The Egreat EG-M31A belongs to the older series of NMTs, together with HD Digitech HDX 900 and Elektron’s EH-606. While the former has the honor of being first of the second tier NMT brands to get the DTS license, they used it only for the HDX 1000 and the latter failed to release any DTS downmix firmare and went ahead with a totally new platform altogether.

Worth the extra thinking before before you commit your dollars…

These should make their small EG-M34A a suitable bedroom streamer where you don’t need a AV amplifier to enjoy all the DTS goodness.

Notable changes include:

• DTS Stereo downmix supported
• Fixed long playback of some TS file causing system crash
• Fixed formatting SATA HDD failure on some large capacity HDD
• Fixed further DTS dropouts in MKV.
• Add Hebrew language.

Head over here to Egreatworld to download:

EG-M31B/M34A Firmware Download
http://www.egreatworld.com/en/Support31B34A.asp

EG-M32B Firmware Download
http://www.egreatworld.com/en/Support32B35A.asp

For faster links, choose EgreatHD, hosted at the United States:

http://egreathd.com/index.php?option=com…&Itemid=63

Enjoy

Look out for their announcement in the coming weeks.

After months of waiting for the approval for DTS license, Egreat has finally gotten the signed approval from DTS Inc. Egreat users can look forward to firmwares that support DTS decoding (downmix to stereo) real soon. These can be finalised as soon as June.

Expect other abled manufacturers to follow.

Check out EgreatHD launch price of EG-M34A at USD149. With such a small set we reckon that shipping direct from Egreat to worldwide destinations shouldn’t be expensive.

Edit: EgreatHD ship worldwide directly from china and considering the small package, it should be cheaper. E.g USD149 +USD36 = USD185 to most countries in EU.

Because of its size, it will not be able to install a harddisk inside. Networking features such as streaming from NAS and media portal is retained. DTS decoding and downmixing should be available via new firmware.

From what Egreat has hinted, it will be attractively priced.

You can read the full specifications here

Let’s see how this set will compete with the WD TV.

Of particular interest to us is the BDP0821.

This player has a USB port that allows users to plug in a USB harddisk and play the formats this player supports. This includes AVI, WMV, MKV and TS files with up encoded streams of 1080p H.264, MPEG2 or VC-1. Direct stream output of AC3 and DTS audio streams is supported but not higher end codecs. Only bluray discs playback supports this.

USB drive supported is NTFS format and srt subtitles is supported too.

While this player has a ethernet port, it can only use it for accessing BD-Live content.

BDP-0821 is firmware upgradable so it remains to see if the manufacturer can build in more functions into it.

Next time we will also cover their networked media media HMC8161 (non-NMT).

For more information you can go to http://www.quan360.net/

We are not sure when is the offer ending as there is no indication on their website www.egreathd.com.

Specifications are as follows:

Hardware

* CPU:SIGMA DESIGNS SMP8635

* DDR DRAM :Hynix 64-bit 512Mb

* External NOR Flash :Spansion 16-bit 256Mb

* LANCHIP: REATEK RTL8201CP

* Audio D/A CHIP: AKM  AK4420

* HDMI 1.3 CHIP: SILICON IMAGE SIL9134

* SATA TO IDE: Jimicron JM20330

* SATA TO USB: JMICRON  JM20335

* ESATA HOST: SUNPLUS SPIF225

* USB HOST: GENESYS GL850A

Video Output :

* HDMI 1.3: 480P、576P、720I、720P、1080I@50Hz、1080I@60Hz、1080P@50Hz，1080P@60Hz、1080P@30Hz、1080P@29Hz、1080P@25Hz、1080P@24Hz、1080P@23Hz

* Component (Y/Pb/Pr): 480P、576P、720I、720P、1080I@50Hz、1080I@60Hz、1080P@50Hz，1080P@60Hz

* Composite: 576I@PAL、480I@NTSC

* VGA output : 480P、576P、720I、720P、1080I@50Hz、1080I@60Hz、1080P@50Hz，1080P@60Hz

Audio Output :

