D-Link has announced a new wireless media player that allows users to play digital music as well as video and view photos on televisions or stereo systems.
The D-Link DSM 320 Wireless Media Player will extract audio, video and image files from PCs on a wireless home network or the Internet for playing or viewing on a home entertainment centre.
The wireless media player connects to PCs via 802.11g or 802.11b wireless networks, or through standard Ethernet cabling. It connects to a television or stereo using standard audio visual or S-video cables, the company said.
The wireless media player supports digital media standards including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, Quicktime or WMV video formats; MP3, WAV, AIF or WMA audio formats; JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF, or GIF image formats; and M3U, PLS, ASX or RMP Audio Playlist formats.
The wireless media player will come with D-Link Media Server software, which can compile digital media files off a wireless network and catalogue files by media type (audio, video or photo) and categories such as genre, artist and title.
The player’s server software can pull digital media content from PCs that are linked to wireless access points and have D-Link’s client software, a D-Link spokesperson, Anna-Marie Claassen, said.
The client software would come with the player and needed to be placed on each PC on a home network with which the media player would connect, she said.
The client software is compatible with Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Me, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
The media player would also connect to a broadband router, helping it stream audio or video from the Internet, she said.
“We are focused on convergence of the home network and entertainment centre,” Claassen said.
The media player will come with a remote control and support for the Universal Plug and Play standard for immediate network recognition.
The device will secure wireless network connections with Wired Equivalent Privacy 128-bit encryption.
Priced at $US129, the product will become available in the US at the end of February.
The company would provide free firmware upgrades until the technology became obsolete, Claassen said.
D-Link Australia marketing manager, Maurice Famularo, said the company was also likely to bring the product to Australian shores.
While unsure of the release timeframe locally, Famularo said consumers could expect to see the product reach Australia around April. No local price has been set.
D-Link will release two new models of the wireless media player in April, he said.
The DSM 320D Wireless Media Player would include a DVD player, and the DSM 320R Wireless Media Player would have a five-in-one flash card reader, Claassen said.
Linksys recently launched a similar wireless media adaptor.
