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ASUS Announces TS Mini Windows Home Server for 10-computer Backup

Bart Salisbury — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:02:20 -0600

When you got to back-up, you gotta back-up. And ASUS has just trotted out a product to help do just that: the TS Mini Network Attached Server (NAS).

Set-up in a tower profile, the TS Mini is chocked-full of back-up goodies any home owner might need (and perhaps a few more). It is powered by an Intel Atom N280 processor running at 1.66 Ghz. Can handle up to 2Gb of DDR2 800 memory. Has 2 3.5-inch drive bays, and comes configured with 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB of hard drive storage. Gigabyte ethernet, naturally. Six USB 2.0 ports. Two eSATA ports. And a bag of screws.

The TS Mini is capable of handling back-up chores for ten computers. It also can serve as a streaming media platform, sending content to multiple attached devices, including receiver boxes and game consoles.

Pre-orders are being taken, with prices starting at $349. And, like early Model T Fords, you can have any color you want so long as it is black.

Image Credit: ASUS

Cisco Director Wireless-N Music Player

Michael Brown — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:45:16 -0500

It's no Sonos (or Squeezebox, for that matter)

By launching a full line of music-streaming products, including the Director DMC250 reviewed here, Cisco clearly has the Sonos Digital Music System in its sights; unfortunately, it’s fallen well short of the target.

Our biggest complaint has to do with the convoluted setup process, which includes installing Cisco’s LELA (Linksys EasyLink Advisor) on at least one PC. LELA isn’t a bad utility—if you’re completely terrified by the prospect of setting up a home network. If you’re an old hand, it’s a waste of computer resources.

The default installation also forces you to set up a user account on Cisco’s website. A spokesperson tells us this is because Cisco needs to act as an intermediary between you and Rhapsody. Really? What if you already have an account with Rhapsody? What if you decide you don’t want anything to do with it? There’s apparently some way of installing the Cisco media server software without LELA or divulging your email address to Cisco, but the documentation doesn’t mention it.

Our second biggest complaint is that it takes the Director a mind-blowing 74 seconds to start up from the time you push its power button to the time it’s ready to play a note. That’s a full minute and 14 seconds. We’ve listened to songs that were shorter than a minute and 14 seconds. When we asked the product manager if our experience was typical, he sheepishly replied, “Yeah, we’re working on that.”

The Linksys Director comes with a good remote control, but you can also navigate its menus using the buttons arrayed around its display.

The Director has a luscious 3.5-inch display, so it’s too bad it won’t consistently display album art. Cisco’s media server insists on pulling album art from the AMG online database instead of simply looking in the album folder or parsing the track’s existing metadata. If your track’s metadata isn’t mapped exactly the way it is in AMG’s database, you’ll get placeholder art.

You can connect the Director to your network with or without an Ethernet cable (the device is outfitted with a dual-band 2.4/5.0GHz 802.11n radio but can fall back to 802.11b/g mode). There’s an integrated amp that puts 50 watts per channel into a four-ohm load or 40 watts per channel into an eight-ohm load. Cisco uses spring-loaded binding posts, so forget about using banana plugs.

We auditioned the amp playing Paul Thorn’s “Lucky Seven Ranch” through a pair of TBI Audio’s Majestic Diamond IR monitors and were not at all impressed. Low and midrange frequencies sounded as though they were passing through a wall of mud while the highs sounded paradoxically shrill. Very odd. We had a better experience when we used the Director’s line-level outputs to connect the player to TBI’s Millennia amp.

As with the Sonos system, you can also plug an analog source (a cassette deck or a turntable with an integrated pre-amp, for instance) into the Director and stream its audio over your network. You can also stream music from a host of free Internet radio stations (but not from LastFM, Pandora, or Slacker). Cisco does top Sonos in device connectivity: The Director is capable of hosting both a USB storage device and an iPod (using an optional dock).

SageTV HD Theater

Will Smith — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:10:22 -0500

This streaming box plays most files, if you use special software

Streaming boxes are a mixed bag these days. With super-polished commercial offerings like the AppleTV, as well as streaming functionality integrated in every other consumer electronics device—from the Xbox 360 to the TiVo—we thought the age of the dedicated streaming box had passed. However, the SageTV HD Theater offers something a little different than the typical UPNP or DLNA streaming box—but it’ll cost you.

