Sumvision Cyclone Micro: some advice for using this inexpensive media player

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Last week, Joe Baguley tweeted about a media player he had bought for his kids for just £18 (after discount).  The device in question is the Sumvision Cyclone Micro HD HDMI Upscaling Multimedia Player Adaptor and, as the name suggests, it’s a nifty little box to upscale standard definition/DVD video to high definition (HD).  It works just as well for those who don’t have an HD television as it comes with a composite cable to hook up to most TVs (including my aging Sony Trinitrons).  Basically, this tiny box of tricks takes a memory card or USB 2.0 input and provides HDMI 1.3 or composite A/V output, for not very much money at all.

Unfortunately, many of the forums/online retail sites that review the product are full of people saying “it doesn’t work”! I spent some time working on some of the issues that people were having and thought I’d post the results here in the hope that it’s useful to others.

What’s in the box?

Unfortunately many of the questions I saw on certain forums were asking (repeatedly), “does it come with…” so, just to make it clear, this is what you get in the box:

  • Media player.
  • DC power supply (5V, 2A).
  • Remote control.
  • Composite out cable.
  • Mini-CD with instructions.

There is no HDMI cable, and European users may need a composite to SCART converter (which should cost no more than a couple of quid at your local electronics store).

Remote control issues

The remote control looks cheap (it is!) and has blue text on black background making it difficult to read.  In addition, the buttons may be difficult to press but it’s functional.  Some people are complaining of interference with their TV functions – I didn’t experience that but I guess it depends what TV you have.  Remember this unit only costs around £20 and you get what you pay for!

If you don’t want to use the remote control that comes with the Cyclone Micro, there are reports that it will work with a Logitech Harmony One.

Unable to access external hard drive

This issue seems to be pretty common and is probably one of two things:

  • Disk (partition) format: according to Sumvision, the Cyclone Micro can read USB devices with a FAT, FAT32 or NTFS file system, or MS, MMC, SD or SDHC cards with FAT or FAT32.  Note that does not include ExFAT, or any Linux/Unix file systems. I’ve used an 8GB Sandisk Extreme III SDHC card (straight from my wife’s Nikon D40) to view pictures (in .JPG format) on the Cyclone Micro, as well as a FAT32-formatted USB thumb drive and an NTFS-formatted external hard drive with a variety of media types.
  • Power: If your hard drive won’t work with the Cyclone Micro, it’s probably down to the power it needs.  Some drives need more power than others. Sometimes they are supplied with a Y-split USB cable and, as the Cyclone Micro only has a single USB port, that won’t allow enough power to be provided.  If your device works off a single USB port, or has its own power supply, it should be OK.  I used a Freecom ToughDrive 120GB with no issues.

Unable to play .AVI files from compact cameras

I have a Canon Ixus 70 and, like many compact digital cameras, it can record video.  The resulting files are 640×480 @30fps, in a .AVI container format and GSpot informed me that they use the Motion JPEG codec.

Although the files show up in the menu on the Cyclone Micro, any attempt to play them results in an unsupported format error message.  Converting the files to Xvid format (e.g. using WinFF, with default settings), resulted in a .AVI file that could be read and played by the Cyclone Micro. [Credit: I got the idea of using WinFF from Jake Ludington’s post on converting AVI to iPod-compatible MP4]

Unable to play MP4 files

I’m still not entirely happy I have found the final answer to this but, according to Sumvision, the Cyclone Micro can play MPEG1/2/4 (.MPG, .VOB or .AVI), DivX (.AVI), or Xvid (.AVI), as well as ISO files using these formats.

Certainly none of the MPEG4 files I produced worked (they were not even displayed in the menu on my Cyclone Micro, which is running firmware version 3.3) but programs like WinFF or Handbrake should help here (indeed, in testing, I successfully converted an H.264 .MP4 file to .AVI using WinFF).

Alternatively, ripping DVDs to .ISOs is faster than transcoding them, and it seems to work a treat.  Windows users could probably use something like Lucersoft ISO Creator (or any number of tools) but I followed Slash Dot Dash’s advice to create a .ISO CD/DVD image on a Mac:

  1. Insert media.
  2. Type drutil status to get the device name for the DVD drive.
  3. Unmount the media using diskutil unmountdisk devicename (e.g. diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk1).
  4. Create a .ISO using dd if=devicename of=filename.iso bs=2048 (e.g. dd if=/dev/disk1 of=myvideo.iso bs=2048).
  5. Sit back and wait for a while (you should be able to hear the DVD spinning so you’ll know its working).
  6. Test the image by mounting it with hdid filename.iso (or opening it in Finder).
  7. Eject media and (optionally) burn the .ISO or, in this case, copy it to a device that can be read by the Cyclone Micro.

The resulting .ISO file should play on the Sumvision Cyclone Micro. Just to be clear, I’m not condoning making copies of copyrighted material (although it may be legal to make backup copies for personal use in certain jurisdictions, sadly not in the UK though) – I’m assuming the DVDs that you want to copy are home movies, etc.

