Review Dune HD Base 3D: an expensive sound board for a modern person

Dune HD media players have always occupied a special place in the market for these devices. They embodied the maximum

available technologies and were greatadapted for the domestic market - supported all possible formats of audio and video files, and more recently, popular domestic video services, not to mention the standard set of Youtube, AccuWeather, online radio stations. The manufacturer has chosen its own way, in which there is no place for cockroach races to achieve the lowest price. At the same time, a whole line of models looks exactly like the good old component systems that we have known since the days of cassette recorders. After the last update, support for 3D (vertical and horizontal stereo pairs) and, accordingly, the HDMI 1.4 standard has appeared in the new line.

Model Base 3D is the successor of the media playerBase 3.0, and in the lineup of the manufacturer is adjacent to the models Dune HD Max (now Max 3D), and Dune HD Duo. It differs from the first one by the absence of a Bluray drive, and from the second by the presence of one compartment for a 3.5-inch disk instead of two. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is 300 euros (about 3,000 hryvnias), but at the start of sales, the sellers still skim the cream, selling Dune HD Base 3D with a price tag of 3,500 hryvnias. After a month or two, the price should fall to those 3000.

Technical characteristics of Dune HD Base 3D

Dimensions and weight
430x252x55 mm, 2.45 kg

CPU
Sigma Designs SMP8673

Hard drive bay
1, 3.5 inches

Memory
1 GB RAM, 4 GB ROM

Connectors
HDMI 1.4, USB x3, SD, optical, coaxial, composite, component, Ethernet

Wi-Fi support
there is

Equipment
Remote control, HDMI cable, Ethernet cable, Tulip video cable. Wi-Fi antenna

Technical characteristics of such a playermaximum for such devices - there is not a single parameter that is not supported in this model. The buyer of such a novelty has the right to rely on any connections and any types of media - from SD-cards to external and internal hard drives. There is support for Ethernet and Wi-Fi and all kinds of connections to your home video system - everything is provided.

The package includes an HDMI cable,Ethernet (a bit short, in my opinion) and component video cable. There is an antenna module to enhance the Wi-Fi signal, a standard Dune HD remote and a set of plug adapters for the power cable.

Appearance

The case looks strictly, massively and resembles the times of tape recorders, and then DVD players. Those who use component audio-video systems at home will appreciate the look and feel.

The hard drive compartment allows you to extremely aesthetically place terabytes of your favorite video inside the media player.

Remote control in comparison with the remote of our office TV. Looks a little less.

On the front panel there is a headphone output,SD card compartment and USB port for easy connection of “guest” temporary flash drives (no need to pull the player out of its “shelter”), risking to pull out all the connected wires.

The player uses active cooling, no need to complain about the noise of the cooler.

On the left side of the rear panel there is an output for an external antenna, an additional two USB ports, an HDMI output and the entire immodest set of other video and audio connections.

Rather, fashion and part of style than reasonableneed - separate power switch. It reminds me more like a laser printer, but it’s damn nice to press it, feeling my own importance and it all really works for the image of an expensive device for the same expensive home video system.

Interface

The media player interface is nice with brighticons. Different themes are supported, but they are more like marketing improvements. A special thanks (not even thanks, but a bow of the earth) is the possibility of taking screenshots, integrated by the developers. This function can be hung on one of two buttons: power or “eject disc”. The main menu consists of 5 items: favorites (customizable), online services, settings, connected sources and online TV channels. The ribbon of icons scrolls, the cursor with the label of the icon always remains in the center of the screen.

The most curious, of course, is the settings section. I have not seen such a detailed menu in any other media player. I believe that such and not in nature.

In addition to the Russian language, the interface also supports Ukrainian.

Date and time are configured automatically - it would be an internet connection. A trifle, but nice. And there are dozens of such “trifles” in Dune HD.

Video settings allow you to select the video output source.

No less detailed sound settings. Just a pleasure to see, honestly. Yes, you can see for yourself.

In addition to Ethernet, there is support for Wi-Fi.

To enter the password, use the virtual keyboard, which you need to navigate using the navigation keys of the remote.

Cyrillic layout is supported. It is useful for, say, Twitter and entering search phrases on online services.

