Canblog

Not exactly as catchy as "What's on your Ipod?" is it?

I unpacked a new  D-Link DSM-520 last Friday and looked forward to nerding out for the weekend.

The category acronym for this particular piece of nerdness has yet to be settled upon it seems.  "Wireless Media Player" (WMP?), "Digital Media Adapter" (DMA)?, "Media Server"... I've seen all of these terms used in the research I did in order to make the purchase.

Essentially, the unit is a slim piece of hardware that talks to a computer in your house which stores media files and plays them through your entertainment system, no matter how small or big and fancy it is.  To me, even though these products aren't very mature, and still have problems, this is an example of thinking less, not more, and solving most, not all of ones problem.

My problem:  Small house, old TV, older stereo (no digital surround, not enough room for speakers), lots of digital media (digital music, downloaded videos).  So, note to Microsoft:  I don't want a big, noisy computer in my living room.  I don't need to access the web from my TV.  I don't want a keyboard and mouse on my coffee table.  Solution:  A noiseless piece of electronic equipment that talks to a spare computer in my basement (hard wired in my case, but wirelessly otherwise) and plays video through my TV (Helloooooooooo Bit Torrent!) and our ripped CD's through my stereo (DRM protected music from online stores is still a bit of an issue at this point). 

The DSM-520 solves this problem for the most part.  There's still some frustrations, which is why most people will always buy quality, legal media, instead of dealing with the half second delay between Tony's lips and voice during a viewing of the Sopranos.  But for the most part, I'm in heaven.

I've got a backlog of dozens of hours of TV to watch on my own time.  We can access our entire CD collection (whenever we get around to ripping all of them) from our living room.  And, we can enter the world of Internet Radio from our living room.  Live365 has thousands of Radio stations, and it looks like it is integrated right into the firmware.  Why someone would pay for satellite radio in their house when they have this option is beyond me.

Also, you don't need to use the server software which comes with the unit.  Any server software which uses the UPNP standard can be used and there are several cheap and free options to use which in many ways are superior to the bundled software.  I downloaded TVersity, a free media server which performs many functions the bundled software can't handle, and for the most part, is wicked.  I can add other internet media streams (such as Local and other radio stations, so long as I know the stream URL) and even podcasts (Audio, video and photo feeds from sites like Flickr).  You can get a good sense of the developer's (developers'???... no idea if it's a team or just one guy, but the support forum is amazing.  The administrator usually answers questions w/in hours) ideas by reading his blog.  In particular, this post.