Once I had the network up and running, I ran the Windows-only installation software provided by Netgear. Figure 5 shows the initial setup screen running on my XP system.

Figure 5: Software Installation

The Netgear portion of the installation was minimal. It really just starts an installation and setup of Microsoft's UPnP-based Windows Media Connect package. Figure 6 shows the setup at a step where user-chosen media folders can be selected for exporting to network devices. Using this screen I picked the directories where I had content to share.

Two of the directories I chose were network shares from some of my Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. The configuration menu allowed me to choose these network shares without giving me an error messages, but I found out later that none of the media from those shares were exported.

Figure 6: Media Connect Setup

Once the software was configured, and my XP firewall was updated to allow Windows Media Connect to access the network, I turned back to my TV. I found the new server listed as an available resource (shown in Figure 7). The name shown for the server was a bit verbose, but I couldn't find a way to assign a new name.

Figure 7: Top Level Menu

Using the software-based server worked fine with the EV700, but it means you'll have to leave a computer running in order to play any files other than Internet radio stations. On my network, I tend to use a lot of Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices for my digital media. These devices are usually quiet, power-efficient and flexible and you don't need a full-fledged computer running to make use of them. Fortunately, the EVA700 supports the UPnP AV standard, and UPnP servers are becoming common features on many NAS products on the market.

For my testing, I tried a Twonkyvision server on my NSLU2, a server on a Maxtor Shared Storage Media Server, and a server on a Synology DS-101. All worked fine and had nearly indistinguishable behaviour from the EVA700's bundled server. I did find that at least once, however, I had to unplug and re-plug the power cord on the EVA700 in order for new servers to show up in the top-level menu. Note that the Twonkyvision UPnP server is also available on the Macintosh, so if you're a Mac-user, you'll be able to use the EVA700.

I also found that the power button on the unit just turned the display output off, it didn't really power the unit up and down so to really reset it, puling the power was required. And speaking of power, my power-meter showed the device drew about 4 watts, so it was pretty efficient.