DSM-320RD Wireless Media Player

I found the DLink DSM-320RD wireless media player at Fry's for $150 last weekend, so I decided to pick one up and see what it can do. It is a media player with integrated DVD player and memory card reader (CF and SD)- so basically it does everything but record TV.

I am looking for a media device that will allow my roommate to watch movies (mosly my DVD rips to DiVX via AutoGordianKnot) I have stored on my file server (currently 2.4TB of storage space) without me having to convert to a DVD. I also want a device that I could replace my MCE2005 PC and/or my old xBox running xBox Media Center (maybe I should just transpose the xBox into a different case that will fit into my stereo rack?).

The unit was pretty nice (I speak in past tense as I have already returned it), but it only had standard definition output (480i/480p over component)- and the unit displayed interference from other devices in my stereo rack. DVD quality was the only thing that ran at 480p (at least it said it was progressive scan).

Overall I guess the unit was decent- but a bit slow and unresponsive for my tastes. Streaming over wireless was actually pretty good. It played DivX/XviD fairly well, but could not play DVD images that were on a networked HD (VOB/IFO or ISO). I guess I was hoping for something like XBMC- but that is asking a lot.

It also had a terrible interface for browsing my files- I keep my movies/videos/pr0n in separate folders, and the DLink simply lumped them all into 'videos' folders (or was that TVersity's fault?) There are mentions of a port for SageTV for the DLink devices, but so far nothing has actually materialized.

I updated to the latest firmware (1.04) but did not notice any significant changes.

I did not use the DLink media software as I saw some blogs reviewing the device recommending against it; instead I used TVersity- which, in retrospect, may have been one if the reasons why I disliked the unit. The media menus were not easily configured; my 'videos' folder came up as E: and my my 'movies' folder came up as F: (not a show stopper, but it made it useless for what I wanted it for).

I may consider DLink's DSM-520- which supports HD outputs- or the DSM-750 (which will aslo support H264 for HD movies). Or maybe I may just buy another used xBox and flash the BIOS and install XBMC for my roommate...