Customer Reviews
Media Router 
2008-04-21
I was personally not complety impressed with the router as a whole. It does seem to have some reception problems and will hick-up often. Also you cannot run your microwave without causing it to lock up. It severed its purpose over all well and is a great alternative to making the investment to acutalling installing a computer in the living room to connect directly to your system. It has overall been the best of its kind that I have experienced thus far.
Promising, full of wasted potential... 2008-01-14
So far this product has been great, when it worked. From what I've read, the problems I'm having staying connected to my media server have more to do with Vista and WMP11, than with this product. I will be trying TVersity instead and that may solve my problems of a disorganized library that is available sporadically, and open new possibilities with its transcoding capabilities. I would rate this product much higher if decent server software were shipped with it. I would give it 5 stars if there was a way to stream content of your choice direct to the box via RSS. TVersity promises to solve this as well. While researching TVersity, I discovered that my DirecTv HDvr may be compatible with TVersity as well. Apparently Viiv is a form of UPnP.
Before purchasing this product, keep in mind that you will have to have a computer running some sort of media server running, or there will be nothing to watch, nothing to listen to, except for live 365 radio [after a free membership is created on a pc]. You could also use an XBox running XBMC as the media server, but if you have need of just one client, then go with XBMC by itself. I bought this as a gift, and if it were for myself, I would just grab a used Xbox for less than half the cost of this, and run XBMC. If wireless is needed, then use a wireless ethernet bridge. The upside to the dlink is its size and fanless operation, however XBMC has access to a harddrive and more internet capabilities.
Sweet for video playback! 
2008-01-03
I was a little worried after some of these reviews but was really surprised how well it worked for what I wanted. I have avi files on my computer that I wanted to play on my TV and have the best picture and sound. This thing works great. I am using S-Video connection and a dolby digital sound connection. I am using it wirelessly now which works well enuff but am soon going to make it a wired connection for the best possible video. Wireless G just doesn't have enuff bandwidth for a super smooth playback. Oh don't get me wrong it looks well enuff but in some high speed video you can tell it just can't keep up. And I am only about 20 feet from my router. This thing was very easy to setup. I am using Tversity on my computer and after a few easy questions on the DSM I was up and running. I would say all the conenctions and setup took me well under a hour and I was off and watching videos. Now for picture or mp3 playback it works ok but if that is your primary motive you may want to look elsewhere. But if you want to watch you AVI movies from your computer this thing works great for the price!
I think people having jerky video playback the problem is either the wireless connection (not a good enuff signal - EXAMPLE If you are more than 20 ft from router) or if that isn't the case it could be your computer is under power and causing your sync issues. I run a AMD 3200 Barton. Not that new but not super slow either. It could be your media server software too. Try TVersity. Works great for me.
Unexciting 2007-11-28
I bought this a year ago-- set it up (relatively painless) then promptly forgot all about it. The other day I was looking for something and found this unit and couldn't remember what it was.
The fact is that this item has limited functionality. If you are not interested in signing up for a number of pay services it is pretty much limited to playing internet radio stations and showing pictures from the computer to the television. It doesn't even support plain old AVI. D-Link did suggest that I might like to download a trial version of Nero Encoder to reencode my AVI files. Actually there are open source and freeware products out there that will do the same thing.
This seems to be a marketing opportunity for online music services and software companies. It also does not support iTunes but it does supports Play for Sure from Microsoft. Unfortunately, the Play for Sure sites I looked out failed to excite me at all.
This was clearly not one of D-link's better ideas.
Extremely quick install...very pleased so far... 
2007-11-10
D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player, Audio/Photo/Video, 802.11g
I was nervous before buying this product because some of the reviews said it was difficult to set up. I TOTALLY DO NOT AGREE. This literally took me 15 minutes, at most, to get it installed and set up to start listening to some music and watching some pictures. I love that it is wireless and being able to listen to my PC music through the stereo is excellent. I did not give it 5 stars because I just received it yesterday and used it for maybe 2 hours. I am very pleased so far...
Don't waste your money 
2008-06-23
D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player, Audio/Photo/Video, 802.11g
This product appears to be running a linux-based OS, and will "crash" on any video file that is over 4 GB in size, and sometimes on smaller files. I was able to get a full refund after sending samples to their engineers who never fixed the problems. I replaced this unit with a LINKSYS WMCE54AG, which is a real Media Center Extender (and cost about $100 more) although it will randomly crash on occasion requiring a complete reboot by cycling power.
