Astone MP-310DT

Great value ...easy to use – Best media player on the market. The only negative is the remote control is too touchy at times which can cause it to freeze. But there is nothing on the market that has all the features of the astone media player. Paired with a good quality HD its all you need to enjoy your internet, music, movies, recordings and TV/radio programs in one powerful good looking box.

Mp - 310dt will not do internet – When i connect to internet the whole thing freezes up. Disconnected internet and can still watch tv and record .Where do i send unit for repair.This is my second replacement unit.

Avoid – As with other reviewers, so many issues. - reboot times extremely long - reboots itself - reboots to menu then freezes - requiring unplug from wall - multiple times - freezes when selection menu - Trouble reading USB - extreme long times to ready USB - up to 10 mins - does not boot well with USB. - Now it has DIED - not too sad about that cheap nasty - see review

Junk – Problems from day 1 would not record after 1 week came good . Shuts down when it gets into pms mode about 3 time a week reboot all the time just to many probs to mention . Done software up grade no better. This needs a hardware up grade with a hammer

wont record-format feature missing – unit arrived today,setup ok,tuned all channels,but when i push the record button all i get is a red circle on the screen obviously telling me that recording is not going to happen.i dont know wat to do.cant find anything in the manual sugesting what to do if recording wont work.all i want to do is record free to air tv. easily tuned channels just does not mant to record

Great Meadia Centre – Have used this media centre for some time now , love the ease of use and setup. Haven t had any problems with it. The storage of movies and music is such a breeze and once networked can get streaming media on all devices. Just love this product which is packed full of features. Simplicity to use Doesnt come with a HDD pre installed

Piece of junk – Even after a firmware update, it continually crashes or freezes. Takes hours or unplugging the power supply out of the back, unplugging all storage and trying over & over to get the thing to even play a simple video file. Then it'll behave for a few weeks, then chaos again. An absolute miracle that I haven't smashed it into a zillion pieces by now. Pretty light on the front. Rarely does anything.

Astone mp-310 dt – Go to kazzas corner web page, you will find all the answers and firmware update for theses units its more than the astone web site will ever give you astone does not have the latest fireware update this site does even youtube works on this firmware. the astone web site is rubbish

Pretty good unit – Pretty good unit, plays all the files I need (avi xvid mkv mp4 m2ts ISO/dvd/br-rip) Can set up shortcuts to devices interface is basic, would be nice to have it work better overall. web-control or phone control would be nice. do not lose the remote! dog ate it. managed to get basic functions via harmony 300, but tad painful. dtv… Read more

recording is ok, scheduled recording OK, but sometimes forgets to record, can record 2 shows at once

timesync with dtv doesnt always work and sometime throws schedules

in short - good basic unit with PVR functionality, plays everything. would have been awesome to have better GUI or even run xbmc or something watches all normal files, easy to use, records tv too as with all of these types of systems - limited gui, scheduled recording unreliable, you get what you pay for.

Dxtreme media player with new housing – I was currently using a dxtreme media player and then bought this it arrived unplugged my 5 year old dxtreme box and plugged in my new astone media player and they are the exact and compleatly identical systems in every way and every feature this system is 5 years newer but is identical to a 5 year old dxtreme box hated the dxtreme and hate this… Read more

now DO NOT BUY THIS PIECE OF RUBBISH company gone bust and you will not be happy it's so hard to use and navigate freezes constantly deletes files off your USB hard drives and is slow

WORST MEDIA PLAYER EVER It plays a lot of different video files Freezes, hard to use, deletes files off USB hard drives,

A complete waste of money and NON Support from Achieva – I purchased this product due to the features listed on the box, I believed that I was getting something worthwhile for the cost. I opened the package and instantly had troubles with the system. For starters, I plugged in the supplied HDMI cable, connected my aerial to the unit and setup the tv, the tv reception through the unit was useless via the… Read more

HDMI cable, I even tried several different pre-owned HDMI cables and still the picture was pathetic, constant distortion and for a digital tv reception this was something that annoyed me that this unit wouldn't pick the reception up precisely. I opted to take out the HDMI cable and use the standard Red, White and Yellow cables supplied. This worked as the picture was 100% better.

