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HP X280N MediaSmart Connect
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List Price: $349.99
Our Price: $296.61
Your Save: $ 53.38 ( 15% )
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Manufacturer: Hewlett Packard
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Electronics
Brand: Hewlett-Packard
EAN: 0883585612741
Feature: Play Your Music/ Photos/ and Video From Any Windows Based PC in Your House On Your HDTV
Label: Hewlett Packard
Manufacturer: Hewlett Packard
Model: X280N
Publisher: Hewlett Packard
Studio: Hewlett Packard
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Features
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Play Your Music/ Photos/ and Video From Any Windows Based PC in Your House On Your HDTV
Direct Access to OnLine Media Services
Integrated Windows Media Center Extender Functionality
HP Pocket Media Drive bay/ Built In Wired and Wireless Networking/ IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n
HDMI/ Component Video/ and Digital Audio Outputs/ Media Playback From USB Based Portable Storage Media
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Editorial Reviews:
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HP MediaSmart Connect x280n Exceed your expectations for home entertainment. Add our MediaSmart Connect to your HDTV And get ready to stream photos, music, and videos from your PC network to your TV. You'll also get direct access to on-line services, plus thousands of movies and millions of songs.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: HP Does It Again!
Comment: Kudos to HP for the addition of the X280N Media Smart Connect to it's terrific line of home media products. The MediaSmart Connect is an extender for UPnP devices and Windows Media Server-equipped PCs. I've already got the excellent EX470 MediaSmart Home Server, jacked up to 2 terabytes of storage (and rapidly filling). The two work perfectly together and make for a very powerful combination.
Setup couldn't be easier, or more user friendly. It works across our 802.11n network flawlessly and I haven't yet seen the need to hard-wire it in. It easily found each of our systems (mostly Vista, some XP), including the MediaSmart Home Server. Speaking of which, as I've said we're filling it up and have already surpassed 1 terabyte. The MediaSmart Connect works so well that we're burning our entire music CD collection to it, adding home videos, and have already moved all of our online photos to it. Storing any of this in any other form has become unthinkable because viewing it in any other form is out-dated.
There are some things to consider:
1) video formats and their various associated codecs are a pain in the neck - not because of HP but because of uneven and/or proprietary standards across the Internet. When you receive (or make) videos, they could have been created by any number of means and there is no guarantee they'll play on anything, MediaSmart Connect included. You'll need to learn about these things - so don't blame issues on HP.
2) Organizing your media - be it photos, music, or videos, becomes important for ease-of-use. The best way to remedy this is to use descriptive names for your file directories, and make them hierarchical. Naming a directory "summer vacation photos" becomes obsolete with after next years vacation - use "2008 summer vacation photos" instead. I include the date in each directory of photos or videos in the form "YYYY.MM.DD" so that the directories sort in date order and so that I can quickly find what I'm looking for.
3) Your performance will vary across some home wireless systems. We're using 802.11n and that is working very well - response time in the MediaSmart Connect menus is excellent. It does take no more than a few seconds to load up large videos... and this is a bit faster than it would be using one of the older networks. You may want to setup an ethernet connection directly to the box. We're going to move the cable modem, MediaSmart Connect, MediaSmart Home Server, and Linksys WRT600n router all into the same case in our media room. And when it comes tro photo directories, showing photos in their original form of a couple of megs or more will perform poorly. So while we are storing all of our digital photos on our home server, I have put the original full-size images (or raw files) in their own directory, and use VSO Image Resizer to create a directory or much smaller images for viewing purposes. This only takes a few minutes, and it allows me to quickly moves guests thru large volumes of digital images with minimal delay.
4) You may want to rethink where you store your images, music, and video. Before we did this, we had them split all over several PCs. Now we're consolidating them all to the home server, and eliminating them from individual PCs. This makes it easier for everyone to find them, cuts down on needless duplication, and makes maintaining them easier. The home server also backs them all up to a single central location.
