A New 8K Player Brand and a New Product at Cedia
We recently spotted a surprisingly mature-looking 8K media player product from a company, R_Volution of France, that we hadn’t reported on before so we contacted the firm and arranged a call with Raphael Tabutin, CEO of the firm’s US distributor, Let’s Get Physical to find out more.
We started by getting a bit more understanding of the two companies. It seems that R_Volution was formed after the failure of Zappiti, a developer of media players that had hit a business bump in the road in 2023. R_Volution took on the staff of that company and Tabutin told us that he continues to support Zappiti customers to the extent that he can. The firm’s hardware is now supported via an app.
Tabutin has his own distribution company in the US and took up the chance to act for R_Volution in that market. As well as R_Volution, he works with Bridgee Technologies, a specialist HDMI and audio cable firm that has previously supplied via other brands, but is now looking to develop its own brand. He also works with Mag Theatron of the Ukraine which develops high end home cinema speaker systems. These brands position Let’s Get Physical as a specialist in the high end and installation home entertainment markets and he will be at Cedia in September to reflect that.
The Product that Caught our Eye
The product that initially caught our attention was the PlayerOne 8K media player, a development of the PlayerMini and PlayerOne (4K) models. The 8K version adds more power via an Amlogic chip, rather than the Realtek chip on the 4K player and adds support for 48Gbps HDMI 2.1a to enable support for 8K60P. It also uses Amlogic’s upscaling, which is now AI-assisted. The player can also support 4K120P. Despite the higher specification, the cost only goes up by $150 to $899, making the unit a very good value in terms of future-proofing.
We asked Tabutin if it was always better to use the integrated upscaling and he explained that there is an option to disable all the internal scaling processes if the user prefers the upscaling such as the high quality technology in the latest Samsung 8K sets. The company would like to offer support for the UHD Alliance Filmmaker mode, but as a start-up, the cost of having that label is a barrier. Still, Tabutin confirmed, there is a lot of control in the player to ensure that performance can be tuned to suit the viewer.
Codecs up to H.265/HEVC are supported and the system can actually record content at up to 250Mbps for extremely high quality. The better Amlogic chip also allows a speedier interface and R_Volution is very proud of the ease of use of its media management system, which has no need for a computer. To stay up to date, software updates are issued monthly.
The New Player – Even More Storage
What we hadn’t anticipated when we set up the meeting was that we would hear of a new product, to be launched at CEDIA, The PlayerPro 8K boosts the capacity of the player by adding an extra internal HDD slot to allow up to 64TB of storage as well as support for the AV1 codec at up to 8K. The PlayerOne 8K is limited to 32TB internally, although external USB storage is supported. The new PlayerPro 8K will cost $1,399 in the US. As well as the player, a new NAS will be launched at Cedia. The firm claims that it can store up to 38,400 DVDs, 6,400 Blu-Ray Discs, or 3,200 4K UHD Discs – and if that’s not enough, multiple NAS units can be combined.
If you’re heading for Denver, it will be worth stopping by the Let’s Get Physical booth (at Booth #1144).Â
