Startups in the US media streamer market are not very common. There are a number of small companies (like Micca and Brite-View) active in this space, but media streamers are not their sole products. Nixeus, a Los Angeles based company, was founded in 2010 with the intention of making inroads into the competitive media streamer market.

Their first product, the Nixeus Fusion HD, was introduced towards the middle of 2010. The fulsome praise devoted to it by many AVSForum members encouraged us to obtain a review sample. We have had the unit in our labs for the last 3 months, and we are now finally in a position to write a review after Nixeus fixed many of the bug reports that we filed.

Officially priced at $219.99, the unit can be purchased for as low as $179.99 if you shop around. For this price, you get a media streamer with the following features:

• Sigma Designs SMP 8655 (Same as WDTV Live with respect to base features such as 1080p and so on -- Frankly, if a device doesn't do 1080p, we do not want to cover it in the media streamer space here)
• Slot for internal 3.5" hard drive
• Bundled support for both wired and wireless network connectivity
• Usage of unit as an eSATA / USB external hard drive (provided internal hard disk is installed)

There are a number of companies making SMP 865x based products. How do they differentiate themselves? As the experienced media streamer consumers know, it is not the base platform, but the firmware which counts. The amount of development that is done on the base SDK provided by Sigma Designs, and the attentiveness of the manufacturer to the issues of the existing customers decide the quality of the media streamer. Before we get into those details, let us take a look at the package contents and what is inside the Fusion HD.

The host of accessories, as well as the size of the main unit, make the Fusion HD package box pretty big.

Inside the box, we have the following components:

1. Nixeus Fusion HD main unit
2. 30W power adapter
3. IR remote with batteries
4. Wireless N USB dongle
5. AV cable (3.5mm)
6. Ethernet cable
7. Screws for internal hard disk mounting
8. Setup guide

The main unit has a length of 7.25", width of 5.375" and height of 3.125". The USB Wi-Fi dongle comes bundled with the unit. With support for Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) using Push Button Configuration (PBC), getting the device connected to the wireless network is a breeze. The remote is nothing to write home about, and is of the same quality as those found in other media streamers like the AC Ryan PlayOn HD2. The buttons on the remote feel cheap, but this is nothing out of the ordinary for almost 90% of the streamer units out there.

The front of the main unit has 3 LEDs to indicate the power status, hard disk activity and IR command reception. We have the IR receiver and 1 USB 2.0 host port along with the power switch on the extreme right. In addition to these, we also have eSATA and mini USB 2.0 slave ports which can help the media player act as a DAS (direct attached storage).

The two sides of the unit have ventilation slots and one of them also has a small fan behind it (made necessary due to the internal hard disk capability).

On the rear side, we have the power adapter connector, RJ-45 100 Mbps port, another USB 2.0 host port (best used for the Wi-Fi dongle), optical and coaxial SPDIF, 3.5mm composite video out and the HDMI 1.3 port.

Let us wrap up this section with a table summarizing the A/V and data connectivity options of the Nixeus Fusion HD

In order to install an internal hard disk, it is necessary to remove the top cover of the Fusion HD. For our review, we used a 2 TB Barracuda XT 7200 rpm provided to us by Seagate.

The top can be taken off by removing 4 screws from the two sides of the Fusion HD, and slightly tugging at one of the sides.

The screws to hold the hard disk in place are provided in the Fusion HD package. The SATA data and power cables make an appearance on the top, and have to be connected to the hard disk properly before being screwed in. Compared to the easy slide in process used by other manufacturers like TViX and A.C.Ryan, this method of installation is a bit clunky, and not really user friendly (Well, it may be OK for the average AnandTech reader). If you are planning to gift this to someone with a hard disk already installed, it shouldn't be much of an issue.

To get to the system board, the rubber bushes at the base of the unit had to be prised off, as shown in the gallery above. The board is placed in the chassis in an interesting manner. With the hard disk on top, the main components of the board are on the underside. You can see the SATA data and the power cables making its way to the top in the flipped board below.

The main components on the board are as below. There are two sets of DRAM modules for a total of 384 MB of DDR2 DRAM.

1. Sigma Designs SMP8655AD Media Processor
2. 2 x Hynix HY5PS1G1631C x16 DDR2 DRAM Modules (Total : 2 x 1Gb = 256 MB)
3. 2 x Deutron MIRA P3R12ErJFF x16 DDR2 DRAM Modules (Total : 2 x 512Mb = 128 MB)
4. Hynix HY27UF081G2A 1Gb (128 MB) NAND Flash
5. JMicron JM20336 SATA / USB 2.0 to SATA Bridge

The JMicron chip lies between the SATA data and power cable connectors on the board.

