While the concept - to make stored digital files easily playable at higher quality over a hi-fi system - is a very worthy aim, the Olive Media Olive 2 fell short of our expectations for a product at this price. It's limited to playing last century's 16-bit files, which it does competently enough once you've navigated its clunky interface. Ultimately though it's that awkward, dated and slow user interface, lying just below a cramped and insensitive small touchscreen, that deterred us from turning to the Olive 2 for regular music playing duties at home. In its present guise at least, this is not audiophile technology we'd recommend for your investment.

The Xtreamer media streamer is a low-cost option for anyone who wants to play their collection of digital video files collection on their big screen TV. It's not as feature-packed as some other media streamers we've tested, but it's a good choice given its low price.

DVICO's TViX M-6600N is a personal video recorder that improves on the solid groundwork of earlier TViX models. It's not a perfect PVR, with occasional hiccups that might annoy novice users, but the expansive feature-set makes it a tempting prospect.

Apart from a few problems handling large collections of music and movies, the Iomega ScreenPlay Director HD is a significant step up from the previous ScreenPlay media streamer.

The Astone Media Gear AP-360T is a fuss-free media streamer. It's not flawless, but if you're looking for an easy-to-use streamer with a reasonably powerful feature set this is one to consider.

The latest version of Western Digital's WD TV media player is better than ever. It boasts an Ethernet port and has ability to view YouTube videos and photos on Flickr. The WD TV Live's extensive format support will let you access almost any movie, photo or song.

If you already have a FreeAgent Go portable hard drive, the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ media streamer is a good accompaniment. For other users it's still a reasonable choice but it loses its competitive edge.

If you aren't deterred by the Sonos ZonePlayer S5's unique set-up requirements, you'll be hard-pressed to find an all-in-one system that sounds better or is more versatile.

The Astone Media Gear AP-100 offers value for money, providing good quality Full HD media playback and extensive format support. The plain design, complex networking system and lack of a hard drive may deter some people.

The LaCie LaCinema Rugged HD is one of the pricier hard-drive-based portable digital media adapters on the market, but it's also one of the more capable.

The Olive Opus No.4 media server is a brilliant albeit expensive product. Its construction and interface are simple and elegant. While you can get a device that does much the same job for significantly less money, you're paying for pedigree here.

If you carry your movies, music and photos around on a flash drive the Mediagate MG-M2TV is a great little device to keep by your television to view content. It doesn’t have any network access or an internal hard drive to store content, but if you don’t require these features the Mediagate MG-M2TV will serve your needs well.

The Compro T1000W is a media streamer that can handle any format you're likely to throw at it. It doesn't have an internal hard drive as standard (although you can add one) but with three USB ports and in-built wireless networking means it can play all your saved content.

The Noontec Moviedock A6 lets users transport their PC’s digital media library to a television quickly and painlessly. While not without its flaws, it remains great value for money.

Noontec’s MovieHome V8 offers media playback and network streaming in an easy-to-use package. Real Media file support might interest some people, while the limited file format support and loud internal fan may turn off others.