Emtec N500H

How original! A media streamer with a digital tuner and video-on-demand service! The little Emtec Movie Cube N500H also has a Flash interface and a control screen. It’s not expensive either, but does it do the job?

The Movie Cube N500H is a networked media streamer and therefore doesn't have an internal hard drive and you have to link up a USB peripheral, insert a memory card or use a shared network (NAS, computer…).

The casing is in glossy plastic, a veritable magnet for dust and finger marks. The small single line alphanumeric screen on the front isn’t good for much and simply displays the TV channel you’re streaming (see inset). The remote is in light plastic and its buttons can be slightly capricious. As you can see, we’re talking an entry level model…

A standard Flash interface

Emtec take care to draw your attention to the Flash interface on the packaging but we weren’t really impressed for all that. A few of the effects do bring it to life a bit but the graphics are nothing to write home about.


While navigating the menus is intuitive, the display options are as standard as they come. Files can be displayed in list or mosaic format, which is a plus when it comes to photos.


There’s no video jukebox however and displaying a wall of posters has to be done manually (and laboriously!): you put each film in a folder and then you place the film poster on top. When it comes to your music, the audio information is only read on mp3 files and only external album covers can be displayed (same technique as for films).

Standard media compatibility

Media decoding is pretty good on this streamer. It can play all common formats, with the exception of 3D. High throughput videos can be played without any jumpiness and Dolby and DTS audio formats can be decoded in stereo (TV speakers) or sent to an external amp in bitstream. The same goes for DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD.

Built-in wi-fi and VOD

There’s an Ethernet Gigabit socket for networking as well as built-in wi-fi. HD video will stream no problem with the wired connection but on the wireless you’ll be better off confining yourself to SD.


There’s also a built-in Internet browser that allows you to access a handful of Internet sites displayed either in smartphone or tablet mode, which facilitates usage on a TV.