The Media Center Extender devices that are bringing the experience of Media Center, away from the computer. These devices communicate with the computer through the network from home, this is cable, wireless, or the loop (through the use of adapters). The recommended way to make the connection is through cable network, because this is what allows greater speed and stability. Currently there are three Extenders Portuguese market, the XBOX 360, and two dedicated devices from Cisco / Linksys DMA2100 and DMA2200 the (the main difference between them is the presence of a DVD player in DMA2200), with more Extenders to the market soon . Currently, the XBOX 360 Arcade is cheaper extend, with an approximate price of 200 € and with the added value of being a game console, it will be the first option when compared with other equipment, which have higher prices. However, if you want to connect their Extenders, without using cables, then the models of the Cisco / linksys have some advantage, since its wireless connection is made using the next generation of wireless networks, faster than the current and with a higher power. In terms of noise, unlike the Xbox 360, the devices from Cisco / Linksys are completely silent, does it require any refrigeration and spend much less energy. Also in terms of codecs, the Extenders have dedicated support for formats not yet supported by XBOX 360, and the DIVX and XVID (the Xbox does not support these formats from the Media Center interface, only through the Dashboard). Unfortunately, none of the existing Extenders support subtitles in external files like srt or sub, which makes little sense, since any DVD player with DIVX and price less than € 50 supports this kind of subtitles, however, they are updateable and new features like this may arise.

The Extenders bring us great opportunities, we can put all our movies, music and photos on the network, access to this content in any extend the house, surf the TV programming guide and choose which program we want to see live or recorded . We can also see all the TV recordings made by the Media Center, or begin to see a movie in the room and see the end of the room or the kitchen, all through an easy and intuitive interface.

Media Center Extenders in the house

Although the Extenders are not perfect, the possibilities we offer, easily overshadow its faults and we have to admit that much easier to our better half we need to put an extender in the room, in which case the DMA2100 to be hidden behind the LCD, which put a noisy (or not) computer with Media Center.

For more information on the Extenders, follow the link below

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/mediacenterextender/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/mediacenter/features/extender.mspx

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