#299023 - 07/06/2007 12:03
D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
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old hand
Registered: 14/08/2001
Posts: 886
Loc: London, UK
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Has anyone else got one of these? I've just aquired one from a friend for next to nothing and it's pretty good once you get a decent media server running on your PC (I'm running Tversity)
Now I have access to streaming video podcasts, movie trailers, etc etc as well as all my photos and videos on my telly.
The UI is a little bit slow and clunky but it works pretty well
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Mk2a RioCar 120Gb - now sold to the owner of my old car
Rio Karma - now on ebay...
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#299024 - 07/06/2007 12:35
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: furtive]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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I have one. I am not as favorable toward it as you. I think it's awful and that "next to nothing" is the only price anyone should pay for one. Maybe around $5. To be fair, though, I think it's the best of the "old generation" of media streaming devices. But everything's relative. I tried the media streaming route several times. I've gone through a few devices including the PlayatTV and the Avel LinkServer. In my experience, every device has had a hideous interface, is slower than my old 200MHz PC, and doesn't actually do the streaming well at all. Then there's codec issues, bad remotes, and poor product designs. A great summary of my experience: there hasn't been a single streaming media player that I've tried that will cache. They all load songs as they're played, and once one song is over, you have to wait 4-6 seconds until the next one loads. Even worse, some of these units will "correct" this problem by picking up with the music where it should have been if the transition were gapless, so I ended up not hearing the first 4 seconds of every song! *end rant* Sorry about that. It's just that I've spent at least a few hundred dollars over the years to get a solution that works. You know what I ended up being the most satisfied with? I have a fantastic LG DVD player that will play XviD files. Now I just load up a DVD-RW with the videos I want to play, and the DVD player makes short work of it. Additionally, the interface is easily four times as fast as any of the units I mentioned before. My parents, whom I'd gotten the DSM-320 for as a Christmas present, have upgraded to the Apple TV and couldn't be happier with it.
Edited by Dignan (07/06/2007 12:37)
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Matt
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#299025 - 07/06/2007 12:44
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
In my experience, every device has had a hideous interface, is slower than my old 200MHz PC, and doesn't actually do the streaming well at all. Then there's codec issues, bad remotes, and poor product designs. A great summary of my experience: there hasn't been a single streaming media player that I've tried that will cache. They all load songs as they're played, and once one song is over, you have to wait 4-6 seconds until the next one loads. Even worse, some of these units will "correct" this problem by picking up with the music where it should have been if the transition were gapless, so I ended up not hearing the first 4 seconds of every song!
That's rubbish. Rio Receiver was doing better than that seven years ago. Surely it's not rocket-science to make a proper one of these? I wonder if the Netgear or Kiss (now Linksys) one is any good. Or perhaps they should have dirty animal sex and spawn an offspring with the combined feature set (FLAC, DVD) of both.
Peter
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#299026 - 07/06/2007 12:59
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: peter]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 27/02/2004
Posts: 1919
Loc: London
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But Peter, the Rio software/firmware is still better than most of the crap out there, my Karma is so much better than any other MP3 player I've used (apart from it's fragility).
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#299028 - 07/06/2007 15:46
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
I have a fantastic LG DVD player that will play XviD files.
Holy shit, I want one.
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#299029 - 07/06/2007 15:51
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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There are a lot of them. There are some that have ethernet ports. There are some that have USB ports, and some that have built-in flash memory readers. Go over to VideoHelp's DVD player list and filter by XviD/DivX.
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Bitt Faulk
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#299030 - 07/06/2007 17:03
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
There are a lot of them. There are some that have ethernet ports. There are some that have USB ports, and some that have built-in flash memory readers. Go over to VideoHelp's DVD player list and filter by XviD/DivX.
What I want is on that will let me stream a DVD over the network AND also work with the built in menus...
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#299031 - 07/06/2007 18:56
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Quote:
Quote:
I have a fantastic LG DVD player that will play XviD files.
Holy shit, I want one.
