AC Ryan Play On! HD hands-on

Last time I heard about AC Ryan was thru Calvin of PTB when he bought his unit in Singapore a couple of years ago. By May this year, we got word from the distributor that it’s now available in the Philippines and we got a review unit of the AC Ryan Play On! HD a couple of weeks ago.

The AC Ryan looks like your typical boxed media player — it feels a little bulky because the enclosure can be fitted with a 3.5″ hard drive of up to 2TB.

The company is based in ~~Sweden~~ Holland and it’s only been able to get a local distributor here in the Philippines in the last couple of month. AC Ryan boasts that they support the most number of formats and plethora of features among media players in the market (at least for their price category).

The test unit we got did not have an internal drive included so we just plugged in an external HDD in one of its 3 USB ports.

The unit will automatically detect all the media files in the attached storage and list them down per category in the player. That allows you to just go hit the play button — all the listed files will then be played one after the other (which is very user-friendly).

The essential ports are found at the back — Composite, HDMI and SPDIF — and you can play full HD 1080p movies as well (for the AC Ryan Play On! HD model). The two USB ports are found on the right side fo the box along with the card reader.

Full specs and features of the AC Ryan Play On! HD can be found here (just in case you want to look at the list of video/audio formats and other stuff):

Ac ryan play on hd reduced file size

View more documents from yuga.

The graphical UI of the player looks simple and straight-forward — you’re automatically forwarded to the media listing where you are given the list of recently added media files you play from the box. Been using it for a couple of weeks and haven’t bumped into any problems.

There’s a LAN port included so you can hook it up to the network and support for WiFi dongle via USB if you want to go wireless (sold separately). There’s also a BitTorrent client included in here if you want to download files directly into the device.

Suggested retail price are as follows:

AC Ryan Essential – Php5,300
AC Ryan Play On! HD – Php8,300

The AC Ryan line-up is one of the more affordable network media tanks around and will be gunning for the same market as Western Digital.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

21 Comments

072kph says:

5 years ago

is there any service center of ac ryan here manila?
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Justine Sy says:

11 years ago

Where can I find its service centers here in the Philippines? thanks :)
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Annalyn Tan says:

11 years ago

Good day. Just want to inquire regarding AC Ryan HD player. May I know your contact number and address on where we can buy the item?

Awaiting your soonest reply.
Thank you.

From:
Annalyn Tan of Moldex
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reynemark says:

13 years ago

ahh gnada nag laro
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Jp says:

13 years ago

@aca so far i got the a210 and i’m very satisfied with its features especially the added features that they have like the apps market and 3D :)

but it depends on you
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Jp says:

13 years ago

@aca: i bought it last year at 5th avenue..forgot the price already but i got it for 12months installment..i’m sure that the price with the hard disk would be much lower now..thanks!
aca says:

13 years ago

thanks jp! if you dont mind me asking, where did you buy your a210 and for how much? thanks!

Jp says:

13 years ago

@abe so far i got the a210 and i’m very satisfied with its features especially the added features that they have like the apps market and 3D :)

but it depends on you
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LG promo victim says:

13 years ago

when you buy a brand new unit, does it include the harddisk?
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Abe Olandres says:

13 years ago

@LG promo victim – there’s an options for no HDD, 500GB, 1 TB and 2TB. Just add the corresponding add’l costs for those.

xatirlabin says:

13 years ago

Sir yuga,

Do you have any idea of we have products here in the Philippines that can record tv shows? like the tivo in the states?

I’m aware that Sky cable will launch something similar to that.. thanks!
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Cidless says:

13 years ago

i am using a micca ep350, same features with A.C. Ryan
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Jhoms says:

13 years ago

We have two of this 1 in the living room and 1 in my brothers room.

BTW wheres my google+ invite :)
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Jhay says:

13 years ago

Quite a nice setup, but seriously–Big Bang Theory–could there a more pathetic show on TV? haha
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Bimboy says:

13 years ago

lol, I was like huh? then ‘meh’ + \\// with your comment. If you didn’t get that, then another LOL for you, Bazingga! =)))
b1t633k says:

13 years ago

i bet you’re stupid since you can’t dig BBT, bazzinga!

drew says:

13 years ago

nice.. BBT on HD. hehehe
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aca says:

13 years ago

sir abe,

which one do you prefer/recommend? this one or the popcorn hour a210 you recently featured?

im planning to buy one of these media players and would like to know which one is a better buy.

thanks!
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Calvin says:

13 years ago

my playonhd is still going strong. using it as a NAS when i connected it to my home network via LAN. ok naman streaming nya when i want to watch sa laptop ko. pero at 8,300 parang hindi bumaba yung presyo when i bought one from singapore 2 years ago.
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watrboy says:

13 years ago

where can we find this one?
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Bennix says:

13 years ago

Good to know sir Abe.I like these media player…:)
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