Customer Reviews

Cisco-Linksys Dual-Band Wireless A/G Media Center Extender WMCE54AG

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

 

 

I really like this product. I really like Media Center 2005. But more than anything else, I LOVE the IDEA of this product -- a networked device that helps unite the living room to the home office, giving you one place to put your pictures, videos, and music. This is a great generation one product. I can't wait to see what the next couple of generations bring.

That said, here are the things to be aware of when purchasing:

1) You need to know (or find someone to help you who knows) the basic fundamentals of home networking and Windows. This is not a completely plug and play installation.

2) You must have a very strong network connection between your Media Center 2005 device and your Media Center Extender. Ideally, you would have a wired connection (i.e., using old fashion cables). But I use the Wireless-G option and it works great now -- but I had to spend a good deal of time tuning the placement of my wireless router to ensure optimal connectivity between PC and Extender.

3) Be aware: TV content labeled as Copy Protected will not play on the Media Center Extender. For me, this means one very bad thing -- I can't watch 99% of the shows on HBO on the Extender. This is very disappointing for our family, because we enjoy HBO and actually use the Extender on our main TV in the house (with the Media Center 2005 PC in our home office). Pay TV channels are the only area we have had problems with this, though, so if you don't need to watch these channels on the TV where you are putting the extender, don't worry about it.

4) There are a few other things you can do on the Media Center PC that you can't do on the extender. Mainly for me--the extender can't play content on your Media Center PC DVD drive (I get around this by first burning the DVD to my hard-drive using a product called Pocket DVD -- a perfect solution to put my son's frequently watched kid movies in a place that's easily accessible).

Overall, if you already have Media Center 2005 -- buy this product--it's really cool to have a central hub for all this content with multiple TVs hanging off it.

If you don't already have Media Center 2005, and are considering it -- I recommend it. But be forewarned that it's still what I would call an "early adopter" solution. Be prepared for a few stumbles and bumps -- but it's sure to wow your techie buddies.

If you are buying this thing to stream video from your PC to another location, please read this!!!!!

First, the Media Center Extender does not support many common movie or video formats such as .Avi, DivX, Xvid or .Vob. The only supported formats are MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or WMV (standard definition only, not high def). In addition, it will not work if these videos have AC3 or Dolby Digital Audio, only 2 channel audio works. See details from the Microsoft Website below:

Video file formats supported:

* Windows Media Video 9 main profile
* WMA Standard audio
* Max resolution 720x480
* Max bit-rate 4Mbps
* WMV content may be Windows Media DRM-protected

* MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standard definition
* MPEG-1 layers I and II audio

So, if you have a big video library on your hard drive, you may not be able to watch them with your Media Center Extender without first transcoding them to a supported format.

Second, you cannot put a DVD in your PC and play it on your Media Center Extender. You would need to rip it to your hard drive (in one of the few supported formats above) before you can play it.

If you want to watch video in another room, I suggest you go out and buy a cheap (about $50-$70) DVD player that will support most of the common video formats.

Okay, now for what the Media Center Extender did well.

Photos- were easy to navigate and had several settings for displaying your pictures.

Music- streamed my play list with good quality sound.

The Live and Recorded TV options worked well but HDTV is not supported.

First, if your going to buy a Media Center Extender, you do need to have a Media Center PC running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 to extend! This obviously eludes some of us.

Please review Microsofts website MCE area for info on MCE PCs and detailed specs for the extender.

Observations:

1. 480i output via Composite, S-Video or Component jacks. No Enhanced TV 480p nor HDTV 1080i or 720p at this time. Not sure that a software only update could fix this.

2. Recommend Wired connection for both the MCE PC and Extender connected via a switch not a hub. You can do a/g wireless, but video over wireless is tough trick and will need to be tuned for good signal strengths.

3. Audio - Great playback via the extender. Provides ability to play recorded music in a number of formats.

3. Video - Over a wired connection it is great. You can watch TV via the TV tuner or recorded shows saved to the MCE PC hard drive. You can also play videos and view slideshows of pictures. Playback of pictures is limited at this time. Most likely you be reduced to using JPG and other lesser formats. Not support for RAW camera files or Adobe's Digital Negative Format (DNG) yet. Unfortunately there is limited choices for video as well. You'll really need to have your video files in MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or Windows Media Format.

3. While it doesn't make sence to extend the "Play DVD" function since the DVD drive is somewhere else, they could have included a local DVD drive in the unit and this precludes playing DVD content ripped to your hard drive.

All in All this is a great idea and executed pretty well. The whole concept of the MCE PC is still young and functionality is being defined and the Extenders are limited by that changing functionality. One concern is that the extender won't/can't be upgraded to work with MCE 2006 when it is released.