Summary

This post covers some of the more common issues that might be experienced when working with the Sumvision Cyclone Micro.  Whilst it’s not without its faults (H.264 and Motion JPEG support would be a huge step forward), I guess issues like the ones described in this post should be expected with such an inexpensive device. If I find any more tips and tricks, I’ll post them on this blog.

Further reading

The following resources may be useful for additional technical information:

103 thoughts on “Sumvision Cyclone Micro: some advice for using this inexpensive media player”

  2. Hi I’m having problems with the cyclone media player i keep getting a message which says out of range on my tv screen even though i am right up to the unit with the remote control. gratefyl for adivce

  4. I’ve been using this player for over a year. The only problem I had was with one drive not reading on the device. Turns out the drive was formatted to MAC anyway so it was not the player at fault.
    As for .MP4, the player doesn’t seem to have a problem playing them 95% of the time. I guess it depends if the file is H.264 or not. If they don’t play I find Handbrake works well at converting or even VLC player.
    I am very happy with this player and I have recommended it to several happy buyers.

  5. My cyclone player was working and now it does not see my external HD. The HD is a Buffalo HD-CX1.0TU2 (1TB). All i get now is a C:\ when i choose to play any media. Its seems it doesnt see my HD now. I have changed cables and still no joy. Any help would be great. Thanks.

  7. Hi,
    Just tried to set up my new Cyclone Micro today but altered the resolution & now all I get on the screen is the message “Not Supported Mode”.Is there any way to reset or start again?
    Thanks!

  9. @Colly – Sorry, I haven’t tried that. If there is an updated firmware available, I’d expect it to be uploadable from USB stick via a menu in the current firmware.

  10. hi is it posible to install vlc media player onto the cyclone micro and use that as the player?? i have loads of divx avi on my ext harddrive and for some reason it plays some and not others was wondering whether it can play them thru vlc or similar????

  12. I have just purchased a Sumvision Cyclone Micro HD Movie Player. I have some movies on my pc that are AVI files, I have put these on the the USB stick but I get the msg ‘Unsupported File’. Please help! Can you explain in Leyman terms too!!!

  13. @Christine If you read the blog post again, I explain that there is an issue with some .AVI files, and link to another post that might help you convert them.

  14. Hi
    i have the cylone 2 and after loading on something via usb from my laptop it will no longer power up, if i put the usb back in again the screen lights up and it is detected by pc as per normal, any ideas?
    thanks

  15. This is a great device but it stops playing avi films 10 minutes before the end of the file. Any ideas?

  16. I just got one of these (first one was DOA but replaced quickly) and it doesn’t work with a DVD ISO created using the instructions above.

    It wasn’t listed in Movies and when I looked under files it had a triangle with an exclamation mark next too it.

    Any suggestions? I will try the VOB idea next in case that works. Otherwise i’m very happy with it.

  17. Jacqui, did you fix the problem you were having with the Out of Range message? I have recently purchased one and before thinking, set the wrong resolution on the TV System setup display. I’ve tried to navigate back there and set to Auto again (using the instructions on the manual, of course I can’t see anything but a blue screen) but no luck.
    Is there really no hard reset button combination or a hole I can prod? This is ridiculous!

  18. I got two of these with a friend of mine we also bought a medion 1 tb hardrive with a usb 3.0 connection we both get messages no media files found could there be a problem with the newer 3.0 usb connection.
    any ideas thanks

  19. I bought one for me and one for my girlfriend. I guess I was lucky. I haven’t had any problems yet! Good luck to you guys and great post Mark.

  20. I’ll tell you the problem with this device. It’s totally
    unstable. No matter how many posts are written here, nothing will
    be able to resolve the fact that the whole system relies entirely
    on the correct codec. However, I recently converted an MP4 file to
    AVI using software far superior to Winff and it clearly stated that
    it was Xvid and Divx compatible. Would the Cyclone Micro support
    it? NO! Unsupported File! So, here it is…If you have standard AVI
    files or you’ve ripped DVD’s, you should be fine. But if you own
    any nedia file older than 2005 that involves advanced AVI or MP4,
    you can forget trying to convert it so that it plays on the Micro.
    The player is shit and the only solution is to buy a better one
    like the WD Media Player. Thanks.

  21. Delivered just yesterday….so far I am very pleased
    considering paid £18.00……is almost as good as WD mini player I
    also have at £29.99

  22. I think Mike D’s comment just about sums it up. This device
    is small (so unobtrusive) and inexpensive. Sure, it’s not got the most intuitive user interface, and some media can be problematic, but it’s
    probably a case of “you get what you pay for”. In this case, it
    costs almost nothing and added media support to my elderly (but
    still perfectly good) television.

