Monday, January 23, 2012

NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live (Black)


Manufacturer : Netgear Inc
Model : EVA2000
ASIN : B002HWRJXU
Price : 120$
Last Price : 120$(Discount 0%
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Product Description

With the power of NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live you can enjoy some of the same entertainment you love on your computer, now on your big screen TV. From your own digital media stored on your computer or external USB drives, to YouTube, online videos, and streaming live Internet TV--NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live turns your TV into a super hub for your favorite entertainment.

Your Digital Media Collection on the Big Screen
The Digital Entertainer Live (DE Live) is a compact HD TV media player that connects directly to your TV and home media. Now you can access your digital media collection stored on your computer and storage devices, and enjoy it directly on your TV.

DE Live features two USB 2.0 ports that connect directly to external USB storage devices, and an Ethernet port that connects to your home network, so you can access the Internet, computers, and network attached storage devices, such as the NETGEAR® ReadyNASTM Duo. The Digital Entertainer Live also features an HDMI port that connects directly to your HD TV or regular RCA jacks for connecting to older analog TVs

Thanks to the NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live, you can finally enjoy your digital media on the big-screen and big-sound glory of your home entertainment center.

YouTube and Internet Videos without a Computer
DE Live lets you enjoy YouTube on your television. Instead of huddling around a small computer screen to watch the latest funny video, now you can show it on your TV for everyone to enjoy. Browse "Top Rated" or "Feature" videos or login into your YouTube account to enjoy your favorite playlists all without a computer.

Finding other videos is just as simple: use the remote control to scroll through the menu or enter keywords and the NETGEAR Digital Entertainer live will automatically display matches dynamically as you key in letters. In seconds, another fun Internet video will be showing on your T
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
Internet streaming and standard def playback is fine, but users wanting hi-def playback should look elsewhere
     
This review is from: NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live (Black) (Personal Computers)


First is the question of what resolution this device actually supports. It is not listed here on Amazon, in Netgear's press release, or on the product specifications page, and no mention is made on the box except the phrase "HD TV media player". Netgear is perhaps deliberately vague on this point. If by "HD", they mean being able to connect to an HDTV, then that is true. If they mean "HD" as in 720p/1080p, then it is not true.

Despite having HDMI out, this device does not output at 1080p at all. It also doesn't play 720p files as far as I can tell. Every one of the hi-res MKV's I tested off my external hard drive failed (18 random movie files @720p and 1080i, H.264 encodes), producing an "unable to display video of this resolution" error. Similarly, the AVI's and WMV's at 720p that I tested also failed. As far as I am able to determine, it can play only up to 480p. I tried a 720x400 .MKV that did play, so Matroska support is working, but I was unable to fast-forward or rewind the file. Other low resolution .AVI files, .MP4's played without an issue.

The device did not recognize any MKV's off my NAS through UPnP (Universal Plug and Play). MKV files on my other server, running Twonky (DLNA software) did show up, however, they could not play since they were 720p.

Next is the lack of subtitle support, or non-Western character sets. The supported system languages are German, English, and French. No Unicode support means filenames and folders will be illegible, showing up as empty squares instead (see picture in gallery).

For internet TV, this product works as described. YouTube and other streaming videos work flawlessly. You can watch videos from all over the world. There are literally hundreds of free internet channels listed, divided by world region. I tested a few CCTV channels (China), Aljezeera English, an Indian channel, Odoroku.tv (Japan), C-SPAN, some Spanish channels, as well as some random others. Almost all of them worked without a hitch, after a brief period of buffering (length depends on network conditions). A few sites couldn't be reached, or failed to buffer and kicked me back to the channels menu. Again, because these are free sites streamed from the web, picture quality is very low, though watchable and a nice option for those who don't want to watch them on their computers. You can bookmark them for fast retrieval. I found the variety of sites listed here to be a pleasant surprise. They represent a wide range of interests and are from all over the world. (These are all free sites you can access from your computer also.)

The picture quality is usually terrible, however, since most internet videos are low-res videos (320x240) that are heavily compressed. When blown up 5x or more to fullscreen on your HDTV, the compression artifacts will be much more apparent and you'll see a lot of macroblocking and pixelation. On a smaller, non-LCD TV, this might be acceptable.

Because you'll be spending a lot of time pushing buttons to navigate around, due to no keyboard or mouse, I've included a series of screenshots to give you a better idea of how the interface works. Remote control response time can be sluggish, so you'll be seeing the revolving dial a lot. Worse is that you can't hit "Back" on the remote to cancel a read command. You have to wait until it finishes trying to read the file or network. During web streamed videos, I couldn't fast-forward. Searching for videos was easy through the onscreen keyboard, but overall I found the interface clunky and not all that attractive, made worse by that spinning dial that popped up with almost every command I pushed.


To sum up, this product fails to meet expectations and went back to Amazon Returns after 2 days. It is NOT capable of hi-def playback. It only plays back standard def video. If you enjoy watching blocky internet streams on your TV and don't care about hi-def, then maybe this device would be of value. There is no way to select stream quality from the sites that offer HD streams.


