I have my DSM-520 setup with the latest firmware 1.09 and I enabled media sharing through WMP11 and two servers now appear to choose from

D-Link Media Server & WM Connect server

However I have installed Active TV which runs on my PC but does not appear on my DSM-520. I have tried everything and have reached a desperate stage.

Do you see an additional media server on the DSM-520 or is it hidden on online services? where would it appear once setup. Also I have not had a warning confirmation box appear during setup just a small DEP issue.

Help please.:confused:

Can you bring ActiveTV up on the PC you installed it? Does it work on the computer? That's the 1st step.

Once you have that, do you see the menu in the first image here:

http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?prod_id=2884&question=DSM-520

? When you select it, what happens?

I've downloaded the Intel UPnP AV Toolkit, and tried using the Device Spy without much to show for. Do you guys have any instructions on how to best capture logs/data for you to analyze?

Thanks,

E.

1. In the left side, expand your media server and select the ContentDirectory service.
2. Right clock, press Invoke action
3. Fill the Object ID, the root object ID is 0
4. Select browse flag as BrowseDirectChildren
5. Press Invoke and you should see the result in the result field. It is an XML document.
6. You can browse into the folder by type the ID field of the container tag. Try to browse into your photo folder.

If you can not figure out, please send me the result of the ID '0'.

Are you running v1.05 of the firmware?
Yes, 1.05. And its a great upgrade, These are the only 2 issues I've had. Able to work around but it would be nice if they worked. I'm also using Twonky 4.4, maybe the trouble is there if no one else is having this issue.

I've been looking for a server to do mainly audio, started a different thread in this forum, but I'm thinking maybe the DSM-520 will do what I am looking for. But I have a couple of questions. Sorry if these are answered already somewhere here, I read a bunch of posts and mainly they seem to deal with the video functionality.

I wrote to D-Link but they have been slow to respond, plus I am getting conflicting information.
Is WMA Lossless supported? D-Link told me "yes" in an e-mail, but when I downloaded the manual from the site, it specifically says "Not supported". Alternatively, has there been any mention of FLAC support?
Is gapless playback supported?
Will it act as a UPnP AV server to other devices? I have a Pocket PC app that I can stream to from a UPnP AV server.

Thanks for any info.

Everything else works great! Active TV, through HDMI, reformats the screen incorrectly. It displays very large, and does not fit on the screen correctly.

There have been a few messages like this, but now that some Dlink type folks are reading, maybe an answer will come available.




PS... Any chance for a skip forward, skip reverse fix. (30 seconds forward...)
This has been my number one feature request since purchasing the product...

Thanks so much!

I'm having trouble with Active TV and AOL music. I can't get anything to play. The loading message flashes at me but nothing ever happens. Has anyone gotten it to work? Any suggestions?


Alan

I've been looking for a server to do mainly audio, started a different thread in this forum, but I'm thinking maybe the DSM-520 will do what I am looking for. But I have a couple of questions. Sorry if these are answered already somewhere here, I read a bunch of posts and mainly they seem to deal with the video functionality.

I wrote to D-Link but they have been slow to respond, plus I am getting conflicting information.
Is WMA Lossless supported? D-Link told me "yes" in an e-mail, but when I downloaded the manual from the site, it specifically says "Not supported". Alternatively, has there been any mention of FLAC support?
Is gapless playback supported?
Will it act as a UPnP AV server to other devices? I have a Pocket PC app that I can stream to from a UPnP AV server.

Thanks for any info.

WMA losless and FLAC are NOT supported natively. Of course, you can use some media sevrer which support transcoding to transcode them on the fly.

gapless playack is NOT supported too. DSM520 is a UPnP control point and Media renderer. Althrough it has builtin media server, we have disabled it from external access. However, our media server in the Windows is UPnP compatible.

BTW, do you know any device support gapless playback?

Everything else works great! Active TV, through HDMI, reformats the screen incorrectly. It displays very large, and does not fit on the screen correctly.

There have been a few messages like this, but now that some Dlink type folks are reading, maybe an answer will come available.




PS... Any chance for a skip forward, skip reverse fix. (30 seconds forward...)
This has been my number one feature request since purchasing the product...

Thanks so much!

You can use number 0-9 to skip to 0% - 90%.

WMA losless and FLAC are NOT supported natively. Of course, you can use some media sevrer which support transcoding to transcode them on the fly.?

According to another e-mail from D-Link, he believes the latest firmware is supposed to support WMA Lossless, but he is double-checking that. Will post here when I hear back.

I really don't want to have to use an intermediary PC running some media server software. Otherwise, I would just set up a PC and be done with it - wouldn't need the D-Link (for my purposes).

gapless playack is NOT supported too. DSM520 is a UPnP control point and Media renderer. Althrough it has builtin media server, we have disabled it from external access. However, our media server in the Windows is UPnP compatible.

BTW, do you know any device support gapless playback?

When I thought about it, I'm not sure I care if the D-Link will act as a UPnP AV Server. All my files are stored on my UPnP AV NAS anyway, so I can just as easily stream from that.

The Netgear EVA8000 supports gapless playback. So does the $19.95 Pocket PC app I use, as well as another software player I used to have but can't recall the name of right now. I think a couple of other devices I looked into had gapless playback too, but also had some other shortcoming that ruled them out for me.

Thanks for the response,

- Mark

You can use number 0-9 to skip to 0% - 90%.

Nice feature but not quite what we're looking for. I use the DSM-520 to watch recorded TV shows made on the PC. Most commericals are 30 seconds in length. So the idea of having a 30 second jump forward and back would be more beneficial for most users. I currently use the jump feature but it is a bit cumbersome.

Thanks for monitoring the forum and taking in our input.

att1234, just a thought. It would be nice if DLink updated their FAQ to include the firmware changes in V1.05.

Thanks for monitoring this forum.

Alan

I finally got some time so I bypassed the receiver and hooked the DSM-520 directly into one of the HDMI inputs on my Sony 52XBR4 TV and guess what, I still get the "Unsupported Signal. Check your device output" error message.

After messing around a bit, switching back and forth between HDMI and Component, I found if I put the DSM-520 on component out, I could see the UI via the HDMI input on the Sony XBR4. However the colors are all messed up, almost like a negative or inverse from what they are suppose to look like.

Any chance this unit is defective? The place where I bought it is out of stock, so my only choice is to send it to DLink for replacement.


This looks like the signal compatibility issue. Can you try to hook the cable into the TV directly to see if you can see correct UI in the TV directly? The AV receiver is a complex issue for HDMI mode negotiation. However, it is hard for us to dig into it withour your AV receiver. However, if you see the unsupported message which is shown by the AV receiver, it means that the signal sent by DSM520 is not acceptable for the AV receiver.

Under HDMI, the receiver must provide a list of availables for the DSM520 to select. Currently, the DSM520 will select one of 1080i/720p/480p. However, if the AV receiver the these modes and reject it latter. It will produce the issues you saw. This is the best guess I can give you so far. Unfortunely, this won;t solve your issue at all. My suggestion is to hook the calble to the TV directly or use component since the AV receiver will convert the signal for you as well.

att1234,
Do you have any insight to the album art issue on fw 1.05?

With 1.03 and 1.04, album art worked, but soon got "stuck" and refused to change any more. Many of us were hopeful that 1.05 would fix this, but it looks like album art is not functional at all in this version.

I have exchanged emails with tech support, but they don't seem to know anything about it and just tell me to RMA my unit, even though I know there is nothing wrong with the hardware. Heck, with 1.03, I even told them about a work around that fixed the stuck art problem, but it looks like they probably never sent the info to the firmware team.

You can use number 0-9 to skip to 0% - 90%.

Would it be possible to extend this good feature to use 2 numbers 00-99 to skip to 0% - 99% in 1% steps.

Does anyone know if the europe firmware version is going to catch up with the US. My box shows version 1.01r3eu (and reports that it is the latest when 'check for updates' used).
It seems that the latest US version has a much better UI and is quicker to react to commands (from what I have read & screenshots I have seen on the web).
Thanks

Nice feature but not quite what we're looking for. I use the DSM-520 to watch recorded TV shows made on the PC. Most commericals are 30 seconds in length. So the idea of having a 30 second jump forward and back would be more beneficial for most users. I currently use the jump feature but it is a bit cumbersome.

Thanks for monitoring the forum and taking in our input.

We are thinking this before. However, we are not sure what's the appropriate value of the single jump.

We are in the phase of collecting features for the next slot now. Any suggestion is welcome. Of course, we may not be able to implement everything. However, we are listening to your voice.

I finally got some time so I bypassed the receiver and hooked the DSM-520 directly into one of the HDMI inputs on my Sony 52XBR4 TV and guess what, I still get the "Unsupported Signal. Check your device output" error message.

After messing around a bit, switching back and forth between HDMI and Component, I found if I put the DSM-520 on component out, I could see the UI via the HDMI input on the Sony XBR4. However the colors are all messed up, almost like a negative or inverse from what they are suppose to look like.

Any chance this unit is defective? The place where I bought it is out of stock, so my only choice is to send it to DLink for replacement.

I believe that the HDMI connection of your unit is broken. Please contact D-link to get a replacement. I am sorry for this situation. Actually, this may be due to the surface mount of the HDMI chip is deteched. If you send it back, we can analysis and improve the process.

Sorry for this again.

att1234,
Do you have any insight to the album art issue on fw 1.05?

With 1.03 and 1.04, album art worked, but soon got "stuck" and refused to change any more. Many of us were hopeful that 1.05 would fix this, but it looks like album art is not functional at all in this version.

I have exchanged emails with tech support, but they don't seem to know anything about it and just tell me to RMA my unit, even though I know there is nothing wrong with the hardware. Heck, with 1.03, I even told them about a work around that fixed the stuck art problem, but it looks like they probably never sent the info to the firmware team.

I need to check the bug tracking system to see if this has been posted or not. However, can you describe your problem again. I just check the Lab report, the album art works fine in the standard test. What's the album art you mean? In the browse or the music playback? What do you mean stuck?
What's your media server? The album art is very server-dependent. Differetn server may use different methods to provide the album art data.

Would it be possible to extend this good feature to use 2 numbers 00-99 to skip to 0% - 99% in 1% steps.

We are thinking if there is any better way to do small jump easily and precisely. We may use 0-9 to do big jump and then use left and right to do small jump. Or we can improve the current jump to use PGup/Pgdn up/down to change the time quickly.

This needs a more complete usability study to select a good approach. For example, some people may want small jump to skip commerical quickly. Others want to have precise time. Input two digits may confuse people since it is less intuitive than single digit.

Anyway, your suggest is good. We will put it into the consideration list. Again, I can not guarantee that it will be implemented in specific time. However, we are listening to it.

Does anyone know if the europe firmware version is going to catch up with the US. My box shows version 1.01r3eu (and reports that it is the latest when 'check for updates' used).
It seems that the latest US version has a much better UI and is quicker to react to commands (from what I have read & screenshots I have seen on the web).
Thanks

The firmware is under translation. Since there are 5/6 languages need to be translated, verified and approved, this is why EU firmware is always lag from US version. D-link EU is working on it. We will post it ASAP when all approval is done.

att1234, has dlink ever considered creating a beta forum? I own an Infrant and they test all their new firmware on their beta forum. I think that both the users and Infrant have gotten a lot out of it. For one thing, the software when it's finally released is much more stable than your previous firmware updates (1.05 excepted). In addition it has come out faster. Just a thought.

Alan

Anyone having problems with 5.1 audio?

I have a couple of short video files (from DVD) that I've converted to MP4 using Nero Recode. I can't get 5.1 audio to save my life on these files. They play like stereo but the center channel audio is completely missing! If I play the VOB file, the 5.1 audio works fine. This is with 1.05 firmware (not sure if it worked on 1.04).

This is using a digital (optical) connection to a Yamaha RX-V1800. I've about given up on HDMI from the 520.

Anyone having problems with 5.1 audio?

I have a couple of short video files (from DVD) that I've converted to MP4 using Nero Recode. I can't get 5.1 audio to save my life on these files. They play like stereo but the center channel audio is completely missing! If I play the VOB file, the 5.1 audio works fine. This is with 1.05 firmware (not sure if it worked on 1.04).

This is using a digital (optical) connection to a Yamaha RX-V1800. I've about given up on HDMI from the 520.

My understanding is that Nero Recode uses AAC encoding and that the DSM-520 doesn't support it.

I need to check the bug tracking system to see if this has been posted or not. However, can you describe your problem again. I just check the Lab report, the album art works fine in the standard test. What's the album art you mean? In the browse or the music playback? What do you mean stuck?
What's your media server? The album art is very server-dependent. Differetn server may use different methods to provide the album art data.

My album art is embedded in the MP3 tag and ranges from 250x250 to 400x400 in size. Most are 300x300. This is just the music playback. By stuck I mean (with 1.03 and 1.04) that the art shows up for the first song, then it might change once or twice after that, but gets stuck and won't change to anything else as the songs continue to change.

I have tried the latest firmware (1.05) using the latest builds of Tversity (0.9.10.8a), Twonky (44a), and Dlink (1.09). I was not able to get any art to show up for any of these servers (My server of choice is Twonky which is what I normally use).

Thanks for checking into this.

att1234, has dlink ever considered creating a beta forum? I own an Infrant and they test all their new firmware on their beta forum. I think that both the users and Infrant have gotten a lot out of it. For one thing, the software when it's finally released is much more stable than your previous firmware updates (1.05 excepted). In addition it has come out faster. Just a thought.

Alan

This is good idea. Unfortunely, I have no control fro this. I don't know if it can happen or not. From firmware team's point of view, I like it. However, this never happen for other D-link products. It will be a very slow process even it can be approved.

Anyone having problems with 5.1 audio?

I have a couple of short video files (from DVD) that I've converted to MP4 using Nero Recode. I can't get 5.1 audio to save my life on these files. They play like stereo but the center channel audio is completely missing! If I play the VOB file, the 5.1 audio works fine. This is with 1.05 firmware (not sure if it worked on 1.04).

This is using a digital (optical) connection to a Yamaha RX-V1800. I've about given up on HDMI from the 520.

When you convert the DVD into MP4, I beleive the audio has been converted into 2-CH. I am not sure if wre can support 5-CH MP4 file or not. Propabaly not.

For HDMI, what's your problem?

[QUOTE=wa4qfy;11997864]Here is the example of the MediaMall issue.
"........was not allowed to post your URL......[QUOTE]

wa4qfy,

I'm having the same problem with Google and Youtube, in addition I also have these issues;

1) AOL Videos is asking for a signed ActiveX control
2) Comedy Central and others ask for Flash v8 or greater....

yet all works OK on PC running the Active TV application.

I've disabled ZoneAlarm and Ad-Watch and I'm also running TVersity on a Windows XP Home Edition PC.

Thanks in advance,

Saycoda

I finally got some time so I bypassed the receiver and hooked the DSM-520 directly into one of the HDMI inputs on my Sony 52XBR4 TV and guess what, I still get the "Unsupported Signal. Check your device output" error message.

After messing around a bit, switching back and forth between HDMI and Component, I found if I put the DSM-520 on component out, I could see the UI via the HDMI input on the Sony XBR4. However the colors are all messed up, almost like a negative or inverse from what they are suppose to look like.

Any chance this unit is defective? The place where I bought it is out of stock, so my only choice is to send it to DLink for replacement.

Have you tried turning off HDMI 1.3 features on your TV? I turned off things like Lip Sync, Deep Color and xvYCC and then my D-Link started working w/ my Toshiba 52LX177. I haven't tried figuring out which of the three causes the issues, since I'm pretty sure the DSM-520 doesn't support any of these features.

The issue about getting odd color out via HDMI while in component mode sounds similar to what I experienced when I first was trying to get things working. Then I ran across a section in my user's manual talking about turning off HDMI 1.3 features for older devices, which obviously fixed my issues.

Good luck!

We are thinking this before. However, we are not sure what's the appropriate value of the single jump.My DSM-510 uses +/-15 second skip intervals, which is fine. However, after prolonged use I've decided that I definitely prefer the assymetric +30/-7 sec skip intervals that were used in my ReplayTV.

The reason: When I miss a segment of dialog, I find that I realize it fairly quickly and the 15 seconds overshoots my target. The 7 sec skip back is usually perfect. When skipping forward, it's usually to bypass a commercial, which typically is an interval of 30 seconds and I want to minimize the number of clicks necessary. And if I overshoot, the 7 second skip back gives me finer control as I narrow in on my target frame.

There's a pretty good breakdown of the different PVR skip intervals here (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=289906).

I believe that the HDMI connection of your unit is broken. Please contact D-link to get a replacement. I am sorry for this situation. Actually, this may be due to the surface mount of the HDMI chip is deteched. If you send it back, we can analysis and improve the process.

Sorry for this again.

Hi Att1234,

I am facing same issue with HDMI. I have Sony 52XBR5 TV and Denon Receiver. I keep on getting "Unsupported Signal" issue when I try connecting HDMI to Denon and even when I connect it directly to the TV.

Also I am not able to get Active TV working so far. I am using Kaspersky Internet Security. Even though I turned the Internet Security off (+ windows firewall off) DSM-520 is not able to connect to Active TV. I can see my server listed under "Select Active-TV Server" list. Please help.

[quote=wa4qfy;11997864]Here is the example of the MediaMall issue.
"........was not allowed to post your URL......[quote]
wa4qfy,
I'm having the same problem with Google and Youtube, in addition I also have these issues;

1) AOL Videos is asking for a signed ActiveX control
2) Comedy Central and others ask for Flash v8 or greater....
----- 8<-----snip-----8<-----snip-----8<-----snip-----8<-----snip--
SaycodaIf I am not mistaken, I know for AOL, you need to run the windows application to install the version of ActiveX
and my guess flash also AND reboot your DSM. Maybe restart the Active-TV (MediaMall) server.
I solved the AOL issue with following the instruction from windows
applications. I did not run into the flash issue.

As I am beginning to understand a lot (if not all) of Active-TV is
really being run on your PC, and the display is pointed to the
DSM appliance.

I have Window 2003 server at home. My desktop which runs Windows XP is part of a domain, so I can't get Active TV running. This can't be a technical issue. Is this an attempt at keeping this off of the corporate desktop? Any work arounds?

Thanks,
bl

I just sent the unit back to D-Link this morning... I'll have to give it a try when the replacement arrives since I have this sinking feeling that the replacement unit may have the same problem... :(

Have you tried turning off HDMI 1.3 features on your TV? I turned off things like Lip Sync, Deep Color and xvYCC and then my D-Link started working w/ my Toshiba 52LX177. I haven't tried figuring out which of the three causes the issues, since I'm pretty sure the DSM-520 doesn't support any of these features.

The issue about getting odd color out via HDMI while in component mode sounds similar to what I experienced when I first was trying to get things working. Then I ran across a section in my user's manual talking about turning off HDMI 1.3 features for older devices, which obviously fixed my issues.

Good luck!

Try jmgfree suggestions in post # 1028, see if that works, and please post the results. I will also post the results with the replacement box once I get it back from D-Link.

Hi Att1234,

I am facing same issue with HDMI. I have Sony 52XBR5 TV and Denon Receiver. I keep on getting "Unsupported Signal" issue when I try connecting HDMI to Denon and even when I connect it directly to the TV.

Also I am not able to get Active TV working so far. I am using Kaspersky Internet Security. Even though I turned the Internet Security off (+ windows firewall off) DSM-520 is not able to connect to Active TV. I can see my server listed under "Select Active-TV Server" list. Please help.

Also I am not able to get Active TV working so far. I am using Kaspersky Internet Security. Even though I turned the Internet Security off (+ windows firewall off) DSM-520 is not able to connect to Active TV. I can see my server listed under "Select Active-TV Server" list. Please help.

Are you by any chance running Windows Vista? I have been working with MediaMall, and after trying several versions of Active-TV software, and testing ports, and looking at my installed software, this was the last message I received from them:

"John...we have confirmed with the Firmware co that this issue is related to them sending too many requests from different ports, so Vista UAC is treating it like an attack and blocking it. It will most likely require a Firmware upgrade to fix...we are working with them on a date. In the meantime, only way is to turn off UAC...you still may see a "Network Error" from time to time until it is updated."

