Laura

23 de mayo de 2026

Still Working Great After 4+ Years

I bought this media player in December 2021, and I’m still actively using it in May 2026 with no major issues. That alone says a lot about the quality and reliability of this little device.I mainly use it with USB drives to play videos, and it works exactly the way it’s supposed to. Playback is smooth, the picture quality looks great, and one feature I really appreciate is that it remembers where you left off when you stop a video. That has been extremely convenient over the years.Setup was simple, the menus are easy to understand, and it doesn’t feel overly complicated like a lot of modern streaming devices. It just works. I also like how compact it is while still supporting a wide variety of video formats and large storage drives.For the price, this has honestly been one of the most dependable electronics purchases I’ve made. After years of regular use, I would absolutely recommend it to anyone wanting a simple and reliable media player for USB drives and local video playback.Ver más

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Richard Vidal

15 de noviembre de 2012

A Great Introductory Player for the Media Enthusiast

The Micca Speck is the newest in Micca's line of low end, inexpensive media players designed for local use without a network. It is a very good player, but like most of micca's products, a few features needed to really satisfy me are missing. They are rarely mentioned in reviews, and are probably not important to the general public, but they are important to me when deciding to buy a player, so I will mention them below.To start off, the Micca Speck is an excellent introductory media player with a small footprint and excellent features, and will probably play anything you throw at it that has been encoded using any of the recent standards. Encode in xvid, divx, or h264 with aac or ac3 audio and you should never have any problems, so long as the encoding standards are reasonable. Subtitle support is decent and will work in all cases where the file and the subtitle are separate. Its usb port is sufficient even for USB 3.0 Drives and it has excellent error recovery. After a freeze, it will generally reboot to the main menu after 10-20 seconds. It features a random playback feature that was missing from other players I have tested, and the main reason I bought this player.In short, if the bulk of your content hails from the last few years, and you want a media player with good features, a reasonably convenient remote, then get this player. It is inexpensive and worth the price. I paid about $5 less than the current listing as of this date, but what you get is much better than anything that was available last year, for a little more cost.This is all you need to know from this review.For those who are a bit more particular about their needs, I will elaborate on the strengths and weaknesses of this player below. As well as the result of some of my tests on actual media, which you may find useful.As stated, my main reason for buying this player was the addition of the random playback function. This feature may or may not be available on the other micca players, depending on whether the feature has been added to the latest firmware release.Since most of my content is old, the random playback is great for revisiting old content when you are not on a viewing schedule, or you want to entertain young kids and they're not sure what they want to see. The downside, (I am disappointed) is that the feature can only be applied to files in the same subdirectory. You can't start playing at the root and have it bounce all over the place. This might be great for those who keep secret videos, but I have everything organized by genre. The file system is great, in that it shows the entire file name, and scrolls if the filename is too long.I had a few files that did not work. One set of files (avi) gave "cannot play file" errors, I am not sure of their codec. Media encoded with ogg generally had problems switching audio streams, with loud clicks and snaps at worst, or a freeze at best. Sometimes it worked great, sometimes it didn't. I had one file the player recognized as being encoded at 0 khz but it worked fine. My guess is variable bitrate ogg audio will not work well in a movie.Ogg is an old format that was around before matroska/mkv became the popular container. It was generally used in ogm files, which was great because it allowed multiple streams (pre mkv). I have not bothered to reencode these files and probably will not do so, but if you have old files with ogg or divx 3.1 or anything like that, by now some of these files may have trouble even playing on your pc properly. If your collection is old, and you are not a netflix junkie, then you may want to go with another player, which will likely still give some problems on some of those files. Even vlc does not support some of these older codecs anymore. But I digress.Only one of the files I tested was overwhelming to the player, but considering only my higher end desktop can play it without slowdown, this is not a strike against the player. I tested a few files, even with quad audio (rare), and as long as the audio was ac3 or aac, there were zero problems with syncing, switching, or anything. It does jump back to the previous keyframe when you switch, so you might end up rewatching the last few seconds of a scene. Neither a plus or minus, it might be interesting to compare what's said in each stream. I always encode all available streams even if I don't know the language.The player automatically adjusts to hdmi by default if you have it connected, and you can switch between av and hdmi via the remote easily. Older models required you to make the switch half blind. It wasn't difficult, but for the non techie, it could have posed a challenge.You can enable autoplay for movies, photos, or music. I don't personally use this feature as you may have problems if there is a lot of content to scan or if some of your files are corrupted, as even the higher end player sometimes freezes because of it. Still, if your media is in good condition, you can enable this feature. The manual states that it plays objects in the root directory. I have not tested this, but you should be able to setup a picture slideshow, music, or movie playback to start automatically upon powering on. Combining it with the random feature adds