Philips Streamium MX6000I

Make yourself comfortable on the sofa and enjoy PC music and video in your living room with Philips' all-in-one home entertainment centre

Price: £499

Manufacturer: Philips

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Verdict

Good points: Reliable, fast wireless connection; easy to use; five-disc changer

Bad points: Bulky design; potential for wireless interference

Overall: An ideal solution for anyone who is looking to bring their living room into the digital age

Active Home staff, Active Home 25 May 2005

The MX6000I is the flagship model of Philips' Streamium range. Described as a "complete wireless entertainment system", it's designed to play everything from DVD movies to streaming audio and video from your PC to your television.

The main unit is heftier than most standard DVD players, rivalling some older VHS recorders for size. Most of its girth is attributable to the five-disc DVD changer on the left-hand side.

This conveniently allows you to switch between five of your favourite movies or audio CDs, reducing the need to revisit the unit multiple times. However, the internal mechanism that switches between discs sounds a little too clunky for our liking.

Playback quality was good though, thanks to its support for progressive scan, a playback technique that reduces blur and image flicker on compatible displays.

Philips has equipped the MX6000I with a number of input and output ports for connecting it to a TV. It lacks the high-definition HDMI, digital DVI and analogue VGA connections commonly used on high-definition LCD and plasma TVs, but there are composite, S-Video, Scart and component sockets included, so you can get good quality images on most displays.

The real beauty of the Streamium MX6000I is its wireless capability. It has a Wi-Fi network adapter installed, so it can access all the music, video and photos stored on your PC without the need for cables.

It can, for example, play MP3 tunes and MPEG movies from your computer on your television or hi-fi in another room. Philips has opted for the fastest of the current Wi-Fi network types, known as 802.11g, and has rather thoughtfully supplied a wireless USB network adapter to add wireless capabilities to your PC.

Setting up a wireless network connection from your PC to the MX6000I is extremely straightforward. The language used in the manuals of many wireless devices can be quite baffling at times, as manufacturers tend to assume that most users have a high level of technical knowledge. Philips seems to have got things right with the MX6000I, and we were up and running wirelessly in minutes.

Using the Streamium MX6000I is also fairly simple. Just install the Philips Media Manager on any computers in your home that contain audio, video or pictures, and the MX6000I will do (most) of the rest.

We've found many similar devices hard to use because of illogical on-screen menu structures, but the Streamium's menus are well laid out, with options that are easy to understand. It is also less 'in your face' than most, with no jolly screensavers or vendor logos etched into menu backgrounds.

When playing music, the interface shows useful information such as song titles, artist names, and remaining and elapsed play time, but we were a little disappointed that it couldn't display album art.

To its credit, the MX6000I has a five-line LCD display that can show audio information, so you don't need to have your TV turned on to listen to, navigate through, or control your music.

The package includes a 36-button infrared remote control that can control most of the unit's functions. Its buttons are fairly well arranged, but we couldn't help wishing it was less bulky.

You can use its numeric keypad to find specific music, movie or photo files in alphabetically sorted lists. This works just like sending a text message with a mobile phone press '22'for 'e'). If your list of files is sorted randomly, pressing '22' will take you to the 22nd entry in the list.

There are some frustrating oddities though, such as the lack of dedicated buttons for switching from images to music. The ability to display photos on your TV is a nice touch, and there is a handy slideshow mode. Unfortunately, the MX6000I does not allow you to play music while in this mode, which is a fairly significant oversight.

As with all devices of this type, the quality of movie playback can deteriorate rapidly if there is external interference from household appliances, or simply a very thick wall between the Streamium and your PC. For the most part though, it performed consistently well in our tests.

There are some limitations to the types of file the MX6000I can play. Standard MP3 audio is supported, for example, but the device is not compatible with secure audio files such as those downloaded from Napster.

If you already subscribe to such a service and have amassed a large collection of audio, this is essentially wasted, as the MX6000I simply doesn't understand them. Your movie collection is unlikely to go to waste though, as MPEG 1,2 and 4,and various DivX formats are all supported.

Into the bargain, you can also use the Streamium MX6000I to surf the internet on your television, and you can connect to internet radio and music services including LaunchCast@Yahoo, Playhouse Radio, Live365, MusicMatch and RadioFreeVirgin. Here you can watch music videos or listen to the radio. The selection is fairly limited on some services, but it is a nice addition.

The only slightly disappointing aspect of the device is the fact that your PC always has to be switched on and running the Philips Media Server software for most features to work. It can play files stored on an external or networked hard disk, but your PC still needs to be switched on. If your computer crashes or goes into suspend mode, you temporarily lose access to your files.

The final part of the Streamium MX6000I package is a set of five-channel surround sound speakers. These aren't the loudest or clearest speakers we've heard, but they are fairly powerful and should suit most average users. As a bonus, the MX6000I can convert ordinary two-channel sound from an audio CD to five-channel audio, so you hear the music through all speakers.

On the whole, the MX6000I is a very effective media hub. There are cheaper options available if all you want to do is stream movies from your PC to your TV, but if you're looking for a comprehensive upgrade to your audio/video setup, it's a great solution.

Did you know?
There are currently four different types of wireless network available. 802.11b is the most common, and can transfer data wirelessly at up to 11Mb/s. Many audio-only streaming media devices use this as you don't need a particularly fast network connection to stream music files over a wireless network.

Movies require a far faster network connection however, such as the 802.11g standard used by the Streamium MX6000I.This can send data between your PC and the receiver unit at up to 54Mb/s. This extra speed reduces the likelihood of jerky playback or video and sound becoming desynchronised.

802.11b networks can work alongside 802.11g devices, but only at a maximum speed of 11Mb/s.The final Wi-Fi standard, 802.11a, is far less common. It too can reach transfer speeds of 54Mb/s, but it isn't found in many devices of this type as it has a shorter range. A new wireless standard, 802.11n, is on its way too.

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