Home Network

JetStreamHD was announced today, a new device that streams all of the digital media stored on your home computer network to your iPad. But here's the kicker. You don't have to be at home to access any video, song, or photo from your home network. You can be traveling on a business trip, or just out and about and still view all of your home-based media collection right on your iPad.

Setup is easy too. Simply plug the JetStreamHD box into your home router and download the free app to your iPad. Within a few minutes, it finds all of the media on your computer (in any format), media server or NAS attached to your network and makes it immediately available for viewing on your iPad.Read more

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve/Day are just some of the holidays that bring people together. Make your holiday get-together even better with some of the latest home audio gear from Marantz. Designed and engineered from the ground up, all Marantz components are created to bring out the best from all of today's high-performance sources, both analog and digital. Here are a few new home entertainment components from Marantz that are sure to generate great vibes at your holiday gathering.

The Marantz SR7005 A/V Receiver is the ideal centerpiece for any audio/video system. In addition to a bevy of input options – including a front-panel USB input for iPod digital playback – the SR7005 offers new ways to enjoy more personal content from Internet sources, including streaming of both Pandora and Flickr, as well as audio and photos directly from your PC. Users have access to over 14,000 Internet radio stations and Rhapsody and Napster music services. The SR7005 A/V Receiver is available now for $1,599.99.Read more

At CES, Olive and THIEL announced that they have teamed up on a new networked HD music system, the Olive+THIEL HD Music System. The multi-room system combines the Olive 4HD music server with THIEL's SCS4 IP-based loudspeakers for high-resolution audio anywhere in your home network.

The Olive+THIEL system streams music over Ethernet in HD quality directly into THIEL's IP-based SCS4D speakers. The system features a built-in touch-screen LCD to easily find and play music, and a free iPhone app is available to allow an iPhone or iPod touch to act as a remote. Music can be copied to the hard drive via the built-in CDRW drive (which can also burn playlists for the car), or from a networked computer. The system can also connect to your TV via HDMI. Did I mention that this system can store a whopping 6,000 CDs or 20,000 24-bit HD music tracks in lossless quality?Read more

The way people are listening to music is changing. More and more music is being listened to on the computer than ever before. Yamaha pays attention to this. The proof is their MusicCAST2 Network Music Distribution System. It is an expandable wireless system that allows you to listen to music throughout your home. What makes even better is the MusicCAST2 works with your existing audio system as well, unlike some other network music systems.

MusicCAST2 is a WiFi-based system that connects to your computer to allow you to listen to music files, Rhapsody online music service, Internet radio, and NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices throughout your home. MusicCAST2 Network Music Players can playback music from iPod and Bluetooth devices via optional accessories, as well as from USB thumb drives. Read more

Onkyo today announced three network-and-internet-radio-capable, 9.2-channel THX Ultra2 Plus certified A/V receivers - the Onkyo TX-NR1007, TX-NR3007, and top-of-the-line TX-NR5007.

All three receivers include a rear-panel Ethernet port, and can stream music from Pandora, Rhapsody, vTuner, and Sirius Internet Radio services. Each receiver is Windows 7 compatible, and carries DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) 1.5 certification. They also include dual parallel HDMI outputs and ISF Certified Calibration Controls (ISFccc) for independent optimization and fine-grain adjustments of a full range of video sources.

The Onkyo receivers will be available in September at suggested retail prices of $2,699 for the TX-NR5007, $2,099 for the TX-NR3007, and $1,599 for the TX-NR1007. Read more

NETGEAR's new Digital Entertainer Elite (EVA9150) is a new digital media player that lets you stream your digital content (video, MP3s, photos, recorded TV shows) over your home network to your HDTV. And with its 500GB hard drive, the Digital Entertainer Elite is the largest capacity home video jukebox currently on the market.

The Digital Entertainer Elite works with Windows, Mac and Linux computers, and Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. It features two USB ports so you can access your content from a USB flash drive, digital camera, iPod or other USB storage device. The Digital Entertainer Elite also doesn't require a UPNP server running on your machine. Searching is done directly on the device, so you can navigate content on multiple PCs (and devices) at the same time. To make it even easier, the Digital Entertainer Elite automatically finds all digital media files on your home network and organizes them into a library.

Jumping on the "green" bandwagon, the Digital Entertainer Elite is environmentally friendly with features such as an energy-efficient power supply and auto-sleep mode which uses as little as .01 watts.Read more

If you are like me and have tons of digital photos, videos and music taking up valuable space on your computer’s hard drive, you might want to consider the latest offering from Verbatim – their new Gigabit NAS desktop hard drives which hold up to 2TB of content! And with Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for file sharing, you will be able to free up space on your computer all while sharing your content between any PC or Mac on your home network.

Verbatim Gigabit NAS hard drives can also be used as a home entertainment server to stream movies to your TV through their UPnP/DLNA media player or stream music to any computer running iTunes. And for additional savings, instead of purchasing a printer for each computer, a single USB printer can be added to the drive’s USB host port that everyone on the network can use.

For easy network setup, Verbatim Gigabit NAS hard drives support Samba (for PCs) and Bonjour (for Macs) protocols. Worried about security? No need. Private folders with user access rights can be established for individual users. Also, Nero BackItUp 4 Essentials for Windows systems is included for automatic backup of all your computers.

Verbatim’s new Desktop Gigabit NAS Hard Drives will be available at the end of March in 1TB and 2TB. The suggested retail pricing of the 1TB drive will be $229.99.

ZillionTV just rolled out a beta program of their new personalized TV service. With this service, you will be able to watch what you want, when you want…free. How does it work? You access the ZillionTV Service via a free device that connects to both the TV and your home network. A motion-sensing remote control is also included. Once connected, a setup wizard guides you through the activation process. After that, just turn on your TV, choose your programming and you’re good to go!

I’m sure you’re wondering how they can offer this free service. The way they do it is by having you select the advertising content that you want to watch which will be shown during the programming. Don’t want to view ads? They also have an option to view programming sans ads (for a fee, of course). Read more