Ellion HMR-700A High Definition Media Recorder - Player

Review of Ellion HMR-700A Media Recorder (Octorber 2010) :-

System / Firmware Details :
System Revision - 87263
Kernel Revision - #34
Firmware Version - 328AP_S1001_090316a (16th March 2009)

I originally wrote an Amazon review of this machine in 2007, but for some reason it was not successfully uploaded to the website. I am trying again, this time with updates.

Let there be no mistake... This was (& ? still is) a ground-breaking device. It is ideal for those who want to have the ability to play back almost any video / audio / or photo file that you throw at it. It can also record any video signal you send it via scart or composite video cable. The box is small and (kind of) portable, and both recording and playback are acceptable if not quite good at times.

Nevertheless there are a number of annoyances, which are unsurprising in such a new device. It seems Ellion have had to design the operating system from scratch, which has lead to lots of 'rough edges'.

There is an excellent review of the machine by Hi-Jack on mpcclub, and also a significant discussion in the forums. Ellion technical were somewhat active in these forums at the time, and a number of new firmware updates were released within a couple of years of the machines release. The last firmware was in March 2009, and I don't think there will be any new ones coming now.

As a quick summary, the media recorder makes reasonably good quality recordings, has an acceptable level of usability, and is quite unusual in that it allows you to easily output your (MPEG2) recordings to an external USB drive.

My detailed review (below) will take the form of a list of what I consider to be both good and bad features - Things which would help you make your decision about whether to buy or not. I will say that there are a lot more bad points listed than good, but don't let that put you off what is overall a very nice product.

Good Things :-

1. I have other recording / playback devices in my home - I will be taking the Ellion when I travel the country, or visit abroad. It is great to be able to take such a (relatively) small device around with you, carrying a large collection of your favourite recordings, and be able to add to the collection by recording more titles from whatever source you choose. This was never previously possible. Recording a movie, and then transferring the MPEG file to your computer was never so easy.

2. Plays back most file formats...
Video - MPEG 1 / MPEG 2 / MPEG 4 / DivX / XVid / DVD VOB / DVD ISO / TS
Audio - MP3 / AC3 / OGG Vobis
Photo - JPEG / BMP
Note that it does NOT play back MKV (Matroska) files.

3. Recordings are reasonably good quality.

4. Has trick playback options - Slow / frame by frame playback / zoom / etc...

5. Has basic editing functions - Merge Files / Split Files / A-B Erase / Set Thumbnail.
(When working with files on the internal UDF partition of the hard drive. It can't edit files on external USB).

6. Records both PAL & NTSC signal without problems. Can play back an NTSC recording to a PAL TV without difficulty.

7. Not bad to look it. A bit plasticy!

8. Good set of AV connections at the back... Scart In / Scart Out / Scart Thru (when box is on standby), Component Out, Yellow Composite RCA In & Out, Red & White RCA Audio In & Out, Coaxial & Optical Digital Audio Out.

9. Future Proof - Has HDMI connection, and upscales video from standard resolution to HiDef where applicable.

10. Can be attached to a network, and play back videos / music / photos which are shared out on your network. Can, using remote control & menus, copy files to & from the network (eg. NAS drive) without having to attach to a PC. I am unsure if it shares out its own media files to the network, but I think it does (NDAS function).

11. Easy to attach external hard drives directly - There is a USB interface on the front panel, and two USB interfaces on the back panel as well. I have a 120GB external 2.5ins laptop drive which I plug into the front panel when ever I want to copy new content onto the multimedia partition. You can even plug your USB flash drive in.

12. Easy to attach to your home computer - It comes up as an external hard drive. You drag files to and from the browser, delete and rename as you wish. Very easy & intuitive.

13. Easy to transfer movies from your digital camcorder - There is a firewire interface on the front panel.

14. Timeshift is possible, so you can pause & rewind live TV.

15. Scheduled recordings now possible since one of the first firmware upgrades.

Bad Things :-

GENERAL ASPECTS...

1. It takes quite a time to switch on. About 15 seconds according to my stopwatch.

2. After it switches on, the TV picture appears & disappears a couple of times, before it finally becomes steady. This may be due to tests to see which kind of TV signal is required by the TV.

THE MANUAL...

3. The manual is mediocre at best. The content is poorly organised, with occasional missing facts. The presentation is very bad, with greyscale pictures of the on-screen diagrams mostly unreadable. There are a few spelling mistakes - this never inspires confidence. I have tried, but never succeeded in downloading the PDF manual on-line.

SETUP...

