Noontec's MovieDock A6 lacks critical features and poor video resolution

Even if you can live with the MovieDock A6's Windows-only networking, there are too many niggling issues to recommend it over the competition. It features Samba (Windows) networking but lacks UPnP - killing any hope of accessing media servers or watching services such as Hulu.

Even if this isn't a deal-breaker, some of its other features might be. There are no eSATA or component video connections, although it is blessed with a memory card reader and an easy-to-reach USB port on the side.

The MovieDock A6 offers a smooth and responsive interface, with handy video previews of files. Plenty of info is on offer - such as network speed and file size.

It offers 32x fast forward, but lacks a video progress bar. What's more annoying is that the play/pause button works for music, but for video you need to use the OK button instead.

In terms of formats, the MovieDock A6 handles ISO, VOB and Blu-ray files, although you can't access the menus. DVDs don't look as sharp as other players, but the problem becomes more pronounced when you switch to MPEG-2/4, with significant macro-blocking even on the high-def files (with the picture divided into tiny squares like a patchwork quilt).

It fails to play MPEG-4 AVC files using Ogg Vorbis audio encoding. It crashed on our MKV subtitles test, but played the file fine after a reboot.

Noontec's MovieHome V8 player, which boasts a noisy fan to support an internal hard drive, also lacks UPnP and suffers from the same macro-blocking issues.

Even if we could forgive the MovieDock A6's lack of UPnP, we can't forgive its disappointing picture quality.