some flexibility.This player features support for mkv, rmvb, rm, and although it does not mention it, flv as well, which means you can watch those youtube videos you've downloaded via your browser. It improves on the micca mplay, which does not support all these formats, and has problems playing them back on some occasions even when it does (such as rmvb). This player is nearly on par with the mid end MPLAY-HD, which I would recommend over this player, but it may be missing the random function, and has its quirks as well, as do most media players. The speck will not list OGM files at all. Unless you have been encoding for a while, and have not converted or reencoded your media, this is very unlikely to affect the vast majority of users. If you use handbrake or a similar tool, it will likely convert to m4v or mkv and use either dts, ac3, or aac audio, none of which ever gave any problems with the files tested.Subtitles:In some cases, subtitles did not show, probably related to the encoding process. Both sets of files with this error had ogg audio. Quite possibly, the subtitle embedding method may be related to the issue. Curiously, I had some old avis with an experimental method of embedding subtitles and they worked, no problem.Speed/Seeking:One thing that may worry the new customer. It can take up to 15 seconds to start up. It does not feature a quick splash screen while you wait. The first thing you will see is the main menu after a wait. Not a big deal, but it did cause me to doubt whether it was working or whether something was not properly connected.It plays at 1x speed with audio only which is not surprising. It is probably better to forward at 2x than 1.5x since the keyframes do not seem to update when you seek at the latter. To resume playback, there is a little button for pausing/playing. Though hard to find, it is an improvement over the older system which required you to quickly scroll your way back to 1x speed. The goto function works well enough. Only had one file where it didn't work, again due to encoding standards. One feature which is lacking, is that there is no faster way to scroll through content other than the down or up button. Other players let you page through the content with the next and previous buttons, but this feature is not included in the speck. Still, not too bad.The remote control is pretty good. Not as good as the higher end models, but definitely an improvement. You can switch display types, switch streams, change repeat method, and perform other actions without ever needing to go to the setup screen or access the OSD. Pressing ok while playing gives codec and encoding info (sometimes wrong), and the exit button allows you to cancel or go to the previous screen.I have bought several micca players over the last year, and have been satisfied with all of them. The higher end models aren't powerful enough to justify the added expense and the lower end ones are too simple. I would recommend this as an introductory player for someone who doesn't need any bells or whistles, and who has access to a significant amount of local content. This will play what your netbook may not. It will not however, rival an htpc or even the playback functions available through free players on your pc such as VLC, GOM Player, or The KMPlayer.The most important features for me are:1) File compatibility. I keep alot of media in alot of different formats. Compatibility for this player is very good, but compatibility for the MPlay HD is even better.2) Playback with audio at 1.5 or 2.x. Unless I have guests, I do all personal viewing at above 2.x if possible, even on youtube. I use a combination of free and paid software. This does not play at anything other than 1x with sound. The Mplay HD does play most content at 1.5 or 2.x with sound (has trouble with 2+ variable bitrate streams on occasion). So it gets the vote for this feature.3) Random function. Kind of important. I rarely watch offline media anymore, but when I do, I don't want to be kept busy managing my content. It's easiest on a pc, but a mediaplayer with a random function is almost as good as a randomized playlist. This player does its job well enough. This was not available in the Mplay HD. There is a newer firmware for the device, but no file detailing changes. This could just be something they threw in, and not a sign of things to come.4) A good OSD. I don't care about artwork, or any of that, but a quick preview of what you are about to watch is nice. The speck features a functional file list, so no complaints. That is all I need. However, when I have guests, a quick preview is great. The MPLAY-HD has a pretty good one.So far I have not been able to find anything as good as vlc running a random playlist. Until the day when media players have 3-4x playback with audio, playlist, and random playback, plus accellerated streaming/playback of online content, these players will remain a nice diversion from PC playback. Even so, they are leaps and bounds over what was available until recent years.The chipset of the Speck is not advertised, but it is likely pre 1055. All micca players use the realtek chipset. Also chipsets of the same generation generally perform very similar. Get this product, if it looks like it will need your basic needs. Otherwise I would recommend the MPlay HD. Their other players with the 1185 chipset, are basically like 1055s with online capability and extra memory. The 1186 chipset mainly adds 3d support. Playback compatibility (#1) will feature minimum improvements at best, due to the increased memory, but almost everything will work exactly the same as older products. At the original time of purchase, online functions were too buggy to satisfy, so I recommend either this product or the Mplay HD as the best bang for your buck. Then again, if you use netflix or hulu, you might want to reconsider. I personally would just buy a different player for each purpose, say the Roku. I am not fond of the Sigma chipset since it omits some important file formats, but the average user is unlikely to be affected. Consider trying out the WDTV or similar products if that meets your needs. I however, will continue to hover around realtek based products until something better comes along.Hope this helps someone make an educated purchase decision. Specifics are generally lacking from these reviews, which makes it harder to know what you're getting.Ver más

