Customer Reviews

Imation Link Wireless HD Audio/Video Extender

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

I like to watch movies, and I have a really nice TV for doing this. Streaming movies from the web to my PC was lame because I only have a 19" LCD, but they look great with this product on my TV. Netflix streaming through my PS3 was really poor quality compared to the browser based one as well. I also like that I can put together a slide show of my pictures and let the entire family view it on the TV which having to crowd around my computer to see them on my monitor. The best part is the ability to be doing something else on my regular monitor while the the TV shows the movie/youtube/pictures at the same time.

Well, set-up was quick and easy, plugged the USB adapter/transmitter into my Toshiba laptop running Windows 7 (64 bit) and loaded drivers with no problem.

I then connected the receiver via HDMI > AVR > HDTV and plugged it in and in a matter of seconds the desktop was extended to my TV screen. I was prepared to have to move things around since my laptop sits about 18' away from the TV and it's not a direct line of sight, although you'd never know it, as it connected quickly and solidly, no issues here.

Okay, so far, so good. I then proceeded to go into the laptop's display settings and changed it from 'extend' to 'duplicate desktop'. It quickly responded and I was now looking at my desktop on my TV screen but the resolution was off, i.e., everything was oversized, so opening a web page that would normally fit, I now needed to scroll to see the page in it's entirety. Thinking this was just a matter of adjusting my laptop's output resolution, I was expecting to correct this easily but my laptop's recommended (maximum) resolution of 1366x768 was no longer an option....the highest resolution I could choose now was 800x600 so I couldn't change how the desktop or web pages were displayed on my TV screen. Oh, and the picture on my laptop was now pillar boxed and couldn't be changed either.

Then it occurred to me that maybe I just needed to restart the computer....nope, it didn't help, it came up the same way. I will say this though, the picture quality was very good, text was crisp and easy to read, and I may have even been able to live with the aformentioned problem but things got worse. I'll explain.

Wanting to know if I could get my laptop to display the way it normally would, I disconnected the USB dongle, my screen flickered and then came back to full screen (no pillar bars and resolution was back to normal) but any action from this point on, i.e., opening web pages or any folder resulted in my screen flickering like I'v never seen before. This is when I began to sweat...the laptop is only 5 months old and has been totally without issue until now. But wait, a reboot will certainly correct this, right?! Unfortunately not...upon restarting, the problem persisted with my flickering screen so I immediately began to think my video card has somehow been damaged....good grief.

Fortunately, that wasn't the case. As soon as I uninstalled the Display Link software, things returned to normal...thank heavens.

In summary, based on the mostly glowing reviews of this product, I have to believe I just have some compatibility issue between the device/software and my laptop or my TV or I'm just not doing something right.

So, after only a few hours with this device, unless someone reading this sees a glaring error on my part, it looks like the Imation Link Wireless A/V Extender is going back. Too bad.

I ordered my LINK on Pre-order on Friday Aug 28th. I set it up in my bedroom attached to a 52" Samsung 720P HDTV. The setup was easy; quick reminder, plug the dongle in first, before turning on the adapter unit attached to the TV. Once I did that, I changed the source input on my HDTV with my TV remote to the alternative HDMI port. There on my TV screen was my laptops desktop image. I chose duplicate mode instead of the default of extended mode in the popup window. That way my TV's image mirrored my Laptops screen. I didn't have to do any configuration to make the dongle connect, so it was easy to get going.

I brought up Google, then some news sites. Looked great. I then went to YouTube and Hulu and watched some video. All looked and sounded very good.

I have since used Skype to video call my daughter. It was a different experience. Instead of this tiny image on my 13" laptop, she was full sized on my TV, with the sound coming from the TV's speakers.

I bought the Link because I wanted a simple way to watch general Internet video, Hulu TV shows or Netflix up on my TV using my laptop. I wanted something easy to set up that didn't make me learn new software or buy a media server. What I like is that I can use the PC applications or visit web sites I am already familiar with but watch up on my big TV instead of my little laptop screen. Likewise, I can give the dongle to my son, and he can use his MAC with the Link and connect to the TV if he wants to.

EASY TO SET UP, WORKS GOOD, BUT THE DISTANCE ADVERTISED IS NOT ACCURATE, FOR BEST CONNECTION YOU CAN'T BE MORE THAN 16 STRAIGHT FEET.

Very fun product to have in my living room. Not only have we been watching on line videos from shows we missed or on youtube, but also looking at pictures and home movies stored on our computer. It was very relaxing to not have to huddle around a small screen, and we can all enjoy watching on our large TV as a group and family. Definitely worth it for the $149. I have been waiting for a product like this!

The product was easy to install. I had one hiccup with full screen video not showing from some online sites like hulu. I followed the manual which said to disable 'hardware acceleration' by right clicking on the video and it fixed the problem.

