HP MediaSmart EX485 and EX487 Windows Home Servers gets a firmware upgrade adding lots of features such as streaming videos, automatic video conversion, and ability to stream over LAN on to other PCs or MAC’s.
The automatic video conversion feature converts any non-protected file (AVI (DivX, Xvid, MOV MJPEG, MPEG-2, MP4, WMV and unprotected DVD ) for viewing on a portable media players, iPhones or iPod’s. However, user doesn’t have any control on the file size nor the resolution of the videos, and the output of these files will be in H.264/MPEG 4 formats only.
Another important inclusion is the ability to stream from an iPhone via an application called iStream, which will be freely distributed. This app enables user to check out for photographs, audio or video stored on the server right from the phone itself. Other features include improved streaming, upgraded Media Collector, upgraded Apple Time Machine configuration and ability to create private and public albums in Photo Viewer.
This update will be rolled out to all the users for free by the end of this month.