The Price: $299

The Verdict: The Mediasmart Connect is a decent video player, Media Extender and photo viewer, but it doesn't shine in any area other than video quality. We compared the Mediasmart Connect to an Xbox 360, streaming the exact same episode of Entourage from the exact same Windows Home Server and the video quality was noticeably better on HP's unit. Great, except you wouldn't really notice the difference unless you had them side by side like we did.

One other problem we noticed is that browsing speed (browsing a folder file system) is pretty damn slow. Paging down takes upwards of seconds to refresh, forcing you to hold the down button one by one to save yourself from the delay. The same "page down" action on an Xbox 360 is near instantaneous, so we know it's not a server issue.

It does, however, have features that other extenders or media streamers don't. For one, there's the ability to aggregate videos from various networked sources, including DLNA-capable servers. Again, nothing spectacular, but it's a feature that's nice to have. 802.11n streaming (a/b/g are also there) is another nicety for people who hate wires. More bonuses are YouTube, Snapfish, CinemaNow and Live365, services you may or may not use and want on your set-top streamer.

Compared to the Xbox 360, both can act as Media Center Extenders, both can play back DivX and XviD files and work as a photo viewer, but only one can play a donkey-load of video games. On the other hand, the Mediasmart Connect does have on-board storage, which is great if you want to dump a bunch of videos onto it and delete them out of your BitTorrent folder on your PC.

At $299, it's hard to recommend the Mediasmart Connect over something like an Xbox 360 because of everything else the 360 can do. If extras like YouTube and CinemaNow (as well as media aggregation over all servers), built-in 802.11n wireless, DLNA compatibility and better video quality appeal to you, this may be your ticket to streaming video anywhere in your house. [HP]

Samsung's MediaLive: the Ultimate HDTV Accessory, Bringing Digital Content from the PC to the Big-Screen

Combines Microsoft's Extender for Windows Media Center Technology with Samsung High Design and Cutting-Edge Functionality for a New Era of Home Entertainment
RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J. —(Business Wire)— Jul. 23, 2008 Samsung Electronics America Inc., the leader in the U.S. digital television market, lets consumers view PC-content on a Samsung HDTV with the retail launch of the company's MediaLive adaptor. Samsung's MediaLive delivers digital content (including HD content) in real-time from Windows Media Center on a PC running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate operating systems to the big screen of a Samsung HDTV via a wireless or wired home network. From photos, music, feature films, home movies, and live and recorded TV programs, Samsung's MediaLive is the ideal plug-and-play complement to most 2008-model Samsung HDTVs.

"The PC is quickly becoming the hub for entertainment in the home and Samsung's MediaLive gives consumers the freedom to enjoy and manage movies, photos, and music on the bigger screen of an HDTV," said John Revie, Vice President of Visual Display Marketing at Samsung Electronics America. "Samsung's MediaLive opens up a constantly expanding world of content for consumers, adding yet another connectivity option to the latest Samsung HDTVs."

Easily connected to an existing wireless or wired Internet connection, Samsung's MediaLive allows PCs running Windows Vista or Windows Vista Home Premium to stream a personal movie, photo, music, and video collection to any 2008-model Samsung HDTV in the home with an HDMI-CEC connection. With the ability to display content at up to Full HD resolution and support for a range of video, audio, and image codecs such as AC3, H.264, JPEG, MPEG2, MPEG4, WMA, and WMV, consumers will be able to enjoy an impressive variety of video and audio files using Samsung's MediaLive. Instead of crowding around a 15-inch PC monitor to share their latest music or movies, users can transfer the same PC content in real-time and share it on a 50-inch HDTV with a group of friends. One PC can stream content to up-to five Samsung MediaLive boxes connected to a TV through a home network - providing total access to entertainment from most 2008-model Samsung HDTV's in the home.

