Questions on DLink DSM-520 - Page 6

I had an unfortunate experience with my 520. I just received it last Thursday and it ran like a charm. On Friday morning it asked if I'd mind if it installed the firmware upgrade (1.01). In the middle of the upgrade the screen went black. The front panel blue lights were still lit. I sat there for 15 minutes waiting until I called Dlink.

With Dlink's support on the phone, I unplugged and plugged the unit for a reboot. Now even the front panel was black. Support had me try a reset with no luck. I've returned the unit to the purchase point and am waiting for a new one.

My question is whether you owners have all upgraded to 1.01 with no trouble? Did I just have a bad unit and I need not fear upgrading the new unit? I'm a little gun-shy now having had to suffer the expense and loss of use from my last attempt. If everyone here has indeed upgraded, I'll feel more confident.

Thanks.

I just installed my 520 two days ago. After a few minutes, I had a screen that said there was new firmware, and did I want to install it. I ok'd it, and in a few minutes, I had the new firmware installed without problem. You must have had a bad machnine. Sorry to hear that....good luck with the next one!

The level 2 tech had me worried when he mumbled something about "other people with the trouble" and that "maybe there's something wrong with the firmware upgrade". The level 3 guy thought that it was just my box though. I figured they'd pull the upgrade if it was really frying machines left and right.

I wanted to make sure "real people" are ugrading without incidence. Thanks.

I upgraded yesterday w/o a problem. It took ~8 minutes.

Sorry to hear you got a bad machine

Just a thought. TVersity is a transcoding UPnP server. If it has a profile for the 520, you should be able to play anything it supports and it supports a lot of file formats.

Alan

TVersity doesn't have a specific profile for the 520 yet, so I am using the 320 profile. There is an option for "Other," but I thought the 320 might be closer. What are others using?

Has anyone discovered the discrete power on/off codes for the DSM-520 remote control yet?

The Harmony guys didn't have them in their database, and neither the D-Link or Sigma Designs support contacts have been willing to share them with me so far. Even a search of the RemoteCentral.com forums couldn't find any clues.

Just to be thorough, I tried Harmony's DSM-320 discrete power on/off codes on the DSM-520, but that didn't seem to work. The next option seems to be a brute force search, if I can identify the device/subdevice they're using.

This is a great unit, but the OEM remote is poorly designed. A universal remote is really essential.

I just use my PalmPilot for a fully programmable remote.

coule of things....first, why cant we blame DLink?
second, can you recommend any good convertors that do .ts to [wmv or xvid].
I have this Superman Returns trailer .ts files and im dying to try it on my hdtv.

AutoGK will convert your .ts files to Xvid very nicely.

I agree w/your sentiment about "why cant we blame Dlink". I have a Pinnacle SC200 which is based on the same Sigma Designs chip as the 520, and it plays .ts files to 19.2Mbps w/no trouble.

I'd like to know where you got v1.09 of the firmware. Currently only v1.01 is available for download.

Microsoft offers a free Windows Media Encoder 9 Series encoder software. There's 32bit and 64bit download available for free. It allow you to encode Mpeg2 to WMV9 file format upto 1080i/1080p.

Maybe I was seeing things. It probably was v1.01. Ill check to confirm this later on.

I hope you didn't attempt to flash it over the wireless connection!

No I was wired. I have a wireless network but I set the 520's config to use the wired setting since I had the cable sitting there from my former use of a MediaMVP.

You bring up an excellent point though. DLink is selling this as a wireless player and they're the ones trying to make flashing as easy as listening to an audio file.

If the flash is dangerous if done wirelessly, why would they support it?

My replacement unit is supposed to arrive tomorrow. As you can imagine, I'm nervous as hell about flashing the thing to 1.01 even though many of you all have done it without trouble.

I'll be sweating bullets until I see the think reboot itself!

Did you ever figure out the FAT32 thing. Were you able to format with FAT32 and use it with the 520?

Well, the drive I was using was a 60gb drive, and it appears WINXP won't format FAT32 any drive over 30gb, or something like that, at least that I can figure out. I did have another, older 6gb drive sitting around, and it's formatted FAT32. I plugged it into the 520's USB port, and it worked fine. I was able to see the files and play them. However, I still can't get the WMV9 video file to play, and I can't figure out why.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/ind...at32format.htm

format tool for large fat32 partitions

I wonder if it's best to flash it with the code stored on a USB thumbdrive and plugged directly into the unit?

Question, I have had success streaming most of my music that's on my pc. I say most, but there is one of my cd's that I ripped to the hard drive, but it absolutely refuses to stream. I can see it in my server, but when I select the first track, it sits there, then moves to the next one, and continues all the way through each track until it reaches the last one, then stops. No error, no message, just won't play.

I can play the tracks in Winamp and in WM9 on my pc, no problem. Any suggestions why I can't get these tracks to stream to my 520? They are all .mp3's.

