Accessories

Essentially standing on the shoulders of IT giants, the Devolo dLAN 500 WiFi combines two established networking technologies – Wi-Fi and powerline – in a manner that's so obvious, I'm surprised it's not more widespread.

Synology's DS214play offers all of the standard NAS functionality (including mobile device access and RAID configuration), plus the company's powerful DSM operating system and the ability to download apps that expand the unit's versatility. But the icing on the cake is audio/video transcoding, which is made possible by a dual-core processor and hardware-acceleration. Typically, trying to play something that your playback device can't handle will reward you with stubborn rejection or even a crash. The DS214play sidesteps this by converting, on-the-fly, the selected file into something that your player can cope with.

Considering what a success the Xbox 360 has become since its 2005 launch, with its groundbreaking network play and ever-growing media portal/hub functionality, the Xbox One’s journey to shop shelves was surprisingly uncomfortable.

Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system cannot even play DVDs – never mind Blu-rays. This seems strange, as modern PCs are more than capable of handling movies from disc, and can be connected to your AVR and display with the same ease as a conventional Blu-ray spinner. The basic (and free to install) VLC media player can deal with DVDs and Blu-rays amongst other things, but if you want more sophistication then Cyberlink aims to please.

I've tested a number of video processors over the years, but this one's rather different. The tiny Darbee DVP 5000 'Darblet' only caters for HDMI, and has none of the usual adjustments offered by conventional processors, such as brightness, contrast, noise reduction, deinterlacing modes or colour balance. 

Bucking the trend of much of the tech industry, the headphone market has seen a stellar rise in recent years and everyone wants a piece of the pie. No surprise, then, that AV receiver supremo Onkyo has joined the fray.

For some hardcore gamers, winning isn’t enough; posting videos online for all to see is the only way to satisfy their egos. If this sounds like you, then the Hauppauge HD PVR 2 Gaming Edition, a standalone PS3/Xbox/Wii video recorder, is right up your FPS alley.