Dune HD Smart D1 1080P Media Player

Here's the problem: I have a large collection of DVD's & blu-ray discs that I hate messing with and media carousels are notoriously difficult to keep balanced (leading to scratched discs). I also have dozens of different formats of home video files from the various cameras I've owned. What to do? I started with Apple's wondeful AppleTV, but it wasn't powerful enough for my needs and it's locked into Apple's ecosystem. I decided to build a media server and the Dune HD Smart is one part of it. First, I built a server to house all my family's media. Next, I setup my new Dune Smart and connected it to the same network my home server is on. After much research and futzing, I managed to get Zappiti's excellent media server up and running on it. THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART! I'm a geek that built computers for a living and I had a heck of a time getting everything working smoothly. Finally, I sat back with my wife and watched a flawless, fully legal, backup (from a disc I own and currently possess) of my favorite movie. Rock solid performance. Pros: - Plays EVERYTHING I have thrown at it. It's like VLC player. - Sleek and small. It fits right next to my Apple TV and Xbox 360. - User serviceable and upgradable. Add a HDD for better options. - Plays back 1080p video with no hiccups or dropped frames. - Decodes all the latest audio codecs from DTS & Dolby. Cons: - Getting Zappiti up and running was a chore. Better off getting a Zappiti player. - No built in HDD (for the D1 version). Was hoping for some accessible flash. - Old school LCD readout. I'd prefer the more modern LED display. Conclusion: I strongly recommend looking at the Zappiti line of media players if you're serious about serving your media files to your TV. The Apple TV is a great alternative, but it's just not quite what I needed. Now that I have a Dune Smart, my Apple TV is relegated to Netflix playback. If you are computer savvy, this is a great buy. If not, steer clear! NOTE: Due to the varying degrees of legality surrounding media backups, I don't condone any kind of piracy. This is a device that must be used responsibly within the confines of the law.

Disclaimer: Mediaplayer/streamer manufacturers always use an excuse to blame home network when something does not pop stream correctly. In my case I used two streamers in turns but connecting to exact the same Ethernet port. Dune Smart vs. PopcornHour A300. Connecting to 1Gbit network and NFS share where I had jellyfish 90Mbit test file. Popcorn played without a hitch, Dune could not at all. I have tried over SMB same effect. Dune advertises that their players features special network optimization technology that plays hight bitrate files even over 100Mbit networks but simply does not work and does not meet advertised spec. I learned hard way when I had to pay 10% of the cost of the player for shipping costs. dune HDI did not refund the shipping to me and I had to pay to return to them. All in all, do not buy. Poor customer support, extra greedy company that does not stand behind their products. IPTV also was not stable and locked up as well.

Excellent network media player. Over the years, I've tried many devices and technologies, including building my own systems with Media Center and Sage. The Dune devices play everything and very realibly. I'm now playing my entire library from my QNAP NAS so I only have to manage and update media to a single central location. Using Zappiti's interface [...] and it is awesome. So far, no issues and 100% reliability for Dune and Zappiti over the network. It took me a while to make my mind up to purchase the Dune D1, but I'm really happy that I did now. I'll be buying two more for other locations on my network. Dune HD Smart D1 1080P Media Player

I first tried the Kdlinks which was okay, but it couldn't show the full Blu-Ray menu, but it does 3d. I have always admired the Dune, but the steep price made me hesitate. When my movies started to sputter and cut parts of the movie off I had enough and found this Dune model for a great price. I pulled the trigger and noticed it played full Blu-Ray menu's and a flawless exact disk playback. I could now enjoy all of the extras and deleted scenes and look for certain chapters of a movie. The user interface is ugly with no cover art but by installing Zappiti you can have a beautiful user interface with photos and the option to skip the menu and previews and go straight to watching the movie. Be ready to pull your hair out getting Zappiti up and running properly. There is a ton of info on the internet which you will have to throughly study to understand. If you are not computer savvy don't try this on your own. Zappiti is very cool and really makes the Dune run on all cylinders but it took me two very long weeks troubleshooting and trying different options to get it up and running. You can install a 4tb hard drive and install lots of movies. I had to plug a cat 5 into the Dune or purchase a separate wifi dongle to get it online. I was not happy when I discovered it didn't have on board wifi. The unit doesn't have any fans and runs extremely hot, even when it's in standby mode. Overall I'm happy with it but the Dune company needs to update this model with onboard wifi, a better user interface, 3d options, and a better front display that doesn't look like it just arrived from the 80's. This is a great product but takes a person with a lot of patience to get it running smoothly and efficiently. I wish you luck if you go with this. Media Players are the wave of the future. Have fun!

awful documentation. feels like this product has been abandoned by the manufacturer. i just bought it to replace my previous version i bought 5 years ago and trying to set this up again is a nightmare. also, if you are in the US, note that it comes with a weird european power adapter to allow it to plug into US power outlets.

Although this player has many features, I purchased it primarily to replace an HTPC that was only being used to play DVD & Blu-Ray ISO files. It has been performing flawlessly and is much less cumbersome than using a PC for that purpose. The wide range of media files that it plays (from drives attached directly or through a network) is quite impressive and the build quality is excellent. A well-configued HTPC will be much more versatile, but for simply playing media files (particularly ISO's), this is much more reliable and convenient.

