CinemaTube: almost perfect way to view media on TV

I've been searching the last few years for the ideal way to view some of the media files I've accumulated over the years on my TV. I've tried all sorts of schemes, but none were totally easy to use, efficient, and delivered the kind of quality I expect.

Yesterday, I got what to me is the closest thing so far, the CinemaTube. I've been expecting something like this for a while; a dedicated appliance that would allow me to get to media files on my local network and view them in high quality on the TYV with little fuss, and have a price point of under $100.

It isn't perfect, but I will give them an A for effort. First, a little background.

I've been using the Tivo service for years, and consider it the gold standard of consumer video appliances. It has a superb user interface, lots of flexibility, and has allowed me to lose any space/time constraints imposed on my by the broadcasters - I've rarely watched anything in real time for the last five years, and don't have to watch commercials. It also allows me to save shows on my computer, and to view shows I've downloaded to my computer from other sources. However, there are some software issues that sometimes make transfers slow or impossible, and some media types aren't supported. And the typeface on their menus is so large it is difficult to see a long title.

I've also tried a few versions of Windows Media Center over the years. It's gotten quite impressive with Windows 7, but still isn't very intuitive to use. It also has restrictions for certain types of files, and the user interface is pretty wretched compared to Tivo. The main difficulty I've had with it is the way the sound on AVI files often gets out of sync with the video. This is partly do to the fairly low-end computer I was using, but this is a well-known issue for many people.

I've looked at Apple TV or using a Mac Mini, but as nice as it is, it works best when you want ot do theings the Apple Way, and can put up with their limiting DRM schemes. A little too proprietary for my tastes.

I saw CinemaTube in a Fry's ad the other day, and did a search on Amazon for similar products. I saw a few others, mostly from networking or hardware manufacturers like Western Digital. After comparing reviews, CinemaTube sounded like the best performer.

I'ts a very nice little box, about the sive of a small book. It has both HDMI and composite outputs, so it will work with any set. Installation and setup were very fast, and I was pleasantly surprised by what a nice picture and sound quality I got. And no sound lag on AVIs!

$99 gets you the basic unit. I has an Ethernet jack to connect to your LAN, but I don't have cable running out to my living room, so I got a AirLink101 AWLL6075 Wireless N Mini USB Adapter for $25. They sort of implied you needed a special adaptor that only they sold, but it turns out must modern plug and play USB devices will work just fine.

The other thing I had to do was set up a PlayOn media server on one of my PCs in order to get to outside streaming services. It's another $40 for a license (14 day free trial). It shows up as a device on the CinemaTube, and allows me to get to my NetFlix instant streaming movies, as well as youtube, ESPN, Hulu, CBS, and other services. This is a killer feature; with a minimum NetFlix account I can watch thousands of movies, in excellent quality. Nice having the youtube too! Apparently PlayOn is the only solution for this right now, and they don't have a Mac version.

I can also listen to music and view photos on any computer on my LAN, very handy. It supports a huge list of video formats. It can also mount ISO images of DVDs, giving you the same kind of control you'd get on a good DVD player. It has UPnP support, as well as Windows and Mac filesystem support.

It has two USB ports on the back. You can copy media to RAM sticks and watch them that way, or install an external hard drive and use it to build a library. And I can see the hard drive from any computer on my LAN, by addressing it as smb://192.168.1.xxx

Oh, and once you have a hard drive installed, you can use the built-in bittorrent support. Pretty amazing, a totally one-stop environment.

So far, I'm extremely pleased with all this. It does feel a bit like they got it to market before all their support was ready. The documentation refers to an earlier version of their software interface. Support is by email only, but they responded to a question I had within 30 minutes. I had to Google a bit to find answers to some questions about some of the advanced technical features. But basic setup is pretty much plug and play, and should present no problems. It just works! (I always like that). It knows about your network and attached devies.

Navigation is usable, but could use some improvement. I'm spoiled by Tivo and Apple, and don't like to be aware that I'm sending requests to a computer; I just want to watch my darned show! The layout of the buttons on the control is a little strange. I'd like to see the play/pause button a litttle bigger, and it would really help if the buttons were backlit. Otherwise, it's a very nice control, with access to all features you might need.

My biggest gripe is all the button clicks I need to get from the home page to directories on my different computers. There should be a way to quickly bookmark favorite directories. There is a way to add files to favorite, but not directories. Or maybe there is; I just haven't found it.

And if I watch part of a program, it would be cool to be able to resume at the place I left off, the next time I view it.

I had to install two software updates during installation, and both time it lost my LAN settings and some other preferences; that shouldn't happen.

This product has only been out a few months, but it has already seen some major firmware updates and usability improvements. I have no doubt they have an excellent team working on any issues remaining, and expect to see more changes over time. The documentation needs to be updated; I'm surprised they aren't keeping it more current online. I did find a couple of youtube videos on how to do some of the more arcane setup steps, which was helpful (even if it did use the older software interface). Online written and video support seems like a logical way to keep this up to date.

All in all, I'm delighted and extremely impressed about how easy they've made it to deal with all the hardware, networking, and protocol issues involved with a product like this. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a way to deal with sharing media between your TV and the internet and local computers.