Asus DMAV15: Network media player
With Apple TV mere days away from arriving, we spy a rival network media-streaming device from PC hardware company Asus
On the off chance you hadn't noticed, 2007 is the year of streaming video over your home network. Network streaming DVD players from KiSS have been about for a while and with Apple TV due to arrive any day now there's clearly going to be plenty of competition in this field. The latest addition comes from Asus and is called the DMAV15.
There are two variants: one is the DMAV15L, which has component and composite out for video, and coaxial and optical digital out for getting audio into your external amplifier. The other is imaginatively called DMAV15H and adds an HDMI socket. Both versions support Ethernet and wireless streaming up to 802.11g.
The DMAV15 will happily stream most types of audio, including WMA, MP3, WAV, OGG and AAC. It will also display a wide selection of image formats, including JPG, GIF and BMP.
Both versions will play a variety of media, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP, WMV9 and XviD. Because these players only support MPEG-4 ASP, they won't be able to stream high-definition content, which is a shame given there are other products on the market capable of supporting high definition at resolutions up to 720p. -IM