[Hi-Jack]

It's always interesting to know how people feel on brands, but let's be honest, there's only so much you can see of what happens in front of you and what happens in the background is mostly hidden from your vision and that little detail is included in our final selection of the 4 major annual awards we have to reveal to you. Off course, each and every one of them comes with an added explanation and some feedback / info / insights why the brand has been chosen in the end and even where we feel it must improve in the future... While one may say, certain awards are more valuable than the others... each and everyone is an achievement on their own...

Before we go on reading about the awards... let me make a short and personal message here. It was not such a hard selection to come up with these winners as there's not enough competition at high levels that battle for any of these 4 awards and the further you read, the more you understand why I say this. I was excited having the new awards designed and go thru the selection as I do every year but the more I went deeper into the selection the more I felt no one is the "clear" winner after all. Nit picking was needed to come to the selection and fighting myself to remain focus at times. Maybe that's the best tip I can offer for next year which is to be a bit more challenging to uyourselfs to bring a product that is strong in more than just "one" way. I miss versatility that is created for convenience and not just to be different...

Company of the Year: DViCo Inc. Since we did not feel any other company distinguished itself enough of the others, we decided to honor the user vote at MPC from 500 voters who selected DvICo Inc. as the company of the year. While to a certain extend we agree given the RealTek based TViX M-6600N is unit with an own identity that exfeeds any other in style and presentation and the fact TViX M-6500 was a milestone in many ways (BDLite, DVB-T modules) and was maintained reasonably in 2009, we remain at DVICo Inc. for selecting it the brand of the Year 2009. In addition, the TViX M-6500 depicts what a media player should be without the gadgetry surrounding it making it a weak PC however, online content recently added and UPnP is still somethign DVICo must tune further. After a poor 2008 (with hardly supported 4100/5100 units or any other product that year), this is a one once in a lifetime "dream comeback" they should not take for granted. Few tips we can drop to DViCo is lowering the MSRP of the units as it is way too expensive and does not sell well for that reason only compared to competition as Xtreamer and Mede8er. If DViCo fails to react, 2010 is bound to become a very bad year for them as we can't recommend these products at such high prices... even they do have their own identity...

Hybrid of the Year: HDI Dune BD Prime 3.0 We gave HDI a run for their money back in the days releasing the HDI Dune BD Prime 1.0 and to date still feel somewhat mislead by HDI that caused us to be cautious. They have done their best over the years and with the recent 3.0 version of their Dune BD Prime, they convinced me they can actually impress as well, as it was the "most mature" player we seen upon release in a long times. Too bad some Bdloader issues popped up shortly thereafter but those are being worked out as we speak. HDI is a brand that can improve on communications and handling the feedback of users despite their voting list and so on. Over the past half year all concentration went down to the 3.0 leaving the earlier customers left out a bit which should be avoided. Growing resources might help HDI grow as well. Price wise and value for money, easy "all can do" player that does not need too much fiddling convinces me that for regular users, the HDI BD Prime 3.0 is about the easiest and even most complete Hybrid there is today if we stick to looking at abilities for media entertainment. They should however not remain as shy as they are as there's not enough "animo" surrounding the units and that's a crucial part to keep growing in 2010.

Hardware of the Year: PoPCorn Hour C-200 Maybe the easiest selection of them all as the C-200 was nominated for the Hybrid of the year as well. Eventually, the "none default Hybrid status" due to having to build in a BD Drive separately and the status of the player's immature firmware upon release and in some part currently still, decided in favor of HDI. In some ways, the excitement surrounding the earlier generation NMT's was not the same for the C-200 and we feel it has several reasons... On interface and convenience for non techie users, Syabas has still everything to gain and to do about the C-200 as it is a little complex device for those seeking a no brains media player. In our recent report we provided Syabas with some insight on how it could achieve some appeal from both novice and advanced users. In addition, the exciting messages prior to the C-200 release about a $200 Hybrid, was nowhere near to be spotted inside the C-200 eventually. Last but not least, the forums generated at PCH is full of discussions and aid for people but clearly gathers all attention and news to their own forums leading to public forums as MPC, to have minimum content on the PCH C-200 which narrows down its popularity and visibility tremendously. Not being selected as Company of the Year for the reason of lacking communications and news spreading (where everything is kept internally) and the complexity of the C-200 costs PCH quite some points with us, despite our appreciation and friendship established over the years. The LCD multiline display, ATX power supply, solid case, modular build and RF remote are certainly things we'd like to see in future concepts when new players are born, be it also these can still become more useful and tuned to offer max convenience and usability.

