I am looking to add to my PCH A110 based media library which has a 1TB internal disk. Content of this disk is also cloned onto a Thecus N3200PRO NAS.
So, I am looking for a unit which would me to stream from my XVID based AVI files from PCH or NAS box. Considering DLink DSM-520 or a PCH-A100.
I know there would be no problems with the PCH A100 but I can get the DSM-520 for lot less!..
I am specifically concerned if I my XVID based AVI files play on DSM-520 and If it is possible to directly stream from either PCH or NAS to DSM-520.
Any experiences, suggestions? Thanks.

I have an Infrant (now Netgear) NAS and a DSM-520. The DSM-520 plays Xvid fine off of my NAS. It's uPnP compliant, so any uPnP server software will work with it. On my NAS you can install Twonkyvision and get some added features. As an aside, the DSM-520 also supports PlayOn on a PC which supports streaming Netflix and Hulu from the web.

The downside is that the DSM-520 is a few years old and probably will have at the most one more firmware update.

Alan

On the upside, the unit is a few years older and may have one more firmware update. :)

The DSM-520 was a pain when it first came out. Formats that were supported on the Hi Def (.tp/.ts files) side were half baked which required a transcode ritual before playing. NTFS wasn't supported back then which required the user to make sure that they didn't go over the 4 gig limit.

As of today I'm very happy as they made the changes to fix the aforementioned problems.

So it may be older, but it's stable...though not perfect for everyone.