Everyone has some form of digital media—be it music, pictures or video. We all have some form of it and if you don’t then you’re stuck in 1995.
With all our digital media, many of us have had a desire to bring that media to our televisions, so we make it happen by burning DVD’s and CD’s and now we’re stuck with stacks of DVD’s. This can get expensive considering a pack of 20 blank DVD’s will run you about 25 dollars USD at Staples.
Well HP has brought us the HP MediaSmart Connect a device that will help us bring that Media to our Television, easily and with little to no hassle.
The MediaSmart Connect from HP is a small square device, that fits elegantly next to your TV and since its form factor is so small you can even hide it if you feel it disturbs the Feng Shui in your living room.
So what exactly does the HP MediaSmart Connect do? Well it searches your home network for computers and servers, it will then locate where pictures, movies and music are stored (you can tell it not to search specific folders etc) and it will allow you to easily stream it over your network (wired or wireless).
I am sure you’re probably thinking that it sounds hard to set up and connect to your network—well it isn’t. You first connect the HP MediaSmart Connect device to your TV via component or HDMI cables, you then connect the device to your wired network. You can also connect it to your wireless network, even a secured network.
You also need to install software on one of the computers on your network. You need to do this because of DRM issues, etc. This will allow you to authorize the device to play some music and movies (we will get to this later).
Once the HP MediaSmart Connect is on your network it will locate how many computers are on the network, by displaying the number on the bottom right hand side.
You can then browse computers on your network via your television. HOW COOL IS THAT??? Or you can just tell the HP MediaSmart Connect to display all pictures and play a slideshow, or play all music and shuffle it.
You can also access online services such as Live365.com for music, SnapFish.com to print out your photos, and CinemaNow which basically gives you Video On Demand, (you can purchase or rent movies over the internet).
I had a little trouble setting up CinemaNow to work with my HP MediaSmart Connect but after a few tweaks of my network I was able to get it to work. I have a rather extensive and complicated network which is why I ran into issues, but with a normal network, setup is simply ‘plug and play’.
You can also use the HP MediaSmart Connect as a Windows MediaCenter extender, so if you have a Windows based PC with Media Center you can stream television to the device, stream recorded TV shows, even schedule recordings. Once it is connected over the network with a MediaCenter PC your HP MediaSmart Connect will function as one. I tested this out with my Personal Media Center and it worked great, I also tried it with a test notebook HP sent me which has their notebook TV tuner, and it worked flawlessly, I experienced no issues what so ever setting up Media Center.
What is also great about the MediaSmart Connect is, it’s upgradeable for the life of the product. HP will upgrade the software it uses to add more services and those upgrades will be available for free. HP will send a message to the system to let you know there is an update available.
The device is Fantastic, and we here at HardwareGeeks.com award it our Gold 5 Star Editors Choice Award for the month of July.
The HP MediaSmart Connect is available from Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City and Newegg.
HP also has MediaSmart Televisions for those looking for a TV with this functionality.
Comments: (15)
dogerfan93 on Thu, Jul 24th, 2008 at 12:27 PM
We have someting like this from belkin but it never worked so we just gave up on it.
Chris on Thu, Jul 24th, 2008 at 03:01 PM
I need to block this site from my daugthers computer, she saw this and wants it.
HP Marketing Guy on Thu, Jul 24th, 2008 at 04:13 PM
We included the Zen Imprint that we use on our award winning notebooks on the case of the HP MediaSmart Connect so we think that makes it “Feng Shui Certified” 
It’s also totally gorgeous with a piano black and silver finish and no external antennas so it passes the “spouse approval” factor.
Joslyn on Fri, Jul 25th, 2008 at 01:54 AM
Feng Shui Certified. LMAO that is a good one.
Does it come with a Certificate of Authenticity?
dogerfan93 on Fri, Jul 25th, 2008 at 02:08 AM
What the hell is Feng Shui sounds like something I’d get from the Chinese restaurant.
By the way I showed my pops this and he is like if we can’t get the belkin thing we got to work right we will try this out.
Michael on Fri, Jul 25th, 2008 at 02:23 AM
go here to find out about feng shui doger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_shui
Anthonia on Fri, Jul 25th, 2008 at 08:29 AM
I use to belive in Feng Shui but it’s really just bogus. This box from HP is interesting thouhg.
Michael on Fri, Jul 25th, 2008 at 03:32 PM
I remember watching a dateline special or 20/20 special on it, they claimed it was an exact science but everyone did it different,
Dogerfan93 on Mon, Jul 28th, 2008 at 09:51 PM
Feng Shui sounds like crap to me
Michael on Tue, Jul 29th, 2008 at 10:19 PM
it mostly is but hey can’t knock it until you try it
Katie on Mon, Nov 10th, 2008 at 04:17 PM
Looks pretty sleek. I’ll probably get one.
Joshua on Thu, Dec 25th, 2008 at 06:35 PM
The mediasmart connect x280 does not connect easily. You must install the HP software to a pc on your network. It’s only compatiable to limited OS. Although they advertise numerous OS’s, they are only compatiable with a limited amount. I have Windows Vista Business (64-bit), advertised compatiable, but when installed the program returns an error, “unsupported OS”
I would like to connect the mediasmart to my video server (Windows Server 2008). Don’t think its possiable without the software installed on a compatiable OS.
Michael on Thu, Dec 25th, 2008 at 10:13 PM
The 64bit software is available on the HP site, I had to download it when I installed it on my Vista 64bit machine.
Last I checked it only works with Vista and XP however it does detect my non XP or Vista machines and pulls files from it as long as media sharing is enabled on those machines. The MediaSmart software is only required on 1 machine regardless of how many you have.
Joshua on Sat, Dec 27th, 2008 at 12:25 AM
The mediasmart software is compatible with my Windows Vista Home edition (64-bit) (installed on my laptop), but not the Windows Vista Business edition (64-bit) (installed on my desktop). Although, my mediasmart connect x280 does detect other computers on the network with the same subnet, with sharing enabled, and without the software. Unfortunately, it only detects the public directories even though others are configured for sharing.
Is there a way to configure which directories mediasmart connect searches? I’ve already tried using Windows media player 11. My media player detects all media throughout the network reguardless of subnet.
Bram Kornaat on Tue, Dec 30th, 2008 at 07:42 AM
Sounds like the ideal way to bring PC media to TV.
How about support for AVI-files and availability in Europe?
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