So, try shutting down the Vista User Account Control feature in the Control Panel. Reboot, then reboot your DSM 520, and try accessing Active-TV again. You will have to authorize the device on your PC, but this should give you access.

A temporary solution, but hopefully a permanent fix will come soon.

All works OK on PC running the Active TV application.

I have the following issues on the DSM-520 running FW v1.05;

1) AOL Videos is asking for a signed ActiveX control
2) Comedy Central and others ask for Flash v8 or greater....

I've disabled ZoneAlarm and Ad-Watch and I'm also running TVersity on a Windows XP Home Edition PC.

Has anyone resolved this issue after experiencing it?

Thanks in advance,

Saycoda

All works OK on PC running the Active TV application.

I have the following issues on the DSM-520 running FW v1.05;

1) AOL Videos is asking for a signed ActiveX control
2) Comedy Central and others ask for Flash v8 or greater....

I've disabled ZoneAlarm and Ad-Watch and I'm also running TVersity on a Windows XP Home Edition PC.

Has anyone resolved this issue after experiencing it?

Thanks in advance,

Saycoda

i am having the exact same issue, and for now have given up on it...if someone figures it out, please post here!

thanks!

Try jmgfree suggestions in post # 1028, see if that works, and please post the results. I will also post the results with the replacement box once I get it back from D-Link.

Sure zbrett. I'll try those when I reach home this evening and will post the results back

Are you by any chance running Windows Vista? I have been working with MediaMall, and after trying several versions of Active-TV software, and testing ports, and looking at my installed software, this was the last message I received from them:

"John...we have confirmed with the Firmware co that this issue is related to them sending too many requests from different ports, so Vista UAC is treating it like an attack and blocking it. It will most likely require a Firmware upgrade to fix...we are working with them on a date. In the meantime, only way is to turn off UAC...you still may see a "Network Error" from time to time until it is updated."

So, try shutting down the Vista User Account Control feature in the Control Panel. Reboot, then reboot your DSM 520, and try accessing Active-TV again. You will have to authorize the device on your PC, but this should give you access.

A temporary solution, but hopefully a permanent fix will come soon.


Yes I am using Vista and I did tried disabling UAC with no success at all.

My understanding is that Nero Recode uses AAC encoding and that the DSM-520 doesn't support it.

Thanks... I tried "straight" mpg from Nero Vision and that seems to work.

When you convert the DVD into MP4, I beleive the audio has been converted into 2-CH. I am not sure if wre can support 5-CH MP4 file or not. Propabaly not.

For HDMI, what's your problem?

Most of the time, I can't even get HDMI as an option on the 520. I think I've managed it once or twice, but haven't figured out the "magic" yet. Compatibility problem with the receiver? Right now, I have it connected to a Yamaha RX-V1800 via HDMI, composite and digital (optical). Analog and digital seem to work, though I wish I could change outputs while the unit is playing.

I'd love it to be HDMI only, set and forget.

Have you tried turning off HDMI 1.3 features on your TV? I turned off things like Lip Sync, Deep Color and xvYCC and then my D-Link started working w/ my Toshiba 52LX177. I haven't tried figuring out which of the three causes the issues, since I'm pretty sure the DSM-520 doesn't support any of these features.

The issue about getting odd color out via HDMI while in component mode sounds similar to what I experienced when I first was trying to get things working. Then I ran across a section in my user's manual talking about turning off HDMI 1.3 features for older devices, which obviously fixed my issues.

Good luck!

If you select component mode and plug the HTMI cable, we will still output data to the HDMI signal. This is done intentionaaly so that if users make mistake, they can still "see" sometimes and figure out they put the wrong cable.

Therefore, this situation is nothing to do with the HDMI 1.3 stuffs. However, DSM520 never test again any HDMI 1.3 devices. We only test and pass the HDMI 1.1. If there is any problem with HDMI 1.3 devices. It should be the issue of them since they should not assume us to provides anything beyond 1.1. However, we will put the test again HDMI 1.3 devices in the roadmap. If will help a lot if you can provide more details about your experience. Thanks.

We will try to expose the manufecture mode for HDMI so that we can help you to debug the HDMI compatible issues. Unfortunely, it is not available now.

[QUOTE=wa4qfy;11997864]Here is the example of the MediaMall issue.
"........was not allowed to post your URL......[QUOTE]

wa4qfy,

I'm having the same problem with Google and Youtube, in addition I also have these issues;

1) AOL Videos is asking for a signed ActiveX control
2) Comedy Central and others ask for Flash v8 or greater....

yet all works OK on PC running the Active TV application.

I've disabled ZoneAlarm and Ad-Watch and I'm also running TVersity on a Windows XP Home Edition PC.

Thanks in advance,

Saycoda
To all users experiencing the Flash issue with MTV, Comedy Central, and VH1, we think we have found the cause of certain systems not being able to show Flash 9 content when running in the Restricted User accounts used by the DSM-520:

"Restricted User accounts are unable to display Flash Player content
After successful installation under the Windows Administrator account, Restricted User accounts are unable to display Flash Player content. This issue has been reported on Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 systems and occurs sporadically. If you installed Flash Player 8.0.24.0 prior to April 6, 2006, then you must remove it using the Flash Player uninstaller released on May 11, 2006. Remove Flash Player using the instructions in "How to uninstall the Adobe Flash Player" (TechNote tn_14157)."

We can't post the URLs here, but Google this and you should find a solution:

"Problems running Flash Player 8.0.24.0 ActiveX control after installation when logged in as Restricted User on Windows"

[QUOTE=saycoda;12042301][QUOTE=wa4qfy;11997864]Here is the example of the MediaMall issue.
"........was not allowed to post your URL......
To all users experiencing the Flash issue with MTV, Comedy Central, and VH1, we think we have found the cause of certain systems not being able to show Flash 9 content when running in the Restricted User accounts used by the DSM-520:

"Restricted User accounts are unable to display Flash Player content
After successful installation under the Windows Administrator account, Restricted User accounts are unable to display Flash Player content. This issue has been reported on Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 systems and occurs sporadically. If you installed Flash Player 8.0.24.0 prior to April 6, 2006, then you must remove it using the Flash Player uninstaller released on May 11, 2006. Remove Flash Player using the instructions in "How to uninstall the Adobe Flash Player" (TechNote tn_14157)."

We can't post the URLs here, but Google this and you should find a solution:

"Problems running Flash Player 8.0.24.0 ActiveX control after installation when logged in as Restricted User on Windows"

Can you detect this in the eshell.exe and warn users to upgrade the flash player? Most users may not even see this forum.

Yes, we are currently investigating everything, from a smarter installer (ie: baking this Adobe fix into our installer, to better messaging, to a hot fix button on the settings manager). We plan on an updated release within the next few days.

When you convert the DVD into MP4, I beleive the audio has been converted into 2-CH. I am not sure if wre can support 5-CH MP4 file or not. Propabaly not.

For HDMI, what's your problem?

5.1 ch xvid files work fine. Basically xvid with AC3 surround sound. Mencoder is your friend if you take the time to learn how to use it. All my recorded dvr-ms files get automagiclly converted to xvid.

Brings up another point. Dvr-ms does not work. At all. Standard def will try to play but the sound is bad making it unwatchable. High Def dvr-ms doesn't even attempt to play. I'm using a wired connection. This is using Dlinks server not a 3rd party one like tversity.

Here's a strange one and something one may not run into.

I had to do a clean install of Windows Home edition to get ActiveTv working. After installing SP2 and completed the updates I installed ActiveTv and was happy that it is working.

However, I had to troubleshoot a problem so I attempted to boot into safe mode. When Windows got to the welcome screen the computer would reboot after about 10 seconds. If it didn't reboot and you clicked on your name or the Administrator it would reboot.

Uninstalling ActiveTv from the system will allow me to go into safe mode all day long in both user and Adminstrator mode.

Any other Home Edition users want to test their system out and see if they see the same thing? I'm not sure if it affects Pro as I don't have this problem on my laptop running Pro.

Can some one help me answer or solve this:

I encode/ripp a movie (with DVDx or other software) and selects to have the output aspect ratio (setting in Xvid codec) to 16:9, when I then play this on my DSM-520 the output on the screen does not show the entire picture.

The format of the movie is 720x576

The feeling I have that it displays 680-700x576 the remaining part of the picture is "outside" the edge of the screen.

This behaviour occurs if the DSM is in 16:9 "mode"

If I in another test encode/ripp the same movie but in "square pixel" output and then plays this on my DSM-520 it looks like I have a 4:3 picture on a 16:9 screen (alot of black on the left and right side of the picture). If I with this movie change from 16:9 "mode" to 4:3 "mode" it displays the picture just perfect, showing all of the picture.

I would like to have the DSM-520 in 16:9 mode because i have it attached to a 16:9 TV.

i am having the exact same issue, and for now have given up on it...if someone figures it out, please post here!

Which version of Flash Player do you have on your computer that runs ActiveTV? I think if you make sure you have Flash 8 or up, that should solve your problem.

5.1 ch xvid files work fine. Basically xvid with AC3 surround sound. Mencoder is your friend if you take the time to learn how to use it. All my recorded dvr-ms files get automagiclly converted to xvid.

Brings up another point. Dvr-ms does not work. At all. Standard def will try to play but the sound is bad making it unwatchable. High Def dvr-ms doesn't even attempt to play. I'm using a wired connection. This is using Dlinks server not a 3rd party one like tversity.

The current DVR-MS support is not perfect. It can play 80% of files in our hand. However, there is still 20% files has AV sync issue. This is in the TODO list. The best solution so far is to use server which will do transcoding to solve this issue.

Can some one help me answer or solve this:

I encode/ripp a movie (with DVDx or other software) and selects to have the output aspect ratio (setting in Xvid codec) to 16:9, when I then play this on my DSM-520 the output on the screen does not show the entire picture.

The format of the movie is 720x576

The feeling I have that it displays 680-700x576 the remaining part of the picture is "outside" the edge of the screen.

This behaviour occurs if the DSM is in 16:9 "mode"

If I in another test encode/ripp the same movie but in "square pixel" output and then plays this on my DSM-520 it looks like I have a 4:3 picture on a 16:9 screen (alot of black on the left and right side of the picture). If I with this movie change from 16:9 "mode" to 4:3 "mode" it displays the picture just perfect, showing all of the picture.

I would like to have the DSM-520 in 16:9 mode because i have it attached to a 16:9 TV.

Here is the possible answers. Since I don't knwo all of your encoding parameters.

1. If you encode the movie into 720x576 and the pixel aspect ratio is 16:9, the result in square pixel is rough;y 16/9*720/576 = 2.22 : 1. It is too wide so that you may see some pixels is cut in horizontal sides.

2. If you encode the movie in square pixels, 720x576 will be close to 4:3. Therefore, it's normal to see movide played in th center with black strides in both sides since it is a 4:3 movie. If you see the DSM 520 to be 4:3, it will fill the screen. This behaviour is expected.

Can some one help me answer or solve this:

I encode/ripp a movie (with DVDx or other software) and selects to have the output aspect ratio (setting in Xvid codec) to 16:9, when I then play this on my DSM-520 the output on the screen does not show the entire picture.

The format of the movie is 720x576

The feeling I have that it displays 680-700x576 the remaining part of the picture is "outside" the edge of the screen.

This behaviour occurs if the DSM is in 16:9 "mode"

If I in another test encode/ripp the same movie but in "square pixel" output and then plays this on my DSM-520 it looks like I have a 4:3 picture on a 16:9 screen (alot of black on the left and right side of the picture). If I with this movie change from 16:9 "mode" to 4:3 "mode" it displays the picture just perfect, showing all of the picture.

I would like to have the DSM-520 in 16:9 mode because i have it attached to a 16:9 TV.

Are you sure your TV is set to display all the pixels? Most TV's crop a bit of the border to prevent you from seeing closed captioning and other edges of the pictures. My TV has a Natural mode that crops the borders, and a Native mode that displays all the pixels on the TV.

If you select component mode and plug the HTMI cable, we will still output data to the HDMI signal. This is done intentionaaly so that if users make mistake, they can still "see" sometimes and figure out they put the wrong cable.

Therefore, this situation is nothing to do with the HDMI 1.3 stuffs. However, DSM520 never test again any HDMI 1.3 devices. We only test and pass the HDMI 1.1. If there is any problem with HDMI 1.3 devices. It should be the issue of them since they should not assume us to provides anything beyond 1.1. However, we will put the test again HDMI 1.3 devices in the roadmap. If will help a lot if you can provide more details about your experience. Thanks.

We will try to expose the manufecture mode for HDMI so that we can help you to debug the HDMI compatible issues. Unfortunely, it is not available now.

I agree that it shouldn't depend upon HDMI 1.3, but for some reason it does. With the HDMI 1.3 features turned on, my 52LX177 would not display the picture correctly. It worked fine over S-Video or Component. At first, it was hard to get the off color picture to be displayed, but once I remebered the Video Out button on the remote, it was a bit easier to get the off color HDMI picture. Once I turned off all the HDMI 1.3 features, HDMI on the DSM-520 just worked, and has just worked ever since.

I do have a bit of trouble w/ the DSM-520 and PyMedS (http://resnet.uoregon.edu/~gurney_j/jmpc/pymeds.html), a python UPnP media server that I work on. I know it doesn't follow the DLNA spec, but that's (sadly) because the DLNA specs aren't freely available. Basicly after about 25-30 minutes of watching a program, the DSM-520 will decide that it's been disconnected from the media server even though no traffic, besides the video that's playing, passes between the DSM-520 and the server. On older firmwares, the DSM-520 would continue playing the media even after the disconnected message popped up, and was acknoleged, even though the media was being servered from the same server. I can't seem to replicated this issue w/ either Intel's or D-Link's server software, but those were running on Win2k, not FreeBSD like I run PyMedS on. I've tried TwonkyMedia, but it doesn't work (on FreeBSD) the few times I've tried it over the years.

W/o a media server that works under FreeBSD reliably, I haven't been using the DSM-520 much. It's anoying to have to boot up the Windows box (and transfer/make available the data to the Windows server just to watch a program. Though w/ the 0-9, it's a bit easier. I'd love to get it functional, esspecially so my wife can watch a few of the TV programs I record for her.

btw, It's good to see D-Link paying a bit of attention to the people on the forums, I will admit we have a tendancy to be a bit demanding, but we also have a bit better idea of various problems that might crop up. Thanks for listening.

Here is the possible answers. Since I don't knwo all of your encoding parameters.

1. If you encode the movie into 720x576 and the pixel aspect ratio is 16:9, the result in square pixel is rough;y 16/9*720/576 = 2.22 : 1. It is too wide so that you may see some pixels is cut in horizontal sides.

2. If you encode the movie in square pixels, 720x576 will be close to 4:3. Therefore, it's normal to see movide played in th center with black strides in both sides since it is a 4:3 movie. If you see the DSM 520 to be 4:3, it will fill the screen. This behaviour is expected.

Please let me know which encoding parameters you might want to understand my issue.

How should I setup my encoder to give the best result? I want to have the DSM-520 in 16:9 mode and I want the picture to fill the screen 100% horisontal and vertical.

I have done a test that might solve the problem but I have not tested it fully yet and I am not sure it will give a correct and good result. If I in Xvid Codec configuration selects PixelSize 16:9NTSC (Not 16:9 PAL even though I have a PAL version of the DSM-520) it seams that I can see the hole picture when I have the DSM-520 in 16:9 mode.

Are you sure your TV is set to display all the pixels? Most TV's crop a bit of the border to prevent you from seeing closed captioning and other edges of the pictures. My TV has a Natural mode that crops the borders, and a Native mode that displays all the pixels on the TV.

Well I am sure that it least normaly display almost all pixels, if I encode in square pixel and selects 4:3 mode on the DSM I can see at least 99% of the picture, but if I encode in 16:9 pixel and have the DSM-520 in 16:9 mode i get the feeling that I see ~85% of the pixel on a horisonal level and 100% on a vertical level.

I agree that it shouldn't depend upon HDMI 1.3, but for some reason it does. With the HDMI 1.3 features turned on, my 52LX177 would not display the picture correctly. It worked fine over S-Video or Component. At first, it was hard to get the off color picture to be displayed, but once I remebered the Video Out button on the remote, it was a bit easier to get the off color HDMI picture. Once I turned off all the HDMI 1.3 features, HDMI on the DSM-520 just worked, and has just worked ever since.

I do have a bit of trouble w/ the DSM-520 and PyMedS (http://resnet.uoregon.edu/~gurney_j/jmpc/pymeds.html), a python UPnP media server that I work on. I know it doesn't follow the DLNA spec, but that's (sadly) because the DLNA specs aren't freely available. Basicly after about 25-30 minutes of watching a program, the DSM-520 will decide that it's been disconnected from the media server even though no traffic, besides the video that's playing, passes between the DSM-520 and the server. On older firmwares, the DSM-520 would continue playing the media even after the disconnected message popped up, and was acknoleged, even though the media was being servered from the same server. I can't seem to replicated this issue w/ either Intel's or D-Link's server software, but those were running on Win2k, not FreeBSD like I run PyMedS on. I've tried TwonkyMedia, but it doesn't work (on FreeBSD) the few times I've tried it over the years.

W/o a media server that works under FreeBSD reliably, I haven't been using the DSM-520 much. It's anoying to have to boot up the Windows box (and transfer/make available the data to the Windows server just to watch a program. Though w/ the 0-9, it's a bit easier. I'd love to get it functional, esspecially so my wife can watch a few of the TV programs I record for her.

btw, It's good to see D-Link paying a bit of attention to the people on the forums, I will admit we have a tendancy to be a bit demanding, but we also have a bit better idea of various problems that might crop up. Thanks for listening.

The HDMI 1.3 thing is quite insteresting for us. Since we don't support the HDMI 1.3 features, we don't really test again HDMI 1.3 devices before and assume that it must be compatible with HDMI 1.1 devces. All HDMI 1.3 features should be turned off automatically when they detect a HDMI 1.1 sources. We would like to spend some time to test it. Unfortunely, we don't have any devices in hand now. We will release another firmware soon. Please send private message to me if anybody want to try the new firmware which MAY fix the HDMI issue.

For PyMedS, I believe that it does not send renew SSDP in 30 minutes. According to UPnP(not DLNA), specification, the UPNP devices must broadcast SSDP alive message at least four times randomly within its life cycle(30 minutes typically.). If control point does not receive any of them within 30 minutes, it will disconnect the connection. In the old firmware, we have a bug to continue to use the old connection even through the device has been removed from the device list. This may produce trouble when the device come back latter.

Well, I should find this forum a little bit easier so that we can pick up some useful ideas here. The DMA is a product which never finished.

Please let me know which encoding parameters you might want to understand my issue.

How should I setup my encoder to give the best result? I want to have the DSM-520 in 16:9 mode and I want the picture to fill the screen 100% horisontal and vertical.

I have done a test that might solve the problem but I have not tested it fully yet and I am not sure it will give a correct and good result. If I in Xvid Codec configuration selects PixelSize 16:9NTSC (Not 16:9 PAL even though I have a PAL version of the DSM-520) it seams that I can see the hole picture when I have the DSM-520 in 16:9 mode.

If your goal is to fill the screen, you must be sure that your original content is for 16:9. If it is a 4:3 content which recorded from the TV, try to fill the screen will scale the picture incorrectly. If the original picture is for 16:9, your above seeting is correct.

You mention that you have a PAL DSM520. However, we have not released PAL version of DSM520 1.05 yet. Therefore, you should use the NTSC firmware even through your DSM520 is for EU.

If your goal is to fill the screen, you must be sure that your original content is for 16:9. If it is a 4:3 content which recorded from the TV, try to fill the screen will scale the picture incorrectly. If the original picture is for 16:9, your above seeting is correct.

You mention that you have a PAL DSM520. However, we have not released PAL version of DSM520 1.05 yet. Therefore, you should use the NTSC firmware even through your DSM520 is for EU.

att1234, I have a DSM-520eu with 1.05 version. And it is in PAL mode (see my instructions in a previous post I made here how to upgrade a EU DSM-520 with the 1.05 software and then change the unit to PAL)

Regarding my problem. All of my movieas are in 16:9 format. I have just completed the endoding of a movie with above settings (PixelSize 16:9 NTSC) and I will test this when I get home tonight.

I've been meaning to ask, don't you have to use HDMI to play protected content on the DSM-520?

