Rating: 
Summary: Garbage
Review: Advertised to work with wireless G, NOT! After weeks of playing around wtih support ditched it. Support finally came out and told me outright that there is problems with the wireless playback. It only performs properly in a wired Ethernet environment. I bought this and have had nothing but problems with the wireless playback.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Product - Easy to setup/use
Review: After I received the Prismiq Media Player 3 weeks ago all the fun started! I experienced no interruptions while listening to music or watching videos using my 54g wireless card. (FYI. The distance to my wireless router (WRT54G) is approx. 80 ft.) Internet Radio and MP3's are streaming flawlessly to my stereo and my friends and family have a great time watching our digital pictures and videos on our TV. I also tried MPEG-2 and AVI and both worked perfect. I had to upgrade to the latest SW version (a one-click operation) to make my wireless PC-Card (WPC54G) work but this was a minor nuisance during the setup. The easy-to-use software/firmware upgrade feature is actually very valuable and helps to keep the product up-to-date with emerging multi-media standards as well as with the ever evolving wireless technology (e.g. Dual Band technology (108 Mbit/s)for 802.11g networks, etc.) I am surprised that some reviewers label this product as "substandard" or "frustrating"! The Prismiq Media Player is a great product and every function I tried worked!
Fun, Fun, Fun
Rating:
Summary: Media Player or Prototype?
Review: After receiving unit the first thing I has to do was download updates and flash the firmware. Not bad, I'm computer savvy enough to handle and seeing all the rave reviews, just a step hoping they improved and made things even better. OOPS, Their list of supported network cards wasn't quite up-to-date requiring a trip across town and another 80 bucks (thankfully AMAZON has a friendly return policy). Well, the new one wasn't completely supported so my home office has a tv, vcr and a Prismiq with a network cable attached to my "wireless" router. I figured a couple of days of inconvenience and the rec room would be an entertainment center........WRONG! Tech support calls and emails for 3 weeks, re-writing linux code and I have given up. I believe the hardware is sound BUT that the software should still be at Prismiq's R & D department. The enclosure is flimsey and now I'm taking my office space back and waiting at least a year. The wireless media player has not arrived at my house anyhow. I must give credit to their tech support dept., they are nice and patient. I wish they had a product to be proud of as mine won't browse, play any kind of media or let me look at pictures. Lastly, I recommend you order the wireless keyboard as the remote control didn't work when mine arrived. You'll be able to imagine doing anything constructive or practicing your typing while you tell tech support the things they already suggested and you already tried on the last call.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible support and design
Review: After spending more than 200 dollars with a Prismiq + Keyboard, I really wanted to make this device work! I spent more than 60 hours trying everything possible. I even reinstalled my OS 2 or 3 times.
Anyway, this product is horrible. I cannot even believe they released it to the public. First of all, the MediaManager would completely freeze any internet connection from my desktop. I called customer support several times, and nobody ever told me anything that makes sense. They escated my call, and I never got a call back (even though I complained about lack of response 3 or 4 times).
In 100+ times I tried to connect the device, I got it to work only two or three times. The design is horrible since most of the time the unit would be hung in "Wait ...." screen forever (why not having a timeout?!).
Anyway.... My only hope it is Prismiq finally decides to release a decent new firmware for this device, and a new mediaManager that may not lock my computer completely.
Rating:
Summary: This should be a zero start
Review: Expensive, bad support. Good idea, bad execution. Beware, hardware only support MPEG1/2, other format are transcoded first. There is other product out there cost less and support MPEG4 hardware decode. Overall, I think the frontend of the server and the box are low quality work. Using Linux but unwilling to deliver the code base. FF/RW doesn't even work properly on most movie. Server side keep sending out discovery packet non stop (kind of like a low yield packet storm) but the player still from time to time lost connection. Last thing, the case design is horrible, cheap plastic. Remote is bulky, uncomfortable to use, and feel cheap (imagine a HP calc with a $5 calc). If I were you, I will try other products in the market or wait a little while longer. Huappauge MediaMVP is more configurable in terms of the front end (but you have to do manual transcoding if it is not MPEG1/2, but peoples are working on replacing the server). I personally use Sony RoomLink, which I think is better except it requires Sony GigaPocket (only come with Sony computer). But Sony hardware which is expensive, so I brought one of this PrismIQ box. What a bad mistake. I am currently looking forward to hookup my Huappauge MediaMVP, which the case design is not that nice either. But still 10 times better than PrismIQ. The remote is more a normal design, with my not so bad experience with Hauppauge PVR250 card, I have some hope for the MediaMVP.
