Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"A few product categories have really exploded over the past couple of years: netbooks, smartphones and digital media players come to mind.... AVerMedia Technologies.... has just announced the AVerLife Cinema, which is a digital media player that allows you to combine all media files, including movies, videos, music and photos, on a single device for playback on a TV - all from the comfort of your living room."

For under $70 - a price HotHardware.com finds very competitive - the AVerMedia AVerLife Cinema will allow you to view your digital media on your TV. Limitations include an inability to connect a network drive, a maximum resolution of 720p across the HDMI output, and lack of WiFi capability. The unit allows input from either a Hi-Speed USB port, or built-in multiple format card reader; output ports provided are Audio L/R, Composite and Component Video, and HDMI - and AVerMedia includes both HDMI and Component video cables, along with a remote control, which suggests that this unit may indeed be a good value. Do you agree that the price point makes this unit competitive - or is it missing one or more features that you would consider "must haves" in this product category?

"The award for the second coolest technology I saw today at CES is a late entry, but a good one. Avermedia today showed off their beta SnugTV service, which allows groups of friends (who naturally own Avermedia TV tuners) to stream each others LiveTV feed over the Internet. Internationally."

AverMedia were showing off their beta SnugTV service at CES 2010, which allows you to stream your live TV to your friends over the internet. We Got Served used the following example to explain how it works and as they did it so well I will post it here: "Brits? Frustrated that you won't see the new season of Chuck for months (and even then it'll go to a niche cable channel)? Forget Usenet. Who needs Bittorrent? Simply find a mate in the US with an Avermedia TV Tuner, both sign up for the free Snug TV service and you can watch it live over the web in Blighty as NBC broadcast it in the USA." I'm not sure where TV broadcasting rights come in to the legality of this product, but I do like the idea of being able to at least use it personally to get my TV shows when I am stuck in a hotel room due to work.