The MediaGage HD box is very small. It works on the same principle as the Western Digital WD TV: there's no hard drive in the case. You link your external hard drive, USB key or memory card up to view content.
The box really is small: you can hold it in one (large) hand. The casing is in glossy plastic and though it may look good it also attracts dust.

Moreover, while the connections (video/audio outs, power supply) are at the back, the infrared receiver is on the side of the box. This isn’t very practical as it means you can’t put the box away tidily under your TV.

The remote is pocket-sized, like the box. It's flat with rather average handling and there aren’t many buttons. Although this is also the case with the Western Digital WD TV, the lack of buttons is made up for with an interface that gives access to all the standard controls: zoom, lanugage choice in films etc. Here the interface doesn’t make up for the lack of such buttons.

Now lets talk about the interface! It's obviously old-style and is rather ugly. Worse, in spite of the use of the term "HD" in the product name, you have to say that little effort has been made to put HD Ready and Full HD screens to use. Only part of the screen (about 1/6th ) is used to display the list of available files. A throwback, then, to the first multimedia hard drives, but hardly an HD interface.


Decoding: terrible!

At the risk of repeating ourselves, while the manufacturer has chosen to use the "HD" watchword on the product, it isn't up to playing HD videos, whatever the format used. It can handle standard definition video encoded in MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP (les DivX, les XviD) and that’s it! This very poor performance is due to the use of the Silan SC8636A decoding chip which has a far from recent spec.

Not much better for the containers either, with AVI, DIVX and MP4. Multi-audio (several audio tracks within a single file) handling isn’t supported and nor are subtitle tracks. Don’t count on being able to play videos encoded in H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) and encapsulated in MKV files: you won’t be able to. Audio files are better supported: MP3, AAC and WMA are recognised. For subtitles placed in separate files, SRT, SUB, SSA and SMI are all supported, which is ok (average). For photo file support, we refer you to the inset.

Connectivity: HDMI, SDHC reader and USB socket

Because of the size of the case, there wouldn’t be room for too many audio and video outs. All the same, there is an HDMI out, an RCA out and an RCA to scart adaptor. Moreover, a USB Host means you can link up to external hard drives and USB keys. Make sure the USB connector isn’t too wide (as is the case on certain keys) as it will jam against the power supply connector. There is also an SDHC card reader. Make sure however that your external hard drive, USB key or memory card are formatted in FAT or FAT32! NTFS format is not recognised and in 2009, this really isn't good enough!