Sunday, October 17, 2010

Mediagate: an inexpensive Home Media Server

The growing antagonism between Google / YouTube and the authors who "involuntarily supply" their video content has shown that the PC has become the place to watch the video. So it would not be nice if you could put all your videos and music files somewhere other than huge hard drive of your computer? And if this place can be easily connected to the living room TV and stereo, so you can view videos and listen to music without a PC in yoursalon equipment covered? And would not it be great if you could use a wireless connection to move these files from your PC, or because you can not tie your living room with Ethernet?

These are not empty questions, but the idea behind the $ 275 MediaGate MG-350HD. It 's the size of a hardback book with lots of cables and connectors to connect to your TV and hi-fi. It 'kind of work.
http://www.Mediagateusa.com

The box is your choice of component, composite, S-Video or DVIvideo jack and coaxial, optical or dual RCA audio jacks. Within this selection, a combination that can be matched to you in your living room. A difference of having a Media Center PC, is quiet and does not generate much heat.

You can connect to your PC via a standard USB connector, or use wired or wireless Ethernet network ports. It does not come with a hard disk - you need an older model of the 3.5-inch IDE drive now. (It would have been niceif it included a SATA interface, especially as these units are now pretty cheap.) After conducting four cover screws, you can quickly connect your IDE drive and plug it back in the box, food and format the drive. There are clues written in English translated into little versions of Windows on how to do it.

The good news is that the box only sufficient intelligence to all types of video files that I saved on the handle. I asked my 20-somethingstepson to give me a sample of the video download experience. One came with German subtitles, a version of Babel without subtitles (which is heavy because there is not much dialogue in English), and there was a more or less as the theatrical version. None of these files immediately respond to a standard Windows PC without installing additional audio or video encoders, like DivX. While it ran fine on all the MediaGate.

The bad news is that wireless products, network supportwill take some effort to operate. To use the gate as a media storage device network, you need a special driver on your Windows PC. E 'was easier to connect the USB cable and move the files to your hard drive, which somehow defeats the idea behind a network storage box. I have WEP configured on my home network, and I had the key to work with the MediaGate, not in spite of its alleged support for this level of encryption.

The device comes with a small remote controlcontrol is mainly used for installation tasks, and to scroll through the file to play. And you are - the interface is similar to Windows Media Center shows you all the folders and file names on the screen in large type that only a couple of offers for the screen to say. If you have hundreds of files, it takes some effort to find them. Another great feature is that the video and audio files to save disk normal USB key and then connect the device and play themthem.

Both the audio and video quality seemed acceptable. You have your choice of 4:3 or 16:9 video. Overall, the unit does a good job. If you're not a fan of Windows Media Center, this would be a good alternative. Apple iTV is comparably priced when you factor in the fact that the hard drive, but not the cables. But iTV is not 4:3 and you need to use iTunes to control how content is moved to the box.

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