Media Lab Display

The Media Lab display is actually a Soundgraph iMon VFD made for Thermaltake. In fact, if you look at the TechPowerUp review of the Soundgraph iMon, you will see that the remote is identical except for the logo at the bottom. The features and the software are the same, with the added Thermaltake logo at the bottom of the screen. Since the units are virtually identical, the software will not be covered completely, as it can be viewed in the iMon review.


The unit came with iMon/iMedian version 5.00.0727, but upon first running the software the Auto Update feature downloaded and installed version 5.20.117. Later, I downloaded the newest version (6.01.0122, which also updated itself to 6.01.0202) from the Soundgraph website, and it worked perfectly fine.


Some of the unique features of the Media Lab (and the iMon) are the ability to turn the PC on or off with the remote, to have the VFD display RSS news feeds and system information, and to provide mouse cursor movement via the remote control. The cursor control is a nice feature, but it is difficult to control and takes quite a bit of getting used to. Adding some Windows Accessibility Features like Snap-to and Mouse Trails might help make cursor movement easier.

iPod Dock

To insert the iPod, fold the front panel of the dock down. If you have a 30GB iPod you will need to install the small rubber spacer to account for the difference in thickness. Slide the iPod into the dock, with the display facing you, until the iPod is completely seated, then fold the door back up. The iPod's display and Click Wheel are accessible through the door.


To use the dock, press the Power button on the included iPod remote. This will turn the audio switching card on and allow it to be used. The next step is to press the Switch button. This button allows the user to go back and forth from the sound card audio output to the iPod audio output. This is not entirely clear in the manual, and I spent almost an hour trying to figure out why the audio would not work coming out of the switching card. Once I figured out the small PCB card was indeed a switch (this is not described as such in the manual), I was able to discern the correct procedure for controlling the audio source. By the way, this dock will work with the PC on or off, but remember that the iPod will need to be removed via the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray (or ejected in iTunes) to allow it to return to normal power-saving modes if the system is turned off.