Thanks again to everyone that's helped with my questions up to now!

There's no algorithm, god I wish there was!

DO NOT buy the DSM-520 if you plan on streaming DVD quality content. I have ripped all my DVD's to my hard drive using DVDShrink. Lower quality content that is 4:3 such as the episodes of "That 70's Show" and my wife's "Charmed" work great. However, when you try to play a higher resolution DVD video folder like ANY 16:9 movie, the screen will stutter and lose sound at some point in the movie. Most of my DVD movies run between 8 and 9.6Mbps, which come to find out this unit can not handle.

I have tried connecting through wireless G, wired through my gigabit home network, directly from my server to the unit, 2 FAT32 USB hard drives (both not found), and 1 NTFS USB hard drive (also not found). I got a replacement from D-Link thinking that it was defective, and have tried both 1.00 and 1.01 firmware versions.

Furthermore, this unit does not recognize DVD menus or chapters. Skipping forward takes you to the next VOB file, and is unable to "rewind" back to the previous VOB file. This unit will only play the "default" audio track in the movie, which means that some movies you get the Dolby 5.1 sound, some movies you get 2-channel, and some the directors commentary. There is NO way to switch the audio signal.

My only other option with this unit is to compress the DVD's I have to a different format (which some of you have suggested), but I have so many that it would take an extremely long time to do (and I like having the DVD's in folder available to burn quickly). I did try last night to compress Star Wars Episode III (using professional software) to a maximum of 7.5Mbps. Still, a little while into the movie it started stuttering and I lost the audio. Bummer

The support rep for D-Link knew nothing about the unit or limitations. So now, I will be selling my unit on eBay (as ZipZoomFly will not refund my money), and purchase a different unit. I have been looking at models such as the AVeL LinkPlayer2, but have not done any real research yet.

Can anyone please recommend a networked media player (from personal experience) that will properly play DVD folders with the menus, chapters, and stream faster than this 8Mbps limit? Any help is greatly appreciated!

EDIT: I just looked and found the speadsheet in another topic, which helps a lot!

Pharell568, great post, very informative and exactly what I expected when I read the 8Mbps limit. If you find a unit that is satisfactory, let us know. Sorry to hear you could not return the unit.

I believe that the way the flash is done, first the instruction file is transferred to the unit, and then that file is checked for errors before any attempt is made to re-program the unit. Any issues with the wireless transmission SHOULD therefore be caught before re-flashing is even attempted.

Does anyone know if gapless playback of audio files is possible?

thanks,

Anyone using Rhapsody radio with their DSM-520?

My first 520 was accessing Rhapsody via uPnP just fine. Unfortunately my unit died during my attempt to upgrade the firmware. I received my replacement last week. I tested basic functionality however I neglected to test Rhapsody before I upgraded the firmware (apparently successfuly this time).

Now all attempts to invoke Rhapsody from the 520 say that the 520 cannot find a Rhapsody server. Everything appears set up OK in Rhapsody. The uPnP server is started. The 520 is listed as a compatible device and its IP address displayed.

Does anybody have a troubleshooting tips?

As is probably typical for HD plasma displays, I've set up my DSM-520 video output as follows:

Audio/Video Settings:
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Video output: Component
- Display resolution: 1080 Interlaced

Additional Settings:
- Photo Scaling: Fit to Screen

Unfortunately, I've noticed that photo scaling ignores the 16:9 aspect ratio setting and assumes 4:3, causing photos to appear squashed. Since my display doesn't support aspect ratio conversion from 4:3 in 1080i mode, I can't even work around the problem on the display side.

Video playback seems to honor the aspect ratio setting fine and is undistorted.

Has anyone else noticed this problem? Any ideas for a workaround while they fix the bug?

Okay, so I got my encolsure/hard drive and formatted it FAT32. I then proceeded to load a bunch of HD trailers on it (all 720p) and also a 1080i (maybe 1080p) LG HDTV Demo. All the trailers played flawlessly, even the ones that stuttered massively over wireless G. Then, the demo started out fine but then it started stuttering big time to a point where I wasnt able to watch. I hope it was 1080p and that would be a good excuse and relieve me of frustration. If not, THIS SUCKS! I cant watch 1080i stuff without it skipping from a HD? I am trying more stuff.

BTW if it helps I used autoGK to convert all I had (.ts files) to Xvid with100% quality. If I find this maybe why 1080i is stuttering, Ill do 75% quality.

Xvid should work just fine, as I was able to play the King Kong Xvid 1080p trailer in Xvid, it's over 2.5 mins long, via HDD. You can also try converting them to WMV9 using the free MS 9 encoder, I posted the link earlier in this thread. Don't do Divx, as it currently only supports 720p.

Strangely enough I haven't noticed this problem, maybe my sony hdtv works differently? Try a different scaling option for the pictures.