A truly superb media extender for your Windows Vista PC

Not content with providing one of the world's most-used free video codecs (encoder-decoder) and embedding its decoders into many modern DVD players, DivX is now set to release its latest piece of hardware, in partnership with networking moguls D-Link.

I've just got back from a hands-on with the DSM-330, and I'm impressed enough to shout about it. Essentially, it's a media streamer, but it's the interface that makes it stand out; in fact, it's probably the best-performing media streamer I've seen so far. There's actually pretty little in the tiny set-top box itself – most of the hard work is done by a networked PC.

You'd think that streaming high-definition video across your network would have a harsh hit on your processor and render the server PC unusable, but not so – system performance is hardly affected. That's because the little box does all its own decoding for Windows Media and DivX movie files – so even older PCs that can't usually cope with hi-def will handle streaming duties just fine.

As you can see, the interface looks extremely pretty, taking cover art from your music collection and downloading posters for your movies. You can choose to lock certain directories of films with a PIN (no idea what that would be used for…) and skip through films at high speed using the included remote control.

The most interesting feature is the addition of a development kit, which lets you add your own features. For example, someone's already created a Windows Live Maps add-on, enabling you to browse the excellent aerial photography on your TV. As you've probably worked out, i'm really quite impressed with how smoothly the little box manages to stream hi-def video over Wi-Fi, and how well-designed the interface is.

Best of all, D-Link's device is hopefully just the first of many incarnations. The DSM-330 isn't the most attractive little box in the world, but DivX hopes to integrate its DivX Connected technology into a number of different devices such as 'network enabled' DVD players and even televisions. In the meantime, the DSM-330 should be hitting shelves very soon - no fixed price yet, but it's apparently 'very competitive'.