The next issue was that the system would reboot and then as it was about to load into the menu, popup a display window saying the system would shut down for the first time. I allowed this to happen as I thought it was a standard procedure. I then restarted the box and again it would popup the same message, after several attempts it was still continuing (yes it did provide an option to cancel but I wanted to see if I was going to have to do this every time I started the unit). This annoyed me more. I got to the stage where I had to leave the unit on so I wouldn't have to go through this message every time I started it up.

Setting up the network was just as painful,, I am using a share center UPNP on my network, the unit took forever to detect this and setting up the shortcuts to the folders were ridiculously hard compared to the unit I previously had before this one. After several weeks, the system now reboots every time I try to pick up a movie from the network to watch, another item that frustrates me immensely.

Searching online media was annoying as well, for example, trying the YOUTUBE option, sure it went to YOUTUBE website but playing several types of video on this site was not permitted by the unit, it would play one movie but not another (even from the same country).

The system reboots itself every so often without intervention, the system is extremely unreliable (even after I installed the firmware). What is worse the customer support is non existent, the non existent service only frustrates me more, all companies should provide at least a standard help system, this company supplies none. I have been waiting weeks for a response to my first email to them and they didn't have the decency to answer it.

Now -

1. DO NOT BUY THIS UNIT, you will be wasting your money.

2. DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE UNITS FEATURES, this will frustrate you more.

3. BUY A MEDIA PLAYER FROM A REPUTABLE COMPANY OR BRAND, this company and brand is not reputable.

4. IF YOU BUY THIS UNIT DONT EXPECT ANY CUSTOMER SUPPORT

The unit is now unplugged and is about to be thrown in the bin, I will be recommending to everyone NOT to purchase this product.

"The Astone MP-310DT Network Media Player with dual DVB-T tuner rocks all the cutting-edge technology you would expect in a state-of-the-art media play..." - THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE, IT HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE SINCE DAY ONE.

Everything as stated in the review, a complete waste of money.

Worked Great For A While...But – The main things I wanted in a PVR was that it would remember where I was up to in playing back media files and give me the option of resuming from that point, and that when playing back music from a large collection I had the option of shuffling the tracks rather than always starting from the beginning. While most of them would play back the media… Read more

and music files, only this unit seemed to give me what I wanted and I thought I'd found the ideal solution, but even in the early stages there were problems with it not turning on correctly, it would restart itself, sometimes it would boot up and not recognise the hard drive, or it would recognise it but not the content, then sometimes it would recognise both but reboot when the file was accessed, and sometimes it would do nothing and present a blank screen when it was time to pull the plug as it has no on/off switch. That usually solved the problem, but after the last time when I went through this process numerous times and got nowhere I pulled the hard drive out and the unit went into the junk box. I never did the firmware updates as has been suggested, to my mind any review here should be for a system out of the box as while obviously you will need Internet access to read the review, the bottom line of it is "would you recommend this to friend" (who may not have Internet access) and "only if being able to update the firmware" should not be even a consideration. It does have the option of resuming playback of media files from the last watched position and shuffle playing music. Assigns its own channel numbers to stations it finds during auto-tune which you have to remember when setting up recordings (although of course you can allocate them manually). Was not able to connect it my home Wi-Fi system but I did not go into that and it may have been something simple that I was missing

Good unit if you update it! – For all you guys that have had trouble, update the firmware from here - http://achsyd1.achieva.com.au/cgi-bin/estore/downloads.html - I had a few minor issues with lockups and slow file transfer via network, but since installing the latest firmware it has been flawless. I only paid $90 a few months ago from EYO online and considering it has twin… Read more ·  3

tuners and PVR you will be hard pressed to find better value for money. Price and features such as NAS and upnp etc & twin tuners is a plus buggy unless firmware is updated

It works well – I almost did not buy the unit, because there have been some shocking reviews. None of them mentioned updating the BIOS however, and being a bit of a techie, I thought I would give one a go because of what you could potentially get for the price, with some minor work. I picked up a 1TB Seagate drive for $88 while I was at it. I had left my specs… Read more

at work, so I didn't bother with the instructions when setting up.

