Freecom Mediaplayer-3 review

Freecom's Mediaplayer-3 allows you to play your media files on your TV and stereo, without you having to lug your PC downstairs.

This portable box plugs into a USB 2 port on your PC, enabling you to drag-and-drop files on to it like an ordinary removable disk drive. When you've topped it up with video clips and tunes, you can view them using the device's built-in screen. This is a bit too small to make video really enjoyable, though. Instead, we'd advise you to carry it to the living room and plug it into your TV and hi-fi. To do so, the Freecom offers an array of outputs at the rear: a choice of S-Video and composite video for the telly, as well as stereo audio outputs for your hi-fi. The player comes with phono audio and video leads, so you can connect it to both at once.

Once connected, you can use the remote control to enjoy your media files from the comfort of your sofa. Our only gripe here is that there's a slight delay between pressing a button on the remote and the player responding.

The player supports DVD VOB files (you can drag these files straight off commercially produced DVD discs, so there's no complex encoding involved), as well as the versatile DivX format, and MPEG-1. Playback is excellent - DVD VOB files are as good as the original disc, although there's no support for DVD menus.

Audio quality is also impressive, with very good results from MP3, OGG Vorbis and WMV files, but it doesn't play Apple's AAC format, used by iPods. Working with large numbers of audio files is fiddly, as it's impossible to browse to or cue up another song while the current one is still playing.

Freecom's Mediaplayer-3 is a good choice for those who either download lots of films from the Internet, or who wish to digitise their entire film collections and keep it in one place. The 160GB version tested is very good value for such a versatile media player, and only the mediocre audio support counts against it.