Streaming servers are making it devilishly easy to bring your PC's content to the big screen. We take SMC's new EZ-Stream receiver for a test run to see if it lives up to the home entertainment hype.Are streaming servers really the future of home entertainment? Networking experts SMC seem to think so. The company's new US$355 (Australian price to be confirmed) EZ-Stream Wireless Multimedia Receiver is another addition to the quickly growing list of stylish media servers that allow users to share their movies and media throughout the house--it streams Internet radio, MP3s, MPEG videos and pictures to your living room TV using the three flavours of Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g).
The EZ-Stream also boasts the most compact form factor we've seen for a home entertainment device. Its space-saving form lets the unit fit snugly into even the tightest living room confines, ideal for a small room home theater setup. Ironically, the device's biggest selling point is also its biggest flaw: To maintain the EZ-Stream's petite figure, SMC has skimped on the unit's video connectivity, opting instead for standard composite AV output. Another drawback: There's no DivX or XviD playback support.
Printed manuals are essential guides for any networking hardware and you'll also get the necessary start up accessories when you start unpacking the EZ-Stream from its box: Cat-5 Ethernet, audio/visual cables and power adapter. Plug the unit into any spare TV and you can proceed to configure it either by wired Ethernet or wirelessly. As with the Neuston Virtuoso MC-500, we found the SMC to be the easiest to access when supplied with an IP address from a DHCP server.
Control is exercised by an uncomplicated remote controller and you link from PC to TV via the company's supplied MediaServer software (Mac support is presently non-existent). In addition to detecting files for playback, the program also lets you remotely configure the network settings of the server and update its firmware. Owners of the EZ-Stream can upgrade--for free--and the device itself will continue to be updated with new firmware, distributed over the Internet. A copy of MusicMatch Jukebox 8.2 is also included for CD-to-MP3 ripping and playlist creation/management.
At just 317g, the EZ-Stream is the lightest media server we've tested and the smallest, too. Unlike the Neuston Virtuoso MC-500--whose metallic livery is designed to blend into your AV rack--the EZ-Stream's plasticky design stands out clearly against a backdrop of metal and silver. Sporting a sharp finish and a cool blue LED, the curvaceous unit props upright next to your living room TV on its included support stand.
The EZ-Stream's smallish profile means there's no real estate for extra connectivity--there's no Scart or S-Video connections and you get only analog AV outputs plus a spare Ethernet port for wired connections to a PC. Wireless is in-built and you get three flavors of Wi-Fi to link up to your home's wireless network, ranging from 802.11a to 802.11g. Wireless security comes in two types: You get plain vanilla WEP encryption (40- and 128-bits) and MAC address filtering offers some protection against devious hackers and wardrivers looking to hijack your new media server.
What of the player's multimedia capabilities? MP3 support comes standard and you can view digital images stored in JPEG or Bitmap formats. Unfortunately, video playback is limited to only MPEG-1 and 2; the lack of DivX and XviD support means the majority of your downloaded TV shows and movies will still be stranded in PC-land.
Like the Neuston Virtuoso MC-500 and Linksys Wireless Media Adapter, the EZ-Stream is quite proficient at handling digital images. Granted, JPEGs of cartoons and wallpapers appear decent, but the overall output is not exactly museum gallery material--still images taken from digital cameras look unconvincingly compressed and deprived of colour when displayed on our 29-inch TV. The slideshow feature--which allows creation of self-made digital galleries--is a nice touch but marred slightly by the unit's unusually long picture load times, perhaps 10 seconds too long for displaying mere kilobytes of digital data.
There are mixed blessings to report on the video front as well. To its credit, the EZ-Stream produces pretty good picture quality--depending on the encoding quality of your MPEG-1/2 files and screen--through its analog video connection. However, on several occasions, we were greeted with out-of-sync streams of audio and video. Other drawbacks: There's no zooming feature and you can't toggle between 4:3 or widescreen 16:9 aspect ratios when watching movies like you can with the Virtuoso MC-500.
Twiddling with MP3 and Internet radio proved a much more pleasant experience. SMC's Internet radio implementation is almost flawless--adding new stations takes only a few button presses and we were tuning to both local and international radio stations in less than 3 minutes. The device also automatically searches for any MP3 playlists and folders on your PC but support for newer audio codecs--such as AAC and WMA 9--is surprisingly absent.
A shame really because the EZ-Stream's MP3 performance--with the minor exception of its slow forward/rewind feature--is excellent. Add a good set of speakers and amplifier, and this unit is likely to give most audio boomboxes a run for their money with its crisp and punchy stereo delivery.
SMC EZ-Stream Universal Wireless Multimedia Receiver
Company: SMC Networks
Price: TBA
Distributor:
Selected resellers
Phone: (02) 8448 5800
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