576 commentsWe’re giving away an HP MediaSmart server + 1 terabyte of storage!
// October 22nd, 2009
Contest is over! Winner: Jeff Mahoney
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HP has very generously offered to give away one of their snazzy MediaSmart Servers—the EX490 with 1 terabyte of storage—to one lucky Photodoto reader!
This giveaway is sponsored by HP.
I haven’t used one of these but it’s an impressive bit of hardware on paper. In a few years, I wouldn’t be surprised to find new homes being sold with home media servers pre-installed—toilet, check; internet, check; media server, check.
A media server is primarily a storage device that can gather all of your photos, videos, and music and stream those files to your television, across your home network, or on the internet. Here’s a rundown of some of the things you can do with the HP MediaServer:
- Automatically backup important files on multiple PCs or Macs on your home network.
- Automatically collect, organize, and centralize your media files.
- Publish photos directly from the server to Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, and Snapfish.
- Share private photo albums with family and friends.
- Stream photos, music, and videos to your TVs, gaming consoles, and computers.
- Convert videos into formats that can be played on gaming consoles and mobile devices like iPhones.
- Expandable to 17 terabytes.
Find out more about the HP MediaSmart servers at HP’s website.
How to enter / Official rules
To enter: leave one comment on this blog post explaining how you would use the MediaSmart server. Include your full name and email address (email addresses are not published or shared but are required for verification and to contact the winner).
One entry per person. Entries must be received by midnight November 6, 2009 (Pacific time). One winner will be selected randomly. The winner will be announced on Photodoto.com on or around November 6, 2009.
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The fine print:
Sweepstakes is open to all U.S. Citizens that are legal residents of the United States except Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories and employees of Photodoto and its affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising and production agencies, and their immediate families and household members are not eligible. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter as of promotion start date: October 22, 2009. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. Void where prohibited or restricted. By entering this Sweepstakes, participants agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of Photodoto and/or its agents. Odds of winning prize depend on the number of eligible entries received.
One Winner will be randomly drawn from all eligible entries received. The Winner will receive an HP MediaSmart server model EX490 (total value: $550) shipped directly from HP or their agent. Winner is responsible for all federal, state and local taxes associated with acceptance and use of prize. Prizes are not transferable. No substitution of prizes permitted except at Photodoto’s option, including Photodoto’s right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value if advertised prize is unavailable.
Winners will be selected in a random drawing on or about November 6, 2009 from the aggregate of all eligible entries received. Awarding of prizes will be conducted by Photodoto, whose decisions are final on all matters relating to the promotion. Photodoto will notify the Winner via e-mail. If the Winner cannot be contacted within 72 hours of notification, an alternate Winner will be selected from the remaining eligible entries. Any prize notification or prize returned as undeliverable will be forfeited and awarded to an alternate Winner. Prize will be mailed to the U.S. mailing address provided by the Winner. The Winner will be required to provide a valid U.S. mailing address and phone number.
Photodoto and its promotional and advertising agencies, and all respective officers, directors, employees, representatives and agents of each, shall have no liability and shall be held harmless by Winners for any damage, loss or liability to persons or property, due in whole or part, directly or indirectly, by reason of the acceptance, possession, use or misuse of prize or participation in this promotion. Photodoto reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend part or all of this promotion should virus, bugs, unauthorized human intervention or other causes beyond the control of Photodoto corrupt or impair the administration, security, fairness or proper play of the promotion. Photodoto and its promotion and advertising agencies, and all respective officers, directors, employees, representatives and agents of each, are not responsible for technical, hardware, software or telephone failures of any kind, lost, interrupted or unavailable network connections, fraud, incomplete, garbled or delayed computer transmissions, whether caused by Photodoto, users, or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the promotion or by any technical or human error which may occur in the processing of submissions which may damage a user’s system or limit a participant’s ability to participate in the promotion. Photodoto reserves the right at its sole discretion to disqualify any individual Photodoto reasonably believes to have tampered with the entry process or with the operation of the promotion, or who is found to be acting in violation of these Official Rules. This Sweepstakes is intended and limited for play in the United States and shall only be construed and evaluated according to United States law.
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I have begun to edit photos and I am quickly running out of room.
This would be an awesome addition.
Thank you so much for this giveaway.
Rebecca
I am thrilled I found your website, even without the contest. I am excited to begin reading your feeds.
Rebecca
I would use it to store all of my school files, and my videos i take of my family.
I would use this HP Media Smart Server to back up all of the important files on our computers
:) Thank you for the wonderful giveaway! :)
I would enjoy have all my music, photos and video on one large server instead of several smaller hard drives.
It might take some doing, but I would use this baby as a centralized storage hub for our 3 DVRs as well as mp3, divx, photo, and document storage. It would be great to stash this puppy in a closet somewhere hidden and have invisible storage with pass thru web streaming and other compufunctions available if needed. Thanks for this awesome giveaway! I can’t believe you only have 500 entries, I would have expected 10 times that many! Better chances for me, I guess :)
I would use it to store all my pictures and home videos.
