power play
As more people use their personal computers to handle content to and from their portable digital audio or video players, you can bet there's a lot of head-scratching going on when they take it to the next level: that is, transferring multimedia content from their PC to the television and stereo.
Early solutions were often very expensive. That is why the relatively low-cost and stylish Apple TV, a digital media receiver, garnered a lot of attention when it started shipping in March. It was designed, similar to an iPod, to play digital content originating from any Mac OS X or Windows-based computer running iTunes onto a high-definition widescreen TV or home theatre system.
The only downside to Apple TV, which costs HK$3,100 for the 160-gigabyte model, is the limited number of formats it supports. These include video encoded with either the H.264 or MPEG-4 video compression standards.
Enter Hong Kong firm Powerbox, which has released a wireless media player called PowerMVP. This device supports more formats, so it can stream a wider variety of digital content across either a wired or wireless network for the comparatively low price of HK$1,388.
Power extreme The PowerMVP supports more than 20 types of video, audio and still-photo formats, including the Microsoft-developed Audio Video Interleave and Windows Media Video, MPEG-4, DivX, MP3, Waveform audio, Ogg Vorbis, JPEG, Graphics Interchange Format and Bitmap Image.
No strings It also supports 802.11b and 802.11g wireless local area networking standards. That means you can place the broadband-connected PowerMVP next to your TV and stereo and start streaming content from your computer.
The PowerMVP has an easy to use graphical interface that supports several different languages. It also comes with a remote control, like Apple TV.
Highs and lows With its low price, there are obviously some compromises to be made with the PowerMVP. For example, it has no high-definition video outputs. If watching video on a high-definition television is not on your list of must-haves, then you should check this out.
The PowerMVP is distributed by JOS and should be easy to find in your neighbourhood computer mall.
