Now Available Worldwide: Netgear’s Digital Entertainer Elite

Netgear's Digital Entertainer Elite media hub targets serious media fans by streaming high-definition audio over a home network.

Networking developer Netgear ha announced its Digital Entertainer Elite media hub is now available worldwide, marking the company’s latest entry into the home media space. The Digital Entertainer Elite is aimed at serious media fans by streaming u to 1080p video—along with, of course, MP3 audio, digital photos, recorded TV, and more—over an in-home network. The device also ties in with services like Flickr, YouTube, and RSS feeds to bring the best of the Internet into the home entertainment experience.

“As the amount of digital media content available to consumers increases exponentially, so does the demand for the ultimate entertainment solution to bring that content to HDTVs,” said Netgear’s senior director for home and consumer produces David Henry, in a statement. “As the newest and most advanced solution in our family of Internet-connected set-top products, the Digital Entertainer Elite enables users to benefit from viewing the broadest spectrum of digital content on their HDTVs, in the comfort of their living rooms.”

The Digital Entertainer Elite sports a 500 GB hard drive—which is, of course, user-upgradable to add capacity—and features gigabit Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi wireless networking (with three internal dual-band antennas and WEP/WPA2-PSK support), and support for Windows Media Player 11 Media sharing along with SMB support. The unit sports HDMI output; S-Video, composite, and component video output; S/PDIF audio out; and two USB 2.0 ports for more storage. Of course, the device supports a plethora of audio, image, and video formats: including WMA, MPEG4, VC1/WMV9HD, AAC, FLAC, etc., etc.), and sports an energy-efficient power supply that consumers just 0.01 Watts in power-save mode.

The Digital Entertainer Elite is available now from brick-and-mortar and online retailers. In the U.S., the unit carries a suggested price of $399.