We Got Served

You know, I thought a lot of this media sharing stuff would have been sorted out by now. Wireless networks are now prevalent in millions of homes around the world, with four flavours (B, A, G and N) to choose from; wired networking is now easier than ever with ethernet over power adaptors carrying data over your electrical cables; networked devices are scattered across various rooms, printers, digital photo frames, audio adaptors, digital media receivers and so on.

It’s all there, so why is getting all of this stuff to work together such a giant pain in the backside?

Networking standards, Digital Rights Management, media sharing standards, poor firmware, poor software, poor UI – this list of frustrations goes on. In time, I’m sure we’ll look back and laugh but right now, halfway through 2008, sharing media around the home is fraught with difficulties.

Most people will agree, one of the most natural homes for presenting digital media is the TV – big flat screen, surround sound, comfy chairs scattered around, it’s the perfect setting for viewing your videos, music, photos as well as your TV programmes. Back in 2004, Microsoft invested heavily in creating Windows Media Center, a new application to bring the Windows OS to the living room - and for a few years, it physically brought a computer into the living room in those households that wanted to use it. Hooking a PC up to the TV was a challenge in itself, and the end result was actually pretty good, if you were happy staring at a big slab of plastic next to the TV every evening.

With the advent of Windows Media Center 2005 and the launch of the Xbox 360, Microsoft launched Windows Media Center Extenders – dedicated consumer electronics devices that replaced the PC in the living room, and networked wirelessly or over ethernet to a Media Center PC in another room. Much more quiet, far better aesthetics, and a big step forward, although not without their issues – the Xbox 360’s fans being loud enough to wake the dead, and the first wave of extender devices from Linksys and D-Link proving to be underpowered and, quite frankly, a bit rubbish when it came to presenting the excellent Windows Media Center experience on screen. Those latter devices didn’t make it out of the USA – probably with good reason.

Fast forward a couple of years to today and we see a new range of Extenders released for Vista Media Center, cunningly renamed “Extenders for Windows Media Center” – the next generation of devices, launched by Linksys and D-Link again bring more power and richer features to the TV – if you’re plugged into to the Windows Media Center world, things are getting better…. slowly.

Outside of Microsoft, there have been a variety of solutions available, many of which have now overtaken Media Center in feature set, if not user experience. Products from Sage TV, and Netgearamongst others allow you to playback a wider range of file formats, and offer downloads and streaming from sites like Flickr and You Tube, although configuring these devices can be a challenge, and I’ll save my rant about poor firmware for another time.

For those of us wanting to use Windows Home Server as our digital media hub, media playback on a TV has been a challenge. We’re all fully aware of Windows Home Server’s lack of compatibility with Windows Media Center – getting the two to play together nicely is a bit of a dark art, and extenders can be limited in the range of file formats they playback. Other Digital Media Receivers can work really well – again, configuration can be troublesome, and you often don’t get the option of Live TV.

At CES 2008, HP announced a couple of new additions to their MediaSmart range, which have been designed specifically to bridge the gap between Extenders for Media Center and other, more flexible digital media receivers – the HP MediaSmart TV is a 42 or 47 inch flat screen LCD with built in media receiver (and is only available in the USA) whilst the HP MediaSmart Connect is a standalone digital media receiver which includes both Extender for Media Center compatibility as well as its own DMR software, which means it can aggregate and display the widest possible range of content from all sources in the house.

Sounds too good to be true? We Got Served got its hands on a pre-release version of the HP MediaSmart Connect – let’s take a look at what it can do.

What’s in the Box?

Our pre-release version came without the final packaging, but you can expect to find the following components when you get your HP Mediasmart Connect home:

• HP MediaSmart Connect
• Power adaptor
• HDMI cable
• Software Installation CD
• Remote Control
• Quick Setup Guide (poster)
• Installation and User Guide

Our system also came with a $20 CinemaNow voucher, but that may not be included in the final package - unfortunately, as the MediaSmart Connect blocks access to CinemaNow from outside of North America, we couldn’t take advantage of it.

As usual with HP products, it’s a pretty comprehensive package. Inclusion of the HDMI cable is a big signal of the Connect’s High Definition capability, and the user manuals are very comprehensive. Most users will be able to get up and running straight off the Quick setup guide, and the manual gives much more depth where required. You can check out the documentation via the following links: Quick Setup Guide - Page 1, Quick Setup Guide - Page 2, Product Manual

First Looks

Compared to other digital media receivers we’ve seen recently from Netgear, Linksys and D-Link, the HP MediaSmart Connect is a real beauty - much smaller in format, with integrated wireless antenna, and a glossy piano black finish with HP’s “Zen” pattern imprint, the unit sits nicely under the TV, without drawing attention to itself unnecessarily - a long way from the days of hulking your desktop PC around the lounge!

The Connect is indeed really small (D: 8.5″ x W: 8.5″ x H: 1.8″ - 215.9mm x 215.9mm x 45.7mm) and weighs around 3.5lb. It’s not too much bigger than a Nintendo Wii, as you can see from the photos above. In these days where we’re stuffing more and more kit into the space under the TV, this is a really important consideration. 

Around the Back

The rear of the unit is a pretty simple affair, with all of the connectors you need to hook up the Connect to your TV. From left to right: a reset button, power input (the Connect takes power from 100-220v, but currently comes with an attached US plug - however, if you’re outside the US, you can use the Connect fine with a simple US travel adaptor), Optical audio (TOSLINK), HDMI, Component Video, analog audio, Ethernet (10/100) and USB 2.0.

It’s worth mentioning here that if your flatscreen TV only has a DVI socket, you cannot use a HDMI to DVI adaptor and still receive a digital signal - you have to use a Component to DVI adaptor.