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J R Roger

20 de mayo de 2026

A versatile player

It's a solid player, I've bought one for myself for work, another for my fiancee for home, and finally, one for a christmas present for a friend. It's versatile, portable and useful.A few upsides I've noticed: It does support unpowered (I haven't tested it with powered ones) USB hubs, so if you're using External Solid State Drives, you can actually go beyond the limit, but how much depends on their power draw. Another is that it will automatically play through the contents of a folder if you navigate to it.A big downside I haven't seen reported here is file size limitations - I've had issues with getting it to play files larger than 4gb, but I don't know for sure if it's a limitation of the player or of the file system. Also, make sure the audio for your files is in a format the player recognizes, even if the video is a type it does.Ver más

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Fish Tech

11 de noviembre de 2017

External Hard Drives work, but they have to be set up correctly

25 August 2018 - I had some trouble with this media player and another similar one with the same chipset, but I found the solution from the manufacturer. You need to use these with drives that are set up for master boot record (MBR) versus the newer GPT (GUI partition Table). This is why it will only read drives up to 2 TB. MBR does not support over 2 TB. I thought it was the drive brand. Toshibas worked, but not Western Digital. Then I went into disk manager and discovered that how they are configured depends on the manufacturer, but they all work when converted. I have used FAT32, NTFS and exFat formats. Not a problem. GPT is a problem. I hope this helps folks that have been tearing their hair out trying to figure out why their hard drives don’t work. Now, on with my original review....I’ll hit the high points to keep it short. The Micca Spec G2 plays a bunch of different formats. The ones I tested: .mkv; a standard definition (480P) DVD.iso file, .mp4 video, .mp3, all from a flash drive. They worked flawlessly. Then I took the files that would be on a DVD - not an .iso file, but the actual folder that one would find on the media itself. I told the unit (so to speak...) to play the folder, and it did...just like it were a DVD or .iso file, menus and all. Then, I saw in the menu, “Optical Drive” listed, so I took my Samsung USB Blu-ray reader/writer and plugged it in. The Micca Speck played standard definition DVDs with no problem. However, when I attempted to play a Blu-ray Disc, I received a “file read error”. I tried a couple of Blu-ray Discs just to make sure it wasn’t the disc. Apparently this box doesn’t have the horsepower to decode Blu-ray Discs, but I can play HD videos ripped from Blu-rays with no problem. It could be compatibility with the Samsung reader/burner, too. I didn’t try my other brand of external Blu-ray player/burner with it.Subtitles and Audio tracks: I read another review that the individual could only read one audio track. That was not the case for me. I could read two language audio tracks. I only had two tracks on the .mkv I used so I can’t say if it would play more than that. The second track was dubbed in German and the volume was lower than the primary English track, but that could just be the way the original disc was recorded. Accessing subtitles was problematic for me. I couldn’t make it work, but it just may that I haven’t found the right sequence of buttons. This unit is fairly intuitive though.Bottom line: it’s small, economical and just works. I liked it so much I just purchased two more. These will make great stocking stuffers.