Perfect media player. Best aspect: it recognizes every Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatted drive I have. No seeming size restriction. 4TB drives all around - eSata, USB, eSata green 3.5 internal. Perfect. The Rolls Royce of media players.

still the best and most reliable media player that plays full bluray movies and menu flawlessly.

I have been using many different media players, both at home and for my work. So I have experience with probably 10-15 DVICos, 1 popcorn hour, a Western Digital HD, an Xstreamer and probably others I have forgotten. And then I bought the Dune HD Smart D1. It was a very good buy. It is really standing out of the crowd. The support of various video formats is very good. It is robust, silent (unlike many others). The video quality is very good. Most do a very very crappy upscaling wiht loads of flicker remaining all over the place even on progressive 24 or 25p contents. The Dune does a very decent motion adaptive upscaling. It is not as good as what you can get from say, a Panasonic Blu-ray player, which can do an outstanding upscaling, but it is way better than any other I have used so far, including the very select Popcorn hour 'C'. In addition, it is very easy to use jukebox software that generates very user friendly menus to access your video library (e.g. Yadis). It plays Blu-ray images with all java bells and whistles, and remembers where you were for each DVD/Blu-ray. This is very convenient because you do not have to skip the tons of previews and ads that the DVD makers force you to watch when you insert the disc into a player. So overall the Dune does its job very well and many things have been thoroughly designed by the manufacturer. Last but not least, the box is very complete. When I bought it, I opened it to put a hard drive. I thought, "of course those guys won't have put a SATA cable". Wrong guess, it was there. Then I gathered, "of course I'll have to find some spare screws because I am sure they did not put any". Again wrong guess, a small plastic bag was included with the screws. Overall the player has a very nice and stylish finish, from which even Sony could learn. The box contents is fairly complete (you should add a SATA drive and a USB drive though). The only negative point is the remote. It is decent, but has a very plasticky feel, and is of a lower grade than the player itself in terms of feel and finishing. But the Dune is still miles ahead of the competition. So if you are sick of juggling with broken and unstable and low-grade media players, buy the Dune and spend your time on more interesting stuff than working around the quirks of your media player.

Begeisterung macht sich neben einem eingemeißelten Lächeln in mir breit. Seit ich das Gerät habe macht es wieder Spaß Musik zu hören, vorbei die Zeiten als ich den Windows HTPC hochfahren und Updaten musste. Im Zusammenspiel mit meinem DAC habe ich wieder den Klang den ich aus Zeiten meines Rotel-CD's kannte. Von mir gibts eine absolute Kaufempfehlung. Muss aber auch dazu sagen, habe eine Festplatte eingebaut,( kinderleicht ) und ihm eine 16 GB SD-Cart spendiert. Wenn man seine Musik in einen Ordner kopiert kann man wie bei CD auch vorwärts und rückwärts durch die Musik springen ! Natürlich gibt er auch sämtliches Filmmaterial wieder ohne das man etwas umstellen muss.

Le Smart D1 est un beau lecteur multimédia , bien fini avec sa belle robe en métal laqué noir , la connectique est soignée et compléte , son tarif semble peut être excessif à votre goût mais il reste justifié par rapport aux performances et surtout à la concurrence.....il sait lire beaucoup de formats vidéos sans buggé et il propose une stabilité remarquable!!.....Evolutif grâce aux mises à jour fréquentes proposées par HDI DUNE ce qui lui confére une excellente durée de vie dans le temps et surtout la garantie d'un produit suivit.....j'ai longuement réfléchi à cet investissement et je ne regrette pas le choix du Smart D1 car il a la classe d'un appareil haut de gamme sans pour autant être ruineux en coût.....en espérant que celà puisse vous aider dans le choix de votre prochain lecteur multimédia.....pour le préciser , le test du Smart D1 a été effectué sur du matériel haut de gamme et le résultat est excellent , une passion de plus 25 ans dans le monde audio/vidéo me permet ainsi de rédiger ce commentaire dans le but de vous aider pour un choix réfléchi.....à vous de juger , et celà n'engage que moi de penser que le Smart D1 est un excellent rapport qualité prix dans sa catégorie!!

Su funcionamiento es perfecto y sencillo.Recomendable 100 por 100.Solo le falta leer los blu ray .iso y seria la bomba.

ce lecteur multimédia est extra. il lit tout, de manière incroyablement fluide et très facilement. plein d'options de synchro ou d'amélioration des videos, sous titres audio etc. je n'ai eu jusqu'à maintenant, qu'un seul soucis de subs qui n'est pas passé. je n'ai pas checké si le fichier en soi était défectueux ou quoi, me contentant pour le coup de la vo non sous titrée. petit bémol sur les parties web où par exemple, je n'arrive pas a faire fonctionner les iptv ou radio ou encore youtube, allez savoir pourquoi... bon je ne le l'ai pas acheté pour ca d'un autre coté. mais il faut bien garder en mémoire que son gros point fort est son aptitude à lire du fichier en stream depuis un nas ou un dd distant, sans saccade, sans ralentissement, quelque soit la taille du fichier (max testé actuellement 11go en mkv). bref de la balle.