Hands on: Sony’s $129 N100 Media Player ‘Does More Than Roku’

Nice and great price but I would wait to see what is coming out with W7 Embedded which includes Windows Media Center.

Hopefully some TV manufacturers will jump on the train and integrate it into the panels.. then you don’t need any box.

Nevertheless, there is always room for standalone streamers such as this one.

Anyone know which chipset this uses?

Any discussion about future Netflix upgrades? I was all set to scuttle my Roku purchase plans in favor of this, but then I saw the bit about not being able to browse Netflix. Roku was the same way in the beginning, so I’m wondering if Sony will eventually come around, too.

Joe—no data sheets have been released yet. Don’t know about chipset, but I’ll ask.

Todd—I can only imagine that Sony will come around and add more functionality for Netflix. I use Media Center and I really enjoy browsing Netflix from the TV.

What I really want is the stand!  Does anyone know where to get one?

Don’t fall for it.  We’ve seen Sony create the Beta video tape standard and try to unsuccessfully coherse the market into paying license fees.  Now they’ve successfully raided the HD DVD market with their Blu-ray standard, in which everyone has to pay a royalty on.  I blame Sony for the high priced and slow high-def acceptance by the masses.  Now they introduce a new streaming device.  I can guarantee they’re at it again.  There will be an open standard and Sony’s proprietary one.  They’ll pay off whoever they need to so their standard is the de facto and everyone will again have to pay to use this technology, again stifling acceptance of a new technology. 

Roku has done a great job at keeping everything open.  They’ve added new capabilities while keeping the price low.  They’ve not tried to capture the streaming market, create a new streaming protocol standard, or be sneaky in any way.  I vote for and recommend Roku for anyone who’s interested in this type of device.

George,
I have a Roku but the Sony N100 looks interesting, it will have more features than the Roku and will likely get Hulu Plus before the Roku.

Any idea if this supports soft subtitles embedded in videos or external .srt or idx/sub files? The PS3 supports Divx subtitles in .divx files but has no support for subs in .mp4 files.

Probably a Sigma Designs chipset as those are the only ones which have Netflix at the moment.

A nice box with a good UI for a change on a network media player.

I’ve ripped my dvd collection to video_ts folders to maintain the DVD menu system and extras. Any idea if they will be playable on this unit?

Here’s the manual if anybody is interested:

http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/4192726311.pdf

The spec sheet does not show VOBs.
You can use Handbrake to convert out to
MP4 / M4V. The VOB qual may be preferred, so MKV (also supported) may be of interest. I don’t know if there is a pgm
which will take your files and parse out- AVS forum is a good place to inquire.

That manual seems to only reference DLNA servers. I’m wondering if it’ll be possible to browse standard file shares (ie. SMB, NFS)?

I can’t wait for the Sony offering.  I have two Roku units (HD with N speed) and the remote control is out of a Model T.  It’s very clunky, cheap, and has few features.

Shipping 9/13:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId;=-1&XID=O:smpn100:dg_ggldf&productId=8198552921666261253