Review Horizon

A new year, a new top 10 list that tries to offer a comprehensive view of the top 10 best media streamers for 2012.

If 2011 was a year in which the media streamer boxes sales experienced a consolidation and media streamers like WD TV Live, Boxee Box or Apple TV exploded in sales, 2012 is a year when beside commoditization of the boxes at prices under $100, the manufacturers will fight quite hard to ensure access to content. From new technologies designed to put a media streamer in every TV sold in 2012 – see the Roku streamer USB stick that should add streaming content to every HDMI-MHL compatible TV on the market to new Google TV boxes from new manufacturers, everything is gearing up toward a complete online experience from your big screen TV. We are here to help you make an informed decision, whether you are trying to stream local / networked content or you just need to access as many web services as possible.

As in 2011, In terms of pure streaming, Roku deserves to be again on the first place due to its excellent implementation of web clients and the support for all important premium clients such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Video on Demand, etc. HBO GO and many other additional channels fond their way to Roku Boxes and their prices are Read More…

As the number of mobile devices in our house increased, our reliance on them also increased. Both me and my wife barely touch our PCs anymore (maybe when we do a quick Age of Empires III showdown on our home network, but with two kids, those days are fewer and long in between).

Our family also cut the cable cord quite a while ago, when the Dish Network wanted to increase our bill yet again. While we don’t have a full fledged cable subscription anymore, having Internet service from Time Warner comes with some perks, most notable the free included digital local channels (clear QAM), PBS and a bunch of other free channels as well including NBC sports.As part of my TV watching setup, I am using my Windows Media Center 7 as a local DVR, a number of XBOX 360 consoles as DVR clients to access the live/recorded TV around the house and the only thing missing would be the access of the same channels live and mobile, both from around the house and during my daily 1.5 hours train commute, via my tablet/smartphone over a 3G connections. What to do?

Well, let me tell you I have long searched for a cheap/good software only streaming solution since I already have my MCE server chugging quietly 24/7. I tried ORB and several other solutions that claim to be able to stream Live TV over the internet, but all the solutions found share one major caveat – they don’t work with digital TV tuners. Why? I have no idea, but that’s the way it is. I started to look around and the only reasonable priced solution came from Sling Media (now belonging to Dish Network) and their Slingbox Pro-HD SB300-100, their only model with an embedded ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuner. I built an entire ecosystem around it, streaming to PC, notebooks, iPhone / iPad / Nook Color / HP TouchPad running Android CM7, HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket both on my home network and away, and the result of this comprehensive experience is detailed in this review.

1. Slingbox Pro-HD box content

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If you want to take your live TV channels with you wherever you go and on every possible mobile device you might have, Vulkano Lava is an enticing solution. Featuring a plethora of inputs including HD Component, you can use it to capture the TV signal from your cable / satellite box and stream it in a different room via your home network or a different country together if your Internet connection can take it. UPnP / DLNA is supported for in-house access,  iPad, iPhone, Blackberry and Android clients are available for $12.99 per app (cheaper than Sling) while PC / MAC clients are free. HP TouchPad compatibility is not listed but we hope with the recent $99 price reduction and the subsequent craze more and more app developers will start supporting it.

The streaming rates start at 150kbs in H.264 format up to near HD quality. You can also use the available clients to change channels, pause / play your recorded shows, etc. The Vulkano Lava starts at $199 with a more advanced version containing a harddrive to ship later in the fall at $249. Beside videos, music and photos can be accessed as well. We’ll look forward to get a review sample and review it as soon as possible.

Check the full Press Release after the break.

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Introduction:

My beloved Pioneer Elite VSX-82TXS just lost a channel and anyway, it was time for a new receiver. I needed something with similar specs to the good old 82TXS but updated to the 2011 requirements (Internet connectivity, 3D support, etc). I prefer connected equipment when possible plus a bunch of HDMI inputs and, when Amazon had Onkyo TX-NR809 on sale I jumped on it. A couple of days later a large and heavy box found its way to my door and I played with its content for the last two weeks. The results are described in this Onkyo TX-NT809 Review.

Throughout the review I’ll make brief comments regarding how the new Onkyo TX-NR809 compares to my old Pioneer Elite VSX-82TXS. I think these two receivers belong to the same class and it should be interesting to see how the technology evolved in the last 5 years. Read More…

For me, this is the best news for the entire  month of August. All my three WD TV Live Plus boxes got Hulu Plus through a firmware update, which is absolutely amazing. Now, I can sincerely say that WD TV Live Plus is by far the best media streamer box on the market with both excellent streaming support and local/network content as well. Here is our WD TV Live Plus Review (I’ll have to update it one of these days, soo many new features were added since our initial review). Among other services suported we need to mention Netflix (subtitles, etc), YouTube, CinemaNow, Facebook, Pandora, Weather, etc. Excellent support for 1080p MKV, FLAC, Windows Network Shares and DLNA, etc.

