Netgear EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD

List Price: $399.99 Discount Price: Too low to display

Features:

• Connect your home theater to your computer network for streaming playback of digital media including HD video
• Supports most audio and video formats including MP3, WMA, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Xvid, and AVI
• Built-in USB port to connect a USB drive and music player
• Supports wireless networks with 802.11g built-in
• Device measures 17 x 2 x 10 inches (WxHxD)

Customer Reviews:

Lots of Limitations and uncertain future but I still keep it with me [Posted on 2008-05-23]

After more than a year with my EVA this product could be your dream machine or your worst nightmare depending for what you want it for:
Let's make it simple

This product is good for you if...
- You'd like to watch You Tube in your big screen TV
- You'd like to hear your big collection of Music you have in your PC (even I tunes..yes)
- You'd like to sit with your whole family and watch your pictures and videos you have stored in your PC in almost any available format
- You'd like to hear Internet Radio trough your TV
- You'd like to read your RSS feeds in your TV


This product is not good for you if..
- You would like to record your TV shows trough your PC and watch it on your TV. Simply impossible. Buy a PSP3 instead
- You'd like to watch Internet TV.
- You'd like to be connected to an UNPN server like ORB. Will not work.
- You'd like to play the "new" Dvr-ms video format from Microsoft.
- You are expecting to buy a product totally (or reasonable) stable.
- You are expecting to buy the Center Unit of your Home Entertainment System

Why I still keep it? In my case, Pros are more than cons. I've been always an early adopter of new technology and I enjoy to be part of it. If you buy it, download regularly Netgear's beta software and who knows, in few months more you can have a better product.

featue-filled entertainment system [Posted on 2008-06-03]
Pros: Fast user interface with plenty of cool features aside from playing audio/movies/etc - can check weather, rss feed, remote access on computer messaging to network. Much preferred over my old system (dlink medialounge).

Cons: Crashed on me once or twice. The indexing takes a bit of time if you have lots of files to upload. The photos take awhile to load. Does not support .mov files and has some issues playing mpg4.

Overall my preferred network entertainment systme to play media from computer.

Beats the competition! [Posted on 2008-06-10]
After struggling with a D-link DPG-1200 and the worthless tech support (hours wasted on the phone, pushed from one level tech to another, only to be told hours later to CALL BACK!) Then they wanted to charge me $49.00 for the support I would need to get the thing up and running! All this on the FIRST day I got it! So I quickly returned it and took a chance with the Netgear EVA-8000.
The Netgear EVA-8000 was easy to hook up to my network running windows XP and wireless network with full encryption. The user interface was easy to use and everything hooked up and worked the first time out. Instructions were easy to follow and simple for a non-geek like me who wanted to bring multimedia from my pc to my widescreen using a wireless device. One of the best features I found with this item is the ability to use the included HDMI port and cable to make the hookup to my TV, therefore giving me excellent picture and sound quality in one cable. There are some other hookup choices also, if you don't have HDMI on your TV, but the picture quality might not be as good as with the HDMI. I am using 1080p, but the device lets you chose the quality of your set. Once everything is hooked up and running, which was fast, simple and easy to do, you can get the latest firmware and updates right from the TV screen menus. The actual dimensions of the device itself is larger in size than I would have thought (length and width), height is only a few inches, but for a unit that works so great, who cares!
This type of unit does not actually bring your "desktop" itself to the TV screen, but rather the software uses has its own interface for use on your set, with a remote control, that lets you control just about every aspect of viewing. Kind of like my Tivo remote.
The manual (available for download or hard copy in the box) is quit extensive, and that was my first hint that this product might actually work great, obviously a lot of time an effort went into the making of this device.
You can do such things as watch recorded media, view photos, record TV, play music and more, all from your PC folders, and you can also watch and browse you tube from your TV! You chose the folders you want to share in the easy setup screens.
I highly recommend the EVA-8000, especially if you have an HDMI port on your TV, and by the way, an HDMI cable IS included, even though they say it is not included.

EVA8000 After 1 Month - Good, not Great, but what is better? [Posted on 2008-06-28]
It's really more of a 3.75, but definitely not a 4, so I had to rate it a 3.

I have had my EVA for about 4 weeks. I have had pretty mixed results when watching video files. The device either locks up or reboots itself at 2-3 times per week, which I am not happy about. It seems to give me the best performance when I am watching a ripped DVD (using DVD Shrink with no compression). Watching a ripped DVD starts playing faster than other file types and also fast forwards, rewinds and skips to chapters faster. It seems as if it does not buffer the vobs - it starts so quickly and doesn't give the buffering message I get with other file types. Most of my non-dvd rips are avi files with xvid, but I also tried h.264 in avi and mkv with limited success. many times the h.264 video is "shaky", but I suspect it may be more due to my encoding capabilities than any fault of the eva.

I have all my files on a Linksys NSLU2 NAS device. Two 1 TB drives are connected (mirrored). I have upgraded to the current beta EVA Firmware which I highly recommend. I installed the 1.8.0022 DEW originally, and it kept saying it could not be found when I try to watch YouTube video or control my PC. Then I installed DEW 1.8.0028 thinking that would solve my problem, but it did not. I finally got YouTube video to work after upgrading the firmware and selecting the play directly option so I do not need to have the PC running to play YouTube anymore. My pc is running Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1, Firewall turned off.

I stream mostly video. I bought the eva to watch tv shows I download from Europe because they are not broadcast here in the USA. Mostly racing videos and racing tv shows. I also use it to watch DVD rips and movie files which are mostly avi files using Xvid.

I have a Netgear Wireless G router, but I have the EVA connected via 100Mbps Ethernet. Only thing I did, was set up 5 different shares on my NAS for the EVA, only 1 of them is Read/Write which is used for the EVA to write its library to. Three others contain video or audio or pictures. The last one is the "adult" share which is password protected in the EVA settings so visitors do not accidentally stumble on things they should not.

I really wish there was a comprehensive manual for the device explaining what all the settings do and when they should be used. Especially, since the manual was written many months before the latest firmware. There is a good one in Netgears forums, but still not all inclusive.

Overall, I am disappointed in the stability of the device, but I feel stuck with it because I don't know of anything better that isn't a Windows Media Extender - I don't want to have to run a PC to get my video to the TV room. I just wish the device were more stable and the PC Control would work as advertised (PC Control has never worked for me because it can never find my PC on the network, even with the required software installed on the PC). Prepare to spend time searching through the Netgear forums and to join the beta forum to get the latest firmware updates - they are worth it. The Netgear EVA8000 forum is definitely a good source of help, and the Netgear moderators there are helpful and try to address your problems if you post according to the rules and give some detail.

It's like being stuck in a dead end job, but you can't leave yet because you can't afford to. I feel stuck with a buggy product, but it's still the best I have researched, and the basic functionality does work, so I have to just shut up and take it. I really like Netgear products overall and have used their routers etc., but this product is not for the faint of heart when it comes to tech research and troubleshooting.

Mine was DOA [Posted on 2008-07-09]
I really wanted to like this unit but mine was essentailly DOA. I spent several hours with Netgear tech support and it wouldn't read networked files nor files from a usb stick directly plugged into the unit. Many other reviews which I have read note Quality Control issues on these units and unfortunatly mine was one of the bad ones too. Netgear tech support gave me a case number and I was able to return mine to Amazon so in the end I just wasted a few hours of my time; if you buy one be sure to set it up ASAP to check for problems while you are still within the tech support and Amazon return windows.

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