Patriot's $130 Box Office 1080p media player streams on the cheap

Eying a Popcorn Hour device, are you? We know Patriot isn't exactly the first name you think of when pondering your next media streamer, but the $129.99 price tag affixed to the black box shown above definitely piqued our interest. Like most of its rivals, this one features a 2.5-inch HDD slot (though you'll need to bring your own drive, obviously), a trio of USB sockets, 10/100 Ethernet for content streaming, UPnP support, a rather decent file support list and a bundled remote. There's also an optional USB WiFi adapter for those not keen on running 80 feet of Ethernet cabling through their den, and while the GUI won't revolutionize your life, it certainly ain't bad given the low barrier to entry. Too bad it's still stuck in that painful-to-watch "pre-order" stage, huh?

[Via thegadgetsite]

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 18th 2009 9:52AM]

All of these nice media streamers - all I want is the ability to play back Blu-ray ISO files and either decode or bitstream out TrueHD and DTS-HD MA!

We can do pretty much everything else with these media streamers now, but in order to get full audio quality from Blu-ray rips, we still need a full-fledged HTPC at each screen!

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 18th 2009 12:31PM]

OR just get a Popcorn hour A110 and rip BD's & HDDVDs to .ts and get full HD picture and audio!

[NodNarb012 Posted Oct 18th 2009 12:36PM]

You should try out the new WDTV Live (aka WDTV2). It will play Blu-ray ISO's (main movie only, no menus though) and bitstream DD+, TrueHD, and DTS-HD MA. It doesn't have room for a hard drive in it like this Patriot device, but it has two USB ports for plugging in local drives.

You can pick one up at Best Buy for $119.99 right now. You might have to price match their online price since it's $139.99 in-store for some reason. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9539591&st=wdtv&type=product&id=1218121172453

There's a pretty big thread about the device at AVS Forum: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17031392

The Popcorn Hour A-110 and C-200 should be able to do what you're looking for as well, but those are a bit more expensive.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 18th 2009 11:29AM]

no gigabit ethernet
sorry no go

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 18th 2009 1:54PM]

Why would you need Gigabit Ethernet.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 18th 2009 5:51PM]

sure, gigabit ethernet is nice if you wanna copy in turbo mode to the integrated HDD, but else than that, nobody needs Gbit LAN in these devices right now.
This looks like another realtek-based device like the xtreamer or mede8er. I can tell you that with FW based on the new realtek SDK, these devices get BD-ISO support, but the cheap bastards still haven't licensed DTS-HD or TrueHD passthrough. only DTS core and DD5.1 available. still, as I can do a direct comparison, the HD-GUI of the realtek devices is much nicer and more responsive, they are cheaper, and the syabas firmware for the sigma devices is a bad joke, even in their new C-200.
at the moment, get a WD TV Live or an Xtreamer.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 18th 2009 9:06PM]

no vc-1?

[Darren Pillans Posted Oct 19th 2009 2:32AM]

Dear Engadget, can you please get this parasite off the site ASAP?

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 19th 2009 2:54AM]

But Darren, Christmas is around the corner!

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 19th 2009 5:02PM]

This is pretty damn tempting for $99 with WiFi, I have plenty of 720p movies that would play great on this and I hate the idea of having an external HDD on a device like the WD. I want something clean. Basically it comes out to about $200 w/ a 500GB HDD, anyone else have any other better suggestions?

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 20th 2009 10:24AM]

Where do you shop where you can only get a 500GB HD for $100? Fry's, TigerDirect, etc. all offer 1TB or larger USB drives for $100.

I, too, am curious to see how this Patriot will stack up against the WDTV.