D-Link DivX Connected HD Media Player (DSM-330)

• Stream video, photos and music wirelessly to your TV
• Play all your videos from the PC and the Internet, including DivX HD videos up to 720p
• Access online services with your remote control without leaving the couch
• Add a personal touch with DivX Connected plug-ins for gaming and infotainment services
• Includes free DivX software to convert videos to DivX (worth $19.99)

The D-Link DSM 330 loaded with DivX Connected software is a media manager that connects your digital files (music, video, photos & online content) with your television. DivX Connected bridges the gap between desktop and home entertainment center, however, the lack of comprehensive codec support, limited online content and heavy price tag for the DSM-330 are areas where these products could be improved. DivX has a head start with its simple start up and intuitive UI, and I wouldn't be surprised if this product gets a major facelift in the near future.

Strengths

· Fast server software setup

· Fast device setup

· Third-party plug-in support (e.g. Last.FM, flickr)

· Nice visuals, able to change theme easily

· Wi-Fi connectivity

· HDMI & digital optical outputs

Weaknesses

· Limited codec and format support (no AAC, GIF, etc)

· No playlisting ability

· Software only available for Windows XP/Vista, no Mac

· Limited online service support at launch

· Choppy video performance on systems with less than 1GB of memory

· No internal storage

· Slow to load thumbnails for photos

· Slow media file scanning

· No shuffle within overall music folder

· Music navigation lists songs in alphabetical order, not track order

· Non-RF remote (IR)

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I've been using the DivX Connected box for over a year now as I got it while it was in beta test. We use it a lot and it works very, very well at what it was designed to do: play on your TV/stereo the media that are located on your PC. We have gobs of movies and children's shows and music on our PC upstairs. In the basement is our main TV. Having a PC in the basement would not be good, as they tend to be loud and hot. This unit interacts with the DivX Connected software running on the media PC upstairs and converts, on the fly, all our media to a format that looks quite good on our TV. Of course, the files that are small (e.g., QVGA video files) will not look terribly good blown up to 1080p, but reasonable files (most of our stuff is ripped to VGA or 720x480) looks excellent. My only quibble is that our unit sometimes will hang upon startup forcing me to yank and reinsert the power cable. I chalk that up to it being a beta unit and I assume these D-Link units do not have that issue. For the price, this unit offers a LOT of functionality and works very well. We've tried over half a dozen different video/media streamers and this is the only one we've kept.

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Overall I love it. I can play all my downloaded media content, home videos, and browse family photos on my tv. It would be nice if it handled a gigabit network connection, because browsing media can stutter sometimes. That being said, I was forced to setup a wired connection because the wireless was a little to slow. Also I thought it would give a little more help organizing content, but it is left up to the user and how your organize you files on your computer. All in all device does what it says, making it easy to setup and get to all your media.

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I've been using DivX Connected for over a year now and can tell you that the product is even better then when it launched. One of the problems with more traditional DivX devices is that because they don't connect to the net, once they ship them, the technology has a tendency to become obsolete. With Connected, not only has DivX done a good job of keeping the software up to date, but the community has developed a number of plugins for the device. While Connected will appeal primarily to early adopters, it feels good to own a device that continues to remain on the cutting edge, even though it was released a while ago. By using the plugins, you can get access to popular services like Flickr, Hulu, Dailymotion and internet radio.

I have been using this device for a year.

The biggest advantage of this device is that it is wife compatible, very very easy to use.

The box does not have an internal HD and depends on a running PC,laptop. It has the ability

to connect any PC that runs the Divx Software around and stream multimedia.

The downside is it does not support some important things, at least for me , and that is why I am giving 3 stars:

1) No DTS Audio support.

2) No subtitle support for .mkv files.

If you are looking for a decent and stable device that is easy to install and use for streaming your home cooked

videos, this box will work for you.

But if your collection has 1080p movies with DTS and such, it still works but the audio will be downgraded

to stereo. The device forces the PC do the job for any content the hardware does not handle, which in turn means it plays almost anything you throw at it ( needs some configuration) but as I underlined , you never have this device encode DTS for you.

Update 11.16.2009

If your 1080p movie has AC3 sound, you can still get 5.1 out of the box.