Netgear’s new wireless kit is designed for multimedia streaming, or more specifically, Blu-ray-quality HD streams. The Wireless -N HD Home Theater Kit comes with a pair of wireless streamers that’ll basically let you shoot your Blu-ray videos from your home entertainment system in the living room to the home network so you can get your HD content served in any other room in the house without the cable clutter, but with the bandwidth and speed that’s comparable (at least according to Netgear) to a wired connection.
Netgear’s CES lineup involves the usual network devices–media servers, 3G routers, and Powerline AV plugs–sprinkled with interesting features. Really, you never thought you needed so much networking equipment, but these things do make living in a digital world easier (but that’s just us. We’re a bunch of nerds). The lineup is headlined by the Digital Entertainer Express EVA9100, a media receiver that streams content from multiple sources (including the internet) to an HDTV. Seen as a stripped-down version of the company’s existing streamer (the Digital Entertainer Elite EVA9150), but without an internal hard drive and Wi-fi connection to keep the price down to $230.
Netgear today announced the Stora, an easy-to-use network-attached storage (NAS) device for sharing files over the home network. Sporting two drive bays, the Stora features the usual consumer NAS functions such as media sharing for streaming music (iTunes supported) videos and photos to other networked devices–such as computers, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles, as well as the iPhone and BlackBerry phones—but comes with a simple interface for beginners (server admin experience not required).
Netgear has just introduced the Digital Entertainer Live EVA2000, a relatively affordable network-connected set-top box that drops the usual built-in storage and Wi-fi capabilities, but still features HD playback and network media streaming for less.
NetGear has just announced the availability of the flagship router for their RangeMax line, the WNDR3700. Featuring a simultaneous dual-band 802.11 n connection for delivering twice the bandwidth (as much as 350Mbps) and Gigabit Ethernet ports for fast wired connections, the router also has a 680MHz processor and eight internal antennas for running home and small office networks.
