The D-Link Wireless HD Media Player is a fantastic high definition media player that streams video and audio content, plays Active-TV content and other internet content wirelessly to your TV.
Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25, Look & Feel: 23/25,
Features 25/25, How much I enjoy 24/25
Total: 95/100
Media players for your home entertainment center can be an additional component or a centerpiece to your enjoyment along with your high definition television. The D-Link Media Player model DSM-520 is a fantastic media player that connects to a television in several ways as well as wirelessly connects to your PC to stream media.
Streaming media is a relatively new technology that is still evolving and becoming more and more commonplace in people’s homes. The video and audio is simply passed through your network to your television from a PC and the internet using the media player. Although the technology has been out for some time now the actual use and the various ways of doing the different things with the video and internet content continue to change and improve.
Streaming video is something that I have just started playing around with and have really received a big jump with the purchase of my PlayStation 3 as well as receiving the D-Link DSM-520. The D-Link media player works very much like the streaming video from the PlayStation 3 to the PSP that you can also watch movies and music on. You can take one device such as your computer or the PlayStation 3 and have movies, music or other content and play them through your network to your television.
The D-Link Media player does a remarkable job of connecting your computer network to your television and gives you several options for entertainment such as direct play of movies, music and video or downloading and watching content directly from many movie and video providers. You can connect to the internet directly through your network router, download movies and other content, listen to internet radio and watch videos from several service providers that are in partnership with D-Link.
The D-Link Media Player DSM-520 comes with the media player, an Ethernet cable, an S-Video cable, a Composite RCA audio/video cable, removable antenna, remote control with batteries, manual and installation CD with drivers. The drivers on the CD are easy to install but you may have to download and install other software as well as update your system.
The remote control is easy to use and has a few additional features over other regular television remotes. There are four media buttons on it that take you directly to the type of content you want such as movies, music or photos. These buttons will go directly to your PC’s media server and open the folders of the appropriate content on your computer.
The system is very easy to use and the additional software I installed went automatically to install the Active TV setup and the system had the most up to date firmware. Active TV is a service provider that adds a section on your media player that has movies, videos and audio like You Tube, MovieLink and VH1 VSpot. You can also get several other pay per view providers such as CinemaNow and Movielink where you can rent or buy full length movies from current release hits to older movies.
These pay per view or monthly subscription services are all available through your PC as well as the media player so you can watch them on your TV or PC. That is one feature that is really nice, especially for finding videos on sites like You Tube, you can browse on your PC to find the content you want and then save it for later viewing. Using the media player to browse for videos is not exactly user friendly so finding them on your PC may be a bit easier.
Setting up the whole system for wired or wireless is as easy as setting up many current network devices and with other D-Link devices is even easier. I had no problems setting up the media player on my network both with wired and wireless connection but since I have a network box right at my entertainment area for other things I use the wired method.
Wireless works just as easily and is also easy to setup, for both plug in the media player and wait for your network to sense it. You can also just add it into your network using the settings for your router but for the wireless all I had to do is set everything automatically. There is a page on the setup for the media player to choose the DNS configuration as well as another to input your SSID and password information.
The setup is easy and playing movies from your PC or your network storage works very simply, turn on the TV and media player, choose which section you want to enter from the main menu and cruise through the menus to the viewing or listening choice you want. Several different entertainment devices I have are simple to use but one function that I really like is how easy the D-Link media player is to use on a day to day basis.
To use the media player with your PC simply make sure your PC is on and any of the files you choose in the system page of the setup for the D-Link Media Server on your PC will be available from the media player. I have simply put my administration folder that contains all my music, videos and movies on the D-Link server and I can access the folders through the media player quickly. Sit at your computer and download movies, load movies from your DVD player and save to your videos folder and you can watch them from your TV easily.
I have a DVD capture device from Plextor that works very well at a simple movie copy onto my computer and the media server works exceptionally well for streaming the movie to the TV while on the other side of my house. I can sit in the living room and watch movies or videos from my upstairs PC quickly and easily with great quality of both video and audio. I can also save or rip music onto my PC and not mess with loading CD’s as well as protecting the original CD’s from damage from constant inserting into a CD player.
The media player works very well for all the services I tried but I did not subscribe to any one that I had to pay for or give my credit information to use their trial versions. I did try several movie sites that allow you to download and rent or purchase movies and they work very well. You can simply search the site from your home computer or the media player and find the movie you want to rent for a certain period of time or buy and download the movie for saving on your hard drive or network storage device.
I found in my search for information about the DSM-520 Media Player several reviews of the product dating back a year or more and found many liked the player. I apparently have come in late to the scene but the player is still a very good product and one thing I really like is that D-Link continues to not only support their products but continue to release firmware upgrades as well as continues to add content providers to this up and coming technology. The addition of Active TV is a recent one as well as others that have been added since many of the reviews I read on line.
The D-Link DSM-520 is a great media player and very easy to use that I think it adds a great deal to anyone who wants the ability to stream movies, music and photos to their television or who wants all those online service providers. Getting all that content from the internet is a real treat and having the options to download what you want from such a wide range of content from movies to music, short videos and online radio make the player a fantastic one.
I highly recommend the D-Link DSM-520 media player for anyone who wants the ability to connect and watch their media content on their television from their computer.