* Stereo

* SPDIF Digital audio output

USB :

* USB 2.0 host 2 port

* USB 2.0 slave

* Device Classifications : Mass storage device

ESATA:

*ESATA HOST*1

*ESATA SLAVE*1，rate is 3.0Gb/s

Networking :

l       Ethernet interface, 10-baseT/100-baseT

l       Support USB WIFI,configue should be 802.11N

HDD Type：

* SATA â… /â…¡ HDD ,up to 1TB

FORMAT:

* EXT3(linux OS)

* NTFS/FAT32(windows OS)

Power on/off control by RC

* Add one MCU，then it can realize power on/off by RC

LCD panel

* White words with blue background,show work status.

Human Interface Device :

* Handheld remote (standard)

* USB keyboard (optional)

Media files supported

Video containers:

* MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)

* MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG)

* MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)

* VOB

* AVI, ASF, WMV

* Matroska (MKV)

* MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4

Video codecs:

* XVID SD/HD

* MPEG-1

* MPEG-2 -MP@HL

* MPEG-4.2 – ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC

* WMV9 -MP@HL

* H.264 -BP@L3 ,MP@L4.0 ,HP@L4.0 ,HP@L4.1

* VC-1 -MP@HL ,AP@L3

Audio containers:

* AAC, M4A

* MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)

* WAV

* WMA

* FLAC

* OGG

Audio codecs:

* AC3

* WMA, WMA Pro

* AAC

* MP1, MP2, MP3

* LPCM

* FLAC

* Vorbis

Audio pass through : DTS, AC3

Photo formats : JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF

Other formats:  ISO, IFO

Subtitle formats : SRT, SMI, SUB, SSA

Connectivity Protocol(s) Support :

Protocols :

* UPnP AV NMPR v2.1

* UPnP 1.0 (connect to myiHome Lite)

* Bonjour

NMT Streaming Application Specifications :

* Streaming via HTTP protocol over local network or the Internet

* WMS over HTTP support via the Internet

* RTSP over HTTP support via the Internet

* support recovery from firmware update fail

* support UI change

* support file delete/copy/paste

OSD Language:

* English

* Chinese (GB2312,Big5)

* Russian

* Czechic

* Swedish

* Spanish

* Polish

* Portuguese

* Greece

* Dutch

Subtitil language: Hebrew/Turkish

Note:

Additional formats available in future firmware releases

Support recover from firmware update failure with fail-safe kernel

NAS + Media Server feature :

Protocols :

* DLNA v1.0 compliance on CTT test tools v1.0.

* UPnP AV NMPR v2.1

File Upload support :

* Samba version 3.0.21 (home-use)

* FTP for Digital Signage (commercial)

Download services :

* Bit Torrent btpd v0.12

NAS Management system :

* HDD format

* HDD partition create, copy, pasted,delete

* File transfer

* Password protection, etc.

Proprietary server :

* myiHome Lite (detection by Networked Media Tank slim client with UPnP 1.0)

Media Player extender :

* Supports any other DLNA compliant devices

Playback feature support :

* Photo Album (JPEG) with the entire supported audio format as background music

* Internet Radio supporting Shoutcast server MP3 Internet Radio stream

* Playback control

- Play/Pause,

- Go to (seeking)

- Fast Forward/Rewind

- Slow Motion (MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 only)

* Audio and Video Play List supported

* MP3 playback with album art support

* proprietary server (e.g. myiHome Lite), allows playback on multiple platform

(Windows XP, Mac OS and Pocket PC) via an Internet browser

Accessory packing

* Remote control x 1PCS

* Power adapter 12V/3A x 1PCS

* Power cable x 1pcs

* USB2.0 Cable x 1PCS

* USB 2.0 Extension cable x 1pcs

* HDMI Cable x 1PCS

* ESATA cablex1PCS

* CD-R x 1pcs

* Screw bag x 1pcs