FAQ: HP MediaSmart Server ex485 and ex487 (Page 4 of 9)

Learn about scoring Article's Raw Score: 5094660.0

by MediaSmartHome Team January 29, 2009 03:45 PM

Rating (0 votes)

Rate This!

New Features

Q. What are the new features of the HP MediaSmart Servers ex485 and ex 487?

A. The HP MediaSmart Server comes with a user friendly Control Center for PCs and Macs that includes Browse, Tools, and Help & Support links in one view. This is in addition to the Windows Home Server Console, which provides additional administrative access to the Server. There is a new remote access portal to the HP MediaSmart Server which allows for remote access to the Server and PCs, and from which the user can stream media remotely, and publish and view photos over the internet.

The HP Media Collector copies media files from the PCs in your network and organizes them on the server. The HP Photo Publisher and HP Photo Viewer allow for secure and easy photo sharing right from your server, or through popular social networking websites. The HP MediaSmart Server can stream photos and music to any internet connected PC or Mac, and it includes the ability to backup Macs to the MediaSmart Server through Time Machine. HP has provided an add-in for the Server that offers online backup of the Server to the Amazon S3 service. The new MediaSmart Server has smart power management capabilities, and the user can schedule times for the Server to go to ‘Sleep’ and ‘Wake up’ saving on energy costs.

Q. Will any of these new features be available to customers that have purchased the first generation MediaSmart Server ex470 or ex475 ?

A. Yes, back up of Macs through Time Machine, and the online backup service for the MediaSmart Server through Amazon S3, will be available to current MediaSmart (ex470 and ex475) owners via a software download. After close discussions with customers, industry analysts, reviewers and bloggers, we have determined that these features are the most appealing to our current MediaSmart Server owners.

Q. How did HP determine what the new features should be on the ex485 and ex487 ?

A. HP does extensive primary research, speaking to consumers during focus groups, both in person and online. We also have relationships with top analysts focused on home computing and consumer electronics, as well as major pundits, bloggers, and early adoptor customers in the Home Server space.

Q. How does the HP Media Collector work ?

A. The HP Media Collector copies media files from the computers in your network and organizes them on the server. This is a separate feature from the automated PC backup functionality included in Windows Home Server. The user can select which PCs on the home network to scan and set Media Collector to check for new media hourly, daily, or weekly. You can individually enable collection for Photos, Music, or Videos, and collected media can be organized as follows:
Photos - by date or existing structure
Music - by artist/album or existing structure
Videos - copy to the server

HP Media Collector intelligence attempts to avoid copying duplicate content, and also copying images like album art as a regular photo. HP recommends that the user enable the Guest account and give the Guest account full permission to the Photos, Music, and Videos shared folders; this ensures that Media Collector always has access to all shares.

Q. What are the details of the HP Photo Viewer feature?

A. HP Photo Viewer is an easy way to share photos and video clips with friends, relatives or clients directly from the HP MediaSmart Server. Photo albums can be shared by cutting and pasting the URL of that album into an email. The albums can be viewed in a slideshow or a filmstrip mode, and viewers can easily download pictures from Photo Viewer. With a login you can administer the photo albums and can delete or rename them.

Q. Which photo sharing and social networking websites are integrated with the HP Photo Publisher?

A. The Photo Publisher links to Facebook, Flickr, Picassa, and HP Snapfish. In each case, the customer will need to create and/or log in to their account on the 3rd party website, and then HP Photo Publisher will manage uploading photos or videos to those sites.

Q. What types of media content can I stream remotely from the HP MediaSmart Server?

A. The HP MediaSmart Servers ex485 and ex487 support streaming of photos or music to any PC or Mac connected to the internet.

Q. What media file types are supported by the Web Media Streamer, HP Media Collector, HP Photo Publisher, and local and remote media streaming?

HP MediaSmart Servers ex485 and ex 487 File Type Support
Application	Photos	Music	Videos
Web Media Streamer	jpg, tif, tiff, png, gif, bmp	wma, mp3, m4a, mp4, aac, wav	Not supported
Media Collector	jpg, gif, tif, pct, mov	mp3, wma, m4a, aac, wav, playlists (m3u, wpl), album art	avi, mov, m4v, mpeg, MPEG-2, wmv, flv, DivX, dvr-ms, m2ts
Photo Publisher (Photos only)	HP Photo Viewer - jpg, jpeg, gif, png Facebook - jpg, jpeg, gif, png, bmp Flickr - jpg, jpeg, gif Picassa - jpg, jpeg, gif, png, bmp Snapfish - jpg, jpeg

Q. What features does the HP MediaSmart Server offer for Mac users?

A. The HP MediaSmart Server is great for households with PCs and Macs. The Server has Mac features, but needs to be originally set up and administered through the WHS Console on a PC.
The MediaSmart Server looks like a network share to the Mac. It has a Control Panel for the Mac, which includes Browsing for standard shared file access, Tools, and Help and Support, all in one user friendly window. Media can be streamed to a Mac in the home or remotely. Mac users can utilize the Photo Publishing and Photo Viewing applications, and can backup their Macs to the Server using Time Machine. The MediaSmart Server also has a “Server for iTunes” feature whereby music on the Server can be accessed from each individual computer’s iTunes library. Note that the MediaSmart Server does not count as one of the five authorized playback devices in iTunes.

Q. What is Time Machine ?

A. Time Machine is an automatic backup program that is built right into Mac OS X. Time Machine backs up your system files, applications, settings, documents, and media, and keeps snapshots of how the Mac looked on various dates in the past. With Time Machine you can restore individual files, complete folders, or your entire computer to any previous date. To do Time Machine backups to the HP MediaSmart Server, just allocate disk space and ‘start’ the disk on the Server, select the HP MediaSmart Server in Time Machine preferences, and turn Time Machine ‘on’. Disk space that is allocated to Time Machine is reserved in the Mac shared folder on the Server, and free server storage will be reduced by this amount. Time Machine backup to the Server is accomplished by emulating a hard drive destination.

Q. What is Amazon S3 and how do I get access to this service ?

A. S3 is an online data storage service available through Amazon.com. Amazon S3 provides a web based interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. Pricing is per GB stored and per GB transferred. The MediaSmart Server provides links to the Amazon S3 Service to enable registration, and the HP developed UI for S3 allows for scheduling or backup now, selection of shared folders to be backed up, estimation of amount to be backed up and simple browse and restore features.