Customer Reviews

Buffalo LinkTheater Hi Def Media Player PC-P3LWG/DVD

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The LinkTheater certainly isn't perfect, but the other reviews I see here seem way harsh. This is the best media player you can buy.

Actual problems: (1) The remote is quirky. Sometimes the fast-forward button seems to lock up, going past where you wanted. Going back, it then does the same thing. (2) Some menus are clumsy, and navigating them takes more pushes of buttons on the remote than it should. (3) No digital video output; component video is the best output available.

On the other hand, the LinkTheater plays all of my media files: mp3's, divX, high-def, windows DRM, you name it, it plays them all. Any kind of disk, or directly from any computer in my network. It plays them easily, and they look great on my big-screen and sound great over my stereo.

I certainly hope that Buffalo continues to improve this product, but just as it is, this is head and shoulders above any other media player you can buy (I've also used Belkin's and two different Linksys products). It's even gorgeous, looking great in my media stack. Nothing else works anywhere near as well.

I have my Buffalo LinkTheatre about 18 months and I've diliegently been checking for upgrades to the firmware or software because - IT REALLY NEEDS IT - but they don't come.

I took the time one morning to write a long email to support and to sales at Buffalo explaining that rather than simply write a review I'd share my thoughts of good and bad, that's fair - right? Well I got nothing, no reply at all.

Buyer beware! When you know of a company that ignores its customers you're empowered to avoid them like the plague.

So I won't go on and on about the box, it feels like a beta because it is a beta, the browser based interface will actually stop you wanting to use technology, (and I work for a NY based Software company!) How such a capable box ended up with such a terrible user interface I do not know, but it is worse than any badly written website - pretty pathetic Buffalo.

In summary: if you want a box like this as I did just wait a little bit longer, everything out there is 1st generation. They didn't remember people will want to use them. I hope Buffalo catches on Quickly. It's a real shame, it showed so much promise...

Pros:
+ easy to setup. Handled WEP encryption in my network without any problems.
+ Plays a wide range of video formats (Divx, Wmv, VCDs, decrypted DVDs.. to name a few).
+ USB port to directly plugin external hard disks.
+ functions as advertised.
+ Excellent video/photo player. (Mp3/Internet browsing could be improved)

Cons:
- documentation/manual could be improved. For example, it was not mentioned in the manual that the wireless settings need to be entered manually (There is a menu item in linktheater menu to auto-detect wireless networks and it doesn't work).
- No support for external hard disks with NTFS file systems. External hard drives with FAT32 file systems worked fine without any glitches
- No interactive menu support for playing backed-up dvds. You have to play the individual VOB files.
- playlist support for MP3 could be improved.
- Web browser needs improvement. The browser doesn't play embedded videos in web pages (you have to download them to your PC/Ext HD before you can view them). The included remote is not well suited for browsing web pages.


* Overall, an excellent media player for its price range (< $250 at frys).

In all fairness, this is one of the best media players on the market in regard to compatability; however, the firmware, navigation, and remote functionality are far from user friendly or efficient. Navigating to media files on the network is painful...it takes far too many clicks of the remote to navigate through a poorly designed menu interface. It can take 20 minutes just to locate a media file.

If you plan on using the unit as a standalone player, it will play about any disc you throw at it. If you want something that will stream divx, xvid, WMA etc over your network, hold out for the next product as this one will surely frustrate you to the point you can't use it. I had to return mine as it simply didn't perform adequately and modified my PC to perform the same function.

If you check out these types of devices, namely the networked media streamers, it seems that everyone pretty much loves the idea but a common thread throughout is that the implementation isn't there yet.

That's not the case with this unit.

This one gets it right. I am currently streaming music, photos and video as well as surfing the web on my PC-P3LWG/DVD. Setup was a snap (although I'm not running a wireless network) and software installation was a breeze.

There are some caveats though. WMVHD files will play but there's no audio. The unit will detect my Rhapsody service and show me what's there but won't play it.

Buffalo has some firmware updates in the works which will address a number of issues. The fact that it has a built in DVD player is icing on the cake.

The machine is doing OK if you want to be an user that only needs to hit a PLAY button but nothing else. It supports many different type of file formats. The cool thing is it can play those files that stored on the DVD directly (not an authoring DVD).

But I got many problems with this player to cancel those benefits out.

1. USC2/Unicode filename is not supported
2. The external USB port only supports FAT file system, which the partition has to be smaller than 30G
3. And it only supports 2 partitions. I have a 100G hard drive. I have to partition it into 3 FAT file systems because the player does not support NTFS. Well, sorry, no access to the last one.
4. There is no way to do time search. I am unable to jump to somewhat like 12'30". The only way to go there is by using a fast forward. It supports a fast jump by percentage, but it is same useless.
5. Firmware is very buggy.
a.The whole machine easily gets crashed or garble audio if you do fast forward/backward on WMV/MP4 files
b. It occurs very often that once you do fast forward/backward, you are unable to do it again. The play gives no response with the remote. You have to pause the playing then you can do your next fast forward/backward request then the machine becomes no reponse again.
c. Sometimes, if I hit fast backward, it was still doing fast forward.
d. It is even buggy on playing the regular DVD movies. It occurred occasionally that skip chapters can cause the audio garble. The subtitle key is forbidden forever whatever the feature is really forbidden or not set by the movie. I can only rely on the authoring DVD setup menu to turn it on.
e. 50% chance the machine gets crashed if I want to use a jump-by-percentage on a file from the remote median stream server.

I doubt they know nothing about those bugs. I reported those bugs back to Buffalo twice. They never responded me. The firmware can be updated over the WLAN, sort of. But they never released the new firmware to fix those bugs. From Feb to June, the firmware only got updated once, but it did nothing for those bugs. (That was for the DRM feature.)

