| D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player, Audio/Photo/Video, 802.11g |
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| Features: |
Transfer Speeds Up to 54 Mbps
Supports all popular media formats
Allows you to access digital media content stored on your PC, browse your music files, watch your videos, and display your photos
Connects Wirelessly Using 802.11g or Via Ethernet
Compatible with Windows 98SE, Me, 2000 or XP |
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| Description: |
| D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player - The Wireless Media Player from D-Link merges your abundant digital entertainment collection on your PC, with the comfort and convenience of your living room. It's slim design fits into entertainment centers easily, and once attached to your TV, you can wirelessly stream your audio, photo, and video files. Navigation of your content is easy with D-Link's intuitive user interface and included remote control! Audio Compatibility - MP3, WMA, WAV,&Radio AOL Video Compatibility - MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, QuickTime,&XviD Image Compatibility - JPEG, JPEG2000, TIFF, GIF, BMP,&PNG |
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| User Reviews (143 total): |
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 of Total 7 Pages
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Such potential! (but alas...), August 10, 2008
By Baker Boy (Englewood, CO USA)
I struggled over buying this thing. 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.
Still - the price dropped enough I said "what the heck" and dove in. D-link has been a solid company with other products, why not? 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.
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. 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). Playback now is hampered by no FF or REV! You better not pause either; it's re-starts-ville. 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.
* Boot-up is slow; either a sluggish ramp-up or alot of start-up loading. 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. I did not try the wireless config; just pulled a CAT-5 and called it done. 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.) 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.
Good luck!
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Don't waste your money, June 23, 2008
By CyberNeuroSurgeon (Orlando, FL USA)
D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player, Audio/Photo/Video, 802.11g
This 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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DSM 320 Media Player, June 13, 2008
By David Cross
I bought the DMS 320 to use with Tversity to stream content from the internet to my TV. The 320 actually works pretty good. I can send video and audio via wireless and the picture is regular definition 640x480. The problem is there are only a few streaming channels that work with Tversity and the Dlink media server software only plays content that you have on your hard drive. The bottom line is if you have lots of movies or music on your PC this isn't a bad option for getting them to your TV or stereo. If you want to display streaming content especially flash, you'd be better off using a RF modulator and the S Video output of your video card (If your PC has Svideo out).
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Junk, May 24, 2008
By trapezoidal (Cathedral City, CA)
This was recommended to me by a friend and I have to say it's the worst thing he ever suggested. I just took this thing out into the street and destroyed it. I never could get it to play music without stopping and starting and almost every time I turned it on the "No Server Found" message came up and I had to reset all the settings.
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Solid, fairly priced, entry level media player, May 14, 2008
By Jay Banks (Palestine, TX United States)
If you are expecting too much from the D-Link DSM-320, you will probably be disappointed. Having two of them now, it honestly rates around a 2.5 out of 5. It is frustrating because several popular formats won't play on it. It claims to play AVI files, but h.260, as well as a host of other popular versions of AVI and MP4 files will not play. The audio tends to get out of sync toward the end of a feature-length film, not to mention that the audio is too low anyway. Fast forward is quirky and rewind just flat out sucks, and the remote could be a little better. It is supposed to be wireless, but if your AP only runs in B mode, playback will be very choppy...but wired with a CAT-5 and using a short shot of wireless in G mode worked perfectly for me, even with both units playing at the same time. That said, I ditched the Windows software for Mediatomb running on Ubuntu linux, with Iriverter as my main encoder. It is possible to get a 90 minute film down to 800 MB +/- a hundred MB or so, and put 200 movies in two - three hundred gig. Even at that compression, video looks near-cable quality to cable quality, in my opinion. Animations and non-letterbox TV series look exceptionally good on my TV (not a large screen TV). Higher quality is certainly possible, but I was looking for the tightest compression that was still watchable. It is even possible to play back a VOB file (but if the VOB is in multiple parts, it will only play one part at a time). With all that said, it is hard to beat the price of the DSM-320 (just plan on getting some amplified speakers to go along with it to boost the audio). The trick with the DSM-320 is that you have to stick with an encoder that you know will work with it, like Nero Recode or the free and very easy to use, Iriverter. If you think you are going to just download and watch movies on your TV, you are in for a big disappointment, because 3 out 4 of them probably won't play. But if you stick with formats that you know will work on it, it will work well enough that you should feel you are getting your money's worth from it. I will say, for all of its suckage, I like it enough that I will probably get one more for another room in the future. You just have to 1) realize its faults when you order it. 2) Realize its price compared to other media players. 3) Realize that it is fairly priced for what it does...and if you aren't expecting too much from it, you will be very happy. Really, you can spend less than 100.00 dollars and in 30 - 45 minutes (or less), stream movies, MP3s, and jpgs to your TV. If you are a perfectionist or want HDTV, spend 200.00 to 300.00-plus on the higher-end stuff...just don't get a DSM-320 and then PMS over it, because that is what you will do if you are expecting too much from this entry level device. (And here is a hint: If the audio gets out of sync, hit rewind and then play, and it usually re-syncs, or at least it does for me).