Beyond streaming personal entertainment, Samsung's MediaLive gives consumers access to a wide range of entertainment options including online services such as Vongo, MovieLink, Showtime TV, XM Radio, and FOX Sports, as well as the ability to browse through top news stories from Reuters and NPR. Additionally, in the U.S., Windows Media Center features the Internet TV beta program, which offers access to viral videos, news stories, movie trailers, sports clips, cast interviews, movie concerts and more. For access to live and recorded TV through the Samsung MediaLive, a simple TV tuner can be connected to the PC, turning it into a powerful DVR with the ability to watch and record favorite television shows and movies. In conjunction with FOX Sports, consumers are able to access SportsLounge to quickly view up-to-date sports scores, statistics and schedules - a perfect tool for any fantasy sports fan.

"Microsoft is pleased to be working with an industry leader such as Samsung, which shares our commitment to expanding TV entertainment options through Windows Media Center," said Ron Pessner, General Manager of the Connected TV Division at Microsoft Corp. "We're seeing the industry recognize the value of delivering these types of integrated solutions that allow consumers to extend pictures, music and more from their Windows Vista Home Premium- or Ultimate-based PC to the TV."

Employing the simple-to-navigate user interface and integrated electronic program guide of Windows Media Center, content browsing and playback is easily controlled using the arrow and enter buttons available on either the included MediaLive Simple Remote, or the Samsung HDTV's remote control.

Using the included mounting bracket, the compact device can be easily mounted to the rear of select Samsung flat-panel TVs for a clutter-free home theater setup. Operational commands are sent to the MediaLive via the HDMI-CEC port for a high quality, single-cable connection to the HDTV. The device connects to a PC via a RJ45 connected LAN cable, or wirelessly through a built-in 802.11 a/b/g/n receiver.

The Samsung MediaLive will be available in August 2008. -0-

Specifications
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MediaLive
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Online Content — Windows Media Center online media
content providers
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Audio — WMA, MP3, AC3
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——
Video — WMV, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264
— HDMI-CEC output
— Replay
— Down & Play of recorded TV program In
PC
— AV Streaming with PC (Server)
— AV Streaming with PC (Client) - WMV,
MPEG2 file Streaming
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——
Photo — JPEG
— Zoom in/out, Rotation
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——
Input and Output — DC Power
— USB 2.0 Slave
— USB 2.0 Host

— HDMI-CEC
— Ethernet (RJ45 LAN cable)
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——
Works With — 2008-model Samsung HDTVs 450 series
and higher, LCD, Plasma and DLP
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——
Dimension (W X H X D, mm) — 270 x 48 x 155
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——
Weight — 1.8 kg
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——
Estimated Selling Price $200
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——
Availability August 2008
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——
*Subject to change without notice.

Wired (7/10)
On the technical end, this small set top box is dead simple to configure and use with my existing Netflix account. Plug it in, hook it up to the HDTV with an HDMI cable, plug in an Ethernet cord, and then use a confirmation code to link it to your account. I was running within five minutes.

CNet (7.7/10)
The load time for videos isn't exactly "instant," but depending on the speed of your Internet connection, they buffer and launch in less than a minute. What adds a little time is the innovative way Netflix is enabling fast-forwarding (and rewinding). Since there are no chapter breaks, you're forced to zip forward and back...through a series of hundreds of snapshots of frames in the film...The system works well...

CrunchGear
On most videos the resolution was sufficiently high that it bordered on DVD quality. There was almost no visible pixellation even on our 46-inch rear projection TV.

BBGadgets
One great feature: the Roku box talks to Netflix.com about how much of a movie you've watched. I started watching Before the Devil Knows Your Dead on the Roku, paused it, then fired it up on Netflix.com the next day exactly where I'd left off.

PCMag (4/5)
A Netflix representative was unable to tell me what types of titles would be added in the future, but he did say that the company intends to expand its library and will offer HD streaming in the future. And when that happens, the Roku box is already equipped to stream via HDMI.

