HDI Dune HD Max Blu-ray Network Home Theater Media Player

 It's Time To Take Your Home Theater To The Max!

The HDI Dune HD Max is considered to be the media player of choice by home theater enthusiasts.  It has garnered dozens of awards from respected review sites around the globe.  All reviews agree that if you want a player that handles your media collection flawlessly...  then the Max should be at the top of your list.

The Dune HD Max gives you exactly what you want in a media player.  The engineers at HDI are just like you...  they are home theater and digital media enthusiasts too.  They combined the versatility of a network home theater media player with a high quality, silent Blu-ray / DVD/ CD optical drive.  The result is sleek, stylish, and powerful.  With the Dune HD Max you can play media from a NAS, server, USB device, or an installed hard drive.  You will also have the ease of being able to play commercial Blu-ray and DVDs.  So whether you rent or buy a disc, download a movie, or you record your own video...  the Dune HD Max will allow you to enjoy all your media in high definition.

Dune HD Max vs. Popcorn Hour C-200

Probably the question most often asked by potential buyers of the Max is - how does it compare to the Popcorn Hour C-200?  Admittedly, both players are quite similar...  and each player has its own pros and cons.  However, we at GizmoDaddy feel that the Dune HD Max is a better choice.  Here are a few critical features included with the Max that the C-200 lacks:

	Dune HD Max	Popcorn Hour C-200	Why Important
Blu-ray Optical Drive			The Max comes equipped with a high quality Blu-ray drive installed.  With the Popcorn Hour C-200, you have the risk of buying the wrong drive or a noisy drive.  HDI saves you you time, money, and frustration by installing the best drive for you in their factory.
Hot Swappable 3.5" Hard Drive			HDI has made installation of a hard drive as easy as possible.  You can even swap drives without powering down your unit.
SD/SDHC Card Reader			Convenience.  The Max will allow you to simply "plug and play" your camera's SD or SDHC card.
7.1 Channel Analog Outputs			This feature allows 7.1 channel audio to be sent to a non-HDMI receiver.
Warranty	2 Years	1 Year	Peace of mind.  Your investment is protected for an additional year.

Dune HD Max features the award winning Sigma Designs SMP8642 video processor, and a built-in silent optical drive that allows the Dune HD Max to play anything from CDs to DVDs or Blu-ray discs. The player also has a 3.5" SATA hard drive bay with hot-swap support, a SD/SDHC card reader, and three high-speed USB 2.0 ports to connect external storage and extension modules.

One of the main features that distinguishes this media player from its competitors is its special compartment for extension boards. The compartment is located behind a panel at the rear of the media player. Up to 2 boards can be installed simultaneously.

The Dune HD Max supports practically all standard and high-definition audio and video formats.  It is fully compatible with all types of "high-definition" 7.1 channel audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio.  The Dune HD Max is one of only about a dozen network media players that fully supports Blu-ray menus.  When you play a Blu-ray ISO or BDMV folder, your experience will be exactly as if you were viewing the original Blu-ray disc.

Special notice should be taken of the extremely fast networking speed of up to 1000 Mbit/s, the IPTV and Internet radio functions, as well as the built-in BitTorrent client and Internet browser.

Hardware Features

• Sigma Designs 8642 Media Processor:  The heart of the Dune HD Max is its SMP8642 media processor.  Taking performance to the next level is accomplished by combining significant increases in CPU speed, memory bandwidth, and architectural efficiencies. The SMP8642 is a multi-core media processor that features a 667 MHz main CPU along with a 333 MHz second CPU for a total processing power of 1840 DMIPs and a CaffeineMark of 5649.
  
• Blu-ray and DVD Player:  Play Blu-ray discs and DVDs (plus audio CD and data discs with video/music/photo files).
• Hard Drive Support:  Install a SATA hard drive to the player in effect becomes a NAS (network attached storage) device.  You can play, and share media stored on your installed drive.  The Dune Max supports "hot swapping" hard drives.
  
• Network Player:  Connect your Dune HD Max to a local network and play content directly from a PC, server, NAS, or even another player via UPnP, SMB, or NFS protocols.
• MKV Player:  The Max can play HD and SD video in the very popular MKV format.  H.264 video compression is fully supported.  The Max also supports chapters embeded in the MKV file.
  
• RealD:  Watch 3D video in this ultra modern format used in cinema for the latest movies.
• 3 USB Ports:  Conveniently connect external hard drives, USB flash drives, USB card readers, and other USB storage devices.
• Integrated SD / SDHC Card Reader:  Easily play media files on SD/SDHC memory cards from your camera or other devices, or use a SD memory card as a local or system storage (required for BD Live function).
• HDMI 1.3:  Ensure the best possible quality of HD video and audio.  Onc cable does it all.
  
• Versatile  A/V Outputs:  No two home theater systems are alike.  The Max has virtually every type of audio/video output so you can be sure that the Max will integrate into your existing system.  The Max has the following outputs:  HDMI, component video, S-Video, composite video, S/PDIF optical audio, coax digital audio, stereo audio, and 7 channel analog audio.
  
• Extended support for Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio:  Output bitstream (up to 7.1 channels) or decode to LPCM (up to 7.1 channels) for maximum flexibility when connecting audio equipment, and for extended support of advanced playback features (such as Picture-in-Picture).
• Video Output Flexibility and Upscaling:  Output video in any resolution and format (from SD to 1080p, 24p/PAL/NTSC).  High quality upscaling of DVD and any other standard definition video content to 720 or 1080p resolution.
• File Browser:  Convenient file browser with powerful file management.  You can copy, move, delete, rename, organize, and sort media on any media source.
  

GUI Features

• High-Quality Music Playback:  Play very high-quality (up to 192 Khz / 24-bit) music files in various formats including FLAC, Monkey's Audio APE, MP3, WAV/PCM, DTS, etc.
• Playlists:  Build playlists from your files or folders with ease.  The Dune HD Max also has repeat and shuffle functions.
• NAS Function:  Access files on any attached storage device (hard drive, USB, optical drive, etc).  You can use SMB or FTP to access your Dune.
• BitTorrent:  Use the Max's built-in BitTorrent client to download files from P2P networks.
• Customizable User Interface:  Showcase your media collections using cover art, moviesheets, and icon browsing.  GizmoDaddy recommends yaDIS or Zappiti for creating your movie jukebox.  They are both free and work great.
• Flash Applications:  Extend the player functionality with FlashLite applications.
• Internet Radio:  Playback and record various Internet radio stations (HTTP/MP3).
• IPTV:  Playback and record IPTV streams (multicast UDP/RTP) from your Internet provider (check availability of multicast UDP/RTP streams with your Internet provider).