Price : Too low to display
Why NETGEAR’s Digital Entertainer Express (EVA9100)? Plays video, MP3s and digital photos from your PC, Mac or network attached storage device (NAS) to your HDTV, Browse and play popular movies and TV shows from Hulu, Netflix, CBS, and more using PlayOn on your PC (free trial and special discount), Automatically finds all digital media files on your home network and organizes them into an easily accessible library, Includes one HDMI port, HD upconversion up to 1080p, and two USB ports for iPod and USB drives, Easily add a NETGEAR Wireless USB Adapter (EVAW111) to connect wirelessly
This review is from : NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Express (EVA9100)
Probably the best mass market media player out there . When I talk of mass market, I'm talking about the media players for the average consumer; not, for example, those that can only be obtained from specialty retailers and custom electronics pros, e.g. Kaleidescape, etc.
Anyway, I own two other media players (D-Link DSM520 and Seagate FreeAgent+) and have extensively researched others (e.g. WD Live, Asus, Zinwell/Briteview, etc.), and while that does not qualify me as an expert, I can still confidently make the claim in my review title. None of the other players deliver the kind of experience the Netgear does. It is quite obvious that Netgear is serious is about the media server/player market. There are so many features that differentiates this player from the others, that I cannot do it justice. Anyway, I will list a few.
First, it is standard sized, so it fits nicely with other standard gear, e.g. blu-ray player, receiver, etc., especially handy for stacking in a cabinet or rack mounting. All of the other players mentioned, except for two D-Link models, are smaller. This makes them more portable, but in most cases, these players will sit in one position and never move, I'd bet.
Second, media on the network is treated as part of your library (as if they resided locally on an attached drive). This is a big deal, since it allows you to view your movie folders as cover art and you don't have to browse the network for them every time. The other players do not support this.
Third, movies can be automatically categorised, based on genre, rating, production year, etc. This is accomplished by a very cool method of importing this information from the internet movie database. There is an application to facilitate this. While it is true that each movie's data must be imported individually, making it a fairly tedious task to setup initially - especially if you have hundreds of movies already - this is typical of high end gear. Sony's flagship 400-disc blu-ray changer, for example is similar, as you load each disc individually and have the player download the information from Grace Notes. However, the benefits to be derived after this initial load cannot be overstated. You can then browse your movies by high definition cover art (you can always save a higher definition poster to the movie folder at any time). This browsing can be done by all movies, or filtered by various categories. Once this information is downloaded, pressing info on the remote when a movie is playing, reveals all the information for that movie; similar to info on DirecTV or Dish Network, etc.
Fourth, access to movies can be restricted (e.g. password protected for children), based on rating (previously downloaded) or location in your folder paths.
Fifth, you can manage the player remotely via your PC and even send messages to the player, e.g. to let the kids know it's time for bed after the movie they are currently viewing!
Sixth, if you have multiple of these players, you can use the "follow me" feature, and have any player remember the settings of the other player when you last left it, so that you can resume watching a movie in, say, the living room, at the same point you would have left it, when viewing in the bedroom.
Seventh, there is a digital entertainer forum where you can download third party skins for the player. I have already tried some of them and they do enhance your experience of the player. Of course, this is done at your own risk, as an improperly created skin can render the player unusable, forcing you to reset to factory (this is taken from the manual, so I don't know that it would completely destroy the player).
There are some other very nice features that may or may not be present in some of the other players, e,g. the ability to adjust the size/colour of the subtitles.
Couple negatives so far:
One, is that it sometimes loses connectivity with the network. This has not happened while watching a movie (so far), but while the player is "at rest". I've seen this mentioned in another forum, as well. I've raised it with Netgear, and they have raised it with their level 2 support, but, as expected, I suppose, no definitive answer.
Two, is that the movie cover art sometimes becomes corrupted (when you change cover art). I've had this problem and tried removing the tags, re-adding tags, replacing the cover art image, rescanning the directories, resetting the player to default settings - all without success. Eventually, I created new directories for the movies and copied the movie files and new cover art to these directories, deleted the old directories and rescanned. This finally solved the problem.
Of course, I still highly recommend this player.
