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Linksys by Cisco DMA2100 Dual-Band Wireless-N Vista Media Extender
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| Price: | £59.99 |
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Dispatched from and sold by Trusted-Goods
2 new or used available from £47.99
Average customer review:
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2846 in Consumer Electronics
- Brand: Linksys
- Model: DMA2100
- Released on: 2008-01-28
- Dimensions: 6.69" h x 10.24" w x 14.17" l, 1.54 pounds
Editorial Reviews
Manufacturer's Description
Access movies, your music library, family photos and HDTV programming from your Media Center PC and stream it all to your living room TV or home theater. New Linksys Media Center Extenders give you access to the entertainment content on your Microsoft Windows Vista Premium or Ultimate PC to enjoy in the comfort of your living room. Pause or rewind live TV, record sporting events or episodes of your favorite TV shows and save them for later viewing. Quickly navigate through elegant menus and programming guides. Access online movie, music and other Internet services to expand your entertainment options. 
The Linksys DMA2100 streams your digital music, movies and photos to any TV in your home without running wires. With elegant and easy-to-navigate menu screens, you can play DVDs, view family slide shows, browse your music collection by cover art, listen to entire playlists or choose from a vast selection of Internet Radio stations from all over the world.
Box Contents
- LinksysMedia Center Extender
- Power adaptor
- Remote & Batteries
- 2 Antennas
- Cables
- Setup CD
- Quick install Guide
- User Guide on CD
Customer Reviews
Absolutely brilliant!
I'm delighted with my 2100. It was easy to set up, and works great.
I have mine set up through s-video on an old 28" SD-only TV but it's still brilliant. The unit comes with component (HD) and composite to scart cables (SD) in the box. It has pre-n 270Mbps wireless support, and HDMI inputs (for future compatibility).
I connected via composite lead originally, and although videos played very well, text on the menus and low quality photo display led me to get an s-video lead, which was well worth it. The s-video lead cost me £8.99, and connects to the multi-purpose scart adapter Linkysy provide in the box. Now my old TV looks so good it could be high definition. Really! (Note: some scart sockets don't support s-video, even if they do, you usually have to tell your TV that you're using s-video in a menu setting, or you get a black and white picture, and end up using the composite cable instead)
The wireless performance of the Linksys DMA 2100 on my 54Mbps network is fine. Incidentally I've set up WEP64 security. This is lower quality than WPA security (which is on the unit also) but I always find WPA limits network performance in my house for some reason. There aren't many people who break into my home network - there'd be no point. Anyway, I'm sure WPA works fine on the DMA 2100, I just haven't tested it.
Videos play great, even streaming 16 bit 48Khz DVD quality sound and better from my Vista PC's TV recordings. Photos look good via s-video so HDMI must be great (if you have a new TV). Music playback is excellent, ,probably helped by an Audigy 2 sound card in the host PC.
The interface is lovely, basically it works and looks exactly like Vista Media Center. Even the VMC intro sound plays when you turn it on! The settings are easy to alter if you want to customise things.
The remote control is fine, and even comes with batteries. The green Vista Media Center button is plastic coated so it will be bright and colourful for years! Contrary to some reports I've found the signal to be very good. In any case it's compatible with the Logitech harmony all-in-one, and other Media Center remotes should you ever have a problem. By the way, the mute and volume buttons have to be programmed to work with your TV sound, you can read this in the manual, but I haven't got round to this yet.
To summarise I chose the Linksys Vista Media Center extender for the following reasons:
1. The Linksys DMA 2100 plays Vista recorded TV files, DVR-MS (hardly anything else can do this natively, note this includes the inferior D-Link DSM 330)
2. It can play Vista Media Center, which looks great, and is sure to be supported in future by Microsoft, which will keep it up to date. They have a good record with updating software automatically in my opinion.
3. It's cheaper than the XBox 360, espeially as it comes with wireless built in, and a remote control
4. It's completely silent (the Xbox 360 is noisy in operation for example)
Finally, it's really small, in a good way, measuring about 1.5" high.
