The first NETGEAR EVA8000 Review
by Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Mar 17th 2007 at 12:39PM
While HD media streamers are nothing new, the new NETGEAR EVA8000 has a feature set just about anyone can get excited about. While we wait to get our hands on one, this review will have to do. The biggest disappointment in the review is the lack of testing of HD video. The reviewer did mention that he expected his photos to look better in HD than they did, but this is hardly a conclusive result. The unit had no problems playing back everything he threw at it and was easy to connect to his rig, other than the odd HDMI issue he experienced. Some of the features require a PC like the Flickr and YouTube support, but most of the HD features work with any media on a network share. While this will be great for uber-geeks who understand such things, it doesn't appear as easy as simply clicking a check box in iTunes or installing Media Center Extender software for the Xbox360. The other features not reviewed were the follow me features which require multiple units to take advantage of. The reviewer overall liked the unit and was impressed by the snappy menus and easy setup.
Filed under: Reviews, Media streamers
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike @ Mar 18th 2007 3:11AM
This piece is really looking to be something useful. I have a Universal MX remote, and this is shaping up to be a great interface for anyone with half a tech brain who wants to use FLAC lossless encoding for a great music server, and needs the display on-screen while being able to control it using an IR or RF universal remote. I'm interested to see how the video handling goes before proclaiming it the next god-send to my techno-heap.
Jeremy Toeman @ Mar 18th 2007 10:40AM
Ben - yeah, I didn't get a chance to play with HD content because (as I said in the review) I only had a few hours and all the stuff I have thats actually IN high-def wasn't on the network. I'll do a second review next week when I get back home to look into the rest of the features. Shoot me an email if there's anything in particular you'd like me to take a look at.
Thanks for the link!
Nate Stutsman @ May 15th 2007 10:26PM
Heh, actually just ordered one of these, should be receiving it tomorrow. I was look for something to stream recorded TV shows and such to the bedroom (Toshiba Regza 26LV67). This seemed to fit the bill. I usually don't purchase items without researching first, but with the frustration of not being able to produce a true widescreen picture from my laptop to he TV, and not really wanting to build a media box to stick in the closet, this seemed like the route to go. The streaming of YouTube and such will just be more fun crap to play with. Try to update my experience more later.