Netgear Updates Entertainment Lineup with Push2TV 3000 and NeoTV 300 Series
by Ganesh T S on September 20, 2012 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Media Streamer
- Home Theater
- NetGear
- WiDi
- miracast
Netgear has been at the forefront in supporting Intel's WiDi initiative on the receiver side. In fact, they had an exclusive on the first WiDi receiver (Push2TV 1000) for close to a year back in 2010. In June, we covered the launch of Netgear's NeoTV Pro NTV200S WiDi / Media Streamer combo. Using Broadcom's BCM7615, it had all the features of the NTV 200 media streamer and also added support for WiDi 2.1 (1080p / HDCP2 / DVD & Blu-ray / 5.1 channel audio etc.)
Today, Netgear is pushing out a number of products targeting the same market at various price points. These include the Push2TV 3000 WiDi receiver and three members of the NeoTV 300 series, the NTV300, NTV300S and the NTV300SL.
Push2TV 3000
Anand recently covered the launch of WiDi 3.5, and briefly mentioned that a new Push2TV receiver from Netgear would be made available at a $59.99 price point. The credit card-sized Push2TV 3000 supports both Intel WiDi 3.5 and Wi-Fi Alliance's Miracast (pre-standard compliance). These technologies allow the user to wirelessly mirror a laptop, smartphone or tablet screen onto another HDMI-equipped display.
The PTV3000 is one-third the size of the PTV2000, and supports all the WiDi 3.5 features. It can be powered over USB and Netgear expects consumers to get that from one of the USB ports on the display. However, a power adapter is also available (in the case that the consumer's display doesn't have a USB port). Miracast certification will take place towards the end of 2012 (after the finalization of the specifications). The PTV3000 is priced at $59.99 and available for purchase starting today.
NeoTV 300 Series
The NeoTV 300 series differs from the NeoTV 200 series in two aspects. The first visible aspect is the departure from Adobe Stagecraft 1.2 to a HTML 5 based UI. The second aspect is the replacement of the Broadcom BCM7615 SoC with chips from MediaTek. While the base model (NTV300) has the MTK8633, the two others (NTV300S and NTV300SL) have the Mediatek MTK8653 SoC. Mediatek seems to be a highly secretive company and doesn't seem to have published any of its datasheets online. All the units can connect to the network through wired Ethernet or Wi-Fi. Remote control apps are available for Android and iOS.
The NTV300 is similar to the NTV200 in terms of support for online streaming services, full 1080p HD and 5.1 channel Dolby Digital audio. The NeoTV PRO (NTV300S) has all the features of the NTV300 and also brings the PTV3000's Wi-Di 3.5 supoort feature. The NTV300S also has legacy A/V port (component?) support (for use with TVs which don't have HDMI ports). The NeoTV MAX (NTV300SL) has all the features of the NTV300 and NTV300S. It adds support for local media playback (over USB). It is also a DLNA DMR (Digital Media Renderer). The remote is similar to that of the Boxee Box's, with simple navigation buttons on one side and a QWERTY keyboard on the other. It also supports Vudu's 3D videos when connected to a 3D TV.
All the three models are available for purchase today. The NTV300 is priced at $49.99, the NTV300S at $59.99 and the NTV300SL at $69.99.
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SilentSin - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
Unfortunately it does not sync properly :( I can see the PTV3000 listed as a Wifi Direct device and it attempts to connect but always fails. I guess we'll have to wait for the first round of miracast apps to get this working. I wish they would post an SDK or something, I would be more than willing to test this out myself. I am also going to try flashing some of the TouchWiz jellybean leaks to see if maybe Samsung enabled more functionality but as of right now it only works as a WiDi dongle.Rajanjena - Saturday, September 29, 2012 - link
Ganesh - Excellent article. With regard to your comment - " Note that NTV300 does NOT have Wi-Di or Miracast. Only the PTV3000 /NTV300S and NTV300SL support it."...Do NTV300S/NTV300SL support Miracast as well. From what I read on the product page, they only support wi-di.
Thanks.
ganeshts - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
From Netgear:Conficio - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
So I can buy the WiDi Miracast PTV3000 for $59 and a full blown NTV300S for the same money (which includes the WiDi feature)?The main difference being that I need to have a power supply for the NTV300S, while the PTV can be powered over USB, if I have that available.
chrysrobyn - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
I got too excited too early and ordered the Vizio CoStar without understanding that proper support of codecs and wifi do not necessarily imply SMB support.Do the Netgear appliances talk over SMB to a NAS?
ganeshts - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
Interesting.. I wasn't aware that the Co-Star doesn't support SMB.. Is that not possible even with external video playback apps?Btw, as for the NTV300 series, Netgear only mentions DLNA support. So, I wouldn't keep my hopes up for SMB support. I will ask Netgear about this today.
For local media playback (over USB or network), I have searched high and low, and a HTPC is the only fully reliable solution with UIs capable of satisfying the most demanding users. Models from companies like HDI (Dune series) and even Netgear (NTV 550) do satisfy some users, but there is really no streamer solution which can have the codec compatibility that you can get with a HTPC.
chrysrobyn - Friday, September 21, 2012 - link
The Google App store is still pretty immature for the CoStar. Can you tell me what kind of app to look for? XBMC isn't ready yet and is apparently launching for Android on other devices first.Impulses - Saturday, September 22, 2012 - link
Any File Manager that lets you browse the network and then open a file with the preferred player maybe? ES File Explorer and MX Player IMO... I'm not the least bit familiar with the Vizio unit though so I dunno what kinda issues you'd have running those.ganeshts - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
Just received the following info from Netgear:j3ff86 - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
How do the Netflix/Amazon Prime interfaces compare to a Roku? How often will this receive updates? Why should I buy this over a Roku?