The

Hauppauge Hauppauge ( ) is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the towns of Islip and Smithtown in western Suffolk County, New York, on Long Island. Its population in 2022 was estimated at 20,401 by the U.S. Census Bureau. Despite the official ...

MediaMVP is a network media player. It consists of a hardware unit with remote control, along with software for a

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

PC. Out of the box, it is capable of playing video and audio, displaying pictures, and "tuning in" to

Internet radio Internet radio, also known as online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not ...

stations. Alternative software is also available to extend its capabilities. It can be used as a front-end for various PVR projects.

Capabilities

The MediaMVP can stream audio and video content from a host PC running Windows. It can display photos stored on the host PC. It can stream Internet radio via the host PC as well. It can display live TV with full PVR features with SageTV PVR software for Windows or Linux. The capabilities listed below refer to the official software and firmware supplied by Hauppauge.

Video

The MediaMVP supports only the

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...

(MPEG-1 and MPEG-2) video format. However, depending on the MediaMVP host software running on the host computer, the host software may be able to transcode other video file formats before sending them to the MediaMVP in the MPEG format. The maximum un-transcoded playable video size is SDTV (480i). HDTV MPEG streams (e.g. 720p) need to be transcoded in real-time on the computer to SD format. Transcoding video can tax some slower computers. With a hardware MPEG decoder as part of its PowerPC processor, it renders moving video images more smoothly than many software PVR implementations.

Audio

Supported audio file formats include

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

and WMA. Playlist formats supported include M3U, PLS, ASX and B4S. See also Internet radio below.

Photos

Supported image file formats include

JPG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...

and

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...

. Slideshows are supported. Listening to music (including streaming Internet radio) during slideshows is supported as well.

Internet radio

Supports streaming Internet radio stations via the host PC.

Other capabilities

Can schedule recording of television broadcasts when using a Hauppauge WinTV

TV tuner card A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the digital ...

with the Hauppauge WinTV recording software.

Hardware

The MediaMVP hardware consists of a small set-top box and an infrared

remote control A remote control, also known colloquially as a remote or clicker, is an consumer electronics, electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operat ...

. It can be oriented either horizontally or vertically (using a supplied base). It's normally operated via the supplied remote control. Behind the unit's red translucent front panel is a single red

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...

. The LED is used as a power indicator, and also flashes when the unit's remote control is used. Typical (wired) units consume less than 5W. The power supply for the original MediaMVP consists of 6VDC, 1.66A coaxial DC power connector. The outer sleeve is the negative terminal and the inner tip is the positive terminal.

Connectivity

The rear of the MediaMVP unit has a plug for 6 VDC power, an

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

port, and in the US edition,

S-Video S-Video (also known as separate video, Y/C, and erroneously Super-Video) is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video, typically at 525 lines or 625 lines. It encodes video luma and chrominance on two separate chann ...

out,

composite video Composite video, also known as CVBS (composite video baseband signal or color, video, blanking and sync), is an analog video format that combines image information—such as brightness (luminance), color (chrominance), and synchronization, int ...

out, and

stereo audio Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...

out, while the European edition has instead a single "

SCART SCART (also known as or , especially in France, 21-pin EuroSCART in marketing by Sharp Corporation, Sharp in Asia, Euroconector in Spain, EuroAV or EXT, or EIA Multiport in the United States, as an EIA interface) is a French-originated standard ...

out" connector, offering additional

RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green, and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three ...

output possibilities, and bundles a SCART lead with 2 extra stereo audio cables with female

RCA connector The RCA connector is a type of electrical connector commonly used to carry analog audio and video signals. The name refers to the popular name of Radio Corporation of America, which introduced the design in the 1930s. Typically, the output i ...

s coming out of one of the plugs. Model 1016, the "wMVP", has Wireless G connectivity. however, this connection method can be inadequate for viewing digital television recordings depending on signal strength and reliability. A modified version of the unit is rebranded as Helius Media Stream and is fitted with a standard channel 3/4 RF modulator. This box is a better choice for TVs that lack separate RCA audio/video inputs.

Processor, RAM and firmware

The MediaMVP uses the IBM STB02500, a PowerPC 405

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, log ...

integrated with functionality especially suited for use in

set-top boxes A set-top box (STB), also known as a cable box, receiver, or simply box, and historically television decoder or a converter, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV tuner input and displays output to a television set, t ...

, like MPEG2 decoder. The unit has 16 MB of

SDRAM Synchronous dynamic random-access memory (synchronous dynamic RAM or SDRAM) is any DRAM where the operation of its external pin interface is coordinated by an externally supplied clock signal. DRAM integrated circuits (ICs) produced from the ...

. It runs on

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

-based firmware. Hauppauge has delivered enhancements and new functionality to the MediaMVP from time to time by releasing updated firmware. Firmware updates are delivered to the device when it is powered up.

Notes

Internet radio

See

list of Internet radio stations This is a list of Internet radio stations, including traditional broadcast stations which stream programming over the Internet as well as Internet-only stations. General BBC Radio France Indian Internet Radios * Boxout.fm * RadioJoyAlu ...

. Can play MMS streams, e.g. mms://some.radio.station/path/to/stream/ Can play

HTTP HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, wher ...

streams, e.g. http://some.radio.station/path/to/stream/

External links

Hauppauge MediaMVP
{{Home theater PC (application software) Interactive television Digital television Digital video recorders Linux-based devices Digital media players