  23. After my MP4s did not show up on the menu I converted all my DVDs to VOB files using decryptor and although they show up 50% of them stop after the first chapter and it is not possible to chapter skip on any of them which will instead go onto the next film in the list.
    I looked around for a solution and found that converting to ISO using DVD decryptor and then using DVD shrink allows much greater control over the process, e.g. allowing chapter skips and being able to separate different series of a single disk but these are not showing up on my menu now either!
    Im hoping someone can tell me the best format for me to covert my files into in terms of usability and quality, if possible I would love to be able to chapter skip and have control over the decryption process which I dont with VOB using DVD decryptor but at this point id also just love it to work!!
    PLEASE HELP

  24. Hi,
    Just bought this and have just spent an hour trying to set it up, but to no avail.
    I started by setting it up with an HDMI cable (brand new), but my TV comes up with a message – ‘video format not supported,’ just to add, my TV is a brand new Philips 32inch LED 1080p TV.
    I then tried it with the Composite cable – my TV recognised it but it was in Black & White. Tried changing loads of things in the setup folder but still no change.
    Finally, does this thing only work with individual files? I have loads of files on my hard drive, but it only recognises the single files not the folders – this is a major problem as most of my media is grouped into various folder for ease of functionality.
    Any help would be most appreciated.
    Raf

  25. Hi, Bit of a problem here. Been reading up on forums to see if my question could be answered, but I can’t find anything.. Anyway, my Cyclone media player reads my Samsung HDD fine, but it wont show any movie files, whether they are in folders or not. It plays music fine so its not the HDD surely?
    CAN ANY1 HELP ME PLEASE??
    Thanks
    P.S my HDD file system is set to fat32

  26. Sumvision Cyclone BLOWS UP
    Just had one of these delivered last Thursday, plugged in and it played some .avi files, but not others, like other people’s experiences. Then I went to move the device onto another telly. The red light was on (standby) and I pulled the HDMI cable from the back. There was a little flash from the box, followed by an awful smell of burning, then smoke started coming out of the front USB port.

    Honestly, it was like something out of Star Wars!

    Be warned.

    Jon

  27. I have one of these cheap little boxes. Mine didnt work when using a HDMI cable with my main TV in the livingroom but DID work with HDMI cable on all my other TVs. it works fine using a 1Tb external Hard Disk although not all video formats work. The remote control is very cheap and nasty..!! The LED light on the unit is far too big and bright..!!

  28. Hey everyone,
    any tips on how to get the sound out of Cyclone? My one plays video files OK – but I only get the video! I tried different settings in Setup but no joy. What could it be? Any help appreciated.
    PS. It is connected to my HDTV via HDMI cable

  29. Hi i have just got my cyclone from amazon but no matter how many times i press the remote the unit is still stuck in standby the red light is on i`ve tryed changing the battery but its still the same any ideas or do you know any other remote that will work with the unit any help would be welcome

  30. A couple of tips on making the most of your cyclone micro: (I could only get the earlier version, micro2 was out of stock)
    Firstly, I replaced the dreadful remote by cloning it to a universal remote (about £8 from Wilkinsons). Now it will work from 20 feet away, and I can read the keys !
    I’m using a redundant 2.5″ 80G Hitachi in a 2.5″ sata caddy as my USB source. (The cyclone’s 2amp power supply will support most external drives.)
    I’ve found that backups of my single layer DVDs play OK, dual layer won’t. It won’t play ISO files derived from dual layer either. If necessary, shrink your dual layer DVDs to single layer using DVD Shrink or similar. Copy your VOB, IFO and BUP files into a subfolder named VIDEO_TS, else you won’t get full functionality of the menus. Set the video options to 1080P and you should get a reasonable quality picture through an HDMI lead.
    Take heed from Jonathon Brook’s experience above. You can disconnect the USB lead while powered up (normally hot-swappable), but not the HDMI lead. To be safe, always power down the unit and TV (or at least put both in standby) before changing any leads.
    Despite the negative comments, it’s actually a neat bit of kit for the price. I’ve only had the cyclone for a couple of days – I’ll post more tips as I come across them.
    (Thanks for the forum Mark)

  31. Just a quick addendum to my post (30) above:
    The 2.5″ USB drive I’m using is formatted to NTFS. I haven’t yet come across the need to format to FAT.
    Andrew (post 23): read post 30, it should solve your problem about VOBs.

  32. Another addendum to post 30
    I’ve substituted a 2.5″ NTFS 500G Western Digital drive in a sata USB caddy as my USB source and found that the ISO files backed up from dual layer DVDs using DVD Decrypter now work! I have no idea at this stage why they didn’t work before, the file/folder system is the same. This means that I (you) can watch upscaled HD videos instead of lower quality shrunk files, which some of you probably already know.
    Unfortunately, straight backups of the dual layer DVDs still don’t work for me. Single layer are fine. I’ll keep trying and let you know.
    Don’t forget Mark’s advice on copyright :-)

  34. Hi, I have purchased a Sumvision Cyclone Micro and when I plug my external hard drive into it, it loads some of the avi. movie files on the tv which work fine, but when you open up other folders stored on the harddrive there are no files in it. They are all the same file type and I have tried 3 different harddrives and for all of them, only some of the files appear on the screen.

    Has anyone had this problem? Is this a fault with the Sumvision Cyclone Micro device, or are they only capable of loading a certain amount of data?

    Cheers
    Dan

  35. We have had our box for a number of years now and has worked great however we are now getting a message on TV screeen saying no HDD DETECTED! All files are there on the on the box when connected to the computer. We have tried discounting, rebooting several times, have left it for a few days tried again etc.

    Can you offer any advice please?