4. When you switch on the Ellion for the first time, the setup menu leads you through the process of defining 3 or 4 partitions for the storage of files. You need a small partition for use with the live pause function; you need a UDF partition where new recordings will be placed; you need a FAT32 partition where most of your A/V files will reside (especially after you copy them from the UDF partition); and finally you can create an optional NTFS partition where you can store other multimedia content. The only reason to create an NTFS partition would be so that you can store files greater than 4GB in size. The bad thing with this setup is that once you have set up your partition sizes, this is what you will have fixed 'for ever'. You can't resize them at a later stage.

Personally, I have a 500GB drive, with roughly 4GB for the Live Pause function, 100GB for the UDF recording partition, and the other 400GB is a FAT32 partition. I decided not to create an NTFS partition as I don't think I will need it. When ever I record something on the UDF partition, I almost immediately transfer it over to the FAT32 partition where I have my categorized folder structure, with Movies / Documentaries / Thrillers / Action / Drama / Sci-Fi / Horror / etc...

REMOTE CONTROL...

5. Layout of buttons on the remote control is not the best. It could easily have been made better & more intuitive.

6. The remote control is very directional. Any more than about 20 degrees away from the box, and it doesn't register.

7. No LED light flashes on the box to tell you that the box has received an infrared signal from the remote. This can be disconcerting as the box doesn't always respond immediately, and you are left wondering whether the box has or hasn't in fact received your signal.

8. The Source button (on remote control) doesn't work on the Guide screen. You have to use the cursers to select 'A/V In' first. This could be fixed in a firmware upgrade. PS: It does work from all the other screens.

CONNECTIVITY...

9. When connecting the Ellion to a computer via USB, it can take a long time to get recognised. (sometimes up to 1 minute). When you have finished connecting it to the computer, you have to switch the Ellion off and then on again (at the mains) in order to be able to use it as a player again.

10. There is no S-Video input or output. You have to use Scart (Euro) or Composite Video.
PS: American versions of the box have Component Input.

11. Networking - I'm not sure whether you can use the network to upload new files to the internal hard drive. I can't seem to do this at present, but I'm by no means a network expert.

FILE FORMATS NOT SUPPORTED...

H.264 format (HiDef)
QuickTime Movies
MKV Movies (Similar to QuickTime)
WMV (Sometimes don't play)
Rarely some MPEG Files (for some unknown reason)
MP2 - The format most digital radios record to

Codecs are notoriously varied, and it is unreasonable to expect that a device should support every single last one of them. H.264 & MKV are getting much more popular these days however, so you will have to consider whether you can do without them.

BROWSING & PLAYBACK...

12. There is no 'Rec List' Button on the Remote Control - It takes a minimum of 2 key-presses to get to your list of recorded movies.

13. You can't change audio settings to make a stereo track into a mono track. Not a common request, but when I am travelling around the world, sometimes my TV only has mono audio input. Sometimes this makes it difficult to understand if the track was recorded with markedly different or separated right & left audio channels.

14. What happens if you press play, and watch something half way through, and then press Stop? When you press play again, the video file restarts playing at the beginning. It hasn't remembered the place where you were previously watching. Such an easy function to implement, but missing on the Ellion!!! No doubt that could easily be fixed with a firmware update, but that probably won't happen now.

15. Read more ›

instructions not brilliant but you work it out by pressing buttons.i used this to record from sky with a small lcd monitor. while watching another digibox on main tv. connectivity is excellent i did find that if the hdmi cable was connected even when not being used, the unit would freeze up and you have to switch off/on to recover, also the composite video out will not work while hdmi is connected so best to leave hdmi out unless in use, i didnt see any improvement in hd picture, so ?? the upscaling. it frequently freezes up when recording and you lose what you had just recorded. i sent back after 4 weeks.other review mentions update/firmware re freezing.. i now have zengo media recorder which has basic connections but is reliable..also the ellion wont show tv recordings on computer so unable to transfer/save . the hard drive is sectioned. computer/ tv

I have chosen HMR-700A as it is a proper media streamer & pvr with all those variety of connections inc two scarts that makes it recording tools in connection with many different av devices. Transferring av files in between LAN, USB & HDD is a specialty on this product which is not available with other media player in the market. You do not need to connect this to your PC in order to copy files each time and I have just downloaded movie files into my pc and most of the time I have been watching them thru my TV via LAN. Then I have just copied movie files i want to store into a HDD while I am on LAN connection. Once I have got the hang of it, I am finding it quite convenient and useful and I am also seeing it cool that many works are being done thru this device itself not necessarily taking troubles of being connected to a PC. I contacted the Ellion support for a latest firmware and wirless Lan and their support was excellent.