Review: A weekend with D-Link's DSM-750
The D-Link DSM-750's journey to stores is something of an epic.
Announced almost 18 months ago and expected last summer, it's only now staggering over the finishing line like an exhausted marathon runner. And "stagger" is apt, because even after the long wait, they still managed to cock up the release, enraging D-link fans with an early batch of lemons. Review models were delayed, too, due to technical problems, presumably with fruit from the same bowl.
Such surmountable woes aside, there's good in this box. HDMI output, a sturdy 600Mhz processor and a broad selection of compatible formats and containers (xVid, DivX, h.264; WMV, MPEG4, etc.) solve the old media box miseries of bad performance and files that just won't play. It has wired ethernet, 802.11n networking, digital audio, component connectors and fanless operation.
By wedding decent hardware to a gimped interface, however, it effectively forces the buyer into using it as a dumb terminal for Vista-only media center PCs. This is, of course, how Microsoft wants you to use it, and it comes down to whether you're in the niche of consumers matching this ideal.
It's a media extender, see, which "extends" the media center application from a Vista PC to your TV set. When it works good, it's magic: your TV set acts almost as a monitor for a distant PC in another room, 1,080 lines of beauty piped over 5Ghz. The problem is that it's inconsistent and somewhat cranky, and you'll often wonder if the files wouldn't stream just as happily without Microsoft's little ecosystem providing directions.
OK. So there are, in effect, two DSM-750s in the one chassis.
The default mode is a simple network-searching media player. It grabs content from shared folders, such as WMP 11 media libraries on Windows XP machines. It works reliably and plays movies and music, or displays photos, without too much hassle. Unfortunately, its interface is a shabby clone of Windows' media center and is annoying to navigate. For example, it shows only a handful of giant generic icons at a time when browsing files.
The other mode is the Media Extender, which offers a far superior user interface and cool extras like Internet TV, movie trailers, and even normal TV, as grabbed by a host media center PC's TV tuner card. In this mode, it had no problem adequately representing large media collections. High-def streaming is lovely, though you'll want a well-heeled connection to get it without chop. The extended media center UI is a bit sluggish, however, carrying a strong 'remote desktop' vibe when it's not actually streaming something.
It's not trivial to set it all up, either, and Microsoft sent along a laptop and router all pre-configured just in case we had trouble assembling the networking Rube Goldberg machine it requires to operate. Ideal consumers indeed.
Some of the Media Extender's features didn't work, for whatever reason. Trying to watch over-the-air TV was impossible to set up, because the host media center PC was unable to download TV schedules. After trying twice to do this—it gives itself a good 5 minutes to time out—I gave up. I imagine I might have been more motivated had I paid $350 for it, but I hadn't, so I wasn't.
Internet TV worked a little better, but was something of a gamble. Home Shopping Network looked great. Yaaaay. Reuters news items go nowhere, its little clip launcher resembling an empty fucked website with all the images missing until it gives up the ghost. Movie clips worked OK, but it gave me irritating error messages when I tried to watch Superbowl ads. In short, it's the same old story of walled content gardens that just don't work properly. Plus ca change.
Watching my own stuff, though, worked perfectly. If you've got a fat Vista PC loaded with content and just want a dumb HDMI terminal for it under the TV set, off you go. Just wait until the early-batch problems are cleared up.
If you want something more universally useful, sorry. Not your huckleberry. It doesn't do anything that a superior networked media player or a dedicated under-the-set media center PC couldn't do better. Let's put it this way: the DSM-750 isn't going to succeed where AppleTV failed.
A part of the problem, perhaps, is that getting these devices out requires an equipment maker, Microsoft, chipset producers and firmware writers to all be in perfect alignment. Such infrequent cosmic events might get product into stores, but they tend to make fans angry while they wait for stuff to be fixed afterwards.
A firmer foundation is needed, and Microsoft will probably have to face up to Zuneing the product category if it's ever going to push it anywhere--and hope that TV manufacturers and cable companies don't pre-empt them along the way with a more integral solution.
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How does this compare to a PS3? It sounds like the additional features (which didn't work well) are all it has to offer that a PS3 doesn't. So for a $49 price premium, you get a blu-ray player and video game machine in addition to your 1080p media extender.. 'Course, I've not used either so take that for what it's worth.
I think the better comparison is to the Xbox 360, not the PS3. The Xbox 360 also acts as a Windows Media Center extender, and I can attest that it provides a wonderful Media Center TV interface. The interface rivals that of TiVo due to its very user friendly and clean style. TV recording works perfectly and streaming HD and SD TV across the network to your box happens without a hiccup. In fact, you can't even tell that you're running the TV off the Xbox 360 extender compared to the PC itself.
The base Xbox 360 Arcade works with Media Center, so for $279, you have a very powerful Media Center extender.
In terms of noise, both the PS3 and Xbox 360 get loud after about 20-30 minutes of use. This never bothers me since you only hear the noise in very quiet scenes.
How hackable does it seem to be? Would it be easy to replace its firmware with Linux? Because that could be all it needs to become what it was supposed to be to begin with.
If memory serves, there wasn't an awful lot of hacking on the earlier medialounges from D-Link. No XBMC-type wonders, that's for sure.
man, just buy a used original xbox for $60, spend 30 minutes doing the softmod hack, install XBMC, and it will do everything you want it to do.
My understanding is that the PS3 makes an excellent media center out of the box - working with any DLNA media server software, meaning you're not tied to a Microsoft product like Windows Media Player. It's not open source, but it's an improvement (in my opinion) except for the Sony bit..
Josh42042, an original xbox can't handle 1080p video at high bit rates. It can't compare, quality wise, to a modern high def device.