My review of the SumVision Cyclone Micro 2+ HD Media Player. It plays anything and everything for less than £30 !

The SumVision Cyclone Micro 2+ HD Media Player review
This is my review of :
Cyclone Micro 2+ Full HD HDMI 1080p MultiMedia Player Currently this is only £25.45 from Amazon !

Photograph of my HDMI Media Player and remote control. At the back of the device is the power lead and a HDMI cable to my TV. In the front is my Kingston 16Gb Flash Drive. I can highly recommend the Kingston DataTraveler 101 Gen 2 16GB USB Drive as it only costs £8.16 from Amazon.



What is a Media Player?
This is a very small complete media player that connects to your TV via the HDMI connection or the AV connector. You copy the files you want to view (videos, music, photographs) onto a USB memory stick and you can then view them on your TV. It comes with a nice little remote control.
It will play just about anything. Its perfect if you have lots of AVI or MP4 files that are in DivX format as you can simply copy them onto the USB Flash stick and it will play them without having to convert them.

I have been using the previous model (Micro 2) for a couple of years and its always worked well but did not support .mp4 video files, this new model DOES play mp4 files !
also the previous model did not handle corrupted files, it would suddenly stop and move onto the next video, this new model seems to cope ok. I have tried it with the very same problem video file and it played it perfectly.

There are a few different models of media player available from Amazon :


Screen shots of the menu system of the "SumVision Cyclone Micro 2+ HD Media Player"

This is the first screen that you see when you switch the media player on with the remote control.


In the Setup menu you can select what HDMI mode you want to use.


To use the media player you need to select the "USB Device" option here


This is the next screen it will show you. If you also had a memory card (SDHC/MMC) inserted then I guess
at this point you will see that listed along with drive f:


When you select drive f it will take a few seconds while it reads all the files and lists them
like this :


To play a video file simply press the OK or play button on the remote control.
You have all the usual controls that you would expect on a playing device.
Also if you press the Display button while playing a video then it shows you details such as current position, time remaining, Video Resolution, Audio Codec type.

There are a few different models of media player available:


If you buy the model I have reviewed here then you may also be interested in my post on how to download 1080p videos from YouTube for playing on this media player.

The player does NOT come with the HDMI lead but DOES come with the A/V lead. HDMI leads come in different lengths and quality. Its worth paying a bit more for a gold one.


It supports these video formats (codecs) : MKV, VOB, AVI, MPG, MPEG, MP4, M4V, MOV, HDMOV, RM, RMVB, AVC, PMP, .264, H.263, MKV, RM/RMVB (8/9/10), MPEG 1/2/4 and Xvid.
And these audio formats : MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, APE, AAC, AC3, RMVB.

I have been using this media player for a few months now and can't fault it. Very reliable and plays anything you throw at it. Get one  now !

Update : August 2013
Why not get a larger capacity USB Stick. Kingston 32GB for just £14:63 :


Thanks
Andy

P.S. The previous model of media player allowed you to delete videos with the remote control but this one does not seem to allow that, do you know if you can?

How to download Youtube 1080p HD videos as mp4 file for use with Sumvision Cyclone Micro 2+ Media Player.

I recently bought a new Media Player that copes with mp4 files at 1080p and for a couple of years I have been using a great free plug-in on Firefox that allows you to download videos directly from YouTube and thought I would share details on how to do it.
The media player is a Cyclone Micro 2+ Full HD HDMI 1080p MultiMedia Player Adaptor and it pretty much plays any video files you try with it. These things really are very cheap but amazing.
You simply copy the video files you want to watch onto a USB memory stick and the media player plays them via the HDMI connection on your TV.

In my example below I am downloading a music video from YouTube which is 6min 19sec long, the .mp4 video file it downloads is 223Mb.

Installing the Add-on into Firefox
The Add-on for the Mozila Firefox web browser is free and extreamly simple to use, I will show you how here.

How to install the free Add-on to download YouTube videos.
These screenshots are from my PC running Windows 7 64bit and Firefox v11.0.
Note this plugin still working fine now Firefox is v20.0.1

1) In Firefox goto the Tools dropdown menu and select Add-ons.

2) In the search box of the Add-ons window type in Download Youtube Videos as MP4   and search.

3) This should show a list of Add-ons, The BEST one is this one. Click Install, only takes a few seconds.
Once installed, close Firefox and rerun Firefox and goto YouTube and find a HD video.

4) Notice that now we have a new button called Download. Click it to see what quality you can download.

5) On this video it is available at 1080p as an MP4 video, Click MP4.

6) Ensure that the "Save File" option is selected so it saves it instead of playing it and click OK.

7) Wait for the file to complete downloading and you should now have a .mp4 file of your video on your hard disk.

Now you have your .mp4 video file simply copy this file onto a USB Stick and insert it into the front of your Cyclone Micro 2+ Media Player and give it a go. Plays in glorious 1080p HD via HDMI.

Note : If you don't know where your file has been saved then in Firefox goto the Tools dropdown menu and select Options, Click on the General Tab. In the Downloads section there is a bit thats says "Save files to..". On my PC I like to use C:\My Downloads  but yours may be the default if you have never changed it.


There are a few different models of media player available, The one that plays anything is the 2+


I hope someone finds this information of use.
Andy