Mediagate MG-450HD Expert Reviews

MediaGate's new MG-450HD media extender looks very similar to last year's MG-350HD model. In fact, there are only a few differences: The new device has an HDMI output (instead of DVI), SATA hard drive support instead of IDE, and the remote control now ...

Wirelessly loads a local hard drive with content from your PC. Supports high-def playback. Streams audio and photos from PC. Plays content from USB flash drives. Nice-looking user interface.

Poor video-streaming capabilities. Difficult to set up.

The MediaGate MG-450HD living-room media extender offers minor improvement over the original and comes at a slightly lower price.

Reasonably priced media streamer has good file support but a poor user interface and remote.

Full complement of output ports ; Versatile media playback

Immature and buggy interface ; Poor remote control

Overall, the MediaGate is a capable streamer that hits the hardware high notes at a much lower price than the Mvix , but implementation is lacking, as is Web-based video playback. Rough and buggy interfaces are a theme in many of the media streamers ...

A couple of years ago we reviewed AL Tech's MG-350HD and were suitably impressed. The MG-450HD is the next evolution of the MediaGate family, and builds on the solid foundation laid down by two years of firmware revisions and hardware improvements

The MG-450HD is a network-attached multimedia player, designed to be the central portal through which you experience all your digital media

Can play files off a hard drive, USB stick or a network ; small and portable ; can double as an external hard drive

Poor interface, doesn't play MP4 nor .mov files, remote control doesn't have alphanumeric characters, wireless setup was cumbersome

The best part about the Mediagate is its versatility. It can play files off a hard drive, a USB stick or off a network. The worst part is its interface and setup procedure, which took us a while to connect to our wireless network.