Starting with the additional $80 for SageTV’s Media Center app, which should be a requirement for using the HD Theater. If you install the SageTV software on a PC equipped with an HDTV card, it turns that PC into a fully functional PVR, complete with an onscreen guide and basic scheduling functionality. SageTV’s Media Center is an acceptable PVR, offering more customizability than Windows Media Center and none of its annoying DRM, albeit in a less-polished product. The software’s 10-foot interface is incredibly customizable, but can be a little unwieldy and slow to browse, even when run on a fast PC.

The HD Theater effectively extends the capabilities of your SageTV Media Center to other rooms in your home. Connect the HD Theater to a wired network, and you’ll be able to stream recorded TV, live TV, music, movies, and photos from the host PC to the TV and/or stereo you have hooked up to the HD Theater. We were able to play our test files using many different video and audio codecs, without problems. While it was initially tricky to hit the file we were looking for when browsing large libraries using the remote, we eventually got the knack of it and were able to select the appropriate content without too many over- or under-shot menus. When paired with the SageTV Media Center, the HD Theater is a competent, if unpolished piece of hardware.

You can drop the HD Theater in your entertainment center, then stream everything from live TV to downloaded video to MP3s.

Without Media Center, though, you’re stuck with the stand-alone mode, which lets you stream content stored on standard network shares or UPNP servers. Unfortunately, the HD Theater doesn’t have the horsepower to work with large libraries. We also had problems streaming several common video types—including ones that worked when we viewed them through the SageTV Media Center. And if we thought the interface was slow when connected to the SageTV Media Center, it was positively pokey when in stand-alone mode.

The remote control is a fairly standard OEM design, similar to ones that ship with Media Center machines. It’s infrared only, meaning you must maintain line of sight to the extender. Button placement is OK, but as much as the SageTV software requires you to type things in, it would be beneficial to have a QWERTY keyboard accessible, instead of using the numeric pad.

For anyone who has already bought into the SageTV lifestyle, the HD Theater is a great way to connect more rooms to the media hub. However, we can’t recommend the HD Theater if you haven’t already purchased SageTV. We’d rather run the more-polished and less-fiddly TiVo PC software, and use inexpensive TiVo boxes to stream content throughout our home.

Gefen Wireless for HDMI UWB

Michael Brown — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:45:47 -0500

Wow! It actually works!

The fact that Gefen’s wireless HDMI extender works at all is remarkable enough; the fact that it works better than the manufacturer claims borders on the miraculous. So why aren’t we giving it a higher score? First, it would be cheaper to hire an electrician to install a hardwired HDMI connection; second, the extender is limited to HDMI 1.2a.

You can use HDMI 1.3 sources and cables, but the Ultra Wideband technology Gefen relies on just doesn’t have the bandwidth to accommodate losslessly compressed multitrack audio (Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio); it falls back instead to either Dolby Digital or DTS surround sound or simple stereo, depending on the source. The system can’t accommodate Deep Color (video with 30-, 36-, or 48-bit color depth) either, but it does support HDMI 1.3’s lip-sync feature.

If your home has masonry walls and ceilings, on the other hand, it might not be possible to create a new cable run. And if your A/V receiver and home-theater PC or Blu-ray player are on the same side of the room, and what you need is a means of getting video to your projector on the opposite side of the room, the audio issue won’t matter (neither will Deep Color, for that matter, if your projector or display doesn’t support it). In short, Gefen’s product is amazing, but its appeal is limited to a small circle of consumers, which is why the company has to charge so much for each unit.

The transmitter and receiver are fairly conspicuous, being housed in 6.75-inch-wide aluminum boxes with large fixed antennas.

The transmitter is equipped with two HDMI inputs, one component video input, one stereo input, and an IR blaster jack. The receiver has one HDMI output, one stereo output, and an IR extender jack. Plug Gefen’s $25 IR extender into this port and you can send commands from the receiver back to an emitter plugged into the transmitter to control A/V gear in the same cabinet. But the transmitter doesn’t have an IR receiver of its own, so the only way to switch inputs is to walk up to the device and push a button.