I would use it to store my photos and other media
I would use this to put all of my thousands of photos and videos. We are expecting our first baby in April so we will have many more photos to store soon!
I would use it to store photos and other media
What an amazing piece of equipment this would be to own! Leave it to HP…always on the cutting edge!
I would definitely use this to store the millions of photos that I’ve taken of my granddaughters, and to store all of my music. Sending private photo albums to my family and friends would certainly be a priority too. It would also be great fun to stream my photo collection straight to the tv. I plan to scan old photos left to me by my late parents of family members and would love to make albums for my children and grandchildren. This media server would ensure that they would be kept in a safe place.
I would use it to backup files on my computer.
For backup of all my files in one place, it is perfect
I don’t have any money so this would be a Christmas present to my son.Good luck to who ever wins and thanks sooo much for giving away such a fantastic prize!
The Media Server would help me to catch up on my video editing projects. Thanks for a wonderful contest and very informative website.
I would use this to backup my files. I have lost everything on my computer soooo many times. Thousands of songs, itunes music (they dont give that stuff back!), pictures from high school, etc, all gone.
I would backup all my data and pictures! I would LOVE this!
I would store all of my files. I have them all over the place.
I would use it to backup my dvd collection
I’d use this to store all our movies and photos on, that way we could access them easily from whatever computer we were on and it’d act as a great backup!
Wow… How would I use the HP EX490 Windows Home Server? I am a tattoo artist/computer geek (not nerd!..) who has hundreds of movies and music/photo albums spread out across my home network (for both work-related media, and the more personal stuff). My 15 YO son is an avid movie collector, my 11 YO daughter is just learning about torrent-able music, and my 6 YO blew out my last media server (don’t ask)… My wife is disabled, and if she could monitor everyone’s shares, as well as perform backups without my interaction, that’s a plus. Wait a sec… this streams out to game consoles?!? Integrated web sharing and uploading to portals?!? And it’s ENERGY EFFICIENT?!? This sounds like the PERFECT server for my family! Oh please please please?..
I would use this to back up a very special project I am working on for a charitable foundation.
This would be perfect for backing up all my files, pictures and videos. It would also help me be more organized and data more efficiently between our computers.
I would use it to backup all of our media, from pictures to CD’s to DVD’s. It would be great to have a central storage location.
I would use this on photos I’ve been working on and backup projects
Need this for my home.
I would use this to backup my mosaic designs.
I would use it to start consolidating my DVD collection into digital content. I hate seeing stacks of DVD’s everywhere and I think 1 terrabye while it won’t complete the job will get me started. The upgrade to 17 terrabytes is great as it allows the continued use of this product instead of having to migrate to a new media server as I get addition DVDs and other content I want to store.
I would use this media server to store and organize the photos for my fledgling stock/fine art photo business.
I would use it to back up all of my design and photography work!
I’d use it to organize all the photos floating around on the four computers in this household.
I would use it to consolidate all my pictures, videos and music! Thanks for the chance!
i would use it to back up information for my business.
Diane Baum
esldiane@gmail.com
I would store graphics files (my husband designs for fun, and I design for work), photographs, and personal video files. I just recently got a Flip Mino, and I want to try my hand at editing. The best aspect of the MediaSmart Server for me would be remote access to my files online. It’s usually a pain to transfer files back and forth from my laptop to our family’s shared desktop. A server would make it a breeze.
I would use this as a back up for All my pics and movies
This is great for all the movies and video games i download
My roommate and I are always figuring better ways to stream content to our tv, without spending alot of money. I would use it for storage for movies and shows.
I would back up my company’s files and my music.
I would use it to back up to save my pictures
I would use it for photo backup and for streaming video to my TV.
I would use them to store my photos–I have over 12,000 and the collection is growing!
Wow, this would be a great way to network our house.
for my music and movie collection!
Wow, this looks amazing, To avoid having a pile of drives on my desk I’ve been upgrading to larger and larger drives but feel bad for the inevitable drive that becomes useless. An upgradeable solution seems perfect for all the photo backup I need as well as my htpc video collection. Also, I run XBMC which is a UPNP client and would be able to receive the video stream from this server. I would be super excited to win this!
I love taking pictures, I would use this to store all my pictures and many other things.
Thank you for the great giveaway!
I would use this to give my wife the ability to backup all her mac files, and finally have a good excuse for another piece of nerd gear in the house. Thanks for the chance to win.
I’d back up photos and our family videos! We could share them easily without using up all our of pc’s hard drive.
I’d definitely use it as an additional back-up source for all of my music files (and there are thousands of them!), family and vacation photos, class papers and presentations, and school-related articles and files. Thanks!
We have so much media to back up, this would be a lifesaver.
I would use this for my website designs.