  36. Bought one of this. Just very disappointed:
    it dose NOT do half the thing is is suppose to do.
    All i managed was some MP3 files, some photos.

    None of the any video formats palyed .
    No AVI , MP4 , FLV, WMV ,DVI , you name it, it WON’T play it.

    Waste of money. The supplier won’t reply to my complaint.

    AVOID !!

  37. Just to be clear to everyone who is disappointed with their Cyclone Micro: I have no affiliation with Sumvision; and if you read this blog post you can tell that the device is far from perfect but it’s also inexpensive. It does some stuff, for not much money. If you follow the advice here, you might get over some problems – but, as they say, your mileage may vary.

  38. Hi, can you help me please, i have the sumvision cyclone micro 2, and it really is brilliant, however on some films it misses the end off, is there a max file size?? just tried watching twilight eclipse which is a mpeg 4 file and 2.8gb in size, this has happened before on a different film before also. The film itself is ok, i then have to plug it into my laptop to watch the end of the film. Please help!

  39. Mark’s report on the “Sumvision Cyclone Micro” is summed up to perfection when he says,” Remember this unit only costs around £20 and you get what you pay for!

    I simply use a USB to transfer the films etc over I want to watch and things went well for quite a while even though the remote control is about as much good as a cat at Crufts.

    Then a few films started to play, before they stopped in their tracks. I fixed this problem by using the following fix download…. http://www.divx-digest.com/software/divfix.html

    The control unit has just stopped functioning, so I am now hoping this will be solved by a new battery. If not, then the lot goes in the bin and I will buy a far superior product.

    Any ideas?

  40. I’ve had this device for 2 days now. I used it with my brothers external hard drive and it worked fine when you watched movies, but when I tried to scroll down to view the pictures it just cut out and went back to the home screen?

    Now I’ve bought my own external hard drive and now the controller wont work when the usb is plugged in, but when I remove the usb it works fine?

    Answers for either of my problems would be much appreciated. Thanks

  42. My cyclone 2 media player wont register on the tv can only play movies etc through a lap top, no “hello” message or anything on the LED display, dont know if the media player part of it is knackered but it has never played on a tv, any help would be appreciated.
    thanks
    david

  43. please i have just purchased the sumvision cyclone micro2 but whenever i connect to my televison using the composite cable that came with it, it does not display anything , can i please get some hep help

  44. Hi i also have the same problem as Clifford.When ever i connect to my tv with the composite cable it shows nothing but will play with the hdmi cable. Problem is i bought it for my daughters and they havn,t got hdmi ports .NEED HELP.PLEASE

  45. I have just purchased this unit and so far I have been pleasantly surprised (not by the remote, but hey). I have tried several USB flash drives (Scandisk U3 also scandisc card reader with 2gb micro sd card inserted) and an 80gb HDD (laptop drive in a portable case. formatted NTFS) I can play backups of my DVD’s (Video_TS containing the .vob .bup & .ifo files) no problem ( I use DVD shrink to copy onto HDD) along with .avi. One thing I have noticed is on the main menu whatever it is you want to play/view, you must select this from the remote. It sounds obvious but caught me out the first couple of times (the default when switched on is audio). If you want to see the movie(s) on your media, you must select that from the remote so it is highlighted on the screen – this then highlights all the movie files on the drive – even DVD files. I have not had time to run a full list of files thru the box but hope to over the next few days. I agree with an earlier poster that your file names should not contain any extra/weird characters, keep the naming structure as simple as possible. I have been able to connect the micro to my LG Flat screen via HDMI (£1 in the pound shop-where else) and via composite. Might be useful to some people that composite has video on yellow and audio red/white for left & right speaker. You also need to ensure it is connected to the correct avi input on your TV and also you may need to select this on your TV menu (If you have not used the av inputs on your TV for a long time they may also have an oxodised layer on the metal contacts. Insert and unplug the cable several times usually cleans them and ensures a good contact). The picture quality is very good and audio sounds great thru 5:1 setup. Enough said for now. I hope it helps someone.

  46. I have a sumvision phoenix premium dvd player and the cyclone micro
    I followed you basic instructions for power on sequence for the micro which works fine, I use the micro in a caravan, 12v monitor, 12 to 5v dc converter, to power cyclone 2.5″ sata disk, and video to monitor converter all great, power on cyclone first, then the video converter, with hard disk connected, all goes well, another 2.5″ sata disk with mp3s on for music, audio output goes to 12vdc mini hifi amplifier
    ebay china ten quid delivered, all in all a brilliant set up as long as you have patience, But, the cyclone will play fat32 or ntfs formatted disks
    however the phoenix premium will only play fat32 and neither of them
    will supply enough power for the external disk from the usb port,
    do you know if there is a firmware update that will work for the phoenix premium? whatever or which ever way you look at them they represent brilliant value for money, especially the cyclone

  47. sorry quick follow up to 1st post, it is a video to vga converter, the sort of think you would use to see output from security cameras, the hdmi output will not work unless the tv it is connected to is also hdmi [as far as I know]

  48. Hi. Just connected my sumvision cyclone micro 2 to the tv. connected up all the leads correctly and playing movies fine apart from black vertical bars down the side of the screen. I tried changing the picture size and accidentally changed the output to analogue….now i cant get the menu up. Any ideas guys would be greatly appreciated.

