it features both wired Ethernet and WiFi, FM and Internet Radio and a top mounted USB socket for playing from a thumb drive.  The £500 system supports DRM free MP3 files, AAC and WMAs (of the non-lossless variety). Check out the video below.

philips.com MCI500H : Our Sonos Review : Our Logitech Duet Review : five.tv/gadget-show

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written by Jaffa , May 18, 2009

For me, sorry to say but anything with a Philips brand is a no-go (I find the built quality and features always badly lacking in Philips products). Also, the flick data share device is going to go the way of the DoDo - in the time it took to 'sync' the devices, he could have handed her a USB stick or emailed her a file. As he says, if the tech was added as a standard to all mobile phones....

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written by Paul Thomas , May 19, 2009

I'd be cautious, I had a philips tv with a built in media player, however you had to use the philips media player software on the pc. It could connect to windows media player, but lacked functionality. Specifically, if you picked music by artist, it then listed all tracks, there was no way to play one album. Why reinvent their own media software, rather than using the windows player?

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written by Mike , May 20, 2009

I actually have several streamiums, they basically allow you to play all the music, all from a particular genre, all from an artist or all from an album. All play modes allow shuffle and you can create Playlists either on the machine or via software.

The software for uploading is a bit quirky, but there is a free alternative that works much better.

In general I've found this to be the best system for playing MP3s at a reasonable cost, no doubt the Sonos is better at a price, but the streamium eats MS media center. And I've no complaints about build quality either.

Most important of all, it's been accepted by my partner who is quite fussy when it comes to introducing new technologies.

Probably the 2 downsides are it takes a long time to upload MP3s and you have to ensure the tags are accurate otherwise you'll end up with tracks in unknown albums, genres etc.

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written by adrian , May 20, 2009

had a 1st gen streamium.

great concept - prob before its time!

but it was let down by - poor user interface, poor built quality and poor speed (adding files to it)
Also the support was dire!

i believe sony has a similar device - if i was in the market for somthing like this i would go for the sony

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written by Mark Traverse , June 22, 2009

Logitech Squeezebox Boom and SB Duet (Controller & Receiver) beats the Streamium products hands down, is open source, extensible, and very very usable. Its been evolving for 10 years and will likely to continue to do so, yes theres bugs from time to time initially but these are being ironed out and in every cycle it gets better and better. Once upon a time you had to be reasonably techy yo make it work, but its now almost out of the box. So long as you are able to understand how to keep a clean, well tagged library and follow instructions for seting up new network devices (ie SSID's) then its pretty easy.

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written by Jonesy , August 07, 2009

Rubbish - never go for the Sony! Poor internet Radio support, Wireless client looks like a brick and £250 more for server and station setup.

I was definately tempted by the Sony but managed to buy the MCi500h and WAS7500 for a combined price of $496 off amazon (there price flucuates by £90ish on a weekly basis so time it right!) and after having the system for a week IT IS REALY GOOD...

The sync time is only slow when you first pair the devices OR when/if you completely power down WHICH you NEVER do as if you did power down the server the clients would never stream owt!

I have all my music transferred in an evening, and it has both FM and internet radio on both server and station - Yes I know no DAB like the sony but 1. DAB will eventually be ovbertaken by Internet radio 2. Sony has very limited internet radio on the station, none on the server. When I say limited.. NO BBC!!! whats that about? and no FM on wirless station

Also there is a great forum community to help backup the low online support levels and some really nice free third party apps available! Even someone can show you how to use an ipod as a touch screen remote !! I know...COOL!

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written by gary payne , November 15, 2009

the philips systems are excekllent in my opinion. Once yiou have uploaded tracks they are easily searchable using the remote. No more hunting out obscure cds you have put away "in a safe place ".
Using the associated WADM software allows you to retitle any tracks via your pc/laptop and transfer is quite speedy, approx 3 to 4 mins per album.
This is honestly one of the best things I have ever bought and the sound from the main centre is amazing. I actually went and bought another centre for my son, and he thinks the same as me. First rate !

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