Liberate Your Movies and Photos
Photograph: Marc SimonIf music alone isn't enough for you, some players can stream video and show pictures as well. These VCR-size boxes let you send almost any video or still images that are stored on your PC to your TV set without needing to run cables in between. The devices we examined include built-in, progressive-scan DVD players as well, so they can replace a regular DVD player in your home theater setup.
The $275 Buffalo LinkTheater PC-P3LWG/DVD and the $300 D-Link DSM-320RD MediaLounge Wireless Media Player are less-costly alternatives to a full-fledged Windows Media Center PC with a wireless extender, but the interfaces on these ambitious products are relatively limited and kludgy. The LinkTheater's high-definition output (both 720p and 1080i), remote control, and better interface give it the edge.
Both units have the usual AV outputs, including composite, S-Video, and component video, plus optical audio. Video and audio playback on each was relatively smooth on our 802.11g network. The two support Windows Media Connect and the UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) AV standard, which lets you stream media files from network-attached storage drives (see "Add More Hard Drive Space to Your Network").
D-Link DSM-320RD
A step up from the audio-only DSM-120, the DSM-320RD has excellent audio quality and supports a broad range of music formats, including Live365 and Radio@AOL. It also has a 5-in-1 card reader. But the photo and video playback quality was mixed, mainly due to the inherent limitations of a TV screen versus a PC monitor. Unless you have an HDTV set and an HD-capable streamer like the Buffalo unit, your digital photos will be reduced in resolution to about 720 by 480, and their edges might be cropped. That said, navigating to our photo folder and selecting pictures for display via the player was simple, and a slide show-creation feature lets you choose accompanying background music.
Video files don't share the transfer troubles of still images. Most standard-format videos that you might store on your PC are already in the right aspect ratio and resolution for your TV, and the D-Link's playback quality was similar to that on our system monitor. Its major drawback for video is its lack of high-definition output. (D-Link offers a less expensive version, the $250 DSM-520, that has HD support and an HDMI connector but lacks the built-in DVD player and card reader.) Also, as with the DSM-120, we weren't happy with the remote control, which has small and overly sensitive buttons.
Buffalo LinkTheater
We preferred the LinkTheater for several reasons. Audio quality was excellent, and we liked the product's ability to display album artwork embedded in MP3 files. On the video side, the player supports the popular DivX format. Finally, if you have an HDTV, the unit's high-def mode delivers higher-quality photo and video playback than the DSM-320RD, a big plus.
However, we were disappointed by the LinkTheater's lack of HDMI or DVI connectors, given that it supports HDTV. The model could benefit from WPA support as well, which the DSM-320RD has.
Slingbox and TiVoToGo
The Buffalo and D-Link products let you display PC media on your TV; if you want to watch TV on your PC in another room, check out Sling Media's Slingbox or TiVo's TiVoToGo. With the free TiVo Desktop software, the TiVoToGo feature lets Series 2 TiVo owners use a $50 USB 802.11g adapter to pull shows from the TiVo to any PC on their network. You can also burn programs to DVD, or save them to your laptop to watch on the road.
The $250 Slingbox goes even further, letting you send video from almost any source--including cable, satellite, DVD, VCR, and TiVo or another digital video recorder--directly to your computer. What's more, your PC can be in the next room, or anywhere it can access the Internet--say, in a Bangkok hotel room. You have to add a standard 802.11g Wi-Fi ethernet bridge to make the Slingbox wireless (see "Untether Games, Printers" on the "Wi-Fi Tips" page), and image quality is less than what you'll get on a TV. But you can view both live and recorded video from afar in real time.
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