McTiVia Wireless HDMI & USB Device for Apple Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,176 words · ~5 min read
0:07
today I'm going to be doing an unboxing of something that's a little bit different from what I usually talk about
0:12
on my channel this is the mivia and what it is is essentially a way of wirelessly
0:18
transmitting uh HDMI data to your TV
0:22
from your Mac okay so let's go ahead and we'll have a look at the back this
0:26
actually won the best of show award at the at Mac World 2011
0:30
so here you go brings your Mac screen to HDTV via Wi-Fi and you can control your
0:35
Mac from the TV Okay so we've got like kind of a wirelessly looking symbol
0:40
we've got kind of a wirelessly looking symbol and a wirelessly looking symbol
0:43
it all goes here and then you are able to control it from your TV so your Mac
0:48
doesn't even actually have to be in the same room it works off Wi-Fi actually
0:52
here we can have a look at the Mac PC requirements really quick so it requires
0:55
a dual core 1.4 GHz or better requires a
0:59
graphics card with 128 Megs of RAM or more so pretty much anything in the
1:03
recent past uh macOS 10.5 plus okay
1:08
here's some recommended models excellent uh oh well okay apparently works on PC
1:13
as well look at that with Vista or Windows 7 okay well that's that's neaty
1:18
all right wirelessly bring the Mac screen to the TV with synchronized audio
1:22
even remotely operate your Mac from the TV with standard USB keyboard and mouse
1:26
also works as a home wireless access point that's cool and support for PC
1:30
sender for Windows 7 inista 3 additional software okay let's open this up and
1:34
have a look at it so the first thing we find inside is
1:39
please visit us for the latest drivers and firmware updates and manual
1:42
downloads hey that's great advice isn't it don't use this please visit us for
1:47
the latest thank you guys I appreciate that there is a quick installation guide
1:51
so since I'm actually curious about how to install this we are going to take a
1:54
closer look for a change all right before you start there are four setup
1:58
possibilities you can use Ethernet so that's going to give you the best
2:02
performance versus using Wireless all right next is using a power line adapter
2:08
power line provides very good performance I mean really it's it's
2:12
almost right up there with wired if you have good clean power in your house and
2:15
if you have a decent power line adapter so that's another good recommendation
2:19
partly Wireless that is reasonable performance
2:24
okay so if a wireless connection is preferred you can connect your home
2:28
access point and MC via cables and
2:31
access either from your home AP or from
2:35
mivia okay and then there's purely Wireless which is basic performance you
2:39
can also try setting up mivia as a wireless client to your home AP via AP
2:43
client mode however the setup is more complicated and vulnerable to any
2:47
interference in the Wi-Fi signal okay so
2:50
they give you a bunch of different options for how to use it and the video quality actually can scale with how good
2:56
your connection is so let's go ahead and see what we've got in here in terms of
3:01
accessories there's a box oh wow it's a lot smaller than I
3:05
thought look at this picture on the outside of the box looks like huge
3:09
doesn't it looks like the size of like a big home router but it's not at all okay
3:13
so why don't we let's check out the accessories first oh
3:19
boy lots of different adapters so I will be
3:23
needing this one that is actually a pretty neat way of doing this um rather
3:27
than create International versions of their product they create one skew make
3:32
sure it's got everything you need make sure that this is compatible with either
3:36
120 volt or 240 volt and then boom you
3:40
just clip in your thing if you're not planning on traveling anywhere in the
3:43
near future then you just throw these out because you clearly don't need them
3:48
and you just use the one you need okay so that's just an AC to DC adapter and
3:52
that will plug into the mivia obviously I'm going to be having to do a follow-up
3:58
video on this one showing you guys it's performance in the real world I'll
4:02
use I'll borrow a Mac from cameraman and
4:05
uh we'll probably demo it on the tech tips TV right behind me which does use
4:10
HDMI so it's got kind of a slick looking
4:13
mirror finish on it and it's got a couple of antennas
4:16
here here we are all right so we'll go ahead and
4:21
throw those on there pretty neat looking little box
4:27
actually but basically what you can do hold on I'm just going to finish up
4:31
getting this all assembled here and then I'll talk a little bit more about it
4:37
okay all right power button on the front
4:41
on the side you see some of the housing on the other side you see some of the
4:44
housing this feels like it's made of aluminum that would be my guess but uh
4:49
you know it feels very very solid it's got some some heft to it it doesn't feel
4:52
cheaply made at all you got rubber feet on the bottom so wherever you put it
4:56
down it's not going to well if you put it down on a cloth then OB L it can move
5:00
around but if you put it down on something that's not a cloth then it's
5:03
not going to move around at all all right on the back we have our Ethernet
5:07
port so that is the way to get the best performance you can also use that
5:11
Ethernet port with a powerline adapter that works very well as well then we
5:14
have wireless so you can use the Wireless in those two different ways
5:18
that we outlined before you have a USB port so you can use that to plug in a
5:22
standard keyboard mouse um Hub whatever the case may be you can use that to
5:27
wirelessly control your Mac even if it's not in the same room as you like if you
5:31
are using a powerline Ethernet for example your max upstairs boom use that
5:35
to control it and then we've got the HDMI out and that's going to go out to
5:38
your TV and finally we have a power in so I'm actually very excited to try out
5:42
this product stay tuned guys and I will be showing you the mivia in action