tl;dr - Truly the standard in professional video installations. Several shortcomings prevent it from getting 5 stars, but these players are still my go-to.
First, the PROS:
I am a preparator in a museum specializing in video installations. I am also a video artist myself. I have a lot of experience both installing video and troubleshooting various media players. I can say with confidence that these are the best on the market right now.
The HUGE reason is seamless looping. Other media players will play a "loading" animation between loops that you can't turn off, or will display the file name on each loop. These don't.
They're tiny in every dimension and super easy to hide on top of a projector or behind a monitor. The menu is straightforward and without any unnecessary animations. They're built well and will last if you don't drop them.
If your video is formatted as H264 on a FAT32-formatted USB, you will not have a problem.
Which leads me to the CONS:
According to the products specs, you should be able to use USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 formatted in FAT32, ExFAT, and NTFS.
This is unfortunately untrue, at least in my experience. Really, the only usable format is FAT32.
I'm not sure why. Others here have said they've had luck with ExFAT, but I did not. I tried at first with a USB 3.0, and figured the newer USBs might be causing the problem, so I switched to ExFAT on a USB 2.0. No luck. Same story with NTFS.
Which leads to the hugest drawback: If you're formatting a drive on a Mac, your options are really limited. This player does not support Mac OS Extended format. If you are using a Mac and want to use this player, you need to format in FAT32, which might not be a problem... unless your file is larger than 4GB. In that case you'd need to format in ExFAT.
Other reviewers, please correct me if I'm wrong. Again, I've read reviews here that claimed to have had success playing video off an ExFAT or NTFS formatted drive, but again, I did not. In the case of the NTFS formatted drive, the USB was detected but the file on it wasn't. In the case of the ExFAT formatted drive, no drive was detected.
It seems using a USB 3.0 drive also causes problems. Perhaps future firmware updates will address this.
I've also had a mysterious issue with lagging video encoded in H264. This will be a video that plays back perfectly on a computer, but once it's on the player it lags. I'm not sure why this happens. It could be errors in the encoding process, but again, the file will playback perfectly on a computer. I've solved this problem by re-exporting the video with identical specs. Of course this is dependent on having a computer nearby that has Premiere or a similar app. If you don't... then oh well. Your video is going to lag.
I will say that Micca customer support is good. I contacted customer support about the above issue, and while their fix did not work, they did get back to me pretty quickly.
All in all, I would still recommend this player. Its ease of use, size, and seamless looping make it essential to museum installations. It's a staple for new media artists as well.
This is a good media player. But beware!
If you use this player with an enclosed 2.5" external hard drive hooked through USB, you may have a problem ,especially if you use the WD drives which have the built in firmware feature called INTELLIPARK. The Micca plays the movie fine until you pause it. After about 8 seconds pause, the player reverts back to the "Home" startup page which you see when you first turn on the player. You then have to wade through the movies and fast forward to your paused scene again in order to continue the movie.
This is not a problem with the player, but is caused by the hard drive parking the heads after 8 seconds of idle. This command is built into the hard drive firmware and can't be changed.
I confirmed this by using an old 2.5" drive without INTELLIPARK and hooked it up to the player the same way. I could pause the movie for as long as I wanted (according to the pause time selection in the "Setup window" on the player).
As an avid consumer of technology and gadgets, I like trying newly released products. Some products such as modern smartphones are ostensible technical marvels. Others, like the Micca Speck in this review, are unassuming but warrant a closer look to see how well they perform. I've owned several different digital media players, built HTPCs with XBMC, and setup UPnP servers, so this product is familiar territory to me.
This is a very small media player, narrower and only slightly thicker than a pad of post-it sticky notes, and about as heavy. The case is made of matte black aluminum with plastic end caps. The front of the player contains a USB jack and a SD card reader slot, and the back holds the power jack, HDMI, and a 3.5mm AV jack. In all, the Speck is a simple looking player with just the essentials.
I used the Speck with my secondary TV, a 42-inch Panasonic 1080p plasma HDTV. An HDMI cable is not included with the player so I had to use my own. After plugging in the power, the main menu came up quickly after a delay of about 2 seconds, which is practically instant since modern TVs take longer than that to turn on. The default video output is 720p but the player can be set to remember to use 1080p instead. Speaking of settings, there are just a few of them in the player's setup menu for configuring the player's video, audio, and general behavior. While some may wish for more settings, I felt that the Speck's simplified configuration is ideal for its targeted casual users.