  49. Hey!
    Could somebody help? I bought Cyclone Micro 2 from Amazon UK and forgot that UK wall outlets are differ from EU…
    But there are no mark on the power adaptor where + and where – on the power connector so I can’t found alternative power adaptor…
    Does anybody knows or can check where + – on the power connector? Or may be some adaptor from mobile/pda fits to cyclone?

  50. Hi, great post, very helpful.

    My issue is with the player getting to around 2/3rds of the movie and then reverting straight back to the main menu. This doesnt happen with all files, just some files. Found a few people reporting the same issue but the sumvision website (maker of the cyclone) dont have any firmware upgrades available for this product. Stuck at the moment, any ideas?

  51. FOR CYCLONE MICRO PRO (original model). I’ve been using a couple of these for a 18 months, and I’m very pleased with them. Bargain for the money.

    If anyone has a problem where the resolution is set too high, and your TV wont display a picture through the HDMI cable… Connect the unit to your tv, or another tv with the composite cable, and you will be able to view the menu, and reduce the resolution for (HDMI cable output).

    One of my cyclone micros recently wouldn’t power up…. The power supply was knackered. The old style Nokia 5 volt power adaptor seems to be the perfect replacement…!

    I do have a problem with playing some films from a 2.5 inch hard drive where the film occasionally skips forwards a few seconds. The same film does not have the same problem if it’s on a flash usb key. Has anyone else found this…? I’m using a WD Elements drive formatted as FAT32.

    Luke

  52. Hi just got a cyclone media player and it worked fine for first few day now the power light comes on but no screen

  53. Hi

    I have just received one of these little boxes.
    It does all it says on the tin and I am happy apart from one thing.
    Does anyone get a blank screen come up during playing a avi. It appears on a regular basis and for only a split second.
    Checked the settings and cannot see what might be causing this.
    Anyone come across this annoying problem?

  54. After several hours of head scratching and messing with my Sumvision Cyclone Micro I finaly found the fix for the no sound with HDMI problem.
    1.Make sure the cyclone is unplugged and power the tv off
    2.plug in the hdmi cable into the cylone and the tv
    3.remove any usb devices from the cyclone
    4.plug the power back into the cyclone
    5.switch on the tv
    6.switch on the cyclone
    should be good to go now let me know if this works or if it was just a complete flook

    cheers

  55. I’ve now copied all my movies onto a hitachi 2.5″ usb hard drive and don’t have the problems with occasional skipping like I had on the WD elements drive. Everything perfect now and returned the WD drive to the shop for full refund.

    IAIN: Are you using the HDMI cable with resolution set too high for your TV…? Try plugging your player into a tv with the standard av cable and setting the resolution down (i.e 720p instead of 1080p).

    You may also find the standard av cable socket on the back of the cyclone is a bit intermittent. I had one like that.

    Luke

  57. Luke – early days but I set the reoslution exactly to match the tv and all seems fine with the first film I have watched!

  58. my cyclone micro media player works all well and good with films off my usb stick that are 1gb or smaller.But when i play films off my usb that are 1gb or bigger the last 10 to 30minutes are missing.I have read some of the other posts and there are a few people with this problem but no one seem’s to have a solution for it.I have tried different formats and made sure there is plenty of space on the usb.PLEASE HELP if you can.this is a great little device and if i could solve this it would be perfect. Thankyou.

  59. Help i have lost my remote but do have a universal – someone mentioned about cloning the remote to work with an all in one but no idea how please help

  60. Hello I have got the sumvision and a iomega hd i have done everything formatted etc but when I plug it into my telly and press on the film the screen goes blank then kicks me back to the main menu then I go to do it again and it says no USB any reason why? Thanks

  61. Got 1 yesterday, works fine both with the composite cable or with an hdmi cable. Won’t work with my 1Tb hdd but works fine with 4Gb stick and won’t play files larger than 1Gb or with resolutions higher than SD (ie about 720X500) and also on one file claimed “unsupported audio” SO to fix these minor problems…

    1 – If your file’s resolution is too high there’s no fix! (You could re-encode it using avidemux or virtualdub or autogk, but this takes like 12 hours for a 2-hour film!)

    2 – If the file’s larger than 1Gb split it up, ie for a 1.4Gb file split it to two 700Mb files instead (I used virtualdub but you can use whatever)

    3 – The file that claimed “unsupported audio” I opened with virtualdub, making sure to set video settings to “direct stream copy” just choose “save as .avi” and this new version of the file (which by rights ought to be exactly the same as the first) worked just fine!

    Hope this helps :)

  62. Hi no matter how many times i press the remote the unit is still stuck in standby the red light is on i`ve tryed changing the battery but its still the same. I’ve also tried a friends remote which I know works and its still the same ! Any ideas ?

  63. ^^^^^
    I’m having the same issue. TV is off, HDMI cable goes in, power goes in and it doesn’t come out of standby.
    If I look at the remote through a camera I can see the IR LED is constantly on though.
    Any ideas?

