The Beyonwiz is also a media player similar to the Apple TV. The advantage of the Beyonwiz is it isn't reliant on installed software the way Apple TV is with iTunes, so it can read files from any computer on the network or directly from a network attached storage device. When it comes to networking, scanning for computers and storage devices on your network only takes one button press - there's no need to mess around with things like IP addresses or to enter confirmation codes into the devices you're connecting to.

Pressing the "File Play" button on the remote brings up the media player menu, which lets you select from television recordings on the hard drive or files stored on the network, CD/DVD, USB device or memory card. The player has a USB2.0 port and SD/MMC/Memory Stick/CompactFlash card reader on the front, hidden under a fold down flap, with another USB2.0 port on the back. The media player interface lets you browse files from any of these sources, allowing you to select between seeing the compatible audio, video or image files available in each folder.

Unlike the Apple TV, the Beyonwiz can handle a wide range of file formats. It plays WMV, AVI, ASF and MPEG-1/2/4 (including DivX and Xvid) and, while files can be slow to load, the player scored extremely well when tested against a wide variety of file formats downloaded from DivXTest.com. Beyonwiz doesn't list the QuickTime MOV format on the DP-S1's compatibility list. Even so it happily played an MPEG4-encoded, 320x180 MOV version of the Macbreak vodcast but refused to play other MOV files such as some captured on a mobile phone.

The player also handles TP and TRP transport stream files - formats used to record each channel of a multi-channel television broadcast. We had mixed results playing VOB files extracted from DVDs yet while it's also supposed to play ISO files (DVD disc images) the media player menu refused to even see them.

The Beyonwiz lets you select from 576p, 720p or 1080i output resolution, but it can play up to 1080p content and rescale it to your chosen output resolution. It happily played the sample 1080p WMV HD files (available from microsoft.com) from our network drive via Ethernet. It choked on a 1080p MOV version of the Macbreak vodcast (the player actually crashed and rebooted). Apple TV can't play this file either, as it can only play up to 720p files - rescale them to your preferred output resolution.

When it comes to music, the Beyonwiz is supposed to handle WMA, AAC, MP3 and Ogg files (unless they're DRM protected) as well as PCM and AC3 audio formats. Even so it refused to even see our AAC and Ogg files from DivXTest.com, but then played some WAV files even though they're not listed.

There's no fancy music player interface, when you play a file the display switches to a screensaver consisting of nothing more than a box moving around the screen containing the track name and other details. Pressing "OK" calls up a timeline and you can move back and forward through tracks just as you can with video files. You can't navigate through the menus whilst listening to music, the only way to get away from this screen is to stop the music.

The biggest disappointment is that it won't recognise M3U or WPL playlist files. You can create a favourites playlist from within the Beyonwiz's menus - with separate lists for audio, video and image files - but you can only select favourite files, not folders. These favourites lists are retained even when the unit is switched off, but you can't save multiple lists, such as "Dinner Party" and "Dance Party", or even shuffle the play order, so it's of limited use. The fact you can't bookmark folders is also annoying if you're continually navigating between folders on different devices.

Within a folder you can select specific to play, otherwise it automatically starts playing the next file and then starts again from the top ad nauseum. This can be annoying yet unfortunately there's no way to disable it.

When it comes to images, the Beyonwiz will play JPEG, BMP and PNG files (plus GIF, even though it's not listed) with photos look extremely sharp on the television. The rotate option doesn't work, all we got was a black screen and "Play Error".

Disappointingly the slideshow option is also very rough around the edges... CONTINUED