The list of applications includes a browser (as I understand it, one of the Opera versions on WebKit with support for Flash Lite 3 is used), there are Internet radio services. You can use the Samba SMB server.

In the design section, you can choose not only the theme, but also enable / disable some icons. You also will not find such a “constructor” of the interface anywhere else, I suppose.

It would seem that such a not very complicated thing as the settings for subtitles and audio tracks, selected by default, is also done beautifully.

Not to list all the settings from the subsection“Other”, just bring their screenshots. Separately I want to say, perhaps, about two cool things. First, after turning on the player, it has already revealed a more recent firmware (which suggests that the developers are constantly engaged in it). And, secondly, the display on the front panel is more informative than usual - it displays all the current names of the subsections of the menu in which you are located, and during playback, the names of the files. At the same time in standby mode, as is customary in video equipment, the current time is displayed.

The current version of the firmware.

In the “Applications” section there are popular video services, as well as applications written in flash (with A icon in the upper left corner of the icon). I see no reason to dwell on them.

There are simple flash games for fans to brightentime. Although in our time of information technology, people are more accustomed to consume information in their free time. And there are plenty of such opportunities in this device - from applications of specific services to the browser. Probably, Tetris and Snake could be interested in and distracting the child, but it will be of no interest to very young ones, and older children, if they are offered such entertainment, will rather give you a scornful look and get a smartphone with Angry Birds out of their pockets.

The TV channel section allows you to watch 24 channels, TV rain, as well as two sports channels of the Surface TV group via Internet. The Divan.TV service requires registration.

TV channel 24 has long been engaged in its presenceon the Internet, therefore in this application there is an opportunity not only to watch broadcasting, but also thematic releases of programs. As well as individual news stories.

Service oll.tv is relatively new, but already having its own interesting features, for example, in addition to movies and TV shows, it allows you to watch live sports broadcasts. Much of the content is free, part is available only to subscribers. The subscription price starts from 1 hryvnia - users are taught to pay for legal content with very modest small steps. The menu itself does not look very aesthetic - it is clear that the application is still finished and finished, but the service is only at the beginning of its journey and I am sure it has a good future. By the way, next week the service begins to show the second season of the excellent series “Kitchen” - the series will appear immediately after their premiere broadcast. Highly recommend.

Online service looks even more interesting.Megogo. The last time I saw his application on the console, everything looked much less interesting and not so pretty. The catalog is more convenient in this application, the information is better structured. There are collections of TV shows, including movie news with trailers, new computer games, and even 100-second releases of our colleagues from keddr.com. The collection of licensed films is constantly updated, most of them are available for free viewing. Lists of films have three options for the presentation - in the form of large icons, small icons and text lines. In general, it’s a pleasure to use such a service on a TV, rather than a computer connected to the Internet. If only because the diagonal of the monitors end at 27 inches, and decent TVs only begin at 32 inches.

Finally, the main section, for which allIt was started - playing files. Everything is like clockwork - connecting to a media server does not create any questions. However, these technologies have long been standardized and work equally well on any media player.

In the dry residue

Of course, at a price of 3000-3500 hryvnia,the device turned out what is called “not for all”. But it has been done so correctly that there is no doubt that people behind the development are well aware of what the most sophisticated users of such systems want. A huge number of settings, support for everything that is possible to the maximum, and even working with 3D movies is the last bastion of high technologies. It is possible to install a hard disk, a separate external antenna, support for global and domestic video services - everything is done for the most comfortable viewing and listening. Even the appearance of this player works to create pleasant impressions - made “expensive” and what is called “rich”. From what could be irritating, it’s not obvious how to control the return from video playback. Out of habit, choosing the button for returning to the previous menu level on the remote, I was thrown out in the main menu. Until I accidentally press the “stop” key, which led exactly one level of the menu up. It would seem - for complete happiness, there is not enough Blu-ray drive, but the whole world is already moving to digital video distribution - in fact all media are already dead or soon they will be completely dead. And the world will be ruled by video on demand, online subscriptions to services, and of course torrents, of course. And the Dune HD 3D player is as ready as possible for all this, and in the future, with the advent of new firmware, it will be even more ready. Which allows us to give him the highest award gg - "Editor's Choice".

5 reasons to buy Dune HD Base 3D: