My home theater arrived today in good shape, the speakers and main unit wrapped well with plastic bags and bubblewrap. Setting up the system is fairly straight forward, the speakers may seem confusing, due to the labeling (just connect each one at a time), and the rear speaker wires were a little short for routing across the ceiling (we can't route it across the floor). Otherwise, I repositioned the speakers to a slightly better location and we were good to go. The system fired up and promptly blew out my eardrums, apparently someone at the factory thought it would be a hoot to ship it out with the volume cranked up to maximum by default. After turning down the volume and mopping up the blood from my bleeding ears, we were back in business.
The apps and networking are impossible to test out at the moment, because this unit is wired ethernet only. One would expect that a modern internet enabled device, especially one this new, to either include wi-fi or a wireless network extender to allow the player to get on the network (remember, you could get wifi media players as far back as 2008). I opted for the extender, which will require up to 2 weeks to get here. These can be pricey, at least *** . Or you could opt for another home theater system which actually includes wi-fi and avoid the headache.
The sound quality was good, and I was very pleased to see that pressing the "Sound Effects" button opened up a 4 band EQ, which makes the player kind of a paradox. No wi-fi, but an audio feature lacking in many entry level home theater systems.And the styling of the remote is a little cluttered, but they thought to focus on giving the face plastic a textured leather finish.
Video playback was great, and the BR player is compatible with pretty much every video format you could find on the internet, so your downloaded videos will play as well. Not having a network connection did not hinder its ability to play through Shaun of the Dead (my sole BR title currently).
