Linksys by Cisco DMA2200 Dual-Band Wireless-N Vista Media Extender with CD/DVD player

I've only had the unit for three days now and generally I'm very impressed. It does have a few limitations, but these don't stop it from being a great gadget!

Setup was pretty easy, once I discovered that it takes about a minute to boot up - I was too impatient! I tried RGB component and HDMI into my TV and both gave excellent results at 720p.

Wireless configuration was straighforward and connected to my D-Link draft-n router with no problem. For some reason won't connect to the Linksys site to check for software updates, but I'll investigate this more later.

Connection to my Vista Home Premium machine worked very smoothly. I needed to install a Microsoft patch (with reboot), but the DMA2200 setup wizard told me exactly what to do and it worked first time.

User experience of the Media Center is very similar to the PC itself, although a bit sluggish in repainting the screen - I assume the PC is rendering the screen and sending only a few updates a second.

Playing video is great - you get a full screen display at full 50Hz (UK) frame rate (unlike my PC itself which stutters due to insistance of a 60Hz refresh to my TV). Works great for live TV from the PC's tuner card and also for recorded TV. Haven't tried any "true HD" video yet.

Music quality is also great - sound quality seems very good through my Hi-Fi.

Managed to play BBC iPlayer and 4oD downloads through the extender successfully, once I managed to get Vista's security to allow it to see the files. Unfortunately, without a keyboard & browser, you can't initiate downloads from the extender itself - shame! Also, the downloaded filenames are not obvious - BBC and Channel-4, get your delivery manager sorted, please!

Haven't tried the upscaling DVD player properly yet.

Remote control is a programmable version of the standard Media Center remote. This means that if you use it in the same room as the PC, both the extender and PC start doing similar things - very confusing until I realised what was happening. Once I moved the extender to a different room, this wasn't a problem. Couldn't get the remote to control my TV though.

Highlights:
* Great video playback and sound quality,
* Easy setup

Niggles:
* User interface is a little sluggish
* Couldn't get the remote to control my TV (need to try again!)
* Power-up time from standby is about a minute (even for DVD playback)
* Unit is narrow but very deep. Would have preferred it the other way around.
* The unit's display is all but useless - does not show anything when in Media Center mode!
* No HDMI cable supplied.

Don't be put off by my niggles - they're all very small compared with how well it otherwise works. Still thoroughly recommended.

The linksys DMA2200 looks great and impressive.

However if you want an out of the box solution for your media centres extending needs - DO NOT purchase this.

I wanted this unit to be able to output all my movies (ripped onto HDD to VOB files), all my DIVX videos, Pictures, Music (using Itunes) and SKYTV to my TV upstairs.

Unfortunately, the DVD library was not available - a fix is needed to be downloaded from the net, then I discover that the unit cannot read VOB files. I then had to go thou each movie an create hard links/XML files to fool the extender into thinking it was a MPEG2 file - unfortunately you lose all the DVD menu functionality and the movie plays as a flat file) Sound also seems to drop out and you need to restart the movie.

ITunes (I use MCETUNES) Works - but rarely - causing the Extender to lock up after one song). I have a wireless N router, located no more than 5m away from the box, separated by a thin partition, unfortunately the signal keeps dropping and connecting again, causing stutter.

At least you have the HD Up scaling DVD Player that works.. Think again, every time the network drops, and reconnects, the DVD pauses, stutters and sometimes automatically goes into high speed for 5 secs. This happened twice every 20min or so (this could be down to my wireless network - so plugging directly into a switch/router may solve this problem)

Other grips include the digital audio, there's no sound normalisation with the unit. Stereo sound such as SKYTV it outputted VERY loud and AC3 sound stream (DVDs) are so quiet I need to higher the stereo to MAX.

In summary, it's a good little gadget to have - impress the family with the look of it. Every kind of output for sound and vision are available. The Standard Core Media centre components all work, as long as you stick to MP3, AVI, JPG formats and Plug the unit into a physical network. But if you're like me with a broad range of movie formats on the HDD as DIVX, VOB, MP4, WMA etc - if you're not willing to literally 'fudge' it and spend a large amount of time tinkering/searching the net for fixes - forget it.