Rating: 
Summary: Too cheap to be true
Review: Good concept but it lacks the muscles needed to be usable. After a week of testing and tweaking, I am shelving it. Installation was painful because the recommend 802.11g card did not work. I called Prismiq they said I needed to upgrade the firmware. The problem was that to do so I had to connect the unit to both my TV and my wired network, which are in two distant rooms (hence the use of a wireless card!). I managed and after the upgrade everything worked. The real disappointment was that the unit or the server application is unable to keep up with the data debit. The internet browsing is OK with the limitations of a TV screen. Photo works fine ... but browsing an album is very very slow, I would not put my friends through that. Audio: I cannot get the unit to play a song in full. After 20" it stops and moves to the next song. Video: never got more than a few clicks and a frozen picture. Of course that could be my wireless link that is bad but my laptop is able to connect wirelessly to my desktop in the same conditions and play any song and video without trouble.
Rating: 
Summary: Works as advertised for Pictures and music
Review: Granted, the PC software can use a great deal of work on the user interface to make it easier to use, but other than that it works as advertised. I had an initial problem reaching as far as I needed to from the office to the TV/Stereo equipment. I'd put off buying a "G" wireless router and bought the Linksys "G" router as well as the extender. As it worked out the extender was not needed and went back. The signal from the "G" reaches the "B" card in the Prismiq just fine. The Prismiq server does churn a bit but the 3ghz desktop does ok with it. I installed the software on a wireless HP laptop and it was able to communicate its files as well. I have not used the video functions and supect I'd have to find a compatible "G" card for the Prismiq to make this possible. My first attempt at upgrading the card was not a success and since the "B" was working so well, stopped there. If you want to play music from your pc on a main stereo system and be able to show pictures on the TV, this little box does the job.
Rating:
Summary: Bad connectivity, awkward interface, bad support...
Review: I *really* needed this to work. Problems: First, there is no firmware (even from sourceforge, etc.) that allows you to use a "turbo mode" card. In theory, if you like building Linux, you could get WPA-PSK wireless security to work. Otherwise, you *must* do all of the following:
- Broadcast your SSID
- Use WEP or no security (WEP is easy to break and slow, and not only that, but the Prismiq has a problem sometimes associating with a router with 128bit WEP -- you end up having to delete the key and manually re-enter it sometimes on reboot)
- Use an SSID with all caps
- Can't use any of the wieless turbo modes
OK, I was gritting my teeth to live with that. However, my unit had a defective audio unit right out of the box. I first dealt with one service rep who was totally useless (he was randomly picking things for me to try that had no bearing on the problem, then asked to call me back and -- surprise -- didn't). Then I dealt with another rep who eventually decided I had bad hardware. So, basically, I could have waited a week or two to get a new unit and start again. Forget it -- going back.
Rating:
Summary: Not Ready for Prime Time - not even the Soaps.
Review: I agree with many of the negative reviews here. I say ditto. After trying several adapter cards and being no closer to being set up I gave up and returned the unit and all the adapter cards I tried
Rating:
Summary: Good , but not perfect, product
Review: I already have a linksys wet11 hooked to a router in my living room for XBOX and my PS2. Therefore, I cannot comment on the wireless card problems that people are having. With my setup the unit was plug and play with no problems. 1. Audio Navigation - I have an assortment of MP3, Ogg, and FLAC files on my computer with a total of about 18,000 music files in total. The native interface has some problems that have already been mentioned. My main problem was the lack of FLAC support. I decided to download a product called "slimserver" from the internet that works as a server for Ogg, FLAC, MP3, etc... files. It has a much better interface and works with the Prismiq's web interface (see Prismiq's forum for installation instructions). The only problem would be the fact that the built in web server on the Prismiq is slow. However, once it is up and running, songs can be added to your playlist on the fly and the sorting (genre, artist, album, etc.. is great). It even adds the ability to add Moodlogic (which I have tested)and Itunes (which I haven't tested) playlists.
2. Rhapsody support - This is great for addicts of the service. I wasn't interested until Prismiq offered a 30 day trial. With a selection of over 600,000 songs, it has allowed me to dig deep into many artist's portfolios before wasting money on a CD. As of now, Rhapsody will not play through the Prismiq digital outputs.
3. Pictures - The ability to get your digital photos on your TV is a great feature. It allows you to create a a slide show with a specific folder and also allows you to play a specified song whenever the slideshow is being seen. It will also allow the slideshow (without an audio file attached) to run while you listen to the internet radio or your music files. The pictures are not the quality of Roku's HD device, but they are good enough on my 57 inch HDTV through the S-video output.
4. Movies - I have a Tivo, so this doesn't get a lot of use on my Prismiq. I do have a few home movies that look great on the device. I am also able to take advantage of the widescreen format of my movies.
5. Web interface - If you have DSL or a cable modem, you will not want to use this device for web surfing. It is very slow. However, I have bookmarks setup for slimserver, internet radio, and my email. Without the web interface, I would not be able to use slimserver and the product would not get nearly as much use. Therefore, I am happy that they have included the ability.
6. Other features - News stories, local weather, screensaver (you can customize with your own picture), chat (I have never used). Overall, I am happy with this device. It does have some flaws and if you have a lot of files, you will not be happy unless you have the slimserver setup. It is not the last device that I will buy because I will upgrade with a HD device that plays FLAC files natively sometime in the future. However, for now, it has provided me with a lot of fun!
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