Product Reviews

A streaming media player is the perfect way to get content from your PC to your living room without having to move any boxes. Philips' SLM5500 is the company's latest streaming player.

It lets you stream the audio, photo and video files from your PC to a TV using your existing wired or wireless network. There's support for all the popular file types; see the summary box below for details. It's the smallest and best-looking, video-capable media-streaming player we've seen.

There's a good range of video outputs. SCART will suit most people, but there's also a component output with support for 720p and 1,080i HD resolutions supported by LCD TVs. The only problem is that you'll need to use a separate cable for audio.

Unlike Pinnacle's ShowCenter 200, which has an excellent array of audio outputs, the SLM5500 is rather limited. The only dedicated audio output is a coaxial digital output, which is very useful if you have a surround-sound decoder with a matching input. However, if you need a phono output for connecting stereo sound,

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you'll have to use an adaptor plugged into the player's SCART socket. You can get these for as little as £2 online, but it's still disappointing that Philips doesn't include one in the box.

There's an Ethernet port and a wireless antenna, so you can set it up on a wired or wireless network. Setup is easy, with a configuration wizard that quickly leads you through all the necessary settings. It supports both WEP and WPA wireless security, so you won't have to adjust your current wireless settings to get it running.

The SLM5500 comes with Philips Media Manager server software. This will organise and stream your photo, video and audio files to the player. However, it will not stream Windows Media audio or video files. For these, you should download Microsoft's straightforward Windows Media Connect software, which has support for digital rights management.

Once up and running, the interface is clearly presented and easy to use. Navigating around the menus with the remote is quick and smooth. You can look at photos in a slideshow or browse thumbnails. Audio files are organised by album, artist or track, and you can browse through them while listening to another track. Playback of compressed video files such as DivX over our wireless network 802.11g 54Mbit/s was stutter free. You can stream HD video as well, but you will have to use a wired network to get smooth playback.

Philips' SLM5500 is more expensive than Pinnacle's ShowCenter 200, and it doesn't have the same range of outputs. However, its interface is far superior, and it is much easier to use, making it our recommended video-streaming product.