Customer Reviews

Netgear EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I really like this device, it's got great potential. However I should note that this unit is for techical users - not-technical users will probably be better off with iTV.

This box plays a lot more formats and has a lot more features - but it compromises on ease of use. If you are the kind of person that likes to tinker - this is definitely a good fit for you. Make sure that 1st thing you do after plugging it in (which was really quick and painless) is register on NetGear forums and request access to beta firmware.

Beta firmware addresses a lot of stability issues of original firmware and adds many good useful features. And access to beta firmware is free, also you can roll back to original one if you'd like at any time.

So far it played anything I tried (about 5-6 different formats). Firmware is being actively worked on, developers are active on the forums and actually listen to feature requests.

Overall I'm very happy with my EVA8000, it does everything I need at a fraction of a cost of Media Center PC.

This product needs some software and firmware upgrades to make it a viable media center. Specifically the UI structure still seems to be in Beta mode. Setup was painless (altho if you are VISTA OS make sure you upgrade the firmware), Internet Radio worked well and playing AVI & WMV files worked well, it could not find my iTunes playlists either. But the biggest bust is the confused state of the UI which makes this product unusable (especially for VOB files). Tech Support was from abroad and was awful, they're not familiar with the product and the techy was shooting from the hip.
Looks like i'm going back to my XBOX360 as my media center.

The main things I use this device for are:
1) playback of ripped DVDs
2) playback of high-definition home videos

I haven't owned a cd player in over five years since I started ripping my music cd's and playing them back through mp3 players and audio streamers. Now that I can purchase music online, physical discs are quickly becoming obsolete for me as well. My hope was that with this video streamer, I would be able to do with my DVD collection what I did with my CD collection: box it up and put it into storage. This device almost lets me do that, but with some pretty disappointing limitations.

DVD Playback
First of all, this device does play back unencrypted DVD's (IFO files). This is an essential feature for a video server in my opinion, yet mysteriously this support is not advertised in the product description.

Playback of DVD's looks perfect. If you've ripped a DVD to a hard drive, you can play it back through the EVA8000 on your HDTV and it will look awesome. As an added bonus, the EVA8000 has no moving parts so you will not hear any sound from it; no fans, no spinning motors, nothing. The problems with playing back DVD's are:
1) The EVA8000 does not bookmark where you left off. If you stop watching a movie halfway through, you'll have to scan back through the movie to pick up where you left off. This is a problem even if you just stop playback without turning off the device.
2) The EVA8000 does not support menus, subtitles, or multiple angles. You can skip from chapter to chapter, but without a menu giving you a description of each chapter it can be very difficult to navigate a disc. If you want to watch a foreign film and need subtitles, you are out of luck.
3) Fast forward only works at one speed: very slow. It's not much faster than regular playback speed.
4) Occasionally the device will freeze up. This is very rare, but it does occasionally happen for no apparent reason. Unplugging and plugging the device back in clears it up.

High Definition Playback
First let me say that if you playback a high definition video through the EVA8000, it looks perfect. I have a high end high definition camcorder that I use Sony Vegas to convert my recordings to HD wmv files with. I can use the EVA8000 to select my home videos for instant playback, which is extremely convenient. No more hooking up the camcorder to the tv and scanning through tapes.

The limitations of the HD playback are extremely disappointing however.
1) The only format that I found the EVA8000 could play back is high definition wmv.
2) The EVA8000 will not play back ripped Blu-Ray or HD DVD discs.

Other Notes
I have never used the youtube feature of this device. Adding support for youtube to a high definition playback device is like adding a cassette player to your iPod.

I run this device on a gigabit ethernet connection, and have no idea how well it would play back using its wireless connection.

The user interface of the EVA8000 is lousy. I had hoped that the rest of my family would find this to be a simple alternative to the DVD player, but its not. Organization of the files is a mess, and there is no simple way to change that.

Rescanning my media library is not easy. I cannot use the auto rescan feature, because it always kicks on in the evening when I am most likely to be using the device. When a rescan is in progress, playback essentially stops. The rescan in my case takes up to an hour to complete. I have to rescan manually when I know I'm done using the device for the evening.

In summary, this device is extremely disappointing to me in several ways yet I still use it very frequently. I often wonder who Netgear was targeting with this device, as it seems to have the features advanced users would want and yet it implements advanced features so poorly. Sadly, there has not been a firmware update since July 2007 and I'm afraid the EVA8000 is not going to be seeing any improvements. I was considering giving this product a 2 or 3 star rating, but based on the fact that I do think it is good for home video playback and does so with great quality I'm giving it a generous 4 star rating.

It's really more of a 3.75, but definitely not a 4, so I had to rate it a 3.

