Like browsing content on most portable media players, the content is laid out in a hierarchy with the Helios Home being the root of it.  By default, the Helios Home page is the first page to display upon powering up, unless one of the NeoLink servers have been configured to automatically start.  The Helios Home page lists all the accessible mediums, including NeoLink and compatible UPnP media sources, mass storage devices attached to its USB ports and the online Helios Media Portal.  The following example shows the player connected to a network with two PCs running NeoLink, one also running Windows Media Connect and a portable hard disk drive plugged into its USB port:

Even though Windows Media Connect has been set up to allow this player to access its shared content, upon powering up the Helios, for some reason it sometimes displays “(Unauthorised)” next to the Windows Media Connect source as shown above.  However, once we select this option, we can still access its content and it no longer displays this message when we return to the Home. 

Data discs and USB mass storage devices

---

As we mentioned earlier in the review, it is possible to play audio, video and picture files from discs and USB mast storage devices without any network configuration.  When we load a data disc or connect a USB mass storage device, such as a USB pen drive or USB hard drive, we can browse through the contents by selecting the medium from the Helios Home.  If DVD Auto Play is enabled in the DVD setup options, the browser will automatically display the disc contents once a data disc is loaded.  The following shows an example of a data disc we prepared containing a few songs, videos and pictures, along with a few folders:

From what we can see, the browser displays up to 26 letters of each file name, which should be enough to distinguish one video from another and one photo from another.  However, when it comes to music where the song is written in the form of “Artist – Title”, depending on the Artist’s length, only a word or two of the song title may be shown.  To help make it easier to navigate between songs, we would recommend storing songs in the form “Artist -> Album Title -> Song Title”, where ‘Artist’ is the top level folder, ‘Album Title’ is a sub-folder of ‘Artist’ and ‘Song Title’ is the name of the track.  Unfortunately, this method does not work well for compilations or where there are various artists on the same album. 

A particular file can be played by selecting it and pressing ‘OK’ on the remote.  The entire folder of titles can be played by pressing the play button, however it does not seem to be possible to play multiple folders at a time.  For example if the presently displayed folder contains a mixture of titles and folders, only the titles in the present folder will be played if we press play.  Finally, if the folder contains a mixture of file types, such as music, videos and photos, it will play the whole lot in this folder in sequence. 

Windows Media Connect sources

---

Windows Media Connect sources come up much like that of a data disc, where the contents are shown as a hierarchy, but with smaller writing.  The following image shows the root level once we go into our Windows Media Connect source:

From navigating through the contents, Windows Media Connect has laid out the levels as follows:

• Music
  • Album
  • All Music
  • Artist
  • Folders
  • Genre
  • Playlist
• Pictures
  • Album
  • All Pictures
  • Date Taken
  • Folders
  • Playlist
• Playlists
  • All Playlists
  • Folders
• Video
  • Actor
  • Album
  • All Video
  • Folders
  • Genre
  • Playlist

Once we go into any of the above sub-folders, it lists content based on the selected one.  For example, if we go into ‘Genre’ within ‘Music’, it will list the music by genre, such as shown in the following screenshot:

When creating libraries of music, videos and photos, some people like to split everything into folders to organise it, while others like to group everything together to avoid going in & out of folders looking for something.  One nice feature with Windows Media Connect is that it can list all music, video or pictures as one long list in alphabetical order by selecting the ‘All Music”, “All Pictures” or “All Video” respectively.  The following shows an example of the ‘All Music’ listing:

NeoLink server sources

---

When we select a NeoLink server source from the Helios Home, we get the NeoLink browser as shown in the following screenshot:

If we go into settings, it gives the choice of playing music, videos and pictures in a random order, along with the option of whether to show pictures fitted to the screen size (while retaining their aspect ratio), stretched to full screen or as the actual size (pixel per display pixel if size is lower than the screen resolution):

Videos

If we go into ‘Videos’, we are presented with a list of video files and folders that have been shared via NeoLink.  In the following screenshot, we have Windows Media Connect, iTunes and a “Watch Folder” set up in NeoLink:

If Windows Media Connect, iTunes or watch folders are not set up, these items will not be shown above.  For example, if we only had the main videos folder shared, only the folders with the yellow folder icons would be shown.  The database icon indicates a Windows Media Connect selection, the Hard Disk icon indicates a watch folder and the list icons indicate iTunes sources.

If we go into a folder containing more items than can be shown on the screen, these are split up into multiple pages in which the pages can be selected by pressing the volume up/down keys or by selecting the page numbers along the top:

On the left, there is the option to return to home, jump to a file number in the current folder, search for a title, play the current folder and shuffle play the current folder.  Unlike playing content from disc or a USB source, when we play or shuffle play a folder, it also includes all subfolders in the playback.  The “go to” option which jumps to a specific file number is useful to quickly jump to a section of a large folder.  While the search open may make it handy to locate a specific title in the library, unfortunately it does not include content on “Watch Folder” sources or Windows Media Connect.

Music

In the Music section, we are presented with a list of music files and folders shared through NeoLink, which also includes any Windows Media Connect, iTunes, “Watch Folder” or Rhapsody items that have been shared out:

Like with the Videos section, the left options include the option to return to home, jump to a file number in the current folder and search for a title.  The left selection also gives the ability to browse music by album, artist or genre.  For example, the following screenshot shows an example of browsing by artist:

Once we select an artist, it shows a list of albums and titles by that artist:

In the above case, there is only the one album by this selected artist.  If we browse by genre and select a genre, the player will shows artists and albums by that genre.  Finally, if we browse by album and pick one, it will show the titles in that album.

The search feature can be quite useful for locating song titles, artists or albums based on keywords as shown in the following screenshot:

It’s a pity that the “Watch Folders” and Windows Media Connect sources don’t seem to be included in the search, however as the search appears to include iTunes listings and duplicates, we often end up with duplicate results.  For example, the following screen shows what happens when we search for ‘coffee’, since we have a song in our library called “Black Coffee” by “All Saints”:

If we perform a search while in a folder within a “Watch Folders” source, the search only returns results from within the current folder.  Finally, if we perform a search within a Windows Media Connect source, the search returns results within the current folder and subfolders. 

Once we go into a folder, watch folder or other media source, it gives the option to play and shuffle play the current folder.  Like with the NeoLink videos section, playback also includes subfolders.  However, it is not possible to start playback from the root folder apart from individual titles.  If we attempt to press ‘Play’ while showing the top level of music folders, the player will actually start playing a loaded disc if one is present!

Photos

As this is a high definition network media player, it is nice to be able to show photos in high resolution on the display, assuming this player is connected to a HD display, unlike showing photos from a regular DVD Player or directly from the camera in which they are shown in standard definition. 

In the photos section, the player shows a list of folders containing photos with a thumbnail of the first photo in each folder.  If a folder only contains sub-folders, then the default thumbnail of a camera is shown.  Like the music and videos sections, the player will also list watch folders and Windows Media Connect shared folders at the root level.  If there are any photos at the root of the specified photos path on the NeoLink server, these are shown in a separate folder called pictures.  The same goes if a folder is viewed containing a mixture of sub-folders and pictures:

Once we go into a folder just containing photos, the player will show a 3x3 (or 5x3 for HD browser) thumbnail grid of the photos:

On the left, there is an option to shuffle play this folder, along with any subfolders.  The slideshow option shows all the photos starting at this level as a slideshow, with each photo shown for a couple of seconds.  Unlike the music and video listings, the photo file names are not shown.

Setting up NeoLink

Playing content & Playback features