FIA On3 Review

With the ability to play your digital music, movies, and image files through your analog or digital stereo system and most TVs, FIA has high hopes for the On3, their first digital entertainment product.

Summary

ID3 tags, playlists, and instant access to music are some of the things that make digital music systems so appealing compared to traditional CD players. With the FIA On3 not offering any of those digital enhancements, most music lovers might not find much of a reason to purchase the On3.

 

However, the On3 can be quite a useful device for a number of people. With so many people owning digital cameras and so few of them backing up their pictures, it is only a matter of time before their hard drive fails and they loose all of their important images. The On3 can help digital picture enthusiasts effectively "kill two birds with one stone"; they can have a safe, and easy to use backup drive as well as a way to view their images on their standard or high-def display.

Introduction

 

With the push to bring your digital media files away from your computer and into your living room, we’ve seen several companies take different approaches to networked multimedia systems.

 

Until now, most of the networked media devices we have reviewed are in a client-server configuration, meaning a remote server is required somewhere in your house in order for the device to play your media. FIA’s On3 digital media player and library takes a different approach, with the unit featuring 80 or 120GB of onboard storage.

 

First Intelligent Array (FIA) has been around the networking and backup arena since 2000 and is most known for its network-attached storage devices. With the company’s background on storage devices, it makes sense that they have implemented the media storage and the media player into one device with the On3. With the ability to play your digital music, movies, and image files through your analog or digital stereo system and most TVs, FIA has high hopes for the On3, their first digital entertainment product.

 

Features and Design

 

With the ability to play most of today’s popular digital media formats, the FIA On3 boasts quite an extensive list of supported file types. The On3 can play the following digital media formats:

Audio: MPEG layer 1 and 2, MP3 , WAV, OGG, AC3 and AAC.

Video: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, RPM4, MOV, and AVI.

Images: JPEG, GIF, PNG and animated GIF (although the images don’t show as animated).

 

The On3 is a small blue plexiglass and silver aluminum box not much bigger than an external hard drive enclosure. With rubber feet at each of the eight corners, the On3 can be placed either on its side or bottom, making it easy to find a suitable location. However, as we’ve seen with most of the other networked media devices we have reviewed, the On3 doesn’t really go with most audio equipment. If you have a rack of black or silver components, this silver and blue brick might not look at home.

 

Included in the retail package is the On3 unit itself, an easy start poster and CD, a remote control, two Ethernet cables (one regular and one crossover), analog audio cables, and a power adapter. The manual states that the included crossover cable, which would be used for a direct connection to a computer, is a red cable, however, both cables included in our review unit were grey.  

 

The front of the On3 features a power/status light, an infrared receiver, and the power button. The status LED is yellow when booting and blue when the system is ready. While blue LEDs are all the rage in consumer electronics these days, the brightness of it can be quite distracting if the On3 is in your field of view. Similar to the blue LED on the AudioRequest Nitro, we could have done without it. At the rear are the inputs and outputs that allow you to hook the On3 to your home theater or stereo system and a display. For video hookups, the On3 features component video, S-Video, and a composite video connector. The On3 connects to audio devices with two sets of analog left and right RCA jacks, or digitally through a digital coax port or an S/PDIF optical port.

 

Rounding out the rear connectors is a 10/100 LAN port and a single USB 2.0 port. The LAN port allows you to hook the On3 to your network for configuration, uploading and downloading, and sharing files. The USB port allows you to add additional storage with a USB storage device, or to use the On3 as a network print server with a supported USB printer.

 

The rear panel also features a small cooling fan, a 12V power adapter plug, and an antenna jack. The antenna jack allows you to extend the infrared receiver with a special cable included in one version of the On3. FIA is also marketing the On3 as a mobile digital multimedia device, and the extended IR receiver allows you to place the On3 somewhere out of the way in your vehicle while still being able to use the remote control.

 

Because the FIA On3 has an onboard media player and integrated storage, it can act not only as a digital media player, but also to some extent as a network-attached storage drive. We say “to some extent” because it lacks the backup software that most NAS systems include, but if you add your own software to your client computers, the device can be used to automatically backup your important data. FIA uses Hitachi’s 7200 rpm, 8MB cache Deskstar hard drives for the On3.

Excellent Advanced Features

 

Response time and media playback options aside, there are some great features incorporated into the FIA On3. For one, the built-in SAMBA file sharing protocol allows you to create new shares, users and groups, just like a regular file server. It also supports AppleTalk, ensuring that most Mac, PC, and Linux computers can access the drive. The On3 also features an integrated FTP server and we were able to log into it through the internet to upload and download files. You can store more than just media files on the On3, making it both a file server and a media playback device. Transfer speed to and from the unit was relatively fast and easy.

 

Another great feature is the ability to have the hard drive turn off after a preset amount of inactivity. Using the web-based management tool, you can select to have the hard drive hibernate after 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes, or 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 hours of idle time.

 

The onboard USB 2.0 port allows you to add an external hard drive or USB flash drive, greatly increasing the available storage. The USB port can also be used as a print server, however, as we noted in our Apple AirPort Express review, it just doesn’t make sense for most people to have their printer in the same room as their audio equipment. The point of such devices is to get your music and media files away from your computer.

 

FIA’s POPdirector interface also allows you to view the available storage for the drive and for specific users, and it logs system, user, and connection events. The system can also be set to email up to two different email addresses when certain events or errors occur. Besides having a few English translation issues, the POPdirector is an excellent management tool.

 

Conclusion

 

ID3 tags, playlists, and instant access to music are some of the things that make digital music systems so appealing compared to traditional CD players. With the FIA On3 not offering any of those digital enhancements, most music lovers might not find much of a reason to purchase the On3.

 

However, the On3 can be quite a useful device for a number of people. With so many people owning digital cameras and so few of them backing up their pictures, it is only a matter of time before their hard drive fails and they loose all of their important images. The On3 can help digital picture enthusiasts effectively "kill two birds with one stone"; they can have a safe, and easy to use backup drive as well as a way to view their images on their standard or high-def display.

 

After using the On3 for a while, we really liked the thought of it having onboard storage as opposed to the other devices that rely on data stored somewhere else on a network. The On3 does not require a computer network, and if implemented correctly, can act as both a backup drive and a media player. Hard drive and fan noise were minimal, allowing us to enjoy the music, movies, and pictures without annoying background noise.

 

As for the ability to use the FIA On3 in your automobile, we didn’t try it but there are a few downsides. You’ll need to buy an LCD display for your vehicle. FIA suggests powering the unit with a DC to AC power converter, but this doesn’t take into account the problem of shutting down your car while the On3 is running. That kind of action has been known to wreak havoc on car-based computers.

 

If FIA can ditch the software that runs the On3 and/or upgrade the hardware to allow for faster access of your files, they may have a hit on their hands. We’d like to see them add an automatic backup utility to the package as well. Until then, we suggest that those interested in the On3 purchase it for its handling of images and its backup potential, rather than its movie watching or music listening capabilities.

Installation and Configuration

 

Initial setup of the FIA On3 is quite easy