ZapMedia Finally Releases ZapStation

veader writes: "ZapMedia seems to have finally released the ZapStation. There is no press release yet but they are taking orders on their website. It looks to offer much more functionality than the recently released HP de100c. CD, DVD, MP3, MPG, WMA, WMV, etc." I have a model for review coming my way so I'll give a detailed report when I have time to plug it in and give it a beating. Like the HP box, it is quite expensive, but it has many more features. The real question is, at the price point for these boxes, can they compete with X-Box or PS2+Hard Drive devices that will be hitting the market and doing many of the same things, but far less expensively?

Comments

ogg support?

[GoatPigSheep]

does anyone know if they will add ogg support sometime in the future?

Re:ogg support?

[SeanMahan]

I'm a developer at ZapMedia and we've already started discussing new features for the up coming software update. I can't make any promises right now but Ogg Vorbis is on the table.

Cost-benefit summary

[Brijam]

So what am I getting for $1,500?

A closed-architecture 800mhz Celeron with 128mb of RAM, a 30gb hd, 10baseT, soundcard, video out, DVD and CDRW, wireless keyboard and remote, and some cruddy software that almost certainly pales in comparison to existing free software.

Sounds like about $500 in hardware so far.

You can't record TV shows with it. Can't upgrade to new codecs unless they release updates, so forget OGG. I doubt it supports DivX.

If they sell 10 I will be amazed.

-B

A good PC setup?

[truthsearch]

I have an old PC running Linux that I'd love to set up to handle all of my multimedia. I have it networked to my DSL, so it'll have internet access. I have 2 real problems, however:

• How can I have a comprehensive user interface to control all media? And of course it would use all of the latest libraries.
• How can I set up a remote control to the PC?

Of course I could write a program to handle every media type I'm interested in with a nice GUI, but I definitely don't have the time or knowledge of the libraries. The remote is probably just a technicality that I could find out more about (generic remote, buy an IR reader connected to serial port, etc). But without loading 100 different programs and user interfaces, does anyone know how or where to find a nice GUI to handle everything? Because that's really the only benefit I see in their product: usability. It would be a fun hack to mimick that with an old PC.