Isn’t it frustrating when you are paying for an expensive satellite TV service and you don’t really watch it? Even if you are able to find streaming sources over the web to watch your favorite series, you have to live with annoying ads and unreliable sources. The 1OTT Media Player or Social Media Player will certainly change the way you see media players and appreciate your living room entertainment once again.
1OTT Media Player Video Review
Simple and Lightweight Design, USB Port Replaced by a MicroSD slot
This is probably the most simple designed media player in the market, the 1OTT Media Player is extremely lightweight and has similar dimensions as an external portable hard drive, which can be packed easily in a suitcase if you are thinking to bring along a media player with you when travelling. Great features lie under the hood, don’t take its low profile design as a buying factor and for granted.
I/O ports on the device are pretty standard with a Composite, HDMI and an Ethernet port while having built-in WiFi. There’s also no optical audio output and it’s the first media player that we find a MicroSD slot while omitting a standard USB port for connecting flash drives, it’s weird in our opinion but we believe the device plays media from the SD card once mounted.
Not only we find the inclusion of the MicroSD slot interesting, powering the device is also dead simple with a MicroUSB cable and it only requires 1A of power input, which means we are able to use any smartphone chargers, powerbanks or our computer’s USB port to power up the device, it’s a pretty neat and thoughtful feature if you are always carrying the device around.
Easy to Use Interface, Awesome Set of Apps and Features
The device does take some time to boot up and reach its home screen on a warm boot and fortunately you can wake the device up instantly when it goes on standby. The software and user interface isn’t complicated, it doesn’t feel choppy and has rows of icons and categories on the left, geeks like us will get used to it almost instantly while others will be able to learn up and become an expert in no time.
Many types of content can be found on the device – Dramas, IPTV Services, Music and Video on Demand sources, the company doesn’t host or own any of the content on the device and has a dedicated team of people that updates the streaming sources daily. For instance, a new episode of an English series after the day it has been played on the original source. Our favorite would be IPTV services, which the company has signed an agreement with IPTV services from a few Asian countries such as China and Taiwan to be able to stream live channels over.
Things just don’t stop here, the 1OTT also transforms your TV into a Smart TV, though these apps may not look as polished as Smart TVs today, most of them worked flawlessly. Just to name a few must haves – Facebook, YouTube, TuneIn Radio, Miracast and Plex, these apps are extremely functional and it’s a must have in the 1OTT Media Player. Of course, improvements can be made such as being able to categorize our own apps and rearranging them, there’s also no playback resume feature on music and videos after we quit an app, which can be quite frustrating at times.
Interestingly, the 1OTT media player is a very open sourced device, which means any developers can create apps and allow users to download them using a Package Code; in this case, the company has provided us a small cheap piece of paper with complicated package codes that will download additional content to the device, while this feature can be useful in the near future, we would prefer if things are already preinstalled on the device rather than still requiring us to enter these package codes for more goodies.
Lastly, you can control the media player by downloading the Popcorn Hour RC app on your Android and iOS devices, the app works as intended and apparently much better than the hardware remote, except for the fact that it doesn’t support using our soft keyboard if we want to enter text to the device.
A media player that delivers and promises
The 1OTT Media Player delivers its intended purpose and is something that many of us have been anticipating for, not only you are able to enjoy great quality content but also the great amount of useful apps available for the device. Despite having priced at a high RM429, the 1OTT is incomparable to cheaper or higher end media players that only plays content from your external storage and limited to a few set of apps, this is a future proof device that will be consistently getting updates and support from a great developer community while having a dedicated team of people to ensure updated streaming sources. Of course, this is a new product and you shouldn’t expect things to be perfect, but hey, things will certainly improve over time and we believe Cloud Media’s commitment on keeping the product alive for the next couple of years.
Verdict
It isn’t just a media player that streams content, the 1OTT Media Player is a different category and will substitute your Smart TV or premium satellite TV services, you will finally appreciate your living room entertainment experience once again.
The Good:
+ Reliable streaming sources
+ Great amount of useful apps
+ Acceptable operation performance
+ Smartphone remote control achievable
+ Powered using a MicroUSB cable
The Bad:
– Not able to categorize apps
– No playback resume feature
– No USB port (given the generous amount of streaming content, you probably won’t even need one)
We rate the 1OTT Media Player at 4 out of 5 stars.