I have the Linksys Media Extender and overall I like it, but it has some problems which folks should be aware of. First I am running this with a Dell with Windows Media Edition 2005 (older versions aren't supported) and a Linksys dual A/G wireless router. The reason to use a dual band router is so that you can keep your general computer use on the G band and dedicate A to the extender. This works pretty well as long as you have the source computer fairly close since the range of A isn't as good as G. For my setup the A router is about 30 feet away with 2 walls and I am getting enough bandwidth to watch video OK.

Here are the pros:
- it is really great to have all your photos available on your TV and accessible via a remote control
- same for music. I now have a jukebox that can access my entire CD catalog since I have converted it to MP3 format and they are on my Dell
- also good to have access to home movies that I've converted to windows media format

Here are the cons:
- for TV viewing, I have Comcast analog cable hooked up to my dell and for some reason low channels (e.g. 2,4 5, etc) look visibly degraded. There is no problem with higher cable channels (e.g. 40, 50, etc). This really isn't a problem for me since I watch TV via a Tivo that I have next to my TV, but anyone that wants to watch TV via the extender should be aware of this.
- the extender has crashed/frozen several times forcing me to do a hard reboot of the box. This is somewhat time consuming because you have to reenter the WiFi network setting again.
- you can delete files and even directories from the remote control on your PC hard drive! I would expect this for recorded TV shows, but you can also do it for pictures, home movies, and even files in My Documents (if the directory is listed in the Exteder as having media files in it). There are probably some things you can do on the Dell to prevent this, but out of the box it is set up to do this. This can be a problem if someone who might accidentally delete content has access to the remote.

So overall I really like the extender and I think this is the future for how people will access digital content on their TVs. But as many new cutting edge products, there are some rough spots and patience is required to deal with them.

Some of the previous reviewers have valid comments/concerns/complaints, but others appear to have specific issues not shared by all, do not have all the facts, or haven't put enough effort into getting the Linksys Media Extender to do all it can.

I've had the extender for at least 6 months and I bought it used on eBay for $150...not cheap, but I wasn't going to pay retail to stream what multimedia is possible and not knowing whether I may upgrade to an Xbox 360 or what lies in store with Vista down the road.

I'll address some complaints from previous reviews by commenting with my personal experience:

NETWORK CONGESTION: I have the extender in my living room connected to my 52" HDTV, digital optical audio out to my stereo and connected to my wireless G network. One user reported the EXTENDER to be plauged by network congestion. Hello! Network congestion is not the fault of the extender, it is YOUR network. I've personally had very little network congestion issues and my MCE PC is upstairs, extender is downstairs.

IMAGES: Another reviewer stated that the extender locked up every time they attempted to view photos and made it sound as if you could not direct the extender to locate image files in particular folders. My extender has NEVER locked up when viewing images and you CAN specify folders for images, video, music, etc. just like you can directly in Media Center. I do not know what this particular reviewer was talking about, but they don't have their facts straight.

VIDEO: While it's true the extender does not natively support a large number of video types, this is not a fault of the Linksys extender as it is Microsoft's. Even the Xbox 360 has the same limitation, thus the reason transcoding software (such as Transcode360) was developed by users much more intelligent than I. I have a mid-sized movie/video library and using transcoding software that works with the Linksys extender I've been able to stream many of them to my living room TV with satisfactory results, both with image and audio quality. Just as with the necessity to download codec packs to your PC in order to play many video types, you need to spend a little effort to successfully stream more than the base video types supported by the extender. It's well worth your time.

PC CONNECTIVITY: One previous reviewer stated Linksys has not kept up with Windows updates, etc. This is very much the case, and since Linksys is no longer shipping their extender don't expect any updates down the road either. This is unfortunate, but it certainly hasn't prevented my extender from functioning and I just upgraded to a new PC with the most current XP and Media Center updates. You do have to check that the appropriate Firewall ports are open on your PC or the extender will not be able to connect to it. Also, note that installing some applications will reset the properties of these ports and the extender may not be able to connect until you renable them. For example, I installed Windows OneCare Live and it apparently reset the ports used by the extender...it could no longer connect to the PC even though it was on my wireless network. I re-enabled the appropriate ports and connection was re-established. The previous reviewer either had this or a similar issue, or a bad unit.

DVD VIEWING/INTERNET/ETC: True, you cannot put a DVD in your PC and stream it to the extender, but again, this is a limitation of Microsoft's own extender as well (though it has an internal DVD drive). It's a SOFTWARE issue. The extender doesn't allow you to natively browse the Internet - again, SOFTWARE!!! You cannot browse the Internet in Media Center, can you? This is a MEDIA CENTER EXTENDER people. However, you can find Media Center plug-ins on Microsoft's web site that will allow you to do much more than the base system, so look around and try some things out instead of just complaining or having unrealistic expectations. Now, I will say that it's pretty sad that Linksys couldn't even add a USB port to the extender so you'd have the option of hooking up a wired or wireless keyboard. Doesn't take a genius to think of that!

The common theme here is that many reviewers either are not spending enough time/effort or do not have sufficient knowledge to get the most out of the extender OR the issues are actually not the fault of the extender.

