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* Is not capable of advanced wireless network settings such as any wireless channels over 11.; * Disconnects often (.even when connected through Ethernet).;* Requires a hard reset on avg once per month.; * Remote control set up is terrible. I would recommend this product to anyone that doesn't have anger management issues, because you will waste your money and time to write a crappy review about it. just with a few minor hiccups. I'm giving this a 3 star rating. I only watch HDTV on my PC so I am not aware how well that portion of it works, however the Linksys Media Center Extender is set up to broadcast in HD. Yes. (Also a pro).[.].-Paul
Volume, Mute and power button.; * Does not play flash file types so no browsing YouTube.Though several have rated this product very low, I gave it 3 stars because even though it is a pain in the a** to deal with sometimes, the convenience of just having one of these far outweighs the cons. If you want to use this wirelessly, either use it close to your router or get a Wireless-N type router (Preferably a Dual-N for best signal) or you could just use it wired.Overall the product does what it says it will do. If you need to get a DTV converter, screw that and grab one of these, you will be WAY more satisfied. Though I do have to power cycle the device often, it's usually only once per day. If you are lazy, I do not recommend this to you as it will disturb your couch potato ways.
reason being as follows:First, I am probably giving this a better rating than a lot of people who have had time to use this product.I originally purchased this item in January this year.Pros: * Easy to set up; * Wireless; * Plays back most common media types including DivX;* The cable company would not run a cable to my bedroom, so this allows me to stream cable wirelessly with my ATI TV Wonder.;* Much better alternative to buying a "DTV converter" that everyone was supposed to buy.;* Do almost everything on your tv as you can with your Windows Media Center on your PC (Vista) including internet TV, internet radio, browse your pics on your pc, listen to your music on your pc.Cons: *At times barely maintains solid or full connection even when placed in a very close radius to my wireless N router. My job has forced me to be patient with electronics, so I don't mind so much. Even having to re-set this gadget up once per month, it's really no big deal considering there are many more annoying things in life than taking 3 minutes of your time to re-set this thing back up.Would I recommend this product. It does work with my TV though and only allows a few buttons to work with the television: i.e. No sense crying over spilled milk.
Lossless files sent from my PC in my bedroom to the system in the lounge. A couple of gripes for me but not enough to lose a star; I can't get surround sound through the hdmi cable and as I use coaxial to my DAC, movies or shows can only be enjoyed in stereo. This is a great product for the money. I have the 2100 connected to an external DAC and the sound is sublime. And the bright light - but I've just read about using black electrical tape - I will do so tonight. I paid £150 for mine and you can get them for under £100 now. I primarily use mine for music.
It has been a steady, downward spiral for this thing.and I'm done. The Netflix VMC add-in worked for about two weeks, now of course I'm dead in the water. AVI files that used to work through the extender quit working after one of the times that I had to reconnect. I gave it the good ole college try but my dma 2100 now sits atop my tv and looks at me with its one glaring blue eye (the only thing that seems to work). If you see one of these things, shoot it quickly and put it out of your misery. The extender is wired to my network; it didn't take long to find out how unsatisfactory the wireless option was. This is the last thing I will ever buy from linksys. Every few days I would have to reconnect the extender to my network by typing in a new 8-digit key on my vista machine but now that's not even working.
Once I got it all setup & working, I've never had to reset it. Easy setup & works great.
The big problem is live OTA HD TV - ie sporting events. So, I first tried using my XBOX 360 as an extender - that worked fairly well and we don't plan many games to it seemed a good use for the XBOX but the thing is just too loud. I don't know if this is a Vista thing or an extender thing but everytime you turn off power to the extender, you have to re-populate the libraries. We had a dedicated PC attached to our primary TV and used it this way but I got a little tired of the updates, reboots, etc and started to feel guilty about the power consumption.
Enter the discounted Linksys Media Ext which at the time was going for just over a hundred bones. Bottom line, it works okay - 3 stars is about right. If you only wanted it for recorded TV or home movies, pictures, etc and you have all of that stored on the host PC, I'm sure it would get more stars. For me, I want the whole enchillada as they say and this is a sub-par solution. As a family, we are "hook line and sinker" in the Media Center camp for our TV watching. We don't watch a lot of TV and we get all of our HD over the air (we cancelled cable and sat) but we do use the TV quite a bit for media. A fair risk. The music libary, video library and picture library are okay but glitchy.
Recorded TV works well as does Amazon Unbox content and ripped movies once you get over the pain of conversion (read other reviews here on tech specifics of video formats - I will skip in this review as the topic is well documented here already). If you are watching a bball game or football in HD, there is quite a lot of jitter and "network issue" warnings that are only on the extender. but I'm still using it. The network connection is wired on a Gigabit switch and maybe 20 meters of Cat5E wiring so it really should not be a physical network issue. and in the end, a fair device. Never a problem on the host PC so it's not a tuner issue.
That said, all of our TV watching is through Media Center including DVR, live TV, archived DVDs, and Amazon Unbox downloads. It's a pain and I find it does not work consistantly well with content on both the host PC and a Windows Home Server (even with the new WHS fix for this which did nothing for me). So what - I can live with that. The XBOX itself has a loud fan or something and it's too distracting to me when watching TV and movies. The interface is a tad slower and less elegant in its transitions, etc.
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