We tested the system by sending video from both a Blu-ray-equipped home-theater PC and a stand-alone Samsung Blu-ray player to an Epson PowerLite Cinema 500 mounted on the ceiling 15 feet away. Gefen recommends placing the transmitter and receiver as high as practical to prevent obstacles—including people walking past—from disrupting the signal, so we were surprised to discover that we could close the plywood door on our entertainment center without creating any issues at all. We sent the HDMI signal through a Sherwood RD-7503 A/V receiver first, so the fact that the Gefen unit doesn’t support Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA didn’t matter a bit.

The system operates on a frequency range between 3.1GHz and 4.8GHz, so we didn’t encounter any conflicts with either our dual-band router (which operates radios on the 2.4- and 5.0GHz frequency bands) or our DECT 6.0 cordless phone (which operates in the 1.9GHz range). The transmitter achieves its magic by compressing each video frame using the JPEG 2000 compression standard before zapping it through the air, but we were unable to detect any visual artifacts, dropped frames, or any appreciable difference when we compared its image quality to the hardwired HDMI connection we usually use.

Gefen’s HDMI extender is undeniably expensive, but it’s a remarkable technological achievement that delivers even better performance than its manufacturer advertises, so we can’t complain.

Windows 7 Feature Focus: Networking and Homegroups

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:30:00 -0500

Networking in Windows 7 builds upon the drastic remodeling that occurred in Windows Vista. However, although some of the basic networking features in Windows 7 are similar to those in Windows Vista, many networking features have been improved in Microsoft's latest operating system. And, if you are moving up from Windows XP, you will find that Windows 7's network interface is a completely different animal than you've encountered before. Whether you're moving up from Windows Vista or Windows XP, keep reading to learn what's new and better in the main building blocks of Windows 7 networking.

Connecting to Wireless Networks

Windows 7 continues the automatic wireless network detection feature introduced in Windows XP and refined in Windows Vista. When one or more wireless networks are detected but you are not connected to any of them, the familiar five-bar icon appears in the notification area along with a starburst overlay. Click the icon to display a list of wireless networks. Unsecured networks are marked with the Windows security shield. Click a network to connect to it.

Connecting to an Unsecured Network

When you select an unsecured network, a warning message appears. If you want to connect automatically, click the checkbox. Click Connect to complete the connection.

On the next dialog, click Public Network to configure the Windows firewall to block access to your shared folders and resources.

Dealing with Login Requirements

Some locations with unsecured wireless access might require you to log in to the service provider's website and agree to terms of service before you can use the connection. Windows 7 prompts you if this is necessary. Click the prompt to open the browser and provide the necessary information.

Connecting to a Secured Network

When you connect to a secured network, all you need to do is enter the network security key (passphrase). You don't need to specify the encryption type (WEP, WPA, or WPA2) as with Windows XP.

Working with the Network Folder

The Network folder can be opened from the Start menu when this option is enabled in Start menu configuration or by clicking Network from any Explorer window. It displays the computers on the network and provides links to Network and Sharing Center (an improved version of Windows Vista's Network and Sharing Center), Add a Printer, and Add a Wireless Device. To view shared resources on a listed computer, double-click the computer icon.

Installing a Network Printer

To install a network printer, click the Add a Printer link in the Network folder. Select Add a Network, Wireless, or Bluetooth Printer when prompted, and click Next. Select the printer from the list of shared printers, and click Next.

If a printer driver suitable for use with Windows 7 is available, the printer is installed. If not, Windows uses Windows Update to search for a driver online. If Windows Update cannot locate a driver, download and install the driver manually. If a Windows 7 driver is not available, use a Windows Vista driver. Before canceling the Add Printer task, note the address of the network printer, as you might need to browse to it if you perform a manual printer installation.

Network and Sharing Center

The Network and Sharing Center, originally introduced in Windows Vista, has been streamlined in Windows 7. You can start it from a link in the Network folder, or from the Network category in Control Panel. As with Windows Vista, the top of the window provides a graphical representation of the connection.

