D-Link Wireless Media Player w/ DVD & 5-in-1 Reader - DSM-320RD

Remember what you are getting for $75. Product was easy to set up if you are familiar with setting up wireless networks. The interface media server is all right - don't do the upgrade. User interface on tv is not bad. It works best if things such as music and pictures are organized on folders in your computer. Video quality is a function of the quality of what you are trying to play. Overall - pretty decent. Built in web site relationships are poor to adequate - a link to Pandora would make this much better. Don't expect much out of this feature. Big fan of using this with my flat screen over the fire place to display a slide show of pictures while entertaining. Most of the reviews are mixed - I don't know what their expectations are. Overall, for about $75, this is a fantastic deal. Yes, it could be better, but I most certainly will use it and am unlikely to replace it until there is a large technology jump. I have recommended this to friends to purchase.
 
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The unit is very easy to install and setup. Granted, I used a wired connection back to my router since I had one right there but it would be pretty easy wireless too. It seems to recognize most file formats and plays them well enough. The problem I have with the unit is that you can choose EITHER to have a FF/RW set of buttons OR a jump to feature. Not Both! This wouldn't be such a bad thing EXCEPT you have only one FF speed and it isn't very fast. You don't have a button that will jump 20 seconds or anything like that. (I mean in file play mode). I did not buy it for the DVD and haven't used the DVD. Others say they are problematic but I wanted it for the video client function. The FF issue is my biggest complaint. Maybe they will address it in firmware. Still, for the money, it is a great buy.
 
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I have had this unit for about 6 months now. I spent a few hours that was necessary to get it configured on my secure home wireless network. It was impressive to use it for accessing pictures and media, and I am very impressed with the concept. The problem is that it is sporadic in its performance. If I do not have the program running on my computer to enable it to connect to the wireless network, the media player often will get hung up when you turn it on while it trys to connect to the wireless network. The only option is to turn it off and reboot the unit and try to hit the "menu" button at just the right time while it is rebooting. It is hit or miss and is often a waste of time. The DVD player is okay, but not great. I have not had major problems with it, but it is not as reliable as my older DVD player. I finally got to the point that I reconnected my older DVD player to use with DVD's. Overall the unit has a clumsy interface that needs some work. If you do not have a secure wireless network it should be much easier to get it configured. Additionally if you are not trying to access large files on your computer, you should be fine as well. Otherwise the unit is fine if you have the patience to work with it.
 
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Easy setup is the only plus to this device. Using it for viewing pictures from various memory devices works "OK", but is cumbersome to navigate. The progressive scan DVD player works great for the 1st half of a movie and then degrades rapidly (even on a new disk) to where it will no longer read a disk. It appears to be thermal for my particular unit so if you are in to intermissions, take a 30 minute break and then it will read a disk again. I would not recommend this unit to anyone.
 
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the dvd player played a dvd for awhile, then stopped recognizing my dvds and isn't playing any of them now.
 
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As a DVD player this is decent. It takes about a minute to go through its initial boot sequence, so you have to be patient. And sometimes it wont see the disk until you eject it and insert it a second time. The other problem I had is the wireless networking, it wont recognize my wireless network even though its less than ten feet from the router. At least it also has wired capability. Over all I'm satisfied with it, I mean if your going to have a dvd player anyways, why not get one that can pull media off your pc too? Just don't expect it to walk on water.
 
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I bought this unit so I could access home videos I have stored on my hard drive. I use the ethernet connection (not wireless) and it worked flawlessly on the first try. My only complaint is when I connected a 2nd computer, it took a little bit of searching in the setup menu to find my original computer and it is not apparently easy to switch back and forth between the computers. Otherwise, well worth the money.
 
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I got this from buy.com on account of the rebate knocking it down to 75 odd bucks. I read a lot of negative reviews but still decided to get it. I am really happy that I did. I have installed Tversity Media server on my desktop pc and initial set up of the 320 RD took less than 5 minutes !!! Once it found my network and I entered the SSID, I was watching avi's and streaming mp3 files, flac files etc. I mainly got it to stream a lot of flac files that I have. It works pretty flawlessly with Tversity ( the D link media server does not support flacs ). The only problem(s) that I have faced are when playing vob files, it is sporadic and itermittent. Also have to figure out how to stream and play WMV files. Overall I would say that I am a really satisfied customer.
 
