Product Reviews

If you have invested in an HD TV, or are about to do so after reading this month's Labs on page 175, the MG3001-p Media Gateway could be a useful addition to your living room. It allows you to stream media files from your PC to your TV, including HD content.

The silver casing is attractive, and at the same size as a DVD player it should fit easily beneath your TV. On the front is an LCD that tells you which file is playing. Beneath a flap lies a USB2 port, to which you can attach a camera or flash drive.

The back of the unit has all the connections you need. Standard TV owners are well provided for with composite, S-video and RGB SCART. There is also a component output, which supports 720p or 1080i for HD TV owners. Audio outputs are plentiful, with optical and coaxial S/PDIFs and stereo phono. Networking is provided by a 10/100 Ethernet port and a 802.11g wireless capability.

Setting up the device on your network is simple.

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It found our wireless network immediately, but couldn't connect because there was no WPA support. So if you have a WPA network, you must revert to the less-secure, harder-to-configure WEP to get this device working. The wider availability of players with WPA support is long overdue.

We found the PC software confusing at first, but eventually managed to share the necessary folders. It has some advantages, including the ability to set up individual users with their own set of folders. The device is UPnP compatible, so it will work with Windows Media Connect, TwonkyVision and other popular streaming software.

The TV interface works well enough, with files divided into audio, photos and video. There is also a simple setup wizard and a well laid-out Options menu. However, it is marred by annoying 'lifestyle' stock photos of people taking photos and listening to music. The unit does not support DRM-protected WMA files from sites such as Napster.

The quality of video and audio playback is high, and our test files played well without any unusual scaling artefacts. We had some problems with lip syncing on a couple of files, but we couldn't pin these down to a particular file format. Photos looked bad even in HD resolutions and the scaling created jagged edges on smooth lines.

This device is similar to Pinnacle's Showcenter 200 and has a better menu system, but there are too many drawbacks. Once the lip syncing and DRM issues are resolved, it could be excellent. For now, we recommend the ShowCenter 200 instead.