Probably the best mass market media player out there . When I talk of mass market, I'm talking about the media players for the average consumer; not, for example, those that can only be obtained from specialty retailers and custom electronics pros, e.g. Kaleidescape, etc.
Anyway, I own two other media players (D-Link DSM520 and Seagate FreeAgent+) and have extensively researched others (e.g. WD Live, Asus, Zinwell/Briteview, etc.), and while that does not qualify me as an expert, I can still confidently make the claim in my review title. None of the other players deliver the kind of experience the Netgear does. It is quite obvious that Netgear is serious is about the media server/player market. There are so many features that differentiates this player from the others, that I cannot do it justice. Anyway, I will list a few.
First, it is standard sized, so it fits nicely with other standard gear, e.g. blu-ray player, receiver, etc., especially handy for stacking in a cabinet or rack mounting. All of the other players mentioned, except for two D-Link models, are smaller. This makes them more portable, but in most cases, these players will sit in one position and never move, I'd bet.
Second, media on the network is treated as part of your library (as if they resided locally on an attached drive). This is a big deal, since it allows you to view your movie folders as cover art and you don't have to browse the network for them every time. The other players do not support this.
Third, movies can be automatically categorised, based on genre, rating, production year, etc. This is accomplished by a very cool method of importing this information from the internet movie database. There is an application to facilitate this. While it is true that each movie's data must be imported individually, making it a fairly tedious task to setup initially - especially if you have hundreds of movies already - this is typical of high end gear. Sony's flagship 400-disc blu-ray changer, for example is similar, as you load each disc individually and have the player download the information from Grace Notes. However, the benefits to be derived after this initial load cannot be overstated. You can then browse your movies by high definition cover art (you can always save a higher definition poster to the movie folder at any time). This browsing can be done by all movies, or filtered by various categories. Once this information is downloaded, pressing info on the remote when a movie is playing, reveals all the information for that movie; similar to info on DirecTV or Dish Network, etc.
Fourth, access to movies can be restricted (e.g. password protected for children), based on rating (previously downloaded) or location in your folder paths.
Fifth, you can manage the player remotely via your PC and even send messages to the player, e.g. to let the kids know it's time for bed after the movie they are currently viewing!
Sixth, if you have multiple of these players, you can use the "follow me" feature, and have any player remember the settings of the other player when you last left it, so that you can resume watching a movie in, say, the living room, at the same point you would have left it, when viewing in the bedroom.
Seventh, there is a digital entertainer forum where you can download third party skins for the player. I have already tried some of them and they do enhance your experience of the player. Of course, this is done at your own risk, as an improperly created skin can render the player unusable, forcing you to reset to factory (this is taken from the manual, so I don't know that it would completely destroy the player).
There are some other very nice features that may or may not be present in some of the other players, e,g. the ability to adjust the size/colour of the subtitles.
Couple negatives so far:
One, is that it sometimes loses connectivity with the network. This has not happened while watching a movie (so far), but while the player is "at rest". I've seen this mentioned in another forum, as well. I've raised it with Netgear, and they have raised it with their level 2 support, but, as expected, I suppose, no definitive answer.
Two, is that the movie cover art sometimes becomes corrupted (when you change cover art). I've had this problem and tried removing the tags, re-adding tags, replacing the cover art image, rescanning the directories, resetting the player to default settings - all without success. Eventually, I created new directories for the movies and copied the movie files and new cover art to these directories, deleted the old directories and rescanned. This finally solved the problem.
Of course, I still highly recommend this player.
NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Express (EVA9100) Reviews
Great - except a few bugs . I think it is great for playing downloaded files wirelessly from my laptop. It does play everything; if they could fix these three things it would be the best media player around. 1) Does not play sound on 1080 files. I have heard the issue is the sound is too high quality but all the fixes posted on forumns are not working for me. 2) The .6 TB hard drive I have attached disappears and I have to reboot the system to use it every time. 3) Playon (for hulu) disappears and I have to reboot it.
Fix those problems and this machine will be incredible.;
Great - except a few bugs . I think it is great for playing downloaded files wirelessly from my laptop. It does play everything; if they could fix these three things it would be the best media player around. 1) Does not play sound on 1080 files. I have heard the issue is the sound is too high quality but all the fixes posted on forumns are not working for me. 2) The .6 TB hard drive I have attached disappears and I have to reboot the system to use it every time. 3) Playon (for hulu) disappears and I have to reboot it.
