7. Media Player Features

The Helios X5000 comes with a software package called NeoLink. The purpose of NeoLink is to allow the X5000 to access a selection of media folders on your PC. It defaults to the standard "My Videos," "My Music" and "My Pictures" folders in Windows, but it can also be set to monitor any folder you want.

The X5000 automatically detects computers on the network that are running NeoLink and dynamically updates its main menu with each computer's name as soon as the NeoLink software is started on the host computer. NeoLink can be set to run automatically when your PC boots, or if you don't like apps hanging out in your system tray, NeoLink can be set to run when you choose.

the main NeoLink Screen

If you're wondering whether the X5000 can assess media servers other than NeoLink, the answer is yes. Neodigits said that the X5000 supports UPnP AV and will work with servers such as Windows Media connect, TwonkyVision or WizD. I didn't, however, verify streaming operation with anything other than NeoLink.

File Format Tests

I tested an assortment of file types to get an idea of how versatile the X5000 is as a streaming media player. Table 1 shows the results. It actually did quite well as a media player, with the main problem being with Quicktime files, which it wouldn't even recognize in either standard or high definition formats.