To my surprise the unit worked straight out of the box (after HDD install) and I was able to easily navigate the set-up screen. I have encountered none of the issues the other reviewers have mentioned. No channel drop outs on power off, works fine with HDD, no freezing or random restarts. Maybe the unit needs a hard drive to work properly?? BIOS is stable at 9.5.45 and I have NO intentions of changing it yet.

It does everything it says on the box, and I am extremely happy with it. I paid $110 for it at Stardot Technology, Capalaba where the staff were knowledgeable and friendly. If anyone finds that these units are not fit for purpose, return them to your vendor. It is the law that they accept them back and refund your money.

For me, this unit has been a very pleasurable and rewarding investment. It works the way it is supposed to, straight out of the box. Remote control is intuitive and simple. Great bang for buck. Can I suggest picture-in-picture as a future feature be available via software update????

The Astone MP-310DT It is an incomplete product that could of been the best – I am not sure if the other reviewers actually used it or not. It has some serious issues. It forgets the channel list. So each time I use it i have to waste time using autoscan to put in the channel list again. That is really annoying. Just remember waiting each morning to get the bloody thing to do this. ahhh. I wonder if the problem is because… Read more

i did not install a hard disk?

Some forums claim you can do firmware updates?

Once you get past 2 min or 4 min boot time and auto scanning, it actually works well. Everything seems to work that i use. The channel selection is easy to use. I just press the ok and the channels pop up and I like the EPG. It works fine. The key problem is there is no website for it. [links removed]

The channel list problem is unresolved at this point. There are rumours the company has gone bust. Press " ok ", get the channel list and use the up and down arrows to go to the channel i want. I have to run the autoscan every time I turn it on.

ASTONE MP 310DT A lot of problems – On the plus side this is a very low cost media player combined with a dual digital tuner. The unit is right up to date and can play a large variety of audio, video and static (photo) formats (WAV. FLAC, WAVPACK, MP2,MP3, AAC+, mov, mpg, vob etc). On the negative side, well where do you begin: 1. The 2A 12 VDC power supply supplied with the… Read more

unit cannot handle the extra load when a hard disc is installed in the unit, I overcame this problem by using a replacement 12VDC 5A supply. Until I used another power supply the unit continually re-booted every time I selected a stored video or music file for playing.

2. I had to cut a cable tie that was preventing the installation of a 3.5 inch form factor hard disc which is what the unit is supposedly designed to accommodate.

3. As a PVR it does not record reliably, I have a Panasonic DMR XW380 which is rock stable and ultra reliable, has never let me down over three years now.

4. The unit has a number of software/firmware issues where it will simply hang for no reason and the only way you can recover is to turn the power off and on again. Copying from a USB memory stick has caused this or accidentally double selecting an audio file to play because you thought that it had not been selected due to the delay using the remote control.

5. The boot up time is inordinately long (several minutes) for a unit that runs an embedded version of Linux as the operating system and that does not take into account the acquisition time to lock onto a digital Free-To-Air television channel.

6. No where near as well made as their earlier AP 300 media player which had an all steel case and adequate mouting of the hard disc. The MP 310 is an all plastic case and you would not want to be changing the hard disc too often or you will strip the case retaining screws.

7. The remote control navigation buttons have a terrible tactile response, it would be better if the remote control had separate navigation buttons instead of the ring arrangement where it is all too easy to accidentally press the up or down movement instead of the left or right movement. The alternative is to buy a third party universal remote control like the Logictech units and use that. 1. Cheap ($A119), 2. can play a wide variety of video/audio formats 3. Has composite, component, HDMI, analogue audio and SP/DIF digital audio. See above simply put, lack of testing of the software, inadequate power supply when a hard disc is installed.

Too unreliable – I've had mine for over a year now and find it just doesn't work reliably as a PVR and it randomly reboots when using to watch media as well. Add to that the Astone support forum which was quite useful has been out of action for months now. I was hoping for new releases of firmware to fix the issues but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.… Read more

Was fairly cheap and plays most media formats when it works Frequent intermittent freezing or rebooting and it misses the majority of recordings

It is worthless – Their website said it could record my xbox 360 gaming sessions. All it is is a digital set top box. They advertise it as all of this and that but it doesn't do anything my tv doesn't already do. It is a worthless waste of money and has no good points about it at all.

