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You can spend a little bit more and get a xbox 360 and use it as both a game console and a wireless media player. The kicker is that they don't pay for the shipping to them so I've had to foot the bill.
I figured if they had to do with setup I could figure out.The setup was fairly easy and I got it working in no time. I bought this media player despite the questionable reviews.
I settled for the awful UI but that's not why I bout it, but the devide would lock up more often than it would work and twice already I've had to return it to D-Link to get a replacement. I even got videos to stream from my PC even when the router was on the first floor and the media player was downstairs.The problem is the hardware.
D-Link needs to fire all their programmers because they don't know how to program worth anything. If I keep this up I'll spend more in shipping charges than the actual device.Look, save your money and don't bother with this.
The UI is ten times better and the hardware is flawless.
I still hate you DSM-320. I HATE the DSM-320 and hope it burns in hell forever.*** Update ***Uninstall the OLD media server that comes with it BEFORE trying to install the updated (1.10) version.
Just work for once, please, without me having to call tech support, who always make you do the same 5 things and nothing works. I want my 15 hours of life back Dlink.
Even my wife and kids hate this thing. Of course you haven't changed a single thing since the last time you turned it on.I wouldn't even waste my baseball bat on beating this thing hanging from a rope.
This product BLOWS CHUNKS. I want the engineers who created it to have to sit on the phone for a day with various tech support people from another country and be forced to repeat the same 5 steps over and over.The beauty is that when it breaks (often), it's always something new and exciting.
You know, because the software engineers knew that you'd be smart enough to do that since you OBVIOUSLY have to do it with all your other software that you upgrade.So now it works, even for videos, but I still want my 15 hours of life back, to erase the frustrated look on everyone's faces who is waiting for the movie to start, etc. Just a little less now.
every now and then I see it in the back of closet and think. I was finally able to play videos, and music even from my PC, but the process was time consuming and never seamlessly enough to be used regularly. I bought this when it first came out and was disappointed. I bet they have fixed all this, so I drag it out to find out still no updates. skipping through videos was a total waist. often crashing the video and was too picky about just how the video was encoded. The DSM 320 came out when MicroSoft first tried to strong arm the media center PC on everyone, at that time you could not buy the software or build your own. In the end I bought an Apple TV and haven't looked back.
BAD:* Audio is WAY OFF (too low) compared to your other input devices; everytime we have to crank the volume WAY up and then remember to take it down when going back to other media sources. I wanted a turn-key solution; I'm just getting too old to trial-and-error all this stuff and find the 'magic combination' to the modern-wonder of watching electronic-media on your home entertainment system. You better not pause either; it's re-starts-ville. D-link has been a solid company with other products, why not.
* Boot-up is slow; either a sluggish ramp-up or alot of start-up loading. Do glean goodies from all the other reviews, but I'll highlight my PROs and CONs here:GOOD:* UI decent, actual playback of media not too bad. (mostly video, I have not tried to suffer audio or music; our TIVO does that and it does it well so why mess with it).* The machine can detect and talk well across a home-network. I struggled over buying this thing. If I had 20-20 hindsight I'd have waited till D-link released the next firmware for this baby (with hopes it clears up alot of problems) and then give it another try). Playback now is hampered by no FF or REV.
Working with D-link email support to figure out why/who/how this all happens. It's a bug that's media-agnostic and server-agnostic as well.
That's kinda the story with my synology, the next version of the firmware was so much more mature and powerful it's like getting a whole new box for free. Still - the price dropped enough I said "what the heck" and dove in.
Sugg just leave the blasted thing on when you start your entertainment system (our Harmony remote is trained to leave this puppy alone on power-cycles).Overall my suggestions: (Don't set your expectations high on streaming video content to your entertainment system easily here. D-link needs to fix this.
* Playback of video was troublesome at first (I stream media from a Synology CS470e which did an OK job before the last firmware upgrade and does a fabulous job now with the v2 of the firmware). I did not try the wireless config; just pulled a CAT-5 and called it done.
Good luck.
D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player, Audio/Photo/Video, 802.11gThis product appears to be running a linux-based OS, and will "crash" on any video file that is over 4 GB in size, and sometimes on smaller files. I was able to get a full refund after sending samples to their engineers who never fixed the problems. I replaced this unit with a LINKSYS WMCE54AG, which is a real Media Center Extender (and cost about $100 more) although it will randomly crash on occasion requiring a complete reboot by cycling power.It should be noted that none of these units is supported on WINDOWS VISTA: in the inimitable Microsoft fashion, VISTA will only support the XBOX 360 as a media center extender. This is why I still run the XP version of Media Center edition and have refused to "upgrade" to VISTA.
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