The player's menu system is reasonably intuitive and straightforward to use. Anyone who can browse for files and folders should feel immediately comfortable with it as I was. After selecting a media type from the main menu, the user can then go find what they want to play from an attached USB drive. Only media files of the selected type will be shown, so for example if you have a movie, its cover art JPG, the sound track MP3s, and a couple of subtitle files in the same folder, only the movie file will be listed, making it easier to find and play. In summary, the Speck's interface is a bit sparse, but is simple to use and is responsive without any perceived lag.
The Speck supports both USB and SD cards. I tried a variety of older USB thumb drives, SD cards of various sizes, as well as a recently purchased 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive. I did not encounter any issues with the drives. According to the manual, drives up to 2TB can be used. This means I can literally have my entire media library on a portable hard drive and play it using the Speck.
The biggest question for any digital media player is how well it plays videos. I don't have every single video format claimed to be supported by the Speck in my media collection, but I ran through all of the most popular formats such as MKV, MP4, AVI, MOV, ranging from standard definition TV shows to 1080p full movies. The player exhibited no issues with MKV, including newer files with compressed headers. Both internal and external subtitles were supported. The largest MKV file I tried was about 20GB, which played with no visible skips, freezes, lags, or dropped frames. All surround sound formats were supported but output was stereo only. Support for MP4 and AVI files was also good, though these were mostly older files with legacy codecs. I tried a few full BD ISO files and to my surprise they played, but with severe frame dropping at 1080p. Lowering the player's output to 720p made the BD ISOs play smoothly. This is the equivalent of using a knife to chop firewood, so I don't fault the Speck for not playing BD ISOs smoothly at 1080p.
Visually, the video playback has all of the sharpness of 1080p, with excellent colors that are accurate and well saturated. The screen shots provided in the manufacturer's product photos accurately portray this so take a look at those if you wonder what the image quality will be like. Some of the dark scenes show gradient bands, but I've seen this in more expensive players as well. I don't know if the video compression itself is more to blame, than the player's decoder. In consideration of its low price, however, the Speck's video output can only be described as spectacular (no pun intended).
Apart from playing videos, the Speck also plays music and photo slideshows. I gave a cursory try-out of these features and found them to be acceptable given that the player's primary purpose is to play videos. Lack of features such as play lists or random shuffling the entire music library limits the usefulness of these secondary capabilities.
Taking in the Micca Speck as a whole, what it does very well is delivering the type of "it just works" usage experience to casual users. It provides the convenience of being simple to use, while packing surprisingly powerful video playback hardware. The simplified interface with limited settings encourages even advanced users to just sit back and enjoy the show. If such a media player fits with what you are looking for, I recommend that you too take a close look at the Micca Speck.
I'm very pleased with this product. I needed a solution for Mom to continue watching her favorite movies without having to operate a remote which has become too confusing for her. Many times we found her staring at a blank TV screen because she pressed the wrong key on the remote.
This product is small and extremely easy to set up/operate. The looping feature was critical for what I needed.
* I put 20 of Mom's favorite movies on a memory card.
* Set Micca Speck to repeat all
* Attached Micca remote to the back of TV with velcro to eliminate the chance mom will power off the unit by mistake.
* Set TV source to default to HDMI at start up, where Micca Speck is connected to.
The result is the tv turns on to a movie playing. This is exactly the expected outcome I hoped for.
I contacted Micca's support dept via email prior to my purchase. Wanted to ensure device would work for what I needed. They were quick to respond and very helpful.
I bought this media player as a friend needed a way to play a slideshow during a wedding reception and the venue had a large TV but couldn't give us any specification as to what types of files, etc. they could use - and this was several states away so we had to come up with something that would pretty much work with any TV. I wasn't going to be there and my friend can do a lot of things but setting up electronics is not one of them. I needed something pretty much idiot-proof. A computer or tablet would have worked fine but again, we didn't know anything about the setup so I figured something small and self contained would work best. This little device has been able to play anything and everything I've thrown at it. I even had some movie files that my Roku and other media servers have struggled with play perfectly fine in the Micca Speck G2. I really do not use it very often but it's nice to know I have it if I need it.