The HDMI 1.3 thing is quite insteresting for us. Since we don't support the HDMI 1.3 features, we don't really test again HDMI 1.3 devices before and assume that it must be compatible with HDMI 1.1 devces. All HDMI 1.3 features should be turned off automatically when they detect a HDMI 1.1 sources. We would like to spend some time to test it. Unfortunely, we don't have any devices in hand now. We will release another firmware soon. Please send private message to me if anybody want to try the new firmware which MAY fix the HDMI issue.

I have a question to att1234, why we can’t have both video seek modes, FF/Rev and Jump, enabled at the same time? Going every time to the menu and switching from one video mode to anther is very annoying.
I would be OK with the low FF/Rev speed, but switching modes through the menu doesn’t make any sense to me.

Still 1.05 is a great update and we all highly appreciate developer’s participation in our discussions.

Thank you!

P.S. Whom I should thank for adding cyrillic support?

I have a question to att1234, why we can’t have both video seek modes, FF/Rev and Jump, enabled at the same time? Going every time to the menu and switching from one video mode to anther is very annoying.
I would be OK with the low FF/Rev speed, but switching modes through the menu doesn’t make any sense to me.

Still 1.05 is a great update and we all highly appreciate developer’s participation in our discussions.

Thank you!

P.S. Whom I should thank for adding cyrillic support?

In the next firmware, you will see a complete new jump method which allow you to use 0-9,page up/page down to jump to any point in the file. This will eliminate the need for Jump mode which is quite useless.

DSM-520 Woes. After updating to the 1.05 firmware I can no longer play my library or ShoutCast audio streams. Is this a personal problem or are others having similar problems. To be concise, with the 1.03 version of the firmware, I am able to play all my XVID ripped and encoded DVD's flawlessly and can also play ShoutCast audio streams. I do this using TwonkyMedia as my server. After allowing the DSM-520 to update, the audio in all my movies lags way behind and playback of ShoutCast streams is full of hiccups and repeats. Below is the URL of a sample short file that used to plays perfectly on 1.03 firmware. Can someone confirm that they can not play it (audio and video in sync) on a DSM-520 with the 1.05 firmware? Here is the URL:
https: //www.thepratts.info/Sample.avi (I am not a spammer)

D-Link has been less than helpful in resolving this problem. They ask many inane questions that lead to no resolution.

Thanks

I am the proud owner of a Tivo HD unit. I was excited when Tivo opened up Desktop 2.5 for my unit. I have been able to successfully download the .tivo files to my home computer and I can watch those files via Windows Media Player on my computer.

I own 2 D-Link DSM-520's. I love it because it allows me to watch my movies on my PC on any of my TVs. I am trying to get to a place where I can watch my Tivo shows through it as well.

The DLink does not recognize .tivo files. I have tried many different applications to convert the .tivo files to .mpg's. The DLink can play the video, but the audio is silent, eventhough the same resulting .mpg can be seen and heard via Windows Media Player. I am not a pro at this, but my guess is the audio codec Tivo is using is not supported by the DLink. I tred giving Tivo a call. They tried to help, but also were not sure what audio codec is used.

The latest is I am trying to use TVHarmony Autopilot. Again, I get the same result when converting to either .avi or .mpg - the DLink shows the video, but can't play the audio.

Any suggestions as to what i can do to make this work?

Thanks in advance

;) i Have over 10,000 Karaoke song on my computer

What a waste being that my dsm-520 cant play the cdg. file with them.

I guess My Question would be do you think this might be a possiblilty in the Future.

Cause I think it would take to the entertainment value of the box to a Whole Nother Level:(

I have a problem with the QuickJump and JumpTo feature in the 1.05 fw that I wounder if anyone else have seen.

For normal movies it works just fine, but in longer movies (over 2 hours) that are encoded in high quality the QuickJump and JumpTo feature simply dont work at all. When I try to do a QuickJump or JumpTo the movie freezes for 0,5sec and then just keeps playing from the place it was or in some situations jumps ahead a few (10-15) seconds.

Have not had the time to investigate this in full detail but it seams to be related to file size rather then bitrate. Here some examples:

Movie #1: 1:37 hours long encoded in 2200bitrate(xvid) and 320kbps audio gives a file size around 1.6-1.7 GB. This movie works just fine, I can jump back and forward without any problem

Movie #2: 2:17 hours long encoded in 2100bitrate(xvid) and 320kbps audio gives a file size around 2.5 GB. This movie is impossible to jump back and forward in.

Movie #3: 1:85 hours long encoded in 2200bitrate(xvid) and 320kbps audio gives a file size around 2.1 GB. This movie works just fine, I can jump back and forward without any problem

I want to install V1.05 I am at v1.02... I havehad other units and returned them because of issues with v1.03 and v1.04.....
Is there a way to go back to v1.02 after I upgrade to v1.05?

Thanks in advance,
Paul

Yes, go back to about page 20 in this forum. There are a couple of ways to do it. I wrote one method in post number 655 in this thread.

Alan

Hi Att1234,

I was very pleased to find out that someone involved in the DSM-520 development
was participating to a user forum.

On the last release (1.05), I was impressed by Active TV. I tested it a lot on my PC. Unfortunatly, I can not use it on my DSM-520 since I am in wireless mode. When
using Active TV in wireless mode, I get the Network error message. I reported this bug
to the support team and they replied to me that this bug was known and the next release will correct this problem. Can you confirm that this problem will be solved.
Can you give me a timeframe for the next release?

Also, I noticed that each morning (without using active-tv), the DSM-520 loose
connection to the server and I have to reboot the device (the DSM-520) in order
to see my servers again (I am using 3 servers : WMP, Tversity and D-LINK).
Is this a reported bug?

Thank you

;) i Have over 10,000 Karaoke song on my computer

What a waste being that my dsm-520 cant play the cdg. file with them.

I guess My Question would be do you think this might be a possiblilty in the Future.

Cause I think it would take to the entertainment value of the box to a Whole Nother Level:(

The issue is that. Even DSM520 can play it and show graphic on the screen. How can users sign without Microphone suppor in the DSM520? How does guys use CDG in their home now?

I will ask some stupid question, too :-(

How do you play the shoutcast? Can you explain in detail?

The link you provide is a video file. Do you share it in twonkey media server?

I try the link. It does not work.

YC

DSM-520 Woes. After updating to the 1.05 firmware I can no longer play my library or ShoutCast audio streams. Is this a personal problem or are others having similar problems. To be concise, with the 1.03 version of the firmware, I am able to play all my XVID ripped and encoded DVD's flawlessly and can also play ShoutCast audio streams. I do this using TwonkyMedia as my server. After allowing the DSM-520 to update, the audio in all my movies lags way behind and playback of ShoutCast streams is full of hiccups and repeats. Below is the URL of a sample short file that used to plays perfectly on 1.03 firmware. Can someone confirm that they can not play it (audio and video in sync) on a DSM-520 with the 1.05 firmware? Here is the URL:
https: //www.thepratts.info/Sample.avi (I am not a spammer)

D-Link has been less than helpful in resolving this problem. They ask many inane questions that lead to no resolution.

Thanks

That is a Microsoft TCP/IP bug. It looks like it is for Vista. We are beta test the fixup now. If everything goes fine. We will ley you guys know the release schedule. It is not for wireless only.

For the connection lost problem, I don't know that. I will file it into the issue tracking system. Thanks for your report.

Hi Att1234,

I was very pleased to find out that someone involved in the DSM-520 development
was participating to a user forum.

On the last release (1.05), I was impressed by Active TV. I tested it a lot on my PC. Unfortunatly, I can not use it on my DSM-520 since I am in wireless mode. When
using Active TV in wireless mode, I get the Network error message. I reported this bug
to the support team and they replied to me that this bug was known and the next release will correct this problem. Can you confirm that this problem will be solved.
Can you give me a timeframe for the next release?

Also, I noticed that each morning (without using active-tv), the DSM-520 loose
connection to the server and I have to reboot the device (the DSM-520) in order
to see my servers again (I am using 3 servers : WMP, Tversity and D-LINK).
Is this a reported bug?

Thank you

That is a Microsoft TCP/IP bug. It looks like it is for Vista. We are beta test the fixup now. If everything goes fine. We will ley you guys know the release schedule. It is not for wireless only

Just wanted to pop in and say - I have the same problem (NETWORK ERROR) when running wirelessly and I am NOT running Vista (I am running XP)

What a waste being that my dsm-520 cant play the cdg. file with them.

It may or may not be what you are looking for, but in the past I have had some success using TVersity to play CDG files to the DSM520. Sorry, I can't post URLs yet, but look on the TVersity forums, search on Karaoke.

att1234, can I ask you one more favor, actually just a request to make navigation through the menus a little bit easier. I use DSM520 primarily for watching movies and every time when I turn media player on I have to go through the multiple menus in order to get into “Folders” and select file with the movie.

It would be a great improvement if I could press just one button (or even without pressing “shortcut” button, just after turning player ON) and go directly to the “Folders”. I also would like to use the recent media server by default, so I don’t need to select media server from the list even if I have several media servers running.

Thanks in advance,

Virginian.

att1234,

I would like to thank you and your development team for a great product. I purchased this product to use as a video streamer for my DVD library and Audio Library. It was very easy to setup and I was up and running in about 10mins from start to finish. The navigation is very easy to use. I handed the remote to the girlfriend and she was able to navigate through all the apps no problem and she has little to no technical expertise. This helped in the justification for the 3TB of HDD I had to buy and the unit its self. Her exact words and I quote, "this is the best piece of equipment you have bought!!!!" She didn't say that about the 65" Plasma or the 7.2 surround sound hahaha.

Also would like to add that the use of Active TV is hot. An added feature that I never expected. 3 cheers to you guys and keep up the great work!!!

Thought I would write this as being an IT professional myself it is always good to hear good feedback rather then all the negative feed back.

Thanks again and looking forward to future firmware updates, maybe.... adding some Eye-Candy to the UI.

The HDMI 1.3 thing is quite insteresting for us. Since we don't support the HDMI 1.3 features, we don't really test again HDMI 1.3 devices before and assume that it must be compatible with HDMI 1.1 devces. All HDMI 1.3 features should be turned off automatically when they detect a HDMI 1.1 sources. We would like to spend some time to test it. Unfortunely, we don't have any devices in hand now. We will release another firmware soon. Please send private message to me if anybody want to try the new firmware which MAY fix the HDMI issue.I just stumbled upon this thread. I'm seeing the exact same problems when trying to connect my DSM-520 via HDMI to my new HDMI 1.3 Sharp LC-52D64U. I'd be more than happy to try out a beta firmware if it might resolve the problem. PM sent.

Not having any issues with playing a Shoutcast stream w/ firmware 1.05. I'm using the D-Link Media Server Software while you are using the TwonkyMedia server.

Did you install the D-Link Media server as a test to see if it worked OK in there?

I'm assuming that you are using a Playlist to access the Shoutcast content.

That is a Microsoft TCP/IP bug. It looks like it is for Vista. We are beta test the fixup now. If everything goes fine. We will ley you guys know the release schedule. It is not for wireless only.




I am not using Vista, I am using XP.

Do you see the same error in wired connection?

Just wanted to pop in and say - I have the same problem (NETWORK ERROR) when running wirelessly and I am NOT running Vista (I am running XP)

The problem is that UPnP media server does not guarantee the "ID" of specific items unchanged. If we want to do that, we need to implement for each media sevrers.

The beat way I can think is to press video, up and enter keys to enter the folders menu. If you have a universal remote control, you may use marco keys to do this job automatically. If we implement this feature in the firmware, I am afraid that we will receive a lot of questions since it will not work reliably.

For the default media server, it is old behaviour prior 1.03. However, most people think that is more friendly to select media server in the setup menu. Therefore, we remove the default media sevrer and ask users to select it every time. It is hard to design an UI which everybody like it :-)

att1234, can I ask you one more favor, actually just a request to make navigation through the menus a little bit easier. I use DSM520 primarily for watching movies and every time when I turn media player on I have to go through the multiple menus in order to get into “Folders” and select file with the movie.

It would be a great improvement if I could press just one button (or even without pressing “shortcut” button, just after turning player ON) and go directly to the “Folders”. I also would like to use the recent media server by default, so I don’t need to select media server from the list even if I have several media servers running.

Thanks in advance,

Virginian.

Thanks for your words.

For the eye candy, we may not be able to change the DSM520 UI dramatically since it has been there for years. In the future product, we may consider to support skin so that you can put your picture in the UI. Unfortunely, this may not be possible for DSM520.

We will continue to develop better and better products until the mediaplayer become a commodity of every home. You guys as pioneer in this field are the most important "developer" for this product.

Please keep pushing us. This is the most important momentum for us.

att1234,

I would like to thank you and your development team for a great product. I purchased this product to use as a video streamer for my DVD library and Audio Library. It was very easy to setup and I was up and running in about 10mins from start to finish. The navigation is very easy to use. I handed the remote to the girlfriend and she was able to navigate through all the apps no problem and she has little to no technical expertise. This helped in the justification for the 3TB of HDD I had to buy and the unit its self. Her exact words and I quote, "this is the best piece of equipment you have bought!!!!" She didn't say that about the 65" Plasma or the 7.2 surround sound hahaha.

Also would like to add that the use of Active TV is hot. An added feature that I never expected. 3 cheers to you guys and keep up the great work!!!

Thought I would write this as being an IT professional myself it is always good to hear good feedback rather then all the negative feed back.

Thanks again and looking forward to future firmware updates, maybe.... adding some Eye-Candy to the UI.

Do you see the same error in wired connection?

It's not easy for me to test it in wired mode but from I read on the
Tversity forum, Active-Tv works with wired connection and does not work
in wireless connection.

Do you see the same error in wired connection?

NO, it worked great when wired.

Att1234, can you tell me if the album art problem will be fixed in the next release?

In version 1.04, the album art were showing but after a while, the same
image would show again and again. In version 1.05, any of my album art were
showing. What I learned from other forums, is that only small (200x200 and
less) album art are displayed. Can you comment on that.

Thank you for help

This issue is confirmed. We put a limitation there. Assume that the resolution is axb. If a*b*3 > 128*1024, we won't show it. 1.04 will crash when there is big album art inside the MP3 so that we put this limitation. However, it is too struict. We will relax it to support at least 300x300. If the memory is enough, 400x400 maybe.


Att1234, can you tell me if the album art problem will be fixed in the next release?

In version 1.04, the album art were showing but after a while, the same
image would show again and again. In version 1.05, any of my album art were
showing. What I learned from other forums, is that only small (200x200 and
less) album art are displayed. Can you comment on that.

Thank you for help

I would like to address this question to a group of established dsm-520 users.

I'm just starting to setup my 'media' environment and have started with a dlink NAS (dns-323) with 1TB disk. I have photos, music and just starting to store DVDs/movies.

I'm undecided to go for a 520 for wait for the newer 750.
As far as I can tell, the 530 would allow me to access my media on the NAS without relying on my PC to be up & running.
The 750 is a windows media extender and needs the PC to be running (but maybe it can read the NAS directly ??)
The fast n-draft wireless in the 750 is a plus as well I guess, but I coulod possibly run a cable if I went for the 520.
I tend to try and future-proof and go for the latest technology but I'm not sure between these two.

Any thoughts from users of the 520 ?
grateful for your comments.

As far as I can tell, the 530 would allow me to access my media on the NAS without relying on my PC to be up & running.

Any thoughts from users of the 520 ?Yes, that should work with the latest (1.05) firmware on the 520. I have a similar NAS device (an HP MediaVault), and one of the recent 520 firmware updates (1.03 or 1.04, IIRC) broke its ability to work with the MediaVault's UPnP server, but 1.05 appears to have fixed it again, so I would presume it should have no problems with the inbuilt UPnP server in your D-Link NAS.

Where can I find a list of changes made in the 1.05 firmware? D-Link's FAQ entry (http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?prod_id=2200&question=DSM-520)only goes as far as 1.04.

1.05 came out shortly after 1.04. I assumed the only change made to 1.05 is ActiveTV support.

It's more than that. Here is a short list in my memory.

* Active-TV
* Improved DVR support compared to 1.04. Not perfect yet.
* NTFS support on USB
* browse cache support. You can use the page up/down to feel the differences compaing to the previous version.
* video resume. If you play the same item before, we will ask users to select play from the last-stopped point or from the beginning. We will record up to 10 items.
* Fix the HDMI audio issues for Live365. In the previous firmware, some stations use low bitrate can not be output to the HDMI.
* Support more than 16 wireless AP in the site survey.
* Remove the po noise in the beginning of music playback.
* Fix crash for MP3 with big album art. (This produce some side effect to limit the size of alum art to be 200x200. Will be fixed in the next firmware.)

1.05 came out shortly after 1.04. I assumed the only change made to 1.05 is ActiveTV support.

* NTFS support on USB


Wow I didn't know that! Is there still a limit on the drive size? I had heard there was before but I thought it was because of FAT32 limitations.

I don't really use this feature but I'll have to give it a try now.

NTFS support. Nice. I'll have to try that out. Does that mean that the file size restriction is lifted as well?

Thanks.

* NTFS support on USB


Wow, I missed this one, that's great, I'll try it out today. Thanks!

It's more than that. Here is a short list in my memory.

* Active-TV
* Improved DVR support compared to 1.04. Not perfect yet.
* NTFS support on USB
* browse cache support. You can use the page up/down to feel the differences compaing to the previous version.
* video resume. If you play the same item before, we will ask users to select play from the last-stopped point or from the beginning. We will record up to 10 items.
* Fix the HDMI audio issues for Live365. In the previous firmware, some stations use low bitrate can not be output to the HDMI.
* Support more than 16 wireless AP in the site survey.
* Remove the po noise in the beginning of music playback.
* Fix crash for MP3 with big album art. (This produce some side effect to limit the size of alum art to be 200x200. Will be fixed in the next firmware.)1.03 broke the 520's ability to play Divx and MPEG files from an HP MediaVault's UPnP server, so many of us HPMV owners had manually rolled back to 1.01.

1.05 has restored that functionality. Apparently it has not resolved another problem which was introduced in 1.02 - from the HPMV user group's FAQ: "a bug introduced with version 1.02 does not allow files to play sequentially in folder mode. It just loops back to the first file. It's not an unacceptable inconvenience for videos or music but is annoying when viewing pictures, which tend to be organized in folders."

Since I only use my 520 for video, I'm a happy camper again; the HDMI 1.3 problem is the only item remaining on my wishlist.

* video resume. If you play the same item before, we will ask users to select play from the last-stopped point or from the beginning. We will record up to 10 items.Hmm, I tried this last night but couldn't get it to work - every time I played a file that I had just stopped, it started again from the beginning No prompt, and no resume.

If it was working, are these resume points retained when the 520 is turned off?

At least I know know the 1-9 key trick to skip to 10-90% of the way through, which makes resuming a whole lot quicker.

Those of us with TV's that support HDMI 1.3 will never be able to support DSM-520 without a firmware update. Please fix this issue.

Does the HDMI work in the previous firmware?

For the repeat issue, do you select the repeat mode to be repeat off? The definition repeat mode is

repeat off : It will stop at the last pictyure
repeat one: It will repeat the current one. For the picture, it will stay at the same picture forever.
repeat all: It will loop for all pictures forever.

At least, it works at the new beta firmware in my hand now. I have not tested it in the 1.05.


1.03 broke the 520's ability to play Divx and MPEG files from an HP MediaVault's UPnP server, so many of us HPMV owners had manually rolled back to 1.01.

1.05 has restored that functionality. Apparently it has not resolved another problem which was introduced in 1.02 - from the HPMV user group's FAQ: "a bug introduced with version 1.02 does not allow files to play sequentially in folder mode. It just loops back to the first file. It's not an unacceptable inconvenience for videos or music but is annoying when viewing pictures, which tend to be organized in folders."

Since I only use my 520 for video, I'm a happy camper again; the HDMI 1.3 problem is the only item remaining on my wishlist.

This is wired. I just test it works fine. My step is

* Play a video
* use 5 to jump to the middle of the video
* press stop
* play the same video again
* The message box is shown.


Hmm, I tried this last night but couldn't get it to work - every time I played a file that I had just stopped, it started again from the beginning No prompt, and no resume.

If it was working, are these resume points retained when the 520 is turned off?