UPDATE:
1. If you're going to buy a wireless router to use with this get an 802.11n 300Mbps if possible. Also, make sure it can 'multicast'. Some routers don't have this feature and it makes setting up much easier / possible. Belkin have poor support for this at the moment I think but most other makes are fine. I now use the D-Link DIR 655 and get 300Mbps.
2. Most video files play on this unit fine. It just works. But if you have any problems with unsupported files though (like quicktime from older digicam videos), simply convert them to another format. Many programs can do this in batch mode. E.g. Xillisoft Video converter for Mpeg 2 / 4 etc. in batch mode. Videoredo for DVR-MS.
2ND UPDATE (4 Jan 09): Having had this for almost a year, and in light of alternative media streamers on the market, I have the following views:
1. This product is SO much better using a wired network, or 200Mb homeplugs (e.g. Zyxel PLA401)than wireless, as even wireless n has fallout and network issues sometimes.
2. This unit needs a firmware update to provide a wake-on-lan magic packet to wake up your computer. XBox 360 has this.
3. A message comes up to say 'network issue' during playback. It shouldn't as even with a wired network, this message will come up, then disappear without any stutter. If there's a network problem, it's fairy obvious anyway. Alternatively, a little icon could be used instead of a big bright message.
4. The slideshows should provide a 'Ken Burns' zoom effect as per regular Vista Media Center.
In short, this product is best used wired, and Linksys should add wake on lan via firmware update.
HP has apparently produced a better Vista extender but it's only available in the USA at the moment.
Also, who knows whether this extender will work with the imminent Windows 7 release?
Doesn't Do What Your Media Centre On Your PC Does
I wanted to watch my DVDs and .avi movie files from the comfort of my lounge so treated myself to a 32" Flatscreen TV and the Linksys DMA2100.
It is quite easy to setup which is, and the interface mimics that of Media Centre as it should, however here are a few issues with the unit you should be aware of before purchasing.
I have backed up all of my DVD's on to my harddisk on my Vista PC (as the unconverted original .VOB files to keep the quality) so I can watch them when I like using Media Centre on there. Some of you may be aware that under the TV/Movies option in Media Centre on the PC you can change the Play DVD option to "DVD Library" to view all of your DVD titles stored. If you have done this, this won't show up on the DMA2100 interface. DVD Library isn't on the interface, and worse than that the DMA2100 doesn't play DVD .VOB files like the Media Centre on the PC does.
I was really disappointed with this as this was the main reason I wanted the unit in the first place.
Some of my other DVDs that I have backed up that contain episodes like Star Trek, Lost, 24 etc, I have converted to good quality AVI files. On my PC Media Centre shows these in the Video Library section, and yes the DMA2100 also shows them there, and can play the files. However as AVI files aren't really supported by the DMA2100 you will notice that when you play them, the further into the video it gets, the more out of sync the video and the audio gets. If these AVI files were MPEG-1 files then they would work fine, but they would be double the size.
I have decided to send back my unit and get a refund because it can't handle DVD media and avi files successfully.
Just so simple, but so impressive
Like the previous reviewer, I've been very impressed by how easy this was to set up. Indeed the most difficult thing about the installation for me was getting the LCD TV off the wall to plug the HDMI cable into the back of it (setting up the software is child's play). I also run an Xbox 360 as a media centre extender in my living room and the Linksys DMA 2100 was far easier to set up. The functionality and media options are very good (particularly if you like video on demand services like iplayer from the BBC and Sky Anytime) and the ability to access almost any media from my pc is just brilliant.
The box doesn't look spectacular but as I was buying it to use in a bedroom the fact it is tiny and blends into the backround is a good thing (its about the size of a DVB freeview box).
One small tip which is that if the wonderful world of wireless networking is driving you berzerk (particularly if you only have a wireless G router) homeplug devices which use your mains power cables to route data power socket to power socket are a good option and work well with the DMA 2100. I'm using several devolo homeplug 200av's round my house and even in the bedroom (which achieves the lowest network speeds) I have enough bandwidth to play HD videos I've downloaded.
Highly recommended.