Like Bitt said, there's a lot of them out there. I haven't had much experience with other standalone DVD players with DivX functionality, but I know this model, and an LG model that my friend owns, perform the DivX/XviD playback flawlessly. So LG is a brand you can trust for that purpose. I merely went for the model I did because at the time it was the only one I could find that played DivX, was under $100 ($99), and upscaled.
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Matt
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#299032 - 07/06/2007 19:00
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Quote:
Quote:
There are a lot of them. There are some that have ethernet ports. There are some that have USB ports, and some that have built-in flash memory readers. Go over to VideoHelp's DVD player list and filter by XviD/DivX.
What I want is on that will let me stream a DVD over the network AND also work with the built in menus...
I'm not sure what you mean by "work with the built in menus," but there are networked DVD players. The KISS unit, for one. I own the IO-Data Avel LinkPlayer AVLP2, but I'm not 100% happy with it. The menus are very slow, the remote control is awful, and the streaming doesn't work that well. I had this before my LG player, but even then I'd resorted to burning media to DVD first and playing it on the machine instead of streaming.
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Matt
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#299033 - 07/06/2007 19:08
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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I'm not sure what you mean by "work with the built in menus,"
He means he wants to be able to share a DVD from his file server and have the player access that disc over the network and show the DVD's menus just as if it was physically inserted into a DVD player, rather than the player playing just a bare video file.
Basically, have a DVD changer where the changer mechanism is a networked file server instead of a carousel holding a bunch of disks.
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Bitt Faulk
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#299034 - 07/06/2007 19:15
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Quote:
Quote:
I'm not sure what you mean by "work with the built in menus,"
He means he wants to be able to share a DVD from his file server and have the player access that disc over the network and show the DVD's menus just as if it was physically inserted into a DVD player, rather than the player playing just a bare video file.
Basically, have a DVD changer where the changer mechanism is a networked file server instead of a carousel holding a bunch of disks.
Yup. Exactly. I can do it with my Mac Mini but thats kinda annoying...
I know a few people looking for this feature. I've been looking for ages now and have come to the conclusion that there is some sort of licensing issue which prevents standalone DVD players from implementing this feature. I don't see how hard it could be. All of the parts necessary are already present in the networked DVD players.
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#299035 - 07/06/2007 19:29
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Ah, I understand. Nope, don't know of anything like that...
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Matt
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#299036 - 07/06/2007 20:43
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/05/2001
Posts: 2616
Loc: Bruges, Belgium
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Last week I got myself one of these Freecom 350 WLAN units. Sure, it doesn't look like much, but it plays almost anything! DivX, Xvid, Ogg, ... Only downside is that for now it only works with PATA drives, not SATA. But apart from that, I'm very happy with it!
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Riocar 80gig S/N : 010101580 red
Riocar 80gig (010102106) - backup
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#299037 - 08/06/2007 05:42
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: Dignan]
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old hand
Registered: 14/08/2001
Posts: 886
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
I have one. I am not as favorable toward it as you.
Did you try running the Tversity media server? It makes is about x1000 more usable
Agreed, it's far from perfect, but it works pretty well
_________________________
Mk2a RioCar 120Gb - now sold to the owner of my old car
Rio Karma - now on ebay...
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#299038 - 08/06/2007 10:11
Re: D-Link DSM-320 Media Player
[Re: furtive]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Quote:
Quote:
I have one. I am not as favorable toward it as you.
Did you try running the Tversity media server? It makes is about x1000 more usable
Agreed, it's far from perfect, but it works pretty well
I tried it, but at the time (about a year ago), the program was very confusing to use, and since I disliked the product anyway, I didn't bother spending time to get used to it.
I wanted to add that I was previously considering selling my LinkPlayer, but last night I realized that they advertised that it could play WMVHD. I'd never given it a try because I had a crappy TV and it seemed like a waste of time. Well, I downloaded a bunch of the sample files from MS's site, and I used the Windows Media Encoder to convert one of the files from my camcorder. I simply burned those to a DVD, tossed it into the player, and I was off watching the first HD content I've seen on my new TV. I'm in love! 
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Matt
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