At least I know know the 1-9 key trick to skip to 10-90% of the way through, which makes resuming a whole lot quicker.

If this is the case, I believe that it has not been fixed yet. Is there anyone whose TV works before, but broken in the 1.05? If no, we must acquire a non-working TV or there is somebody here who would like to help us so that we can fix the compatibility issue.


Those of us with TV's that support HDMI 1.3 will never be able to support DSM-520 without a firmware update. Please fix this issue.

FYI, I hooked up my 250gb, unpartitioned, NTFS drive to the DSM-520 and successfully played everything I tried. I'm VERY happy with the change. Great job, D-Link.

If this is the case, I believe that it has not been fixed yet. Is there anyone whose TV works before, but broken in the 1.05? If no, we must acquire a non-working TV or there is somebody here who would like to help us so that we can fix the compatibility issue.HDMI did not work for me with my (1.3-capable) Aquos LC-52D64U even when I still had 1.01 on my 520. I upgraded to 1.05 in the hope that it woud fix it, which it did not.

I'd be more than happy to help out, as long as it doesn't involve shipping my TV to you! :)

Does the HDMI work in the previous firmware?

For the repeat issue, do you select the repeat mode to be repeat off?No, it did not work with 1.01. I'm pretty sure I tried all available Repeat settings, but I'll try again tonight and let you know.

This is wired. I just test it works fine. My step is

* Play a video
* use 5 to jump to the middle of the video
* press stop
* play the same video again
* The message box is shown.I haven't tried stopping a video and then restarting it immediately like that, but after going to the settings or Home menu and then navigating back to a previously-stopped video, I was not getting a prompt. Again, I'll try this tonight and post my findings.

As a side question, should these pause points be maintained even if the device is turned off and back on? I turn mine off when not in use, and it would be very nice to be able to resume a program I had been watching earlier in the week, for example.

If this is the case, I believe that it has not been fixed yet. Is there anyone whose TV works before, but broken in the 1.05? If no, we must acquire a non-working TV or there is somebody here who would like to help us so that we can fix the compatibility issue.

I've PM'd you, but haven't received a response. I'm interested in helping track down the HDMI 1.3 bug. Luckily my TV has a work around.

It works under the following schenario, too.

* Play a video
* press home to go to the home menu.
* go back to the same video
* The message box is prompted.

It is possible that we may not check all stop. Please let me know your exact steps to reproduce this issue.

The resume points will be kept in the flash. It will be kept there forevery. Of course, we keep only the last ten videos.

No, it did not work with 1.01. I'm pretty sure I tried all available Repeat settings, but I'll try again tonight and let you know.

I haven't tried stopping a video and then restarting it immediately like that, but after going to the settings or Home menu and then navigating back to a previously-stopped video, I was not getting a prompt. Again, I'll try this tonight and post my findings.

As a side question, should these pause points be maintained even if the device is turned off and back on? I turn mine off when not in use, and it would be very nice to be able to resume a program I had been watching earlier in the week, for example.

We will work with our vendor to future discuss the issue. The DSM520 is designed in the time when the HDMI 1.3 is not available yet. Therefore, we never design and test with HDMI 1.3 devices. We are used to believe that HDMI 1.3 should be backward compatible with HDMI 1.1 sources since we have passed all HDMI 1.1 test cases. Unfortunely, it looks like tha it is not the case.

HDMI did not work for me with my (1.3-capable) Aquos LC-52D64U even when I still had 1.01 on my 520. I upgraded to 1.05 in the hope that it woud fix it, which it did not.

I'd be more than happy to help out, as long as it doesn't involve shipping my TV to you! :)

We have started to check the HDMI 1.3 devices issue. Once we have progress, we will contact you guys and make sure your TV can be supported in the next firmware.

However, we have no clue what's going on for now. We should be more clear about this issue in the next few weeks. Please stay tuned.

I've PM'd you, but haven't received a response. I'm interested in helping track down the HDMI 1.3 bug. Luckily my TV has a work around.

I wasted $15 sending back a unit to get a replacement that had the same problem. :( The HDMI 1.3 issue is a deal killer for me, along with the fact that Active TV is not compatible with Vista 64, and may never be. I ended up returning the replacement DSM-520 and buying an Xbox to use as an extender. While it doesn't play all the file types the DSM-520 does out of the box, it suits my needs. I might revisit a DSM box if the HDMI issue is fixed in the future. Thanks for trying to help att1234, I sincerely appreciate the effort.

Hi

Sorry to change topic from the US 1.05 release, but I'm having problems with the recent 1.04.05eu release. Although the update has greatly improved the throughput, I'm now getting frequent disconnects from the server, in this case a dsm-g600 via a dsl-624m wireless router. Obviously no ActiveTV here in Euro-land, but I'd appreciate any advice beyond the obvious of upgrading

Thanks,
Ian W

How often it is? What's your media sevrer?

Hi

Sorry to change topic from the US 1.05 release, but I'm having problems with the recent 1.04.05eu release. Although the update has greatly improved the throughput, I'm now getting frequent disconnects from the server, in this case a dsm-g600 via a dsl-624m wireless router. Obviously no ActiveTV here in Euro-land, but I'd appreciate any advice beyond the obvious of upgrading

Thanks,
Ian W

For the repeat issue, do you select the repeat mode to be repeat off?It doesn't seem to matter whether I have repeat off, on, or single - if I hit Play in a folder of pictures, it never advances past the specific file I had selected when I hit Play. That image will fade out as if it's about to show the next one, but then that same image fades back into view again.

It works under the following schenario, too.

* Play a video
* press home to go to the home menu.
* go back to the same video
* The message box is prompted.

It is possible that we may not check all stop. Please let me know your exact steps to reproduce this issue.

The resume points will be kept in the flash. It will be kept there forevery. Of course, we keep only the last ten videos.I have tried stopping playback by hitting Stop, and by hitting Home. I have tried going immediately back to the same file; I have tried doing other things before returning to the file. On no occasion have I seen any sort of resume prompt - it starts playback from the beginning every time.

This is supposed to be stored on the 520, so it should be independent of the server used, correct? The reason I ask is that I'm using my HP Media Vault's UPnP server, not the D-Link server software.

How often it is? What's your media sevrer?
About every 20-25 mins. I'm using a D-Link DSM-G600 as the server. I haven't tried using the D-Link Media Server or Windows Media player since I upgraded, though it sounds like it might be an idea to try and isolate the problem. I never had ay disconnects before the upgrade.

Thanks,

Ian W

About every 20-25 mins. I'm using a D-Link DSM-G600 as the server. I haven't tried using the D-Link Media Server or Windows Media player since I upgraded, though it sounds like it might be an idea to try and isolate the problem. I never had ay disconnects before the upgrade.

Thanks,

Ian W
Just watched a 1hr 45min vid streamed from my laptop (using WMP) with no interruption.

Then watched another from the G600 - disconnected after 25 mins. Bummer! Looks like the G600 is the problem. I've seen threads about replacing the UpnP server on other boards, but this looks to involved. Any recommendations welcome.

regards,

Ian W

I have tried different media sevrer, play in a fodler or a picture, and change all repeat setting. All works fine. Can you press the info key to open the information box to make sure the picture is unchanged?

Is there anybody who has the same issue here?

It doesn't seem to matter whether I have repeat off, on, or single - if I hit Play in a folder of pictures, it never advances past the specific file I had selected when I hit Play. That image will fade out as if it's about to show the next one, but then that same image fades back into view again.

What's your media sevrer?

It doesn't seem to matter whether I have repeat off, on, or single - if I hit Play in a folder of pictures, it never advances past the specific file I had selected when I hit Play. That image will fade out as if it's about to show the next one, but then that same image fades back into view again.

There is a limitation. The media sevrer must use consistent Object ID because we use Object ID instead of the title to identify a media object. We have HP machines and we can try it.

I have tried stopping playback by hitting Stop, and by hitting Home. I have tried going immediately back to the same file; I have tried doing other things before returning to the file. On no occasion have I seen any sort of resume prompt - it starts playback from the beginning every time.

This is supposed to be stored on the 520, so it should be independent of the server used, correct? The reason I ask is that I'm using my HP Media Vault's UPnP server, not the D-Link server software.

We are working on the folliwng issue now. Please post if yours are not in the list
* DVDx encoder compatibility
* HDMI 1.3 compatibility
* photo playlist issue(can not reproduce yet)
* DND-323 browse issue
* Leave server idle for overnight, it will disconnect. (can not reproduce yet)
* new 30 seconds jump (finished)
* Fix album art size issue(finished)
* Live365 account issue(finished)
* HDMI half screen (finished)
* MediaMall connection issue( looks finished)

The first two are big ones which might spend for a while or become limitation in the next release. Others will be addressed in the next firmware.

I have a problem with the QuickJump and JumpTo feature in the 1.05 fw that I wounder if anyone else have seen.

For normal movies it works just fine, but in longer movies (over 2 hours) that are encoded in high quality the QuickJump and JumpTo feature simply dont work at all. When I try to do a QuickJump or JumpTo the movie freezes for 0,5sec and then just keeps playing from the place it was or in some situations jumps ahead a few (10-15) seconds.

Have not had the time to investigate this in full detail but it seams to be related to file size rather then bitrate. Here some examples:

Movie #1: 1:37 hours long encoded in 2200bitrate(xvid) and 320kbps audio gives a file size around 1.6-1.7 GB. This movie works just fine, I can jump back and forward without any problem

Movie #2: 2:17 hours long encoded in 2100bitrate(xvid) and 320kbps audio gives a file size around 2.5 GB. This movie is impossible to jump back and forward in.

Movie #3: 1:85 hours long encoded in 2200bitrate(xvid) and 320kbps audio gives a file size around 2.1 GB. This movie works just fine, I can jump back and forward without any problem

Hi Borgstrand
I guess the problem is the DSM-520 can not get the avi index table.
So, We can use jump function when we play that avi file.
And
I try to encode a avi file use DVDx.
But I can not use VlCPlayer to play the avi I encoded.
(I can play it use DSM-520, but jump function doesn't work)

So, May you try VLCPlayer to play it~ ^^

We are working on the folliwng issue now. Please post if yours are not in the list
* DVDx encoder compatibility
* HDMI 1.3 compatibility
* photo playlist issue(can not reproduce yet)
* DND-323 browse issue
* Leave server idle for overnight, it will disconnect. (can not reproduce yet)
* new 30 seconds jump (finished)
* Fix album art size issue(finished)
* Live365 account issue(finished)
* HDMI half screen (finished)
* MediaMall connection issue( looks finished)

The first two are big ones which might spend for a while or become limitation in the next release. Others will be addressed in the next firmware.

This is good service, excellent communications, direct input from users! You just don't see this kind of thing anymore. Thanks SO MUCH!

Is there anybody who has the same issue here? I have the same issue and not only with pictures but with MP3s. Most of the time I use HP MediaVault, sometimes D-Link Media Server. 1.02 used to play properly.
On the other side SMC media adapter does not have problems with HPMV.

My Sony TV gives me an "unsupported Signal" message when I hook my DSM-520 through HDMI. Is there a fix for this?

We are working on the folliwng issue now. Please post if yours are not in the list
* DVDx encoder compatibility
* HDMI 1.3 compatibility
* photo playlist issue(can not reproduce yet)
* DND-323 browse issue
* Leave server idle for overnight, it will disconnect. (can not reproduce yet)
* new 30 seconds jump (finished)
* Fix album art size issue(finished)
* Live365 account issue(finished)
* HDMI half screen (finished)
* MediaMall connection issue( looks finished)

The first two are big ones which might spend for a while or become limitation in the next release. Others will be addressed in the next firmware.

Please release a new firmware as soon as the status of the MediaMall
connection issue goes from "looks finished" to "finished". I love Active-TV
but can't use yet on my DSM-520...

This is HDMI 1.3 isue.

My Sony TV gives me an "unsupported Signal" message when I hook my DSM-520 through HDMI. Is there a fix for this?

Hi gang-

I love the DSM-520 for playing music. The one thing it doesn't do is let you build a playlist on the fly. Say you're hanging around with friends listening to a song and someone requests what to play next. You have to wait for the current song to end to queue up the next one, or you have abruptly stop the current song.

I can already surf to a new song while one is playing. All I want is a button to "add to queue". Then I can build a play list on the fly, like "Add to Now Playing" in the RealPlayer.

Or, is there already a way to do this? I've scoured the web and documentation but saw nothing related.

Thanks for listening!
Scott

Hi All, great forum,

Att1234, you might be able to clarify me, even before the next firmware is released:

1.Which Album Art size does DLINK advise? 200x200? 300x300? 500x500? any other?

2.How should the album art be written?
a) as a "folder.jpg" in the folder?
b) as a "cover.jpg" in the folder?
c) as a "AlbumArtSmall.jpg" in the folder?
d) embedded in each mp3 file "Album Art" ID tag?
e) depends on the Media Server SW?

3.If answer to no.2 above was d), then which version of ID3 tags should be used? 2.3?

thanks so much for any help, regards
rtdias

Im new to the forum just bought my DLINK yesterday.. Had one question:

When i open up my video folders, they are all sorted funky. There is no order to it. I wish i can have it go in order by episode with my tv shows. Let me know if there is any way possible to go in, edit tags, or do anything to get them in order of episode.

This is good service, excellent communications, direct input from users! You just don't see this kind of thing anymore. Thanks SO MUCH!

I haven't been actively involved in this thread, but I also want to say thanks to att1234 and Dlink for their monitoring and support of this. I'm in a hardware/software test position myself, and I know first hand how hard it is to duplicate individual issues, and also to deal with the flak from customers on issues.

Good job and thanks!

YESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally, the EU version of the firmware has a way to go to the now playing screen: press the info button twice and you go back to the very nice new now playing screen.

Well done DLINK!

Unfortunely, there is no such function in DSM520. The closest one is the editable playlist. This function works for D-link media server only. It will build a playlist and stored it in the media server.

However, this function can not play on the fly. You need to build the whole list and then start to play it. We may think about if we can extend this function to start the play list once the first song is created. However, this may not be too late to be in the next firmware.


Hi gang-

I love the DSM-520 for playing music. The one thing it doesn't do is let you build a playlist on the fly. Say you're hanging around with friends listening to a song and someone requests what to play next. You have to wait for the current song to end to queue up the next one, or you have abruptly stop the current song.

I can already surf to a new song while one is playing. All I want is a button to "add to queue". Then I can build a play list on the fly, like "Add to Now Playing" in the RealPlayer.

Or, is there already a way to do this? I've scoured the web and documentation but saw nothing related.

Thanks for listening!
Scott

(1) The resultion is 200x200 now. It will be increased in the next firmware.
(2) It's (d) and (e). However, no media server will extracted the embedded album now. The only one is Intel viiv media server, but viiv is gone.
(3) We support up to 2.4.

Hi All, great forum,

Att1234, you might be able to clarify me, even before the next firmware is released:

1.Which Album Art size does DLINK advise? 200x200? 300x300? 500x500? any other?

2.How should the album art be written?
a) as a "folder.jpg" in the folder?
b) as a "cover.jpg" in the folder?
c) as a "AlbumArtSmall.jpg" in the folder?
d) embedded in each mp3 file "Album Art" ID tag?
e) depends on the Media Server SW?

3.If answer to no.2 above was d), then which version of ID3 tags should be used? 2.3?

thanks so much for any help, regards
rtdias

It depends on your media server. For D-link media server, it should sort in the title. For video, it should be the filename.


Im new to the forum just bought my DLINK yesterday.. Had one question:

When i open up my video folders, they are all sorted funky. There is no order to it. I wish i can have it go in order by episode with my tv shows. Let me know if there is any way possible to go in, edit tags, or do anything to get them in order of episode.

Thanks for your reminder. This is the item we fpr get to include the the changelog. I guess that few know know it yet.


YESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally, the EU version of the firmware has a way to go to the now playing screen: press the info button twice and you go back to the very nice new now playing screen.

Well done DLINK!

Hi gang-

I love the DSM-520 for playing music. The one thing it doesn't do is let you build a playlist on the fly. Say you're hanging around with friends listening to a song and someone requests what to play next. You have to wait for the current song to end to queue up the next one, or you have abruptly stop the current song.

I can already surf to a new song while one is playing. All I want is a button to "add to queue". Then I can build a play list on the fly, like "Add to Now Playing" in the RealPlayer.

Or, is there already a way to do this? I've scoured the web and documentation but saw nothing related.

Thanks for listening!
Scott

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but this is how I do it. I use Cidero

http://www.cidero.com/

It requires that you use a PC to control the DSM520. It has the queueing function that you are looking for. Cidero is a UPNP media controller. It allows you select which upnp media server to use and create a playlist on the fly for the DSM520 to play. Cidero works very well and best of all, it is free.

cjcote

that cidero looks very interesting...have a quick question...would this work with the nokia n800...i would love to be able to control what plays on the dsm-520 with an n800, so that i dont even have to bother with a laptop...its almost like have a remote control with a huge screen, and be able to walk around and just pick the song i want to hear...

would really appreciate someone chiming in with suggestions! thanks!

What's your media sevrer?My HP MediaVault. I'll try firing up the D-Link server this weekend and let you know if I see the same behaviour.

We are working on the folliwng issue now. Please post if yours are not in the listThanks for your excellent communication; great to see that this product is being actively supported.

I have a dream!

How it would be great if in some remote future you could select movie file, press right arrow and bring corresponding page from the IMDB database. We don’t need the entire page, just cover picture, brief plot description and may be credits. I know that several open source projects do it in some way, but maybe with implementing new Active-TV features we already have a solid framework that would allow us to add fetching movie credits?

You can use N800 to control the DSM520 directly.

that cidero looks very interesting...have a quick question...would this work with the nokia n800...i would love to be able to control what plays on the dsm-520 with an n800, so that i dont even have to bother with a laptop...its almost like have a remote control with a huge screen, and be able to walk around and just pick the song i want to hear...

would really appreciate someone chiming in with suggestions! thanks!

This issue is confimed. The playlist doe snot work well in HP MediaVault because its media server does not send correct information of the number of files inside a folder. It always tell us '1' no matter how many files in the folder.

Althrough this is a bug of the mediabolic media server inside HP MediaVault, we are considering a workaround since this is a very typical error of many media server.

My HP MediaVault. I'll try firing up the D-Link server this weekend and let you know if I see the same behaviour.

Thanks for your excellent communication; great to see that this product is being actively supported.

We investigate the possibility before. However, the IMDB does not has unique key as the CDDB. Therefore, the IMDB need gto be added manually by users one by one which is not so convienent.

If we found any media server can do this job, we are open to add special UI to display DVD cover and other information. Let us know if there is any or anyone who work on media server has insteresting to add this capability into the you media server.

Hope the dream can come true.

I have a dream!

How it would be great if in some remote future you could select movie file, press right arrow and bring corresponding page from the IMDB database. We don’t need the entire page, just cover picture, brief plot description and may be credits. I know that several open source projects do it in some way, but maybe with implementing new Active-TV features we already have a solid framework that would allow us to add fetching movie credits?

We investigate the possibility before. However, the IMDB does not has unique key as the CDDB. Therefore, the IMDB need gto be added manually by users one by one which is not so convienent.

If we found any media server can do this job, we are open to add special UI to display DVD cover and other information. Let us know if there is any or anyone who work on media server has insteresting to add this capability into the you media server.

Hope the dream can come true.

att1234,

Thank you very much!

I'll try to find an open source project that tried to implement this feature.

Att1234

For me the movie portion of the player works perfect. However I have the following issues with the audio.

Music Playing Display: I would like to see an option of a screen saver for those of use that still use CRT's. Also concerning the Album Box, for myself I would prefer that the Album display box not even be there. Since I use ogg or wave this Album box kinda looks out of place. But maybe there could be an option to disable it.

Wave Files: If I try and play wave file after a song or two it loses its place and you get this large number to the right and the time line won't move. It looks like the same time line when you stream music. Anyway when this happens the song will end earlier as well as all the remaining songs unless you stop and start over.

Ogg Vorbus: When displaying photos or even the screen saver anything above a quality setting of 7 will cause interrmitten stuttering. It seems to be more CPU intensive maybe.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Right now using my old AvLink Player 2 to play my Wave files. So I don't believe the issue is in the server. I have also tried other Apps with the same results.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for the GREAT SUPPORT!!!