Fix those problems and this machine will be incredible.;
NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Express (EVA9100) Opinions
EVA9100 - Fantastic upgrade . Fantasic product. I used to own the predecessor to the 9100 - the EVA8000. This one is far superior in terms of performance. The EVA9100 must have more memory available as the performance when switching between videos, buffering, and altogether playing content is fantastic. Netgear got smart by not requiring us to purchase a wireless-ready unit. The 9100 is now $100 cheaper than the when I got the 8000 because of this, and you can still add USB wireless if you want. Interface is the same, but very functional. However, this unit now scans network shares for updated content on-the-fly, rather than requiring you to do a scan - very nice. Plays virtually any file you throw at it - awesome. Found that audio on some media files wasn't coming through the HDMI interface though. This was problematic until I realized that I could (in addition to the HDMI cable) attach a coaxial (or optical) audio output from the EVA9100 to my receiver and now virtually all audio plays. Definitely a fantastic purchase!
EVA9100 - Fantastic upgrade . Fantasic product. I used to own the predecessor to the 9100 - the EVA8000. This one is far superior in terms of performance. The EVA9100 must have more memory available as the performance when switching between videos, buffering, and altogether playing content is fantastic. Netgear got smart by not requiring us to purchase a wireless-ready unit. The 9100 is now $100 cheaper than the when I got the 8000 because of this, and you can still add USB wireless if you want. Interface is the same, but very functional. However, this unit now scans network shares for updated content on-the-fly, rather than requiring you to do a scan - very nice. Plays virtually any file you throw at it - awesome. Found that audio on some media files wasn't coming through the HDMI interface though. This was problematic until I realized that I could (in addition to the HDMI cable) attach a coaxial (or optical) audio output from the EVA9100 to my receiver and now virtually all audio plays. Definitely a fantastic purchase!
Good product but few problems . I got this to stream movies from the internet. It works great with little problems but it keeps losing contact with my pc and keep having to reconfigure through my pc to re-establish a connection. This has to be a problem with the software but Netgear has not come out with an update to prevent this that I know of. HEAR ME NETGEAR? Other than that, it does do a good job but still will not play all video's on my pc. I keep getting not supported video files, for instance, Windows Media Video 8 files! It will not play these files! It does OK with Win Med Vid 9 files.
Good Media Player . Netgear has done a nice job at updating their media player. I've had great success playing movies and music.
Cons Review
A 5 year old product inside . Interface is extremely clumpsy.
Dont think this was meant for teh US market - look at teh SCART port behind it.
Very very poor design.
Even after trying with it for about 30 mts, still could not play anything other than radio from the internet.
Could not even mount the SMB shares from my own network.
DNLA very shaky and non functional.
Dont think this was meant for teh US market - look at teh SCART port behind it.
Very very poor design.
Even after trying with it for about 30 mts, still could not play anything other than radio from the internet.
Could not even mount the SMB shares from my own network.
DNLA very shaky and non functional.
Product Image
Feature NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Express (EVA9100)
- Plays video, MP3s and digital photos from your PC, Mac or network attached storage device (NAS) to your HDTV
- Browse and play popular movies and TV shows from Hulu, Netflix, CBS, and more using PlayOn on your PC (free trial and special discountº)
- Automatically finds all digital media files on your home network and organizes them into an easily accessible library
- Includes one HDMI port, HD upconversion up to 1080p, and two USB ports for iPod and USB drives
- Easily add a NETGEAR Wireless USB Adapter (EVAW111) to connect wirelessly
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Product Details
EAN : 0606449068139UPC : 606449068139
MPN : EVA9100-100NAS
Brand : Netgear
Weight : 8 pounds
Height : 5 inches
Length : 20 inches
Width : 15 inches
Binding : Electronics
Format : CD
Manufacturer : Netgear
Model : EVA9100-100NAS
Operating System : N/A
Publisher : Netgear
SKU : 1015800849
Studio : Netgear
Where To Buy
You can buy NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Express (EVA9100) on Amazon . Click here to Read More
