News

Buffalo Begins Shipping New Network Media Player With Mediabolic Software Allowing Consumers to Easily View Media Files on the TV (4/11/2005)

Targeted to Mass Consumer Market, New LinkTheater Mini Network Media Player Provides Affordable, Easy-to-use Access to Digital Content from Any Room in the House

Buffalo, a global leader in the design, development, and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking, storage, and memory solutions, and Mediabolic, a leading provider of end-to-end software solutions for connected entertainment products, announced that the compact and easy-to-use LinkTheater Mini Network Media Player will begin shipping today. This product contains Media Player software from Mediabolic and allows consumers to enjoy music, photos, and videos over a home network.

"Our customers demanded an easy-to-deploy, reasonably priced media player solution that has all of the essential features," said Kuniaki Saiki, COO of Buffalo. "Mediabolic's powerful Source Code SDK gave us the freedom to choose our own hardware platform so that we could quickly deliver a product that meets our users' needs and sets the standard for price, performance and quality. The LinkTheater Mini is well positioned so that consumers can have one in every room in their homes."

By combining Buffalo's expertise in networking, multi-media and storage with Mediabolic's proven home networking technology, the LinkTheater Mini provides consumers with an affordable TV-based solution for enjoying videos stored on PCs or other Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) compatible products.

Buffalo's LinkTheater Mini is powered by Mediabolic's middleware and supports the most popular media formats such as MPEG2, JPEG, and MP3. In addition to being very easy to set-up, it is firmware-upgradeable. By incorporating Mediabolic's technology, Buffalo was able to provide connectivity to other DLNA-compliant products and give consumers an easy-to-use interface with powerful features such as music playlist creation. In addition, the two companies collaborated to integrate Buffalo's transcoding engine on the PC server to offer a consistent playback experience regardless of media formats.

The popular Buffalo LinkStation Home Server (HS-HGL) series also incorporates Mediabolic's NAS Media Server software and is designed to DLNA guidelines. By combining the LinkStation HS-DGL series with the LinkTheater Mini, users will have an affordable way to enjoy digital content in multiple rooms of the home.

"The LinkTheater Mini is an ideal digital home product: its simple set-up, ease-of-use, and attractive price make it appealing to a broad consumer audience. You just plug it in and it works!" said Daniel Putterman, president and CEO of Mediabolic. "This is an industry milestone because Buffalo has successfully broken through the $100 price barrier with a high-quality product priced to get into multiple rooms in the largest number of homes."

Features of the Buffalo LinkTheater Mini (PC-P1LAN)

-- Utilizes the power of the PC for real-time transcoding of video files

Includes PC media server software that provides real-time transcoding of videos to a format that can be played back on the LinkTheater Mini. This means that if the media player on the PC is able to play back the video format, then it can be played back on the LinkTheater Mini.

-- An affordable way to start your digital home

This network media player is priced very affordably. It is positioned as an entry model to make it easy for consumers to enjoy PC video and music files on a TV.

-- Tested to work with DLNA-compatible products

DLNA is a specification that allows the sharing of music, photo, and video files over the home network, between different consumer electronics and PC products.

-- Easy-to-read font ensures a true consumer electronics-like experience

This product uses the same, easy-to-read font as the LinkTheater PC-P3 series of network media players, making it easy to select and play back video files.

Buffalo LinkTheater Mini -- Specifications Summary

-- LAN interface: 10/100Base-T wired Ethernet -- External output interfaces: composite video (RCA), analog audio (RCA) -- Compatible formats: MPEG2, JPEG, BMP, PNG, MP3, LPCM -- Compatible formats (through PC transcoding): WMV, AVI, GIF, WMA -- Dimensions: 220mm X 47mm X 124mm (8.66 in. X 1.85 in. X 4.88 in.); 0.6kg (1.32 lbs.)

Pricing and Availability

The Buffalo LinkTheater Mini Network Media Player (model number PC-P1LAN) is available immediately in Japan. The suggested retail price for the product is JPY 10,600.

www.buffalo.jp