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The AC Ryan PlayOn! HD Mini 2 is extremely simple to set up. Simply plug in the AC adapter and hook up the HDMI and Ethernet cables and it's ready to go. When the power is plugged in the AC Ryan logo on the front is illuminated red to signify that the unit is in standby. Once the unit is powered on this turns white.
It's clear that AC Ryan have spent a lot of time working on their user interface since the first PlayOn! HD products we saw a while back. It certainly looks a lot prettier and is much more intuitive. From the home screen we have seven options; Movies, Music, Photo, Files Manager, Internet Media, Jukebox and setup. Those who want to connect the unit to a wireless network will need to go into ‘Setup' first and configure this. Below this menu there are two areas which display recently added music and movies.
Accessing the File Manager gives us access to all the connected storage devices and network drives. When you connect devices to either of the USB ports on the rear, the PlayOn! HD Mini 2 automatically scans for media files and allocates them to the appropriate library depending on their file type.
So when you select the ‘Movies' option you are greeted by a folder filled with all your video files. The files are displayed as thumbnails although we found that the thumbnails didn't come up with some video formats. By pressing the ‘Menu' button, you can change the layout either to a standard list or to a preview list which will play the videos in a small window when they are highlighted. The Photo and Music libraries operate very similarly to the Movie library.
