Legit Reviews

Netgear NeoTV 550 HD Network Media Player Review

Netgear recently released a robust firmware upgrade for their flagship high-definition media player, the NeoTV 550. Did Netgear include enough firmware upgrades to break their NeoTV 550 out of the crowded pile of high definition media players? Read on to find out our impressions on this Netgear branded media player!

When we first saw Netgear NeoTV 550, we really didn’t think too much of it. The specs said Netgear designed and built the media player around a 2-year old chip – the 667 Mhz Sigma 8642. We were worried that when we got the player in the LR Bunker that it would simply fail to perform like the competition. Boy, were we wrong!

Article Title: Netgear NeoTV 550 HD Network Media Player Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1613/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $169.99 shipped

Is this media player capable of adding an internal hard drive? I own the Popcorn Hour A200, capable of up to 2TB internal HD.

hoxlund wrote:Is this media player capable of adding an <a href="http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=internal+hard+drive" class="skimwords-link" target="_blank" style="false false text-decoration: underline !important; false " data-skimwords-id="1694536" title="">internal hard drive</a>? I own the Popcorn Hour A200, capable of up to 2TB internal HD.

No, this one is not capable of using an internal storage drive.

just a question: any particular reason why the HD Dune (basic, prime or any other model) is never included in the competition as a comparison?

sbohdan wrote:just a question: any particular reason why the HD Dune (basic, prime or any other model) is never included in the competition as a comparison?

I don't think anyone at LR has the HD Dune. Our comparison chart has only been tracking players that we have. The Dune's specs look pretty good, though.

I have a dune HD basic and I was just wondering how it compares to all these MP's. I bought mine because a friend of mine who is up to his neck into HD home theater (10K projector etc.) told me that he chose the same unit for the media player because its sound and film quality is the best of all. I have no idea how good the LR tested units are but I can say that the Dune has better playback quality than both of my stand alone Blu-ray players (samsung BD-P1000 and samsung BD-P1600).

So I did some research and the Dune player has the Sigma 864x chip inside as well. So the PQ and performance should be identical to that of the Netgear (and Popcorn Hour). The only thing that might be different is how the GUI looks and the various extras (internet radio, netflix, etc.)

An excellent review! However I would like to see two rows added to the product comparison chart. The first row would be HD FLAC Support and the answers be Yes - up to 24/96 or 24/192; No; or Down-sample to 16/44. That's because most players down-sample 24bit HD FLACs to 16 bit if they play them at all. The second row would be multichannel FLAC Support with the answer being Yes - up to (insert bit rate) or No. This is important because many current players are hardware limited to 16bit and either down sample 24bit audio or ignore it. The long overdue introduction of a player(s) fully capable of supporting these formats at a time that they are starting to get popular deserves to have this feature highlighted.