OzCableguy

Description: The CinemaTube is a basic media player that can play movies and music stored on Networked PCs or connected USB Hard Drives or flash drives on a home theatre via either RCA or HDMI cables. It also has a built-in Torrent client which allows up to 3 simultaneous Torrent downloads. 

Manufacturer Specs: http://www.i-play.com.au/brite-view.php or http://www.brite-view.com/. 

Warranty: 12 months 

Community Support & forums: http://www.brite-viewforum.com/ 

Likes:

• No media server application required on networked PCs. It can browse network shares.
• It can be connected via Cat5 cable to your home network or alternatively wirelessly with the WL-6203 Wireless USB module (not included) or I also found that the Xtreamer XM11N Wireless USB module works fine. 

Dislikes:

• No music navigation such as the ability to search by song title, artist or genre on networked drives. Playlists can be created but only on connected hard drives, not on network drives. 

Bottom Line: Simple and easy to use. The remote control performance is much better than the Xtreamer and it’s cheaper, but it doesn’t do as much stuff as the Xtreamer. This one is the best choice if you’re mainly interested in streaming movies from networked PCs to your home theatre system and don’t need it to do anything else. On that basis it’s fantastic. 

Ensure the latest firmware version available from http://www.brite-view.com/support.php is installed. I did experience some choppiness in the streaming quality with the older firmware version that the unit came with which was fixed with the update.

Price: $115.50 (July Special) 

Where to buy:
ZM5005HD Media Player –  http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=ZM5005HD.
WL-6203 Wireless USB Module – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=WL-6203
Combo – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=ZM5005HDC

Description: The XM2500 is a device that can stream media from Networked PCs and Hard Drives, connected USB Hard Drives or flash drives or an internal 2.5” SATA Hard Drive (not included) to a home theatre via either RCA or HDMI cables.

Manufacturer Specs: http://www.i-play.com.au/xtreamer.php or http://www.xtreamer.net/xtreamer/overview.aspx. 

Warranty: 12 months 

Community Support & forums: http://forum.xtreamer.net/ 

Likes:

• No media server application required on networked PCs. It can browse network shares.
• A 2.5” SATA Hard Drive can be fitted inside to use as storage. (Click here for list of compatible drives).
• You can change the skin. Click here for the skin wiki to check them out.
• It can play live internet content.
• It can be connected via Cat5 cable to your home network or alternatively wirelessly with the XM11N Wireless USB module (not included). I used the XM11N module and it performed flawlessly connected to a Draytek 2710Vn. No problems streaming big movies at all.
• When using the fast forward button the sound keeps playing without distortion or changing pitch. This was a huge amount of fun for my pre-teen kids playing music videos at faster speeds until they hyperventilated and collapsed on the floor.

Dislikes:

• No music navigation such as the ability to search by song title, artist or genre on networked drives. Hopefully the Music Jukebox feature to be added in a future firmware release will improve this situation. In the meantime you may need to break music down into smaller folders, perhaps by artist or genre, to make browsing easier. However, if you want to play a particular song, another option is to play it live from Youtube which does have a search feature.
• I’m not stoked with the remote control performance. It works ok but it seems to be very directional. I found I needed to point the remote control directly at the unit for it to work reliably.
• The onscreen keyboard used for Internet searches and entering wireless security settings is in QWERTY format rather than ABCDEF etc. It’s a personal preference I guess but I’d much rather see it in alphabetical order when scrolling and clicking letters onscreen using the remote control’s left, right, up and down buttons.
• Once or twice while I was clicking madly through screens it froze up and/or rebooted. The freezes required pulling the power out of the back or switching it off and back on at the wall because there’s no physical on/off button on the unit.
• There’s no Aussie weather or news available in the Live Internet Content. What is there is extremely cool though and it kept me amused and amazed for many hours.

Bottom Line: It’s cheap as chips and does the job well. Much better in fact than many more expensive media players I’ve tested. 

Price: $139.70 (on special July ‘10)

Where to buy:
XM2500 Media Player – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=XM2500.
XM11N Wireless USB Module – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=XM11N
Combo – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=XM2500C

Sadly, McAfee have decided to discontinue the Snapgear series of products. For support and warranty phone 1300 559109 or go online at https://mysupport.mcafee.com/Eservice/Default.aspx. For direct access to the online knowledge base click here.

For alternative products check out the Draytek range, the Billion BiGuard series and Cyberoam and D-Link NetDefend products found in the Security Appliances category in the online shop.

Here’s a quick feature comparison of the main contenders (hopefully reasonably accurate) -