JOSEPH

20 de diciembre de 2012

Micca Speck Portable Digital Media Player

First off, I actually bought two of these little units and gave one as a gift as I feel they work so well!We live in a rural area and as such we don't have access to high enough speed Internet to stream movies (that you'd think EVERYBODY has!). We used to have Hughes Net but didn't like the slow speed (really couldn't stream there!) or the low daily cap. We now have Wi-Max Wi-Fi, but it still isn't quite there yet, maybe some day though!But I was searching for a way to watch the movies I have that I had converted to MP4 without having to load everything into iTunes for our Apple TV's or to have to set up an older computer as a media center just to watch them through it. I actually had already done both of those ways and wanted to get just a simple 'plug and play solution'.While searching one afternoon this device came up in the search with several others but this unit had the overall best reviews so I immediately bought one to find out if it could do what I wanted. It is like an unmentioned category of devices, I guess because EVERYBODY is supposed to be streaming everything, devices that are for people that like me, that just can't stream it all but have large video collections.It works PERFECTLY for us! It is very small, has inputs for USB and SD Card and it is as simple as plug it into your TV, it comes with a composite cable but you do have to supply the HDMI cable and two batteries for the included remote.Some reviewers griped that they don't include the HDMI cable but I had already bought several of the $2.00 HDMI cables (that work perfectly fine by the way) from Amazon and so I had several already on hand.I just plug in a portable Hard Drive, I've used both the powered by the device type and the larger plug into the wall type, they both work fine, plug in the power plug from the device to the outlet and it comes on. The on screen interface of the TV when the unit is on, is totally easy to understand and the remote works fine. As I bought this entirely for it's ability to play my various Hard Drives and THUMB DRIVES TOO! I did not test all the available features, music playback etc., other than the ability to also play photos straight from an SD card which was fine too.The video playback is overall very good, as good as the source file, the video sound quality fine also, and while I did have to adjust the video playback on our 42 inch Sharp TV, the 50 inch Samsung played video back with no adjustments needed.So yes, I highly recommend this device. It is so small it can easily be taken if you travel a lot, just take a small hard drive or like a 64GB flash drive with some shows or movies you like, just plug the unit into the TV at the motel/hotel and go! Or take up no room at all with the media center in you home. Get the benefits of a media center computer without the computer if you don't need to get into the Internet through a device too. This is a PLAYER ONLY but a really good one! Just what I was looking for and I expect others are also!UPDATE 12/21/2012Still works fine but one thing I forgot to mention is that the little metal device slides around very easily so I purchased some small rubber stick on feet from a local Radio Shack and put 4 on it. Now it stays where it should on the shelf by the TV.

Garester

26 de enero de 2022

Excellent little player that is intelligent, versatile & easy to use!

I've been using this player for almost five years now. I'm a VERY picky consumer, I expect miracles from my electronic devices. The MICCA SPECK G2 performs the way I expect even with a few unexpected surprises. I have logged MANY hours with it. In a sea of players offering a dizzying array of features and doing few of them well, this one has a very decent complement of features and does them VERY WELL!It's very small, making it portable but also difficult to keep in place. I recommend using velcro to hold it down.I use a multitude of USB flash drives, external hard drives & SD cards with good results. It is important to have them formatted in the FAT32 format for proper file recognition. This is the only real problem I've encountered. FILE PLAYBACK FAILED appears on the screen with no explanation. This CAN be annoying, especially when you don't know why. Occasionally a drive won't show up or will appear "empty". This is because it's in a format the player doesn't recognize. USE ONLY FAT32 and you will have no problems!I use the player on my boat and a switch that cuts the power to the player and the TV. With a single button push the player comes on along with the tv (older tv), and it resumes exactly where I left off.My only complaint (and it might just be me, certainly NOT a dealbreaker) is that the remote is small, crowded, not as simple to use in the dark without looking at it to find the PLAY, PAUSE, FF, REW, ETC buttons easily. This is a minor complaint, but one I would like to see upgraded in future versions.The player is stable, reliable, simple, AFFORDABLE, even durable. I would easily recommend it (or one of its other versions). I'm here looking for another player for a second tv. It can be confusing trying to match your needs to a player and its claimed capabilities. This one is worth the minimal cost.It connects via HDMI, which is great. I can take it with me to a hotel if I want. The included software is very acceptable, intuitive, useful & thorough. It even includes an option to delete files from within the menus which I found utterly surprising. Again, I am hyper-critical of EVERY device I use. This one does not disappoint. After shopping around I find this to still be the best player for the money on Amazon.I believe I did contact customer support about the failed playback issues. I don't remember the exact situation. I don't think they solved my problem, but the encounter didn't anger me so they must've been prompt and helpful, if not successful. I don't think I had enough info for them to work with. I solved the problem myself with a minimal amount of research on the internet. If I had read the instructions it probably would have mentioned that, but I didn't because I'm an idiot. My fault.My tv is only 720p, my files are compressed and I use the tv audio so I can't really comment on either audio or video quality. I can say that it works fine for me. If high quality audio or video is important to you then maybe you want to spend more. I am satisfied with what it puts out.The bottom line is that for the cost of a cheap dinner out you get a very competent device that will work and last for years to come. If a device can last longer than my interest in using it, then it's a winner in my book. Most are tossed to the curb because they can't live up to my expectations. I'm going on three years of almost daily use and still love it.