Gizmodo
It's basically the same as Netflix's current model, but instead of being limited by the postal service, you're limited by your spare time and interest in older titles. (And don't forget Netflix's disc-by-mail service, which still covers new titles.)

The streamer has NFS and Samba support (with only Samba working correctly over Gigabit Ethernet, which is a bummer), and can stream 4GB ISOs "without much delay." Fast forwarding through this didn't cause a problem either, thanks partially to that Gigabit connection no doubt. Music, however, suffers, since there's no ID3 tag reading and no cover art—it's the bare minimum you can get in a networked music player.

What's great about this player is that it's got online content support, meaning you can watch YouTube and Google video. In theory. None of these videos actually played when NAV tested the streamer. That's not so great.

But if you do have a BitTorrent fetish, you can use the Popcorn Hour to download torrents directly onto the machine. Unfortunately, this only lists XviD and not DivX as a supported format, so only a percentage of files you download off BitTorrent will play correctly.

Based on this, it seems that Popcorn Hour A-100 might be good for certain things, but lousy in others. If they can fix the bugs, this could be worth buying. [Networking Audio Video]

It's because GejBox also has DivX Stage 6 (their high quality DivX version of YouTube) support as well as a Google Video plugin. Engadget didn't say anything about YouTube support, since we're not sure Google Video support encompasses both of Google's properties. – Jason Chen

DivX GejBox media streamer hardware revealed [Engadget]

Although both this and the Apple TV stream video, they're in totally different classes. Apple TV is made for playing back movies and music purchased from the Apple store, and unless you re-encode your downloaded BitTorrent movies from DivX, it's not going to play on Apple's offering. This and the Helios X3000 are for every other non-Apple format.

In many ways, the Ziova CS505 is even better than the Helios X3000 we tested before—which technically makes it the best streaming, upscaling and DivX player we've used yet. Make the jump to find out why.

First off, the format support is pretty complete, playing back just about everything we threw at it. There's DivX, of course, plus "Windows Media Video 9, XviD, Nero Digital™, MPEG-4, QuickTime MPEG-4, MPEG-2, MPEG-1, DVD and other formats." Audio support isn't taking a nap either, with FLAC, OGG, AAC, MP3, WM9, CD and various others. You'll be hard-pressed to find something this sucker doesn't play, unless you're talking about Real Media formats.

The video quality is fantastic—noticeably better than the Helios and on par with the Oppo DV-981HD. Both DVDs and DivX files are played back at 1080i, which loses out to the Helios's 1080p, but isn't a huge deal unless you've got a very new set. It's the first player to support HDMI output with HDCP, but to most people that doesn't matter all that much.

What does matter is the player's ass-kicking ability to read files from pretty much anywhere. The CS505 can support SMB (Server Message Block) shares, which is just basic Windows shares, but can grab data off of Macs and Linux machines as well (since they support SMB). Not only that, there's UPnP support, which works with the Orb software we tested a while back, and USB (FAT and NTFS) disk drive support. That means you can dump a bunch of files onto an external hard drive, walk to your living room, and have days' worth of stuff to watch.

There's also standard photo streaming/playback as well as music streaming/playback, which both support SMB and UPnP as well. Both these worked well for us, and it was nice that the audio kept streaming when we got out of the audio menus and into the photo menus.

Oh, and there's a weather app on there, too. So you can get weather. Kinda superfluous, but neat nonetheless. The 802.11g wireless was a nice touch, but we prefer its 10/100 Ethernet since we've got so many wireless devices and don't want any skipping.

Now for the things we didn't like. First, it took about 50 seconds for the thing to boot up to where we could do something. Then there's the fast forwarding through DivX movies—not very responsive, but better than fast forwarding on our Motorola Comcast DVR. You'll often go past where you wanted to stop, and then have to rewind again.

Oh, and the unit's not exactly pretty. The silver design reminds us of a late '90s VCR or DVD player, but if you've got it stashed away in your entertainment cabinet, it's not a huge deal. Other than these, we didn't really find anything else to complain about, which is great news.

