Media streaming is about to become all the rage, if you believe the manufacturers. The reason is that since so many of us have huge amounts of music, pictures and video files on our PCs, surely we would be happier if we could play them through our TVs and hi-fis rather than be restricted to the computer. And wouldn't it be even better if we could do it all wirelessly, with no need to string unsightly cables all over the place?

The Philips Streamium SL400i accomplishes most of these things extremely well. The silver box with its understated front panel would certainly not look out of place in a hi-fi rack or under the TV. It's easy to set up: just plug it in to the television and the mains, and fire it up, at which point it will look for a network. You need to choose between internet and PC-link modes at this point.

In internet mode, you can download media content from a selection of providers (the list is built in to the player, which can update itself over the net). This includes music videos, film trailers and other such files. The quality is not brilliant, but it's certainly watchable.

In PC mode, the Streamium will look for any computer on a network that is running the Philips Media Manager software (which is supplied on a CD). You need to install it on at least one PC and make sure the appropriate firewalls are open so that the Streamium can see the PC, and vice-versa. A USB-wireless adapter is supplied, if your PC isn't already equipped with USB.

The Media Manager scans your computer's hard disk and collates a list of your media. You don't need to run the full program all the time, but you do need to leave the smaller sub-program open in the System Tray.

The Streamium will list all of the PCs on the network that are open for browsing, allowing you to access pictures, music and video. You can do this on-screen or by using the front panel display, and it's a fairly intuitive process. The Streamium did wrongly categorise iTunes AAC files as movies, but there was no problem playing them.

The quality of sound is very good, and video quality is spectacular - much better even than on a good PC. It even plays highly compressed DivX files with similarly stunning results. However, it won't play WMA or WMV files, which is a huge shortcoming when so many content providers are switching to these formats.

The fact is that the SL400I is very impressive but it's also very expensive, and it is let down by a couple of major shortcomings which simply can't be overlooked.

Contact:
Philips 01293 773 128
www.philips.co.uk

Also consider:
Creative Sound Blaster Wireless Music