not AppleTV

while everyone else was enjoying their AppleTVs, i went the other way and got a media receiver instead. i did consider the AppleTV, but they were shooting themselves in the foot like Sony by limiting media formats. and since the bulk of my ehem, appropriated media content is mostly AVI/DiVX and MPG, i neither have the patience nor inclination to convert everything to what Steve Jobs deemed playable on his new toy. plus it may not work on my not-HDTV TV. we'll talk again in June, Steve, when iPhone comes out.

so for a few dollars less, i chose the D-Link DSM-520, a sleek wireless media receiver that has been out for about a year now.


recommended layout had it connecting to the TV directly, but since i had my Pelican Pro Selector device, i sent the receiver through that instead. initially i tried using an S-Video cable (against common sense), but that didn't work (boooo!). i didn't have a spare component video cable handy so i used my DVD cables temporarily.

and it works! i just needed to enter my secret 128-bit encrypted network password and we're rolling.


now for testing ... what's in my laptop? ah, a good choice: Pirates of the Carribean in AVI format.


wait ... that's not Pirates of the Caribbean!


of course, 'garbage in, garbage out' applies here ... if you have poorly-encoded media, your output will suck. which also means you go 'wow' when you're playing HDTV-source AVI files (props to revolutionary encoders!) it also doesn't like low level WMVs, or QuickTime MOVs, but that's no big deal. you can also have the option of having several media servers, so you can switch from one pc to another to play your stuff.

anyway, the darned thing works! its not HDTV but now i can watch all that accumulated movies and TV shows of the past 24 months on a bigger screen than my laptop or desktop. which i have been thinking about for a long time now. hooohaaaa!


what, i have to do laundry?!? sheeesh.