IoGear tends to go unnoticed in the UK for the most part, but its recently announced Media Player is bound to fit quite comfortably into our digital media-oriented homes.

IoGear's unit doesn't have a colour screen built in, like Archos's popular range, so it's purely intended as a storage medium through which to send content to a high-definition television or home cinema setup. Impressively, it's capable of upscaling video to 720p resolution, and stores content on an internal 2.5-inch hard drive.

You'll find playback controls at one end to allow you to manage the media inside, and composite and component connectors for sending audio and video to your equipment.

Thankfully there's a remote control in the box as well so you can operate it from afar, and there's a range of support that includes MPEG-1, MPEG-2, Xvid and DivX, as well as the ability to play content copied directly from a DVD onto the internal drive, so you can still browse DVD menus in the usual way.

We love the idea, and although there are no prices or arrival times confirmed for the UK yet, it's out in the ‘States this month for a reputed $349.95 for a 120GB drive.