranty with us at ASUS so please contact me if there is anything that I can do for you. You can reach me at cl-jeremy@asus.com with any questions, comments, or concerns you may have.

Regards,
Jeremy
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: Plays most media

Cons: No art work and sorting is horrible. Only 100mb

Other Thoughts: Set up a media pc with plex or xbmc

Pros: - Seems to play the same file formats as original O!Play (HDP R1). Plays them just as well as the original.
- Wireless support (did not test)
- Netflix support*
- Youtube support*

* See other comments below

Cons: - Youtube - very poorly done. In order to actually sign in using your Youtube account, you need to use a USB mouse. Once you sign in, the Youtube app does not let you browse your subscriptions. Absolutely no quality settings. There are many smaller problems as well, but at the end of the day it does play videos.
- Netflix - No settings, quality seems sub-par. All actions are very slow - especially connect and disconnect from the service.
- Fan noise. Not too loud, but noticeable in a small room. The original was silent - why add noise to what was a silent player?
- "Online (Firmware) Update" option in the Settings movie always gives off a connection error.
- O!Direct application does not seem to work. Turned off all firewalls and such, but the application is still complaining that the connection fails. I can see it communicating with the O!Play, but even the latest version does not seem to work.
- Player freezes sometimes in some apps.
- Telnet access blocked (can't mod).

Other Thoughts: The overall feel of everything that has to do with this player is as if they're doing alpha testing (not even beta testing!) and you are the tester. I will give you a few examples:
- Try to do an "Online Upgrade" - it fails saying to retry after checking the network settings. Fine - whatever, lets try manually. Go to the ASUS website (USA one is the only one that even has some info about this player) and it suddenly pops up an .HTACCESS login dialog - weird, but lets cancel. OK, seem to be able to browse the site, click Download to get the latest downloads, but it says "0 files found". OK - thats annoying, but there is still one more option left - FTP. Go to the ASUS FTP, check the firmware versions for the O!Play Live and they only have one firmware version there and its considerably older than the stock.

- Youtube app might just randomly show a mouse cursor or stop responding. The whole thing runs in a web browser (right click with a mouse).

- Horrible firmware job, feels rush