Overall, I've been quite happy with the extender's functions WHEN it works. I'll be perfectly honest in that I've had a number of issues with the extender appearing to completely reset itself...it loses all configuration settings and setup has to be done from scratch. I've spend an extra couple of hours reconfiguring the extender again after it had been working fine for weeks or months. VERY frustrating when that happens, but as I said...when it's working it's well worth the price you can find them for on sites like eBay.

Oh, and one last comment - a recent reviewer stated this is now "old" or "outdated" technology that's soon to be replaced by extenders to work with Windows Vista "right around the corner". Granted, Vista is set to roll out to the general public any day now, but it's unlikely to be something everyone will jump ship from XP to move to quickly...same for hardware and software. If you do not have a very beefy PC it's unlikely Vista will even run on your system, or if it does it will suck up huge amounts of RAM and not run as efficient as possible without 64-bit support from a dual-core processor. I bought a new system with an AMD x64 dual-core processor and 2GB RAM, but I won't be planning to move to Vista until it's well established (e.g. SP1). And what will the first extender units to work with Vista be? Xbox 360's. If you're hoping to wait for a new extender to come out from anyone other than Microsoft in the next 6-12 months, then best of luck. Otherwise, stay with XP Media Center for a while and watch these Linksys extenders fall to $99 (or less used), then pick one up - or splurge for the Xbox 360. Either way, I think they're worth the $. Of course, another option if you have the original Xbox is to search on eBay or elsewhere and find the Microsoft wireless extender add-on & turn your Xbox 1 into a media extender...that's a <$99 option, but you'll also want the DVD Remote/IR sensor to make use of the extender functions.

Certainly room for improvement and reliability on the Linksys...thus the 4 stars.

A great idea, but a disappointing execution. I feel that I have been mislead having purchased a Media Center 'Extender', advertised to bring the Media Center experience to my living room, only to discover that the majority of the Media Center experience of interest to me is not supported by the Extender.

I have a library of video files, mostly taken from my consumer video camera, edited and saved in various formats. All these files play fine on Media Center 2005. Great, now I want to play these in my living room. However, none of my video files except the large MPEG.avi files will play on the Extender. Similarly, I have a large .jpg library of pictures and love the 'animated' slide show feature of Media Center. Unfortunately the animated slide show is not supported on the Extender either. Many other Media Center features are also not supported.

Potential buyers should look into the limitations carefully. In my view, the Extender does not bring the Media Center experience to the living room, it brings only a disappointing sub-set of media capability.

I consider the Extender at a 'prototype' level of implementation. A great idea, with the foundation of a good user interface, and with reasonably smooth setup, but not up to par with expected capabilities and still a little lumpy in navigation and experience. Hopefully with Microsoft and Linksys behind this product we will see a more mature version some time soon.

I recommend this only for early adaptors who are fully aware of the limitations and expectations. Mine is going back to the store.

It is telling that Linksys is no longer shipping this item. I have wrestled with it for a couple months, giving it every chance to perform as it's supposed to. Bottom line: it works to about 70% of its advertised potential. As a wireless device,even on a "g" network, it's really useless, much too slow. I have it in the very next room with all doors open and video just doesn't move quickly enough. Wired is much better. However, even with all the updated firmware and patches installed from Linksys and Microsoft, the box locks up constantly; it does NOT display my photos without locking up every single time; live and recorded TV do work but the picture quality is so-so; music is about the only thing that actually works flawlessly. I spent a lot of time on the phone with a Linksys technician trying to figure out why my pictures would not display (the box locked up while scanning for photographs, evidently trying to display non-picture files-- it should be made so you can SELECT which folders on your computer it should scan for pix). Complicated by the technician's thick and mysterious accent, it was a frustrating and unfruitful conversation. Windows MCE 2005 and a decent TV tuner, both of which I have, make a great and cheap alternative to TiVo and other paid recording services. But viewing in another room is still problematic-- hope they come up with something better and, pretty please, CHEAPER, than this thing.

This device seems to be cool, but has a lot of drawbacks.

1. It does not allow you to watch your DVDs
2. It will not be compatible with Windows Vista
3. You cannot browse Internet using it
4. It does not support Dolby Digital 5.1
5. There is a USNB port that is not supported (kiss your keyboard good bye)

It does a great job for watching pictures, recorded TV shows, having a glance at your email, weather, news and watching live TV, though.

My recommendation is not to buy this device because it is already obsolete (can you believe it?!?). Wait for the next generation, compatible with Vista that is right on the corner for launching.

I've been using this unit for about 6 months, just upgraded my computer to Vista, only to find out that the WMCE54AG won't work with Vista. Argh!!!

A great concept, but the reality is that it constantly pauses or hangs, complaining of network congestion. I'm using 802.11g; I tried the dual-band Linksys router, and results were worse on 802.11a.

Not ready for prime time.