Length:: 0:55 Mins

I recorded a short video of how the Imation Link works with my laptop - streamed a game replay from [...] wirelessly to my HDTV while sitting on the sofa with my computer and checking stats on another game.

Being on a newer Mac I did have to download the newest driver from DisplayLink. However, all the PC's at work had no issues - the software loaded automatically. When done, your HDTV or projector simply appears as a second monitor to your OS. You can either extend your existing desktop to the second monitor or duplicate on both screens. No problems with battery life and the range seems quite impressive.

I originally purchased for our conference room at work but I could get used to this at home!

I decided to hold off on my initial review until I had a complete picture of how I liked/disliked working with this extender.

First off, I was running it off a 5 year old Dell with XP and I could get this to work reasonably well once I realized I had to go to the lowest resolution offered to get clean video without the choppiness and even then, forget about an itune video, the boorish player combined with a lagging system was next to impossible to watch in this condition, it had me searching for ways to remove the DRM and play the movie in a lighter weight player. Once set up all other video worked great, the downside was having to resize web browswers and movie players to the new resolution. With that setup I'd give it a 3.9 out of 5. Workable and a viable solution but not ideal in the sense that set up time was annoying. "Hey, can we watch a show on Hulu?. Sure Honey, just sit patiently for 5 minutes while I get everything ready to roll." We began to use it more for steaming music over our sound system than watching video for this reason.

Next, I upgraded my laptop this month to a Windows 7 machine with an I3 with the basic graphics card...so, not top of the line but a jump up from the previous machine. With the new setup, 5 out of 5...this is absolutely seamless at the highest resolution. It is literally plug in and play now. Netflix, Hulu, Itunes videos, home movies, heck, facebook and youtube vids for that matter all play seamlessly and are being watched within 10 seconds of the decision to do so. Plug the adapter in, slide the movie over to the second screen and you're golden. I'd take this over buying a new machine with WIDI anyday with the premium they are currently charging on machines with WIDI built in.

With any tech you're not used to, give yourself an hour to play around with everything, some won't need more than a few minutes but others will, get comfortable and not expect 100% plug in and go instantaneously but after that acclimation period, this is as easy as it gets. Highly recommended.

I purchased this primarily for use with my MacBook Pro. The driver for the product is supplied by DisplayLink. I installed the latest drivers for the product, and to the product and driver's credit, the USB transmitter came up, connected to the receiver and showed a clear 1080P image on the screen. This was fine for use as "still" monitor, for example, showing a slide show, or web page, or the like. However, full motion video is extremely choppy and unwatchable. Fine, the manual says to switch it to 720P, but this resolution is unavailable on the Mac driver! The closest available resolution is 1360x768. While this is a bit better, the video is still very choppy with A/V sync issues. I tried the release version of the driver, as well as the latest Beta driver, with no different result.

Just to eliminate all doubt, I installed Windows 7 using BootCamp on a partition, and installed the Windows drivers. These right away gave the correct choice of 1080P or 720P resolutions. At 720P the video was a tiny bit choppy but highly watchable at full resolution (e.g., 720P trailers on YouTube, full screen mode). No A/V sync problems either.

I posted on the DisplayLink forum, but have received no answers in over a week. I have sent support mail to Imation, and that has been ignored as well. Go check out the DisplayLink Mac forum, and you will see that questions just go unanswered. The 1.6 version of the driver has been in Beta for a year now, and nowhere close to release. There is a general consensus in the board that the Mac product has all but been abandoned.

So, if you are a Mac user, and all you want is still motion screens, this is fine. However, if you are wanting to watch YouTube or Hulu or whatever in full screen mode, this just won't work for you, sorry to say.

I gave it 2 stars because at least the still part works, and the Windows part works.

Was very excited to recieve this product! But unfortunately this does not work for Mac Air. The mirroring works fine for visual but the sound does not work on your TV!!! Apparently this is a known issue and there is no ETA to fix it. They should have at the lease mentioned this in the product description, they just say supports Mac!

I have just received and set up the Imation Link Wireless A/V Extender on my Macbook Air running Lion.

Be aware that you if you are running LION you need to download and install the updated dmg file directly from the imation website, the version included on the disc that ships with the unit will not work.

Once the dmg is installed the video portion streams fine

HOWEVER there is NO AUDIO available. After reading the FAQ on the Imation website I realized that there was no option in my Macbook Air's Preferences/Audio to select any other audio output other than the Macbook Air's speakers. I called Imation support and they confirmed that at the moment there is no support for Audio streaming utilizing LION.

That's a shame because I think this could be a great product if they were to get that sorted out.

So to recap: As of October 18, 2012 there is no streaming Audio support for this product if you are running LION.