Surprise of the Year: Xtreamer I have a lot to say about Xtreamer as initially, I did not want Xtreamer to walk away with an award only because they brought us an affordable product. Once I managed to limit looking at Xtreamer only for their "surprise value" though, it will come as no surprise that the surprise of the year is nothing else but Xtreamer. Breaking the price levels below €100 for a full networked media player and the abilities it has, was quite surprising and their overall optimistic (and sometimes choking) approach sure was different from anything we have seen before. It would however not always end in favor of Xtreamer, proof, the recent "push back" they gotten from MPC. While the units are affordable and a lot of "animo" is built around the player and the upcoming eTrayz, we feel only half of that animo is good whilst the other half is just "pumped up" events that many users happily accept and many simply don't. Xtreamer is certainly doing well at the time but could do better and ensure it's future by having a bit more tempered approach on things and not always turn everything into an exciting event . Especially announcements that do not stick with the truth but is based on what they'll expect to reach in 6 months time from now is something to be avoided. Although often stated, Unicorn is not the brand pushing out Xtreamer and it's based on partnership of different companies and people, we believe it is actually mostly Unicorn being behind the products while others act on behalf of... Unicorn we know mainly from MViX products over the years. MViX products hardly get any support or appreciation at MPC by lacking firmware or support on their forums since quite some time and issues pile up in the background with unsatisfied customers... Indications show there's not much going on about MViX since everyone is busy with Xtreamer so forgive us to observe and come to such (possibly wrong) conclusions. We are carefully sending out a message here to Xtreamer that after the initial storm they caused in this small niche market of entertainment (storm in a glass of water), they have to make sure, Xtreamer products will not get the same treatment eventually. In the recent weeks we have been looking at certain aspects that not directly point to the products as a problem but at the brand and some of their approaches. I hope Xtreamer will control themselves a bit more and continue to improve as the surprise of next year might actually be "no more Xtreamer". A too heavy storm in a glass of water will spill a lot of water and spilled water dries up very fast...

Conclusion from me personally
I can clearly remember at the end of 2008 thinking it was a calm year without a lot of excitement really. This year, i'm about to say I feel the same as not much progress is made in convenience and added abilities that go beyond only video. Realtek players come out best for music and pictures but have such poor interfaces, manufacturars building plastic around a main board without further hassle are still there and some brands still fail to deliver reasonable support over longer periods of time.

Some brands have isolated themselves into a little corner in their own home, others come out to fast and too hard leaving behind the fact they forgot to first develop what they are promising... Convenience has come up a little thx to HDI, hope is kept allive also RealTek players can look awesome (DviCo) but then cause ridiculous price tags attached to their unit and on the orher side products are shown to be available at an affordable level (Xtreamer, Mede8er).

Next year, 2010, for me personally as well as board admin up here at MPC, will be about "balancing" as I feel each and every brand in some way has lost balance this year including PCH, Xtreamer, DvICo TViX, MViX, A.C.Ryan and you name some other brands... Everything is so different than before, everything changes so fast from one side of the xtreme to the other and back... 2010 must make up for that a little and finally bring that "next gen" status not by just copying the old situation into a new body, but by actually doing more than that...

I think this year was poor in many ways... so poor that i'm close to calling it the least exciting year in our history... as the progrerss we made is no progress at all...

Ps: Other then the "brand of the year", all selections made are based on 1 opinion, mine and doe snot necessarily reflect the way MPC Club users feel. We like to think however, with the carefull considerations involved, we reflect their opinion as well in most cases.

[wiatrak]

I don't know how it goes in english, but in my country we say so:
"Candle for Lord God and the stump for a devil"...

[kiskis]

HDI Prime 3.0..easy "all can do" player that does not need too much fiddling convinces me that for regular users

I´m not agree about Internet Radio and IPTV stuff.
Out of box they dont work and there "wife factor" is missing. Not all users can figure out, how they can listen a radio and so on.

I propose that each country can users create a list of working in radio channels, which can then be uploaded to the server HDI and the less experienced user could then download it.

[fchef]

Clever awards, you have covered them all companies. Nice

[Romanson]

It seems to be reasonable. Fair evaluation and opportunity is MPC's merit. Congratuation to the winners!

[digitalera.co.uk]

nice awards

Does seem a little odd that with all the issues the c200 had at launch and a fair way into it it wins best hardware.
While it is an amazing machine it certainly didnt have the best start in life =)

[Hi-Jack]

We never said that either... Best hardware is all about hardware and not about the impression on software it made... The concept is great... Full ATX power supply, fuill standby support, big LCD, RF remote, modular build etc... That's what we honored... There is no better "hardware" player available than that but even so... it can still be tuned...

- Display needs to shutdown after playing video
- Default IR should have been integrated besides RF (universal remotes)
- etc...

[peka6594]

We hope that awards not stopping make new FW for 6500.I'm consumer for long time.This is best product for now and ever.Maybe some new skins,little cosmetics,colorful screen.I hope that I is not lonely who wants this.

[Hi-Jack]

I doubt the 6500 will get more than "fixes" in the future... It makes no sense to redesign the interface for it and so on... Juts not to get your hopes up...