Today HP announced the forthcoming release of a software update for the HP MediaSmart EX485 and EX487 Servers, known as the 2.5 Update.
The 2.5 Update brings remote video streaming and automatic video conversion to unprotected content. What this means is that your EX485 or EX487 will be able to automatically convert videos and unprotected DVDs into two different resolutions.
These include a high resolution file that you can steam to PCs, Macs and even your Xbox 360 or PS3. The other resolution is aimed at mobile devices, such as the iPhone and iPod Touch.
For those who are interested, the conversions will be MPEG-4 (H.264).
The supported video types are AVI (DivX, Xvid, MJPEG), MOV (MJEG), DVR-MS (MPEG2), MP4 (MPEG4), WMV and unprotected DVD VOB.
Unprotected DVD VOB files are automatically stitched together resulting in a smooth stream.
All of your original files are left intact, so you don’t have to worry about anything happening to them during the conversion process.
There is also an HP MediaSmart Server iStream application for the iPhone which enables iPhone owners to easily access their digital content that is stored and streamed from their MediaSmart Server. This application will be available from the Apple App Store soon and will put a little MediaSmart icon on your iPhone.
But wait, that’s not all! There are also some updates to the mobile streaming user experience, updates to the HP Media Collector, improved configuration for Apple Time Machine and the ability to create public and private albums in the photo viewer.
So, excited? I think this update is very cool, and will probably generate a lot more interest than the recent Windows Home Server Power Pack 2 launch, which saw most people a little disappointed. The release date is later this month so keep checking your MediaSmart to see if you have the update.
Unfortunately for those who have the EX470 or EX475, this update will not work 🙁
HP say this is because of the hardware and processing power that is required to run the new software. And currently there is no news about any future updates for the EX470 and EX475.
Look out for a full in-depth review of the new features soon.
Awesome!
Many owners of the EX470 and EX475 have upgraded the processor and memory to match the later versions. Performance wouldn't be an issue for them so why isn't HP allowing owners an option to upgrade?
Tim – if I had to guess, I would say that it was because HP don't really support the upgrading of the processor and therefore they would be opening themselves up to problems when people who hadn't upgraded the memory and processor had serious performance issues.
I have an upgraded 470 – 2.6GHz, 2G Ram (better than 485 specs)
I would love to try out v2.5 on my box as a test for 470 owners, only I do not have v2.1.
The 2.5 update looks for 2.1 to be installed, If someone would like to send me 2.1, I will gladly be the guinea pig
I have tried to use the iPhone app with my EX475 but I am running into problems with an error message which says the server isnt available or something. It looks like it is finding the server but there are other complications. I have restarted my phone and server and still nothing.
Could it be that I require this update in order to use the app?
Thanks,
Andrew
Andrew
The EX475 with the base software on wont run the app as its was designed for the EX485/487.
I believe that if you update your EX475 to the version 3 software it should work, but I havent tried it.
Andrew