Hardware upgrade day
by Volker Weber
Today was hardware upgrade day at vowe's magic flying circus. EVA700 out, EVA8000 in. The access point is now powered over Ethernet. And the print server has finally scaled down from parallel to USB 2.0. Yes, vowe's magic flying circus runs on Netgear infrastructure. The only trouble I ever had in 10 years was one power brick which was promptly replaced.
The EVA8000 is an incredible upgrade from the EVA700. On paper they look pretty similar, but the interface has been completely streamlined, you no longer need a UPnP media server (but you can have one), the device now has a web interface and it can interact with a PC (not a Mac so far). I have not yet discovered all its capabilities. Busy watching some movies on it right now. Go read the specs. It basically plays everything you could possibly have from an SMB share. Unless your media is crippled by DRM of course.
Comments
Does it play H.264 content? Cant see the advantage over the Apple TV...
Yes, it does. Just tested it to make sure. Advantage for me: it plays from an SMB share and it supports more formats including Xvid. Nice touch: it displays RSS feeds and plays their enclosures like audio and video podcasts.
Since we cannot buy any DRM-crippled shows from iTunes, I don't miss the capability to play those.
Hey Volker, what do you plan to do with your EVA700? If you need someone to get rid of it then I would be happy to serve you with that matter ;)
Looks like I need to add a new item to my FAQ.
Is there a resolution to H.264 playback? And does it play H.264 in a matroska container (.mkv) with AC3 sound?
German Netgear Site:
mit bis zu 1080i Auflösung ...
American Netgear Site:
at up to 1080p resolution ...
Is it the usual typo during the translation process?
Most likely. You can set the screen to both properties.
Dirk, EVA isn't done yet. The matroska container is under development and will be supported, as a little birdie tells me.
ah great , a guy from netgear is going to give me one soon and i'll plug it to my network harddrive :)
Any feedback with Wifi ? I'm wondering how's the actual real-life performance for streaming Movies (.Divx not high def yet) over a wireless network.
I'm currently using a 801.11 g, I can upgrade my wifi access point to the newer generation if need be, but I can't run Ethernet cables to my Living room. I guess Ethernet on Powerline could be an option ?
Well, I haven't had time to view and test a lot of samples but for now there's no problem here streaming movies over 802.11g. And since the EVA8000 only supports 802.11g right now there's no need to upgrade to 802.11n (draft).
No Problem streaming Movies? What kind of movies? I thought one of the finest Features is HDMI and i think it will never ever stream HD over WLAN.
With my LinkTheatre i tried to stream a DVD which is not even HD and there was no chance to do this in a enjoyable way and i tried very hard. Now there is a cable and everything works fine.
What about Album Art?
After checking several UPNP Servers and checking a XBOX I with XBMC, i think i will go and buy a XBOX 360 because there is no single Hardware-/ Softwaresolution which solves my Problem with Album Art.
I really would like to choose my LPs by choosing the cover and i don't now a single working solution for that except XBox 360 / Mediacenter Extender and Vista Mediacenter.
I know one other: Apple tv with coverflow and if you have just a few albums it is really nice but with hundreds of Albums coverflow really sucks.
Kai, i streamed DVD with my Pinnacle Showcenter 200 (also Syabas as is the EVA700 and probably some other stuff) and had really no big problems. During 2:15 i had four short hangs caused by the other 5 WLANs out here. Higher resolution Xvid is much more critical when streaming than DVD.
Vowe, thanks for the info about matroska support. I'll try to watch the development and if matroska support comes around, i'll probably by an EVA 8000. Of course i left out an essential word in my first question, which should have read: "Is there a resolution limit to H.264 playback?" Note the now added "limit"? :-) Without this it doesn't make any sense.
We have also files with "non-western" (here: Japanese) fonts. These are usually MP3-tags. iTunes and the iPod are displaying them fine.
Are they displayed correctly by the Netgear-Unit? Maybe this is the reason why these media-players are not sold in Japan.
If you want I can just send you a dummy-file with a Japanese filename - but this is probably more than I could ask - I know.
I am not using it for playing music, but you can send me an MP3 track and I will let you know what I see.
What you are seeing is probably not Japanese fonts, but Japanese characters. :-)
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