A little bit a go I took a look at the Vizo Milano, a multimedia enclosure that I found fairly decent but yet lacking a bit. Today for review I have the MV-4000U Media Center from Mvix, this enclosure is similar to the Milano but with more features and none of the problems. The Mvix MV-4000U Media center is Mvixs’ low end model, but yet it is still a very capable and feature packed device that not only looks great but performs flawlessly in everything it does. Read on to learn more about this great product…
Mvix MV-4000U Media Center
Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos
Sponsor: Mvix
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Mvix MV-4000U Media Center
Model: MV-4000U
Overview:
MviX (MV-4000U) Multimedia Center is the next evolution in portable entertainment. It enables you to enjoy your favorite movies, home videos, music and digital photo files on your TV or home-theater system. It is a highly customizable and scaleable portable media player with an ability to render dozens of video (such as MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, DivX 3.11, 4x, 5x, XviD, DVD(IFO, VOB), VCD), audio (such as AC3, MP2, MP3, DTS pass through, WMA, OGG), and digital pictures (i.e. JPEG) formats over your TV, projector or home-theater system. It uses a 3.5" HDD (not included) and it works just like an external USB 2.0 hard drive when connected to your PC.
The MV-4000U provides a great value for your money. Its extremely competitive price and remarkable set of features provide the biggest-bang for your buck.
MviX (MV-4000U) Multimedia Player is a portable 4-in-1 HTPC that puts you in command to watch your multimedia the way you want it. Simply connect the MviX player to your PC and download your MP3s, DivX, Xvid movies, VOB(IFOs), and JPEGs on your player. Use this "loaded" multimedia center to play those files on a wide range of products like TVs, Home-theater Systems, Projectors, Hi-Fi Sytems, Car Audio Systems etc..
The highly functional and ergonomically-designed IR remote control supports all playback functions. Ability to upgrade the hard-drive size, ensures scaleability.
Features:
Enjoy your Movies on TV: You can enjoy your favorite movies and home videos on your TV, because Mvix supports numerous video formats including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVI, DivX 3.11, 4x, 5x, XVID, DVD(IFO,VOB), VCD(DAT), ISO
Digital Photo Album: Mvix can display a slideshow of digital photo files and display them to TV or projector. Store JPEG photos directly from a PC through the USB interface and enjoy a slide show for your family and friends.
Digital Music Box: Mvix can play various audio files such as AC3, MP2, MP3, DTS pass through, WMA, OGG through TV speakers or your existing audio system.
Portable HDD Storage: Mvix uses a 3.5-inch HDD and works like an external USB 2.0 hard drive when connected to the PC.
Easy Firmware Upgrading: Download latest firmwares from support site and keep your player updated with the latest codecs
Specs:
Product Name: Mvix MV-4000U Mvix Media Center
Video and Audio Output: RCA L/R, Coaxial, Optical(5.1ch), RCA Y, Pr, Pb, S-Video
PC Interface: USB 2.0 (Backward Compatible to USB 1.1)
Supported Files & Formats: Video MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, DivX 3.11, 4x, 5x, XviD, DVD(IFO, VOB), ISO
Audio AC3, MP2, MP3, DTS pass through, WMA, OGG, M3U
Subtitles: SMI, SRT, SUB
Image: JPEG/JPG
Screen Aspect Ratio: 16:9 / 4:3 Letter Box / Pan Scan
TV System: NTSC, PAL, or AUTO
Hard-Disk Type: 3.5 Internal IDE (PATA)
Power: External 12V DC adapter
Package: MV-4000U, Stand, Remote control, A/V cables, USB cable
Dimension: 7.5 x 6 x 2.5 inches
Price: $169 (from Mvix Store)
A Better Look at Things
:
As with any review the first thing we look at is the packaging, the box for the Mvix MV-4000U Media Center is very bright and colorful, and professionally done. The front of the box features a nice picture of the Media Center itself along with some basic features listed, the top of the box includes a nice carrying handle for portability.
On the back and sides of the package are listed the specs, more features and suggested uses listed in great detail.
Opening the box and unpacking everything we find many accessories come with the Mvix MV-4000U Media Center including a user manual, driver disc, audio/video cables, USB cable, base stand, power supply and a remote control. Please note the remote control is the picture here is not the correct one, you’ll see close ups of the correct remote coming up.
The power supply that comes with the Mvix Media Center can be used in Europe of the United States as it comes with an adapter to do this.
Standard component audio and video cables are included, as well as the USB cable for transferring your ‘stuff’ to the Mvix player, and a wide plastic stand to keep the Mvix player standing upright and stable.
The remote for the Mvix Media Center is nicely laid out, it resembles other remotes out there like an all-in-one type of remote. All the standard buttons are there for all the various multi-media functions, and some specific to the Mvix player as well.
A Better Look at Things
Continued:
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The Mvix MV-4000U Media Center itself is a blue and white color scheme, while it might not fit with the standard basic black of other home theater components, it does look very nice.
The side of the Mvix Media Center is a mirror blue finish, with the Mvix logo, model number and name printed on it.
The front of the Mvix Media Center is where you’ll find the main controls, which we’ll take a close look at shortly.
The bottom is pretty much featureless except for the lock that holds the cover in place and allows access to the inside and the hard drive compartment.
