P
lenty of boxes will stream video from
your PC in one room to a TV in an-
other, but they all have two things in
common: You need to provide the network,
and you need to buy one box for each TV
you want to stream to. ZeeVee has a better
idea: One Zv-100 will stream video from
your PC to all your HDTVs by using your
home’s existing coaxial wiring as a network.
But here are five limitations you should
know about up front: First, the Zv-100 will
stream only to digital TVs equipped with
digital QAM tuners—it can’t stream video
to a simple monitor or an analog television
set. Second, ZeeVee does not currently
recommend the Zv-100 for use in house-
holds with satellite TV service (only cable
TV is supported). Third, the Zv-100 is
limited to streaming video at 720p resolu-
tion. Fourth, the Zv-100’s $500 price tag
is justified only if you’re interested in
streaming to more than one HDTV. A media
center extender is a much cheaper solution
otherwise. And finally, the box takes over
the host PC while streaming—the computer
can’t be used for any other purpose during
this time. Still interested?
The Zv-100 bundle consists of the fanless
ZvBox (while we appreciate the silence,
you can fry an egg on its surface while it’s
in use), the ZvRemote (an RF/IR combo
model that can control a PC anywhere in
your house, plus up to three TVs), and the
ZvReceiver (which sends and receives com-
mands from the remote and relays them to
your PC via USB).
The ZvBox captures your PC’s audio
and video output (carried over USB and
VGA cables, respectively), encodes it in
real time to MPEG-2, and “broadcasts” it on
a private channel on your coax network.
When you tune your HDTVs’ QAM tuners
to this channel, they receive this private
broadcast. So while you can stream to
multiple HDTVs, they’ll all receive the same
content (which can be a problem if you
want to watch Dexter but would prefer that
your children watch something that won’t
cause nightmares).
The RF remote enables you to control ev-
ery aspect of your PC as if you were sitting
in front of it. It’s extremely well designed,
with the exception of one blunder: It has
a notebook-style track pad that doesn’t
recognize finger taps (left and right mousebuttons are placed beneath the track pad,
which means you have to look at the remote
to find them).
The remote has all the other buttons
you’d expect, including transport (play,
pause, fast forward, etc.), a telephone-style
numeric keypad (for entering both numbers
and letters), volume control, and so on. It
even has keyboard-style arrow keys that
make it very easy to scroll web pages. A
large button in the center of the remote calls
up a rudimentary 10-foot Zviewer interface
(with preset links to sites such as Hulu,
YouTube, Netflix, ABC, and a few others)
that makes it easier to manage the system
from your couch. Another button calls up
Windows Media Center, if your version of
Windows is so equipped.
The quality of the streamed video is
excellent, but you’re completely dependent
on your HDTV’s speakers when it comes to
sound (unless your set has an audio output
that you can connect to an A/V receiver or
powered speakers). The fact that the ZvBox
is limited to analog VGA (received from your
PC and passed through to your monitor) is
a major problem if your rig’s videocard hasonly one output (as many home-theater and
notebook PCs do) because it compromises
your desktop experience and prevents you
from connecting a 30-inch LCD.
We’ve listed a lot of limitations in this
review; if none of them bothers you, the
Zv-100 is a great solution. With the excep-
tion of the satellite TV issue and the fact
that the ZvBox takes over the host PC while
streaming, we think the ZeeVee team has
done just about everything possible to create
a fabulous no-new-wires, multi-client video-
streaming system at a reasonable price.- M I C H A E L B R O W N
92 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| HOLIDAY 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
ZeeVee Zv-100
An innovative solution, despite its limitations
+ -
VERDICT$500, http://www.zeevee.com7
Streams to multiple
HDTVs using exist-
ing wiring.Streams to multiple
HDTVs; limited to 720p;
touchpad doesn’t recog-
nize finger taps.THE WIREZEEVEE ZV-100LAW & ORDERIN THE LAB^
REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWAREThe Zv-100 bundle consists of the ZvBox, which captures your PCs audio and video; the ZvRemote,
for controlling your PC from afar; and the ZvReceiver, a RF USB dongle that serves as the interface
between your PC and the remote.