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This Month's Featured Equipment Reviews |
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Media Server Forum Topics: |
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Classic Media Server Reviews |
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Home Theater Media Servers
Categories in section: Home Theater Media Servers
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Thursday, 28 April 2011
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Written by
Andre Marc
Things are moving fast; very fast. The proliferation of hard disc based music playback systems that began a few years ago has continued at even a brisker pace then anyone could have been imagined. And with each new generation in this product category, new, and sometimes mind blowing features are added, as well as improved sound quality and improved interfaces. Now with designers across the board allowing for devices to be controlled via Apple iPads and iPhone/iPod Touch units, and some even providing for remote off site access, we are entering a new dimension. Specifically, we are entering “the cloud”, a place where we wandering humans can access our media files anywhere in the world with handheld devices, tablets, computers, or any WiFi enabled gadget. It seems this was a logical progression from multi room systems, which have been around ...
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Friday, 01 April 2011
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Written by
Andre Marc
Olive Media, in a few short years, has become a driving force in the movement towards hard drive playback of digital music files, and away from real time reading of optical discs. They have chosen the path that they feel will ultimately be what audiophiles and music lovers will choose. That choice is a one box, fully equipped digital music center that can rip, encode, catalog, and play music extracted from CDs. It does not end there, since the one box solutions hitting the market also can playback downloads, music stored on a network, and 24 bit high resolution files, even up to 192 Khz. Olive believes a major factor, assuming all of the above is in place, is the user interface experience. I agree. A clunky interface is a non starter. Most people want to select their music and ...
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Tuesday, 22 February 2011
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Written by
Mike Flacy
While set-top boxes and home media servers have done an excellent job of providing access to our content around the home, another battlefield for gaining our attention is on the mobile front. Beyond the barrage of online services to choose form for streaming content, we also have the ability to stream our own recorded content on the web. The Slingbox Pro-HD is a device exactly for that purpose. For those that are unfamiliar with the concept of the Slingbox, it's a intermediary device that sits between your content provider (cable, satellite, DVR, etc) and your television. Using a connection to your home network, it can send out anything on content provider to your PC or most mobile devices. For instance, if you are commuting and want to watch a live football game, you can. However, it's not a device to record ...
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Tuesday, 15 February 2011
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Written by
Mike Flacy
With the set-top box and Internet-connected televisions dominating the home theater space as of late, dedicated home theater PCs have become less useful from the standpoint of the mainstream user. However, there's still a niche space for those looking for high-end performance and small form factor in the home theater, something that a simple set-top box struggles with. The custom HTPC market has been dwindling due to the rise of small computers like the Mac Mini or, in this case, the Dell Zino. The first iteration of the Zino (released in early 2010) was woefully underpowered for playing high-definition media and was panned by critics due to stuttering 1080p playback as well as a lack of a Blu-ray option. Dall must have taken that criticism to heart with the revision of the hardware (the 410), the model that's the focal ...
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Thursday, 27 January 2011
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Written by
AVRev.com
The rapid growth of the smart phone market has heavily influenced design choices and device compatibility in the home theater realm, both with audio and video components. For instance, you couldn’t go more than a few steps at CES 2011 without seeing another device that was utilizing Apple’s Airplay functionality for streaming media. There are devices being released with molded ports for iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches and the barrage of Android phones. In addition, the home theater television is getting smarter and providing access to a wider variety of web content like Netflix, Hulu and other downloadable video services. If you don’t want to upgrade to that net connected TV yet, there are a barrage of step-top boxes and Blu-ray players that can perform the same function. Beyond that, there are devices like the Orb TV VP-1. The WP-1 is ...
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