Media ServersMedia Servers
WideaLab Aurender S10 Music Server
- Written by Jason Victor Serinus
- Published on 16 February 2012
Like most people I have some pet peeves. When I shop for televisions, I am always hoping to find one without speakers. I have a dedicated theater with speakers and electronics that are leaps and bounds ahead of what I could possibly get in a TV. I don't need speakers; I'll never turn them on. I don't want them! Simply having them adds cost, complexity, and size to my TV. I don't want to pay for what I won't use!
Bryston BDP-1 Music Server and BDA-1 DAC
- Written by John E. Johnson, Jr.
- Published on 27 June 2011
Media servers usually contain a hard drive on which you store your music (ripped CDs). Bryston's new BDP-1 Music Server utililzes USB thumb drives or external USB hard drive. This way, you can carry your music around with you on a thumb drive and use with multiple devices to play the music. This music server is actually a computer with full operating system, and can be connected wirelessly to your iPod or iPad to choose and play albums. In fact, it really is designed to be used that way, so that the server itself can be a low profile component in your equipment rack. In this review, we test the BDP-1 along with Bryston's BDA-1 DAC, which is capable of handling 24/192 bitstreams.
HD Digitech HDX900 HDTV Media Streamer
- Written by Ofer LaOr
- Published on 16 June 2008
The HDX900 is an HDTV streamer based on the Network Media Tank (NMT) middleware platform by Syabas. If you don't know what a streamer is yet, think of the AppleTV but without any of the Apple restrictions. Consider a player that will play all of your movies, in file format, including Blu-ray, DVDs, or any popular format you might have on your computer hard drive, as well as pictures and audio, but doesn't require you to pay a monthly iTunes bill.
Olive O4HD Music Server
- Written by Robert Kozel
- Published on 06 June 2011
Olive Media, Inc. has been in the business of digital music since it was started by Dr. Oliver Bergmann and Robert Altmann back in 2005. I have admired the Olive products for many years and had the opportunity to visit with Robert Altmann at CES 2011 this past January. I really appreciated his introduction to their products and I was especially impressed with his love of music. We recently reviewed the Olive 03HD, and here, we cover the 04HD.
Qsonix Q110 Media Server
- Written by John E. Johnson, Jr.
- Published on 04 February 2008
The Qsonix Q110 is a media server meant to be put in by a custom installer, but you can do it yourself because it is very easy to work with. It has a 250 GB hard drive that will hold hundreds of CDs in lossless compression format and serves four zones simultaneously. The user interface is a dream and employs a touchscreen that has drag and drop functionality, using your finger to bring music into the que for playback.
Olive 03HD Music Server
- Written by Chris Heinonen
- Published on 31 May 2011
Of all the gear that I reviewed last year, my favorite component by far was the Squeezebox Touch. Having instant access to all of my music, and high resolution downloads, was just a fantastic thing that led me to listen to far more, and varied, music that before. However, the one thing I always said about the Touch is that while I loved it, I wasn't going to buy one for my Dad since I'd have to install a PC server component, or hook up an external hard drive that I'd have to keep ripping his music to for him. For him, a simple, all-in-one solution would be what I would want.
DViCO TViX HD-M4100SH Media Streamer
- Written by Ofer LaOr
- Published on 26 December 2007
Over the last two years, the Korean company DViCO has proven to be a worthwhile player in the media streamer market. The company is now producing its third generation in the TViX family of products: the TViX HD-M4100SH.
ISTAR Mini Network Media Tank
- Written by Sandy Bird
- Published on 12 September 2008
Every now and then you run into a product you are so impressed with you just have to share. The ISTAR Mini Network Media Tank is one of those products. By all accounts the product is another media extender set top box that you plug into your TV that plays video, music and photos from an attached hard drive or home network. There are lots of these products on the market.
The Media Server Review Archives
- Written by Staff
- Published on 25 January 2006
Visit the Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity Media Server Review Archives.
DViCO TViX HD M6500A Media Streamer
- Written by Ofer LaOr
- Published on 21 July 2008
I found both video and audio quality of the TViX M6500A to be exceptional, and over the last few months, some of the firmware updates have already made this unit significantly more stable and better than its previous versions. Given that DViCO has been quite adamant in providing support for existing products and continually improving them, I have no doubt they will succeed in turning this unit into an ever more powerful item over the upcoming months.