Bought it last night. Tested in DVD-movie mode, DVD-files mode, USB mode and Network (wireless mode, for DVD files on hard drive along with other media files). Hook-up: video to HD TV via component, set to 1080i mode, audio - with coax digital cable to a digital receiver. Network -- via wireless to Netgear Router. Using Buffalo server software downloaded from their site (vs Microsoft Media Server) on 1 PC (DualCore2 P, 2 GB RAM). Ok, all set, let's try this puppy.

1. Photos/pictures -- perfect. I especially liked the concept of setting music for each album (directory, actually). So, set up family pics and associated that with Rammstein. Don't ask me why. But it worked nicely.

2. Movies: msFormat, VOB files from ripped DVDs, divX (3 - 6), vidX, mpeg, dat. -- all go. If your content has multiple subtitles or audio tracks, just press the "audio" button or "subtitle" button, don't look for a menu in divX movie. And yes, it supports divX 5 - 6 multi audio tracks. Perfect. Mean it. DVD files -- no difference with original DVD, well it is one, for the better: when you play DVDs, it switches to 480 resolution (do to some legal issue about up-conversion, mentioned in manual). Good news: if you play same VOB files from your Hard Drive, then up-conversion works perfect. HD DivX -- fantastic. All from wireless, no problems found.

3. Music: CD -- check, Mp3s (all rates) -- check, linking particular album with slideShow from same drive -- check, DTS CD -- wow, check. Lossless -- check.

4. Internet Radio -- not checked, don't need it.

Friends of mine have D-Lincs and NetGear HD players. They all are jealous now.

The only draw back (that they didn't see) is that it took me 1.5 hours to set it up "right".

Cheers,

I purchased a Terrastaion and a LinkTheater. As stated by others they work well together. The bottom line is that for what I need (Playing DivX files off the server) it does a good job assuming you have a good wireless connection.

It is defineley a first generation product so you need to manage your expectations. The key improvements I would like to see are:-

1. Remote has limited functionality. If you like to jump chapters, change languages and use sub titles you will be disappointed.
2. Surfing the Internet is a pain with the remote. Buffalo need to offer a keyboard and improve the rendering of the web pages.
3. The menu system is very clucky but does the job.

All said and done I don't think there is anything else out there right now that can deliver this type of funcitonality at this price point. If you simply wnat to play AVI/DivX movies off your PC it is a great product. If you want store and play full version DVDs and need all the functionality that you get when playing a disk this is not the product for you.

I've been sick of DVDs for a long time now, and been looking around for a solution to play them from a hard drive. I bought this head unit with the Buffalo TeraStation (100 clams less at newegg.com than amazon). The Terastation has its own issues but is overall adequate, while this thing is a waste of money and time. As yes, I've updated the firmware. Problems are:

1. Can't get the aspect ratio correct while playing disks over the network. The first movie I tried was Batman Returns, just because I had it ripped. The actors' heads were oddly tall and thin, so I popped in the actual DVD. It played fine, adjusting the aspect ratio (that means it added little black bars above and below the movie instead of stretching the picture to fit the screen and distorting it). I can not find any control to change this behavior; the options are very simplistic.

2. Customer service may or may not exist. I called them about 1pm on Friday and waited 45 minutes on hold before giving up. I emailed them also and didn't get a response, not even an auto-response.

3. Chapters are a thing of the past. I ripped a lot of my movies into 1GB clumps, so while watching movies over the network those clumps are the only chapters I have. That means when I hit "Next" it skips about 30 minutes. Playing the actual DVD allows me to use chapters again.

4. I can't manipulate menus when I play movies over the network. That's right, I can't change subtitle settings, choose a chapter, or even hit "Play Movie". Apparently the player sees the movies as one big flat file to play end-to-end. Playing the actual DVD gives me the ability to manipulate the menu again.

5. Some weird glitches. About 8 minutes into "Liar Liar" Jim Carrey started walking twice as fast and speaking really quickly in a high-pitch. I tried watching several times and the same thing happened at the same point in the movie every time. At this time I actually BURNED THE EXACT IMAGE to a blank DVD and played it that way; the problem disappeared.

6. Can't rewind past chunks. Remember that I have about 4 chapters per movie now because I separate rips into 1GB clumps. If I want to rewind across those chunks the player freaks out and does random things. The only constant thus far is that is doesn't do what I want.

7. Terrible transition between movie files. When the movie I'm watching transitions from the first 1GB chunk to the second 1GB chunk there's about a second of black on the screen as the DVD player ... thinks. This happens every 30 minutes or so. I'm trying to watch a movie here people....

8. AVIs and GIFs are not recognized, at least not always.

9. The mp3 player is garbage. Unless you're using some player from about 1999, you're going to be shocked at how unusable this thing is for your mp3 collection. I guess if you know you're having a party you can copy over all the songs you want available and then hit "Random", but that's about the extent of the functionality.

10. Everything people already said about the remote and menu interface being clunky and slow is true.

I had high hopes of finally getting off of physical media and this seemed like the only game in town. The list of features is impressive, but don't be fooled, this box is not ready for consumers.

I bought this item, and I have to say it is amazing. Everything works fast and easy. Haven't had any problems with it. Played videos that I've downloaded from all over the world, and never had any codec issues. Playing MP3s brings up the album art if it's there.

I think the lag that many people are reporting is due to the nature of most wireless networks. It would probably be laggy if there were a couple walls or a microwave in the path of the signal. I hooked mine up to my wired network and there is NO lag.

I like it so much I'm considering getting another one for my bedroom.