  64. This really is utter arse.

    I’ve got a couple of sticks plugged into the front of the caddy and a 200 gig hard drive stuck in it with pics and vids on.

    Power up, red to blue light… A bunch of beeping and bugger all but a big black screen!!

    No help, no support, utter tripe. Avoid.

  65. Hello

    I was watching something on my Cyclone Micro 2+ MKV Player and it turned itself off part way through. It wouldn’t turn on after this and the red light kept flashing/ fading on and off for around 5mins, now when I plug it in there is no light at all.

    Has anyone else had this problem?

    Thanks

  66. Hi All,
    Can anyone recomend a good video converter to work with the cyclone V1 and what format I should convert it into.

    Thanks

  67. Anyone finding their movies a little dark? I’ve been downloading some 1080p files and they run ok but it doesn’t pick up dark scenes very well, certainly not in comparison to when I play them through VLC on my PC

    Can’t seem to find anything in the settings to change anything like this. I’ve read the manual and it says something about an ‘OSD’ button but I don’t have one?- got the cyclone micro 2+ for reference

    Any help would be appreciated

  68. i have used one of these for over a year – great for the price but i became tired of the picture loss [had to ‘waggle’ the lead to get picture back] due to the poor quality of the socket for the a/v lead…. i bought a hdmi lead for it and this never worked, no matter what i tried…. in the end i took it apart and soldered an a/v lead direct to the board…. works a treat now!

    p.s. one other annoyance is playing a divx video and it plays fine except for the ”unsupported format” message!!!

    steve g.

  69. Hi mark, I bough the cyclone micro 2, it works great apart from when I use the remote it changes the tv channels, if I bough a One for all remote would this work or should I just send it back

  70. I have plugged it all in using the cable that came with the media player and my tv just stays blank.I tried the av/hdmi button on the remote but nothing happens. Help?

  71. try ‘waggling’ the plug that goes into the micro – the quality is terrible and they don’t make very good contact.

    p.s. daft question but have you set your tv to the right imput chanel?

  72. HELP!!!!!!!!!
    I have downloaded DVDrip files from the internet BUT THEY WILL NOT READ, even though they state they are avi. I have used AVS video converter to try and trf these to avi again but still wont read. Will it not read Dvdrip files??? Please help as I am now clueless

  73. Just read previous posts regarding filenames. My dvdrip files names are long and have (,{… etc in them – could this be why they are not being read. Example casperdvdrip{1996}.avi – do I take everything out and remain as capser.avi?????

  74. Thanks for the info on a replacement remote. This is a great value little box which serves us very well indeed. Plays almost everything, connects very easily and lets you use all those old laptop drives constructively as possible. As to questions about how to use it – just play around its easy peasy.

    Brilliant little gadget – though I did see a Sony Blu Ray player that did the same job and connected to things like iplayer for £80 the other day. How cheap can this technology get.

    Thanks for the Blog!

  75. sumvision 2+ plays compressed mkv headers

    all in one essense 4 remote can be programmed in 5 minutes and is a nice remote

    beware of fake items too :)

  76. Hi Guys, i recently bought a external usb dvd writer. It is purely powered by usb. Is there any way i can get this to work with my cyclone micro 2+, as the USB link does not light up when this device is connected. Perhaps someone knows of a Firmware update? Kind Regards, Jean le Roux

  77. Right, after trawling thru these posts trying to look for answers I seem to be none the wiser about this little gadget & the files it will & wont play. So I’m gonna join in.
    Ok, here is my set-up. I have a mac and a SD card formatted to Fat(32). Check.
    I have tried some files out and found that an avi. xvid works ok for one file but it doesnt seem to be a blanket rule for all.
    I have also tried converting newer files copied from a dvd into various mpeg formats which dont work either, but older mpegs of tv progs cut from my dvd recorder work perfectly. I have tried using the details of the files stream info as a blanket rule too, but still its not compatible.
    My guess is that it depends on how the file is created in the first place.
    I will post more findings as I go.

  78. have you checked the filename of the file you want to play. make sure it hasnt got dots, lines etc in them as it confuses the player. I had this trouble with dvdrip files – I changed the file name and it seemed to work.

  79. Hi all, I found something out about the player. This has been posted before but if you’re not looking for it, it may pass you by because of the issue of the ‘file type’.

    1) irrelevant to the file type, this media player only handles files up to a maximum size ratio of 720 x 576 resolution at 25fps (this is in the UK anyway). It is sold as a HD media player but is an upscaler only… it resizes the resolution to fit 1080 HDTV size.

    2) I use a mac and am running my files through MPEG streamclip – i cant speak for other apps. With this I can view the stream info of the VOB file to check the resolution size – in my test file it was at 720 x 576 – 25fps.
    I tested an AVI – no go, because i dont have the option of converting it to xvid or divx
    I tried an mp4 but that didnt work either.
    Finally I tried an option in MPEG streamclip under ‘File’ menu – ‘Convert to MPEG’ and it works perfectly.
    There are 3 conversion types in that section of the File menu:
    •Convert to MPEG
    •Convert to MPEG with MP2 Audio
    •Convert to Headed MPEG
    All 3 work fine… and it is the quickest conversion Streamclip app has.
    I hope this helps everyone… I’ve found my solution. :) Happy viewing!!

