Get yourself set up with screaming video

---

Product: Netgear Digital Entertainer HD Model EVA8000
Website: www.netgear.com/eva8000
System Requirements: Microsoft Windows, Minimum - Intel Pentium 500 MHz processor, 128 MB memory, 20 MB, 2.4GHz wireless adaptor or Ethernet adaptor, Broadband Internet service (recommended)
Price: £220, €325, $440 approximately

---

THE EVA8000 is Netgear's second foray into the home digital streaming market. We looked at the EVA700 late last year and were interested in seeing just how far it's come since then. Also to see what it's accomplished, if anything's improved and if it's worthwhile making an investment in this technology yet.

This product is labelled as a media streamer, from computer to EVA800, then TV. Only now it's built to handle HD content too.

At the heart of the EVA800 is the 200MHz Sigma Media processor which has multiple DSP cores and 128MB of DDR RAM. We're sure the OS behind it is a Linux flavour of sorts. You'll see why we've come to that astute conclusion later.

EVA8000 - Side

Netgear has added a few connections to the EVA8000 that weren't in the EVA700. The first of note is the inclusion of an HDMI port, addressing the needs of the High Def world. This also lets Netgear target D-Link and Apple TV, which have similar boxes and ports. Netgear has also added a USB port at the rear, which was one of our beefs with the previous unit. As leaving any eternal storage connected long-term shows an unsightly mess of cable hanging off the front. Now it's nicely tucked away at the rear. It has also updated the systems to access most file systems, not just FAT32 as in before.

Apart from that, it has more or less the same connections as before - which can be seen below.

EVA8000 - Rear

Upon our initial installation we encountered a hurdle - no sound. We followed through the easy on-screen installation despite believing that no audio was carried across the HDMI cable. Perhaps a secondary audio lead was required for some reason. After this completed we connected to our Wifi router effortlessly, media was then to be sought out on our network. We stopped the install at this stage and tried to resolve the audio problem.

Before we started plugging in more cables at the rear of the EVA8000, we wandered through the various software screens provided, and found the Supervisor Menu. There's a firmware update option from here, both directly from Netgear and from a computer. This screamed Major Update found, when something is screaming useful advice we tend to listen.

After the firmware installed and the unit rebooted, audio was heard by all and rejoicing was bountiful in the Halls of Kerr. We just put this stumbling block to old shipping firmware, although it was a tad worrying that it wouldn't work straight out the box.

We had to repeat the entire set-up again, but this time it was much more thorough we found. After this, we ran the software provided on CD, which found on the computer various media and was able to share it with the EVA8000. This is more or less the main way video, music and photos can be seen.

Before the firmware update the max screen output we could select was only 720p. No good for our LG 37-inch LCD HD beast. After update, up popped 1080p - ideal for the LG screen.

We tried to find out what software and OS was behind the EVA8000 as we were intrigued by the errors we received on bad Wifi signals or unrecognised file formats. They were in the range of smb:// and /mnt/usb errors. From that alone we knew that Linux was behind the digital streamer, but Netgear was unable to provide any more details. Shame, as it would have been nice who to credit and who to blame for these problems.

EVA8000 - in use

Before we talk about the various file formats and their streaming ability on the EVA8000, it's worth highlighting the network connections. We found great difficulty with the high definition media and just regular AVI files over WiFi connections, even with the media streaming to the device being in the same room. A better response was had over 100Mbit/s wired Ethernet. In our opinion 802.11g isn't setup for high definition streaming, perhaps if Netgear sought to include 802.11n we might have seen a better outcome.

Seeing as this is called an HD model we tried streaming some high definition media. The most common ones around are movie trailers, so we headed over to the Apple website and grabbed some of the more popular ones.

The EVA800 struggles immensely with 1080p trailers, on Wifi and wired networks. We stepped down to 720p - here we found the same problem. Finally we managed to play the 480p formats with no trouble at all.

The file sizes shouldn't have been a problem. We believe the EVA8000 just isn't powerful enough to handle HD media or complex formats.

This was proved time in time again when we tried a multitude of other HD media. In many file formats, from Windows Media Video 9 codec based to H.264 based. All seemed to struggle on both Wifi and 100Mbit/s wired networks. Sizes varied from a good hearty 16GB in size down to a 39MB file, with 1080i to 720p - with the same problem.

The problem wasn't that it couldn't play the file. It could and the image was quite stunning. It's just that it didn't play at all well. The delivery was extremely choppy, as if we were watching a DVD being playing in 1/8 speed. This is why we've deemed the EVA8000 isn't powerful enough to really play HD content at a reasonable level. It could be the processor; it could be down to the RAM not being substantial enough or the software. But something is amiss.

The EVA800 struggled once again on playback of ISO files, even over an 100Mbit/s Ethernet network. Also the menu functions of the DVD aren't available either, it just automatically plays the contents and that's about it. Losing all the usefulness of the DVD firmat in terms of content and features, negates its entire purpose, in our opinion.

It did however play normal AVis in regularly seen file formats very well, with excellent image delivery.

There are a few problems that we've come across that are a tad annoying. When streaming AVIs and other video media that it can handle over the Wifi network it tends to crash a lot when you start to increase speed while fast-forwarding through thefile. After it crashes, it won't play the file again until the EVA8000 is rebooted. Although this isn't the same with a wired network, we put that down to buggy software. Many forum posts highlight that the software behind this is somewhat buggy.

Another problem we discovered, and a biggie by our reckoning is that the remote control appears to share the same frequency/IR code as that of a Virgin Media V+ box. Whenever a button is pressed on the Virgin Media V+ remote control a menu or an option is actioned on the EVA8000, in a seemingly random way. After two/three buttons pressed on the V+ remote the box crashes. Only after a power-off and power-up does the Netgear product work once again. The media streamers remote has no effect on the V+ unit. Over 167,000 people in the UK are using a Virgin Media V+ box, so this is a rather big problem. We brought this to the attention of Netgear, which was unware of the problem and have now flagged.MO< Netgear is promoting with its Poweline HD devices - Ethernet over the power circuit at home with this product. So we believed it has acknowledged some of the problems of HD streaming along with the limits of 802.11g.

It does have some extra features that make it look attractive. Being able to stream Youtube content, playing digital right locked media, access to Flickr photos too. All of these are focused on providing more for your dollar than just media screaming around the home. µ

In Short
This is geared towards to more tech-savvy of us, not in its use but its usefulness around the home. It's really for those who do have a good deal of video media, possibly music/photos and would like greater access to them. However, we don't believe the EVA8000 is really geared up to cope with HD media on a good level. Other media, it seems to cope with well even exemplary. Seeing as it's billed as an HD media player it still has some ways to go to convince us it's suitable and lives up to that tag.

The Good
A decent range of codecs supported (too many to list), HDMI slot, lots of promise.

The Bad
Conflicts with Virgin Media remote control, possibly SKY + too, we've just found out.

The Ugly
Couldn't properly handle HD video, even though it's supposed to be an HD video streamer.

Bartender's Report