TEST REPORT
Multimedia Box
IPDVD Box
Pocket Sized Multimedia Powerhouse Since the larger receiver manufacturers introduced the first PVR set top boxes to the market a few years ago, their top of the line models come with features such as MP3 playback, picture viewers or video players. But every one of these receivers has one thing in common: their development focused mainly on TV and radio reception as well as the use of the PVR functions. Yes, these boxes could handle MP3 playback, etc., but the integration of these extra multimedia features was not necessarily well thought out. For one thing, with many of these receivers, the content had to first be uploaded to the internal hard drive, a process that could take a long time depending on the type of connection (network or USB) and what chipset the receiver has.
60 TELE-satellite — Broadband & Fiber-Optic — 08-09/2009 — www.TELE-satellite.com
This was reason enough for the Chinese firm IPDVD to develop a multimedia box to bridge this gap in the market. The requirements were quickly finalized: a digital video and audio output should provide an extremely high quality version of the media content, the data itself should be accessed directly from a network or an external storage device, TV content should be accessible via the Internet and all of this should fit into the smallest possible housing. With these requirements finalized, the IPDVD engineers went to work. When we were told a few weeks ago about the IPDVD box and asked if we would like to test it out, we naturally agreed and the manufacturer sent us a sample unit for testing.