Cisco-Linksys Media Center Extender
by Linksys
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Category: CE
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: LinksysAudio: English (Original Language)
Format: CD
Platform: Windows
Model: DMA2100
Product features:
- Bring your digital music, movies, and photos to your TV or home theater
- Allows you to share your photos, music and movies on your computer with friends and family
- Uses existing high-speed Wireless-N home network
- Easily navigate menus with a single learning remote
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys Media Center Extender
Customer Review: New pricing makes this a great buy for a very good product!
Summary: 5 Stars
In summary - the DMA-2100 is very much worthy of your $100. It's not perfect - but for the price, you won't come close to finding anything else this simple and effective.
Candidly speaking, I am pretty darn technical, so I am confident in my review. Moreover, I am approaching this review from the POV of someone that is not as technical as I am. As an adult male now outside the preferred marketing age group I find it a challenge to get unbiased reviews that are easy to understand and not written by either an over the top techno geek that only cares about stuff that engineers care about, or by a 13 year old kid that forgets I like my life easier these days - besides, I make things complex enough, I don't need my technology to help me in that category. And since this box is for all of my family to play with and enjoy - it has to be easy for them to use, but of quality design and performance that it meets my finicky needs.
First, let's talk about the setup: plug and play? No. Pretty darn simple? Yes. No need to be a cerebral giant to get this up and running. A) Make appropriate connections to TV...plug in...answer some questions about your video and network setup (you need a basic understanding of your connection types)...ask the closest 13 year old; B) install the software from the enclosed disk on your Vista computer, answer a few more questions C) let the Linksys sort through your media collection. Yes - IT IS that non-technical.
Overall, for the price points this Media Extender is now selling at (bought mine for right at $100), this is a superb deal and makes for a fantastic way to connect your big screen (or little screen) to your PC content with minimal technical knowledge required. Some Mom's and Dads will still want one of the kids to set it up, but shouldn't be afraid to try it themselves. Honestly, I know some people bought his wanting more from it. And let's be straight, there are boxes out there that are very high end (some as much as $20,000). But I am not trying to review this by contrasting to those boxes, or even by comparing it to the whims of all the things boxes like this could do. I am reviewing it based on the price point - what do you spend and what do you get for that $100? I think you get a pretty darn simple to use, better than good quality extender that will let you enjoy content from your PC with the whole family and friends without having to all squish around the PC screen.
This is the lowest priced item in my home's AV system and I am truly surprised at how well it functions and the resulting quality of audio and video, as well as it ease of use and more importantly, the price. One of the best purchases I have made in a long time (ok...maybe not including my Wii!)
If you can't sleep, belwo is my detailed review:
1) I installed this in less than an hour on Friday afternoon, by Friday night I was showing off family videos and picture streaming from my Vista computer to the big screen in the family room. If the neighbors didn't think I was a dork before, they surely do now.
2) I have a very large MP3 collection (over 22K songs, ~100Gig), nearly 200Gig of video from my digital camcorder, and over 50Gig of photos - on initial start up, it took the extender over 6 hours to find and sort all my media. It did play those files it found while it continued to search for more. But it did take longer to finish than I thought it would - not a big deal. The Media Extender keeps an eye on the PC folders for changes whenever it is on, so this cycle was not repeated when I added new content to my PC. I do recommend you spend some time organizing your folders to use the My Videos, My Pictures and My Music for sorting content on your PC. Not necessary, but certainly easier to minimize the number of folders you need to menu through to find the content you want. Then again, I am pretty OCD when it comes to keeping the PC folders organized so this could just a personal issue of mine...this also extends to my disdain of the wife for cluttering up the TIVO.
3) I use the Component cables to connect to my TV and hard-wired Ethernet connection to the PC. Video quality is very good, superior to what I was expecting at this price point. As an avid AV buff, I am pretty finicky, so I speak with some grounding here. Some of my larger, higher quality videos take longer (anywhere from 3-7 seconds) to begin play (likley the buffering that helps keep the streaming smooth). Smaller files start almost instantly.