Feature Product
- Powerful 1080p Video Player: MKV, AVI, TS/TP, MP4/M4V (up to 4GB in size), MOV, VOB, M2TS
- Wide Range Video Codec Support: H.264/AVC, VC-1, MPEG1/2/4
- Audio Format Support: MP3, OGG, FLAC, APE
- Ultra portable compact design: only 3" x 2.3" x 0.6"
- Supports SD cards up to 32GB, and USB flash drives and hard drives up to 2TB
Description
The Micca Speck G2 provides convenient playback of all popular photo, music, and video formats up to 1080p Full-HD resolution on any TV or HDTV! It has a 1080p HD output for sending sharp and clear video and audio in pure digital format to HDTVs, as well as composite AV output for use with analog TVs. Its compact and ultra portable design fits anywhere you want it to!
Convenience
Small and sleek, the Micca Speck G2 is a perfect entertainment source for vacations and business trips. Its aluminum exterior is tough enough to withstand the rigors of portable use. With the optional car power adapter, the Micca Speck G2 can be used to play movies on in-car video system and keep everyone entertained on trips short and long.
Performance
The Speck G2 is a true next generation digital video device with broad video/audio codec and file format support at up to 1080p and 10mbps:
- Video Files: MKV, AVI, TS/TP, MP4/M4V (up to 4GB in size), MOV, VOB, RM, M2TS
- Video Codecs: H.264/AVC, VC1,MPEG1/2/4
- Audio Formats: MP3, OGG, FLAC, APE
- Photo Files: JPG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG
- Subtitle: SRT, SUB+IDX (Internal Only)
- Languages: English, Chinese(S/T), Korean, Spanish, French, German, Russian
Compatibility
The Speck G2 can be used with all TVs, HDTVs as well as home theater systems with its extensive connectivity:
- Video: 1080P HD, CVBS/Composite
- Resolution: NTSC, PAL, 480i/p, 720p, 1080i/p
- Audio: PCM 2.0, analog stereo
- Storage: USB up to 2TB, SD memory cards up to 32GB
- File System: FAT/FAT32, NTFS
What is Included
- Micca Speck G2
- IR Remote
- AV cable
- 100-240V AC adapter
I normally install digital signage with media PCs, this particular client didn't have the money for actual media PCs so I looked up non PC solutions and found this device, I was impressed with what it can do for the price. It is a lot better than just plugging in a flash drive to the TV because this media player lets you take control over what you want it to do. The only complaint I have is if you have multiple images on a slideshow, there is no way to set how many seconds the media player should cycle after each image. I think the default setting is 5 seconds, which is far too fast if are using this to display menu options. I think I have seen restaurants use this device as their digital menuboard but as a video instead of images, the possibilties are endless with this device. Beware, the remote control does not include batteries!
25 August 2018 - I had some trouble with this media player and another similar one with the same chipset, but I found the solution from the manufacturer. You need to use these with drives that are set up for master boot record (MBR) versus the newer GPT (GUI partition Table). This is why it will only read drives up to 2 TB. MBR does not support over 2 TB. I thought it was the drive brand. Toshibas worked, but not Western Digital. Then I went into disk manager and discovered that how they are configured depends on the manufacturer, but they all work when converted. I have used FAT32, NTFS and exFat formats. Not a problem. GPT is a problem. I hope this helps folks that have been tearing their hair out trying to figure out why their hard drives don’t work. Now, on with my original review....
I’ll hit the high points to keep it short. The Micca Spec G2 plays a bunch of different formats. The ones I tested: .mkv; a standard definition (480P) DVD.iso file, .mp4 video, .mp3, all from a flash drive. They worked flawlessly. Then I took the files that would be on a DVD - not an .iso file, but the actual folder that one would find on the media itself. I told the unit (so to speak...) to play the folder, and it did...just like it were a DVD or .iso file, menus and all. Then, I saw in the menu, “Optical Drive” listed, so I took my Samsung USB Blu-ray reader/writer and plugged it in. The Micca Speck played standard definition DVDs with no problem. However, when I attempted to play a Blu-ray Disc, I received a “file read error”. I tried a couple of Blu-ray Discs just to make sure it wasn’t the disc. Apparently this box doesn’t have the horsepower to decode Blu-ray Discs, but I can play HD videos ripped from Blu-rays with no problem. It could be compatibility with the Samsung reader/burner, too. I didn’t try my other brand of external Blu-ray player/burner with it.
