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Ever had the desire to wirelessly share recorded TV content, videos, music, and pictures to televisions throughout the house? For those of you who said yes, Hauppauge now has answered your demands with their new Wireless MediaMVP. Did I mention it was wireless?

Hauppauge sent us an evaluation unit of the Wireless MediaMVP (referred to as WMVP henceforth) the other day, so I decided to take advantage of this freebie, and test the unit in my house by connecting my Beyond TV server to the WMVP (see figure 1 below).

Attention to the weak-stomached– my living quarters are very small, so setting up a real-world test scenario realistically came down to two options.

1) Place the WMVP unit right next to my family room TV (which already has a Beyond TV server hooked up to it), or

2) Set up a 13� television in my bathroom (approximately 25 feet from my Beyond TV server) and connect the WMVP to the small screen TV.

I opted for option 2—for the sake of being different AND to determine if I would actually realize value by using the device in this environment. After making my decision, it was time to go through the process of setting up the WMVP and configuring it to work with my Beyond TV server and home wireless LAN.

Figure 1. Network layout of my Beyond TV server, wireless router, and WMVP

Caption. The WMVP connects wirelessly (or via physical Ethernet) to my wireless router, which grabs the media stream originating from my Beyond TV PC.

Setup of the WMVP was very straightforward. I simply installed the included Hauppauge software on my Beyond TV server, told the software which folders on my PC to serve up (see figure 2), and plugged the WMVP into my 13� TV. After configuring the WMVP to communicate with my wireless network (see figure 3), I was ready to rock-and-roll.

Figure 2: Hauppauge software included on CD-ROM

Figure 3: LAN configuration screen

After setup of the WMVP on my LAN, I was able to stream previously recorded content captured with Beyond TV 4.4 (see figure 4) (MPEG-2 Good quality) over the network to my bathroom as well as MP3s (see figure 5), photos, and home videos.

Figure 4. Play back previously recorded videos

Figure 5. Play back MP3s

The biggest question I had before setting the device up was whether or not video playback could be done wirelessly in a quality acceptable to me. Note, in order to be acceptable to me, video must not be choppy, audio and video must be in sync, and the video quality must be pleasant to the eye at full screen. To my surprise, the quality did pass my standards– video playback was good (no choppiness), there was no video or audio interruption and the full-screen videos looked relatively clear and non-pixilated.

After the WMVP passed the “Video Playback Test�, it was obvious to me that it would have no trouble playing MP3s, and displaying photos. As expected, when the MP3 and Photos tests (playing back MP3s and flipping through a slide show respectively) were applied, I had no issues with the WMVP.

Now that the testing had concluded, the million dollar question was—would I actually use the WMVP in the bathroom? The answer to that question was yes and no.

Yes, I did use the WMVP quite frequently for streaming MP3s through the TV. It turned out to be especially handy when getting ready in the mornings, when longer periods of time were spent preparing for work. Listening to music while brushing my teeth and flossing set my day off on the right foot. As for photos, videos, and TV shows, I did not spend much time taking advantage of those capabilities.

I could see where this would be a very handy little product if I had another room to stream to—in an area where photos, video, and TV streaming made more sense, like a bedroom. Even so, the ability to sing along to music in the shower, and the side-benefit of being a great conversation piece makes the WMVP “Bathroom Edition� an essential piece of Water Closet hardware.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 2:19 pm by Tom and is filed under Articles, General, SnapStream Store. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.