Sometimes, eager customers have to wait a lot to actually get their hands on some product announced months before. That seems to be the case with NETGEAR's Digital Entertainer Elite digital media player, a device that allows users to seamlessly stream digital content over their home networks to their high-definition home entertainment systems, which was announced way back at CES 2009, in January, and only now managed to make its way to stores across the world.

The gadget comes equipped with an integrated 500GB hard drive, which is easily user-upgradeable to larger capacity disks, and allows users to play Blu-ray quality digital video up to 1080p, high-resolution digital photos, MP3s and recorded television shows from their PCs or storage on their network, plus pretty much any type of Internet-based content they can think of.

The Digital Entertainer Elite is extremely versatile, since it works simultaneously with Windows, Mac and Linux computers, and network attached storage (NAS) devices. Its two USB ports also enable instant access to content on a USB flash drive, digital camera, iPod or other USB storage device and, unlike other products on the market, the Digital Entertainer Elite does not require a UPNP server running on the various machines, searching and indexing being carried out directly on the device, enabling users to navigate content across multiple PCs and devices at the same time.

Additionally, the Digital Entertainer Elite supports a wide variety of digital media file formats and codecs and, more importantly, features NETGEAR’s exclusive Push ‘N’ Connect to easily and securely connect the device to wireless networks, eliminating the need to remember or input a password.

Furthermore, NETGEAR’s Digital Entertainer Elite includes a very cool feature called “Follow Me,” which allows multiple units to work together throughout the house (for example, users can pause a video in one room and resume it in another), as well as a “Party Mode,” which can be used for synchronizing music playback for whole-home listening.

And now, for the pricing details some of you have most likely been waiting for since the first sentence of this article. So, the Digital Entertainer Elite (EVA9150) from NETGEAR will be available worldwide at a price of around $399, which, in fact, is a pretty sweet deal, given the extensive list of features and specs this thing can provide.


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