August 13, 2008

Unbox: ZvBox HD Video Streamer from ZeeVee

There's been a lot of excitement over the ZvBox from ZeeVee, a unique type of media streamer. What makes the ZvBox so unique is the how it interacts and distributes your media as we mentioned in a previous article:

The box itself converts the video from the PC's VGA port into a high-def channel and sends it out to your home's coax cable network.
A PC app acts as a launcher for all the good PC-based internet video clients, like Hulu, Joost and even Microsoft's own Media Center.
The remote controls not just your TV, but the app on the PC too, giving you decent control over the otherwise PC-locked experience.

The idea of sending your PC content over you home cable setup to any TV in the house just boggles the mind. We've recently received our review unit and we'll get it setup and let you know what we think but we'll start you off with a quick unboxing.

It's hard to tell from the picture, the box for the ZvBox is surprisingly small.

When you first open the box, the first thing you'll notice is the huge full color "Get Going" guide. We're sure this be handy when we start the setup.

Notice how the ZvBox is almost as small as the remote?

It's hard to really to tell from this image but it's unbelievable how much stuff is packed in the second layer of the box.

Here's the second layer pulled out of the box. There seems to be 10 times more cables than there are actual hookups on the device. Hopefully that means we won't have to go on a last minute search for cables like we have to do on a lot of hook-ups.

Here's all of the hardware together.

Here's a close-up pf the ZvBox and the remote.

Here's the "Get Going" guide we mentioned earlier.

The nice thing about the guide is there's several graphics of how to hook up the ZvBox based on your current home theater setup.

There's a really good page in the guide that breaks down what each feature of the pretty fancy looking remote for the ZvBox.

As we mentioned before, there are very few connections on the back of the device.

Here's a front view of the ZvBox. As you can tell, the device is slimmer than a paperback book.

That's the complete unbox of the ZvBox from ZeeVee. There's quite a bit of hardware in the package so our first impression of hooking up the device is that it might be a bit complicated. Still, the manual looks pretty informative so we're hoping our first impression is wrong. We'll do the complete setup in the next few days and let you know how it turns out. Overall, the device will fit in nicely with our home theater and we're pretty excited to see what the ZeeVee buzz is about. We'll keep you posted.

ZvBox at Amazon

Read More in: Unboxing | Video Devices | Video Streaming

Share this Article with others: