D-Link DSM-320 High Speed 2.4GHz (802.11g) Wireless Media Player, 54Mbps, Audio/Photo/Video

DLink DSM-320

Strengths: Ease of use once configured. Sound quality. Analog and digital hook ups. Solid construction.

Weaknesses: Firmware and related improvements an after thought. Efforts to improve wireless security lacking. Misinformed technical support. Problematic database memory and quirky navigation.

Summary: I set up a wireless network in my home, and already having my own PC set up as a media server I figured I could use the DSM 320 as a replacement interface for my AV system. I sent my media PC to the basement wired to the router.

Prior to purchasing the DSM-320 I wrote DLink Canada asking if the device supported WPA-PSK wireless security (as the other older protocols are easily hacked) and was advised that it did support WPA-PSK. Unfortunately tech support was incorrect. It only supported the older and weak WEP protocol. They apologized and told me it is in the next firmware revision, that has yet to be seen. My firmware revision remains at 1.05ca as of January 2006. If security is important to you, look for other units that support WPA-PSK.

The best way to hook up this device is by wire, where you have the greatest bandwidth to stream high resolution video. The moment you go wireless, you step down from 100Mbps to 54Mbps which does not take into account security overhead, distance from your router, etc. Wireless performs well for music (Mp3, etc) and high compression video. High resolution video will choke wireless in certain setups, causing jerky sound and images.

The database software as of Jan 2006 seems quite stable on my A7N8X-X based system, and was a breeze to install. The DSM-320 itself has some glitches that can be a nuisance. The unit suffers from database forgetfullness, dropping to the root menu, seeking active servers. It will play an entire movie, but feed it a playlist, chances are that it will play a couple of songs , forget the rest and unexpectedly stop. I have not had this device run for longer than 1-2 hours without my intervention. Use the menu system for a few minutes, and it will unexpectedly dump you right back to the root menu from time to time. Very annoying after seeking through a vey large music or playlist database.

Nero Recode can produce MP4's with embedded chapters. The DSM-320 is not aware of these indexes, obligating you to either use "jump" (using a very clumsy interface to type in a time to jump to) or "rev/ff" (that really doesn't work well if you have wireless + security + good quality video settings) to navigate any video file. One can select one means of search, the other, not both. Why? Who is the brainiac who thought this one out? Very frustrating, especially if you recode music DVD's.

Worse, the DSM-320 will not play the next available video file in a folder. If a show plays and reaches the end, it will stop. You cannot passively watch a folder full of TV episodes back to back. You must hit "next" just before the show you're watching ends, otherwise navigate the menu and select the next episode to watch (plus run the chance of being dumped to the root menu)...ugh.

When it plays back, it does it well. For a multimedia device the sound quality is great, and so is the picture quality.

It boils down to how you intend to use the product. If you have a small database of music and the odd video file you will likely not be disrupted by the DSM-320's shortcomings. If you have a large database of sound and video, you will get frustrated by its instability and quirks.

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Not worth buying

Strengths: Easy to set up and easy to use interface.

Weaknesses: Weak options, many features are frustrating due to their lack of reliability. For a product being made by a large company like D-Link, the product is extremely disappointing.

Summary: XBOX Media center, written by a bunch of kids for hacked xboxes is a way better product than this unit.

The navigation through menus is very slow, playback of video files is choppy a lot of the time, and often the audio will lose sync with the video if you fast forward. The fast forward is one speed and very slow so dont count on fast forwarding a movie. There is a seek mode where you enter the minutes to skip to, but you can only choose that or fast forward, not both.

The media server software that comes with the unit is of poor quality, and I find better performance using a third party server (Twonky Vision).

In my opinion, they made a poor quality unit because they knew it would sell, and now that it is out they don't plan on releasing any firmware upgrades to improve performance and capability. If I knew what I knew now, I wouldn't purchase this unit. You are better off paying the neighborhood or office geek to mod a 100$ Xbox so you can load Avalaunch and Xbox media center onto it. You'll be much happier with that.

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The DSM 320 media player is a wonderful device - i ...

Strengths: Nice onscreen display, digital inputs, overall look, wireless setup, great sound.

Weaknesses: Software is buggy (locks up), not fully compatible with Windows Media Player, will not recognize playlists, definately not a "set it and forget it" type of device.

Summary: The DSM 320 media player is a wonderful device - in theory. In practical application, it fails misserably. The setup of the device was very smooth and I was amazed that this consumer device actually worked with Server 2003, although I set up Windows XP media server as well. The wireless setup went without a hitch. I noticed a tendency for the DSM 320 to lockup when browsing folders. I have an audio collection of over 3600 .wma files, which I was unable to play unless I wanted to browse and play them one at a time. The shuffle function did not work, even with a .m3u playlist. This device should have never made it past the testing phase. I will take this one back to Best Buy and wait for someone to make something more to my liking.

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You have to create playlists to listen to more tha ...

Strengths: Good in theory. Lots of connections on the back. Seems like good hardware. Metal case. Built-in wireless "G".

Weaknesses: Crappy software. You are stuck with Radio@AOL service which cost $4.95 monthly when there are scads of FREE internet radio stations available. Also the AOL radio rebuffers alot.

Summary: You have to create playlists to listen to more than one song at a time. That is stupid! They should fire the developer who wrote the software. I am using version 1.02.

Inability to browse the web like the Prismiq does.

I just ordered the Prismiq Media Player and will return this D-Link to Fry's when it arrives.

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The DSM-320 was pretty much everything I was looki ...

Strengths: Every hook up you could imagine, ease of use once everything is established.

Weaknesses: Does not allow internet browsing, or streaming of DVD's from your PC, tech support inexperienced,super long Q's, product knowledge very limited. Moderately difficult to set-up.

Summary: The DSM-320 was pretty much everything I was looking for in terms of being able to access my media from my PC once everything was set up. I could not access my music server Rhapsody and was compelled to return the DSM-320 to best buy, since the main reason I bought it was to stream digital music via internet. It turns out that you must be running software v1.02 and "MAKE" your DSM upgrade itself to firmware v1.04 by repeated ly pressing update on the setup screen, version key. It will tell you that it is running most current v1.03 just keep hitting update eventually it will, and a progress screen will appear. Tech support were absolutely useless,and the long Q's were extremely frustrating.

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The device alphabetizes playlists and albums. If y ...

Strengths: Great idea, great interface.

Weaknesses: Alphabetizes all songs

Summary: The device alphabetizes playlists and albums. If you wish to play everything you have by an artist, you will have to listen to all the songs in alphabetical order, meaning that if the artist has the same song on several albums, you listen to all of the same song before moving onto another. If you like classical music, you won't be listening to a piece in movement order, but in the alphabetical order of the movement names. Try listening to a broadway soundtrack--the DSM-320 won't allow you to listen to the show as it appears on stage. This is a major flaw--a deadly flaw. Until they correct this, the device is useless to most users. Their technical support people are inexperienced and unhelpful.

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This media player will be wonderful when they get ...

Strengths: easy setup, small footprint, ability to access computer files from TV and play them on stereo

Weaknesses: buggy software, can't play a group of music files without first creating a playlist, can't get Radio@AOL to connect at all

Summary: 2005-01-28 11:36:55 This media player will be wonderful when they get all the bugs worked out of it. I'm still waiting on new firmware and software. The manual says you can create playlists with windows media player and use them, however the unit does not support .wpl type files which these are. Also, I haven't been able to connect to Radio@AOl at all, even though I've been an AOL member for years and it works fine on my computer. Tech support is still scratching their heads over this one. Hope they figure it out. On the files it does work with, it works great. Both audio and video files are very smooth and stable. I can only assume D-Link will fix these problems as this is version 1 of this player.

As an update to this review, I have been able to get AOL to work. It seems that using AOL broadband doesn't work with this unit as you have to sign on with AOL to link to the internet. After I switched to Earthlink and my internet connection was "hot" all the time everything works just fine.

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One essential feature lacking is the ability to st ...

Strengths: Easy to set up.

Weaknesses: Slow response time. No support for internet radio streams other than subscription based services.

Summary: One essential feature lacking is the ability to stream any internet radio broadcast. AOL radio is a waste as far as I am concerned. This product is a good start, but needs a firmware upgrade to accommodate any audio stream played over Real Audio or Windows Media Player. I regret I bought it.

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When looking for a wireless media player I came ac ...

Strengths: Easy hook up and configuration

Weaknesses: The unit does not detect the correct video output when it was set up. I set up the device to display through component video, but it did not look correct until I changed the default video setting.

Summary: When looking for a wireless media player I came across the DSM-320 and was impressed with the features this device had to offer. Digital audio and component video accross a 802.11g wireless connection at under $200.00 sounded fantastic. I then looked at the sub par reviews this product had accumulated and started looking elsewhere. But after looking at the other available products, I always came back to the DSM-320. Feature for feature the DSM-320 looked too good to pass up. After a bit more research I found that most of the issues were related to earlier firmware releases. So, after a bit of thought, I bought the DSM-320 and have been very happy with it. It automaticlly updated it's firmware and was good to go. It all works better than I thought. I have all of my media content on an external 250GB hard disk connect to my main computer. With very little configuration I have my pictures, movies and audio content coming into my entertainment center. The new firmware says it even works with napster, although I have not tried this feature yet.

All in all I would recommend this media player to anyone. It lookes like D-Link is supporting this product through frequent firmware and software updates so it should only get better at time goes on.

