May 25, 2007

Oneforall PC Media Streaming Kit

The Oneforall is an interesting device in the media streaming world. It ships with two pieces, the transmitter and receiver. The receiver hooks up to your TV and waits for a single from the transmitter to start playing files.

The Transmitter hooks up to your video card on your computer. This will only work if you have S-Video out on your card. Once hooked up to your computer you have to install the Simplecenter media software on your computer to bring it all together.

The Transmitter uses RF signals to send the files to the TV. There is an inherent problem with this in that RF signals are susceptible to interference from any number of sources around your house. From what we have read the use of RF for the transmission of your media files really impacts the quality of the files. Here is a very telling quote from the people at computer active:

Due to the nature of RF technology, other electrical appliances and power cables will interfere with the signal, resulting in an image that looks like a poorly tuned TV.

The upside of this approach to streaming media is that the box doesn't have to deal with formats since it is just streaming the signal from your computer. So unlike so many other boxes out there that fight to get just the right mix of formats to make everyone happy, this little sucker just passes the info on not caring what it is.

Wether or not to buy this for your home comes down to a few factors. Personally we don't like the RF transmission, but if you don't have a wireless or wired network in your house this may be a good option. Another telling quote from the review:

If you’re looking to stream movies, music and photos over short distances and your PC and TV are in the same room, you’d probably get good use out of this reasonably priced device. Realistically, though, most of us will want to fire off media to varying parts of the house and that's where reception will be a problem.

via computeractive