Freecom Mediaplayer II

The Mediaplayer II from Freecom is a media streaming device that can take music and video stored on your computer, send it over a home network and play it on a television set or hi-fi in another room.

It can also play files from a USB device, and there’s a 500GB hard disk inside, onto which you can copy music and video for direct playback.

It’s clearly meant to appeal to the design-conscious with a brushed aluminium case and minimal controls.

The device offers an HDMI port for quick and easy connection to flat-panel TVs and is capable of streaming and playing files at up to the highest Full HD resolution. Getting it up and running and connected to a network was pretty straightforward but it couldn’t connect to wireless networks, a wired connection is a must unless you shell out an extra £45 for a compatible wireless adapter.

There is a single USB port for connecting external storage, but the wireless adapter also uses the USB socket, meaning you’re then stuck with the internal hard disk or network streaming.

Copying files over was easy enough because the Mediaplayer can be connected directly to a PC and files copied to its hard disk. Alternatively, you can copy files to it from a networked PC.

Whether files are accessed from the hard disk, USB or over the network, names are displayed on the television screen, but with no ability to sort or filter the list it was a little awkward to browse large collections.

There was a very limited degree of control over most media, with only photo playback – which included slideshow transition and timing selection – offering flexibility. Video quality was good but support for different formats was poor, which may be a problem for those who want to share files between the Mediaplayer and other devices.

The Mediaplayer II is quite reasonably priced at £175 with a built-in 500GB hard drive or £115 for a kit so you can fit your own.

Adding wireless to the product adds considerable expense though, and with uninspiring performance, format support and a limited feature set this will only appeal to casual users.