The front of the Mvix Media Center has a row of LEDs on the top to indicate power, play, IDE activity and a USB connection, there is also the name and model number shown here as well.
You can access the basic features of the Mvix Media Center through the use of the button and navigation pad located on the front beneath the identification plate. Beneath the navigation controls is the Infrared port for the remote, and the parent company name, Unicorn listed as well.
On the back of the Mvix Media Center we find all of our audio, video, data and power connections.
On the top half are located the main audio and video connections, the standard composite, Y,Pb,Pr, audio and Coaxial/S-Video.
Below that we have the Spidf Optical audio, USB connection, External Infrared connection, power connector and the cooling fan.
Installation, Testing and Comparison
The first thing we need to do for installation is to install the hard drive, which entails removing the cover, this was a bit of a task in itself, it took a few minutes to figure out how to get the top cover off the Mvix Media Center, but I got it.
The Mvix MV-4000U Media Center uses an IDE type hard drive, there is a short ribbon cable and short Molex power connection located inside the Mvix unit. The bottom of the unit where the hard drive sits is padded and it is secured with a single thumbscrew that can be accessed from outside the unit.
Removing the hard drive cage allows us to access and look at the main board of the Mvix player, it utilizes a Sigma Designs Real Magic EM8511 Chipset, it is very similar to the one used with the Milano I reviewed a couple weeks ago, (see review HERE) but the Mvix chipset is a bit higher end.
The Milano I reviewed did not have any active cooling, while the Mvix does, it features a small fan on the back near the bottom to cool the hard drive and the rest of the internals of the Mvix Media Center.
Installing the hard drive is very easy, but it is a rather tight fit, just hook up the IDE and power cables, set the hard drive in place and secure it with the single thumbscrew.
Here are some shots of the Mvix MV-4000U Media Player on its base and ready to go, it just needs hooked up to your television and away you go to enjoy your movies, music and/or photos.
Installation, Testing and Comparison Continued:
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Once you get everything hooked up you can power it on.
Once powered on you are greeted with the Mvix welcome screen, the orange bars on the pic are from my TV letting me know that I am in SVHS/SVIDEO and Stereo mode, not from the Mvix player.
After a second or two the Mvix player begins to search the hard drive for media.
Once done searching you are greeted with your data in the form of folders or single files, it all depends how you arranged them when transferring your media to the Mvix player. If I pick a song to play, the screen comes up with the songs information, title, time, folder the song is from, MP3 information and if it’s set to repeat.
The songs have a small musical note icon next to their titles to denote that they are music, while the movies have a film reel icon next to them. The bottom of the screen displays the size of the folder or album, and the directory address.
Clicking the ‘setup’ button on either the remote or the Mvix unit let’s us get into configuring the Mvix to use with your television. The first section let’s you choose the video out, TV type, Audio Out, Volume, Balance, Brightness, Contrast and Saturation.
The second section entitled ‘Misc’ is where you can change a few other options like the size and color of the subtitles, the language and other things.
The last section of the Mvix setup panel is for upgrading the devices Firmware if need be, not much to the setup really, it pretty much does it all for you.
You can see a bunch of screenshots HERE from Mvix as well, it’s in PDF format.
Testing was of course to watch a movie or two and listen to music, I have my Photon 313 speakers hooked up to the Mvix player so the sound was very good, the only thing lacking would be some sort of equalizer to customize your audio experience.
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Watching movies was a joy actually, it was very easy to do, and with the ability to fast forward at 128X you can zip by those credits in mere seconds. I found no problems at all with the quality of the movies, no stuttering at all, everything played very smoothly. There is a ‘zoom’ feature on the remote, which really isn’t a zoom, but it let’s you choose the aspect ratio for your movies, you can customize it by inputting your own horizontal and vertical numbers, change to letterbox, pan and scan or full screen. Of course changing the aspect ratio from the original intended will distort the picture a little, but it’s nice to get rid of the bars on wide-screen movies, and the distortion is barely noticeable for the most part…
Of course you have to start with a good source video to begin with if you expect a quality picture, but that’s with any type of movie.
I found everything very easy to do with the Mvix MV-4000U Media Center, I did learn though that when transferring your data over you should create folders such as ;’movies’, ‘music’ and ‘photos’ to help organize everything.
Summary:
Being this is the base model Media Center from Mvix, there is really nothing bad I can say about it, for what it is it is a great little product that does exactly what it is supposed to do. Sure I could say it doesn’t have networking or wireless capabilities, but it isn’t supposed to, it’s a base model player, and not everyone even has wireless in their house to be able to utilize the feature. The Mvix MV-4000U Media Center is an excellent product that not only looks great but performs well, it has a nice multi-functional remote control that let’s you handle everything from the comfort of your couch. Since it is a compact device you can easily take it with you to your friends and family to share your photos, music, movies and even data if you wish to. Personally I love it, I think it’s a great product that can be an excellent addition to anyones home theater setup.
DragonSteelMods gives the Mvix MV-4000U Media Center a 5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.
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Pros:
-Small, very good looking
-Very easy to use
-Full function remote control
-Fast
-Upgradeable through firmware somewhat
-Hackable
-Quiet, active cooling system
Cons:
-None
I would like to thank Mvix for the chance to review the MV-4000U Media Center and for their support of DSM.