4) I also use the Digital Coax audio out and testing showed the box passes Digital Surround formats to my receiver with no issues. (I tested DD5.1) For those that care, I also have analog audio and video outs connected to a channel modulator for distribution to analog TVs throughout the house. The audio and video quality is obviously not as high as the HDMI or Component, but that is not a Linksys issue but is a function of the technology of those lower grade connection types. If you can use the higher quality connection, do so.
5) On my hard-wired Ethernet connection I never once experienced lock up of pixilation of video and audio. This was for HD content and for standard definition content tested. I also downloaded an episode of Chuck from Amazon Video on Demand (UnBox AVI format) and played the entire episode without problem. This is in contrast to the previous reviewer that said the video only played for 15 minutes - not so in my case, tested multiple times.
6) Does not play AVI files, so I had to download a freeware (small fee for full featured version) video conversion software (I used Any Video Converter - great stuff) to convert my AVI files to MPG2 format. The extender then played all compatible format videos with NO issues.
7) The remote is light weight and seems very breakable. I have high end Home Theater Master remotes, so I may be expecting too much...but if you have kids, this remote does seem fragile enough. Also, the remote is not backlit - maybe not a major item, but for those that like to download movies from Amazon or watch family movies on a dimly lit or dark room, this could be a challenge until you memorize the remote buttons. Since I have programmable remotes, I'll end up learning the codes and loading into my custom remote programs.
8) The menu system is somewhat slow. Not "go-get-somethign-to-snack-on-while-you-wait-for-the-screen-to-refresh" slow, but not as fast as the Media Center software on my Vista Machine or as fast as the menu on my TIVO DVRs. Having said that, for what I want to do with this (it's not my primary TV viewing source, it is simply a way to get content from my PC to the big screen for the family to share) the menu system is just fine. For those that have seen reviews about slow menu, let's not split hairs here...consider what you are paying...and how you'll use this device.
9) Overall video and audio quality: In my tests (subjective of course, but as I said, I am a high-end AV buff with pretty high-end AV gear and a self-designed HD home theater distribution system that feeds the entire house - so I feel I know what I am talking about) video quality is as good as the original source. This means if you download an HD movie from Amazon or from your own personal digital camcorder, the resulting image on your big screen will be HD quality. I was only able to notice some color wash and slight contrast variations. For the non-technical folks, this means the colors on some video looked less bright compared to the HD video coming from my DirecTV service. Also your mileage may vary - consider the length of your cable runs (remember i have a distributed system with longer runs than if you connected directly to your TV with the supplied cables). But then again - please consider what you pay for the Linksys Media Extender...my conclusion is that there is only slight video loss. Audio quality is decent; I did notice some bass response loss and overall the dynamics were flatter (not as much difference between highs and lows or soft and loud passages in the music) than CD quality. Here again, consider your source: MP3s ripped at 128K will sound more "tinny" than MP3s ripped at 320K (which sound more full and with richer bass". Audio from the videos varied with the type. The download of Chuck sounded very good, my HD movies with Dolby Digital sounded excellent, my home movies sounded fine (it is a camcorder microphone after all) and various video clips I downloaded from the Internet (remember you may have to convert format for compatibility with the Linksys) sounded good and bad but was consistent with the audio quality of the original. My conclusion is that there is very little if any audio loss.
10) There are some folks in previous review that want more native Video Codec support (a Codec is what takes a video image and makes it digital ad compresses it to save hard drive space - and there are too many of them for any one box to support them all). Linksys has provided support for some of the more common Codec's so you should be able to watch most of your content as it, but there may be some you cannot. My work around was to use the software noted above to convert the video. This is something you will want to pay attention to if you decide to RIP (copy to your PC) any of your DVDs. My guess is that Linksys can address (doesn't always mean they will), as needed (usually based on customer feedback) support for more Codec's.
Description of Cisco-Linksys Media Center Extender
Sharing your photos, music and movies on your computer with friends and family has been made easy by the DMA 2100 Media Center Extender from Linksys. The device allows you to view digital photos, movies and high definition programs on your TV, and listen to downloaded music on your home theater sound system. It even enables accessing digital content and Internet services from your Microsoft Windows Vista Premium or Ultimate Media Center PC and wirelessly stream it to your home entertainment system. Its single learning remote helps you to easily navigate menus. The media extender uses existing high-speed Wireless-N home network.Digital Cameras & Photo Categories
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