14 DAY TRIAL // Since ASUS wants to be known as a supplier of multimedia devices in addition to PCs and computer-related products, the company has announced the O!Play TV Pro.
This is a set-top box, STB for short, which intends to turn any HDTV (high-definition TV) into a smart TV, of sorts.
The built-in DVB-T digital tuner is the most basic of its components, granting the possibility to program free-to-air high quality digital TV channels.
Needless to say, ASUS went much further than simply implementing TV broadcast support when it designed this thing.
For one, it is possible to install a 3.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) inside, to store content recorded with the PVR (Personal Video Recorder).
A second asset is the TimeShift technology, which can pause and resume digital broadcasts in real time, in case viewers have someplace to be all of a sudden.
Thirdly, ASUS' O!Easy technology is present, allowing for program sharing on Facebook (O!Capture), replaying the most recent 7 seconds of a program (O!Replay), stream content from a PC (O!Direct), wirelessly stream from mobile devices (O!MediaShare) and automatically play videos stored on USB drives or SD/MMC/MS/xD cards (AutoPlay).
All this leads to the list of supported file types and, as it happens, it is extensive.
There are over 50 formats that the O!Play TV Pro is known how to handle, of which ISO, MKV, RM/RMBV, MVA, AVI, MPEG1/2/4, and MP4 are merely some of the most well-known.
What's more, 3D content is just as compatible with the new set-top box as every other sort of broadcasts or film out there, thanks to the H.264 MV codec.
Finally, ASUS's O!Play TV Pro is equipped with Gigabit Ethernet and Wi-Fi, for access to DailyMotion, Clickr, YouTube, Picasa and Acetrax, among others. Needless to say, without these ports it would be impossible to conduct the aforementioned video streaming too.
Unfortunately, the price wasn't advertised, probably because something like this will not be easy on the wallet.