MediaGate finally launches MG-350HD, MG-35, and MG-25P in the US

This might not be quite as earth-rattling as iTunes getting ported to Windows, but it comes fairly close. MediaGate is finally launching its heralded media serving products here in the US of A, after spending two painstakingly long years parading around and thrilling folks in Japan. The "new" MG lineup are self-proclaimed "convergence products," and have done quite a swell job fusing data / media between the PC and TV, and now we Americans can get a taste of what we've been missing out on (or finding elsewhere). The MG-350HD entertainment server plays nice with Windows, Linux, and OS X-based operating systems, holds your choice of 3.5-inch hard drive, outputs in NTSC and PAL, and includes onboard Ethernet / WiFi, USB 2.0, stereo and digital audio outputs, DVI, S-Video, composite, and component. Moreover, it supports high definition streaming, MPEG1/2/3/4, AVI, M2V, DAT, VOD, XviD, OGG, WMA, BMP, GIF, and JPEG, and that's just to name a few popular formats. Aside from lacking WiFi, the MG-35 mimics its more feature-packed sibling just about to a T, but does tout Ximeta NDAS technology. The miniscule MG-25P boasts the most of the same functionality as its bigger brothers, but makes room for a 2.5-inch HDD, lacks a DVI out / WiFi, resides in a more durable enclosure for tight spots (like vehicles and shirt pockets), and also acts as "instant network storage" when you're done dishing out media. MediaGate's trio of media slingers are all supposedly available right now, with the MG-350HD costing $250, the MG-35 demanding $125, and the diminutive MG-25P running just around $80, all sans hard drives.

[Bo @ Jan 8th 2007 10:17PM]

Correction: VOB (DVD video files) not VOD. DivX and VOB support is exactly what I've been looking for.

[Lonnie McClure @ Jan 8th 2007 10:21PM]

The MG-35 may be "officially" available in the United States only now, but you could actually buy one in June of last year, if not earlier. I found an e-mail I sent to a friend back on June 23, 2006 with a link to a reputable U.S. vendor selling it for $129 at the time.

[iridium @ Jan 8th 2007 10:32PM]

NewEgg has been carrying this for over 6 months now

[Fraser @ Jan 8th 2007 10:45PM]

I've been using an MG-25 for about 6 months and I absolutely love it. In fact, my wife loves it, and she usually hates my AV setups. For $75 + hard drive, you've got a portable device that gets media from computer to TV.

[Sam @ Jan 8th 2007 11:02PM]

I've had one for just about 2years now and its really a great movie box for the kids. I've got a 400GB hard drive filled with movies, it actually replaced the DVD player although uploading DVD's takes a while. Its the MG-35 not the new 350 but there really isn't that much HD content available yet.

[robertpolson @ Jan 8th 2007 11:35PM]

"The MG-350HD entertainment server plays nice with Windows, Linux, and OS X-based operating systems"

Can someone please elaborate on Linux part ?

[Pete @ Jan 8th 2007 11:56PM]

Be careful. 7 of us at work have these and we have all had no end of trouble with them.

They do play just about everything you can throw at them but build quality is poor and firmware updates are rare.

[Adam Moore @ Jan 9th 2007 12:29AM]

Yet to see a review of the MVIX player. I've had the 4000u for a few months and it works great. The newest HD one has just about everything one could want. Sometime I would like to see a review on these. They are at CES right now how about taking a look. (I know they are there because I currently have a small issue with a jpeg file and they responded to me from the CES floor. How about that for customer service.)

[Dale Syron @ Jan 9th 2007 6:02AM]

For anyone thinking of buying one of these try this website, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mg-35_firmware_mods/
This is a group of people who are improving the MG35 With better GUI and other enhancments to allow FTP, Telnet, Webserving, and basically anything they can add. They are limited by ALTech's unwillingness to release details of the modifications to the GPL s/w running the MG35.

[Ed Cowden @ Jan 9th 2007 12:55PM]

Looks exactly like the Mvix MX-760HD and seems to support the exact same formats (and NOT support the same ones as well (MKV, etc.)). I have the MX-760HD, but this one is about $80 cheaper (NewEgg has a $30 rebate on this right now). Both will work with OSX, but you'll have to use FAT32 to write to disk, and no files > 4GB. Only performance difference the specs show is that the Mvix will push 1080p over DVI. Wonder how the MEDIAGATE MG-350HD and the MVIX MX-760HD perform side-by-side - or are they really just the same thing in a different shell?