A Fine Value For Money Malti-Media Player / Recorder – Once apon a time I built HTPC (Home Theatre PC's) by myself to play different formats that I collect over the years and my first system was a basic PC connect to the TV. It was noisey and wasn't the most practical and tidy system. It worked and did the basics & at the time there was not much in forms of malti-format plays in the day, but if there… Read more

was it would cost thousands. Something I belive is if you can find a system that is cheap and does everything you want then you must of done something right.

One thing I have gained from building HTPC's is they are fun to build and you can alwasy make the system the way you want it to be. Though building a HTPC costs as much as an average laptop or desktop these days- You could say its not the cheapest way to do it.

The Astone Media Gear MP-310DT is something I wasn't going to expect much for $100, but o does it show you that not all cheap media players are cheaply maid boxs. The first day it came I was impressed by the box it came in. I was thinking it would come in a brown box that leaves you with a feeling that this aint going to be much of a toy.

This is were it starts to get interesting, the player was nicely packed with a USB 3 cable and the basic phono jacks but no HDMI (DAM!!). It comes with its useral power cable, remote and Astone even bother to give you some batteries. Seems good so far and the case that all components fit in seem to be well made too.

The main reason I bought this player was to allow me to have a Hard disk media player that would play everything that I throw at it. A media player that was small enough to take anywere on a Fly-In-Fly out jobs, so I can have my films and music all in one place. A media player that could record some DVT-B free view broadcasts TV so I could expand my viewing experience. Yes, Yes and Yes it does it all, I have played a MKV video on an old CRT (cathode ray tube)TV, which in my house is all I got at the moment. Someone once told me that if you could get it to sound good on an old TV and look good then you have cracked it because when it comes to presenting it on a modern TV there is only one result. The sound was very good and he defanition was too.

I haven't installed a hard disk yet to play with the DVT-B broadcast record feature, but I did try it on a USB stick and it stutterd. I think is the result of the performance of the USB stick and I am sure it be better with a installed hard disk. The menu system and GUI interface is nicely made up with easy to understand functions. Some complained that it was to much of a hassel to setup, I don't see much of an issue its just a case of thinking logically.

One of the main things I did before I played with any of the features was to make sure the firmware was up to date. It had an older version so I went to the Astone website and updated to the most stable version.

Version v9.5.45 R2 - was the one I did and its not recommended to go to Version v9.5.45 R3 yet because of some bugs.

One finaly note about this player to others is that its got a community forum of people that are playing with all the features and are all reporting back to ways to sort it out. This leaves great feedback for future updates. I bought a media 2 years back for $80 and the company only brought out 1 update and was not interested in improveing its features or any bugs / faults it had.

I could go on about its positives, but its really up to you to find out just how good a $100 is well worth spending :) Great Video Quality Playback, Great Depths of Sound Playback, Attractive & Small, Plays Everything and Anything, Pause Live TV & Record Case is a shiney material that attracts dust, Future updates need to address some small bugs

Excellent buy – I purchased this product with 2tg hard drive and I am very pleased with it. It is simple to use and comes with USB 3.0. As my PC also has 3.0 the file transfers are incredibly fast. I have video, music and photos all on the hard drive and all work well. One of the great things about this unit compared to others on the market is that it plays… Read more

just about anything. No more hassles trying to convert files from one type to another...this plays them all. Windows media, real player media, mpeg, mp4, avi, and heaps more.

It also has a duel tuner which is good if you want to watch and record different shows at the same time. However the electronic guide is very average in appearance. Also when you press info to view the name of the file you are watching, the text on screen is very small and that's on a 50 inch TV. Also the remote is quite basic and while it works you do have to have it pointed right at the box for it to work.

The system also comes Wi fi Ready if you purchase the dongle and that allows you to surf to the web and even download video from the web to watch later. You can also use WI FI to stream media from a PC or home network.