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Great Media Player with the right router!, April 27, 2008
By Gizmoteer (San Diego, CA)
My wife fell in love with this thing instantly. It was purchased for our daughter, so that she would be able to watch her shows that we had recorded, there are more than a few. After the first week my wife wanted to throw the thing out the window! It would lock up on her constantly, or show jerky video, all things that had been mentioned by previous reviewers. However, I discovered that I was using an older wireless g router that was just barely able to keep up with the transmission/ reception demands required by this player to work well. I upgraded my router to a trendnet TEW-633GR (I was also waffling on the idea of a D-Link DIR-633). I chose such a powerful little router specifically to be able to handle multiple heavy load requests from either the player or from my other computers. Since the successful installation of my router I have had nothing but constant and consistant play on this machine.
Pros: no wires. no moving parts. connects to entire library. After firmware upgrade will play all movies directly from my NAS Buffalo Linkstation Live.
Cons: I can't stand the menus!
Other thoughts: If its not connecting the way you would like, then you may need to upgrade your router.
ENJOY!
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Media Router, April 21, 2008
By A. James (Korea)
I was personally not complety impressed with the router as a whole. It does seem to have some reception problems and will hick-up often. Also you cannot run your microwave without causing it to lock up. It severed its purpose over all well and is a great alternative to making the investment to acutalling installing a computer in the living room to connect directly to your system. It has overall been the best of its kind that I have experienced thus far.
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Promising, full of wasted potential..., January 14, 2008
By radiometric (Sacramento, CA)
So far this product has been great, when it worked. From what I've read, the problems I'm having staying connected to my media server have more to do with Vista and WMP11, than with this product. I will be trying TVersity instead and that may solve my problems of a disorganized library that is available sporadically, and open new possibilities with its transcoding capabilities. I would rate this product much higher if decent server software were shipped with it. I would give it 5 stars if there was a way to stream content of your choice direct to the box via RSS. TVersity promises to solve this as well. While researching TVersity, I discovered that my DirecTv HDvr may be compatible with TVersity as well. Apparently Viiv is a form of UPnP.
Before purchasing this product, keep in mind that you will have to have a computer running some sort of media server running, or there will be nothing to watch, nothing to listen to, except for live 365 radio [after a free membership is created on a pc]. You could also use an XBox running XBMC as the media server, but if you have need of just one client, then go with XBMC by itself. I bought this as a gift, and if it were for myself, I would just grab a used Xbox for less than half the cost of this, and run XBMC. If wireless is needed, then use a wireless ethernet bridge. The upside to the dlink is its size and fanless operation, however XBMC has access to a harddrive and more internet capabilities.
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Sweet for video playback!, January 3, 2008
By windmill007 (Greenville, Pa United States)
I was a little worried after some of these reviews but was really surprised how well it worked for what I wanted. I have avi files on my computer that I wanted to play on my TV and have the best picture and sound. This thing works great. I am using S-Video connection and a dolby digital sound connection. I am using it wirelessly now which works well enuff but am soon going to make it a wired connection for the best possible video. Wireless G just doesn't have enuff bandwidth for a super smooth playback. Oh don't get me wrong it looks well enuff but in some high speed video you can tell it just can't keep up. And I am only about 20 feet from my router. This thing was very easy to setup. I am using Tversity on my computer and after a few easy questions on the DSM I was up and running. I would say all the conenctions and setup took me well under a hour and I was off and watching videos. Now for picture or mp3 playback it works ok but if that is your primary motive you may want to look elsewhere. But if you want to watch you AVI movies from your computer this thing works great for the price!
I think people having jerky video playback the problem is either the wireless connection (not a good enuff signal - EXAMPLE If you are more than 20 ft from router) or if that isn't the case it could be your computer is under power and causing your sync issues. I run a AMD 3200 Barton. Not that new but not super slow either. It could be your media server software too. Try TVersity. Works great for me.
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Unexciting, November 28, 2007
By Sires (It's a Toss Up Right Now)
I bought this a year ago-- set it up (relatively painless) then promptly forgot all about it. The other day I was looking for something and found this unit and couldn't remember what it was.
The fact is that this item has limited functionality. If you are not interested in signing up for a number of pay services it is pretty much limited to playing internet radio stations and showing pictures from the computer to the television. It doesn't even support plain old AVI. D-Link did suggest that I might like to download a trial version of Nero Encoder to reencode my AVI files. Actually there are open source and freeware products out there that will do the same thing.
