Luckily, QNAP has launched the new QNAP NMP-1000P Network Media Player, which can support pretty much every kind of video and audio format you’ll ever come across, and decode it using a super-quick 667MHz audio/video decoder from Sigma Solutions.

That’s not the half of it, though. in order to do such trickery, the NMP-1000P needs to get its media from somewhere, and thanks to the magic of Ethernet and Wi-Fi, it can suck it up either from your PC or the Internet.

So what does the QNAP NMP-1000P Network Media Player actually do?

In layman’s terms, this means the NMP-1000P will playback any video and any tune you can throw it, and either send it to your HDTV, your home theatre system, or your hi-fi (depending on whether it’s a video or audio file, obviously!)

Any of your videos or tunes can either be streamed through the NMP-1000P from your PC, or simply stored on its internal hard drive for later use, in which case you won’t need to switch your PC on to play the file.

But what if you don’t have much media on your PC? No problem, the NMP-1000P will also stream content directly from the following Web apps:

• Mediafly
• Apple Movie Trailers
• CNN
• SHOUTcast
• Internet radio service
• Flickr
• Picasa

It’s even got a built-in FTP client and BitTorrent client, so you can download media from other computers connected to the Internet, and all without turning your own PC on.

What can you connect it to?

Round the back, it’s like a swiss-cheese of connection sockets! The NMP-1000P comes with the following ports:

• USB
• eSATA (for external hard drives)
• HDMI v1.3a (for connecting to your HDTV and streaming 1080p movies)
• Audio out
• Component Video
• Composite Video
• Analog stereo out (for connecting to your hi-fi)
• SP/DIF (for digital connection to your hi-fi via optical cable)

Add to that the built-in Wi-Fi receiver, plus the Ethernet port, and you can see that the NMP-1000P really will connect to anything – and is just about the geekiest gadget you’re ever likely to buy for your home media setup.

It gets better, though. If you think that’s geeky, just wait until you see what video formats it supports!

What media types can it play?

Video files are complicated beasts, and if you have a video that’s encoded in a format that your hardware doesn’t support, you won’t be able to watch it. Worse, the video itself will be encoded using a certain format (such as MPEG), and will then be contained in a container (such as AVI), which contains other files such as titles, playlists, subtitles, and other meta-data. Again, if your media player doesn’t support the container, it won’t be able to play the video.

With the NMP-1000P, though, it’s not a problem. Here’s the list of video formats it supports:

• MPEG1
• MPEG2
• MPEG4
• XVID
• H.264
• H.263
• WMV9
• VC1

And here’s the list of containers:

• AVI
• MPEG/MPG
• VCD (ISO, MPG, NRG)
• DVD (VOB, IFO, ISO, NRG)
• WMV
• ASF
• TP
• TS
• TRP
• M1V
• M2V
• M4V
• M2P
• M2T
• M2TS
• BDMV/BD ISO
• MTS
• MOV
• MP4
• RMP4
• MKV
• MOD
• 3GP

Phew! That’s pretty much every video format and container you can think of! And that doesn’t even include the list of audio and picture formats supported!

Like I say, the QNAP NMP-1000P really is a geeky but of kit, but if you need a media player that will connect to anything, decode anything, and stream anything using wires or wireless, you really should give this little box serious consideration.

[Source: SlashGear]

Yes, that’s right – Nikon, the Japanese camera manufacturer!

|n a long meandering press release, they talk about how they’ve always focused on imaging, and that as the Media Port UP lets you watch video, it’s also about video, too. But really, they’re not fooling anyone! Indeed, it sounds like they’re trying to convince themselves rather than us.

Simply put, Nikon are quite possibly the last manufacturer on earth who you’d have thought would have developed the Media Port UP!

Intriguingly, the device has a motion-sensor that’s used to control such things as volume. Move your head up, for example, and the volume rises. Lower it down, and the sound goes quiet. What happens when you’re nodding in head in time with your tunes, though, or laughing at a particularly funny video?

This device is just odd in every single way. It looks odd, its features are odd, and the fact that it’s made by Nikon is odd. It’s destined for the Japanese market only, though, which at least suggests that Nikon realize how odd it is!

[Source: CoolGadgetConcept]