Nixeus Fusion HD Review
by Ganesh T S on March 4, 2011 3:26 PM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Media Streamer
- Gadgets
The host of accessories, as well as the size of the main unit, make the Fusion HD package box pretty big.
Inside the box, we have the following components:
- Nixeus Fusion HD main unit
- 30W power adapter
- IR remote with batteries
- Wireless N USB dongle
- AV cable (3.5mm)
- Ethernet cable
- Screws for internal hard disk mounting
- Setup guide
The main unit has a length of 7.25", width of 5.375" and height of 3.125". The USB Wi-Fi dongle comes bundled with the unit. With support for Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) using Push Button Configuration (PBC), getting the device connected to the wireless network is a breeze. The remote is nothing to write home about, and is of the same quality as those found in other media streamers like the AC Ryan PlayOn HD2. The buttons on the remote feel cheap, but this is nothing out of the ordinary for almost 90% of the streamer units out there.
The front of the main unit has 3 LEDs to indicate the power status, hard disk activity and IR command reception. We have the IR receiver and 1 USB 2.0 host port along with the power switch on the extreme right. In addition to these, we also have eSATA and mini USB 2.0 slave ports which can help the media player act as a DAS (direct attached storage).
The two sides of the unit have ventilation slots and one of them also has a small fan behind it (made necessary due to the internal hard disk capability).
On the rear side, we have the power adapter connector, RJ-45 100 Mbps port, another USB 2.0 host port (best used for the Wi-Fi dongle), optical and coaxial SPDIF, 3.5mm composite video out and the HDMI 1.3 port.
Let us wrap up this section with a table summarizing the A/V and data connectivity options of the Nixeus Fusion HD
| Nixeus Fusion HD | ||||
| Feature | Nixeus Fusion HD Config | |||
| HDMI | Yes (v1.3) | |||
| Component | No | |||
| Composite | Yes (with Audio) | |||
| VGA | No | |||
| SPDIF | Yes (Optical and Coaxial) | |||
| Stereo | No | |||
| Optical Disk Drive | No | |||
| USB | Yes (2 x 2.0 Host, 1 x 2.0 Slave) | |||
| eSATA | Yes (Client) | |||
| LAN | Yes (100 Mbps) | |||
| Internal HDD | Supported (3.5", Not Included) | |||
| WiFi | Yes (300 Mbps Wireless N USB Dongle) | |||
| Card Reader | No | |||
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3DoubleD - Friday, March 4, 2011 - link
"There is also BitTorrent support, but, frankly, how many users are going to download their copy of Ubuntu using the Fusion HD? That said, I find BitTorrent clients on many media streamers. There must be a market for this feature and consumers must be demanding this probably."I might just attribute this to the author trying to be clever and just assume you are joking. Thanks for the article, helping the Friday afternoon go by!
ganeshts - Friday, March 4, 2011 - link
Anything to keep the readers entertained and happy :)Btw, the geeky pirates have better avenues than P2P (BitTorrent / DC++ etc.) to satisfy their needs.... ;)
fbking - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
you can get it from fookbuy.com for $184.95 with free shippinggoyuix - Friday, March 4, 2011 - link
It is great that you can use it as a hard disk, but what file systems does it support? FAT32 is usually not acceptable in these scenarios that need to accommodate large files, and ext2/3/4 is not widely deployed and used on Windows computers. I would love to see a nod to supported and default file systems in future reviews!ganeshts - Friday, March 4, 2011 - link
Ah! I should have mentioned it :) The hard drive in the system was formatted in NTFS, which is the default. Though ext file systems may have better features than NTFS in most scenarios, for media streamers in a Windows heavy environment (which is what most households are), NTFS is the best choice.As you rightly note, FAT32 is no longer useful because most of the ISOs and MKVs are greater than the 4 GB limitation that FAT32 has.
Milleman - Saturday, March 5, 2011 - link
The 100 Mbps is also a dealbreaker...Azethoth - Friday, March 4, 2011 - link
I am curious about the security implications of using these NAS appliances. Are they secure, or are they gaping security holes? The whole HBGary thing has confirmed what I suspected about many security firms: not secure at all. Does that extend to our routers, NASes, modems?I am using a Netgear Ultra 6 Plus NAS for my streaming needs. It also has BitTorrent support but I do not use it. I prefer to rip CDs using dBpoweramp.
ganeshts - Friday, March 4, 2011 - link
Comment intended for another article? :)vol7ron - Friday, March 4, 2011 - link
When is this price point ever going to have a tuner (read: CableCARD)? The advantage of having an HD dock in the device would be amplified if you could actually record to it.Discombobulated28 - Friday, March 4, 2011 - link
Hmmm... I never noticed that... most media players in the USA don't have tuners in them... I know they're very popular outside of the USA...