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I had this unit for 8 months now. Overall, it serves its purpose reasonably well but not with annoyances and minor issues. The remote is iffy may be the IR signal is too weak; must have direct line-of-sight to work. The DVD is OK for me. It works with retail DVDs as well as my home-made ones. Issue: depending on how you set it up, it may only forward a chapter or fast-forward (play with increase speed) but not both! And, the for-no-good-reason shutdown of the unit while playing DVD as well as streaming media is annoying! It needs a better Music selection interface. Setting up to work with my wireless network is simple enough. My is secured with WEP and MAC filtering. So, no big deal to configure the router to add this device. Issue: get the MAC address from this device took me 30 minute because the document did not show how to! I used to have issues with skipping and video freezes on my 802g network. But, since I upgrade the network to 802n, the issue seems to be less severe (still persisted, mind you). Especially, with action movies streamed from my HPMediaVault, my laptop, desktop. I guess, the wired network should not have this issue. My media server is mainly the HPmediaVault, the NAS + media streaming. So far, this unit perform well with it. Things I like about this unit is that it can play AVI, MPG, DIXV movies from the DVD. Just save all AVI, MPG, etc. clips to the rewrittable DVDs or regular DVDs (to save online space) and watch them on the 320RD. No such luck on regular DVD player. With a small kids at home, they watch a movie 10000 times before move on to a different one, this 320RD can save a lot of wear-and-tear on the DVD player and the media! If D-Link can improve this media player to offer functions similar to regular DVD player, it would have bright future.
 
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Like one guy above said, get it if you want cheap streaming, dvd player doesnt work well, menu / interface is painful, and it wont recognize dvd's well, I have to turn it on and off alot to get it to play the dvds I bought...
 
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After having purchased over 1000 DVDs I was looking for a replacement DVD player to my Kenwood home theatre and saw this to replace the old DVD player. I am having nothing but trouble with this item. First; it has issues in recognizing DVDs, even as I can take the same disk and play it fine in another player. It dosn't matter if it's a Dual/Single Layer disk recognition is a problem. The fix; after disk is in machine turn it off if it says "no disk", then back on; then choose DVD and it plays. Another fault it has is you can play disk after disk as I usually do on a Saturday but it will choose to shut itself off for no reason; I was thinking it was heat or dust related but not the case after careful inspection. It simply gets "tired" of playing. I turn it back on and it's good for the rest of the day. As a streaming media player it does a good job. It allows for many different formats and does allow you to choose them from the folder listing where you store your files. One feature that also works well is sharing with Media Player 11 library listing. So if you want it for streaming media it's OK but try to leave the DVD player alone.
 
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Every lan connected media device takes time to figure out and requires specific formats to work with. This player is no exception. You need to figure out how to burn movies with the correct format for this player to work right. That will take you some time to learn. I had no problems updating firmware, connecting to 3 different media servers (dlink, tversity, WMC 2.0). It does pause playback for a few seconds with DVD's and will not play DVD -r, only +r. If you work within the guidlines this is a good, entry level media player for $75 to learn about streaming media servers. My first unit would not play DVD's and a simple call to dlink got it replaced with a new unit right away. I have no complaints about Dlinks service.
 
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Dvd player had issues out of the box. Player skips after being on several minutes. Card reader is very limited. Warranty service is a complete scam. Here's why. When you email them, you get a case number. When you call you're told to go their rma web site. Problem there is no record of the case. You call back, if you get connected (very iffy) plan on being on hold 1 hour or more. After speaking to tech support they give you a new case number. When you go back to the rma site, it tells that they want the player, the remote, all cables, the antenna, even the original cd or you will be charged additionally. What other company does this? Enough said. If you're the fool (like me) buy it. Cheap for a reason, worthless at any price.
 
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