Hauppauge MediaMVP Digital Media Receiver (Model 1000)

Other products by Hauppauge

Product Details

Supplementary Guide [335kb PDF]

• Item Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000C4DX1
• Item model number: 1000
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 14, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Navigate through your PC media on your TV set, selecting individual music titles to listen to or digital pictures to watch. You can simultaneously play a digital picture slideshow while listening to a complete music program. Or play a music playlist (MusicMatch, Winamp and Windows Media playlists supported).

Create MPEG videos on your PC with any Hauppauge WinTV, and play them on your TV set. For the best system performance, use a WinTV-PVR with hardware MPEG recorders built-in. You can also use our SoftPVR to record videos with any WinTV or WinTV-usb! MediaMVP also supports most MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standard videos.

MediaMVPs remote control allows you to pause, fast forward and rewind through videos, plus pause music and picture shows. You can adjust the audio volume from MediaMVPs remote control, so you won't need to use your TV sets remote at all!

Connect MediaMVP to your home theater system, for the ultimate home media network. Just connect the S-Video and stereo audio outputs to your home theater switch, and you'll be able to watch your digital videos and pictures on your TV set while listening to the digital audio on your home theater speakers!

MediaMVP is great when traveling with laptop computers. It's small enough to carry on vacations and business trips, so you can watch videos, digital pictures and listen to music on your hotel room TV set. All you need is an Ethernet cross over cable (not supplied) to directly connect MediaMVP with your laptop.

MediaMVP connects to your TV set, and allows you to watch and listen to PC based media via an Ethernet network.

MediaMVP is really simple to install: Install the MediaMVP server application on your PC, connect MediaMVP to your PC through any 10/100 RJ-45 Ethernet port on routers, hubs or switches. Plug in MediaMVP and you'll have instant access to digital music, videos and pictures stored on your PC!

MediaMVP is a Linux based digital media receiver. MediaMVP includes a hardware MPEG decoder. Music and digital pictures are software decoded by MediaMVP's processor. It receives the digital media from the PC via the Ethernet LAN, decodes the media and outputs video through composite and S-Video connections, and audio through stereo audio output connectors. MediaMVP provides an on-TV-screen display of media directory listings. It receives commands from the supplied remote control, and sends these commands to the PC server. The TV menus are created on the PC server, sent over the LAN and displayed by MediaMVPs browser.

MediaMVP Features

• Access digital music, videos or pictures from your TV set, over your home network.
• Uses 10Mbit or 100Mbit Ethernet, for the best network performance with any type of digital media. Plays DVD quality videos on your TV set over an Ethernet LAN!
• Composite and S-Video outputs for the best video quality on TV sets, plus stereo audio output to TV sets or home theater systems.
• Watch digital camera pictures (JPEG or GIF) on your TV set. Play slide shows with music, too!
• Plays MP3 music, either individual titles, all the music titles in a directory or M3U, B4S, PLS and ASX playlists.
• Plays MEPG-1 and MPEG-2 recordings made with the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR's. Will also play most other MPEG-1/2 standard video files. With MediaMVP's remote control, you can pause, rewind and fast forward through your recorded videos.
• Remote control for easy access to your PC media from your TV set. MediaMVPs remote control allows you to navigate through your PCs disk drives, and displays media names, directories and other information on the TV set. MediaMVPs remote also can control the audio volume and mute of videos and music being played.

Product Description

Hauppauge's MediaMVP is a low cost thin-client device which bridges the home PC with home TV and A/V equipment, via Ethernet networks. It takes high quality digital audio (MP3 music), digital video (MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 videos), digital pictures (JPEG and GIF digital pictures) and other multimedia content in the form of IP packet streams and renders the content onto video and audio equipment such as TV sets, TV monitors or plasma monitors, and home theater A/V systems. The MediaMVP connects to the home LAN via its built-in RJ-45 10/100 Mbps Ethernet network interface.When used in conjunction with a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR installed in a PC, a complete home TV and digital media distribution system can be made. Television is recorded on the home PC with the WinTV-PVR, and then watched on a TV set through the MediaMVP via the home LAN. The MediaMVP is located at the TV set, and decodes videos sent to the MediaMVP over the home LAN for viewing on the TV set. It also provides media decoding for MP3 music and JPEG/GIF digital pictures. The MediaMVP displays on the TV screen lists of media which can be played through the MediaMVP, plus menus for organizing the lists and for playing play lists.While playing music, the MediaMVP can also play a digital picture slide show.Driven by a powerful RISC CPU engine (>350 DMIPS) running the Linux operating system, and with dedicated special purpose multimedia hardware components, the MediaMVP is a full-blown network multi-media decoder device with superior computing and digital audio and video processing capacities.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Does its job...Great picture/sound quality, March 11, 2004

By	Gregory L. Firth (La Crescenta, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

MediaMVP is a simple service that installs on your windows PC that streams video, audio, and pictures over your 100 mb ethernet lan to the MVP box which connects your TV/VCR/whatever. The PC acts as a file server, and the MVP box acts as a network MPG/MP3/etc decoder that produces excellent video and audio output.

You configure what directories to share on the PC, and using your MVP remote control select which movies or audio files to play from the onscreen menus. You sit in your living room and play movies from your PC upstairs.

Network usage is lite (2-3% on my 2.0 P4) and cpu usage is also lite (3-7%) with occaisional spikes on both.

Models differ by country (NTSC in the US/PAL in Europe). Firmware versions are D1, D2, D3, D3A, E1, E2). I understand the D3 is problematic while the D3A (mine) is just fine. If you get a D3 (you must open the box), then just return it.

