Considering D-Linux DSM-330 and other DivX players

[ggossamer]

Hi,

I'm considering purchasing one of the D-Linux DSM-330 wireless Divx player, and wondered what people thought of it. It somehow streams divx and other media from your PC directly to the PC, so you don't have to copy it to a USB stick first and insert it into the player directly connected to the TV.

Is this a good approach? How about one of those set-top boxes that display your PC video directly on the TV? Can they do 1080p? I would imagine you would need a pretty powerful PC to continually stream 1080p to the TV.

This player was released quite a few years ago. Are there other vendors that are providing competing products?

Thanks,
Dave

[jagabo]

Consider a Western Digital WDTV Live or Live Plus with a USB Wifi adapter. ~US$100 + $20 802.11G (if you're not doing HD) for the adapter. If you need HD (1080p Blu-ray rips) you'll 802.11N.

[studur]

Hi ggossamer,

I got a dsm-320-RD in the past and I hated it. The company support for their product is non-existent and the same goes for all their product. Dlink prefer to sell a new model than to work on a older one. I got a pch-a100 and it worth every penny. I think that you should consider spending a little mote to get something that really works. And Syabas continue to support actively their product. My friend bought a Western Digital media player but I did not like it because it has SO much less options to adapt your media file to your viewing experience. The popcornhour is more suited for tweaking media that have weird resolutions, pixel aspect ratio, weird subtitle formats and various multimedia codecs and containers. I tried to sell my dsm-320 and I finaly gave it away for free since nobody wanted to buy it. It is as bad as it sounds, there is a reason why its cheap. There are so many codecs out there that if you go cheap, you WILL regret it. And you WANT mkv support because it is the future standard container for HD content.

Hope that it will help you in your decision making

[ggossamer]

Hi ggossamer,

I got a dsm-320-RD in the past and I hated it. The company support for their product is non-existent and the same goes for all their product. Dlink prefer to sell a new model than to work on a older one. I got a pch-a100 and it worth every penny. I think that you should consider spending a little mote to get something that really works. And Syabas continue to support actively their product. My friend bought a Western Digital media player but I did not like it because it has SO much less options to adapt your media file to your viewing experience. The popcornhour is more suited for tweaking media that have weird resolutions, pixel aspect ratio, weird subtitle formats and various multimedia codecs and containers. I tried to sell my dsm-320 and I finaly gave it away for free since nobody wanted to buy it. It is as bad as it sounds, there is a reason why its cheap. There are so many codecs out there that if you go cheap, you WILL regret it. And you WANT mkv support because it is the future standard container for HD content.

Hope that it will help you in your decision making

You make a lot of great points, thanks. How about this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Popcorn-Hour-C-200-Networked-Media/dp/B002UK17ZA

Is this the current model of the version you have?

How exactly do you get content to the box? Can it interface with the PC to stream xvid/divx/mkv/etc files to the TV, wired or wirelessly?

Thanks,
Dave

[studur]

The C-200 is their top of the line media player. I got their first model the A-100 and I am still very satisfied. You can put a hard-drive in the unit for local content (video, music, pictures). You transfer files the same way you transfer files through a home network. You have to learn the basics of home networking with a router, that can be really hard if nobody helps you and you have to figure it all by yourself (especially firewall exceptions and port forwarding) but in the end you will get it working. You can access network shares through your home network, there is some web content you can access through the networkedmediatank services (web radio, web TV...) You can network the unit through ethernet cable or you can get an adapter for wireless. Personnaly, I prefer a wired unit because the signal is more stable and faster and streaming HD content needs a lot of bandwidth.

My setup includes an old pentium III for bittorrents and TV recordings (through my TV card) which are shared on my network and accessed on the popcornhour. My unit is then connected to my TV with RCA audio and s-video. The popcornhour also has component, coax digital audio and HDMI outputs so there are a lot of ways to connect it to the TV. If my media player dies, I would probably go with the newer A-200 (a little cheaper that the C-200 but with the same chipset).

[studur]

nevermind about the a-200, reviews say that the fan is really loud and the case looks very cheap. If you can afford the C-200, go for it.

[studur]

for a good source of reviews go to mpcclub.com. You will get all the answers you want

[ggossamer]

Guys, thanks everyone for all their input. Just bought the C-200 from Amazon, and very excited to get it. Read some great reviews online and clearly show it's the leader in its class. Certainly better than the Dlink. I don't need wireless, and would prefer to not have it, actually. I hope it plays all my content!

[studur]

If you ever need help on setting up your network, do not hesitate to ask for help in this thread.