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but this is how I do it. I use Cidero

http://www.cidero.com/

It requires that you use a PC to control the DSM520. It has the queueing function that you are looking for. Cidero is a UPNP media controller. It allows you select which upnp media server to use and create a playlist on the fly for the DSM520 to play. Cidero works very well and best of all, it is free.

cjcote

that cidero looks very interesting...have a quick question...would this work with the nokia n800...i would love to be able to control what plays on the dsm-520 with an n800, so that i dont even have to bother with a laptop...its almost like have a remote control with a huge screen, and be able to walk around and just pick the song i want to hear...

would really appreciate someone chiming in with suggestions! thanks!

I can't give you any advice regarding the Nokia, but I can tell you how to set up a pretty usable queue. Start a playlist - add some songs to the playlist and start it playing. Back arrow and pressing menu will allow you to add to the play list. Once the songs you want to add are selected, pressing menu again will add them to the end of the playlist without interupting the song in progress and the list will continue to play in the order as you've added them, provided you don't have shuffle on. It's a little cumbersome but it works...try it out. (I may not have all the steps right but it's something like that.) You can just keep one playlist to use as a queue. When you want to use it, when you select the playlist you can up arrow and it will take you to the end of the list where you can begin adding songs again. You may even end up with a killer playlist to play from randomly. Hope that helps.

Kevin

Att1234,

thanks a lot for the answer. With D-Link media server and TVersity I cannot see the Album Art, indeed.

With the new Linksys NAS200 I can see the embedded album art, as long as it's 200x200 (apparently).

I would like to suggest a "Folder.jpg" approach for the next firmware version, as that's seems to be much easier, logical and an adopted practice by most media servers.

thanks in advance,
rtdias

Hi.
New to this forum so sorry if this has been delt with.

I have used my DSM-520 to replay recorded Digital TV from a HP Media Vault and very happy with the results.
I now wish to store the best bits of my audio CD collection on the Media Vault but am more interested in maximium playback quality as opposed to compression. I have connected the optical output to my Hi-Fi via an component A/D converter. Question is, what is the best encoder for use with the DSM-520.
Does it support WMA9 lossless or FLAC for example?
Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards, Ray.

Circuit City's price for the DSM-520 is now $159.99. The other day they dropped the price on the DSM-510 by $60 to $139.99.

I just looked on Best Buy's site to see if they also dropped the price on the SSM-520 , but apparently they are no longer carrying it. Hmm.

(1) For music play page, we always struggle if we should optimize CRT or LCD. Most DSM520 UI are deisgned for CRT when we design it three years ago. However, for all new UI or products, we have decided to optimize for LCD since it become majority of our customers. Sorry about this.

(2) I don't quite understand what is "look like the same time line". Are you saying that the current time is not changed? Please tell us the bitrate, file size of duration of that file.

(3) Yes, both ogg and photo is decoded by CPU. This combination has touched the limitation of the DSM520. We can try to adjust the priority between audio decoding and photo decoding thread.

Att1234

For me the movie portion of the player works perfect. However I have the following issues with the audio.

Music Playing Display: I would like to see an option of a screen saver for those of use that still use CRT's. Also concerning the Album Box, for myself I would prefer that the Album display box not even be there. Since I use ogg or wave this Album box kinda looks out of place. But maybe there could be an option to disable it.

Wave Files: If I try and play wave file after a song or two it loses its place and you get this large number to the right and the time line won't move. It looks like the same time line when you stream music. Anyway when this happens the song will end earlier as well as all the remaining songs unless you stop and start over.

Ogg Vorbus: When displaying photos or even the screen saver anything above a quality setting of 7 will cause interrmitten stuttering. It seems to be more CPU intensive maybe.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Right now using my old AvLink Player 2 to play my Wave files. So I don't believe the issue is in the server. I have also tried other Apps with the same results.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for the GREAT SUPPORT!!!

What do you mean Folder.jpg? Can you tell me what sever use it? Are you talking about album art in the browse or playing?

Currently, in the browse mode, if media server support standard DLNA album art, we will display it. Unfortunely, almost all servers does not support it well, including ours.

Under playing mode, we will use the embedded album art. The issue is that we have a limittaion to be 200x200 now. This will be relaxed latter.

It will be even better if we can display the album art for the folder under the album. However, it is not easy now.



Att1234,

thanks a lot for the answer. With D-Link media server and TVersity I cannot see the Album Art, indeed.

With the new Linksys NAS200 I can see the embedded album art, as long as it's 200x200 (apparently).

I would like to suggest a "Folder.jpg" approach for the next firmware version, as that's seems to be much easier, logical and an adopted practice by most media servers.

thanks in advance,
rtdias

With quality, the WAV will be best. Of course, the size....

DSM520 does not support either WMA losless and FLAC and they may not be supported in the short time as well. We will check if we can support it by transcoding from the server side. However, this means that all NAS will not work at all.

The second choice is AAC-LC.



Hi.
New to this forum so sorry if this has been delt with.

I have used my DSM-520 to replay recorded Digital TV from a HP Media Vault and very happy with the results.
I now wish to store the best bits of my audio CD collection on the Media Vault but am more interested in maximium playback quality as opposed to compression. I have connected the optical output to my Hi-Fi via an component A/D converter. Question is, what is the best encoder for use with the DSM-520.
Does it support WMA9 lossless or FLAC for example?
Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards, Ray.

If you are willing to run TVersity, it will transcode flac as long as you have the directshow decoder for flac installed.

Alan

Hi - I am new to this forum but have owned the UK version of the DM-520 for some time now. I am running it wirelessly from a Linkstation Buffalo NAS drive which has TwonkyMedia 4.4 installed (so I don't need to have my PC running all the time).

Does anyone know where can I find the change log for the 1.04.05EU firmware that was release in the UK recently? There is no mention of this on the UK D-link site.

Does anyone know when the UK/EU will release firmware will have the same features that those in the US currently enjoy (Active TV, etc)?

Thanks in advance!

splatzuk

Hi!

I am trying to install the DSM520 Active-TV on my PC but I always get an error message. Instashield Wizard says "The installation of Active-TV Server has failed. Setup will now exit".
Are you experiencing the same?
Do you know how to solve it?
Is the operating system WinXP64 the problem?

Thanks in advance!

Martin

Please contact and push D-link EU office. The firmware has been in their hand for a long time. We have no control about the release time.

Hi - I am new to this forum but have owned the UK version of the DM-520 for some time now. I am running it wirelessly from a Linkstation Buffalo NAS drive which has TwonkyMedia 4.4 installed (so I don't need to have my PC running all the time).

Does anyone know where can I find the change log for the 1.04.05EU firmware that was release in the UK recently? There is no mention of this on the UK D-link site.

Does anyone know when the UK/EU will release firmware will have the same features that those in the US currently enjoy (Active TV, etc)?

Thanks in advance!

splatzuk

It doesn not work at Vista 64. I have no idea about XP64.

Hi!

I am trying to install the DSM520 Active-TV on my PC but I always get an error message. Instashield Wizard says "The installation of Active-TV Server has failed. Setup will now exit".
Are you experiencing the same?
Do you know how to solve it?
Is the operating system WinXP64 the problem?

Thanks in advance!

Martin

I am running V1.05 of the DSM-520 firmware and streaming from an Infrant NAS. Recently, I decided to put together a slide show. I am finding the picture capability to be terrible, and the control functions to be problematic. I am streaming in 1040i via a component cable. Scaling with distortion is useless as the name suggests. Fit to screen does a terrible job and has significant distortion. "Keep as original" gives very small pictures even using a 7 megapixel camera. Finally, the DLink doesn't orient the pictures correctly, and depending on how you started the show you may or may not be able to pause it.

It would be nice to get the photograph display up to the level of the rest of the software.

Alan

Currently, we don't performan non-integrater or bilinear scaling in the DSM520. It will rely on media server to do it. If you use WMC and D-link media server. It will be better. For most NAS, they transmit the original image to DSM520. Therefore, the effect does not look good since DSM520 does not have hardware capability to decode big image. Everything is done in software.

Currently, the suggestion is to use media servers with image transcoding support.

I am running V1.05 of the DSM-520 firmware and streaming from an Infrant NAS. Recently, I decided to put together a slide show. I am finding the picture capability to be terrible, and the control functions to be problematic. I am streaming in 1040i via a component cable. Scaling with distortion is useless as the name suggests. Fit to screen does a terrible job and has significant distortion. "Keep as original" gives very small pictures even using a 7 megapixel camera. Finally, the DLink doesn't orient the pictures correctly, and depending on how you started the show you may or may not be able to pause it.

It would be nice to get the photograph display up to the level of the rest of the software.

Alan

Thanks for the reply att1234. Since a lot of us are using NAS devices to serve the DLink box, I suggest adding improved scaling for a future firmware upgrade should be considered. A simpler alternative might be to allow the maginfying glass tool to be a global tool when used with "Keep as original", or does that distort the picture also?

That said, there are also issues with pausing a slide show and using the tools on the menu that have appeared since earlier firmware. It is difficult to pause a slide show and when you manage to pause it, it has already moved to the next picture.

Alan

I just had the DLink Server scan my NAS drive. Pictures show up in the media files window, but won't play vid the DSM-520. Any suggestions?

Alan

With quality, the WAV will be best. Of course, the size....

DSM520 does not support either WMA losless and FLAC and they may not be supported in the short time as well. We will check if we can support it by transcoding from the server side. However, this means that all NAS will not work at all.

The second choice is AAC-LC.
Att1234.
Thanks for reply, i'll give Wav a try.
Upgraded firmware to 1.04.05EU at weekend, recorded TV (.mpg) still plays OK, but DVD copies made with DVDDecoder either wont play or play without sound. These were OK with firmware 1.01.
Any thoughts?
Ray.

Hi - I am new to this forum but have owned the UK version of the DM-520 for some time now. I am running it wirelessly from a Linkstation Buffalo NAS drive which has TwonkyMedia 4.4 installed (so I don't need to have my PC running all the time).

Does anyone know where can I find the change log for the 1.04.05EU firmware that was release in the UK recently? There is no mention of this on the UK D-link site.

Does anyone know when the UK/EU will release firmware will have the same features that those in the US currently enjoy (Active TV, etc)?

Thanks in advance!

splatzuk
splatzuk.

How did you get TwonkyMedia 4.4 installed on your Buffalo NAS. As i understand, the Buffalo isn't Upnp compatable out of the box.

Oss059

Do you mount the NAS as a disk?

What do you mean can't play? Can you see it in the file list in the TV?

I just had the DLink Server scan my NAS drive. Pictures show up in the media files window, but won't play vid the DSM-520. Any suggestions?

Alan

Hi Att1234,

I am running 1.05 on Windows Media Center XP. With 1.02, I had no problems streaming music with WMP 11 as the server - was looking forward to having album art - even at 200x200 with the new firmware upgrade - problem is, WMP no longer connects (no changes other than the firmware upgrade). Media sharing is turned on - I can even see video and pictures via WMP 11 - just not music. I am now using TVersity with no problems - it runs perfect - except no album art. I have no problems with Active TV - very happy overall - just wish I could use WMP 11.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance for your help!

The maginfying is a global tools which is available in all three modes. I just test it and it works in all modes.

For the pause issue, when we start to play the next picture, you can not pause it any more even it is not displayed in the screen yet. This is a little bit wired. We will think about how to use an icon to tell users we have moved to the next picture already.

For the NAS, the situation is even worser since NAS usually does not transcode for us. It means that we may spend up to 10 seconds to decode a single picture if the picture is big. If you press the pause during these 10 seconds, it will pause at the next picture from user's prospective.

Since DSM520 does not have HW JPEG decoder, we have no way to improve the decoding speed. My suggestion is to increase the sliedhow interval to be longer so that you can pause the slideshow in the beginning of the slideshow. For example, a 8Mpixels picture need 8 seconds to decode. If you set anything below 8 seconds, it will be very difficult to pause it at the picture you want. However, if you set the slideshow interval to be 30 seconds, you can pause at the first 22 seconds, but not at the last 8 seconds.

This won't be an issue if the media server support transcoding. Therefore, you won't feel this for any PC-based media server. For NAS, this is an big issue.

Thanks for the reply att1234. Since a lot of us are using NAS devices to serve the DLink box, I suggest adding improved scaling for a future firmware upgrade should be considered. A simpler alternative might be to allow the maginfying glass tool to be a global tool when used with "Keep as original", or does that distort the picture also?

That said, there are also issues with pausing a slide show and using the tools on the menu that have appeared since earlier firmware. It is difficult to pause a slide show and when you manage to pause it, it has already moved to the next picture.

Alan

You must be careful about the file extention. If it is a DVD, the extention must be *.vob instead of *.mpg since they are different format. rename the vob to be MPEG will produce the situation you mention.

Att1234.
Thanks for reply, i'll give Wav a try.
Upgraded firmware to 1.04.05EU at weekend, recorded TV (.mpg) still plays OK, but DVD copies made with DVDDecoder either wont play or play without sound. These were OK with firmware 1.01.
Any thoughts?
Ray.

Please check the WMP Media Saring setting which is located under the Library->Media Sharing to see if your device has been authenticated or not.(List with green icon)

Hi Att1234,

I am running 1.05 on Windows Media Center XP. With 1.02, I had no problems streaming music with WMP 11 as the server - was looking forward to having album art - even at 200x200 with the new firmware upgrade - problem is, WMP no longer connects (no changes other than the firmware upgrade). Media sharing is turned on - I can even see video and pictures via WMP 11 - just not music. I am now using TVersity with no problems - it runs perfect - except no album art. I have no problems with Active TV - very happy overall - just wish I could use WMP 11.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance for your help!

Please check the WMP Media Saring setting which is located under the Library->Media Sharing to see if your device has been authenticated or not.(List with green icon)

Media Sharing is on - device is authenticated - I should point out that I can view pictures and video via WMP - just cannot connect to my music files - and I have confirmed the correct formats - all WMAs (unprotected). Again I have no problem connecting via TVersity - same music files - play fine.

Ok, now I understand the problem with the tools. I was using only a 1 second delay because it takes so long to bring a a 7 megapixel picture up from the NAS.

I'm looking into loading twonky on the Infrant. I believe that will transcode and may solve a lot of these problems.

Alan

The maginfying is a global tools which is available in all three modes. I just test it and it works in all modes.

For the pause issue, when we start to play the next picture, you can not pause it any more even it is not displayed in the screen yet. This is a little bit wired. We will think about how to use an icon to tell users we have moved to the next picture already.

For the NAS, the situation is even worser since NAS usually does not transcode for us. It means that we may spend up to 10 seconds to decode a single picture if the picture is big. If you press the pause during these 10 seconds, it will pause at the next picture from user's prospective.

Since DSM520 does not have HW JPEG decoder, we have no way to improve the decoding speed. My suggestion is to increase the sliedhow interval to be longer so that you can pause the slideshow in the beginning of the slideshow. For example, a 8Mpixels picture need 8 seconds to decode. If you set anything below 8 seconds, it will be very difficult to pause it at the picture you want. However, if you set the slideshow interval to be 30 seconds, you can pause at the first 22 seconds, but not at the last 8 seconds.

This won't be an issue if the media server support transcoding. Therefore, you won't feel this for any PC-based media server. For NAS, this is an big issue.

Currently, we don't performan non-integrater or bilinear scaling in the DSM520. It will rely on media server to do it. If you use WMC and D-link media server. It will be better. For most NAS, they transmit the original image to DSM520. Therefore, the effect does not look good since DSM520 does not have hardware capability to decode big image. Everything is done in software.

Currently, the suggestion is to use media servers with image transcoding support.Ouch! This post came just a few day too late. I just received a DSM-520, its main purpose is to play music and show pictures from the home computer (now) and NAS (soon).

The display is a Toshiba 62HM84 (720p) connected to the DSM-520 using HDMI. I can't find any way to check what the DSM-520 output resolution is set to (DSM-520 video is set to HDMI/AUTO so it should be 720p).

Installation went well (other than having to reset the wireless router before the DSM-520 could connect to the internet). The media navigation menus are a bit clunky (it would be nice if they made use of the higher display resolution). The audio support works well (I only have .mp3 files).

Picture support is not good. With the picture scaling set to "use original size" mode, the photos (jpeg format) look like thumbnails on the HDTV (about 1/4 of the screen is used), with the "fit to screen" mode they look like blown up low resolution images (grainy with many artifacts), and with the "scale with distortion" mode they look unbelievably bad.

The DSM-520 firmware was upgraded to 1.05, but this made no difference.

It seems to me that one of the most fundamental tasks for a media player is to scale pictures/video to fit the display device. It does not seem proper to claim support for a media file format if you have to have a computer transcode every file that does not match the display device's resolution.

Even if the DSM-520 firmware is upgraded to do good image scaling, the times discussed seem way too long (8 seconds?). Pity.

Does anyone know of a available or soon to be available media player that has good/fast photo image display support?

We will show a very small icon when we start to change to the next picture in the enxt release. Hopefully, this will reduce the confusion.

Ok, now I understand the problem with the tools. I was using only a 1 second delay because it takes so long to bring a a 7 megapixel picture up from the NAS.

I'm looking into loading twonky on the Infrant. I believe that will transcode and may solve a lot of these problems.

Alan

All Sigma 862x-based player has the same behaviour. It does not has hardware capability to decode JPEG file. A work around is transcode the photo in advance before you transfer it to the NAS. Since your TV resolution is 720p, you can transcode all photos into 720p and store it in the NAS. This will eliminate the problem. In addition, since you can transcode it in non-integer scaling in the PC, you will see full screen picture.


Ouch! This post came just a few day too late. I just received a DSM-520, its main purpose is to play music and show pictures from the home computer (now) and NAS (soon).

The display is a Toshiba 62HM84 (720p) connected to the DSM-520 using HDMI. I can't find any way to check what the DSM-520 output resolution is set to (DSM-520 video is set to HDMI/AUTO so it should be 720p).

Installation went well (other than having to reset the wireless router before the DSM-520 could connect to the internet). The media navigation menus are a bit clunky (it would be nice if they made use of the higher display resolution). The audio support works well (I only have .mp3 files).

Picture support is not good. With the picture scaling set to "use original size" mode, the photos (jpeg format) look like thumbnails on the HDTV (about 1/4 of the screen is used), with the "fit to screen" mode they look like blown up low resolution images (grainy with many artifacts), and with the "scale with distortion" mode they look unbelievably bad.

The DSM-520 firmware was upgraded to 1.05, but this made no difference.

It seems to me that one of the most fundamental tasks for a media player is to scale pictures/video to fit the display device. It does not seem proper to claim support for a media file format if you have to have a computer transcode every file that does not match the display device's resolution.

Even if the DSM-520 firmware is upgraded to do good image scaling, the times discussed seem way too long (8 seconds?). Pity.

Does anyone know of a available or soon to be available media player that has good/fast photo image display support?

For the NAS users, can anyone know if there is any good utility can transcode the picture in batch mode easily so that we can transfer the photos into NAS in different resolutions?

BTW, I will be in the travel for one week. You guys will expect that response will be very slow or missing.

We will show a very small icon when we start to change to the next picture in the enxt release. Hopefully, this will reduce the confusion.

splatzuk.

How did you get TwonkyMedia 4.4 installed on your Buffalo NAS. As i understand, the Buffalo isn't Upnp compatable out of the box.

Oss059

I had to replace the firmware on the buffalo first. The Buffalo uses a Linux OS which is why someone was able to create alternative firmware. The new firmware allows you to open the Buffalo Linkstation up via telnet which then allows you to install Twonky.

I think the firmware is called FreeLink. I will try and find the site for you and will report back.

splatzuk.

How did you get TwonkyMedia 4.4 installed on your Buffalo NAS. As i understand, the Buffalo isn't Upnp compatable out of the box.

Oss059

I need to make at least three posts before I can post URLs here,so I'll post the details after this post :)

splatzuk.

How did you get TwonkyMedia 4.4 installed on your Buffalo NAS. As i understand, the Buffalo isn't Upnp compatable out of the box.

Oss059

I think this is the link you will need to start you off.

http://www.nas-central.org/index.php?title=FreeLink_for_the_Linkstation_Pro

I have tried mounting the drive and also using the format \\ipaddress\media\pictures. In each case the DLink software will list all the pictures after I scan. Using the DSM-520 I see a partial list of picture folders, but can't open any of the files. If I use WMP something similar happens except that I can't even see the folders. In WMP though, I can open the picture on my PC.

