Asus O!Play Air HDP-R3

The Asus media centre has been around for a while in its R1 version. For the O!Play Air HDP-R3, Asus has used the same recipe and filled in a few of the gaps in the first version: it includes Wi-Fi N, an SDHC card reader and some other additional features.

Design and build: not a strong point

The box is compact, in good quality plastic and nice on the eye. You can't insert a hard drive but have instead a multimedia gangway at your disposal. Playback of the various media is therefore actioned via a USB peripheral or the network, but we'll come to that later.

It comes with a fairly large remote that is a bit too big for small hands. It's nice to use all the same. Note that one of the R1's faults has been corrected as you can now use it to adjust the volume.


The graphics interface however hasn't changed at all. While it might have been just about ok in summer 2009, this is no longer the case. What we have here is the standard Realtek chip product interface. Asus has make no attempt to improve it or adapt it to HD screens. The interface is in SD and only allows you to display 6 lines! Not that great on a 42-inch TV!


On top of the graphics limitations, there are no advanced interface features: you can't display photos as thumbnails or create a video jukebox (files for each film), nor can you display your music artwork... moving on. The only merit of the interface is that it's logical and easy to use.

Compatibility: an entry level HD chip

The decoding chip hasn't been changed, still the Realtek RTD1073. Still fairly wide video compatibility then: all recent codecs are supported, even those in HD. Watch out for big MKVs with a higher than 39 Mbps bitrate however. They will be jerky and Blu-ray backups (M2TS) are limited to 55 Mbps maximum. This should be ok in most cases but isn't as versatile as a higher end chip. Note that while there is a 24p mode, you must activate it manually according to the videos you're playing.

If you're looking to back up your film library (DVDs or Blu-rays) you'll appreciate the ISO (DVD only) and RIP (for both) support. Watch out though as Blu-ray menus aren't compatible and no substiture menu (BD Lite) has been catered for. You can still access multiple audio tracks and subtitles, the timing of which you can, moreover, adjust to the image .


On the audio side, PCM mode allows the O! to decode DTS and Dolby Surround signals and send them to your home cinema or TV speakers (stereo downmix). There's also bitstream but the HD versions of these audio formats are only partially sent to the amp or the TV.

Connectivity: Wi-Fi N, SDHC and eSATA

There aren't many audio/video outs but enough to handle most situations. There's an HDMI for HD televisions, the composite for SD televisions and an optical audio out to send the signal to an amp without an HDMI in.

We like the fact that Wi-Fi N has been introduced, but don't expect any miracles. With an average of 3.1 MB/s in optimum conditions, we weren't able to get any sort of video playback for bitrates above 12 Mbps. Forget full-HD videos and make do with photos, music and SD video playback. The 100 Mbps network socket is better though with 6.2 MB/s allowing playback of videos up to 42 Mbps. Here HD playback is no problem at all.

Among the little extras, we liked the SDHC card reader which is very practical for viewing any recently shot photos or video. There are of course USB ports to allow you to link up your USB keys and external hard drives. One of these is placed on the side of the device. There's also an eSATA but it isn't much use (see the inset).

Several internet services have also been included: webradio, Picasa support and web tv. The interface for these services is really ugly and they're really not up to much overall - more of a useless gadget than anything else as far as we're concerned.