The living room is the new battleground for old and new entertainment companies. Patriot’s PBO Core is one of the latest devices battling for position next to your Blu-ray player and game console. The PBO Core has a wide variety of supported formats from the current king, H.264, all the way back to Real Video. We’ll take an in-depth look to see if the PBO Core can be your core multimedia playing device.
Special thanks to Patriot for providing us with the PBO Core HD Media Player to review.
Specifications
| Video Output | 1x Composite 1x HDMI 1.3 Resolutions: NTSC, PAL, 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p |
| Audio Output | 1x RCA 1x SPDIF (Optical) |
| USB | 2x USB 2.0 Ports 1x USB 4-pin mini port |
| Ethernet | 1x 10/100Mbps |
| Internal Hard Drive | 2.5″ SATA I/II 1TB (Max) (High Profile 2.5″ will also work) |
| External Hard Drive | 2TB max (Can be increased in future firmware updates) |
| USB Flash Drive | 256GB Max |
| File Systems | EXT3, NTFS, FAT 16/32 |
| WiFi Capable | Yes, with supported WiFi USB adapter |
| DRM Support | No |
| Dimensions | 5.7″ (L) x 5.5″ (W) x 1.5″ (H) |
Playback Support
| Video Decoding | MPEG-1* | MPG/MPEG/DAT |
| MPEG-2* | MPG/MPEG/VOB/ISO?IFO/TS/TP/M2TS | |
| MPEG-4* | MP4/AVI/MOV | |
| DivX 3/4/5/6/7, XViD* | AVI/MKV | |
| H.264, AVC* | TS/AVI/MKV/MOV/M2TS | |
| WMV9* | WMV | |
| Real Video 8/9/10** | RM/RMVB | |
| ISO | Blu-ray and HD-DVD | |
| Audio Decoding (For Videos) | Dolby Digital AC3, DTS | |
| MPEG-I Layer 1/2/3, MPEG-II Layer 1/2, Real Audio, AAC, WMA, LPCM | ||
| Audio Decoding (Music) | WMA, MP3, Real Audio (RA), WAV, OGG, AAC, FLAC | |
| Pictures | JPEG, BMP, PNG |
*Up to 1080p support
**Up to 720p support
Packaging
The PBO Core is nicely packaged with styrofoam inside a black and white box. The side of the box has lists of the supported file formats, product specifications and package contents. This side is also home to the comforting “2 Year Warranty” text.
What’s In The Box?
- PBO Core HD Multimedia Player
- Remote Control with batteries
- AC Power Adapter
- HDMI Cable
- Composite A/V Cable
- USB Data Cable (4pn to 6pin)
- Quick Start Guide
- User CD with Transcoding Software