Below the connection diagram, Network and Sharing Center displays the connection type and status. Windows 7 uses Home, Work, and Public to identify the network type instead of the Private and Public terms used by Windows Vista. Here's how a PC connected to a home network via HomeGroup and a PC connected to a work network display their configurations in Network and Sharing Center:

The bottom of the Windows 7 Network and Sharing Center provides links you can use to set up a new connection or network, connect to an existing network, set up a HomeGroup or manual resource sharing, and troubleshoot network problems. This is a cleaner interface than that used by Windows Vista, which listed all of the network options you could choose from, whether you needed to use them or not.

Sharing Folders and Printers

If you need to share folders and printers on your PC with other network users, click the Choose Homegroup and Sharing Options link. If you are not using Home as the Network type, you will see a reminder that you cannot connect to a Homegroup. Click Change Advanced Sharing Settings to see options for sharing, security and other options.

To enable Public folder and print sharing, select the following options:

Turn on Network Discovery

Turn on File and Printer Sharing

Turn on Sharing (for public folders)

If you keep the defaults for the remaining settings, you will need to set up user accounts for other users on the network to enable them to share your resources, or turn off password-protected sharing.

Tweaking Your Network Access

If other users are unable to access your network shares, especially if they are using older versions of Windows or old 802.11b wireless adapters, their systems might not support 128-bit encryption. Select Enable File Sharing for Devices that Use 40 or 56-bit encryption.

To simplify sharing, you can disable password protected file sharing. To do so, select Turn Off Password Protected Sharing.

Enabling and Configuring Media Streaming

To enable media streaming to other PCs running Windows Media Center 11 or greater, click Choose Media Streaming Options. Click Allow All on the Media Streaming Options dialog. By enabling media streaming, you can share media with other users, even if you don't share folders or printers, so you can leave file and print sharing turned off. In this example, media streaming has been enabled.

By default, all media on your system can be streamed. To control what can be streamed, click Customize, and clear the Use Default Settings checkbox in the . You can then select the minimum star ratings and the parental control ratings for the media you want to stream. Click OK on this dialog and the Media Streaming Options dialog to save changes. In this example, media streaming has been restricted to media with star ratings of 4 and higher and G or TV-PG rated recorded TV only.

HomeGroup and Homegroups

One concern of traditional home networking is security: if you enable security for a Home or Work network, you must configure each computer with shared resources with user accounts for other users on the network. It's not surprising, then, that many home networks disable password protection, and thus have have no security for network shares and printers. To help protect home networks and make security and setup simpler, Windows 7 includes the new HomeGroup feature (a descendent of the Longhorn 'Castles' feature that was planned for Windows Vista, but didn't make the final cut). Keep in mind that HomeGroup can be used only with PCs running Windows 7.

Creating a Homegroup

To set up a homegroup, select Home as the network type for each Windows 7 computer you want to add to the homegroup. On one computer, open the Network and Internet category in Control Panel and click HomeGroup. Click Create a Homegroup.

Select the file types you want to share with the homegroup. By default, pictures, videos, music, and printers are shared. You can uncheck any of these, and click Documents to customize sharing. Click Next to continue.

On the next screen, a random alphanumeric password is displayed. You can write it down or click the Print Password and Instructions link to print it. All other PCs joining the homegroup must use the same password. Click Finish.

Adding PCs to a Homegroup

To add another Windows 7 PC to the homegroup, make sure the network type is set to Home. Then, click the HomeGroup icon in Control Panel's Network and Internet category, and click Join Now. Select what you want to share (you can share a different combination of file types, or no files types at all, on different PCs in the homegroup) and click Next. Enter the HomeGroup password, click Next, and click Finish.

Using Homegroup Resources

To access the homegroup, click the homegroup icon in Windows Explorer. The HomeGroup library opens, showing shared resources. Double-click the library to open it and access its resources.

Diagnosing Network Problems

You can use the Network and Sharing Center to diagnose network problems in two ways. If you see an X over the connection between your computer and your network or an X over the connection between your network and the Internet in the Network and Sharing Center dialog, click the X to diagnose the problem.

To access other Windows 7 network troubleshooters, click the Troubleshoot Problems link in Network and Sharing Center. Then, select the category you want to troubleshoot: Internet Connections, Shared Folders, HomeGroup, Network Adapter, Incoming Connections, or Printer. In this example, I was unable to view HomeGroup resources after joining a homegroup, so I selected the HomeGroup troubleshooter.