Alan

Do you mount the NAS as a disk?

What do you mean can't play? Can you see it in the file list in the TV?

I've been playing around with the DSM-520 for about a week now and still haven't decided if I'm going to keep it. I'm trying to get a DVD to play from my FreeNAS box. I ran Batman Begins thru DVDDecrypter and I'm pretty impressed with how well the individual VOB files play. However the 520 stops after each VOB file. If I set the player to Repeat All, it replays the VOB that just finished. I cannot figure out how to make it play all the VOBs consecutively. Is this possible? I tried creating an m3u playlist file but that wouldn't play. I also tried creating one big VOB (about 6.5GB) and the 520 said the file wasn't supported. Is there a max file size? I've made several attempts at converting to XviD using AutoGK but I haven't been completely satisfied with the results. Any tips on XviD encoder settings or AutoGK settings to get the absolutely best video quality?

Also, does anyone else wish that a product like the 520 was available with an LCD screen that would allow you to play music without having to turn on a TV - basically merge one of these suckers with a Squeezebox?

--Chuck

For the NAS users, can anyone know if there is any good utility can transcode the picture in batch mode easily so that we can transfer the photos into NAS in different resolutions?PMView Pro can do that, I believe. http://www.pmview.com/

However the 520 stops after each VOB file. If I set the player to Repeat All, it replays the VOB that just finished. I cannot figure out how to make it play all the VOBs consecutively. Is this possible? I tried creating an m3u playlist file but that wouldn't play. I also tried creating one big VOB (about 6.5GB) and the 520 said the file wasn't supported. Is there a max file size?
Also, does anyone else wish that a product like the 520 was available with an LCD screen that would allow you to play music without having to turn on a TV - basically merge one of these suckers with a Squeezebox?

--Chuck
Instead of drilling into the directory with the VOBs, go up one level and hit play one the directory, it will play each VOB, one after the other. But the are slight delays between VOBs. As for my two cents on the display, would not valuable unless it was a 640x480 (as a guess) screen, because to many features require different responses, plus Active-TV on v1.5 uses a form Remote Desktop to your PC to play online videos. Do a search on the file size I think there is a ~2gb limit.

So I opened up my new DSM-520 today, plugged it up to my HDTV. I fiddled with the WiFi settings for a bit. No luck. I rebooted it. LUCK! WiFi up and running. The box shipped with firmware 1.02. Like a knucklehead, I allowed it to download the latest 1.05 over the Internet. It upgraded, rebooted, came back online. Now the wireless will not work no matter what I do. I called DLink tech support a couple times and the call must have transferred to India or someplace, because it was all static and eventually disconnected (infuriating!). On my third call attempt I punched in a different product extension and finally got connected to a warm body. The tech says this is the second call they have had about wireless not working after an upgrade from v1.02 directly to v1.05. He's looking into it and says he will get back to me later today. Just so you all know....if you're planning on using Tversity (which is what I'm trying to do), it only needs the Dlink to run v1.02 minimum. I could have and SHOULD have left the firmware alone. My shiny new toy is mocking me.

Anyone having audio sync problems when playing VOB files?

I thought I had this working -- well enough to rip a good number of DVD's to my hard drive. Went to play one of the movies this afternoon and 6-7 minutes into the movie, the audio was slightly out of sync. If I play the same file from the host PC, it's fine. Other movies, no problem, but I haven't tried enough of them to get a feel for how much of a problem this might be.

This is with D-Link's server and wireless.

For the NAS users, can anyone know if there is any good utility can transcode the picture in batch mode easily so that we can transfer the photos into NAS in different resolutions?
IrfanView is a great image viewing tool which can do batch convert/resize:

http://www.irfanview.net

Here is a guide of how to do it:

http://www.eaph.com/iDriveHelp/tutorials/IrfanviewBatchResizeCompress.htm

And its FREE!

Anyone having audio sync problems when playing VOB files?

I thought I had this working -- well enough to rip a good number of DVD's to my hard drive. Went to play one of the movies this afternoon and 6-7 minutes into the movie, the audio was slightly out of sync. If I play the same file from the host PC, it's fine. Other movies, no problem, but I haven't tried enough of them to get a feel for how much of a problem this might be.

This is with D-Link's server and wireless.

I posted about a similar problem about a month ago. I have .vob files that are encoded following the specs on the DLink website, but for some reason I can view them, but cannot hear the audio. The same files work just fine in Windows Media Player. I have entered in a ticket with DLink tech support and have sent them an example file, but I have not heard back yet.

I posted about a similar problem about a month ago. I have .vob files that are encoded following the specs on the DLink website, but for some reason I can view them, but cannot hear the audio. The same files work just fine in Windows Media Player. I have entered in a ticket with DLink tech support and have sent them an example file, but I have not heard back yet.

I'm getting great audio, it's just a tad out of sync with the video, at least on this one file. Other files are fine. In fact, I've played video with DTS-ES (6.1) through the 520 and it worked perfectly.

I've had this sync problem before, but it always showed up at the PC end, too, so I assumed it was the file. For now, I'm assuming it's a problem with the rip -- this file has problems with WMP too, but I can play it with Nero ShowTime.

Is anyone having problems getting their DSM-520 (with FW 1.0.5) connecting through 802.11b wireless? If yes, how did you get past it? My wireless network is working fine. The DSM-520 was connecting just fine over wireless on the old FW 1.0.2 yesterday. Thanks for any help!

More playing with the 520 today; it looks like most of my files are fine.

I streamed Black Hawk Down over the system today (single 4.6 Gig VOB file) and it ran perfectly for 2.5+ hours, including the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Wireless and not a single hiccup that I could see -- this was using DLink's server software.

Afterwards, I was searching other files for audio sync issues and didn't really find any, but I am seeing a couple of other issues (this is all with full-length VOB files).

Fast-forward. This "sort of" works. You can push the ">>" button to get things to move faster, but when you push the play button, it goes back to where things were when you pushed >>. Kind of negates the purpose. The 0-9 skip seems to work great.

Info button. I'm getting some strange readings here that show things like 57 hours remaining on a 90 minute file. Also saw cases where the info said the file was 30 minutes long when it was 90+. It looks like the files play fine in this case, but more testing is needed.

This one is odd... On the Secret Window VOB file, Nero ShowTime on the local PC plays the theatrical release, but the 520 plays the "director's monologue." Windows Media Player chokes and won't play the file at all. Same file, three different results.

Some notes:

I purchase all my DVDs at retail and want the hard drive streaming as a convenience. It's faster, easier, and I'm lazy. Fair Use, in my mind, and I don't share the files. 'Nuff said.

These were all ripped with DVDShrink. The multiple files from that were combined into a single VOB file using the "Join VOB Files Tool" program. It's pretty fast, and seems to work.

Still playing -- I had no idea that this would require so much work / learning. I love the 520, but it's not a slam dunk. MP3s seem to just work, but it takes a lot more for movies. Active TV? Not all that interested, I guess.

Is anyone having problems getting their DSM-520 (with FW 1.0.5) connecting through 802.11b wireless? If yes, how did you get past it? My wireless network is working fine. The DSM-520 was connecting just fine over wireless on the old FW 1.0.2 yesterday. Thanks for any help!
I don't think 802.11b is fast enough for video. At least not High Def content.
I haven't tried wireless since I upgraded to 1.0.5. You could try your hand at downgrading. Search around this tread, others have done it and posted how they did it. I'm not recommending it, just saying it may give you something to try.

Is anyone having problems getting their DSM-520 (with FW 1.0.5) connecting through 802.11b wireless? If yes, how did you get past it? My wireless network is working fine. The DSM-520 was connecting just fine over wireless on the old FW 1.0.2 yesterday. Thanks for any help!

I finally got the DSM-520's wireless connection (802.11b) to work, but the steps I had to take are really making me disappointed with this purchase. I think it's boiling down to the unit's desire to connect to my neighbor's (possibly stronger) .11g wireless network instead of my local .11b wireless network. I have to go into the wireless settings (which all of them are a perfect match for MY wireless network), change the mode from "infrastructure" to "ad-hoc", click on the "site survey" button and then wait for my .11b network to show up. Time and time again, my next door neighbor's .11g network would show up in the list, but not mine. Wireless signals don't travel as easy through water, so I put a couple water bottles right behind the 520's antenna to slow down the signal from the neighbor. It was enough to finally allow my .11b network to show up on the list. I selected my .11b network, change the mode back to "infrastructure" and then I'm FINALLY connected. BUT.... I know as soon as I turn the unit off, I'm going to have to go through this whole thing again. I have two avenues to follow here. On Monday I will contact the tech support guy at DLink who is helping me with this case. Second option is to upgrade my wireless router to a .11g capable one.

Still playing -- I had no idea that this would require so much work / learning. I love the 520, but it's not a slam dunk. MP3s seem to just work, but it takes a lot more for movies. Active TV? Not all that interested, I guess.

In my opinion, no video is a slam dunk. There are SO many variables that it makes it hard. It's like, what codec to use? At what bitrate? dimensions? on and on. It's really hard to decide what to do with video because if you spend time ripping it, you want to not have to do it again and again so you want to get it right. And that gets tricky when you have a device that your video works on and you want it to be future proof or portable.
With audio, I rip to mp3s and I'm good whether its on my dsm-520, my portable mp3 player, burned to disk to play in a portable player or car stereo.

I don't think 802.11b is fast enough for video. At least not High Def content.
I haven't tried wireless since I upgraded to 1.0.5. You could try your hand at downgrading. Search around this tread, others have done it and posted how they did it. I'm not recommending it, just saying it may give you something to try.

Thanks for the info. Once I get it connected at .11b, I seem to be able to view youtube videos just fine. My decrypted vob files come through very choppy, so you're probably right about .11g being a requirement with this media player. Since the unit is brand new, I don't want to take the chance of voiding my warranty just yet. I'll borrow a friend's .11g router and give it a try. Thanks for the input!

this may be a stupid question for those who have a good deal of technical knowledge, but what would happen if one were to swap out the Sigma EM8620L chip in the DSM-520 with a Sigma EM8622L chip? Would the player be bricked? Would the player be able to play h.264 videos natively, or would the firmware need to be upgraded as well to support the new chip?

Sigma says that the two chips are pin compatible. I don't know whether that means one can be swapped for the other without bricking the box. Of course, there are many hurdles to performing the swap, such as:

1. Getting an 8622L chip -- it seems that they're just sold in lots.
2. Physically replacing the chip in the DSM box - how good do your soldering skills have to be?

I just hate the fact that the DSM-520 can't natively play any of my .mkv files, which are all h.264 encoded. And yes, I have heard rumors that the DSM -750 will use the 8622L chip, but I don't want to buy a second player and I have no need for the better wi-fi. My box is hardwired to the network.

So, anyone know whether this swap can be done and produce the desired results (h.264 playback)? And if yes, anyone know where I can pick up a single EM8622L chip? If no on the single chip, are there a group of people willing to commit to buying a bulk set to upgrade their DSM-520's?

Thanks for all replies.

2. Physically replacing the chip in the DSM box - how good do your soldering skills have to be?

Just looking at the Sigma site, it looks like that chip might be a Ball Grid Array (BGA) package. Traditional soldering skills won't help you with that.

While the chips may be pin compatible, I doubt they're 100% driver compatible -- it's very likely the chip upgrade would also require additional firmware to take advantage of the new capabilities.

In my opinion, no video is a slam dunk. There are SO many variables that it makes it hard. It's like, what codec to use? At what bitrate? dimensions? on and on. It's really hard to decide what to do with video because if you spend time ripping it, you want to not have to do it again and again so you want to get it right. And that gets tricky when you have a device that your video works on and you want it to be future proof or portable.
With audio, I rip to mp3s and I'm good whether its on my dsm-520, my portable mp3 player, burned to disk to play in a portable player or car stereo.

I couldn't agree more. :D

Finally getting the hang of it, though. I've ripped a good part of my stuff 3 times now and one or two have needed even more than that. It's starting to look (and sound) good now, though.

I couldn't agree more. :D

Finally getting the hang of it, though. I've ripped a good part of my stuff 3 times now and one or two have needed even more than that. It's starting to look (and sound) good now, though.

So are you ripping to a single VOB? I'm playing with Handbreak tonight. Haven't tried it before. http://handbrake.m0k.org/

I think it's boiling down to the unit's desire to connect to my neighbor's (possibly stronger) .11g wireless network instead of my local .11b wireless network. I have to go into the wireless settings (which all of them are a perfect match for MY wireless network), change the mode from "infrastructure" to "ad-hoc", click on the "site survey" button and then wait for my .11b network to show up. Time and time again, my next door neighbor's .11g network would show up in the list, but not mine.Are you sure your 11b network is not using the same channel as you neighbor's 11g? You might try changing your router to another channel; only channels 1, 6, and 11 have no overlap.

I've got a 10-minute xvid file that demonstrates the audio sync regression I see from the 1.02 firmware to 1.05. It's about 177mb... The content is "copyrighted", as it is from rips of my ST:TNG DVDs.

Where can I send this?

The DSM520 can play all files inside a single folder in repeat all mode. However, some media server does not provide correct information so that it will stop after one song. This is especially normal for the media sevrer in the NAS. We have a fix of it for HP MediaValue and it may help other media servers as well.

If you try to put video files and use WMP or D-link media server, it should work fine.

YC

I've been playing around with the DSM-520 for about a week now and still haven't decided if I'm going to keep it. I'm trying to get a DVD to play from my FreeNAS box. I ran Batman Begins thru DVDDecrypter and I'm pretty impressed with how well the individual VOB files play. However the 520 stops after each VOB file. If I set the player to Repeat All, it replays the VOB that just finished. I cannot figure out how to make it play all the VOBs consecutively. Is this possible? I tried creating an m3u playlist file but that wouldn't play. I also tried creating one big VOB (about 6.5GB) and the 520 said the file wasn't supported. Is there a max file size? I've made several attempts at converting to XviD using AutoGK but I haven't been completely satisfied with the results. Any tips on XviD encoder settings or AutoGK settings to get the absolutely best video quality?

Also, does anyone else wish that a product like the 520 was available with an LCD screen that would allow you to play music without having to turn on a TV - basically merge one of these suckers with a Squeezebox?

--Chuck

WMP does not support netrwork drives and I believe that it is disabled intentionally.

DSM520 should support network driver. Can you take a picture of the media files page of the media sevrer for me. Please make sure that filename path is visible.

I have tried mounting the drive and also using the format \\ipaddress\media\pictures. In each case the DLink software will list all the pictures after I scan. Using the DSM-520 I see a partial list of picture folders, but can't open any of the files. If I use WMP something similar happens except that I can't even see the folders. In WMP though, I can open the picture on my PC.

Alan

The play will play all files starting from the focus one.

The OK button will play single video only.

For local media file, there is no 2G limit unless the media server has such limitation.

Instead of drilling into the directory with the VOBs, go up one level and hit play one the directory, it will play each VOB, one after the other. But the are slight delays between VOBs. As for my two cents on the display, would not valuable unless it was a 640x480 (as a guess) screen, because to many features require different responses, plus Active-TV on v1.5 uses a form Remote Desktop to your PC to play online videos. Do a search on the file size I think there is a ~2gb limit.

Please response to this thread if the tech guys can not solve the wireless issue for you. We fix a bug which prevent us from working on an enviromnent with more than 20 WIFI devices between 1.05 and 1.02. The driver should be the same.

Can you do site survey correctly? What's the signal strength? When you go into the setup/network, what's the IP there?


So I opened up my new DSM-520 today, plugged it up to my HDTV. I fiddled with the WiFi settings for a bit. No luck. I rebooted it. LUCK! WiFi up and running. The box shipped with firmware 1.02. Like a knucklehead, I allowed it to download the latest 1.05 over the Internet. It upgraded, rebooted, came back online. Now the wireless will not work no matter what I do. I called DLink tech support a couple times and the call must have transferred to India or someplace, because it was all static and eventually disconnected (infuriating!). On my third call attempt I punched in a different product extension and finally got connected to a warm body. The tech says this is the second call they have had about wireless not working after an upgrade from v1.02 directly to v1.05. He's looking into it and says he will get back to me later today. Just so you all know....if you're planning on using Tversity (which is what I'm trying to do), it only needs the Dlink to run v1.02 minimum. I could have and SHOULD have left the firmware alone. My shiny new toy is mocking me.

Yes, I should remember this one. It is tiny and fast. For NAS users, I suggest you to use this utility to convert a set of photos in the NAS. You can choice a good resolution according to your screen resolution.

SD: 640x480
HD: 1920x1080.


IrfanView is a great image viewing tool which can do batch convert/resize:

http://www.irfanview.net

Here is a guide of how to do it:

http://www.eaph.com/iDriveHelp/tutorials/IrfanviewBatchResizeCompress.htm

And its FREE!

Please make sure that the file extention is .vob instead of .mpg. The DVD use the private stream for AC3 and DTS audio tracks. You will not hear any audio if you set the extention to be .mpg since we will ignore the private streams under the MPEG mode.

I posted about a similar problem about a month ago. I have .vob files that are encoded following the specs on the DLink website, but for some reason I can view them, but cannot hear the audio. The same files work just fine in Windows Media Player. I have entered in a ticket with DLink tech support and have sent them an example file, but I have not heard back yet.

We will investigate the FF for big VOB files. It might not work well since the stndard VOB is limited to be 1G only. Anything bigger than 1G is simplily concate multiple VOB together. The timestamp of it may be very wrong and the FF/REW is possible to be folled.

This issue may be fixed with a real DVD filesystem support which can play the ISO file directly without extract it as a VOB file. After extract the DVD into VOB files. A couple of information will be lost. This explains the "different behaviour" issue of you. The VOB is not a simple file. It has very complex internal structure which allow many DVD features, such as title, chapter, multiple angle and multiple program flow. The VOB is actually an filesystem which contains several files. When we play a VOB file, we just play all segments in sequence. This is why DSM520 and Nero will select differet segment to play.

We will not attempt to fix the VOB player since it will be never perfect. We will implement a new player which can understand the DVD and allow us to jump title/chapter and select correct audtio track, subtitle stream and etc. Unfortunely, this is a big feature and it won't be happen soon.

More playing with the 520 today; it looks like most of my files are fine.

I streamed Black Hawk Down over the system today (single 4.6 Gig VOB file) and it ran perfectly for 2.5+ hours, including the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Wireless and not a single hiccup that I could see -- this was using DLink's server software.

Afterwards, I was searching other files for audio sync issues and didn't really find any, but I am seeing a couple of other issues (this is all with full-length VOB files).

Fast-forward. This "sort of" works. You can push the ">>" button to get things to move faster, but when you push the play button, it goes back to where things were when you pushed >>. Kind of negates the purpose. The 0-9 skip seems to work great.

Info button. I'm getting some strange readings here that show things like 57 hours remaining on a 90 minute file. Also saw cases where the info said the file was 30 minutes long when it was 90+. It looks like the files play fine in this case, but more testing is needed.

This one is odd... On the Secret Window VOB file, Nero ShowTime on the local PC plays the theatrical release, but the 520 plays the "director's monologue." Windows Media Player chokes and won't play the file at all. Same file, three different results.

Some notes:

I purchase all my DVDs at retail and want the hard drive streaming as a convenience. It's faster, easier, and I'm lazy. Fair Use, in my mind, and I don't share the files. 'Nuff said.

These were all ripped with DVDShrink. The multiple files from that were combined into a single VOB file using the "Join VOB Files Tool" program. It's pretty fast, and seems to work.

Still playing -- I had no idea that this would require so much work / learning. I love the 520, but it's not a slam dunk. MP3s seem to just work, but it takes a lot more for movies. Active TV? Not all that interested, I guess.

This is insteresting. The ad-hoc mode will filter all 11g routers since ad-hoc is 11b only. However, we should scan both 11b and 11g routers. Does your 11b router use the same SSID or channel with other 11g routers? We will list one router with the same SSID only and prefer 11g. If the SSID is the same, you can not see the 11b router at all. You can try to change your channel as well.

Please post the result of the tech support guys here. This is insteresting. We never find this before. We hope to understand if this is a bug or some nasty compatiblity issue with routers since the 11b only router must be quite old and we never test against it for a long time.