Caveats

Its not wireless, use 100mb cat5/cat6 wiring.
Does not play DivX movies
Does not play PAL (25fps) mpegs on NTSC TV's
Menu loading can be slow
Remote is clunky and not straight forward.
Some problems with certain aspect ratios, overall
most are fine
Upright Stand could be better

That said, it does what it is suppose to. I'm impressed with the picture quality and sound. I listen to audiobooks downstairs as well as watch movies.

Be sure to get the latest software - in fact don't bother with the CD. There are mods and hacks for the box too.

I got tired of waiting for the LiteOn LVD-2010 to appear, so I got this. Problem solved.

*** Update 9/4/2004 ***

My enthusiasm for this unit has waned a bit and thought buyers should know. After extensive use I can say this:

Cons: 1) Problem playing some VCDs (mpeg 1), ie, artifacts and and occasional pauses - my computer and other DVD unit plays these same videos without a hitch. I attribute this to a poor mpg 1 decoder.

2) Some VCD's cause the MVP to lock up requiring a reboot - this is on the most stable firmware release. This does not happen with SVCD's.

3) Some mp3's are truncated (several seconds) at the very end - very annoying when listenting to an audiobook or audio lecture (the speakers main point get truncated).

4) No way to backup a little while listening to an MP3 from a lecture or audiobook.

5) Plays only NTSC mpeg 1 and 2 (US Models). No way to play PAL mpeg's which means if you want to watch a PAL on this unit you must convert PAL to NTSC (several hours on a good machine). A major inconvience since most internet videos are from Europe. Japan and Philippines are fortunately NTSC.

6) Does not play DVD's from your computer

Pros: 1) NTSC SVCDs play perfectly

2) Firmware updates continue to be rolled out (albiet at a snails pace). Updates (beta firmware) include DivX capability and Internet Radio. Howerver, the updates are usually unstable and its been a long time since the last stable release - maybe a 1 person development team.

Thats it - still using the unit, generally happy, just sometimes I must watch a movie (mpeg 1 vcd) on the computer/tv upstairs if this unit chokes on it. Cheers.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great concept, software is horrible., March 29, 2005

By	Lord Dimwit Flathead "The Excessive" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

What a great concept: Play the media that resides on my pc (music, videos, digital pictures, webcast radio) from anywhere and as many locations as I have wired network access.

The MediaMVP hardware appears very well conceived and implemented (see the Hauppauge site for specifications). Sound and video quality of streamed content are entirely satisfactory (providing your recordings are of good quality). Yep. Hardware appears to be Hauppauge's forte.

Their software, however, which manifests itself most noticeably as the user interface, is unforgiveably crude. File system navigation and remote control key mapping are noticeably misprogrammed. Even the most rudimentary MP3 playing capabilities are missing or broken. I would compare the display with the old Commodore 64 but that would be an insult to my C64. Sad to say, Hauppauge does not appear to be interested in fixing any of these deficiencies as they have persisted for at least the last 3 software releases and are still present in the current Beta release.

Service is a mixed bag. If you call them, they will replace defective hardware well enough. But don't expect much more support than what you can do for yourself by reading the FAQ on their website. And don't bother emailing a question to support. With the exception of the automated reply, they never answer email. The good news is that there is a large, vocal user forum for this and other Hauppauge products (hey, I said their hardware is pretty good) and, if you don't mind wading through web forums, you can get a lot of answers there.

I want to love this product but I can't. I purchased it primarily to play MP3 music throughout my house and this is certainly the thing it does worst of all (did I mention the LOUD inter-track popping?). So my dissatisfaction should be taken in that context. Certainly its webcast radio (which I use often and enjoy), picture slideshow, and video playback capabilities suffer much less from the UI's lack of sophistication. And people who use the MediaMVP as a front-end for their Hauppauge based PVR systems (personal video recorder - think Tivo only no service charge) love these things.

One hope I hold out for my MediaMVP is the global community of private software developers that are hacking away, rewriting its software. I have no doubt they will eventually do what Hauppauge won't. But until they do this is a seriously crippled product.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great addition for ReplayTV owners, October 22, 2003

By	M. Coletti (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you own a ReplayTV then this is the thin client you've been waiting for. Out of the box this unit is able to play native ReplayTV videos when they are copied to a PC (I own a 5040 unit, so I'm not certain this would be true for owners of 4xxx units). To get things rolling, here's what you need.

1. A ReplayTV unit connected to a home Ethernet network.
2. A PC on the same network running DVArchive (free software)
3. The MediaMVP connected to the network and to a TV

Once DVArchive is installed, you need to configure it to download recorded shows from the Replay; a simple task that can be scheduled periodically. You then plug the MediaMVP in (power, network, and TV connections), install the software on your PC, and then set it up to point to the directory used by DVArchive to download the videos.

The MediaMVP will find all MPG video files in the DVArchive download directory and present them on a menu on the TV. Pick the video and you're off and running.

I have tested both Medium and High quality recordings and they play flawlessly almost 100% of the time. The few minor glitches I noticed were apparent 'stutters' in video playback. The only thing I miss on the MediaMVP (that is available on the ReplayTV) is commercial advance, variable speed FF/Rewind (only 2x is currently implemented), and 29 second skip ahead. But for the price, it can't be beat.

Check back in a few days if the product is shown Out Of Stock as Amazon/Office Depot seem to keep a low inventory.