The Zyxel DMA1000 is a wired media streaming device that looks very much like one of the company's routers, which puts it among the more compact streaming boxes around.

Although the device can be connected directly to a PC using the supplied network cable, most users will want to put it in another room, and use it to receive music and video from the PC.

As it has no wireless capability, to do this you’ll need either a wired home network or a Homeplug networking kit that uses the mains cables in your home. Zyxel in fact recommends Devolo's dLan 200AV, particularly for users who wish to stream high definition video.

For those who opt for the power-line route, setup is extremely straightforward: it's a case of plugging one adaptor into a power socket near the PC and the other into the television set using the Scart or composite connection supplied or the HDMI connection for those with high-definition TVs (it's to Zyxel's credit that they’ve included a proper high-definition connection). When connected the digital streamer locates PCs on the network and makes any shared folders that have been set up on them accessible from the television.

We noticed an irritating problem while browsing video and photo content: if you share a folder that includes subfolders, the folder structure is flattened when viewed on the DMA1000, meaning files from all the subfolders are dumped into one big list. This isn’t a problem for small collections of files but if there are a dozen folders containing a dozen files each things start to get extremely complicated. Neither is it an issue for collections of music, which can be selected using an artist/album/genre layout.

That quirk aside, the streaming performance was very impressive - the DMA1000 is responsive and quick to open and browse folders. Media plays instantly and there were no problems at all with rewinding and forwarding movies, something some other players can't do properly. There's even a time-skip feature to move to a specific time point in longer videos.

Even high-definition content streamed well – this is one of the most capable players we've seen for handling the demanding transfer rates HD files require. Our major qualm is the lack of support for DRM-encoded content, which makes it incompatible with many online media download services.