Select a troubleshooter, and Windows performs a series of tests to find and fix the problem. Windows 7 troubleshooters do a better job of solving problems than those provided in earlier versions. After running the HomeGroup troubleshooter, I was able to connect to the HomeGroup.

However, if Windows 7 is unable to determine the problem, it offers additional options.

Other Networking Features

This feature focus has concentrated on new and improved features in Windows 7's networking. If you need to use familiar command-line utilities such as Tracert, Ping, Arp, IPconfig, and Net, rest assured they're still available for use. The network mapping feature introduced in Windows Vista's Network and Sharing Center is also available in Windows 7.

Conclusion

Windows Vista users will find Windows 7's network features a comfortable upgrade from those in Windows Vista, and Windows XP users will find a new world of network convenience. Both types of users can continue to use manual sharing, or can use as many of the automatic features as they prefer.

Boxee Drops Hulu Support After Networks Demand Removal of Content

Norman Chan — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:43:12 -0600

Of the new internet startups that have emerged in the past few months, one of our favorites has to be Boxee, the streaming social media center from the team that created the acclaimed XBMC frontend. Boxee (currently still in Beta) combines popular video and podcast streams from CBS, ABC, and PBS into one slick and functional media center that turns any connected computer into an internet TV receiver. One of the best features was that it supported streaming from Hulu, which meant users could navigate through thousands of hours of content (e.g. all of Arrested Development) without opening a web browser.

Unfortunately, that is no longer the case.

Just today, Boxee announced that they would be discontinuing support for Hulu streaming after content providers complained and demanded that the Boxee service be shut off. In a sobering blog post, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen informed users that as of this Friday, Hulu streaming would be unavailable via their service. “We have many content partners who are generating revenue from boxee users and we will work with Hulu and their partners to resolve the situation as quickly as possible,” said Ronen. In the Boxee beta, content from Hulu retrained all of the advertising that users would see when watching a video on Hulu.com, so the issue doesn’t appear to be related to missed ad revenue opportunities. Ronen also stated that Boxee beta testers streamed 100,000 videos from Hulu just last week alone.

Hulu, for their part, has posted a related entry on their blog explaining the motivation and reasoning behind this development. Jason Kilar, Hulu’s CEO, acknowledges that users do not benefit from this action, but that they are acting to satisfy the requests of their content providers – without whom Hulu would not exist.

Both posts infer that this is not the end of the matter, and Boxee specifically states that it will continue pursuing a resolution that would allow Hulu to come back to the Boxee app. But until then, this is a huge blow to a fantastic service; one which we hope will not prevent new users from trying it out when the Windows Beta becomes publically available in the next few months.

We’ve contacted Boxee and Hulu for more insight into this news, and will report when more updates become available.

Pinnacle PCTV HD Mini Stick

Gordon Mah Ung — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 06:00:00 -0600

It’s been almost a year since we tested Pinnacle’s original PCTV HD Pro Stick TV tuner. In that time, Pinnacle has fixed many of the original product’s shortcomings. The new PCTV HD Mini Stick is even smaller than the original HD Pro Stick, which was itself the size of a fat USB memory key. You could easily chuck the 1”x0.5” PCTV HD Mini Stick in your bag and never notice it. The remote is also slimmed down considerably and could slip into your back pocket comfortably.

One thing Pinnacle didn’t change is the small telescopic whip antenna, which features a magnetic base. When we first raised concerns about putting a magnet in our laptop bag, where we usually have a portable hard drive also rattling around, Pinnacle said there was no reason to be alarmed: No one had ever reported the magnet scrambling any data. With the PCTV Mini Stick, Pinnacle has changed its story. A sticker on the base of the antenna now reads: “Warning, magnet, please keep away from credit cards, magnetic media, hard drives, and other objects sensitive to magnetic fields.” Gee, thanks guys. Of course, the lousy thing is that you can’t use the antenna without the base. If the company had designed the antenna so you could separate it from the base and clip it to something, there wouldn’t be any problem. The current design means you have to choose between the possibility of nuking your notebook PC’s hard drive or not packing the antenna.

