Buffalo Ships LinkTheater Mini

[Jeremy Charette]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.mediabolic.com/press/item.php?id=343' target='_blank'>http://www.mediabolic.com/press/item.php?id=343</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Buffalo, Inc. -- has begun shipping its new LinkTheater Mini, a compact, easy-to-use network media player with Mediabolic's award-winning Media Player software. The LinkTheater Mini is notable not only for its diminutive size (it's slightly larger than a VHS cassette), but also for it's low suggested retail price: under $100. It's ideal for consumers who want to add multiple units to their digital entertainment networks."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/linktheater_mini_set.jpg" /> <br /><br />It's not available in the US just yet, but this is a neat little device. It plays back pictures, video, and audio files from any connect PC on your home network. It connects through standard 10/100 ethernet, and could easily be made wireless with a wifi-ethernet adapter. Outputs include composite (RCA) video and standard RCA stereo jacks. It can play back MPEG2, WMV, AVI, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, MP3, WMA, and LPCM files. So, is this something you could see yourself buying? Why or why not?

[Felix Torres]

No.
Not. A. Chance.

It relies on transcoding WMA and WMV and several other crucial formats instead of just playing them natively.

There's better products out there already.

[Outlaw94]

I could see myself buying a couple couple of these. The price point is just perfect. If you only needed one, there are better options but if you want to your media on a few TV's, this is the way to go. Coupled with a cheap wifi-ethernet adaptor and it would be good buy compared to others that cost two or even three times as much.

[Damion Chaplin]

Nope. Needs component out jacks (or at least s-video!) before I consider it. RCA jacks are so 20th century... :wink:

[PJE]

I agree with imperium999 - it needs a digital DVI output to link with new HDTVs (as well as a optical digital audio out) to be of any use. Add these and I'd buy one.

[Jeremy Charette]

From a manufacturer's perspective, that's an challenging conundrum. The simple features (RCA outputs) make it inexpensive to manufacture and support. Transcoding further reduces the price, by offloading the work of decoding complex files to the PC streaming the media. It also means they don't have to license the decoder technology (or chips based on that decoder technology). Adding HDMI and Toslink outputs would drive up the complexity and therefore the cost, making this a less attractive buy to the "average" consumer.

I think Outlaw94 has a good point. This is cheap, and simple. It only does a few things, but it does them well. It's inexpensive enough to buy 3 or 4 of them, and connect all the TVs in your house to your media server. There's lots of things the Tivo doesn't do, but that hasn't stopped them from selling millions of Tivo boxes. Same for the iPod.

As far as component, HDMI, and Toslink outputs...most of the files played back on a device like this will be low bit rate MP3s or WMAs, or low resolution WMV or AVI files. RCA outputs are more than sufficient for these file types. If this device supported HD video files, or high bit rate audio files (FLAC or OGG), then I could see the need for such high-end outputs. In this case, it'd be money wasted, in my opinion.