This seems to be a marketing opportunity for online music services and software companies. It also does not support iTunes but it does supports Play for Sure from Microsoft. Unfortunately, the Play for Sure sites I looked out failed to excite me at all.
This was clearly not one of D-link's better ideas.
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Extremely quick install...very pleased so far..., November 10, 2007
By RML (Ohio)
D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player, Audio/Photo/Video, 802.11g
I was nervous before buying this product because some of the reviews said it was difficult to set up. I TOTALLY DO NOT AGREE. This literally took me 15 minutes, at most, to get it installed and set up to start listening to some music and watching some pictures. I love that it is wireless and being able to listen to my PC music through the stereo is excellent. I did not give it 5 stars because I just received it yesterday and used it for maybe 2 hours. I am very pleased so far...
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Ok, but not great, October 28, 2007
By Chi_Bill (Chicago, IL USA)
I really had high hopes for this product but am a little disappointed. It doesn't always find the server so you have to restart a few times before it will work. The video playback is jerky, that was the main reason I bought this thing so I could watch video on my tv and it is a neither smooth process or a good quality (and yes the video is fine on the PC). I thought that these problems might have been because of my wireless network so I ran cable and hooked the thing directly into my router, it made no difference. It works great for music, but I have yet to figure out how to get it to view pictures. I hope they can work out the bugs on this thing someday because it's a great idea.
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Garbage., October 25, 2007
By Some Bird Stabbin With A Coat Hanger Fool
This thing is a total junker. The specs sounded promising, and when it DOES work its pretty cool, Despite what many say, many divx/xvid files will play just fine, at perfect dvd quality. However many movies and other things (especially those with weird codecs or variable bit rate audio) need to be converted using Nero Recode or some other software which can take forever (To convert one season of tv shows to a viewable format can take a 3ghz p4 half a day, and render your computer useless during that time).
The remote is a joke, unless you are pointed exactly at the box from less than 5 feet away it doesnt work, even when it does work, it annoys you more than anything. The picture viewer is a joke, its far too slow to be useful, the music features are laughable as well.
I havent met too many people who own one of these that never has problems with the server staying connected. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to what makes it work/not work. I try messing with firewalls, port forwarding, resetting the pc, resettign the router, resetting the unit itself. Then it just randomly comes back on 10 minutes later. Sometimes it works fine all day long, sometimes it works 5 minutes out of the day. Unfortunately i havent found many other products which do the same thing. I went back to using the audio/s-video outs on my computer direct to my home theater, i lose the functionality of having the remote, but for watching movies or a pre-set list of shows it works, and the beauty is if it plays on the PC fine, it plays on your TV fine.
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One star is too high for this D-ink device. Loathing is too kind., October 1, 2007
By Techy (Brookhaven, NY)
D-ink Leave off the "L" for this thing is Lame. If you can get this running out of the box don't worry D-ink will issue a software update and you will likely install it rendering this device defunct. Get ready for persistent software re installations. If the device seems to be working don't update anything!
Even with a hardwired network connection the picture is often choppy and often falls out of sync with the audio.
Don't waste your time with this product. I have fought with this device for over a year and no longer use it.
Good luck to any future buyers. I look forward to your one star reviews.
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Great product..! For the $, 5 Star, September 9, 2007
By Eric D. Watson (Mid Atlantic)
This is the second D-Link media player that I have bought. I use one upstairs and one downstairs so I have my whole collection available throughout the house.
Yep.. some of the controls are not perfect as others have mentioned... there is no FF/RW like that on a typical CD/DVD player, but it rather "jumps" forward or backward without any monitoring of the audio. If you shift away from the audio player, there is no way to get back to the "now playing" screen, but you can hit the display button and it will overlay the screen with some of the information.
One thing to remember when looking at other products that seem to do the same thing is that this one is the only one that displays to your TV. All of the others have small scrolling screens built into the media player (ie... ROKU Soundbridge...etc...) Ever try reading one of these from across the room? Good luck! These units are also considerable more expensive.
One hint: DON'T use the media server software it is shipped with. It has a number of performance issues and less abilities than others. I had very frequent audio gapping problems and very slow title scrolling. I switched to TVersity and it works very fast and flawlessly as well as it offers additional content that the supplied software doesn't.
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Works well for me, May 11, 2007
By Sam (Richmond, VA USA)
I've playing around with this player for a few days and found it works actually pretty well if you set up everything right. So I would like to share my experience with others.
My wireless setup includes Buffalo router and two high gain antennas (one on router and the other on the player). The router is in the room upstairs and the player is in the family room downstairs. This setup gives me 56 percent strength. Not that great, but does not seem has any effect on the video playing.
