HDI Dune HD Smart D1 HDD And Network Media Player Accessories   Page 1

Reviewer: RWL Staff Article Publish Date: 2/1/2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

    With Sigma Designs taking their time to introduce their newest decoding solutions in the market companies are continuing to design and manufacture players based either on the already proven high end SMP8642/43/53 chips by Sigma Designs or based on the RTD1055DD/1283DD+ chips by Realtek. Personally i can't wait to see what Sigma Designs has in store for us but until then their SMP8642/43 chips are ontop of my list whenever i recommend a high end player to people who are willing to pay extra in order to get something more than just a mainstream media player. The unit here with us today is manufactured by HDI Dune which as many of you are aware has been manufacturing standalone Media Players for quite some time now and is considered by many as being the best in what they do.

 

 

 

    HDI has been in the business of manufacturing top notch standalone Media Players for many years now but it wasn't until recently that the prices of their products reached relatively normal levels for the end user. Their products are in unique both in built quality and features and so you are guaranteed that you are getting the best in this segment of the market something that comes as no surprise since they have won countless awards from media all over the world. Their customer support has no rival not only because of their continuous firmware updates but also because HDI is perhaps the only company worldwide that gathers feedback from their customers about what new features to add in their units.

 

 

 

    A while back we had the chance to take a good look at the HD Max and i have to say that although HDI could had made it even better it did manage to surpass their previous Flagship model, the Prime 3.0 in many aspects. The differences were not chaotic so owners of the Dune Prime 3.0 really have little to gain by going to the HD Max but still HDI managed to improve on the design by adding a hot-swap 3.5' HDD tray, SD card reader and enough extra space for 2 future extensions. However with us today we have the HD Smart D1 which in many ways is just 1/3 of the HD Max. Confusing? Not really, you see the HD Smart line of players allows you to build the perfect machine, cut out for your needs and so HDI Dune has 3 different Smart Models, the B1, D1 and H1. The B1 is identical to the D1 but instead of an LCD screen on the front like the D1 the B1 features a Blu-Ray optical drive whereas the H1 features a hot-swap HDD tray. Now all three mentioned models are complete media players and so you can plug them on your TV and watch your favorite movies. However since the price of each unit is quite high HDI Dune also provides standalone versions without media player capabilities, namely the BE (Blu-ray) extension and the HE (hot-swap HDD tray) extension. So you can buy the HD Smart D1 or any of the standalone units and pair it with one or more BE/HE extension to get the ultimate media player. Of course when the new Sigma Design chip comes out you can change just the main unit and keep the extensions you already have. HDI Dune also offers an upgrade plan but we have no price regarding that feature.