Media @ Home

Zyxel DMA-1100p

In my search of a DLNA-compliant device to distribute Music and Video from my Media Server to the TV in the kitchen I looked through many sites and reviews, but then I stumbled upon a very nice and clean list of available Media Streamers on ProductWiki website.

It provides a great outlook on all the major (and some minor) players on the market along with MSRP and reviews on most of the boxes. Unfortunately, there’re not enough reviews on the site yet to make it a primary source for choosing your next electronic toy, but the nice design with clear pictures and short descriptions give you a good starting point for research.

This time around I decided to give a try to Zyxel DMA-1100p Digital Media Theater. Newegg has a very seductive price on it right now, so I just couldn’t pass it up. (continue reading this article and leave comments here…)

PacketVideo (PV), the creator of the most popular premium media server available today** is running a promotion till the end of this month.

You can get the TwonkyMedia server and TwonkyMedia manager at 50% of their retail prices.

Coupon code TWONKYMEDIA-2XX9-A for the 50% off discount expires on 1/31/2010. 50% discount cannot be applied to previous purchases.

(continue reading this article and leave comments here…)

TwonkyMedia Digital Home Forum has a nice (periodically updated) round-up of the Best Practices for planning local network for streaming digital media around your home. Check it out at Connected Home/DLNA Best Practices (Updated July 2009).

For a while now it’s been possible to share your music, pictures, video and even live TV between different types of consumer devices. For example, you could stream MP3 files from your computer to your cell phone using a software package called Orb. Or you could watch your TV from the other side of the world using a slick little device called the SlingBox. The problem is that many of those devices were using proprietary technologies and required user to be a bit of a nerd to understand how to set-up and configure the system to work properly. You had to set-up codecs, firewalls and other things that most ‘normal’ people have no idea of.

But soon-to-be-released Windows 7 and a variety of new-generation devices are going to change all that and take it to a whole new level in regards to inter-connectivity and cross compatibility.

(continue reading this article and leave comments here…)