All of the wireless capability of the Connect is tucked away internally (the Connect can connect wirelessly via 802.11a/b/g and n) ensuring the system looks as neat as possible.

Around the Front

The front panel of the Connect has a single light blue/yellow status LED which lights when the unit is switched on or in standby. If you ever see this light glow red, you’ve got problems! The LED intersects two halves of the front panel, which, when lowered reveal a button to switch video resolutions between 720p and 1080i, a second USB port and HP’s Pocket Media Drive bay which can be used if you have a Pocket Media Drive from another HP system.

Remote Control

The remote bundled with the Connect is a pretty high quality affair - clearly laid out, illuminates upon a button push and best of all, can not only control the Connect, but is programmable and therefore can also control a whole host of devices in your home. One thing I’ve not discovered is the ability to power all device on and off simultaneously (ie. your TV, Connect and Surround Sound) - this would be the cherry on top of the cake, but even without it, the remote is easy to use in both Media Center and MediaSmart Connect modes.

Setting Up The MediaSmart Connect

Setting up the HP MediaSmart Connect is conducted through a wizard which walks you through a series of steps to get everything up and running. After choosing your desired language (English, Spanish and French are your options), it’s a two step process to configure your main Media Center PC to share its photos, music and video and then connect the TV to your home network.

At the appropriate time, the Connect prompts you to place the accompanying setup CD into the Media Center PC, and follow the installation wizard. This wizard installs the CinemaNow application, HP MediaSmart Connect Gateway along with a few other bits and pieces. Following installation, a web browser window opens and you can set up various accounts with CinemaNow, Snapfish and HP itself, should you so wish.

With the HP software installed, all that remains is to add the Extender to Media Center – your TV will have an eight-digit code which you type into the relevant screen in Media Center, and after a short time, the Media Center menu will appear on your TV. Success!

Using Media Center

Full disclosure – I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Media Center over the years. It remains one of the best user experiences I’ve had on any computer, anywhere – the user interface is sublime, and it’s no surprise that many have tried to copy it, and few, if any, have bettered it.

On the downside, Microsoft have neglected European TV standards for years and have instead toiled over US-oriented technologies such as CableCard. Online content outside the US also leaves a lot to be desired - hey guys, there’s life on this side of the pond too! Let’s hope the next release of Media Center (codenamed “Fiji”) brings better news for us outside the USA.

On the HP MediaSmart Connect, the Media Center experience is very close to using it on a PC – there is a very tiny bit of shuddering as you scroll through the menus (nothing too distracting) but the interface is responsive, and great to use. If your Media Center’s library has been set up with all of the content on your home server’s shares, then it’s all viewable for playback via the Media Center interface, and of course, you now have full access to Live and Recorded TV as well as a suite of additional online content (region depending - the UK online offer sucks) via your Media Center PC. So far, so good.

Using the MediaSmart Connect Interface

Of course, the real beauty of the MediaSmart Connect is its ability to act as an Extender/Digital Media Receiver with non-Media Center PCs, and that, fortunately for us, includes Windows Home Server. The Connect is fully compliant with Windows Media Connect, so works reasonably well with any Windows Home Server system, and if you have PVConnect/TwonkyMedia installed, you’ll find that you also get thumbnail views of your photos and music also. There are no additional installation steps to get the Connect working with your home server - it should work out of the box, although I found a small issue where I couldn’t locate my home server via the Connect as I’d reached my limit of 10 client connections on the home server. This was easily resolved and we were good to go. 

The MediaSmart Connect interfact looks great on a big TV, with giant icons for Photos, Music, Online Media, Pocket Media Drive/USB, Servers, Windows Media Center, and Videos. At the bottom of the screen you see a “What’s New?” section from which HP can fire messages, tips and software update notifications at you periodically from the Internet, a Settings Menu and a Help guide.

Accessing each of the Content menus (Video, Photos, Music etc) gives you numerous ways of accessing your media - if we take the example of Music you can pull up a list of all music on all connected PCs in the house (although I found this didn’t work well for me - I have a large music collection (blame a previous career in a music store) and found that the Connect just sat there trying to aggregate all of my music, and never got round to displaying it to me). Other options work much better, viewing your Music by Genre, Artists, Albums, Online Music, Playlists, Folders (your WHS Shared Folders) and Favourites (that you can nominate on the Connect itself).

Apart from the issues with the “All Music” option, the Connect does a decent (if a little slow) job of aggregating your media across various PCs in the house, although for expediency’s sake, I found myself reverting to the folder view, which worked really well.

A wide range of playback formats are supported in MediaSmart Connect mode (more so than in Media Center mode), and my hunch is that more may be added in the future via software updates, but that’s a guess. In the meantime, here’s what you get out of the box:

The Connect is not without it’s bugs though - I sometimes found my unit to be unresponsive (for example, when I tried (unsuccessfully) to access online content, but was blocked due to being in an invalid reason, I couldn’t get back from the error message to the main menu, on other occasions, having watched a video from the home server, the server would go missing from the list of available servers and required a reboot of the Connect to re-appear. Minor annoyances that I’m sure will be worked out in future software updates.

Summary

At last, it seems that we’re on the journey to a more seamless integration of media on Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server - right now, the HP MediaSmart Connect is your best option for large-screen TV playback from both WHS and Media Center with a small footprint, great looks, easy set-up, intuitive controls and a wide range of media playback formats. It’s not without it’s faults - I’d love to see an even more responsive UI and media aggregation could be a whole lot faster, but right now, the HP MediaSmart Connect is a highly recommended purchase for all Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server owners.

Purchase: HP MediaSmart Connect | Product Website