I posted about the Mediagate MG-25 a few months ago. We got one in-house for testing at skidmore. We concluded it wasn’t appropriate for instructor use at the school because it’s a little touchy and the hardware doesn’t feel all that solid, though if you’re computer literate and looking to get content out to your television the thing is excellent and is a great value. Anyway I happened across another candidate, the Rapsody RSH-100k, which uses the more common 3.5 hard drive, has an internal display, serves as a USB host so you can copy materials to it directly using thumb drives or various other flash memory cards, can stream music to your stereo using an integrated FM transmitter (not that I would advise actually doing that), and costs around $200. The primary flaw is a lack of network connectivity, if it had it this thing would be perfect, feature-wise. One thing that puzzles me a bit is why these devices aren’t making their way to the US, you’d think there would be a big market for them if they were available and advertised. Most folks in north america don’t even realize they exist, meanwhile in asia, Europe and Russia these are common, judging by what I am turning up in google searches on them. I’ll keep pointing them out as they ship, hopefully they’ll take off here. There’s a possible version of the future where I don’t need the equivalent of a tivo attached to my tv, I just need a device like this that’s being filled via RSS and torrents from my subscription list/s.
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Dave's Place/Metamusing 
I actually have a need for one now. Since I have moved into the new house, my computer is too far away from the entertainment unit to stream data too. One of these things (preferably with network connectivity) is the perfect solution.
LMK if you see a deal on one. I would love to try it out. Any chance you can borrow the one from work for a field test?
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Hey,
Yeah the work one has been a bust, since it’s a little too flaky to use in production here with the faculty. I can loan it to you for a couple of weeks to test.
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Off topic: Have a pool guy coming tomorrow to let me know what I have to do to gear up! Would be nice to soak in the pool this weekend!!!! With a beer of course 😉
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Sweet, now I have leverage. You fix the pool, I loan the media box. You don’t fix the pool, the media box sits in a drawer in my office gathering dust. 😉
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DOH!!
I got in the pool last night to clean it out a bit. It becam apparent that I need a new liner. Not a very expesive item I learned at the pool store though. So, a pump a liner and some water and chemicals and I should be in business. We shall see what the pool guy says today and go from there.
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