GMG TVisto Pro 3500 USB 2.0 / Ethernet Media Player
We just stumbled upon this really cool new media streamer today and we were pretty blown away with what we read. Out of no where this little( read 6.5 inch wide ) media streamer seems to have all its bases covered. It offers decent amount of file formats to be streamed over it as well as offering multiple ways in which to stream them. You can install in internal SATA drive to the device, you can hook up a USB drive to it or you can stream content over your local network.
Hook the TVisto up in your entertainment cabinet, connect it to your TV and you will have access to all of your movies, music and photos at the touch of a button. The setup seems pretty simple and from what little we have seen of the interface it looks very clean and easy to use. This is the type of device that we think could really bring a whole new crop of people to the media streaming world.
Read after the jump about file formats and what we view are the shortcomings.
So file formats, this is usually one of the make or break areas for a lot of devices. The Tvisto is missing some of the bigger codecs like Xivd and DivX, but it does cover a lot of the other major players. Here is what it does support:
Video
- MPEG-1
- MPEG-2
- MPEG-4
- WMV9 (up to 720p)
- ISO
Now you'll notice that ISO is on the list. This isn't technically a codec or anything, but it does point out that this box is advertising something we wish more media streaming companies would do. The ability to mount, play and umount ISO images. We personally keep our collection of DVDs in ISO format so we have access to the entire DVD as it was intended. Keeping things in MP4 format for instance is nice, saves space and the quality is decent, but you don't get the same experience not quality as an ISO rip. So we are extremely excited that it has native support for this.
Audio
They have covered most of the major ones here. The only one we would like to see added would be FLAC, but it seems like not many of the multi-function streamers include it so we can't be to upset, it isn't trying to be the
Squeezebox after all.
This will connect to your wireless or wired network. The one major problem we have with this is the fact that it only currently supports WEP. We hate when companies only support WEP since we refuse to change our network security to something with known flaws that can be cracked with a basic laptop in no time. The problems with WEP have been known for a long time so we aren't sure why so many companies add it to their devices or why they don't give you WPA as an option. Maybe there is some technical issue or licensing crap for WP!, but whatever the reason, it really hurts the product to force people to use WEP if they happen not to have an Ethernet connection nearby.
The other main downside is that if you want to take use of either an internal hard drive or a USB device you will have to live in a Microsoft world. The software needed to transfer files to the internal drive is a Windows only program and if you want to use the USB drive option it will need use the FAT32 format. We know that Mac and Linux don't make up a ton of the desktops out there, but currently we suspect the percentage of people streaming media are more likely to own a Mac or a Linux box then those that aren't. Again, we can't fault them, we just wish they at least didn't limit the file format to FAT32. Now we will have to reformat a drive just for this.
As for how this will connect to your TV you have a few options, you can use Component, Composite or S-Video and use either digital audio or standard Stereo RCA cables for the audio. We already have one of these suckers in the mail so we will have an update soon on what we think and if it can overcome some of its shortcomings. Stay tuned.
at
Amazon
To read our hands on review click
here.
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Posted by David Ficocello at November 15, 2007 7:51 PM
Glad to know you have your Tvisto Pro and will be doing a full review. I look forward to it.
The MediaGate MG-35 is a nice device, and is more capable than my earlier Divx compatible HDD player (a Lasonic/IONI HV670 HDD and DVD player) as the MG-35 can play a more varied selection of Divx encoded AVI files than the Lasonic could (none of the Divx AVI files I had downloaded from Google video over the years would work in the Lasonic, but they do work in the MG-35, for instance.) However, to access the MG-35's HDD over the network requires the installation of proprietary NDAS software by Ximeta. This, for me, is a deal killer. Others may be ok with this limitation.
I'll be watching for the review of the Tvisto Pro. Thanks.
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