AV Receiver Reviews

Internet TV & Radio was organized regionally: Americas, Europe, U.K., Middle East, Asia, and Live Radio. The U.K. category displayed a Global Digital Broadcast logo and a message saying that the streaming provider would soon stop offering content. The Live Radio category brought a Radio Live logo, which populated two screens with 41 icons, of which 24 were various flavors of SHOUTcast. I picked the classical channel, which displayed a half-dozen subchannels, and I was streaming snappy flamenco in no time.

There were a couple of notable distinctions between Internet TV & Radio and Popular Websites. One was that the channels were live, so I didn’t need to fumble around with a bunch of tiles—I just tuned in and watched. Also, the amount of content was staggering. Under Europe alone, I counted 99 channels.

If I owned a VuNow device, Internet TV & Radio would get the most play.

The Network Movie Experience
The main menu’s Movies category led to three choices: Hollywood, Bollywood, and VuNow demos. Hollywood led to the RoxioNow rent/buy alternatives plus a new one: Crackle (“Video Matters”). Its logo bore the word beta in red lettering. They all used the same interface, in which I’d navigate categories and eventually be offered 10 alternatives per screen.

I was wondering whether the R-904N offered a Netflix option. It does, indirectly, via PlayOn, a PC application that you can download from themediamall.com/playon. PlayOn’s main mission seems to be adding networked content to PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii gaming consoles, although it also works with iPhone/iPad, Google TV, Moxi HD DVR, HP MediaSmart TV, the Netgear Digital Entertainer Live set-top box, and other devices. The PlayOn site says it “will also work on a number of other DLNA-compliant devices” in a “largely untested” fashion. Mentioned in this connection were Pioneer KURO and Sony BRAVIA HDTVs as well as DIRECTV satellite gear.

The program is free for 14 days, then demands an annual subscription fee of $40 or a one-time fee of $80. I didn’t want to venture into these expensive waters, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to install PlayOn for the trial period. Following a painless installation process, the PlayOn PC application listed the following goodies under PlayOn Settings/Channels, some of which were already independently enabled on Sherwood: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon VOD, NFL Game Rewind, MLB, NHL, Pandora, YouTube, CBS, Comedy Central, TV.com, TBS, SpikeTV, ESPN.com, ESPN3, The Ultimate Fighter, CNN, Fox News, PBS, Nick, MTV, BET, and Vevo. Especially with those first three items, PlayOn significantly expands the programming that’s available on the VuNow platform.

To access PlayOn content, I started at the main menu’s My Collection and navigated through Home Network, Content Sources, and finally a submenu that offered a choice of my PC or PlayOn via my PC. When I selected the latter, the Sherwood greeted me with the items listed above. I chose Hulu, then Movies, then the movie Aakrosh (yeah, you guessed, it was the first title in the queue). Would Hulu give me a free movie? Yup—with “limited commercial interruption.” Thanks, IKEA! Hulu is truly a programming mother lode. Under TV Networks alone, it lists 17 items that begin with the letter A.

I should note that PlayOn worked slowly, with a wait of several seconds for each menu item I accessed. It was also a CPU hog, tying up between 70 and 90 percent of my computer’s tired electronic brain. It reduced my PC’s other functions to a crawl—including the word processor into which I’m slowly... typing... these... words. At one point, the computer froze entirely and required a hard reboot. You probably won’t want to use PlayOn while another family member is using the same PC.

David and Goliath
In general, the NetBoxx R-904N A/V receiver is an ambitious and attractively priced product, and it’s the first of its kind from Sherwood. With Google TV just making its debut as I write this, Apple TV moving into its second generation, and a whole bunch of set-top-box media centers offering all kinds of functionality, this AVR is a brave little warrior, like David facing down Goliath.

VuNow is a work in progress—although you could say exactly the same thing about its more well-heeled competitors. Budget extra bucks for PlayOn if you want to stream Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon VOD.

As an audio product, this AVR is adequate for movies, if not entirely satisfying for music. Sherwood made the right decision by incorporating Dolby Volume. The lack of a graphic user interface for auto setup is disappointing, and the success of the room correction is content dependent. It works better for some things than for others.

If I were in the market for both a new A/V receiver and a network-enabled media product, I’d buy the best-sounding AVR my money could buy. If I wanted more media prowess than that AVR could supply, and a new HDTV purchase were out of the question, I’d add a cheap Blu-ray player or set-top box. That advice may change any minute now, but for the moment, that’s what I’d do.