All in all, no exceptions, a great product!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very glad I bought it
Comment: Summary: It was easy to set up and provides plenty of great content that wouldn't otherwise be available in my living room.
I wasn't sure how well MediaSmart would work, but it has exceeded my expectations. That's not to say it's perfect, but I am glad I have it. Overall, it was easy to set up. A couple kinks were soon resolved with online help. It's very quick to navigate some content, but other areas have delays mentioned by another reviewer. I am using a wired connection which might be a few seconds quicker. In some aspects, MediaSmart is quicker than my cable company's Tivo-like device and MediaSmart also displays 14 days of television programming versus 3-7 days.
I can set recordings for television programs, play a slideshow of photos on my television when having people over, listen to iTunes and watch Podcasts (after converting file formats), etc. It appears any audio or video that MediaSmart pulls from the Internet or that will play in a Microsoft format can be displayed through my television. (Not everything viewed on the internet can also be viewed through MediaSmart.) YouTube is planned to become available. Renting movies from MovieLink was simple. The main downside is that HD and Dolby 5.1 content is a little scarce so far, though I'm sure more will come soon. Overall, this technology is in the early stages, but already extremely promising. It's great today and I look forward to watching as it only gets better.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great concept, poor execution and support
Comment: The spec's are great and it does what it says it does (sort of).
I have two major issues with this product. 1) Very SLOW response to buttons, sometimes it take 5-15 seconds respond to simple things. At first I thought it was because of networking, but it is SLOW even when reading from the internal pocket drive. and 2) On some files (WMV) is stops every 5 to 10 minutes with the error "failed to play media content". Pressing OK, Back, play, resume causes the video to continue from where it left off only to repeat the problem in 5-10 minutes. This is happening both from network file and files on the pocket drive. When trying to get support from HP the product is not on the IVR system and after 16 attempts (and 3 hours time) with many promises to "connect me to tech support" only to get lost or transfered to some other department I gave up. Then I tried to use the eMail support option, I received a confirming email stating the I would would get a response within 24 hours, that was 4 days ago. No response.
If the problems are fixed this is a great product, but until then I would have to rate this as a don't buy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Product - Perfect complement for a Vista Media Center System
Comment: August 3rd, 2008
I have been using a home built media center for about 1.5 years. It holds most of the kids movies (DIVX & XVID) and does recording of SD and HDTV. The main issue I had was that it was Noisy and generated a lot of heat in the media cabinet where system and other components were mounted. My goal was to move my MCE to the basement and use extenders in the house. I had a couple of requirements before I would switch this out for an extender.
1) WIFE Friendly
2) Support HDTV
2) Must play Amazon UNBOX Files
3) Must play DIVX (XVID) formats.
4) Must be able to schedule recordings from the Extender
Thursday I got the MediaSmart Connect and started with the install... When I first set it up, I installed the HP Software and went through the procedure for connecting the extender to the my Vista MCE system. Initially I was a little disappointed, it was slow and Amazon Unbox videos would not play. I also noticed that my MCE system was Locking up. I decided that this might be more due to my MCE system. So Friday night, I completely re-installed vista, MCE, but did not install the HP software.
Once the system was running (YOU MUST INSTALL SP1), my VISTA MCE system found the extender automatically. It worked GREAT... The MediaSmart Connect was much more responsive, MCE no longer locked up. And best of all Amazon Unbox video's will play through my MediaSmart Connect. I gave it the Wife test last night and she loved it... The with the Main MCE system moved to the basement and only the MediaSmart Connect visible, she was happy. No more noisy fans running and we can now close the doors of the media cabinet with out worrying about overheating.
A couple of Notes:
1) The Media Smart will Play Unbox videos from your MCE Machine, but if you move the storage of the Unbox files to somewhere other then the installed location you may have problems.
2) I am using a wired connection, I have not tested the performance of the wireless side.
3) I am not using the HP software, it is extender mode only.
If you are currently using a Media Center, this system is EASY to add on.... So far I am very pleased, will update this again with any issues I have after I have had a chance to run it for a week or two.
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