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Remote seemed very cheap and flimsy, and only had ...

Strengths: Allows Ethernet or Wireless connections; Has component, composite, s-video, digital, and optical outputs; Setup was very easy

Weaknesses: stability, usability

Summary: Remote seemed very cheap and flimsy, and only had a short field to work with...you'll spend a few button presses trying to find the right angle to get the remote to work; The server software was not able to complete cataloging my MP3 collection...it crashed about halfway there...everytime I tried; There is no way to 'queue' songs like a jukebox; While a song is playing, it doesn't give you an option to either blank out the screen, or utilize a screensavar of some sort...the display it does have is very unattractive; What it was able to catalog appeared in a long list that you had to scroll through...no way to jump to a specific album, artist, or genre (i.e. pressing the number '2' on the remote should take you to the albums or artists that start with 'D', and pressing '2' twice very quickly should take you album or artists that start with 'E', etc.)

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This product is a great idea, I look forward to se ...

Strengths: Great idea!! Hook up (cables) was easy.

Weaknesses: Set up / manuals not easy to use. Still can not access files on my computer, help desk didn't completely solve problem.

Summary: This product is a great idea, I look forward to seeing competion and improvements. In general, not ready for the mass market. Released prior to all bugs being worked out. The average computer user will be frustrated with having to call in to the help desk for everything that does not go correctly.

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This box sounds great but reality falls far short ...

Strengths: It doesn't really have any at this point. It has potential because the underlying hardware is pretty descent, but the software is alpha at this point. Mpeg2 playback works ok, everything else is bad

Weaknesses: Software is definetely not ready. Box locks up. No rewind, fast forward that gets the sound out of sync on mpeg4 content, jerky mpeg4 play back, stupid audio navigation, internet tie in to aol

Summary: This box sounds great but reality falls far short of the mark. Software just like all other Dlink software is very buggy, and is simply not FCS quality. Not much works beyond basic Mpeg4 playback, everything else has significant limitations.

My hope is that the software will be fixed at some point, because the hardware is definately capable of a lot of good.

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Don't have hi-speed net connection right now, I go ...

Strengths: all outputs you could want, hi-speed wireless, fairly easy setup

Weaknesses: not the greatest software/user interface

Summary: Don't have hi-speed net connection right now, I got this device to just stream (wirelessly) music, movies, and pics to my entertainment center. Overall, I'm happy with this product, for paying $150 for it. The hardware is great, I especially appreciate all the different outputs it provides. Here's my setup: 2GHz Windows XP, D-Link DI-624 router, ~5,000 songs (mp3,wma), ~100 movies (divx,avi), ~5,0000 pics (gif,jpg).

For the music, I've had no problems at all. I can only play ~30 percent of my movies, and have problems even with regular avi's from my camera. I upgraded the firmware to the latest version, but no dice. It may be some little thing I can fix, but it's something I have to spend time on that I'd rather not. For pics, had to upgrade the firmware b/f the displayed, but no problems after that.

If you get the device, first thing to do is upgrade to the latest firmware, that's easy enough. I tried Dlink's server software & Window Media Connect. Both were fine for me. I would suggest WMC (assuming you're on Windows) b/c it seemed to run a little faster, and I hear that for really large file systems, the DLink server's queing is agonizing. The only thing with WMC is that the search function on the DSM320 user-interface doesn't work, but that function sucks right now anyway. Even with WMC, the queing is somewhat slow, especially for my pics. But for music, I just create playlists on my PC, or just play genres in shuffle mode, so queing doesn't become an issue. I've had no problems with the wireless connection, which is to be expected since I intentionally purchased DLink's router.

I haven't contacted customer service yet, nor tried to use the online functions, so can't say anything on those points. Overall, very happy, I got it mainly to play music. Right now I'm only using the composite outputs and the sound is great. One other thing I might suggest is purchasing the URC9910 universal remote. This little guy is the best buy you'll ever find, and can be upgraded to control the DSM320, so you can control everything easily from another room (it's RF capable as well).

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User interface is slick, especially being able to ...

Strengths: Easy setup on my exisiting wireless network. Being able to access files on my stereo and t.v. rocks.

Weaknesses: Gives unsupported format messages on some files even though they are MP3 and MPG file types. Requires playlists to play mp3's

Summary: User interface is slick, especially being able to see all of the files available for play on your tv screen. One disappointment is not being able to play mp3's from a folder but rather having to setup a playlist. It also froze up on me a few times when I got it and had to use the reset button in the back. Overall satisfied.

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D-Link DSM-320 has the best video support that I'v ...

Strengths: Support of video formats. Good streaming speed

Weaknesses: multi-national language support in user interface

Summary: D-Link DSM-320 has the best video support that I've found as of June 10th, 2004. It has good streaming speed - must for video streaming.

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