Many of us don’t get our multimedia content from physical media anymore, because it’s just so much easier to take the route of digital delivery over the Internet. This is not only a greener solution, because we don’t require the physical delivery of a physical disk, but it is also much more convenient. We can buy our music and movies online, watching them mere minutes later. Similarly, it’s not at all necessary to print out our photos anymore, because they can easily be enjoyed through a digital picture frame. That said, using the much larger screen of the HDTV in the living room would be a quantum leap ahead of a small digital picture frame too.
Capitalizing on our increasing interest to enjoy our digital content in our living rooms is the Hi-Den Vision HDMI 1080p Digital Photo Viewer (HD-0310). Although the product name points toward a focus on digital pictures, this small set-top box is also capable of playing your music files and video files as well. In fact, the level of file format support is quite impressive, rivaling the multimedia capabilities of something like the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Does the performance stand up though? Let’s find out.
Highlights and Specifications
Considering that this relatively simple-looking device from Hong Kong retails for about $60, it is quite a bit cheaper than many similar offerings on the market. For example, the cheapest Xbox 360 is the Arcade and that’s still $199. If you have no ambitions to rock out to rhythm games or put up your dukes with fighting games, there really is no need to invest in a video game console for the sole purpose of enjoying multimedia content in your living room.
The cheaper Digital Photo Viewer from Hi-Den Vision is a much more affordable option and, since it’s about the same size as an ADSL modem or a larger wireless router, it’ll probably be easier to stash somewhere too. The aesthetics are nowhere near as attractive as some more contemporary devices though, so it probably won’t be the prettiest thing in your home theatre cabinet. The build quality is also a little lacking, feeling much like so many other off-shore products that we have encountered.
In terms of features, the Hi-Den Vision HDMI 1080p Digital Photo Viewer HD-0310 allows you to show your pictures on the large screen of an HDTV via a standard 1080p HDMI connection. These photo files can be viewed individually or you can make use of the integrated slideshow feature, complete with 16 different photo transitions. Aside from the picture viewing, the HD-0310 can also be used to listen to music files and to watch a variety of video files. Among the different types of files supported by this device are MPEG-1/2/4, DivX 4.1/5.0/5.1, AVI, xVID, MP3, WMA, and JPEG.
What’s in the Box?
The packaging isn’t terribly impressive. It seems like they took a generic box and just slapped their label on it. Thankfully, the contents have been carefully packaged with bubble wrap to protect them from damage. You get the Hi-Den Vision itself, a thin remote control, a set of composite cables, power adapter, and a single page instruction manual. Considering one of the highlights is the HD support, it is a little curious that composite cables would be included but not an HDMI cable. I suppose this is to reduce the overall production costs, but it is still disappointing nonetheless.
Inputs and Outputs
The key appeal with a product like this is that you don’t have to bother burning your photos, music, and movies onto a blank CD or DVD. There’s no need to bother with an optical drive, because the content can be shared using flash memory instead. Looking to the front of the Hi-Den Vision, you see a single USB port where you can insert any number of different USB devices. The typical solution would be to use a standard USB flash drive, like the Kingston DataTraveler 150, but you can also hook up a larger external hard drive if you prefer.
Next to the USB port are a couple of slots for flash memory cards, supporting SD, SDHC, xD, MMC, MS, and CF cards. In this way, you can take the memory card out of your camera and insert it directly into this set-top box for instant photo sharing. I did seem to have some issues with my SDHC card, but it had no trouble reading the data from my much smaller 64MB SD card.
All of the outputs are located on the back of the Hi-Den Vision. The interesting thing is that you’ll see two HDMI ports. That’s because this device can also serve as an HDMI switch (more like a passthrough), allowing you to connect a secondary HDMI product (like a Blu-ray player) and having its signal also reach your television. Obviously, you wouldn’t be able to use both products simultaneously.
Next to the two HDMI ports, you’ll see a digital optical output, connectors for both composite and component video, RCA stereo audio, and the DC power port. The inclusion of digital optical output is a notable one, because it means that you can enjoy 5.1-channel audio from files that have been encoded as such. Unfortunately, I found that the HDMI connection was spotty at best. It wouldn’t always display on my Samsung HDTV for some strange reason, though I didn’t run into any issues using the composite video connection.
Remote Control and Menu Interface
The included wireless remote is of the standard “credit card thin” style that you have probably encountered with some other consumer products in the past. It didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary, but the layout of the keys does make the remote feel a little cluttered. Since all the buttons are the same size and are aligned on a grid, there isn’t as much of a differentiation between their respective functions.