It should be noted that none of these units is supported on WINDOWS VISTA: in the inimitable Microsoft fashion, VISTA will only support the XBOX 360 as a media center extender. This is why I still run the XP version of Media Center edition and have refused to "upgrade" to VISTA.
DSM 320 Media Player 2008-06-13
I bought the DMS 320 to use with Tversity to stream content from the internet to my TV. The 320 actually works pretty good. I can send video and audio via wireless and the picture is regular definition 640x480. The problem is there are only a few streaming channels that work with Tversity and the Dlink media server software only plays content that you have on your hard drive. The bottom line is if you have lots of movies or music on your PC this isn't a bad option for getting them to your TV or stereo. If you want to display streaming content especially flash, you'd be better off using a RF modulator and the S Video output of your video card (If your PC has Svideo out).
Junk 2008-05-24
This was recommended to me by a friend and I have to say it's the worst thing he ever suggested. I just took this thing out into the street and destroyed it. I never could get it to play music without stopping and starting and almost every time I turned it on the "No Server Found" message came up and I had to reset all the settings.
Solid, fairly priced, entry level media player 2008-05-14
If you are expecting too much from the D-Link DSM-320, you will probably be disappointed. Having two of them now, it honestly rates around a 2.5 out of 5. It is frustrating because several popular formats won't play on it. It claims to play AVI files, but h.260, as well as a host of other popular versions of AVI and MP4 files will not play. The audio tends to get out of sync toward the end of a feature-length film, not to mention that the audio is too low anyway. Fast forward is quirky and rewind just flat out sucks, and the remote could be a little better. It is supposed to be wireless, but if your AP only runs in B mode, playback will be very choppy...but wired with a CAT-5 and using a short shot of wireless in G mode worked perfectly for me, even with both units playing at the same time. That said, I ditched the Windows software for Mediatomb running on Ubuntu linux, with Iriverter as my main encoder. It is possible to get a 90 minute film down to 800 MB +/- a hundred MB or so, and put 200 movies in two - three hundred gig. Even at that compression, video looks near-cable quality to cable quality, in my opinion. Animations and non-letterbox TV series look exceptionally good on my TV (not a large screen TV). Higher quality is certainly possible, but I was looking for the tightest compression that was still watchable. It is even possible to play back a VOB file (but if the VOB is in multiple parts, it will only play one part at a time). With all that said, it is hard to beat the price of the DSM-320 (just plan on getting some amplified speakers to go along with it to boost the audio). The trick with the DSM-320 is that you have to stick with an encoder that you know will work with it, like Nero Recode or the free and very easy to use, Iriverter. If you think you are going to just download and watch movies on your TV, you are in for a big disappointment, because 3 out 4 of them probably won't play. But if you stick with formats that you know will work on it, it will work well enough that you should feel you are getting your money's worth from it. I will say, for all of its suckage, I like it enough that I will probably get one more for another room in the future. You just have to 1) realize its faults when you order it. 2) Realize its price compared to other media players. 3) Realize that it is fairly priced for what it does...and if you aren't expecting too much from it, you will be very happy. Really, you can spend less than 100.00 dollars and in 30 - 45 minutes (or less), stream movies, MP3s, and jpgs to your TV. If you are a perfectionist or want HDTV, spend 200.00 to 300.00-plus on the higher-end stuff...just don't get a DSM-320 and then PMS over it, because that is what you will do if you are expecting too much from this entry level device. (And here is a hint: If the audio gets out of sync, hit rewind and then play, and it usually re-syncs, or at least it does for me).
Great Media Player with the right router! 2008-04-27
My wife fell in love with this thing instantly. It was purchased for our daughter, so that she would be able to watch her shows that we had recorded, there are more than a few. After the first week my wife wanted to throw the thing out the window! It would lock up on her constantly, or show jerky video, all things that had been mentioned by previous reviewers. However, I discovered that I was using an older wireless g router that was just barely able to keep up with the transmission/ reception demands required by this player to work well. I upgraded my router to a trendnet TEW-633GR (I was also waffling on the idea of a D-Link DIR-633). I chose such a powerful little router specifically to be able to handle multiple heavy load requests from either the player or from my other computers. Since the successful installation of my router I have had nothing but constant and consistant play on this machine.
Pros: no wires. no moving parts. connects to entire library. After firmware upgrade will play all movies directly from my NAS Buffalo Linkstation Live.
Cons: I can't stand the menus!
Other thoughts: If its not connecting the way you would like, then you may need to upgrade your router.
ENJOY!