I finally got the DSM-520's wireless connection (802.11b) to work, but the steps I had to take are really making me disappointed with this purchase. I think it's boiling down to the unit's desire to connect to my neighbor's (possibly stronger) .11g wireless network instead of my local .11b wireless network. I have to go into the wireless settings (which all of them are a perfect match for MY wireless network), change the mode from "infrastructure" to "ad-hoc", click on the "site survey" button and then wait for my .11b network to show up. Time and time again, my next door neighbor's .11g network would show up in the list, but not mine. Wireless signals don't travel as easy through water, so I put a couple water bottles right behind the 520's antenna to slow down the signal from the neighbor. It was enough to finally allow my .11b network to show up on the list. I selected my .11b network, change the mode back to "infrastructure" and then I'm FINALLY connected. BUT.... I know as soon as I turn the unit off, I'm going to have to go through this whole thing again. I have two avenues to follow here. On Monday I will contact the tech support guy at DLink who is helping me with this case. Second option is to upgrade my wireless router to a .11g capable one.

This is impossible. Don't do it even if you can acquire the 8622 chip. It won;t work since the software is totally different. You need a DSM750 to get the H.264 support.

The H.264 might not be so important for a LAN media player since we have enough banwidth to play WMV9 and DIVX HD.

The major benefit of DSM750 is that it provide the Media center extender capability. This is very similiar with the Active-TV here, but with higher graphics resolution and speed since the hardwrae is better.

this may be a stupid question for those who have a good deal of technical knowledge, but what would happen if one were to swap out the Sigma EM8620L chip in the DSM-520 with a Sigma EM8622L chip? Would the player be bricked? Would the player be able to play h.264 videos natively, or would the firmware need to be upgraded as well to support the new chip?

Sigma says that the two chips are pin compatible. I don't know whether that means one can be swapped for the other without bricking the box. Of course, there are many hurdles to performing the swap, such as:

1. Getting an 8622L chip -- it seems that they're just sold in lots.
2. Physically replacing the chip in the DSM box - how good do your soldering skills have to be?

I just hate the fact that the DSM-520 can't natively play any of my .mkv files, which are all h.264 encoded. And yes, I have heard rumors that the DSM -750 will use the 8622L chip, but I don't want to buy a second player and I have no need for the better wi-fi. My box is hardwired to the network.

So, anyone know whether this swap can be done and produce the desired results (h.264 playback)? And if yes, anyone know where I can pick up a single EM8622L chip? If no on the single chip, are there a group of people willing to commit to buying a bulk set to upgrade their DSM-520's?

Thanks for all replies.

I trying to get active-TV to work with a desktop PC connected to the LAN (wired). It's running Vista Ultimate and I've managed to get as far as "Connecting to Active-TV PC ..." on the DSM-520. It just hangs there. The server log shows the following after connecting from the DSM-520,

11/25/2007 16:31:14.613 MediaMallDevice: --> MediaMallDeviceRegistrar_GetRegistrationStatus(): 192.168.1.101, 00-17-9a-c3-69-53, "DSM-520" [UDN = uuid:AV00:17:9a:c3:69:53]
11/25/2007 16:31:14.754 Registrar: Device WMF Validated = True
11/25/2007 16:31:14.754 MediaMallDevice: Existing registered device: MMT2
11/25/2007 16:31:14.754 MediaMallDevice: GetRegistrationStatus returning: MediaMallRegistered, WMDRMValidated
11/25/2007 16:31:47.746 MediaMallServer: <-> WTS: Session 3, = WTSConnected

I installed Active-TV on the my laptop, running Vista Home Premium, and is connected wirelessly. I have no problems running from Active-TV from it. The steps I took on the desktop PC are the same and can't figure out why it would be different? It's driving me nuts! :)

So are you ripping to a single VOB? I'm playing with Handbreak tonight. Haven't tried it before. http://handbrake.m0k.org/

I rip to multiple files and then combine those into a single VOB file. The process is generally pretty fast.

I've kind of given up on MPG's for now because it takes so bloody long to do.

This will fooled the DSM520. The current time and trick mode might be broken since the timestamp inside VOB will be all wrong in the boundary. The jump(0-9) might be still work because it use bye size instead of absolute time to jump. For operation need real time, such as current time, duration and FF/REW, will not work well.

I rip to multiple files and then combine those into a single VOB file. The process is generally pretty fast.

I've kind of given up on MPG's for now because it takes so bloody long to do.

This is insteresting. The ad-hoc mode will filter all 11g routers since ad-hoc is 11b only. However, we should scan both 11b and 11g routers. Does your 11b router use the same SSID or channel with other 11g routers? We will list one router with the same SSID only and prefer 11g. If the SSID is the same, you can not see the 11b router at all. You can try to change your channel as well.

Please post the result of the tech support guys here. This is insteresting. We never find this before. We hope to understand if this is a bug or some nasty compatiblity issue with routers since the 11b only router must be quite old and we never test against it for a long time.

Funny that when I switch to ad-hoc mode, both my neighbor's 11g and my 11b networks show up, so I'm not sure about ad-hoc only being for 11b. I end up switching it back to infrastructure mode after I select my network, since that is what I am using on my router. I am using channel 11 and I don't believe it is a conflicting channel issue with my neighbor, since all my wireless laptops connect to my 11b network just fine. Funny that the DSM-520 antenna is only 30 feet away from my router, but my neighbor lives three houses down (in a very crowded neighborhood, though) and still it is hard to get it to select my local network. Our SSID's are completely different....in fact, he broadcasts his while I do not, so I can see his name show up on my 520's site survey list. I have had my 11b Netgear router for a couple years now, so you are right, it is fairly old. I was finally able to get the DSM-520 to connect to my 11b wireless network. Streaming of mp3's seems to work great. Streaming of jpg's works great *if* the file is a jpg from a digital camera. The jpg's of the old photos I scanned a few years ago sometimes will not show up and the DSM says "incompatible format", even though they are all jpg's *shrug*. Some Youtube videos will play but many will not. This may or may not be a bandwidth issue. I will borrow a friend's 11g router and do more tests. I do not have the option for a wired connection behind my HDTV, so I have to either make this work wirelessly, or send it back. I will post back when I have more info. Thanks for all the help.

This is impossible. Don't do it even if you can acquire the 8622 chip. It won;t work since the software is totally different. You need a DSM750 to get the H.264 support.

The H.264 might not be so important for a LAN media player since we have enough banwidth to play WMV9 and DIVX HD.

The major benefit of DSM750 is that it provide the Media center extender capability. This is very similiar with the Active-TV here, but with higher graphics resolution and speed since the hardwrae is better.
Thanks for the answer. I figured as much. So when are you guys going to start shipping the DSM-750? I'm not interested in converting all my h.264 content to WMV9 (yech!) or DivxHD.

I just picked up a used 520 from FleaBay. Looks like new - however it will not assign a dynamic IP address to itself. It tries but doesn't pull it off. If I assign the default static IP address the 520 works well.

Also, following the upgrade to the latest firmware version my screen saver seems broken. The screen saver can be set up without problem, but then doesn't work when it should (I set it to 2 min). I can be several hours before the screen saver kicks in -- anybody seen this problem before?

I suspect some memory problems are causing both of these issues - should the unit be sent in for service?

Otherwise, I much prefer the 520 to the 320 that I have been using as the overall operation is much improved, the remote works better (the 320 remote needed cleaning to work at all well) and the graphics are better.

Nice unit -- now if I can just find a way to get it to work thru the LiveOneCare firewall!!!

EDIT -- Also, I note that in using XM radio within ActiveTV that I need to go thru a full log in each time I use it. Rather tedious to enter e-mail and password using the "keyboard" every time. Shouldn't that information be saved?

This is known issue for 1.05. Turn off the firewall may improve it, but not completely solve the issue. We found that there is a bug/limitation in Windows's TCP/IP stack that it will reject our connection if we retry too many times for the same ports. We will fix it in the next release.

I trying to get active-TV to work with a desktop PC connected to the LAN (wired). It's running Vista Ultimate and I've managed to get as far as "Connecting to Active-TV PC ..." on the DSM-520. It just hangs there. The server log shows the following after connecting from the DSM-520,

11/25/2007 16:31:14.613 MediaMallDevice: --> MediaMallDeviceRegistrar_GetRegistrationStatus(): 192.168.1.101, 00-17-9a-c3-69-53, "DSM-520" [UDN = uuid:AV00:17:9a:c3:69:53]
11/25/2007 16:31:14.754 Registrar: Device WMF Validated = True
11/25/2007 16:31:14.754 MediaMallDevice: Existing registered device: MMT2
11/25/2007 16:31:14.754 MediaMallDevice: GetRegistrationStatus returning: MediaMallRegistered, WMDRMValidated
11/25/2007 16:31:47.746 MediaMallServer: <-> WTS: Session 3, = WTSConnected

I installed Active-TV on the my laptop, running Vista Home Premium, and is connected wirelessly. I have no problems running from Active-TV from it. The steps I took on the desktop PC are the same and can't figure out why it would be different? It's driving me nuts! :)

I can not predict when end-users can get it. It is "almost at our front door" now. However, there is approval, certification, ....

Thanks for the answer. I figured as much. So when are you guys going to start shipping the DSM-750? I'm not interested in converting all my h.264 content to WMV9 (yech!) or DivxHD.

Can you give me the model number? Please include the model name and firmware version number.


Funny that when I switch to ad-hoc mode, both my neighbor's 11g and my 11b networks show up, so I'm not sure about ad-hoc only being for 11b. I end up switching it back to infrastructure mode after I select my network, since that is what I am using on my router. I am using channel 11 and I don't believe it is a conflicting channel issue with my neighbor, since all my wireless laptops connect to my 11b network just fine. Funny that the DSM-520 antenna is only 30 feet away from my router, but my neighbor lives three houses down (in a very crowded neighborhood, though) and still it is hard to get it to select my local network. Our SSID's are completely different....in fact, he broadcasts his while I do not, so I can see his name show up on my 520's site survey list. I have had my 11b Netgear router for a couple years now, so you are right, it is fairly old. I was finally able to get the DSM-520 to connect to my 11b wireless network. Streaming of mp3's seems to work great. Streaming of jpg's works great *if* the file is a jpg from a digital camera. The jpg's of the old photos I scanned a few years ago sometimes will not show up and the DSM says "incompatible format", even though they are all jpg's *shrug*. Some Youtube videos will play but many will not. This may or may not be a bandwidth issue. I will borrow a friend's 11g router and do more tests. I do not have the option for a wired connection behind my HDTV, so I have to either make this work wirelessly, or send it back. I will post back when I have more info. Thanks for all the help.

This is the first time I hear the DHCP issue. This is quite impossible. Over the wireless, the DHCP may take some times (<30 seconds). I may tell if you can do a network capture for us. Is there any one who has the same issue?

I just try the screen saver. It works as expect. Please remember that we will not go into screen saver in playing mode.

For the XM radio inside the Active-TV, the application is provided by XM radio. We can not save the password by ourself. Some services will kept the setting in the HTTP cookie so that users don't need to input password every time. However, it is out of our control.

I just picked up a used 520 from FleaBay. Looks like new - however it will not assign a dynamic IP address to itself. It tries but doesn't pull it off. If I assign the default static IP address the 520 works well.

Also, following the upgrade to the latest firmware version my screen saver seems broken. The screen saver can be set up without problem, but then doesn't work when it should (I set it to 2 min). I can be several hours before the screen saver kicks in -- anybody seen this problem before?

I suspect some memory problems are causing both of these issues - should the unit be sent in for service?

Otherwise, I much prefer the 520 to the 320 that I have been using as the overall operation is much improved, the remote works better (the 320 remote needed cleaning to work at all well) and the graphics are better.

Nice unit -- now if I can just find a way to get it to work thru the LiveOneCare firewall!!!

EDIT -- Also, I note that in using XM radio within ActiveTV that I need to go thru a full log in each time I use it. Rather tedious to enter e-mail and password using the "keyboard" every time. Shouldn't that information be saved?

This is the first time I hear the DHCP issue. This is quite impossible. Over the wireless, the DHCP may take some times (<30 seconds). I may tell if you can do a network capture for us. Is there any one who has the same issue?

DHCP doesn't work over either wired or wireless. I would be happy to provide a capture if you will tell me how!

I just try the screen saver. It works as expect. Please remember that we will not go into screen saver in playing mode.

I did finally notice that the screen saver works on menus only. I seem to recall that the screen saver works on "playing" on my 320, but apparently not on the 520. For example, if I am using Rhapsody on my 320, the saver kicks in after 2 minutes of song information and lets me leave the TV on. With the 520 the saver doesn't kick in and I am in danger of burn in -- is that the way it is supposed to be?

For the XM radio inside the Active-TV, the application is provided by XM radio. We can not save the password by ourself. Some services will kept the setting in the HTTP cookie so that users don't need to input password every time. However, it is out of our control.

Note my comments above -- The XM application is basically useless as is.

Thanks for your feedback!

Funny that when I switch to ad-hoc mode, both my neighbor's 11g and my 11b networks show up, so I'm not sure about ad-hoc only being for 11b. I end up switching it back.....<snip>......Streaming of mp3's seems to work great. Streaming of jpg's works great *if* the file is a jpg from a digital camera. The jpg's of the old photos I scanned a few years ago sometimes will not show up and the DSM says "File Not Supported", even though they are all jpg's *shrug*. Some Youtube videos will play but many will not. This may or may not be a bandwidth issue. I will borrow a friend's 11g router and do more tests. I do not have the option for a wired connection behind my HDTV, so I have to either make this work wirelessly, or send it back. I will post back when I have more info. Thanks for all the help.

Can you give me the model number? Please include the model name and firmware version number.

I don't see anything on the back of the unit other than "DSM-520" and HW version A4. It is running FW version 1.05. Let me know if you need more specifics and how I can find it. I am now running an 11g router for testing purposes. I seem to have connected just fine. The mp3's still sound great. The jpg's are still giving me trouble. I still get an occasional "File Not Supported" message for the jpgs that were scanned from older printed photos, but only some. What's strange is I will press play when selecting the folder, and during the slideshow it will skip right over the jpg it didn't like, and not tell me it's having a problem with it. Then I end the slideshow, drill down into the folder, play the missed jpg and THEN it says "File Not Supported". I am running Tversity. If I open a web browser to my Tversity server, I can view the "problem" jpg just fine, so I don't know why the DSM-520 doesn't like it. The jpg issues happen no matter if I'm wired or wireless. As for youtube videos, upgrading to 11g hasn't helped. I still run into some that do not play and I'm not sure what the explanation is. I decided to test out HD video streaming using a wired connection (an inconvenient 50' cat6 cable strung across the house). I think I have something wrong with my vobs. I left the menus in and I think that is part of the problem. I have read other posts on this great forum and also on forums.tversity.com and I think I know what I need to do next in order to play HD vob files from my server. I haven't called DLink TAC back yet, got home too late tonight. I don't imagine I will be going back to 11b anyway at this point. Maybe Dlink should change this product's documentation spec sheet by removing 11b, since it's really only functional with audio streaming (and no promises there, either, if the wireless network is oversubscribed or having technical difficulties of its own). Let me know if there is anything specific you would like me to test. I would be happy to try to help make things better, if possible.

We will not attempt to fix the VOB player since it will be never perfect. We will implement a new player which can understand the DVD and allow us to jump title/chapter and select correct audtio track, subtitle stream and etc. Unfortunely, this is a big feature and it won't be happen soon.
Will this also address the 2 second delay which occurs between switching from one VOB to the next one?

Until now I have been converting VOBs to AVI to get the necessary subtitle support, but obviously this is very time consuming and the menu structure is lost. Indeed I will be in great anticipation when the new player support comes out!

Thanks.

sorry to thread rape, but i have my 520 on ebay if anyone is interested in buying one...i have never firmware updated and i got it new at best buy a year or it was 2 years ago...can't remember, lol

it has about 30 mins use on it...

:)

item is under ebay seller !beehay!

nice read BTW!

Quick question, when searching YouTube videos, for example, in Active-TV, how do you insert a space in your query with the remote? I've tried every key, but can't find it. Thanks.

Our SSID's are completely different....in fact, he broadcasts his while I do not, so I can see his name show up on my 520's site survey list.Bingo! Turn your SSID broadcast back on and I'll bet the 520 finds it. Turning it off is pretty much useless as a security measure anyway - see The six dumbest ways to secure a wireless LAN (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=43) on ZDNet.com.

Bingo! Turn your SSID broadcast back on and I'll bet the 520 finds it. Turning it off is pretty much useless as a security measure anyway - see The six dumbest ways to secure a wireless LAN (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=43) on ZDNet.com.

Once I powered on my own (new) 11g router, it sees mine just fine (and without broadcasting the SSID). I was also (eventually) able to connect to my 11b router by.....<see earlier posting>.

I want the model name of your touter instead of DSM520 :-)

I believe that those JPEG is not baseline JPEG, whcih is complaint to the DCF(Digital camera filesystem). We don't support JPEG whose coloe space is YMCK or big progressive JPEG. In short, all JPEG created by digital camera is OK. Others depends. If you use Tversity, JPEG 2000 will not be supported as well.

In the slideshow mode, we will skip any non-playable files silently. This is by design.






I don't see anything on the back of the unit other than "DSM-520" and HW version A4. It is running FW version 1.05. Let me know if you need more specifics and how I can find it. I am now running an 11g router for testing purposes. I seem to have connected just fine. The mp3's still sound great. The jpg's are still giving me trouble. I still get an occasional "File Not Supported" message for the jpgs that were scanned from older printed photos, but only some. What's strange is I will press play when selecting the folder, and during the slideshow it will skip right over the jpg it didn't like, and not tell me it's having a problem with it. Then I end the slideshow, drill down into the folder, play the missed jpg and THEN it says "File Not Supported". I am running Tversity. If I open a web browser to my Tversity server, I can view the "problem" jpg just fine, so I don't know why the DSM-520 doesn't like it. The jpg issues happen no matter if I'm wired or wireless. As for youtube videos, upgrading to 11g hasn't helped. I still run into some that do not play and I'm not sure what the explanation is. I decided to test out HD video streaming using a wired connection (an inconvenient 50' cat6 cable strung across the house). I think I have something wrong with my vobs. I left the menus in and I think that is part of the problem. I have read other posts on this great forum and also on forums.tversity.com and I think I know what I need to do next in order to play HD vob files from my server. I haven't called DLink TAC back yet, got home too late tonight. I don't imagine I will be going back to 11b anyway at this point. Maybe Dlink should change this product's documentation spec sheet by removing 11b, since it's really only functional with audio streaming (and no promises there, either, if the wireless network is oversubscribed or having technical difficulties of its own). Let me know if there is anything specific you would like me to test. I would be happy to try to help make things better, if possible.

Yes, it will be seamless between chapters, titles. Of course, it may have a little ause there. However, it will not blank the screen since it is only one video file.

We know that there is demand for such player. However, don't expect it will be in the next release. The next release is mainly for fixing bugs reported so far.

Will this also address the 2 second delay which occurs between switching from one VOB to the next one?

Until now I have been converting VOBs to AVI to get the necessary subtitle support, but obviously this is very time consuming and the menu structure is lost. Indeed I will be in great anticipation when the new player support comes out!

Thanks.

It's '0'. Press '0' twice will be the space.


Quick question, when searching YouTube videos, for example, in Active-TV, how do you insert a space in your query with the remote? I've tried every key, but can't find it. Thanks.

Can you let me know if it works after you start to broadcast?

In addition, if you turn off the broadcast, you may need to input the SSID manually.


Once I powered on my own (new) 11g router, it sees mine just fine (and without broadcasting the SSID). I was also (eventually) able to connect to my 11b router by.....<see earlier posting>.

I want the model name of your router instead of DSM520 :-) .

The router for the 11b network is a Netgear MR814v2 running fw 5.3_05. Since I was able to connect to it after switching to ad-hoc mode, doing a site survey and the switching back to infrastructure, is there still a need for me to enable SSID broadcast and see if that changes anything? Since my 11g network is up and running, I probably wont use the 11b network going forward (at least not for the DSM-520).


