I was able to unbox, review and update Xtreamer Elvira media player over the weekend. You will see my unboxing video and firmware update later, for now let me give you a brief review about it.
Elvira is the cheapest media player in Xtreamer line of media players. It has 2 video out, first is the standard tricolor composite jack and HDMI that is best for 720 – 1080p resolutions. The first thing I noticed upon unboxing is its lightweight, which is lighter compared to WDTV. It has a cheap plastic feel, but doesn’t really matter on these small sized media players. There are two USB slots and I tested both by using 1TB hardisk and 32gig USB drive. It read the hardisk and flash drive impressively fast. For about less than 15 seconds all the files were loaded. This is very important if you have gazillions of movies on your hard drive, or maybe hundreds depending on your file sizes.
The user interface is not that impressive though. Maybe because I’ve seen better, and I’ve seen worse as well. Elvira’s UI is just in the middle; it falls into the category of “nah, it’s fine”. I’ve also encountered 1 sec. delay response time when navigating the home screens. When I updated the firmware, the navigation slightly improved.

It can read music, photos and movies. I have tested it with mp3, jpeg, mkv, avi, mp4 and mov. It supports sub-titles as well, I tested with SRTs and it works fine. If it happens that the video and subs are not in sync you can manually sync it using the remote.
On the box, it shows that it can read the following formats:

Video containers:
ASF / AVI / DIVX / FLV / IFO / ISO / M2P / M2TS / M2V / M4V / MKV / MOV / MP4 / MPEG / MPG / MTS / RMVB / TP / TRP / TS / VOB / WMV / BDMV

Video codecs:
XVID SD/HD / MPEG1 / MPEG-2 (up to MP@HL1080i)
MPEG-4 (ASP@L5, 720p 1-point GMC), H.264 (High@L5.1 16 RefFrame), FLV (H.263) / FLV with VP6 (H.264),
WMV9 (MP@HL) / VC-1 (MP@HL, AP@L3) / RTSP, RealVideo 8/9/10, up to 720@30P / DVIX 3/ 4/ 5/ 6/ 7

Audio containers:
AAC / AC3 / DTS / FLAC / FLC / M3U / M3U8 / M4A / MP1 / MP2 / MP3 / MPA / OGG / PCM / RA / RM / WAV / WMA / PLSX

Audio codecs:
Dolby® Digital TrueHD / Dolby® Digital Plus / DTS HD MA
/ 7.1 down-mix / WMA Pro / MPEG | Layer 1, 2, 3 (Multi-Channel), LPCM, ADPCM, FLAC, AAC, WAV and OGG Vobris

DownMix:
DTS / DTS/HD MA / DTS-HD HR / Dolby D / Dolby TrueHD

Pass trough:
DTS / DTS96/24 / DTS-HD HR / Dolby D / Dolby TrueHD

Image:
HD JPEG / BMP / GIF / PNG / TIFF / TIF / Progressive JPEG

What is included in the box?

  • Elvira media player
  • Remote Controller
  • 2 AAA batteries
  • Composite jack
  • Manual

HDMI cable is not included, so if you want to maximize your viewing experience you need to get one yourself.

Verdict

For a price of $50 for a full HD media player, I think this is a good buy. It can play most of the popular formats and latest media files. If you are on a tight budget, looking for a good HD media player, you might want to consider this. The one thing I would want to include here though is LAN/wireless support, but that would mean increase in price as well. If you need network-enabled player then this is not for you.

Likes: Lightweight, Price, composite, fast HDD reads, subtitle sync

Dislikes: 1sec response delay, cheap plastic feel

Score: 4/5

How I came up with the score? When doing reviews I normally give scores based on the question “Did I get the value of what I paid for?” For me this media player is a bargain and the score could have been 5/5, if not because of the 1sec response delay, I hate delays.

Unboxing Video

Updating Xtreamer Elvira Firmware

Download firmware http://download.xtreamer.net/Firmware/Elvira/Elvira%20V20120726European.rar

After you have downloaded it extract the rar file. You will see install.img, copy that to your USB drive.
Turnoff your Elvira player and unplug power. Insert USB drive and plug Elvira to power while pressing the power switch for 5-10 secs. You should see install procedure after that.

Firmware update video and UI preview below