The first thing I did is to upgrade the firmware to version 1.09. I use Tversity and Twonky server instead of its own server, as other posters recommended. I've also installed all the codecs necessary (easily found on tversity's website).
I use this player primarily for playing animation movies in rmvb format for my kid. It did good job to transcode the video on the fly. The xivid/divx support is good (my tv is not high definition, so I cannot comment its performance on those tv's) and no stutters at all. I haven't tried the photo and audio function since I have SMC EZ-Stream music adapter to stream the audio.
My only complaint is that although Tversity does support more formats than twonky (sometimes twonky cannot see many files), it does not support fast forward very well (it is often a hit or miss). The DSM server and twonky support fast forward better. I haven't found a way to make the internet video to work with tversity. Maybe someone can share his/her know-how about this function. I'd love to see some tips.
Overall, my goal has been achieved: to wirelessly watch the video files on my hard drive without converting or burning dvd, which save me many hassles because converting often times causes picture and audio out of sync. If you do not expect a lot more (such as high definition video, etc.), you will be happy with the $90 purchase.
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Arghh!!!!, May 2, 2007
By Michael Kramer (Ft Lauderdale)
I bought the DSM-320 to wirelessly stream my large collection of DVD files from my media PC downstairs in the living room, to my TV in my master bedroom. The ripped files are in VOB format, with each movie at around 5 GB of material in size.
First, it's well known that the DSM doesn't like to be far from the wireless router. In order to get a stable connection, I literally ended up placing the router on top of the DSM, WITH THE ANTENNAS TOUCHING. This gave me a consistent "100" in signal strength, so I know any problems in streaming were not due to low strength, at least in the DSM-to-router connection.
I also added a wireless repeater to boost the strength from the router to the downstairs media PC, because obviously the stream first had to get to the router unimpinged.
With all of the little pieces getting ample signal, the DSM was easily able to communicate with it's media server application (installed on the downstairs Media PC) It presented my list of movies by title, as they're organized on the hard drives. Unfortunately, you can't select a movie's name and click "enter" on the remote. You need to drill down to the first .VTS file, and then, press "enter". Nope, just kidding. Pressing "enter" makes the player run just that one .VTS file, and there are around a half dozen in a feature length movie. So, to get a seamless movie, press "play" on the remote at the top VTS file. Then they all run in sequence to the end. Nothing from D-Link will help you figure this out; I had to scour the forums.
However, having to drill down one level isn't the slickest thing in the world, but it works. The movie plays, and in full quality with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.
The DSM-320 is so frustratingly close to being what it should be. That is, it will play a movie perfectly and jitter-free for around a minute or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Sometimes a movie that started jittery will play the next time as fine, and then get jittery in a different spots. Sometimes it can't find its server. Occasionally it will trick you by playing a movie fine for awhile. Then, when you try another movie to be sure everything is really working...nope. Sometimes you can go back to the movie that worked well and it'll work well again. Or not. The problem with all this is, there are several dozen variables to manage, between the wireless elements and the quirks of the servers, so that just when you think you've figured it out...WRONG.
This leads me to conclude that the DSM-320 simply can't consistently stream video in a way that makes it watchable for any length of time. If that's what you need it for, save yourself a couple of lost weekends and look elsewhere.
As for servers, I tried the D-Link Media Server, the TVersity server, and my TVedia server. With some fiddling (Tversity needed some codecs)I was able to get all of them to play the videos, but nothing could overcome the jitters.
My verdict: the DSM-320 can't stream video wirelessly. It would probably benefit from a healthy internal buffer... like the kind you'd find in a ten year old portable CD player. Also, it needs to have a lot more sensitivity in the wireless department.
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What a piece of crap!!!, April 5, 2007
By Ben Perron
Not very happy with this product.
The software on the pc side doesn't work well at all.
Won't list all my files and I can't get it to update changes or new folders.
This bugger has way to big of a foot print.
The remote needs a skip function to fast foward through movies.
Hey I have a Xbox with XBMC on it. Get a clue, and copy some of it's functionality. It continues to blow away any of the media players I have purchased.
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Junk, March 23, 2007
By D. Riley
The idea is great. The implementation is terrible.
To start with, the remote shouldn't really be called a remote since you have to be within 5 feet for it to work. It doesn't play correctly. The software that you have to run on your computer is clumsy. Everything about this product is wrong.
This thing is a total piece of [...]. D-Link normally produces nice products but they completely missed with this one.
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Cutting out, March 13, 2007
By Amazon shopper (Texas)
The system was easy to hook up and get running. I wanted something to stream music
and run a slide show at the same time. I wasn't really interested in video streaming.
It seems to work ok for the most part. It does like to cut out from time to time while
streaming music. Almost to the point of being annoying. I've also got a Roku soundbridge
but I've never noticed the music cutting out like the D-Link does.
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