Subtitles and Audio tracks: I read another review that the individual could only read one audio track. That was not the case for me. I could read two language audio tracks. I only had two tracks on the .mkv I used so I can’t say if it would play more than that. The second track was dubbed in German and the volume was lower than the primary English track, but that could just be the way the original disc was recorded. Accessing subtitles was problematic for me. I couldn’t make it work, but it just may that I haven’t found the right sequence of buttons. This unit is fairly intuitive though.
Bottom line: it’s small, economical and just works. I liked it so much I just purchased two more. These will make great stocking stuffers.
I bought this back in 2014 and have carried it all over the world with me. It's perfect for when I want to watch movies and TV shows that I've already recorded to my portable hard drive. I just plug into the new TV with an HDMI cord and switch to HDMI on the TV and it's ready to go. Had a little issue in the beginning when I fooled around and got stuck on a Chinese menu some kind of way but that was fixed with a simple Google translate search (Type the word "English" - translate to Chinese - then match the characters on the screen to the characters on the menu). After that, everything was smooth sailing. The only drawback to this device is that it only displays the file name on your hard drive in alphabetical order and there is no search so it can be pretty cumbersome if you have a lot of files to scroll through. It also doesn't display your movie "covers" if you've added them in your metadata. But an advantage to this device is that you don't have to have internet for it to work. So if you're in a hotel room that has spotty or only paid internet, you don't have to worry about being able to stream your movies (like with Netflix, Hulu, etc). Just plug your drive in and go!
I'm not sure what those reviews are about that say their device only lasted for 6 months and then stopped working. That has not been my experience. Perhaps they should contact the company and just get a replacement. As I said earlier, I bought mine right here on Amazon back in 2014 and I haven't had a bit of trouble out of it. It's definitely an economical solution for watching your pre-digitized movies on the go.
Bought this unit and a 256gb micro sd card for playing movies and music on it. I knew there might be an issue with such a large card, but figured I'd just reformat the card to fat32 (using a 3rd party program or just doing it from a dos command line). Using the oem's exfat format, I copied a bunch of stuff onto the card and tried it out on the Micca Speck G2, fail!
Only a couple of things showed up, other subdirectories were empty, although it was fine on the pc. Okay, format fat32, copy over again, fail!
Tried ntfs format also, also another fail. Its obvious that the unit is not able to read anything more than its stated 32gb, which doesn't really make sense to me, but whatever, let's try something else...
Had a micro SDCard usb adapter laying around, stuck the fat32-formatted card with about 200gb of videos on it inside the unit, inserted it into the Micca Speck G2, it works!!!
So, copying everything over to the micro SDCard, maxing it out with only 1.2gb free space left on it, I stick it in a similar version to this usb adapter:
https://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-Mobile-MicroMate-microSDHC-SDDR-121/dp/B001QLFNCC/ref=sr_1_19?keywords=sandisk+micro+sd+card+reader&qid=1550072280&s=electronics&sr=1-19
Every file plays just fine and without skipping or errors at all! This thing works quite nicely on a 24" Jensen RV 1080P tv in our rv!
As for the Micca Speck G2 itself, its a pretty basic "player", with only a handful of controls, but don't let that stop you from buying one, it handles most file types I've thrown at it just fine! MKV, AVI, .TS, MPG and MP4 files play just fine with this unit, although it did fail playing an .FLV file, but that's understandable, flash video files aren't really a standard file type any more.
I'll be using the Micca Speck G2 through summer in our rv and will report back if I have any issues with it.
Please read this whole review the product is amazingly good. When we moved into our home, my wife thought that since I was a photographer by avocation that it might be nice for our principal living room wall to have a display of my images. We bought a television, mounted it flush to the wall, and I had to find a device which would display my myriad images in a "loop". I put my needs in an Amazon search box and what came up was the Micca Speck G2 1080 p Media Player. Now, I had no idea whether this would work for me, but at $40, it was relatively inexpensive. 2 days later I received the item, hooked it up to the TV and presto, there were my images.....BUT the loop kept stopping without explanation. I wrote to Micca on a Sunday with my problem. They got back to me the same day. Over the next week they analyzed the situation with respect to my personal image problem, sent me personalized URL tools to use and step by step solved the whole problem. I HAVE NEVER HAD SUCH TERIFFIC SERVICE. I look forward to purchasing other items from this absolutely sterling company. Moreover, the Micca unit itself does beautifully. The quality of the images is without peer. You cannot go wrong purchasing this item. VRR
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