Some of the down-sides have been mentioned already, but I will summarise all points including mine for a better review.

1) The odd shape (or form factor) of the unit shows that LinkSys is at an early stage of learning the art of consumer electronics design. The foot-print of the unit would actually look better if rotated 90 degrees (but you don't want to do this as the front relocates itself to the side). As a result the unit is very unlikely to fit most DVD/video cabinets due to its disproportionately long depth.

2) The intense brightness of the LED (standby/on indicator light) is an annoyance (another point of disregard by LinkSys on how consumer products should behave in the home environment).

3) The remote is very basic with cheap plastic which at times I found to be non-responsive (and frustrating indeed). TV On/Off and volume controls are provided as programmable through learning, but is that all we need to interact with a TV without reaching for TV's own remote? At least one additional programmable button must be provided to make this more useful (two or more programmable buttons are even better). With the media center extender (MCE) remote, you should also be able to switch the TV to the relevant AV input (say to HDMI input, as not all AV inputs are automatically selected) in addition to the TV On/Off, and volume controls (including the Mute function). I also noticed that on a number of occasions the programmed remote control functions (through learning) were lost for no apparent reason. In short, you cannot avoid buying a more decent programmable remote (something like the Logitech Harmony series or equivalent).

4) The delay time when the unit is switched on or off is very annoying! I can live with the booting up delay from cold, but why wait for ages to switch off (that is, from intense green light to intense red light!). If you want to be sure the unit is switched off, you have to wait for about a minute for the green LED light to turn red.

5) From 4) above follows even more annoyance with the hi-tech DVD player (up-scaling being the hi-tech stuff here). If you want to retrieve your DVD disk in haste from the disk tray (by switching on the unit), you have to wait for about a minute for it to be ejected. The cheap and cheerful DVD players that you can pick up for under £20 from food stores have a near instantaneous electromechanical response time. I see no reason why the MCE needs to complete the reboot before ejecting a DVD disk sitting idle. PCs eject the DVD tray at any point and instantly while rebooting if the eject button is pressed. Not the LinkSys MCE!

6) An update with more niggle: If power is interrupted and restored in a stand-by mode, then the unit will resort to active/powered mode rather than standby mode. Therefore, if you go on holiday, don't forget to switch off the unit (else mains interruption will set the unit to switch on!).

I also had a problem with the wireless setup (didn't seem to recognise the security passphrase) and being tired of everything wireless I opted for the wired connection which fortunately fitted with an ongoing DIY for putting the RJ45 cabling in place. No problems at all with the wired network but suspect others may have an issue with the wireless setup particularly if security is enabled (which is highly recommended anyway).

OK, a lot of points on the down side. On the positive side? I think the MCE provides a multimedia experience close its multimedia PC server and I am impressed by the quality of its main function (i.e., extending media centre to the living room). It is a shame that the rather aesthetics issues listed above (important to the consumer electronics market) are somewhat overlooked in the design of this otherwise well performing equipment (hence the four star rating!). It is possible that some of the criticisms can be addressed through firmware update (such as the slow response of disk eject) and I look forward to LinkSys's positive response in this regard. The excellent performance of the MCE has persuaded me to live with the annoyances (namely, the unit protruding off the back of the storage cabinet, having to use another remote, etc). Good show Linksys [in the IT and engineering department] BUT give due consideration to the art of consumer electronics [aesthetics, ergonomics, and the like].

Finally, a feature request to make this MCE even better: please please incorporate LAN-Wake-Up of the PC through the remote control so that the media center PC can be turned ON remotely (meaning that you don't have to walk to the PC to switch it on). The LAN wake up technology has been around for a long time with Ethernet network cards so this is a doddle for LinkSys to throw in. Yes, you can do it through infra-red remote extension, but wouldn't it be nice if all is done through the MCE? This also has an 'energy saving' slant (i.e, switching on PC only when needed) which nowadays seems to be one of the talking [and marketing] points.