Micca Slim-HD: 1080p In Your Pocket
by Vivek Gowri on November 23, 2010 1:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Micca
- Slim-HD
- Media Player
Micca Slim-HD - In and Around
As I mentioned on the first page, the Slim-HD comes with a few accessories in the box, namely the remote and the various cables needed to run it. Notable in its absence is the HDMI cable; you’ll need to provide your own to get your HD on. We can’t fault Micca for that omission though, since not many competing products include it in the box either.
The media player itself is quite small, at 3.15”(W) x 5.35”(L) x 0.79”(H). It has about the same footprint as most 2.5” portable hard drives, except slightly thicker. Even with the internal 2.5” drive, the Slim-HD is significantly smaller than the WD TV Live models and Seagate’s $100 GoFlex TV, which both exceed 4” x 5” x 1.5”. I’m assuming that the extra size is mostly due to the more power-hungry processors and associated cooling mechanisms (we’ll get to that in a moment), but the takeaway here is that the Slim-HD is significantly smaller than most of the other HD media boxes out there.
Micca Slim-HD (left) next to a WD Passport 2.5" external HDD
The top face has the Micca Slim-HD logo and a power button and LED. The front side contains the HDD activity light and the remote’s IR sensor. The back has a 3.5mm AV out, an HDMI port, a mini-USB port, and a 5.2V DC input. The right side has an SDHC card reader to round out the ports. It’s decent, but nothing to earth shattering. The integrated SD card slot is a nice touch for people who want to take the memory card out of their camera and put onto the TV directly for viewing purposes, a convenience that it seems like many media streamers are overlooking these days.
The remote is small and very light. It’s not terribly different from the remote that WD included with their Live Plus, except with more buttons. Unfortunately, the buttons are pretty haphazardly organized, so it can be somewhat confusing. The remote body feels very light - on more than one occasion I found myself checking whether the batteries were still in the remote. The lightness of the remote and the unintuitive layout make the remote feel somewhat cheap, an impression carried out by the lack of branding and lack of colour coordination between the black unit and the silver remote body. But once you figure out the button placement, it works well enough, so let’s move on.
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Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
Why dont you create a media player since you have all those test files? lol. Anyway, one important thing to me in a media player is how fast it can navigate through a directory with over 100 files. Also, can the usb port be used to stream video off a flash drive, without a hard drive installed?jack@micca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
Hi,There is no delay in navigating the folders of a drive. The simple interface means navigation overhead is very low. However, for the sake of being able to find a file easily, it's not recommended that you keep over 100 files in the same folder - you'll have to do a lot of scrolling.
The USB port can be used to play videos from a flash drive or an external USB hard drive, up to 2TB in size. And the flash card reader can be used to play videos from a SD/SDHC card.
You do not need to install a hard drive in this player. Many of our customers buy one to keep in their car (there is a car power adapter available) and use it with their in-car video systems to play videos/cartoons from a flash drive.
Jack
Sufo - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
In its defence, 60fps 1080p h.264 would give even reasonably fast processors a run for their money. It's a pretty uncommon configuration outside of the 3D world, and personally, I wouldn't hold the fact that it struggles with it against a device like this. :3chomlee - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
I dont know about anyone else but the no iso support is a deal breaker for me. It is just so much easier to be able to rip dvds into one file. The other thing is that this device really doesn't offer much that isn't already out there. I have a Patriot Box Office which allows room for a notebook drive and it plays anything you throw at it, and is on sale at newegg from time to time for 59.00 with rebate. The UI on the PBO is probably similar to the Micca but also offers network support so you can stream from a home server.Personally, I would wait for the Boxee Box to come down in price and iron out their bugs before I get anything else.
therealnickdanger - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
True, but the Boxee Box doesn't fit in your pocket.jack@micca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - link
You can rip DVDs into one file using something like MakeMKV. You would not have any of the DVD menus or extras, but you would have a smaller file and retain all of the original audio tracks, chapters, subtitles, and etc.Full size players like the Pariot Box Office are great if portability is not a concern. The Slim-HD is idea for those that would like to be able to take the player with them. Many people have a portable USB hard drive anyway, why not have one that also plays 1080p videos?
Jack
Milleman - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
Saw that Amazon is selling the unit for $79, which is really a good price for a portable harddisk container that also will play HD movies, music and photos as a bonus. I've actually been waiting for something like this!The0ne - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
Someone like me that takes his media everywhere :) My family loves it as we can watch anything at any time without any hassle. Same when we travel and stay at relatives home.But I can see this not being so attractive to someone that doesn't have/enjoy the things I have. Good price too.
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
I do like ISOs, but if you're going to rip it into an ISO, why not go the extra step and convert it to something less than 4-20GB?jack@micca - Thursday, November 25, 2010 - link
That's very true. I know you'll loose some quality, but you can get a very good conversion into H.264 and get a movie down to 1/3 or even 1/4 its original size.Jack