Smart Home Blog

Acer recently launched its new HD media streamer Aspire RevoView. It looks like Acer nettop. So, it isn’t so stylish like ASUS’s media players. The functionality also looks similar to other players on the market – 1080p playback of all well-known codes and containers from internal 3.5″ HDD, attached USB storage or network shares. The streamer’s range of ports are also standard – HDMI, S/PDIF, USB 2.0, Ethernet. But additionally the Aspire RevoView sports card-rider and miniUSB port which allow to connect it to PC as ordinary external HDD.

The Acer Aspire RevoView 1080p streamer should already available with price ~$200.

Buffalo has announced two HD media streamers LT-H90LAN (Lan Only) and LT-H90WN (Lan and Wifi A/B/G/N) as a part of its LinkTheater family. Both allows to stream Music (AAC, MPEG Audio, WMA, WM DRM 10 and MP3), Pictures (JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF), as well as Video (Mpeg-2, H.264 and WMV9), in Full HD resolution: 1920×1080, but they miss of support DivX files. The main feature of Buffalo HD media streamers is DLNA DTCP-IP (Digital Transmission Content Protection over Internet Protocol) “a specification for copyrighted content transferred over IP between two compliant DTCP-IP products, and does not allow contents to be transmitted over the internet or shared outside of the home network”. So, the Hollywood studios shouldn’t worry about their copyrights.

Slim Devices – well-known company which produced amazing music streamer Squeezbox, announced its new product Transporter. The Transporter is the network High-End music player. Unlike its small brother Squeezbox it has a bunch of outputs: XLR, optical, S/PDIF, and coax ins and outs. Additionally, the Transporser has astounding analog support:

The AK4396 “Miracle DAC” was chosen for its high dynamic range and low distortion. Its low out-of-band noise allows for the use of low-order output filters with higher cutoffs, resulting in preservation of phase and reduced distortion in the audible band. This extraordinary accuracy at higher frequencies allows Transporter to resolve the exact staging of instruments and the finest details of any recording.

The Transporter may be an alternative to Sonos Digital Music System.The Slim Devices Transporter will be available this Septermer but you can preorder it with price $1,999 and get a gift – Squeezebox!

[via Engadget]

Sonos offers nice looking, wireless, multi-room digital music system that lets you play digital music over house (for flat it’ll be to much I guess). The system contains ZonePlayer, Controller and Loudspeakers. There are two models of player: with built-in amplifier and without it. To control the system it sports a wireless, handheld, iPod-like Controller with color LCD. Installation of Sonos system is extremely simple. The price is $1199 (depending on complectation).
Sonos looks nice and its functionality is nice but it’d be greate system if it can play video as well. Because currently Sonos plays only audio.