Evesham releases iplayer IPTV set-top box
By Erik Hanson 
posted Dec 19th 2006 2:21AM
posted Dec 19th 2006 2:21AM
UK firm Evesham has released the iplayer high-definition media center for £299 (584 USD), which can tune in over the air HD signals as well as download podcasts, IPTV, and pay-per-view Top Up content from the internet. The 80GB hard drive provides PVR functionality with recording and playback for timeshifting your media, and Media Player Connect for streaming to any PCs on the network. It also upscales any standard-def content up to 1080i using the built-in HDMI port. The iplayer includes the usual audio and video media viewers, as well as an email client and web browser which you can use via the included remote or a USB keyboard. The Inquirer thinks that it's a capable alternative to Sky for viewing both Freeview TV and media online and offline, at just a bit of a price premium.[Via The Inquirer]
This box is genuinely IPTV-compatible. The real deal: Multicast UDP reception of MPEG-2 Transport Streams with any of MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (H.264) or VC-1 (Windows Media) payload.
You can connect a USB hard drive for ad-hoc file viewing (yes, every "DIVX" I've tried has worked), and it even has QuickTime File Format playback (Codec-dependent, but H.264 with AAC Surround works fine).
It's Video On Demand (RTSP UDP or TCP) compatible, and there is even a BitTorent client for it: the BBC is using this hardware with BitTorrent for massively peer-to-peer content distribution.
And please disregard the press release that claims it has a FireWire port: the internal guts exist for FireWire, but the model with IEEE1394 is due in 2Q2007.
Has anyone in London with one of these seen if this will pick up the BBC HD1 signal properly? I'd be interested in one then (even if they might switch off the signal soon).