Positive

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• Supports a wide variety of Audio, Video and Picture formats
• Plays High Definition MPEG2, MPEG4, XviD, DivX 6 and WMV 9 encoded at up to 1080p.
• Features a Professional-level Wolfson Audio 24bit/192KHz DAC with a Burr-Brown 2 Channel low-noise op Amp for very high quality sound reproduction.
• Features an R-core liner power supply for clean power to both the Audio & Video DAC’s to ensure a stable noise-free analogue HD video output.
• Easily handles very high bitrate encodings at 1080p, well beyond the maximum bitrates specified in the product manual:  Our 9,708Kbps managed bitrate XviD High Profile test, 18.4Mbps CBR MPEG2 HD test and 20Mbps managed bitrate WMV9 HD test files all showed no sign of frame loss when played from DVD, a USB drive or from a NeoLink wired network source.
• Plays back up to 24-bit 96KHz Wave, 16-bit 96KHz FLAC, 96KHz MPEG4 and 96KHz Ogg Vorbis (up to quality level 9) from our audio tests. 
• Built-in web browser for general web browsing and accessing certain online streaming content.
• Plays non-standard MP3 files, such as free-format encodings up to 640kbps using LAME.
• Features Wi-Fi and LAN network connectivity, easily handling up to 20Mbps with our HD tests over LAN.  Wi-Fi varies up to around 10Mbps depending on the access point and the distance from it. 
• Includes NeoLink server software for playing back content from a server/PC, including support for Windows Media Connect (inc. DRM), Rhapsody and iTunes library content.
• Backlit remote control with large buttons
• Caters for virtually all standard and high definition TV formats and standards, including progressive and interlaced scanning.
• Multiregional out of the box from our region code tests. 
• Plays CD-R/RW, DVD±R/RW/R DL and DVD-RAM discs, including legacy support for Video CDs, Super Video CDs and Audio CDs.
• NTSC support for USB drives, allowing for larger than 4GB files (especially HD content) and avoiding the need for 3^rd party software to format large hard drives in the FAT32 format in Windows.
• Supports mutli-flash memory card readers going by our tests.
• Silent operation due to a large external heat sink instead of fans.

Negative

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• Screensaver does not take effect when playing audio from USB, data discs and audio CDs, where the Helios logo remains static.
• When content playing from data CDs, the audio sometimes distorts when the disc spins up at the beginning of the track.  However, this issue does not occur with Audio CDs or any DVDs.
• Photo file names and titles cannot be displayed when viewing photos over NeoLink.
• Very limited front-display info, displaying up 8 characters and symbols for PAL, NTSC and HD.
• Lacks backwards support for Windows Media Video 7 & 8 going by our tests.
• Does not support SMB network shares, such as SMB shares from Network Attached Storage (NAS) hard drives, unless the NAS features uPnP media player support or the network shares are shared out through NeoLink or Windows Media Connect from a PC. 
• Plays from the current folder level only when playing a folder of files from a USB drive or data disc.  A sub-folder on these two sources can only be played by navigating into it and starting playback from there.
• It is not possible to navigate about a webpage until all content and images have finished loading.
• Lacks support for HE AAC, the default audio codec format used when encoding Nero Digital (LC AAC as a sound track works fine)
• Does not support MMS links (Windows Media stream links beginning with ‘mms://’) and has audio & video sync issues with some streaming TV channels
• Fails most of the HQV tests, particularly the jaggies, film detail and all eight cadence tests, including the widely used 3:2 cadence. 

While price and physical player size may seem large compared with other HD network media players on the market, this one packs in some of the highest quality professional components we’ve seen in a player targeted at the consumer market, unlike the average and often noisy DACs and power supplies often put on competing consumer HD products.

The main positive points:  When it comes to audio and video support, this player supports the vast majority of audio & video file content, including the popular XviD and DivX formats even encoded at 1080p.  We were also really impressed with its video bitrate handling, including an XviD test clip that was peaking at 27Mbps; almost three times the maximum bitrate allowed for the MPEG4 HDTV Profile standard.  It also supports all the popular audio compression formats, including the Ogg Vorbis and lossless FLAC formats.  When used with a decent Wi-Fi access point and one room apart in our test, we have been able to watch programmes up to several Mbps without experiencing any connection drop-outs or dropped frames.

The main negative points:  The lack of Windows Media Video 7 & 8 support and the ‘mms://’ protocol will limit the amount of Windows Media content one can play or stream online.  From our experience, the vast majority of WMV based streaming TV channels use the MMS protocol.  For those who listen to content from data CDs regularly, the audio distorts for a second each time the drive spins up during playback at the beginning of a track, at least from our testing using CD-Rs and CD-RWs.  When it came to HQV testing, the player failed the jaggies and cadence tests, including the 3:2 cadence which a majority of NTSC movies use.  However, onsumers with a display containing a HQV chip can get around this issue by switching to a standard definition output when watching standard definition content to make use of their display’s HQV processing.

To sum it up, despite this player’s size and price, its high end components and extensive feature list makes this player stand out from the crowd.  Its 1080p and high bitrate capability along with multi-channel surround sound support makes it ideal for consumers looking specifically for a player to play HD encoded content and are happy to wait another while before investing in a Blu-ray or HD DVD disc player.  Its wide range of outputs and content sources will cater for the vast majority of televisions and HDTV sets on the market as well as content stored on virtually every popular DVD format, FAT32 & NTFS formatted USB drives, network sources and from online sources.  However, as a HD upscaling player, its low HQV score will be a setback for consumers looking particularly for a high end HD upscaling player to play DVDs and are picky about how well players do in HQV testing benchmark. 

Based its outstanding performance when it comes to playing back high HD content well exceeding its specified bitrate capabilities, its wide range of audio & video codec support, NTFS support, the use professional level components and totally silent operation, we would like to award the Helios X5000 our CDFreaks ‘Editors Choice’ award. 

You may discuss/comment this review below or in this forum thread. This forum thread may also be used to ask questions around this drive or request additional tests.

Thanks to

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SVP Communication – The United Kingdom for providing the DVD-RW and DVD+RW media used in this review.

Nero for providing the Nero Burning ROM 7 software suite, which was used to produce the test discs for the player throughout this review.