HP today announced that its MediaSmart Connect dual-mode media player is now available for pre-order.

The product can serve both as a Windows Media Center Extender for PCs running Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate and as a UPnP AV / DLNA media player with HP's MediaSmart Server, Media Vault NASes or other compliant devices.

The MediaSmart Connect supports both 10/100 Ethernet and dual-band draft 802.11n wireless network connection and has two USB ports as well as an HP Pocket Media Drive bay (drive sold separately) for easy transition of digital media from HP PCs.

A wide range of formats is supported including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DiVX, XVID, DVR-MS, WMV and WMV-HD video ; MP3, WMA, WMA Pro and AAC (unprotected) audio and ; JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF and PNG image. iTunes protected content is not supported.

The product supports up to 720p / 1080i video resolution and has HDMI and component video outputs. Both stereo analog and optical digital audio outputs are provided.

The MediaSmart Connect can be pre-ordered beginning today from Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, CircuitCity.com and Newegg.com at an MSRP of $349. More information is available at HP's website. HP will also offer a trade-in of 100 old media adapters starting tomorrow at 12 PM P.T. at www.hp.com/go/mediasmartconnect/tradein

Tags: HP, Media player,

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