Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Level Of Difficulty at Work: .5 out of 10
NapTime During Lunch: None
Today i recieved the D-Link DSM-320RD Media Bridge. All i wanted to do is to play videos that either 1)i've downloaded or 2)from the digicam and show it on the Tele. The mp3 playback and slideshow thing is a plus as well. It's a neat little package, it has a 5-in-1 Card reader, USB reader, built in DVD player. The main thing was that it was one of two that i know of that supports 802.11G with WPA-PSK-TKIP. I go on Amazon and some other sites to see how people rated it. Most were decent, 7 out of 10's. Alot better then half a year ago when these bridges only used WEP-128 bit and the software really sucked. And since it was on sale for 130$ i went for it, half a year ago i was thinking about going for it when they costed ~220$
Installation wasn't as hard as some reviewers had it. I read one where the device fried the router. When i had the software installed i thought the same had happened, so i went and resetted my WRT54G v5 and nothing happened. I realized it was only the Wireless card that got jumbled up, so reinstall the drivers and it worked beautifully. The device even updated itself! Hardest Part of the unit connecting to the network was my 24 character upper-lower-upper case password.
So How is It?The remote is kinda cheap feeling and you hafta point directly at the unit to work. It was pretty easy to set up the server software onto my laptop to host the vids / pics / songs. Mp3's were easy to play but theres a way to put songs in a playlist. There were no streaming problems or cuts in the playback. But the video is where it sucked. It claims to be able to play XviD with mp3 playback. My naruto cartoons are in that exact format but when i push play, at first it would load up and then on the screen show 'end of movie' (??). Then it updated itself and i got this screen:
Why are Error Screens in Blue nowadays? (BSOD?)
And of Course my Canon videos are in MJpeg and that DEFINATELY cannot be played. So that was a fun 2-hours, it's going to be sent back. i'm not in the mood to convert my videos to be able to be played. Might as well convert them and burn onto DVD. If i could only install the CCCP Codec Pack onto the machine, that'll rule. But then isn't that what about Viiv and Media Center PC's are about?
Verdict: Still in its Infancy. Will i buy another? i'm having doubt about buying another one of these. If i could find a easy TV-out method. I think i might have a solution! It might involve, my x31 and a ATI USB2.0 TV Wonder..
In other news, It seems that Floyd Landis has some hacker buddies infiltrate the lab that does all those doping tests!
NapTime During Lunch: None
Today i recieved the D-Link DSM-320RD Media Bridge. All i wanted to do is to play videos that either 1)i've downloaded or 2)from the digicam and show it on the Tele. The mp3 playback and slideshow thing is a plus as well. It's a neat little package, it has a 5-in-1 Card reader, USB reader, built in DVD player. The main thing was that it was one of two that i know of that supports 802.11G with WPA-PSK-TKIP. I go on Amazon and some other sites to see how people rated it. Most were decent, 7 out of 10's. Alot better then half a year ago when these bridges only used WEP-128 bit and the software really sucked. And since it was on sale for 130$ i went for it, half a year ago i was thinking about going for it when they costed ~220$
Installation wasn't as hard as some reviewers had it. I read one where the device fried the router. When i had the software installed i thought the same had happened, so i went and resetted my WRT54G v5 and nothing happened. I realized it was only the Wireless card that got jumbled up, so reinstall the drivers and it worked beautifully. The device even updated itself! Hardest Part of the unit connecting to the network was my 24 character upper-lower-upper case password.
So How is It?The remote is kinda cheap feeling and you hafta point directly at the unit to work. It was pretty easy to set up the server software onto my laptop to host the vids / pics / songs. Mp3's were easy to play but theres a way to put songs in a playlist. There were no streaming problems or cuts in the playback. But the video is where it sucked. It claims to be able to play XviD with mp3 playback. My naruto cartoons are in that exact format but when i push play, at first it would load up and then on the screen show 'end of movie' (??). Then it updated itself and i got this screen:
Why are Error Screens in Blue nowadays? (BSOD?)
And of Course my Canon videos are in MJpeg and that DEFINATELY cannot be played. So that was a fun 2-hours, it's going to be sent back. i'm not in the mood to convert my videos to be able to be played. Might as well convert them and burn onto DVD. If i could only install the CCCP Codec Pack onto the machine, that'll rule. But then isn't that what about Viiv and Media Center PC's are about?
Verdict: Still in its Infancy. Will i buy another? i'm having doubt about buying another one of these. If i could find a easy TV-out method. I think i might have a solution! It might involve, my x31 and a ATI USB2.0 TV Wonder..
In other news, It seems that Floyd Landis has some hacker buddies infiltrate the lab that does all those doping tests!
Labels: Geek Stuff
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