  80. I have recently purchased one of these and although all movies play they skip after a certain amount of time to the next movie however they are some movies that play all the way through im guessing this is due to the file type but they all show as avi any idea’s ive read through all of this and only one other person has mentioned this problem but no answers or tips provided

  81. I can load up films onto my hard drive and they work fine on the PC, but when connected to the Tv, the files show up only in the photos and music folders, I’m unable to access the Movies folder, it just flashes back to the menu when i select it. Any ideas?
    ive tried reformatting the drive and reloading the films but to no avail.

  82. Same problem as charlie – external hard drive shows movie files when connected to laptop, but nothing visible via cyclone – think it is hard drive problem as player works on mates hard drive – anyone any ideas ?

  83. Well this is possibly the biggest waste of 20 clams ever. What sort of wanger makes a device that claims to kick out at 1080 only to give you a black screen forcing you to downscale.

    Returned with a crap in the jiffy bag… Utter tosh. Save your money.

  84. I bought one of these to be able to play my films whilst abroad. I have tried it on a 8 year old small 14″ basic TV. Only has a scart connection so was going to use the composite cable and connect to my external hard drive which has all the films on. Well I plugged it all together and whilst the light on my HD and the unit thingy turned blue. Nothing else happened. The TV screen just stayed black with the AV sign up. I only have either TV or AV so not the wrong AV channel. The unit does not respond to any of the buttons i push on the remote except on and off. What have I got wrong? Oh yes – tried with 2 different HDS and pen stick and camera card – nothing!

    Please smeone help as I am stuck abroad for months without access to my films

  87. For those getting the “out of range message” when using HDMI cable – disconnect HDMI cable, connect to your TV using SCART Lead. Go into on screen menu and select “HDMI output” Re-connect to TV with HDMI Lead and it should be good to go. I have Sumvision Phoenix DVD player which is basically the same kit with a DVD attached. Still can’t play files over 1GB size though. Any fixes?

  88. for some people having issues with hard drive not showing – i’ve found that harddrives and flash drives have to be formatted to Fat 32 – and it should work anywhere. Give that a try

  89. Hi, I’ve had this product for about 4 or 5 months and had no problems with it until now, in fact it’s been a brilliant little device. At the moment, it’s flashing red and simply wont turn on. Anybody else had this problem? It gets used on a daily basis but i’ve never experienced this with it. I’ve come to turn it on today and like I’ve said, all it’s doing is flashing red and wont turn blue. I’ve tried turning it off and on again and unplugging from the mains but nothing.

  90. I have had my 2TB sumvision cyclone for just over 12 months and just this week when I try to power on I get a flashing red light, any ideas why or how to resolve please?

  91. I’ve had the Micro 2+ for about a week and so far so good apart from one thing…. It has suddenly decided it won’t play my ISO DVD rips.

    I’ve used either DVD Shrink or DVD Decrypter to archive my DVDs to HDD and the plan was to be able to play them with the Micro so I can put the originals in box in the loft to free up space in the house.

    This was working fine until yesterday. Now when I try and play an ISO file the unit reboots. It seems fine with other formats (MP4, AVI, MTS, etc…).

    Has anyone else seen this problem with the ISOs and got a workaround? Cheers!

  92. Thanks for the post mark. Firstly one thing I’ve found that might help some earlier posts that see nothing in other folders is; I have found that if a folder is showing as empty, if I hit the MOVIES key again on the remote – they show up! Something seems to happen sometimes when you change folders and it ‘forgets’ what it should be looking for.

    I’ve also discovered like mark that I have to change the format of Mpeg4s and some AVIs to get them to be (seen on the directory) played.

    My bug bear though is that seemingly without any cause, and only for some files, it will show say half of the movie and then skip the rest and go on to the following movie. In order to get around this (as I can’t see why it’s doing this – it’s as though it’s reading and ‘end marker’ in the file half way through) I have had to split the movie in two. When I do this – it plays the second half fine!

    For conversions I use Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate which can take the files straight from a DVD to the proper AVI. I have used freeware Avidemux to split files also.

  93. One other thing. If you plug in a usb hard drive while the unit is ON it will start formatting your hard drive without any warning or option to quit. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED. This happened to my brother and he lost tons of stuff. This may have been changed in subsequent firmware updates however – but don’t take the chance.

  94. Hi, just got the cyclone 2, ive had the first 1 for years, no problem.but this 1 has, when i play movies tv etc on my usb stick the picture goes dark for a few seconds then is ok again? Help, ive only had it a day, any help would be appreciated, thx.

  95. Hi. I’ve recently purchased this product but just can’t watch any movies through it. The image is very dark or sometimes starts off ok then suddenly goes dark. I am as green as grass with this sort of thing so if you could help I’d really appreciate it. Thanks

  96. My sumvision micro one does not respond, after I changed on screen to 1080p. Message comes up unsupported. Cannot get out of this screen. Any ideas please,or is it due for the scrapheap! Cheers. Pete.

