OTHER TECH

Leveraging Your Home Network Wi-Fi started out as an invisible way for notebook computers to get on the Internet. But now there's another use for it. If you have a conventional A/V system or TV set in one or more rooms and already have a wireless router, you can leverage the network for distributing music, video, and photos throughout your home without spending a lot of money. A number of manufacturers have released media receivers with built-in 802.11b Wi-Fi connections. When hooked up to an A/V system or TV, these let you view or listen to content stored on a networked PC via a wireless access point or router that can be up to 300 feet away.

The benefit of linking A/V equipment to a Wi-Fi network is being able to use a computer you already own to rip and store CDs, download music, and archive home videos and photos. Your computer then becomes a multimedia jukebox whose content is accessible in any room with a media receiver. So even if the computer is in your home office, you can watch video you've recorded and music you've downloaded in the comfort of your home theater or bedroom.

With Wi-Fi, there's no need to break through floors or walls or to run the Cat-5 wire that an earlier generation of convergence devices, like the Dell/Rio Digital Audio Receiver and the Voyetra Turtle Beach Audiotron, required. Today, the wireless offspring of those products take things to the next level, delivering digital photographs and video, too. There's also a new class of hybrid components that merge a media receiver with a DVD player or video hard-disk recorder.

The good news for home dwellers is that with so many flavors of Wi-Fi-enabled devices to choose from, you're bound to find the right set of features to exploit the power of your desktop computer where it counts - away from the home office and in other rooms of the house where work takes a back seat to entertainment! All of these products come with remote controls as well as software you install on one or more of your computers. As long as a computer is running in the other room, the only lifting you'll have to do from bed or sofa is picking up the remote.

Following is a sampling of products that let you wirelessly tap into the music, video, and digital photo files stored on your PC.

- Michael Antonoff

Just Music Creative Labs Sound Blaster Wireless Music receiver ($249). Includes a six-line backlit LCD on a radio-frequency (RF) remote for navigating through your MP3 and WMA titles. www.creativelabs.com

cd3o C300 Extended-Range Network MP3 player ($249). Song titles are announced via speech synthesis from tags in the music files. www.cd3o.com

Philips Streamium MC-i250 microsystem ($500). Accesses online radio stations and MP3s stored on a PC. Includes CD player, AM/FM radio, and speakers. www.consumer.philips.com

Slide Shows ReplayTV Model 5040 hard-disk recorder ($450, including lifetime subscription, plus your own wireless bridge, about $79). All ReplayTV Series 4000 and 5000 models contain an Ethernet port for home networking. You can copy photographs to a ReplayTV from a networked computer and watch TV shows recorded on another ReplayTV. www.replaytv.com

Music and Photos Hewlett-Packard ew5000 digital media receiver ($300). MP3 and WMA music can be played with your slide shows, and you can print digital photos on a networked printer. www.hp.com

Linksys WMA11B Media Adapter ($200). Handles MP3 and WMA music as well as JPEG, GIF, TIFF, and BMP graphics. You can play music while browsing images. www.linksys.com

TiVo Series2 hard-disk recorder with Home Media Option ($249 for 40-hour model, $99 for Home Media Option, $12.95 a month for service, and about $39 for wireless USB adapter). Retrieves MP3 and WMA music files and JPEG images from a computer and selected music and images from the Internet. You can also copy and display recorded video from another TiVo but not from a computer. (See test teport in the July/August issue, available on our Web site in the Equipment Reports Archive.) www.tivo.com

Music, Photos, and Video Amoisonic NDP9200 Net DVD Player ($299 including wireless card). Also plays discs with MP3 files and digital photos. www.amoisonic-usa.com

Gateway Connected DVD Player ($250 including Wi-Fi card). Also plays discs with MP3 files and digital photos. www.gateway.com

Go-Video D2730 Networked DVD Player ($299). Supplied Ethernet card can be swapped out for your own Wi-Fi card (about $50). Also plays discs with MP3 files and digital photos. (See test report, September, available on our Web site in the Equipment Reports Archive.) www.govideo.com

Hauppauge Computer Works MediaMVP receiver Has a PC Card slot for your own wireless adapter ($129, available in late November) or an 802.11g card ($169, in early 2004). Supports MP3 but not WMA or WAV music. www.hauppauge.com

Prismiq MediaPlayer receiver ($250 plus the cost of a wireless PC Card). Also lets you browse the Web. www.prismiq.com