Eminent HDMedia DVB-T EM7195 review

Although it’s fine for basic navigation, the remote control proved problematic when it came to trying to use the streamer’s more advanced features, as its generically-labelled buttons don’t always do what they’re supposed to. For example, the Home and Info buttons don’t work on every screen. The Info button is also limited – when you’re watching TV, pressing it shows you what’s on now and next, but it doesn’t pull details out of the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). It’s more useful when you’re watching recordings or video files, providing access to data about the file and making it easy to switch audio and subtitle tracks on and off.

When you’re watching live TV, the programme up and down buttons, instead of fulfilling their obvious functions, fast forward and rewind TV footage instead. Also, an inconsistent bug in the PVR system means you can’t always delete programs you’ve recorded – we were able to remove some, but others weren’t removed when we attempted to delete them via the Playback Recording screen. At least playing files works as expected and we can’t fault the quality of the recorded files.

The remote doesn’t always function as you’d expect

PVR features aside, the EM7195 also works well as a plain media streamer. It’s easy to browse network shares, whether they use SMB, UPnP or NFS. It supports playlists for music, but not films, and even has a lovely optional thumbnail browser for photos, which you can access by pressing the unmarked yellow button. It’s easy to configure the streamer and connect it to your network, too.

Although there’s plenty to like about the EM7195, such as its excellent format support, large internal hard disk and ability to read from external devices, it also suffers from some significant flaws. Most of these relate to its interface. Despite big improvements over previous incarnations, the interface still feels sluggish and inconsistent. If you’re just browsing files on a network share, everything goes smoothly. However, if you do anything more complicated, whether it’s viewing YouTube videos or trying to manage your recorded TV programs, you’ll run into inconsistent remote control button assignments and long loading delays.

If the EM7195 was cheaper, its versatility would help overcome these drawbacks. However, a budget laptop or nettop with an HDMI output doesn’t cost much more, while a high-quality streaming media receiver such as D-Link’s Boxee Box costs much less and works far more smoothly.