Articles

INTRODUCTION

   When i first started testing/reviewing hardware media players well over a decade ago these were considered to be among the "hottest" electronics devices available. Back then that made sense since the only other way consumers had to playback media on their TV screens where HTPC's which were not only larger but they also cost considerably more (not to mention that they were also more power hungry). Unfortunately, even though it did take TV manufacturers many years to add playback functionality the arrival of such models did affect media player sales resulting in several companies practically going bankrupt. Thanks to the rather impressive popularity of their award winning hardware media players Dune HD managed to keep going and today with me i have one of their latest models, the Pro 4K II.

   Dune HD is recognized as a global leader in high-performance digital media players. We received more awards than any other company in the category for delivering the very best in networked digital media devices. Dune HD products support the widest number of digital formats in use today, from Internet-based digital streaming and downloadable content, to disc based formats such as Blu-ray, DVD and CD. Dune HD offers an array of high-quality digital media players for both consumer and commercial markets. The product line ranges from low-cost, compact set-top box (STB) designs to professional-grade universal media players with internal hard drive bays and full internet and content connectivity. Products in the Dune HD line feature the best-in-class chipsets for extreme speed and performance.

   As clearly stated by its name the Pro 4K II is the successor to the highly popular Pro 4K model released just over 2 years ago and as expected it's upgraded across the board. So, under the hood we find the latest Realtek RTD1619DD SoC (six core Cortex ARM A55 CPU with Mali G51 GPU) which this time over is paired with 4GB of DDR4 RAM and 32GB of flash memory by Samsung (eMMC 5.1). According to Dune HD the CPU and GPU used in the Pro 4K II feature an increase in performance of 77% and 50% respectively compared to the CPU and GPU used in the Pro 4K model. Add the 2GB of extra RAM and 16GB of extra NAND flash and the Pro 4K II is clearly a huge upgrade compared to the original Pro 4K, hardware-wise at least. Connectivity includes Bluetooth v4.1, RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port, 802.11ac 2T2R dual-band WiFi, external SATA port, HDMI v2.0b output, HDMI v2.0 input, 2 USB 3.0 ports, USB 2.0 port, Optical out (S/PDIF), A/V output and a micro SD card slot. In terms of software the new Pro 4K II features a hybrid Linux/Android TV v9 OS (instead of v7.1 in the original Pro 4K), fully supports 4kp60 decoding/output, HDR/HDR10+, 3D, VP9/VP9 Profile 2, H264/H265, 10-bit HEVC and can playback pretty much every known video (MKV, MPEG-TS, MPEG-PS, M2TS, VOB, AVI, MOV, MP4, QT, ASF, WMV, BD ISO, BDMV, BD3D ISO, DVD-ISO, VIDEO_TS) and audio (MP3, MPA, M4A, AAC, WAV, WMA, FLAC, OGG/VORBIS, WAVPACK, APE, ALAC, SACD ISO, SACD DSF, SACD DFF, AC3, DTS, DTS-WAV) file formats. So even prior to testing it's clear that the Pro 4K II is significantly better compared to its predecessor, the how much is what I’m going to find out in this review.