D-Link DSM-520

I was looking for a media streaming device for a while before I had the opportunity to get the DSM-520 for a very good price. I wanted to get a device that I could hook up to my HDTV and stream to wirelessly. I had read mixed reviews about the 520 but I decided to take a chance with it.

Out of the box the device looks nice. It looks like a home theater component. I have it hooked up to my receiver with component video and optical audio. At first I tried to set up the device with WPA2 encryption but I could never get it to connect. I finally just made it WPA and it works fine. On the PC side, I started off using the media server software that came with the 520 but later switched to Tversity which is much better. Windows Media Player 11 also can act as a media server.

When you turn on the DSM-520 it takes about 15 seconds to detect the network. Then you are shown the home screen with choices for My Media (from the server software), Local Content (from the USB), or Internet Content (Preconfigured D-Link choices). I always choose My Media. Next it shows you a list of media servers it can currently see and you have to choose the one you want to use. You have to do this every time, even if you set the default server in the setup menu. I wish it would automatically connect the server set as the default. After choosing the server you are shown different choices depending on what media server you are using. One this that is very apparent is the sluggishness of the UI. It looks alright visually but is it pretty slow when responding to the commands from the remote. It is annoying but not a reason to return it.

I mostly use the DSM-520 to watch video podcasts on my HDTV. Even though the low res video is being played on a 42” plasma it looks surprisingly good, as good if not better then standard definition TV. I am using Tversity as the media server because it supports RSS feeds which is really nice. I have XviD feeds for Diggnation, The Totally Rad Show, and DL.TV entered and they stream flawlessly over WiFi. One of the problems with Tversity is that I always have to restart the server after first launching the program. Other then that it works great. Tversity also has the ability to transcode unsupported files into a version that the 520 supports. I can’t really take advantage of this because my computer isn’t powerful enough (Athlon 2800).

I also use the DSM-520 to listen to my CD collection that I have ripped to my PC. (I used WMP11 to do the ripping and it was really easy.) This is another situation where Tversity is better then the included media server. For some reason the D-Link media server lists the songs in alphabetical order instead of the play order. Tversity plays the songs as they are in the folder. Another annoying thing about the 520 is that the screen saver won’t start from the ‘now playing’ screen. You have to back up one screen and then it will turn on. Once you do that though you can’t get back to the ‘now playing’ screen.

I haven’t tried to play everything that the DSM-520 can play. It looks like there is a 8000kb/s limit on the videos from my limited experimentation. I read about this online and I don’t know if it is a function of the wireless or the processing of the video signal. I saw this problem when trying to play a WMV-HD file that was encoded at something like 17Mb/sec. The DSM-520 just choked. This is not really a problem though because XviD files encoded at 7000kb/s look awesome. I have also read about a 4Gb file size limit but I have not tested this. There have been only a few files that I have had problems. One is that WMV-HD file I just mentioned. I also had one video file that had no sound and I have not figured out why yet. It was a video review from gottabemobile.com. Everything I have gotten from BitTorrent in XviD had played fine.

Overall I am really happy with the DSM-520. It allows me to play my music and video podcasts through my home theater system. I don’t have the storage to make a DVD server but this could be used for that as well. Personally I would rip DVDs to XviD at 7000kb/sec and I think they will be fine. The UI is slow and not very pretty. Be sure to use Tversity instead of the included media server. This will give you the added functionality of reading RSS feeds.

I hope this review was helpful. One place that I have found to be helpful for these types of devices is avsforum.com. There is a thread about digital media servers in the “Digital Video and Audio Devices” section. If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me. Thanks.

Update

 

So I finally built a linux computer dedicated to downloading and serving media files.  It was not as easy as I hoped and it is still not exactly how I want it to be.  I am currently running Ubuntu 7.04 on an AMD Sempron 3000+ AM2 with 512MB RAM.  I tried several different linux distros but Ubuntu was the easiest.  For the server I am using uShare.  It works alright but I haven't figured out a way to automatically update the database.  So for now I have to go through the web interface and click refresh.  The other program i am using is PenguinTV.  PenguinTV automatically downloads from RSS feeds.  Taken together, uShare and PenguinTV almost do what Tversity does by itself on Windows.  I am really looking forward to Tversity being released for linux but I know it is going to take a while.  My current solution is working for video podcasts (Diggnation, Totally RAD Show, DL.TV) but I don't thnk it will handle my music very well (unlike Tversity).  I'm keeping my eyes open for better solutions on linux.

 

There have also been 2 firmware updates for the DSM-520 since I last wrote.  I was at 1.02 and then 1.03 came out.  The firmware was supposed to speed things up and add some new features.  The problem is it also broke some of my XviDs.  They would play but at about 50% framerate.  A week or 2 later firmware version 1.04 came out and fixed the XviD problems.  Something else that was changed in the firmware was the "fast forward" function.  It now seems there is only one speed whereas before if I hit the FF button multiple times it would cycle through 3 different speeds.  There is also a jump funtion that works by hitting a number on the keypad and the video jumps to that spot.  For example if I start a video and then hit "5" on the keypad, the video will jump ahead to 50% of the total video.  If I hit "2" it goes to 20%.  This feature is pretty nice for when I want to resume a video from the middle and it is much faster then fast forwarding to the correct point.