Digital Trends

FIA On3

November 15th, 2004 | by Jeff Fila

Introduction

With the push to bring your digital media files away from your computer and into your living room, we've seen several companies take different approaches to networked multimedia systems.

Until now, most of the networked media devices we have reviewed are in a client-server configuration, meaning a remote server is required somewhere in your house in order for the device to play your media. FIA's On3 digital media player and library takes a different approach, with the unit featuring 80 or 120GB of onboard storage.

First Intelligent Array (FIA) has been around the networking and backup arena since 2000 and is most known for its network-attached storage devices. With the company's background on storage devices, it makes sense that they have implemented the media storage and the media player into one device with the On3. With the ability to play your digital music, movies, and image files through your analog or digital stereo system and most TVs, FIA has high hopes for the On3, their first digital entertainment product.

Features and Design

With the ability to play most of today's popular digital media formats, the FIA On3 boasts quite an extensive list of supported file types. The On3 can play the following digital media formats:

Audio: MPEG layer 1 and 2, MP3 , WAV, OGG, AC3 and AAC.

Video: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, RPM4, MOV, and AVI.

Images: JPEG, GIF, PNG and animated GIF (although the images don't show as animated).

The On3 is a small blue plexiglass and silver aluminum box not much bigger than an external hard drive enclosure. With rubber feet at each of the eight corners, the On3 can be placed either on its side or bottom, making it easy to find a suitable location. However, as we've seen with most of the other networked media devices we have reviewed, the On3 doesn't really go with most audio equipment. If you have a rack of black or silver components, this silver and blue brick might not look at home.

Included in the retail package is the On3 unit itself, an easy start poster and CD, a remote control, two Ethernet cables (one regular and one crossover), analog audio cables, and a power adapter. The manual states that the included crossover cable, which would be used for a direct connection to a computer, is a red cable, however, both cables included in our review unit were grey.  

The front of the On3 features a power/status light, an infrared receiver, and the power button. The status LED is yellow when booting and blue when the system is ready. While blue LEDs are all the rage in consumer electronics these days, the brightness of it can be quite distracting if the On3 is in your field of view. Similar to the blue LED on the AudioRequest Nitro, we could have done without it. At the rear are the inputs and outputs that allow you to hook the On3 to your home theater or stereo system and a display. For video hookups, the On3 features component video, S-Video, and a composite video connector. The On3 connects to audio devices with two sets of analog left and right RCA jacks, or digitally through a digital coax port or an S/PDIF optical port.

Rounding out the rear connectors is a 10/100 LAN port and a single USB 2.0 port. The LAN port allows you to hook the On3 to your network for configuration, uploading and downloading, and sharing files. The USB port allows you to add additional storage with a USB storage device, or to use the On3 as a network print server with a supported USB printer.

The rear panel also features a small cooling fan, a 12V power adapter plug, and an antenna jack. The antenna jack allows you to extend the infrared receiver with a special cable included in one version of the On3. FIA is also marketing the On3 as a mobile digital multimedia device, and the extended IR receiver allows you to place the On3 somewhere out of the way in your vehicle while still being able to use the remote control.

Because the FIA On3 has an onboard media player and integrated storage, it can act not only as a digital media player, but also to some extent as a network-attached storage drive. We say “to some extent” because it lacks the backup software that most NAS systems include, but if you add your own software to your client computers, the device can be used to automatically backup your important data. FIA uses Hitachi's 7200 rpm, 8MB cache Deskstar hard drives for the On3.