Overall this is an excellent system and smashes anything else I have seen on the market. Price, 3.0 USB and plays heaps of file types Electronic guide and remote control

A product I would buy again – I bought an Astone AP-360T PVR and was delighted with it. However I wanted dual tuners so bought the newer MP-310DT. The firmware and ease-of-use was superior to the earlier model. Also, it fixed a few small but annoying bugs. Overall I am thrilled with it and would not hesitate to recommend it. The unit will record 2 TV channels while you can… Read more ·  1

use the TV to watch yet a third. Also, you may think recording 2 channels is still not enough? Not so. Because of the different program times & program lengths, you can actually squeeze in a lot of viewing, though on a good night, yes, you can still get the odd conflict. But goodness, you still get excellent capabilities.

The unit supports a myriad of formats and options. My wife and I record almost everything we want to watch and then I watch what we want when we want. This is very convenient and enoyable viewing.

Some retailers sell the unit with a hard drive pre-installed. A far cheaper option is to buy the model sans hard drive and then add your own. I am using a 500Gb drive as I had one spare, but 750Gb-1Tb would be better. You can pick up a cheap 1Tb drive for just under $100 and 2Tb for about $135 - consider stripping the drive from an external HDD? But 2Tb is somewhat excessive unless you decide to keep everything you record. The instructions for installing the hard drive are extremely good. It is designed to be easy and I would suggest anyone who is not afraid of a philips screwdriver could do this installation and save $50-$150, depending on retailer. A bare unit sells for under $100 buying online ($96 from I-Tech for example). You really do stand to save a LOT.

The unit allows you to store your music, images and movies (those you want to keep) in their own directories. HDMI is the best way to connect to your TV but RCA and YPbPr are there too. An improvement over the older model is the Antenna Out (loop) which is very handy.

Support is poor. If you use the Astone website, getting a reply can be slow or non-existent. That said, the Astone user community give excellent support. Also, like many other PVR manufacturers, you can check the firmware level and download a different version to a memory stick, and then upgrade the unit. Slick. We will see more of this in the future so get used to it.

The unit can be used without a hard drive, using a memory stick instead. Seeing these are usually 32Gb max, this is a very temporary option. You simply don't store much in 32Gb when talking about HD audio & video. I record at 720i so you use about 2Gb per hour (rough est). If you record a few movies, with a shoulder to ensure you get the end of the program in, you will eat through 32Gb quickly, especially seeing some of that is taken as overheads for live TV rewinding. No, I would not recommend using memory sticks with this (or any other) PVR.

The housing looks sexy to me, but this is very subjective and many may not like it. There is a LED display but the box is essentially glossy black and acks external controls.

You can connect to your home network too; everything to support this exists and I think Astone assume most users will. I copy some programs across to the PC for editing commercials out and simple storage. I also defrag the drive which makes a big performance improvement after 4-6 months.

My review is positive, so why not 5 stars? Simply because there are a number of PVR suppliers out there with similar pricing and features. This has dual tuners which I believe are essential - but only average support. There is an annoying bug with the display of programs that are set to record (which I could fix with a firmware upgrade admittedly). But mainly, it lacks any very special feature that would make it stand out and get the 5 star rating from me. Do not underestimate the 4 stars I give it; this is a very functional box which will do what almost everyone would want. At $100ish minus hard drive (you should not spend more - use price comparison websites to find where the cheapest are), this is competitive with 4 other brands I have looked closely at.

If thinking about buying this, check out the full product specs on Astones website - it is clean, and easy to navigate.

And finally, I have owned two Astone devices now and would happily own a third. Most things; highly functional, multiple formats supported, rewind live TV, dual tuners, nice GUI, firmware upgradable, etc Mediocre support, a few small firmware bugs

Good value for money – Installation was very easy and a 2T HDD works fine (not included). Network setup was painless. Can be used as a NAS. Excellent input/output options with great specs. Plays a wide variety of files. Picture quality surprisingly good for the price. Ridiculous power indicator on front panel easily hidden with some black tape. Intuitive. Good file support. Good input/output options. Power indicator too big and bright.