The top row of the remote shows the power button (in red), a button for switching between card and USB inputs, a button for the HDMI switch, and the mute button. The second row is where you select the current play mode, switching between pictures, music, and movies.
This is because it is not possible to sift through your music collection while you are in movie mode, just as you can’t check out your video files when you are in picture mode. This is a double-edged sword insofar that you do not have “extra” files showing up when browsing through the contents of your USB drive, but it also means that you have to exit out of your current mode to the “correct” one to access certain files.
The Made in China Stereotype
I know that there are certain stereotypes when it comes to somewhat generic products that are made in China and I shouldn’t be approaching all of them with the same sweeping perspective, but the Hi-Den Vision lives up to a couple of these preconceived notions. I’ve already mentioned the unimpressive packaging and documentation, but it’s when you boot up this device for the first time that you really get the sense of its off-shore inclinations. The on-screen menu is far from impressive. It is neither robust nor intuitive.
For instance, the screen above shows the four main functions of the Hi-Den Vision. Looking at the remote, you would assume that you could just hit the Photo button and you’d launch into Photo mode. However, this just renders a message saying that feature is not available. That can be quite confusing. To get to photo mode, you must use the arrow buttons to navigate over to the associated icon. Why can’t you just hit the “quick” buttons on the second row of the remote instead?
Pics, Tunes, and Videos
As previously mentioned, you cannot access your desired files unless you are in the associated mode. Pictures are only available in photo mode, songs are only found in music mode, and videos are only available in movie mode. This helps to reduce the unnecessary clutter. As expected, you can surf though the file system on your USB-connected device or flash memory card, jumping to the different folders and so on.
While in photo mode, you are shown a thumbnail image of the current highlighted item. Hitting OK shows this picture full-screen and you can then automatically go through the slideshow feature to show the rest of your pictures. For some strange reason, I would oftentimes receive a large blank screen instead of the next picture. Seeing the first selected photo was always fine, but it became problematic after that.
Further still, all filenames are truncated and they do not scroll, so you may have a hard time differentiating between different files. This is even more of an issue when it comes to checking your music collection, for instance, as the first few characters may only be the artist name and album name, not getting as far as the track name. It’s also unfortunate that the Hi-Den Vision can’t organize your music based on metadata, like the artist name and so on. You can only view based on the file folder structure of your memory product.
While I am impressed by the range of files supported on the Hi-Den Vision (it was able to play some files that were unreadable on the Xbox 360 media player) and the actual video quality was fine, the exact usage and interface aren’t as impressive. After picking a movie file to watch, you can fast forward and rewind using the provided buttons, but there is no progress or time meter on the screen. You don’t know if you’ve skipped 15 seconds or 15 minutes of content.
Also, I found that it would suddenly “jump”, skipping to the next video file when I only wanted to skip a few minutes on the current file. Without that progress meter, it’s really hard to control. You also can’t control the speed of the fast forwarding and rewinding. Most other products let you choose from 2x, 4x, and 8x, for instance. You don’t have that here.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
Considering how most of us stash our photos, videos, and music in digital format on our computers these days, it’s not really necessary to rely on physical media for a lot of our entertainment anymore. Sharing those treasured vacation pictures does not mean that you need to print out those pictures or burn them onto a blank DVD. By using the Hi-Den Vision, you can skip that headache and use a USB flash drive or memory card instead. Better still, it can be used for music and videos as well.
That’s all on paper. The file support is impressive and the connectivity is good, but the actual performance leaves much to be desired. The on-screen menu interface is frustrating at best and, worse yet, I ran into more than a few problems with the HDMI connection. The whole point of the Hi-Den Vision 1080p HDMI Digital Photo Viewer is that it is able to output full 1080p content on your HDTV. If the connection isn’t reliable, nothing else matters.
On the bright side, the component and composite video connections are fine and I was able to extract some basic video watching capabilities. If you want something quite basic and don’t want to spend the extra money on a name brand, the Hi-Den Vision may be suitable. However, I recommend that you pony up a few more bucks to get something better.
Pros
- Affordable home multimedia solution
- Nice range of file format support
- HDMI switch to support second HD device
- Good video quality and acceptable framerate
Cons
- Clunky user interface
- Cluttered wireless remote control
- Strange HDMI output issues
- Weak multimedia player features (no shuffle, etc.)
Hi-Den Vision HDMI 1080p Digital Photo and Video Viewer – Photo Gallery