We successfully installed and configured the PCTV HD Mini Stick on an older Core Duo dual-core notebook running Windows XP and tuned into about a dozen local ATSC digital stations. Image quality was good but, obviously, very dependent on the broadcast signal. Overall, the tuner ran fine but was a bit laggy on the notebook. We’d recommend the more current Penryn-class Core 2 Duo to run the tuner.

Part of the size savings likely comes from Pinnacle jettisoning support for analog broadcasts. The HD Mini Stick can handle ATSC digital terrestrial transmissions and unencrypted cable transmissions in the ClearQAM format. We dinged the original HD Pro Stick for not having ClearQAM, but we think it’s a bit premature to zap NTSC. Sure, the feds will turn the lights out on over-the-air NTSC, but cable companies continue to broadcast NTSC and many people will still hook up their PCs to the cable at home.

Sadly, that makes the PCTV HD Mini Stick of limited value. Yes, you can use it to watch ClearQAM digital broadcasts on cable, but ClearQAM support by cable providers is spotty. Even if you can receive your local major broadcasters in ClearQAM on cable, what if you want to watch CNN or the Cartoon Network? With the PCTV HD Mini Stick, you’re out of luck.

The PCTV HD Mini Stick is useful only for those who really want to watch digital TV using rabbit ears. Forgive us, but we’d rather shell out for a tuner that also gives us NTSC capability.

Sonos Bundle 150

Michael Brown — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:10:41 -0600

You know a product is uncommonly designed when each of its successors looks and functions pretty much like the original. Such is the case with the latest revamp of the Sonos multiroom audio system. All the latest changes are inside the product or the software or are related to third-party services linked to the product. But that doesn’t mean they’re insignificant.

The Sonos mesh network is independent of any other Wi-Fi network you might be operating, so you don’t need to worry about music clogging up the pipes of your data network. The new hardware is backward-compatible with older Sonos products: We merged the new ZP120 (the self-amplified model), the new ZP90 (the passive model), and a second controller into our existing Sonos network without a hitch.

We’ve always considered the amplified ZonePlayer to be the system’s weakest link, but the new ZonePlayer 120 does much to change our mind. It produces only 55 watts per channel (five more watts per channel than the original), but when paired with a set of high-quality speakers (we used TBI Audio Systems’s Diamond IRs), it more than adequately filled a small room with sound. There’s a subwoofer output if you crave more bottom end, and since the amp supports a 4-ohm load, you can connect two pairs of 8-ohm speakers. And we’re pleased to report that the spring-loaded binding posts now accommodate banana plugs.

The system still requires at least one module to be hard-wired to your network, but now that you can plop the ZoneBridge BR100 ($100) next to your router, you won’t feel as though you’re wasting a ZonePlayer just to achieve connectivity. The bridges are also handy in larger homes where the mesh network can’t quite reach every corner.

Support for FLAC and Apple Lossless has been added, but the system still can’t handle WMA Lossless. You can stream playlists from iTunes, WinAmp, Windows Media Player, and Rhapsody, but the system still can’t play DRM-protected iTunes tracks (is anyone still buying those?).

The system already makes it supremely easy to sample the riches of Internet radio, but Sonos is now in the midst of overhauling the software to incorporate elements of the RadioTime service, which helps you find Internet radio stations that suit your musical tastes (those changes weren’t finished in time for this review). And now Sonos owners get to enjoy free subscriptions to the music-discovery services Last.fm and Pandora (we’re not talking about free trials—the services are now free to Sonos customers).

At this point, the only way the Sonos controller could get any better is with a tricked-out multitouch interface reminiscent of Apple’s iPod and iPhone. Well, if you own one of those devices, you can now download a free utility from the App Store that renders it capable of controlling the Sonos system.

We consider the Sonos the gold standard in music streaming. But we do wish the company offered more bundle choices. Buying the ZP90, ZP120, and CR100 controller in this package provides a $250 discount over buying the pieces separately, but if you already have powered speakers and would prefer to have two ZP90s and a controller, you must buy the pieces a la carte—at a $100 premium over this bundle (money that would be better spent on a bridge—or music!).