3Q Q-bix F345HW media player has already received good feedback from users, today we will tell you more about it. The main “vital organs” of the device are implemented on Realtek products – RTD1185D chipset and network adapter RTL8188CE. The chipset was released a little more than a year ago, it uses the software developed with Realtek SDK4 Casablanca .
Compared to the previous, “tenth” series chipset, it has reduced heat dissipation and increased speed – now the clock frequency of the processor is 500 MHz. In addition, this chipset can receive digital TV DVB-T , supports web browser with flash animation and HD-quality audio.
Speaking of HD audio: for the full implementation of sound quality suitable for audiophiles, you must include a good DAC in the conversion chain – in 3Q Q-bix F345HW it is quite feasible, since the media player has a digital output.
Optical output can be useful for those who use a receiver in their home AV system. Of course, the receivers, as a rule, integrated DACs are inferior to external in the same price category , but this is a topic for another story.
The design can be characterized as neutral, but not lacking in elegance – a black rectangular box with rounded corners, the top lid polished to a shine. The rotating nonremovable antenna is attached to the back wall, which makes the device similar to the boomboxes from the “golden era” of audio.
On the top cover has seven buttons, but to fully manage, of course, can not do without the remote.
On the right side are two USB 2 ports.0, SD/SDHC memory card slot and USB 3.0 used for connection to the computer. Naturally, in order to realize a high-speed connection, your computer must also have a USB 3 port.0.
On the left is the door for the hard drive compartment form factor 3.5″. So if you don’t plan to plug and unplug often, it can be hidden inside the player.
This is logical, considering that the media player can be used as a Network Attached Storage NAS device, for example, in the organization of a home local network. That is, for example, if the device is in the living room, and a wireless network is built using a WiFi router, then you can access the device, or rather, the content on its internal hard drive and connected external media, from another player, for example, located in the bedroom.
Of course, this can be done from any device TV, network tuner with a WiFi module. The cost of the device is comparable with the cost of storage external HDD , and the function of viewing and listening to files will be a nice bonus in this case. As the saying goes – a trifle but pleasant.
There is a fan, but it can not be heard
Despite the fact that the chipset heat emission is reduced, there is still a fan in the case to protect the system from overheating. We remind you that the possibility of overheating increases if you use the device as a NAS see “Using the device as a NAS” . above , or when placing the device in close proximity to heat-generating objects – for example, near a plasma panel. So extra cooling is never superfluous.
To their credit, the fan hardly audible, so it does not cause any problems during viewing. Besides the design of the case has been made in such a way that there are optimal conditions for cooling of the electronics – there are a lot of ventilation holes and the internal volume is rather big.
Switching on
While the player is initializing the operating system, the screensaver with “3Q” logo is glowing on the TV screen.
In a few seconds the menu. The items are standard, Video, Music, Photos, Explorer, Internet Media, and Settings.
In the settings you can activate the auto indexing of files – and then the smart device will distribute them into virtual folders depending on the content. It can be handy if you have a complicated hierarchy of folders and files on the medium, when it takes a very long time to choose through the explorer.
In the menu item “Settings” you can choose the menu language, the font and the background image. The standard font is a bit small, but this can be fixed. To change it you need to create a special folder on the disk, containing different font variants.
There you can also place image files to select the background image. After that the alternative font and background options become available for selection.
By the way, for those who use several CDs with different types of content, this feature can be very handy – the background can be changed depending on the content. True, the graphical “background” files on all drives will need to be given the same name.
In the same menu item “Settings” you can set the text encoding and keyboard language to search the required file by name.
The mode of autoindexing of files, we’ve already mentioned, is set there, and also the function of remembering the position of the last stop is switched on.
In general, the settings are standard for most media players, but, for example, changing the image format does not work correctly in all players. 3Q F345HW displays images without distortion, even on a simple CRT TV.
If the movie file has several soundtracks for example, voice acting in different languages , the player allows you to choose from them. Switching between subtitle variants, which can be located in separate files from the main content, is carried out by the same logic.
And of course you can adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation. Perhaps the most important moment of the test is the ability to “digest” different audio and video formats – especially “matreshka.
There are absolutely no questions: the player plays all the offered files, both video and music, easily and unceremoniously. Do not cause difficulties neither FLAC audio files, nor MKV video files larger than 30 GB.
Moreover, when you watch “heavy” files the rewinding and synchronization with the soundtracks is just as easy as with small AVI files, which indicates the good work of the processor and the competent software.
Internet services: it will go to YouTube, show clips and tell you about the weather
The device allows to find out the weather, get acquainted with the news, watch videos on YouTube and pictures on Flickr, listen to Internet radio and use the built-in browser. Recall that YouTube is probably the largest video hosting service.
Today on this resource, even some movies are posted in full, so the opportunity to use this service is becoming every day more and more relevant.
When accessing the Internet radio, you can select the genre of music and are offered several variants of the stations.
The media player also has a BitTorrent client, which allows you to download files without a computer.
A nice addition is the built-in TV tuner, working in the standard of digital terrestrial broadcasting DVB-T . To tell the truth, it’s not that important anymore, since this March the transfer deadline to digital terrestrial broadcasting in DVB-T2 standard was postponed from 2015 to 2012. However, knowing the speed of innovations introduction in our country, we can assume that DVB-T broadcasting will continue for some time.
The device can record TV programs to an external hard drive, memory card or flash drive. At the same time you can watch another channel, because the tuner is a “double”.
It’s interesting, that you can connect an ordinary computer keyboard to the USB socket, which will make using the device as a set-top box more comfortable.
The overall impression of the device is favorable. Of course, the main purpose of the device – a media player, and with this function the device copes very well.
If you are going to use internet services do not forget to specify correctly the TCP/IP data when connecting.
The only thing you should pay attention to when using it, is that the subtitles, audio track and color adjustments are not in the main menu, but they are invoked with separate keys from the remote control, which you wouldn’t recognize without reading the manual.
Specifications:
Supported video formats and codecs: AVI, MPG, DAT, VOB, DIV, MOV, MKV, MPEG, TS, MTS, M2TS, RM, RMVB, IFO, WMV and ASF
ISOH disc images.264, MPEG 1, 2, 4 Xvid, DivX , HD MPEG-4, VCD, SVCD, WMV9, DVD, M-JPEG 640×480@30p 848×480@10p and RealNetworks RM/RMVB 8/9/10 up to 720p.
Supported Audio Formats: MP3, OGG, WMA, WAV, FLAC, APE.
Supported Picture Formats: JPG/JPEG/HD JPEG/BMP/PNG.
Video Outputs: HDMI 1.3, Component Y/Pb/Pr RCA , Composite RCA .
Audio outputs: HDMI 1.3, analog stereo output RCA , optical and coaxial S/PDIF.
TV tuner: DVB-T dual
Network: Ethernet RJ45 10/100/1000 Mbps, built-in 802 wireless adapter.11b/g/n up to 300 Mbps
Interfaces: USB 2.0 host 2 pcs. , USB 3.0 client, SD/SDHC card reader.
Supported file systems: NTFS, FAT32.
Supported Hard Disk Drives: 3.5″ SATA up to 3TB .
Chipset: Realtek RTD1185DD.
Is the media player 3Q Q-bix F345HW user-friendly and reliable? How well does it catch digital TV signals? Can it access a wide range of Internet content? And finally, how is the audio quality for audiophiles?