The Xtreamer Pro media player is a product that deserves spending much of your time playing with it. While it is based on the the Realtek 1283X platform, it's GUI has been enhanced and offers a very good experience while navigating across the various settings and also when you watch movies.

The product comes in a complete retail package, and although Xtremer sells the essential Wifi module for some extra €20, you may find many compatible modules (based on Realtek chipsets) at lower prices.

The device is compact in size, it is made of quality materials and can be configured to work with two (2) 3.5" HDDs installed, offering a total storage capacity of up to 4TB, which should be enough to hold most of your digital content. Another strong feature of the device is the support for over 23 languages for both the menus and the subtitles.

The player had an excellent performance in our playback tests. The device will not refuse to play any media files you may think of - from mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4 and up to H.264 and MKV files and even High@5.1 1080p 16 refs profile, which is hard to play for many other media players. DVD Video and Blu-ray ISO files are also supported, with some limitations for the latter (menu).

The player is also equipped with an HDMI 1.3 interface and the quality of the bundled HDMI cable is good. Audio support is also complete and includes the latest Dolby Digital+ 7.1 & Dolby TrueHD 7.1 formats, which can be downmixed to 2CH audio in order to enjoy it in your 2 CH speakers.

The Xtreamer Pro offers very interesting and useful internet services, which expand beyond the typical Youtube, Picasa, RSS News and Internet radio features found in other media players. Here you will enjoy news, movies and several other internet channels including Live TV channels (only in the USA).

Moving forward to the Jukebox function, we have to do with a well-designed application that offers a new way to view and organize your favorite movies with support for IDMB and downloading of movie covers. Of course the application could be further tweaked a little bit in order to become even more useful but it still works pretty well with files stored into your local HDD. On the other hand, Jukeboxing networked files is probably not a great idea.

The Xtreamer Pro is a well-designed product and it offers a ton of features and advanced capabilities related to internet services, leaving the majority of the mainstream media players behind. The player will allow you to safely replace any other devices from your network (NAS, Web, FTP server) and will offer you a stable and quiet operation. The Xtreamer Pro deserves our "Editors Choice Award" for its great performance and rich set of features.

Positive

- Full retail package - Comes with HDMI v1.3 cable
- High quality housing
- Compact in size
- Fully translated system for 23 languages including subtitles and menus
- Well-designed remote control with good reception
- Supports two 3.5" HDDs, up to 4TB of storage capacity
- e-SATA connector available on the front side
- It can be controlled from iPhone and other mobile phones
- Jukebox function is impressive when using files from the local HDD
- Quiet Fan operation during movie playback
- Can playback anything from mpeg1,2,4 ASP & AVC formats
- Can playback all audio formats (mp3, AAC, Flac, Ogg, WMA, RA)
- 1080p and DTS soundtracks are not a problem for this player
- Supports both Wi-fi and wired Lan networks
- Stable and responsive playback
- Plays DVD-Video ISOs with menu support
- Support for NAS, UPnP streaming, Web and FTP server
- Great GUI interface with Jukebox support
- Rich Internet services
- Jukebox and main features can be set/tuned via a web interface

Negative

- More USB ports would be welcomed
- There is no power off switch
- Users cannot use two HDD as the same time
- Wifi 802.11n module comes optional (+ €20)
- Jukebox function is slow when accessing media files at the network
- Screen zoom function should be configured again each time you make any change
- Internet Services menu sometimes get confusing to navigate
- Network/e-SATA performance is rather slow