Netgear NeoTV 550 Ultimate

A great media player with just 1 shortfall! – I purchased this media player after returning my Western Digital Live Streaming Media Player. The Netgear NeoTv 550 is extremely smooth in its operation. Quick to scroll through menus etc.. It also displays all your cover art and media info with ease. It doesn't have all the extra network features like other media players eg: spotify but for someone like myself who only uses a media player to watch movies, view photos and listen to music it works flawlessly. Now for the negative. It does not read external hard drives bigger than 2TB. It does if connected via a network but not through the USB connections. You can get it to read a 3TB hard drive if formatted in Mac format but this still presents issues with playing alot of the movies that would normally play on a 2TB or smaller hard drive. If you don't have more than 2TB of data then this is a great media player. For those of you like myself who have almost 5TB of data it can be an issue. All in all a great media player that is in need of a firmware update from Netgear to rectify the hard drive issue. Keep in mind that netgear are aware of the issue but haven't released a firmware update to this media player since August 2011. Smooth operation, good user interface and displays cover art/info Doesn't read external USB hard drives bigger than 2TB

Excellent media player! – Although not the greatest design team! NeoTV 550 is pretty damn good! it automatically scans for networked and local devices, and organises movies, music and photo's and displays them in the menu with pictures rather than just a list of file names. Plays movie sound tracks in 7.1 HD surround sound too! I "accidentally" bought this media player, I went into the store with the intent to NOT buy a media player until i was convinced what i was buying was decent! i had a look at a few others and NeoTV was pretty much what i wanted it does most EVERYTHING! the salesman came up to speak to me and deliver the "sales pitch" i really didn't want to buy one then and there, he asked me what i was prepared to spend on a media player, so me being a smartar*e said around about $100 bucks cheaper than the price of the neotv..... he said "done" what could i NOT like about that?? i just got $100 knocked off the rrp! he foiled my plan! So with new media player i went home and plugged it all in and switched it on, it just worked! there was a very quick setup to choose language and sound tone and the choice of 720-1080P the menu looks really professional and all of my content is displayed by cover not just a list of file names. The remote feels really solid too, not just some cheap flimsy thing, it has a rubber coating on the back and is very responsive and fast unlike the remote of the media player I recently had. The unit itself (although a little ugly sitting next to a porsche designed hard drive, so its best hidden in the dark places of your entertainment unit) has a good amount of ports 2 usb, 1 HDMI, eSATA, SD card slot and an Ethernet port, optical and also is compatible with analog TV's! its a very capable and reliable device in my view! If it wasn't for the "unexpected" discount it is a little on the exy side for a bit of an ugly unit..... that also doesn't come with a HDMI cable.... which at its RRP it really should!