WD TV Live Hub got the new Hulu Plus client as well, but not the older WD TV Live model since it does not contain a DRM-ed chip.

With the latest firmware update, WD TV Live Plus jumps ahead Boxee Box in terms of support and features (at least in my opinion) for a much better price as well. You can find it for around $79 right now.

As part of the same firmware update (1.06.16_B) you can now find a gaming section as part of WD TV Live Plus Menu. As you can imagine, the games are nothing to write home about (Sudoku and several others) but since they are free, we can’t really complain that much.

via Hulu Blog

Yesterday I had the pleasant surprise to find a package in front of my door – the new Roku 2 3100X has arrived. I unpacked it immediately so I can put it to the test – here is the Roku 2 XS review summing my impressions. I also own the previous Roku (review here)  box for more than a year, so I knew what to expect. I knew the software would be similar, so I was mainly interested in the new box responsivity and of course, the new gaming platform Roku just launched.
A bit of history on the side – Roku was the first company to release a dedicated streaming box and they are now at the 3rd generation. While weak for local content, they have arguably the lagest selection of streaming choices with content from Netflix to Vimeo and UFC to FoxNews. Private channels can be added as well to support Plex, YouTube, PlayOn, etc.

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Thanks to the FCC leaks, we all knew Roku 2 is coming, but we weren’t sure about its capabilities. Today, Roku made Roku 2 official and here are the details: There are still three models similar with the previous product line called Roku 2 HD for $59 that still keeps the same 720p HD limit (it is 2011, Roku, why to you have to artificially add this limit?), Roku 2 XD selling for $79 that upgrades the resolution to the max 1080p and ultimately, Roku 2 XS selling at $99 price point and adds Ethernet and USB ports.

Beside streaming media, Roku figured out the consumer also want some gaming capabilities ($5 range), so they included a 3D capable GPU that should enable some decent gaming, including Angry Birds available at launch (free if you buy Roku 2 XS). There is also a new Bluetooth remote  - Wii style announced that should enable users to interact in a modern way with their new toy. It does come with a hand wrist strap so you won’t put your TV in danger.

While all the models have Bluetooth capability, only the most expensive Roku 2 XS will include the remote in the box, for the other models it is an Read More…

Well, what do you know? After many months of waiting and delays, Samsung Blu-ray players – 2010 models (and that also means non 3D ones) got a new firmware update – I downloaded it immediately on my BD-C7500 player  and after installing it I surfed to the Samsung App store – much to my surprise, I saw a brand new Hulu Plus Application, available until now only on Samsung’s flagship 2010 models with 3D capabilities. After I played with it for a while, I have to report it features the same interface as any other Hulu Plus compatible device, it runs quite nice and it is much more responsive than its Roku equivalent. In terms of streaming performance, I prefer more my Samsung connected Blu-ray player than my Roku box which is just too slow. Of course, Roku 2 boxes are around the corned, scheduled to release very soon and they might come with a faster processor, but until then, my Netflix / Hulu Plus enabled Samsung BD-C7500 rocks. Read More…

Update : I am able to stream perfectly on my Nook Color. Cool!!! My Nook Color has its build.prop changed to HTC to solve the Netflix chipmunk issue. Another issue I had was that while the movies from Miramax (ad free) streamed perfectly, the TV Shows (ad loaded) were stuck at buffering, during the initial advertisement. The reason, at least for my machine was that I had AdFree for Android installed. If you experience this, use AdFree Revert option to revert back to the original host file. You will loose ad blocking feature but you will earn perfect Hulu Plus streaming.

Update 2: I made a short movie demo-ing Hulu Plus on Nook Color

Well, this qualifies as a breaking news. Promised quite a while ago, Hulu Plus app finally made its way on the Android Platform, although, in a manner similar to Netflix, it is not for everybody. More specific, Hulu Plus apk is available only on 6 Andrdoid devices for now, and the lucky ones are Nexus One, Nexus S, HTC Inspire 4G, Motorola Droid II, Motorola Droid X, and the Motorola Atrix. Not sure if the problem is the DRM capability cooked into the hardware or just based on popularity. You can get the Hulu Plus right now from the Android Market. The Hulu availability is a huge step for the Android platform in its quest to offer the equivalent in entertainment apps with iOS. In my opinion, now that both Netflix and Hulu Plus are available, it is very close to achieving this goal. Read More…

You know how it goes, iCloud, youCloud, Best Buy Cloud…In a move that reminds us strongly about crowd behavior, Best Buy launches its own music cloud in an effort to compete directly with Apple’s iCloud, Google Music or Amazon Cloud (plus several other smaller players). Called Music Cloud and powered by Catch Media’s Play Anywhere infrastructure, Best Buy’s attempt to channel your hard earned money to their pockets features pretty much the same features you would expect  - streaming music to a variety of devices including smartphones, slates and obviously, computers. Beside streaming, you can also save back the uploaded Read More…