I have had my EVA for about 4 weeks. I have had pretty mixed results when watching video files. The device either locks up or reboots itself at 2-3 times per week, which I am not happy about. It seems to give me the best performance when I am watching a ripped DVD (using DVD Shrink with no compression). Watching a ripped DVD starts playing faster than other file types and also fast forwards, rewinds and skips to chapters faster. It seems as if it does not buffer the vobs - it starts so quickly and doesn't give the buffering message I get with other file types. Most of my non-dvd rips are avi files with xvid, but I also tried h.264 in avi and mkv with limited success. many times the h.264 video is "shaky", but I suspect it may be more due to my encoding capabilities than any fault of the eva.

I have all my files on a Linksys NSLU2 NAS device. Two 1 TB drives are connected (mirrored). I have upgraded to the current beta EVA Firmware which I highly recommend. I installed the 1.8.0022 DEW originally, and it kept saying it could not be found when I try to watch YouTube video or control my PC. Then I installed DEW 1.8.0028 thinking that would solve my problem, but it did not. I finally got YouTube video to work after upgrading the firmware and selecting the play directly option so I do not need to have the PC running to play YouTube anymore. My pc is running Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1, Firewall turned off.

I stream mostly video. I bought the eva to watch tv shows I download from Europe because they are not broadcast here in the USA. Mostly racing videos and racing tv shows. I also use it to watch DVD rips and movie files which are mostly avi files using Xvid.

I have a Netgear Wireless G router, but I have the EVA connected via 100Mbps Ethernet. Only thing I did, was set up 5 different shares on my NAS for the EVA, only 1 of them is Read/Write which is used for the EVA to write its library to. Three others contain video or audio or pictures. The last one is the "adult" share which is password protected in the EVA settings so visitors do not accidentally stumble on things they should not.

I really wish there was a comprehensive manual for the device explaining what all the settings do and when they should be used. Especially, since the manual was written many months before the latest firmware. There is a good one in Netgears forums, but still not all inclusive.

Overall, I am disappointed in the stability of the device, but I feel stuck with it because I don't know of anything better that isn't a Windows Media Extender - I don't want to have to run a PC to get my video to the TV room. I just wish the device were more stable and the PC Control would work as advertised (PC Control has never worked for me because it can never find my PC on the network, even with the required software installed on the PC). Prepare to spend time searching through the Netgear forums and to join the beta forum to get the latest firmware updates - they are worth it. The Netgear EVA8000 forum is definitely a good source of help, and the Netgear moderators there are helpful and try to address your problems if you post according to the rules and give some detail.

It's like being stuck in a dead end job, but you can't leave yet because you can't afford to. I feel stuck with a buggy product, but it's still the best I have researched, and the basic functionality does work, so I have to just shut up and take it. I really like Netgear products overall and have used their routers etc., but this product is not for the faint of heart when it comes to tech research and troubleshooting.

The biggest issues with this product are its quirkiness (instability) and its poorly designed UI.

The quirkiness manifests itself in the box suddenly finding, half way through a video, that it is now "unable to play this media" (even though it was playing it a moment ago). The show stops, and you are thrown back to the menu screen. Now you have to go back and find where you were (no resume playback functionality). At first this was only happening once or twice to me, now it is consistently happening. It is extremely frustrating.

The poorly designed UI means that it's difficult navigating around your media if you have a lot of files. For example, my digital camera video files, which are in my "photos" folder, get mixed up with my TV/film videos all in one massive list. You can group by "folder" but it uses the name of the folder the film is in, so if you have two subfolders called "part 1", all the videos will end up in that bucket, even if the folders up are "Back to the Future" and "The Godfather".

All in all: if money is no issue for you, go ahead and buy it. Otherwise, wait for the next generation of these products.

UPDATE (November 2007): subsequent firmware upgrades have addressed some of the issues I mentioned above - you can now browse by folders and it will remember where you were if it finds it can't play the video half way through. However, the fact that it is still stopping half way through is bad. I thought it might be due to wireless issues but I switched to wired and it still happens. I also can't play the motion JPEG vids my Casio camera takes. I stick to my view that you should only buy this if money is not an issue for you. Oh, and if you are the type of person that likes beta testing stuff. It's by no means perfect, but it's also not the hunk of junk that some reviewers are making it out to be.

Finally, read the forums before (and after) you buy. Google for "EVA8000 Netgear Forum", and check out the beta forum too. (The prod firmware is months behind the latest beta, you'll want to upgrade.) You'll see there is a dedicated user community, and you'll probably do better off posting tech questions in the forum rather than calling up tech suppot and talking to "John" with his American accent that is suspiciously Indian, and who will just tell you to try things that have already occurred to you.

I won't bother repeating what the other reviewers have said, except to summarize:
1. This product could be great
2. It isn't, because it is totally unstable and buggy

I'm a software developer too and so I am comfortable enough with the odd peculiarity or minor bug. But this - even after firmware upgrades etc. - is so riddle with bugs it seems like functional swiss cheese.

Don't bother - not even with a view to having netgear fix it in the future - they've been trying for more than 6 months and seem to be going completely the wrong direction on this one. A pity, because the eva8000 was well conceived and they have other good products I've used.