  97. Sorry Peter – mine was “recycled” a little while ago – haven’t used it for a while since TVs had the media capabilities built in. Seemed good value at the time but that was a long while ago now!

  98. Can anyone help me I have sum vision cyclone micro 2+ and have tried playing films looking at photos off seagate 4TB backup plus portable storage but won’t work works fine with 2TB portable hard drive?????

  101. Hello, I have a cyclone micro 2 which plays most files fine, but sometimes I can hear the film, but it appears as a black screen. Why is this?.. the film has downloaded properly, so I dont know why a standard mkv suddenly can’t play properly!

  102. On my other two media players I can/have to eject the memory card safely. How do I eject memory card from this device?

  103. 1) @ re5hm4 and Mark Wilson – 4TB hard drives tend to be significantly THICKER than 2TB ones (assuming both are 2.5″ in the first place). I think that Seagate 4TB model in the same range is thicker.
    Thicker means more platters.
    More platters means heavier to spin the moving parts inside. This means the MOTOR requires MORE POWER.
    Thus, 4TB may demand more than the SumVision Cyclone Micro2+ can provide.
    In my experience, this is 1.0Amps, which is thus limited to powering a simple, 9mm 2.5″ drive, inside a slightly-thicker USB enclosure.
    Power draw is typically perhaps as low as 550mA (0.55 Amps)for the 2.5″ SATA drive alone plus the USB enclosure chip requirements of perhaps some low 100s of mA. The total power draw is getting on for nearly 1000 mA or 1.0Amp.
    The SumVision Cyclone Micro 2+ version that I have used, is a 5V 2.0Amp INPUT current device, not 2.0Amp OUTPUT current device.
    Meaning, perhaps 1.0Amp is used by the device itself, and 1.0Amp left over for the USB port. I believe this is what I researched and noticed in the manual some years ago when I used one with a power-hungry device.
    Typically, one’s USB device will state the power requirements on the outside label, if not, COMPLAIN, as this is bad design (data can potentially get corrupted from poor power supply). However, the manual or specifications should have the power draw in Amps, stated somewhere, if it’s not on the physical device label itself.
    Hope this helps someone.
    Good luck, it’s a good low-power, portable player for the money if you avoid getting a DOA faulty one.

    My only problems with this are framerate judder when playing full-rate Blu-Ray rips I use to test a device with.
    More importantly: with or without a playlist, it won’t play a list of FLAC files in order. WAV and mp3 work fine for this sequential playing, as do video files.

    NOTE: the newer 2014 model apparently is 5v 1A only! See: sumvision . com /product/cyclone-micro-2/cyclonemicro2support . html
    Thus, check the label on your Cyclone Micro 2+ to be sure of the potential power output. 5V 1A input isn’t enough to power everything, as far as I can tell. Not sure why this design change would have been made… Good luck!

    2) This site is a bit broken, uses “weak encryption” and one has to force it to https in the first place. You expect people to enter their personal details into this form, yet are using Askimet to reduce spam? What about MY spam? Up your game, I’ve had targeted phishing and spam from non-encrypted connection sniffing, possibly via the router itself inside my network – so securing ALL packets as much as possible… just matters in a practical sense, not just tinfoil hat and/or perfectionist-privacy sense.

    Privacy? Speaking of which, a Samsung Smart TV was seen connecting to 700+ different servers when plugged-in for the first time. Their Terms and Conditions include the right to severely breach your privacy, and you think with that kind of anti-customer skullduggery going on, that they won’t take Hollywood or RIAA money to spy on what media you’re watching via USB? For just ONE example. Let alone siphoning-off the actual content, e.g. of photos etc.

    Better an external player that doesn’t phone home, spy on you nor charge you triple or quadruple figures for the abuse!
    So Mark, you’ve ‘progressed’ to having the functionality built-in to your TV, but what is the privacy policy and does it breach your statutory rights under GDPR & DPA etc.?
    Remember that this new digital technology, a craven spying culture and huge databases, means that you can be prosecuted from evidence kept in a PRIVATE database NOW, that doesn’t matter… by laws that get created in the FUTURE. That then apply RETROACTIVELY (yes, this is possible, yes, that means in the UK if I read correctly, which shocked me as I thought the USA would be leading that kind of thing, no, they aren’t publicizing it for fear of political backlash).
    The only protection is to prevent data collection at source.

    Why on Earth do you think that BY DESIGN, these manufacturers make this literally impossible, or so difficult that no-one has the time to implement a huge filtering and firewall/segregation system for information-egress on their network?
    Perhaps because the above retroactive-criminalization is what they’re planning, so they have an excuse to keep everyone in a prison (doesn’t have to be physical, just leverage or severe reduction of rights). It wouldn’t surprise me too much.

    Technology that just does what WE the users want, and SERVES US (not the other way round), is ALWAYS the most ‘progress’ in technology. There’s a hell of a lot of the opposite, slavery-inducing tech around at the moment, and it’s only going to get worse if people aren’t careful. Yet people aren’t careful. Good luck with that, Democracy requires being careful about who has power over you and how!

    Thank-you.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.