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Awind McTiVia Wireless Media Streamer

14 Apr 2011

McTiVia is the first device that can show all content of your Mac as well as Windows computer on your TV wirelessly. You can control up to 8 PCs easily with your mouse and/or keyboard.

Tags: media streamer, mctivia

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			<h2 class="header-green">First Looks: Awind McTiVia Wireless Media Streamer</h2>
		<span class="byline">Reviewed by Ng Chong Seng on Thursday, 27 Oct 2011</span>
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		 		<h2 class="page-title">First Looks: Awind McTiVia Wireless Media Streamer</h2>
		 		<h3 class="page_title">The Mighty Mirror</h3>
<p>Have you ever wished you could stop squinting your eyes and project your laptop&rsquo;s screen onto your TV? Or flip a switch, move away from your desktop PC, and pick up where you&rsquo;ve left off on a much bigger screen? Awind's McTiVia wireless media streamer lets you do just that, and more. It&rsquo;s a little device that lets you access your computer on your HDTV. And don&rsquo;t be mistaken by its name: the McTiVia works for both PC and Mac.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img width="500" height="321" alt="" title="McTiVia claims to be the first device that can show everything on your Mac and PC on your TV wirelessly." src="/files/img/2011/10/McTiVia_front.jpg" /></p>
<h4 class="page_sub_title">Wired or Wireless, That's the Question</h4>
<p>If you&rsquo;re used to setting up W-Fi devices, getting the McTiVia up and running is fairly straightforward. There are two external dipole antennas that you've to screw to the back of the unit first. The McTiVia connects to your TV by way of an HDMI cable. To reduce cable clutter, you could setup the McTiVia as a wireless client to your router (via the Wi-Fi AP-Client Configuration), but this process is rather convoluted (not to mention such a setup is prone to interference), so we opted to hook both of them up via Ethernet. After installing the bundled software, a benchmark test will run and inform you the level of performance to expect, such as whether the setup is capable of mirroring your PC&rsquo;s screen on the remote TV well in real-time. After which, just enter the McTiVia&rsquo;s IP address (you should see it displayed on the TV), a user name, and hit the Connect button. Up to eight computers can be connected.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img width="500" height="110" alt="" title="HDMI is the only A/V output you'd get. A USB port is present for you to connect a USB mouse or keyboard." src="/files/img/2011/10/McTiVia_rear.jpg" /></p>
<p>After a brief pause, your computer&rsquo;s display will appear on the TV. The software will adjust your desktop&rsquo;s resolution before sending the stream over. For viewing static web pages and doing work such as word processing, there&rsquo;s not much we can fault the McTiVia. While it doesn&rsquo;t go to 1080p (it maxed out at 720p), the ability to mirror the desktop onto a big-screen HDTV more than makes up for it. Before we forget, you can even connect a keyboard or mouse to the USB port on the McTiVia. That means you can leave your laptop in the bedroom while you work in the living room.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img width="500" height="245" alt="" title="A benchmark score of 4 stars and above is recommended for smooth video projection." src="/files/img/2011/10/McTiVia_benchmark.jpg" /></p>
<p>By default, the McTiVia software will use the Video mode; in this mode, the lag between what you see on your computer&rsquo;s screen and what you see on the TV is longer. In our experience, there was a 2-second delay. However, videos appeared smoother. The App mode on the other hand reduced latency to less than half a second; the downside was we noticed more skips. So if you wish to use App mode, we recommend Ethernet connections end-to-end. For smooth frame rates, we recommend at least a dual-core 2GHz processor.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img width="500" height="381" alt="" title="Clicking the Menu button (the central document-looking icon) on the McTiVia desktop panel brings up further options." src="/files/img/2011/10/McTiVia_options.jpg" /></p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img width="500" height="414" alt="" title="If you've edges of the screen being chopped off, use the TV Offset Compensation setting to shrink the projected screen to fit your TV." src="/files/img/2011/10/McTiVia_overscan.jpg" /></p>
<p>To further enhance the experience, there are a few little tweaks you can try; for example, you can enlarge the mouse cursor that appears on the remote TV and choose a higher (or lower) projection quality. When we first used the McTiVia, we encountered an overscan issue: the edges of the desktop went beyond the edges of the TV. If you can&rsquo;t turn off overscan on your TV, you can do precise offsets on the McTiVia software.</p>
<h4 class="page_sub_title">Final Thoughts</h4>
<p class="rtecenter"><img width="500" height="295" src="/files/img/2011/10/McTiVia_package.jpg" title="The only stumbling block for the widespread adoption of the McTiVia would be its S$349 price tag." alt="" /></p>
<p>It&rsquo;s easy to see the McTiVia as an alternative to the Apple TV; in reality, it&rsquo;s much fewer content restrictions since it&rsquo;s able to broadcast everything that&rsquo;s on your computer to your TV. Once you&rsquo;ve crossed the setup hurdle, you&rsquo;d discover that it&rsquo;s quite a gem of a wireless media receiver. If you're using Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, to ensure compatibility, you should download the latest version 2.0.1.5 software installer over at Awind's <a target="_blank" href="http://www.awindinc.com/mctivia/">website</a>.</p>			</div>
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Awind McTiVia Wireless Media Streamer

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