I am always on the lookout for media players to add to my Digital Home setup (whether I actually need them or not could be up for debate!). In June I came across an interesting media player called Myka. There appears to have been some bumps in the road that caused delays in the product shipping, but it appears now that Myka is moving full steam ahead. Last week the folks over at myka.tv were nice enough to send me a review unit. You can expect my full review in the coming week, but for now here is a list of the specs as well as the obligatory unboxing (don’t worry, I made sure my son was supervised the entire time!).
Key Features
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WiFi enabled – 802.11/N (optional)
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Direct ethernet connector for direct connection
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HDMI, Composite, and SPDIF ports for maximum flexibility
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Internal hard drive choice of 250 gigabytes to 1 terabyte
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BitTorrent peer to peer software built in
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3 USB ports for expansion
Embedded Architecture
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Sigma SMP 8635
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450 DMIPS SOC
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16 MB Flash memory
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256 MB DDRAM
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Linux operating system
Video
- 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 Subtitle formats : SRT, SMI, SUB, SSA
- Aspect Ratio:4:3 and 16:9,auto format detection
- Out Definition:480i,480p,576i,576p,720p, 1080i or 1080p
Audio
- Audio containers:
- AAC, M4A
- MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)
- WAV
- WMA
- FLAC
- OGG Audio codecs:
- WMA, WMA Pro
- AAC MP1, MP2, MP3 LPCM FLAC Vorbis Audio pass through
- Volume Control:32-level adjustable,mute
- Output Modes:Mono/Stereo/Dolby Digital
Package included myka, HDMI cable, remote, composite cables, USB extender, power cord, and USB wireless N dongle (optional)
Front view of myka
A small vent is on the right side of the case. A fan is attached to the inside which blows air out from this vent
Typical array on connections – SPDIF, Composite/Component, HDMI, USB 2.0 for connecting to a PC, 10/100 LAN, 2 USB ports, power switch.
I own an AppleTV so this will give you a good sense of the dimensions of the myka.
Removing the case (attached by 4 screws) you can see a 3.5″ HDD secured above the motherboard.
Small fan attached to inside of case vent
Article by Damian
Hi, my name is Damian, and I'm tech gadget addict! Although I always had some interest in technology, it wasn't until I got my EX470 and more importantly found Mediasmartserver.net, that my interest became an addiction. My goal, aside from world domination and to see the Mets/Broncos win another championship, is to set up the perfect digital home where all my media is available at the click of a button. When I am not writing for Mediasmartserver.net you can find me over at my blog at http://dbone1026.blogspot.com.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
There is an explosion of these ( this looks like britetube ), hard to know which way to go -
The competition is definitely heating up. This can only be good for the consumer
I need some info on how to download content to the Myka, anyone have any experience with this media player?
What specifically are you looking to do, use as a bittorrent download or just download content from onto the hdd from your PC/NAS/Server?
I need to know how to download content from my computer. I haven’t gpt a clue…..and MYKA is no help!
yeah, agreed, no help…
There are a few ways you are supposed to be able to do this.
- One would be to do over the network. In the Mkya you can navigate to the File Transfers section, and as long as the files you want transfered are shared on your pc, just select and copy over. This is what I have done
- Copy to a thumb drive or external drive. Connect to the myka, and do same procedure as above
- You are supposed to be able to connect the myka directly to your PC, and then your PC would just see the Myka as another HDD. For whatever reason this never worked for me even though on other players I have this works perfect.
Thanks for the help…I’ll try connecting the Myka to my laptop and transferring files that way. I thought you could go to the my myka tv site and download from there. Apparently, doesn’t work. Thanks again for your help.
Yeah, you can’t do that from the tv site, you need t o do it either connected directly to a PC or do if from the myka itself over the network. Hopefully it works, let me know if you run into any issues.
How do I do this from Myka???
I saw your post on how to do this from the Myka. I’m not sure I understand………
If you do it connected directly from a PC you would just navigate to WIndows Explorer, you should see a new harddrive show up that is the Myka.
If you are doing over the network there should be a section for Copy FIles (I think I show it in my review of the myka, do you see?)
What I would like to know is how to use the “get stuff”. I enter a valid URL and try to download….nothing happens. I go to the my.myka.tv site and try to download from there to my unit…nothing happens, except I get this “thanks for flying air myka” Duh! Must be me!
Oh I see, you are trying to use the URL feature, is it a bittorrent you are trying to download? Honestly I have never used this feature, but if it is a torrent maybe it needs to be set up via the TorrentManager. I also don’t know if the URL can be used for an Bittorrent RSS feed, or it has to be the file itself.
Damien, do you know how to use the “get stuff” in the Myka unit?
You are correct! If you have some idea how to use this feature, I would appreciate your input. Thanks.
If I have some time I will try to test out on a few rss feeds to see what the result. Will comment back here if I have any luck.