We can confidently say this is our favorite upscaling DivX and DVD player we've played with so far. It's responsive, has lots of playback options, and can handle just about every file we have. And the best part is that the price is only $299, which is only a little bit more than the Neodigit's Helios X3000 at $269. If you're into watching streamed DivX files without all the hassle of burning discs, this is the one for you. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Ziova]

Late last night saw one of our favorite companies spring quite the surprise when Slim Devices announced that it had been bought by peripherals monster Logitech.

The company responsible for such streaming-audio goodness as the Transporter and Squeezebox is set to suckle from the Logitech marketing teat in a bid to bring its high-end audio technology to the unwashed masses, while remaining an independent unit within the larger group. According to a forum post by Slim Devices CEO Sean Adams, every last man jack on his staff has accepted the new gig and the offices are staying put in Mountain View.

Logitech's sheer size and brand strength is sure to result in more products being shifted at lower prices (a la Harmony Remote), but maintaining the Slim track record for quality is going to be a tall order.
– Jonny Hiratsuka

Press release [Slim Devices]

Some guys at the Sling Community forum trolled the FCC, and pulled these details on the new Sling devices that turned up last week.

I've tried to edit that forum post for brevity, and sanity, and see there's a Slingbox streamer with coax, named "tuner", an "A/V" model with composite/s-video inputs, and a "Pro" model equipped to work with an HDTV—probably by streaming to a TV, not streaming HDTV signals out across the net. But we have nothing to bet on, until more solid news drops. More details on that last one, after the jump. (Thanks Kenneth.)

Model: SB220-100 - Called the "SlingBox Tuner" - It seems to just have Coax Inputs and Outputs (although the test configuration indicates that a remote PC was used to display what was being seen on the DVD, it would be great if it "could" also provide "RF out" when working as a client!)

Model SB200-100 - Called the "SlingBox Pro" - It seems to have HDMI, Tuner (Coax) and 3 Composite/S-Video inputs/outputs (this is the answer to the situation "I have digital or HD and want to use my SlingBox"!) This is a huge box that looks like it is twice as long as the current SlingBox! Likewise, I would be great if this box also has "client" capability!

Model SB240-100 - Called the "SlingBox A/V" - It seems to have just the composite/s-video inputs. As indicated else where this is a cost reduced tuner-less box. This is the one seen in the articles. By the way, when I first saw pictures of this "shorter fatter box" I initially thought that it must have a disk drive installed - PVR like!!!! The "A/V" portion in the name could signify something like this...

Alright sound geeks, put on your bibs before you read any further. Slim Devices is soon to release this $1999 Mega-Super-Duper networked streamer that is chock full of audiophile goodness. The Transporter – no affiliation with crappy films – is loaded with what they claim is the best digital analog converter available, the cleanest power supply you can buy, and every digital input and output you could think of. Consider the aircraft aluminum chassis, and we've got what looks to be the nicest audio streamer ever made. More stat-blather after the jump.

-DAC: AKM AK4396 Multi-bit Sigma-Delta D/A, 120dB Dynamic Range, 120dB SNR (A-weighted), -106dB THD+N.
-Digital Outputs: 15 picoseconds intrinsic jitter (std. deviation), coax, optical, BNC S/PDIF, & balanced AES/EBU.
-Digital Inputs: Coax, optical and BNC S/PDIF, and balanced AES/EBU inputs can be used to drive the DAC, network streaming or pass-through.
-Display: Dual 320x32 grayscale vacuum florescent displays with multiple text, spectrum analyzer and VU views.
-Network: True 802.11g wireless, 10/100mbs ethernet.
-Decoders: WAV, AIFF, MP3, WMA, FLAC with 24 bit resolution, 44.1, 48 and 96k sample rates.

– Brian Lam

Spec Page [ Slim Devices ]