The JM20336 is responsible for the eSATA client / USB 2.0 slave interface on the Fusion HD. It acts as a bridge with SATA at one end and another SATA and USB 2.0 port at the other end. The SMP8655 has 2 SATA II ports. One of them is connected to the internal hard disk, and the other end is connected to the JM20336. When the Fusion HD is connected to a USB 2.0 host or eSATA port, it goes into 'eSATA or USB Client Mode'. No media playback is possible in this mode, as the SMP 8655 is busy routing traffic from the JM20336 through its first SATA port onto the second SATA port.

The home screen on the Nixeus Fusion HD is pleasing.

However, things start going downhill once you start navigating the internal menus or try to pull up options when playing media files. Don't mistake me, the UI is completely functional, but the fonts and the appearance are like what graphics used to be on DOS machines in the 1990s. Some of examples of the rudimentary UI during file playback are given below:

I am probably spoilt after seeing the UI of the WDTV Live Hub, the NTV 550 and the Boxee Box in this area, but I really feel Nixeus must improve upon this in their future products.

A gallery of the UI pictures is provided below:

As can be seen in a couple of the gallery pictures, the Fusion HD has a host of online services such as YouTube, iMedia (Fusion Web Channel) etc. These services are a hit or a miss (like in many other media players which have YouTube access). There is also support for Flickr, Shoutcast and Live365, which definitely work better than the video services.

The other special selling point for the Nixeus Fusion HD is the web browser. This is not usually implemented by other SMP 865x based media streamers.

Unfortunately, visiting any Flash website causes the browser to crash. In fact, I wouldn't advise using the browser unless it is just plain text and pictures on the website you plan to visit. The SMP 8655 platform is not powerful enough for Adobe Flash implementation or running a full featured browser. Unless Nixeus moves away from the Sigma Designs platforms, they should not implement web browsers in their future products.

There is also BitTorrent support, but, frankly, how many users are going to download their copy of Ubuntu using the Fusion HD? That said, I find BitTorrent clients on many media streamers. There must be a market for this feature and consumers must be demanding this probably. Another aspect I liked about the Fusion HD is the extensive support for keyboard and mice (even wireless!) through the USB 2.0 host port. Network setup and shared folder access (both SMB and NFS) were quite straightforward and proceeded without a hitch.

The AnandTech Media Streamer Test Suite is constantly evolving, and we recently added a few more test streams in response to various developments in the media space. In v1.1 of the test suite, we have added streams with forced PGS subtitles in MKV container, couple of 1080p60 H264 streams from recent camcorders with multi-channel audio, a packed MPEG-4 bitstream and a MKV file with header compression. Now, we have 55 test streams with a total possible score of 368. The Nixeus Fusion HD scored 266 to get a normalized score of 72.28%. Compared to the WDTV Live Hub at 66.8%, it is indeed an improvement.

One of the main reasons that the Fusion HD scores over the WDTV Live series is full support for bitstreaming of all HD audio formats from both M2TS and MKV containers. Amongst the standalone media streamers we have evaluated so far, the Nixeus Fusion HD is bettered only by the Boxee Box.

The good score in our test suite doesn't mean that the product is bug free. Here are some reasons why the Fusion HD lost points in our test suite, and also a list of pending bugs in the implemented features:
 

1. DVR-MS and WTV file extensions are not recognized, even though the internal codecs are supported
2. OGG / Vorbis and Real Media streams are not supported
3. Hindi subtitles do not display correctly (surprisingly, Hebrew and Vietnamese subtitles with which the WDTV Live series had issues are fully OK in the Fusion HD)
4. Deinterlacing is as bad as it was in the WDTV Live Hub.
5. PGS subtitles (forced and unforced) in MKV are yet to be supported. Supposedly, a firmware update is on the way to fix it. As of today, PGS subtitles in MKV are recognized, but not shown.
6. The M2TS splitter has a bug wherein some 1080p30 L4.1 H264 streams exhibit stutters. The WDTV series and the Boxee Box's release firmware also have the same issue, but many other Sigma based products and all Realtek products are OK.
7. Blu-Ray ISOs and folder structures play the largest M2TS file. Branched titles are not supported. There are no menus for Blu-Ray ISOs or folder structures.
8. One of our MKVs with DTS-HD audio exhibited random dropouts when bitstreaming. However, a couple of other movies with DTS-HD MA in MKV bitstreamed for the full duration without any issue. But, some points were docked because our test stream didn't play perfectly.
9. Some of the camcorder clips with 1080p60 H264 in MP4 had slight stutter (same issue with the WDTV Live series also). I believe this is an issue with the splitter again.
10. VP6 and VP8 in FLV and WebM are not supported
11. ASS subs (stylized and karaoke effects) are not supported properly.
12. More than 2 warp points are not supported in Xvid (MPEG-4) streams, same as all other Sigma and Realtek based streamers
13. MKV chapter navigation is very rudimentary (pressing NEXT to get to the next chapter, with no display or ability to select a chapter by its name)
14. In M2TS files, the PGS subtitles tend to overstay their welcome. The subtitles start at the correct timestamp, but don't turn off till the timestamp for the next subtitles set starts. Two screenshots are attached below showing the issue.