I believe that those JPEG is not baseline JPEG, whcih is compliant to the DCF(Digital camera filesystem). We don't support JPEG whose coloe space is YMCK or big progressive JPEG. In short, all JPEG created by digital camera is OK. Others depends.


I scanned all photos on the same scanner, saving the files the same way each time. The only difference is, sometimes I touch up the jpgs using Photoshop Elements. I wonder if Photoshop saves the file in a format not recognized by the player. Tversity seems to recognize the jpgs, because I can view them when I point a web browser to the Tversity server. I will try a test soon, which is to scan a new picture and save two versions, one with Photoshop touchups and one without, and see if the DSM-520 dislikes one but not the other. I will let you know.


If you use Tversity, JPEG 2000 will not be supported as well.

Does that mean if I use the media server software that shipped with my DSM-520, I can play any kind of jpg compression/encoding types?

In the slideshow mode, we will skip any non-playable files silently. This is by design.

Ok. I wish it wouldn't take so long to skip them. It seems to stall for however many seconds the slide duration is set to. I wish it would just hurry up to the next valid file. Or maybe show an icon in the upper right corner of the screen to designate a file read failure, while you are waiting.

I'm hoping someone might be able to give me a nudge in the right direction. I have a DSM-520 that is currently refusing to play MP3s. When I first power the unit on and navigate to an MP3 and play it I hear a single popping noise from the speakers followed by complete silence. When I move to the next song, the DSM-520 just updates the track information and immediately moves on to the next song (and keeps doing the same thing.)

If I back up to the playlist (or all the way up to the top menu, or anywhere in between), and subsequent songs I try to play immediately result in the scroll-through-the-songs behavior (no sound at all.)

I've tried alternating LAN/WLAN, tried firmwares 1.0.2|3|4|5, and have tried using the DLink mediaserver v 1.08|9 (on XP SP2), as well as Twonkymedia (4.4.2, 4.4.3beta1), and uShare (both on Ubuntu Gutsy.) I've also tried using component out instead of HDMI--- all to no avail. I saw an earlier post from another member who saw the same behavior (but he was able to resolve just by downgrading firmware to 1.0.2)

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. (I've sent an e-mail to D-Link tech-support requesting assistance, but haven't heard anything back yet.) I should also add that MP3 palyback was working flawlessly for several months when I got the unit earlier this year. I lost track of when I first saw this problem, but it might have been around the time of upgrades to v1.04 and v1.05 firmware.

(1) For music play page, we always struggle if we should optimize CRT or LCD. Most DSM520 UI are deisgned for CRT when we design it three years ago. However, for all new UI or products, we have decided to optimize for LCD since it become majority of our customers. Sorry about this.

(2) I don't quite understand what is "look like the same time line". Are you saying that the current time is not changed? Please tell us the bitrate, file size of duration of that file.

(3) Yes, both ogg and photo is decoded by CPU. This combination has touched the limitation of the DSM520. We can try to adjust the priority between audio decoding and photo decoding thread.
Thanks For the response.

Item 2: What I mean is when playing a wave file at times the time line pointer when playing music will get "stuck" and not move at all. The file will then end early. The total minutes at the end of the time line looks something non-sensical like 531245. They are just what I would call standard wave files 16 bit 44.1kb sample rate around 20 meg to 100meg.

Item 3: That would be great if it could be adjusted. However common sense would tell me that it would be better to have the photo stutter instead of the audio. However my common sense may not be common to someone else :).

Thanks

It's '0'. Press '0' twice will be the space.

Very simple, thank you very much you the quick reply!

hey guys

have learnt a lot from this forum, and just wanted to share my experience in streaming dvds to the dsm-520...here is what i do:

1. using ripit4me, i extract only the main movie as 1 big vob file (there is an option to do this under tools)
2. using dvd shrink, i get rid of all the unnecessary soundtracks, sub-titles etc
3. using an extension-changer i change the extension from .vob to .mpeg

thats it - the dsm-520 immediately sees the mpeg files and plays the movies...the quality is great...i have not yet watched a full movie, but have watched a couple of movies half-way through and everything played fine...

there were a couple of movies where there is video but no audio and i need to look into it, but overall i am very happy with this approach...

thanks for everyone who helped!
cheers...

Has anyone heard thru rumor or fact that the HDMI 1.3 issue will be resolved anytime soon? My DSM-520 is currently a giant paperweight becuase I still have three open HDMI 1.3 ports which it can't use. While I understand there are other issues to resolve, how about making our devices operational? And yes, I understand that this device was tested and manufactured under the 1.1 spec but this is going to continue to haunt Dlink until this gets resolved, not just with past and future customers as well.

Has anyone heard thru rumor or fact that the HDMI 1.3 issue will be resolved anytime soon? My DSM-520 is currently a giant paperweight becuase I still have three open HDMI 1.3 ports which it can't use. While I understand there are other issues to resolve, how about making our devices operational? And yes, I understand that this device was tested and manufactured under the 1.1 spec but this is going to continue to haunt Dlink until this gets resolved, not just with past and future customers as well.To be fair, are you also asking your TV manufacturer when they plan on adding the ability to disable HDMI 1.3? Compatibility is a two-way street.

Anyway, we may not be able to find the router for testing. However, we will keep it in the bug database for record. Thanks for your report.

Photoshop will save image for progressive mode by default. DSM520 can not support big progress image since it need up to 3x2xnumber of pixels to decode an progressive image. For 8Mpixels, we need may 48Mpixels of memory, which we don't have in DSM520. For PC, it is OK to view it. In the D-link media server,it will scale it down so that DSM520 can handle it. Different media server has different capability of transcoding.

When we skip the file, we still respect the "interval", it means that the previous picture will be shown for twice time. We once show an loading icon when we see problem file. However, some users think that it is too annoying to see that icon from time to time. We agree and cancel it. We may consider to show a much smaller icon in the corner instead,

Thanks for the suggestion.

The router for the 11b network is a Netgear MR814v2 running fw 5.3_05. Since I was able to connect to it after switching to ad-hoc mode, doing a site survey and the switching back to infrastructure, is there still a need for me to enable SSID broadcast and see if that changes anything? Since my 11g network is up and running, I probably wont use the 11b network going forward (at least not for the DSM-520).





I scanned all photos on the same scanner, saving the files the same way each time. The only difference is, sometimes I touch up the jpgs using Photoshop Elements. I wonder if Photoshop saves the file in a format not recognized by the player. Tversity seems to recognize the jpgs, because I can view them when I point a web browser to the Tversity server. I will try a test soon, which is to scan a new picture and save two versions, one with Photoshop touchups and one without, and see if the DSM-520 dislikes one but not the other. I will let you know.




Does that mean if I use the media server software that shipped with my DSM-520, I can play any kind of jpg compression/encoding types?



Ok. I wish it wouldn't take so long to skip them. It seems to stall for however many seconds the slide duration is set to. I wish it would just hurry up to the next valid file. Or maybe show an icon in the upper right corner of the screen to designate a file read failure, while you are waiting.

Thanks For the response.

Item 2: What I mean is when playing a wave file at times the time line pointer when playing music will get "stuck" and not move at all. The file will then end early. The total minutes at the end of the time line looks something non-sensical like 531245. They are just what I would call standard wave files 16 bit 44.1kb sample rate around 20 meg to 100meg.

OK, we will try that. We suspect that the wave header has issue so that we get the wrong information.


Item 3: That would be great if it could be adjusted. However common sense would tell me that it would be better to have the photo stutter instead of the audio. However my common sense may not be common to someone else :).

Thanks

Your sixth sense is correct. We have adjusted the priority already. However, it seems that it is not enough for high quality OGG files. We will check if we can do more. However, this combination has touched the limitation of DSM520. You may expect the response of OSD will slow down :-(

(1) and (2) are our suggestion as well. For VOB file, please extract it as a single program file.

For (3), what's extention-changer? I don't suggest to rename the file from VOB to MPG. This will prevent us from playing AC3 sound tracks.

hey guys

have learnt a lot from this forum, and just wanted to share my experience in streaming dvds to the dsm-520...here is what i do:

1. using ripit4me, i extract only the main movie as 1 big vob file (there is an option to do this under tools)
2. using dvd shrink, i get rid of all the unnecessary soundtracks, sub-titles etc
3. using an extension-changer i change the extension from .vob to .mpeg

thats it - the dsm-520 immediately sees the mpeg files and plays the movies...the quality is great...i have not yet watched a full movie, but have watched a couple of movies half-way through and everything played fine...

there were a couple of movies where there is video but no audio and i need to look into it, but overall i am very happy with this approach...

thanks for everyone who helped!
cheers...

We have reserved the test lab to test against HDMI 1.3 devices. We will see the result in the following 1-2 weeks. By that time, I can tell everybody if we can solve the issue or not. Currently, my suggestion is to search your TV or receiver options to see if you can turn off all 1.3 features. Someone report that this will solve the issue.

This is actually the bottleneck of the next release now.

Has anyone heard thru rumor or fact that the HDMI 1.3 issue will be resolved anytime soon? My DSM-520 is currently a giant paperweight becuase I still have three open HDMI 1.3 ports which it can't use. While I understand there are other issues to resolve, how about making our devices operational? And yes, I understand that this device was tested and manufactured under the 1.1 spec but this is going to continue to haunt Dlink until this gets resolved, not just with past and future customers as well.

Att1234.

Whats the fix for the HP Medai Vault and where do i get it? I'm running 1.04 firmware (latest available in UK).
DSM520 keeps repeating the first file in an audio folder.

oss059

I have a Linksys WRTSL54GS router with a 300GB USB drive connected to it. Using the "built-in" media server and a DSM-320 I can play music and view photos. Video is a NO GO! Plays about 2-3 seconds then locks up. NTFS format.

I am thinking about getting the 520. Will I encounter the same problems with video files? (mostly XVID AVI files). Does anybody have any experience with this type of setup?

I've used the MediaLounge server and the TVersity server software, but don't want to leave a computer on 24/7.

Thanks in advance for any feedback:)

IrfanView is a great image viewing tool which can do batch convert/resize:

http://www.irfanview.net

Here is a guide of how to do it:

http://www.eaph.com/iDriveHelp/tutorials/IrfanviewBatchResizeCompress.htm

And its FREE!

To convert my photo's such that they will display well using the DSM-520 on a 720P 16x9 Plasma TV, do I

a) Downconvert my photos to a pixel height of 720 lines while maintaining aspect ratio? This will account for full heighth.

b) Or should I down convert to a pixel width of 1280 lines while maintaining aspect ratio to take advantage of the width of my 16x9 720P Plasma?

I just picked up a used 520 from FleaBay. Looks like new - however it will not assign a dynamic IP address to itself. It tries but doesn't pull it off. If I assign the default static IP address the 520 works well.

Also, following the upgrade to the latest firmware version my screen saver seems broken. The screen saver can be set up without problem, but then doesn't work when it should (I set it to 2 min). I can be several hours before the screen saver kicks in -- anybody seen this problem before?

I suspect some memory problems are causing both of these issues - should the unit be sent in for service?

Otherwise, I much prefer the 520 to the 320 that I have been using as the overall operation is much improved, the remote works better (the 320 remote needed cleaning to work at all well) and the graphics are better.

Nice unit -- now if I can just find a way to get it to work thru the LiveOneCare firewall!!!

EDIT -- Also, I note that in using XM radio within ActiveTV that I need to go thru a full log in each time I use it. Rather tedious to enter e-mail and password using the "keyboard" every time. Shouldn't that information be saved?
To follow up. The dynamic IP address function is definitely broken. My 520 tries to assign the address for a couple of minutes and then says it can't. Static address works.

The screen saver is a bit strange. The saver works on all higher level menus, but not on the final selection. For example, in Rhapsody the saver works as it should for all screens down to the last one where you pick a specific song or station. This last screen does not go into saver mode. Hitting "go back" to return to a previous screen will let the saver work. This is not how my 320 works -- with the 320 all rhapsody screens will go into saver mode.

To convert my photo's such that they will display well using the DSM-520 on a 720P 16x9 Plasma TV, do I

a) Downconvert my photos to a pixel height of 720 lines while maintaining aspect ratio? This will account for full heighth.

b) Or should I down convert to a pixel width of 1280 lines while maintaining aspect ratio to take advantage of the width of my 16x9 720P Plasma?
In RESIZE "Set one or both sides to:" Width = 1280 and the Height = 720 pixels. The resulting image will maintain the aspect ratio and fill either the height or the width of your display depending on the orientation of the photo ie. landscape or portrait. Try a few and you will see.

It's me again, this time I am having a problem with the D-Link Media Server. Today, I went to play my media files, and my DSM 520 reported "No Media Content" in my music files. That's wrong, as I have probably 50 or more cd's that I put in there.

I checked the media server on my PC, and there were no longer any shared files listed. Strange, they were there yesterday as I was playing the files. I reentered the files, and they were scanned, and listed. I went to the Media Files tab, and none of the music files were listed. I rescanned the files, and still nothing shows up. I closed the Media Server, and reopened it, and the shared files were gone again.

This was working fine yesterday, why the problem today? Let me add that I am using Vista, and haven't made any system changes that I'm aware of. Did Windows send a new security patch through last night? I checked, and the server does Run as Administrator.

Any thoughts on how to get my Server working again? Let me add, Windows Media Player is working and I can access my music files that way, but not through D-Link's server.

Thanks.

This is actually a bug of HP Media Vault since it return the incorrect item count for the folder. We have added an workaround for it. The firmware is not available publicly yet. However, it's better for you to check if HP has a fix for their media server or not.

Att1234.

Whats the fix for the HP Medai Vault and where do i get it? I'm running 1.04 firmware (latest available in UK).
DSM520 keeps repeating the first file in an audio folder.

oss059

What's the media sevrer inside it? Can you try MPEG?

I have a Linksys WRTSL54GS router with a 300GB USB drive connected to it. Using the "built-in" media server and a DSM-320 I can play music and view photos. Video is a NO GO! Plays about 2-3 seconds then locks up. NTFS format.

I am thinking about getting the 520. Will I encounter the same problems with video files? (mostly XVID AVI files). Does anybody have any experience with this type of setup?

I've used the MediaLounge server and the TVersity server software, but don't want to leave a computer on 24/7.

Thanks in advance for any feedback:)

DSM520 will select the suggested resolution requested bythe LCD TV. Please check what's the resolution of your TV when the DSM520 attach to it. If you are not sure, please play a 1280x1080 picture on the screen. If it is full screen, your resolution is 1080i. Otherwise, it is 720P.



To convert my photo's such that they will display well using the DSM-520 on a 720P 16x9 Plasma TV, do I

a) Downconvert my photos to a pixel height of 720 lines while maintaining aspect ratio? This will account for full heighth.

b) Or should I down convert to a pixel width of 1280 lines while maintaining aspect ratio to take advantage of the width of my 16x9 720P Plasma?

For the dynamic IP issue, I believe that it has something to do with your environment. Please check with the tech support for it.

For the screen saver, I have added into into the issue tracking system and it should be fixed in the next firmware. Thanks.

To follow up. The dynamic IP address function is definitely broken. My 520 tries to assign the address for a couple of minutes and then says it can't. Static address works.

The screen saver is a bit strange. The saver works on all higher level menus, but not on the final selection. For example, in Rhapsody the saver works as it should for all screens down to the last one where you pick a specific song or station. This last screen does not go into saver mode. Hitting "go back" to return to a previous screen will let the saver work. This is not how my 320 works -- with the 320 all rhapsody screens will go into saver mode.

Hi all. Not a big issue, here, but it happens every couple days and is predictable and thought I'd share for what it's worth.
When the DMS520 is turned off (blue button) and powered down in the evening and then gets turned on again in the morning, I may or may not get an error on the DSM520 at some point during the day streaming music about "unable to play restricted content". This error on the 520 only happens on days when I do NOT see a corresponding message in the morning on the Windows XP SP2 WMP11 computers' SYSTEM eventlog entry for WMPNetworkSvc Event ID 14209 "A device with IP address "DSM520 IP here" SUCCESSFULLY registered itself for protected content retrieval. If I get this message on the Windows side, I'm good for this day streaming without problems, guaranteed, but not after I power the DSM520 down for the next day (PC stays on and running). Next day when DSM520 is turned on, no Event 14209 appears, and when content error appears on the 520, I get a corresponding windows event 14104 with a error of 0xc00d28a7 which is "NS_E_DRM_MUST_REVALIDATE, The client must be revalidated before executing the intended operation."
So, I POPO the DSM520, I now get a Event 14209 "...successfully registered..." message and I'm good for the rest of the day.
Sorry so long-winded. Interested in thoughts or comments. Overall, this configuration for a music "jukebox" using WMP11 has been very easy and uneventful, except for the occasional DRM issue, including streaming WMV and AVI movies. (FW is 1.05, but this issue applies to previous FW versions also)
Thanks!

If you change the share list, will it be kept after restart the D-link media server? The "restart" here is to close it by using the exit option in the right click of the tray icon and execute the media server again.

It looks like that you have issue to write to the database for some reason. Please understand that Vista allow us to block the write access even for Administrator. We will implement a check for this in the next version of the media server.

It's me again, this time I am having a problem with the D-Link Media Server. Today, I went to play my media files, and my DSM 520 reported "No Media Content" in my music files. That's wrong, as I have probably 50 or more cd's that I put in there.

I checked the media server on my PC, and there were no longer any shared files listed. Strange, they were there yesterday as I was playing the files. I reentered the files, and they were scanned, and listed. I went to the Media Files tab, and none of the music files were listed. I rescanned the files, and still nothing shows up. I closed the Media Server, and reopened it, and the shared files were gone again.

This was working fine yesterday, why the problem today? Let me add that I am using Vista, and haven't made any system changes that I'm aware of. Did Windows send a new security patch through last night? I checked, and the server does Run as Administrator.

Any thoughts on how to get my Server working again? Let me add, Windows Media Player is working and I can access my music files that way, but not through D-Link's server.

Thanks.

Does it work if you reboote the DSM520? If yes, it might be the DSM520 issue.

The story is that. MSDRM will ask devices to revalidate itself periodically. If the DSM520 does not response to this request, the WMP11 will reject any access to the DRM-protected contents. This will happen once per day.

We will look into it.

Hi all. Not a big issue, here, but it happens every couple days and is predictable and thought I'd share for what it's worth.
When the DMS520 is turned off (blue button) and powered down in the evening and then gets turned on again in the morning, I may or may not get an error on the DSM520 at some point during the day streaming music about "unable to play restricted content". This error on the 520 only happens on days when I do NOT see a corresponding message in the morning on the Windows XP SP2 WMP11 computers' SYSTEM eventlog entry for WMPNetworkSvc Event ID 14209 "A device with IP address "DSM520 IP here" SUCCESSFULLY registered itself for protected content retrieval. If I get this message on the Windows side, I'm good for this day streaming without problems, guaranteed, but not after I power the DSM520 down for the next day (PC stays on and running). Next day when DSM520 is turned on, no Event 14209 appears, and when content error appears on the 520, I get a corresponding windows event 14104 with a error of 0xc00d28a7 which is "NS_E_DRM_MUST_REVALIDATE, The client must be revalidated before executing the intended operation."
So, I POPO the DSM520, I now get a Event 14209 "...successfully registered..." message and I'm good for the rest of the day.
Sorry so long-winded. Interested in thoughts or comments. Overall, this configuration for a music "jukebox" using WMP11 has been very easy and uneventful, except for the occasional DRM issue, including streaming WMV and AVI movies. (FW is 1.05, but this issue applies to previous FW versions also)
Thanks!

If you change the share list, will it be kept after restart the D-link media server? The "restart" here is to close it by using the exit option in the right click of the tray icon and execute the media server again.

It looks like that you have issue to write to the database for some reason. Please understand that Vista allow us to block the write access even for Administrator. We will implement a check for this in the next version of the media server.

I close the server by right clicking the icon in the task bar, then select EXIT. When I restart it, the shared folder is empty. This is just in the last day or so, so I'm not sure why it suddenly happened. I am really beginning to hate Vista. :mad:

addendum: I ended up re-installing the media server, and it appears it's working properly, for now. I am still not happy with Vista!

For the dynamic IP issue, I believe that it has something to do with your environment. Please check with the tech support for it.

For the screen saver, I have added into into the issue tracking system and it should be fixed in the next firmware. Thanks.

Thank You! I really appreciate your thoughts!