20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
Makes Internet streaming easy, lots of content
This review is from: NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live (Black) (Personal Computers)
This product is great for my needs. I don't require the "ultimate" in streaming power; rather, I watch a lot of stuff on the Internet. The Digital Entertainer Live is perfect for this. In all the time I have been using it, it hasn't locked up or stalled even once (honestly) and streams equally well from my network and the Internet (admittedly, I have a super fast 15 mbps connection.) It detects all of my videos with no problem, I didn't even have to "scan" my network for files, it just found them - I was sharing them from a few different NAS devices. So it was virtually plug and play, not something you find very often.

There's a huge selection of Internet channels you can watch; I especially enjoy the Joost channels, as there are many full television shows available. I'll admit I've wasted many hours poking around in YouTube, too! The search feature works better than I expected and quickly finds what I'm looking for. You can even hook up a USB drive if you don't want to stream videos, a nice feature for those who don't have a NAS. I didn't spend a lot of time streaming radio or live television, but those features are available.

There are a few things that the Elite lacks, such as not being able to stream full DVD's (such as an .ISO) and the fact that to stream Netflix or Hulu, a separate software suite (PlayOn) must be purchased. I was disappointed in this since Netflix is what I use the most, but the software isn't too expensive. I've heard a few people say "well I could just get the Netflix box" but the Live does so much more... it's easy to forget that is not only streams Internet content but is also a full featured network media streamer with a USB port also.

The remote and menu system leave a bit to be desired; sometimes the delay between button press and menu reaction is somewhat slow (and I am ultra impatient) but it isn't too bad, just isn't as "snappy" as I would like. I don't think these are "downsides" though per se; the Elite is a great value at $150, just some things to be aware of.

So if you are looking for a low cost Internet "entertainment box" that's small and easy to use, and don't care about streaming DVD rips, this is a great choice. I love it so far!


14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Just ok.. it works..
This review is from: NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live (Black) (Personal Computers)
This unit does what it says: shows your media and some Internet content on your TV. So pretty much all of its "specifications" are its pros.

But I'd like to talk about its cons: Navigation/user interface is not much different than that of "flashback to the past" gaming console toys - that is, very primitive. It is usually just plain gray text over black background.

My initial disappointment was however, the poor quality of display. Unlike the menu screens of a DVD, the screens displayed by this unit are very blurry - the same way your laptop would look when attached to the TV through S-video connection. The video output of this device is not optimized for TV. I am very convinced that this story wouldn't change when it is plugged into an HDTV through HDMI - previous reviews already mentioned how it is not really HD ready.

This box is pretty much the same thing as the VuNow box, offering various streaming Internet TV broadcasts. It does have a large number TV channels but you need to know at least 5 different languages to fully make use of this feature.

I am not crazy about HD yet and just wanted Internet content like Hulu and Netflix on my TV. Don't forget that these services are not inherent to this device - PlayOn software is required, which works on many other similar products.

Internet radio is Shoutcast only.

It hangs and needs power cycling.

Video play staggers when there is fast panning of camera.

I initially went with this device because I didn't really need HD media player and that I liked the idea of Inernet TV. However, overall, this device has been a disappointment, including these features that I've been looking forward to.

I now ordered WDTV Live - here are the benefits over this device:

- Future proof - supports 1080p, Dolby, DTS.
- Works with many different wireless adapters, unlike Netgear.
- Menu options look beautiful and sophisticated, instead of an Atari game.
- Free services include Pandora and Live365 radio instead of useless Internet TV and random(bad) selection of Internet radio.
- Works with PlayOn the same way as Netgear.
- Same price as Netgear.

Consequently, you get a lot more for the same price. At the time of my purchase, Netgear + Netgear Wi-Fi adapter compared to WDTV Live + Wi-Fi adapter were the same price - except for a difference of few cents.


Most Recent Customer Reviews

can't connect to the internet
after I switch to another internet provider,this thing can't detect any internet connection.I don't see much content in this thing.Roku is much better.
by Calvin Chin

Good but not better than roku
The Roku box is better but you can actually get everything you get on the roku on it with the use of playon. If you don't have a half ass decent computer playon sucks.
by R. Stricklin

Doesn't work often enough...
I cannot get it to work consistently. It's just not compatible with Windows 7. I've changed media server software on the computer, updated the netgear, done everything I can think...
by Taharka

This thing is awful!
This media player is awful!

PROS
- None

REGULAR
- Connects to internet
- Built like all media players.
by Bernardo Gomez

Dont waste your time or money
This product is conceptually good and seems to predict the future alternative to cable and satellite as far as accessing tv channels in a more cost effective way.
by Dwight Banks

Gotta say my Netgear EVA2000 is a good streamer
I declare Netgear EVA2000 is a good streamer because watching movies with my EVA2000 is wonderful, there are no hitches and videos and music stream in peacefully...
by D. Mccauley

Adequate and temeramental
UPDATE 12/9/2010: After using this device wirelessly for over six months, I am tired of dealing with it's inability to work with my Netgear router.
by T. BOREK

Weak weak device
I've been looking for a digital video player so I could play videos from my NAS device. On a whim, I bought this the Netgear Digital Entertainer Live.
by Militant Liberal

NETGEAR EVA2000 works great with YouTube
The NETGEAR Digital Entertainer Live provides a way for me to watch Internet shows on my TV. I can watch YouTube without a computer.
by neko712

Awesome Device
An excellent device to stream movies to your HDTV. I added the wireless option and found it was very easy to configure and get going.
by Alan L. Taylor

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