We also ran the HQV 2.0 benchmark suite on the Fusion HD. Unsurprisingly, it got the same 56 out of 210 that the WDTV Live Hub had scored. I guess there is not much point in running the HQV 2.0 benchmark any more on the SMP8654 or SMP8655 based media streamers.

Nixeus deserves praise for putting out a promising product first up. They have been very prompt in responding to user issues, and have had a regular firmware release schedule. Each of the firmware releases has improved upon the core functionality. The reviews on Amazon are quite positive too. We agree with all (and can corroborate) the comments made by the reviewers on Amazon. However, at AnandTech, we set the bar quite high.

When considering all the players in the market at the same price point, the Nixeus Fusion HD is not the best for the meticulous consumer. For example, the Boxee Box beats the Fusion HD in terms of codec compatibility, online media services and user experience. However, it does consume too much power and doesn't come with a hard drive slot (which might be a hard requirement for some consumers).

With no hard disk installed, the Fusion HD consumed less than 8W when playing 1080p H264 videos over wireless compared to the Boxee Box's 14W. Even with a high performance Barracuda XT 2TB drive, the unit never consumed more than 17.9W despite being stressed with demanding media streams. The noise from the fan might be a concern for those with very sensitive ears, but that is the case for almost all the streamer models out there with support for 3.5" internal hard drives.

Therefore, our concerns do not prevent us from recommending it in certain scenarios (as the media streamer test suite scores show). Discounting the user interface, we can even say that it is the best SMP 865x based media player in the market right now for local media playback.

Bundled with a hard drive of suitable capacity, it makes a very good gift to your parents or relatives whom you meet regularly with, and share your media. At any point of time, the unit can act as an external hard disk, and this makes it easy to update the hard disk contents from your own laptop when you visit them. They can also take advantage of their AV receiver setup because the Fusion HD does support HD audio bitstreaming from all possible containers.

To be taken seriously as a primary media streamer for everyone, Nixeus still has some way to go. There are a number of low hanging 'fruits' (bugs) which can be easily 'plucked' (fixed). These include:

1. Recognizing more files with supported codecs, but unsupported extensions
2. Handling PGS subtitles properly in both MKV and M2TS containers
3. Fixing the MP4 and M2TS splitter issues
4. Improving MKV chapter support

There are some difficult issues which might be left unfixed before the product reaches EOL:

1. Blu-Ray ISO navigation with menu support or, at least, support for branched titles
2. ASS (stylized and karaoke) subtitles (It is not claimed in the specs list, though)
3. Premium online services such as Netflix

Nixeus has let us know that they are indeed working on the splitter issues, HD audio dropout, PGS and ASS subtitles and recognizing more extensions. These will be implemented in an upcoming firmware release, and given their track record, I would trust them. After all, they did agree that it would be difficult for them to get Netflix or full Blu-Ray ISO support and let us know that it is not on their radar.

Native Netflix support has almost become mandatory for most primary media streamers. It doesn't help Nixeus that it happens to be a startup (not the flashy Boxee kind of startup, making headlines everywhere), and Netflix doesn't get time to work with the small guys. This is more of a chicken and egg problem, but, hopefully, more and more SoC vendors take it upon themselves to obtain Netflix certification for their platforms in the future. This would really enable startups to come in and make a difference by concentrating on other aspects of the user experience. The web browser was intended to be a differentiating feature, but the SMP 8655 platform is too weak to provide a proper experience. There were some efforts to get YAMJ (a movie jukebox) working on the Fusion HD, but the end result was not satisfactory for many users.

All in all, the Nixeus Fusion HD has the capability to be a good fit for your needs, provided you know what you are buying into. If the issues outlined in the previous section are not a concern, we are sure you will enjoy the Fusion HD like many other AVSForum members.

Note: Thanks to Comp-U-Plus for providing us with the review sample of the Nixeus Fusion HD.