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MediaGate MG-35 NDAS/NAS MPEG4 Videos/ MP3 Music/ JPG Photos Portable Media Player + USB 2.0 + Network External 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure Case with Remote Control: AL Tech MG-35NAS (Supports 500GB Hard Drives) | List Price: $154.99
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Brand: Al Tech MediaGate
Features: - Supports NDAS (Network Direct Attached Storage) function. Can be configured as a network hard drive
- Plays media files without the need of a PC
- Perfect for downloaded High-Definition movie videos.
- Sigma Designs chipset provides highest MPEG quality.
- Able to play media files from internal hard drive or PCs in the network via included remote control.
Very nice [Posted on 2007-02-22]
I had the MG-35 for over 3 month now, I only had SD TV the picture of the DIVX files looks great and the sound is amazing "I hooked it up with Creative 2.1 system" I add a 400 GB PATA 300 GB segate Hard drive works great by the way you can portions the hard drive as well.
The only bad thing no built in web page you have to install the software to see the hard drive plus it is too slow for 100T "I don't think it is a 100T" so basically if are going to transfer pictures or small video clips you can do it over the network but big movie files 700 MB you might spend good 15 min doing that so you might want to use the USB2 unless if you can wait.
Great device - could be better [Posted on 2007-06-04]
I ordered this with a pre-installed 300GB hard drive. It plays most (not all - doesn't do wmv, for example) videos very well, even cleanly enlarging small avi and mpg files to look good on a TV screen.
File transfers are slow, however. I use the USB hookup, and I find that for larger video files copying overnight is the way to go. I haven't tried the ethernet method, but if it's slow at 480mbps over USB2....
I'd buy it again.
Connectivity [Posted on 2007-09-24]
This is a nice functional box in general. When I purchased this I wanted the convenience of being able to push files to the HDD via LAN connection, as I don't want to keep connecting and reconnecting the box to my computer located in different part of the house. My experience is the speed of upload is very slow compare to USB2 conection. I should have bought the new MG-350 as this accepts connection of USB devices to it, giving additional convenience. But at the time I didn't want to pay extra for the wireless feature as I found wireless transfers are also slow even at 108Mbs.
Hope to see a Gigabit version as that should serve HD streaming well.
Good Value. [Posted on 2007-09-25]
I bought the MG-35 a few months ago and after using it a lot I have positive impression.
1) The user interface is not well designed, but it performs well and fulfills its functions. The unit works correctly and rarely crashes, but has a hard time with some recent XviD encoded files: sometimes it cannot fast-forward or rewind or even speed up the scene. I hope MediaGate will improve this in future firmware upgrades.
2) Image quality is good, even in the highest setting. Pricier competitors cannot provide the same quality.
3) Subtitles work particularly well, and gets accented characters correctly -- my Portuguese and German subtitles show perfectly.
4) The remote is the cheapest thing ever. It fails constantly, has faulty membrane contact buttons with no tactile feedback, and works with a single CR-2025 battery that is short-lived. I never know it is failng because the battery has expired or because it simply collapsed. I'm programming another vendor's universal controller to replace it before I lose my temper and throw it through the window. The remote is definitively the worst thing in this product, and then some. They surely spared money on the wrong place, because you cannot have full access to all the functions without the remote. Argh!
5) I don't use the inner drive bay, but the network connection works perfectly, and I am able to browse and play files from my Linux-based NAS, my Windows desktop and all notebooks connectes to my LAN, either wire or wirelessly, including my MacBook Pro. Sometimes I have problems with the old W2K server, but they are caused by the faulty Windows 2000 network services. Interoperability with Microsoft is always an issue; even my W98, W2K and WXP desktops do not work properly as expected.
6) The manual is useless. Looks it was written by a monkey or an automatic translator. The English is so bad some sentences just don't make sense. Luckly you can browse through the interface and discover what to do. Tech newbies beware.
Although the remotely functional remote decreases the value of this product (hence only three stars) it is still a bargain: you cannot find so many functions and image/sound quality in other products even twice this price.
Better than nothing [Posted on 2007-11-02]
This device is much better than the GoVideo "networked DVD player" I bought a long time ago (5-10 years ago, I can't remember). That required a very powerful (at the time) PC to do transcoding on-the-fly. This one plays 2/3 of the videos I have natively. Conversely, there is a third of them that it can't play...
Security-wise, the MG-35 is a liability because it forces you to enable the guest account in Windows or to create one under Linux, and give it access to your shared folder without a password. That's right, there is no way to tell this device which password to use, so you have to set the password to null! Enabling the guest account in Windows is also a bad idea.
The NDAS functionality requires the installation of software on Windows or the compilation of software under Linux; you have to download the source code from another site. The instructions are clear and it works, it just takes time... An hour which I wish I had spent doing something else than setup a machine that could just have used samba instead.
Video stutters if you use the NDAS functionality at the same time you play something.
As another reviewer noted, the remote control is incredibly bad and unresponsive.
So, this device works, sort of, most of the time. It's trash compared to XBMC (Xbox media center) software running on an Xbox, which is unfortunately illegal in the US due to codec licensing issues as well as the compiled code being illegal to distribute and use due to the licensing terms for the compiler. I just don't understand why there isn't a company that can make anything that can compare to the XBMC software.
Click here for more details and discount information...
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