I’ve grown fond of the question "PopCorn anyone?” as it has a totally different meaning today than it had a couple of days ago. It sounds like an offer for something completely different than a media player although that is exactly what PopCorn Hour is, more accurately, the PopCorn Hour A100. In the last few weeks and months, PopCorn Hour has attracted a huge amount of people given it's excellent pricing / feature balance, bringing the latest codecs and abilities to people's homes for the first time in years below expected prices. It could not start in a more positive way but the price alone, will not make it the best player out of anything unlike the cheapest maybe. Thanks for the review out there, that you can built up an idea before jumping on board.

Let's start of this review with crushing some dreams, the TViX M-6500A will not be the “perfect” answer for all consumers and not the “perfect” solution for all your media needs. It offers the basics and negates the advanced. The scene is still partially a “rush” to the market affair, with the inevitable consequences of constant firmware updates being necessary.

With many NMT’s that are available running on the same sys-tem software from Syabas, one might think these are all the same except for aesthetics. While once this was true, one vendor started adding a VGA, one used Coaxial instead of Optical, another had a power button and then one added DTS down mix. Differences applied up to now between the players was mainly in hardware, but… these hardware differences can be an advan-tage in both features and convenience. Hence, we just try to clear up the mess NMT’s create on the market using similar de-signs for older and newer models and offer almost the same features…

I always found it funny when people come up to me and state ‘Player A and Player B use the same firmware, so it doesn’t matter which one I choose, right?”. If only the world was that simple so we only had to look at the price and run home with the most affordable and most likable one.

MPC's first partner ever to join the partner system of MPC Club... Divxplayer joined MPC partnership as the first partnershop back in the good old days we first started in November 2003. In the mean time Divxplayer has been growing steadily and became a big player on the market for us improving it's services and after sales based on our recommendations constantly. Divxplayer is MPC's main facilitator of buy-ins taking care of the payments, shipping and after sales. Although as with almost every reseller, there were some bumps in the road to pleasure, all cases were always resolved to our satisfaction. Divxplayer has earned it's highest achievement at MPC over the years and became MPC's first Diamond Rated Partner.

Over a year ago the HDI Dune BD Prime model was the first to combine blu-ray and general media files all into a single device, supported by actual hardware. It's not the only one any longer but there's still only 2 today so HDI has a pretty good chance of becoming selected. Inside this review, we tell you exactly what to expect...

Measuring only 18cm height, 3cm width and about 8cm deep, the Xtreamer sure is small but we have seen small players before. I remember the iSTAR Mini for instance. That’s how we know small players can be just as capable as any of the “big brothers” out there. It’s like they say: “Size doesn’t matter”… Small units however come with limitations and while we discuss the hardware

Even though DViCo had a rough year in 2008, they lately proved to be back in full force developing on the M-6500. Newer and more powerful is their new product, the M-6600 but the more power does not translate in delivering more in general, just faster and better should do the trick for us.

The digital era continues with yet another NMT being launched into the world and while the heart of each unit pounds on the Syabas NMT firmware delivering the same abilities in media playback and features mostly, every new player launched somehow delivers something new.

HDI’S DUNE awaits a difficult task as mainly MPC staff and I in particular are “against” the hype created by Blu-ray which is created by the fact PS3 consoles incorporate them. That’s however not the discussion we want to have today.

With just over a week since Hi-Jack posted his article on the eGreat NMT player, we have another NMT player for review. This one supplied from a company called HD Digitech Co Ltd, the company has been in operation since 2006 and this is their first HD media player to market. Initial impressions and presentation of the HDX 900 unit are good, but do murky and muddy waters lie below the serene and beautiful facade?

Mede8ter MED500X joins the bunch of RealTek based media players and while time passes, we feel these affordable range of products come closer and close to the levels we consider "ready for use". Coming from South-Africa straight into your living rooms should you decide to pick this one, comes a versatile media player with well tuned functions in general but off course, like many "newcomers", there are a few things that require updating.

High profile. High profile? After months of wait for the new generation media players powered by the fastest processors from Sigma, we can now dive into what all that power means for the end user, you and me. Has it gone "stylish" or "shaggy"? What has been done with al that extra juice... Let's find out inside this review of the PCH C-200...

Some might say that we at MPCCLUB have a tendency to get excited easily. To a certain degree this, as of late may be true, but usually our excitement is born out of a desire for a product to break the mould and offer something new over the usual crop of Sigma 86xx series players. Lately there has been a lot of talk about the Realtek 12xx processor series which promises to offer more than the current crop of Sigma processors and we have recently reviewed a couple of players using this new processor range, HMB Movie

Chipsets change, design changes and additional features are becoming standard in new released DivX DVD players. Philips DVP-720 SA has made a nice entry in the market together with the Pioneer DV-575a, introducing SACD.

KJGlobal, one of our earlier partners and friend in the UK providing stuff to our members. Specialised in gadgets and fun stuff along with media players, we find Kjglobal a fun shop which fits in our search of having fun. KJGlobal is our favorite in the UK and comes recommended.

Pioneer is a well known brand on the market with computer materials, TV's DVD players, DVD-recorders and so on and since a while, they have a couple of DivX compatible players too.

PopCorn Hour sure goes back to its roots bringing an affordable system that might easily bring them out on top again of the competition in this price range comparing features and the eventual price tag designated to fit the A-200.

Just to compare with another popular player, all that the DViCo M-6500a should have been in aesthetics is what we get with the Markus 800. Our first impression is excellent and we don‟t even care the unit is fully plastic, so far… Aesthetically this has to be one of the most impressive looking media players that we have reviewed so far at MPC.