Tested it over wired network. It was easy to set up and the box was up and running in 30 minutes. It takes about 20 minutes to scan specified folders on your PC for pictures, music and video. Quality of streamed audio, video and pictures is excellent. Tested file formats: .avi, .mp3, .wmv, .mpeg, .mov. No iusses.

YouTube videos played just fine. You need to have Netgear Digital Entertainer software running on the PC for this feature to work.

No issues playing internet radio.

I am running MS Windows Vista on one computer and XP on another. The software that came with the box installed just fine on the XP machine, but got installation errors on Vista. Downloading the latest firmware and software seemed to have fixed the issue and EVA8000 is working just fine with Vista as well.

I have a dual TV tuner card on my PC. EVA8000 allows one to stream live TV from your PC to the TV. Video quality was not as good as watching TV directly. Cool feature, but why would anyone want to stream live TV from PC on to TV.

I only have recorded TV programs using widows media center. Media center allows me to use my PC as a DVR. However, I could not figure out how to stream programs recorded using media center to EVA8000. update: You can buy license for Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) from Netgear's website. Cost is $5. You can then schedule programs to be recorded using Digital Entertainer Software.

Microsoft Windows Media Center has "Extender" capability. It did not recognize EVA8000 as a media extender.

I would have loved to see EVA8000 and windows media center work together. That does not seem to be the case.

Also read product review at http://reviews.cnet.com/Netgear_EVA8000_Digital_Entertainer_HD/4505-6739_7-32331171.html?tag=srch_1_3

You can get latest weather information with EVA8000.

If you are playing an .avi file and you want to skip it and go to the next one, there seems to be no way to skip the file. You can only fast forward it.

You can enjoy music, video and photos sitting on the sofa in your family room. You are no longer tied next to your PC.

After more than a year with my EVA this product could be your dream machine or your worst nightmare depending for what you want it for:
Let's make it simple

This product is good for you if...
- You'd like to watch You Tube in your big screen TV
- You'd like to hear your big collection of Music you have in your PC (even I tunes..yes)
- You'd like to sit with your whole family and watch your pictures and videos you have stored in your PC in almost any available format
- You'd like to hear Internet Radio trough your TV
- You'd like to read your RSS feeds in your TV


This product is not good for you if..
- You would like to record your TV shows trough your PC and watch it on your TV. Simply impossible. Buy a PSP3 instead
- You'd like to watch Internet TV.
- You'd like to be connected to an UNPN server like ORB. Will not work.
- You'd like to play the "new" Dvr-ms video format from Microsoft.
- You are expecting to buy a product totally (or reasonable) stable.
- You are expecting to buy the Center Unit of your Home Entertainment System

Why I still keep it? In my case, Pros are more than cons. I've been always an early adopter of new technology and I enjoy to be part of it. If you buy it, download regularly Netgear's beta software and who knows, in few months more you can have a better product.

... does not live up to its potential.

When I first saw the specs on this device, I thought it would be the perfect addition to my Home Theater. What I actually got was a finicky, volatile device that did not live up to its promise.

First off, video over WLAN was a no-go for me. I've read some have gotten it to work. But, I got stuttering audio and video in my environment. Furthermore, the sustained throughput swamped my router, and it kept crashing. I had to throttle the bandwidth to about 24kbps to keep things stable. In the end, I had to build a NAS, and connect via Ethernet to get watchable video. The additional cost was not welcome.

Next, I found that the built-in USB ports would recognize only one out of five of my USB hard drives. This could have been a hardware issue on my particular unit. But there have been reports that the EVA8000 will not recognize USB drives with built-in hubs. All I know is that it would not work with my Vantec enclosures, or my WD MyBook drives.

Another gripe is that the firmware is not very robust. Just about any exception will crash the entire unit, requiring a lengthy reboot. In particular, some badly encoded videos I had would crash the EVA8000.

Lastly, quality control on the EVA8000 appears to be very poor. My unit, along with numerous others reported on their forum, exhibited instability after firmware upgrade. My unit now spontaneously reboots during video playback where it used to be rock-solid (on that particular file). The only support offered was to RMA the unit. At this point, I am not prepared to throw more money at this thing.

As well, the UI on the EVA8000 is rather quirky and awkward. I was never able to teach my Luddite-wife to use the thing.

Netgear does actively develop the firmware for the EVA8000. You can sign up to try beta-releases; these are chock full of "known problems". However, official releases are not very frequent.

I have just written off the $400 I spent on this thing. It might be a "neat toy" to experiment with for the technically adept; but I would never recommend it to the average consumer. I have since built a dedicated Home Theater PC for not much more than what I paid for the EVA8000, and it is working well -- even my wife can use it.

Conclusion: skip the EVA8000 and build an HTPC.

Short version:
I cannot express how excited I was to get this device, but after two and a half long weeks and well over 12 hours on the phone with some very polite (but ultimately inept) Indians, I had to acknowledge this experience for what it was: and exercise in futility.

I hated having to send the unit back, but I really don't need another expensive piece of useless clutter in my place.

Save yourself the frustration. It's *really* not worth it.