Rating: 
Summary: Great product, but beware if you have wireless-B
Review: OK, starting with the bad - if you intend to use the wireless aspects, you pretty much must have a wireless-G network. This is not only so that you can stream video (as pointed out on the PRISMIQ website) but also because the set of wireless-B cards that PRISMIQ now supports/recommends is a hodgepodge of discontinued or difficult to find cards. Found out the hard way that my Linksys WPC11 card (probably the most widely available B card out there) is not supported (even though the documentation enclosed said it was :X) So, I was essentially forced to upgrade to a wireless-G network (at least PRISMIQ supports the most commonly available Linksys G card).Once I got past that hurdle....all smiles. What a great product. Beats the pants off of any similar device in terms of breadth of functionality (audio, video, images, web, IM) but also in terms of connectivity (S-video & coax digital audio outs). Quibbles:
1. Browser stinks (same as in most hotel on-TV browsers - weird resolution, no cookies, no javascript, no activeX - so basically almost unusable, but that's OK, not why I bought it)
2. UI for audio tracks a bit cumbersome in that the listing is not artist-album but simply a flat album listing, meaning if you have 400+ CD's like me it can take a loooong time to scroll to find your desired album. Hopefully this will get worked out in a future software update. Otherwise, a really great product. Sound quality is excellent & video quality is very good. Setup is a snap (provided you have the right card ;)), though it helps to set it up using a TV next to your PC to save you round trips.
Rating:
Summary: SHOW DIGITAL CONTENT TO FRIENDS IN THE TV INSTEAD OF THE PC!
Review: Overall this is a great product. Finally I can sit on the dining table and tune to my favorite internet radio stations, check my email, and read the news fetched in real time from the net (and the weather forecast), without having to GO SIT IN FRONT OF THE PC. Another great use is to KEEP YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS AT A SAFE DISTANCE FROM YOUR BELOVED PC. In other words, when family or friends come to visit I can show them my latest photos, make them hear the latest mp3 songs, or show off funny videos fetched from the Net, all without letting them NEAR MY BELOVED PC (that they often otherwise end up messing with). Perhaps the problem for the reviewers that give "1-star" scores to this product is that this one is not from Microsoft?. Have they bothered to upgrade the unit's firmware to the latest version (4.01), which is as simple as pointing the cursor to the "Upgrade firmware" button on the TV screen and hitting the "Select" button on the remote/keyboard?. With MediaManager 4.01 and the firmware at 4.01 (my unit was at 4.0 when I received, and it upgraded flawlessly to the latest version by automatically downloading the upgrade using my broadband internet connection), it works great for every function I tried: 1. It plays MP3s well, VBR or not, sound quality is great on the stereo TV speakers. 2. You can start playing a song (or listening to any of the pre-selected Internet Radio Stations streaming in high-quality MP3 format, or even add your own like I did
-www.virginradio.co.uk-), and then go read news (that the unit fetches automatically over your broadband link). 3.Video playback worked great for me, both on music videos in MPEG1 and Simpsons and Seinfeld episodes that I have in divx format. (The unit supports both .AVI files in MJPEG format and DIVX MPEG4. Also supported are video files in .MPG (mpeg1) and mpeg2 (dvd-quality). One hidden gem, using the page up/page down on the remote or keyboard you change the "aspect ratio" of the movie, so you can see "widescreen" videos in full screen, or get less pixelation by displaying 320x200 mpeg1 videos in "widescreen" mode. -The web browser is simple and worked fine for checking my Netscape.net webmail (http://webmail.netscape.net), my AOL mail (http://aolmail.aol.com comes pre-bookmarked), and doing simple searches on imdb.com, amazon.com, and ebay.com. There's no magic this unit can do to have web sites designed for 1024x768 or 800x600 display OK on a TV set which is designed to have slightly over 400 vertical lines and is feed a 640x480 screen. Hint: INCREASE THE FONT SIZE ONE STEP FROM THE DEFAULT, otherwise everything will look fuzzy. (This is my experience based on the tests on a 20" TV screen) -Visit www.prismiq.org to download the beta server software for LINUX and MAC OS-X (yes, soon you won't even need to have windows on the server side if you don't want to!). Great work, Prismiq!. Can't wait to see their combo Media Player + Personal Video Recorder product.
Rating: 
Summary: Not ready for prime time
Review: Release notes are inconsistent with website regarding supported WiFi cards. You are required find a backdated card, because the drivers are locked in firmware. Fortunately I had a 3 year old Lucent card lying around to get the unit running. Once running, it did not perform nearly as well as I had hoped. 192kbps MP3's sounded very flat, and there were intermittent pops, sizzles & skips. It my be tolerable as background music during a party, but could not possibly serve as an acceptible method for listening to your music collection day to day. I expected to be able to drive everything from the PC. Rather, you must use the cheesy TV interface. Furthermore, you are limited in your ability to pipe any internet audio source through the device; the internet radio stations are posted (and limited) by PRISMIQ. Appears they are trying to sell subscription services as well. All in all, for the expense & hassle, it is cheaper and easier to buy a Sony CD jukebox to play my music library, and stick with Comcast digital cable for streaming audio. BTW iRock sells a $20 wireless trasmitter that broadcasts through the FM band that would probably serve up the same quality.
Rating:
Summary: Just nightmares!
Review: Setting up the WiFi with this product is close to an impossible task. I see that it obviously works for other people, therefore the raving reviews. I bought the Prismiq Media Player after doing a lot of research, and based on the opinion of other users I thought it would be the best "Digital Audio Receiver" to buy. I was dead wrong. I started by buying the recommended cards - with their routers, just to find out that Prismiq did not support certain versions of the cards - actually, some of the versions that they support are no longer available! After sending the card and router back, I got yet another card / router combination - again from their recommended list, just to find out that the Media Player does not recognize this card either! What I have is $200.00+ paper weight sitting in my living room! To add insult to injury - Prismiq's "customer service" support is non-existing. Just try calling their toll free number - you'll be placed on hold, just to be forwarded to an answering machine - and of course, they will not return calls. I sent them an e-mail explaining my problem, and I have yet to receive an answer. I'm thinking of going with the Creative's Sound Blaster Wireless Music system. I wish I had done so from the beginning. I emphatically do not recommend this player to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Completely Unusable
Review: The main reason I bought this product was to play my MP3s and view my Digital photos. Dissapointed in both respects. If you do not have a wireless keyboard, and you have a lot of MP3s (eg more than 1000), this product is completely unusable. I felt like I was beta testing this unit for all the 6 months I used it. The GUI is extremely clunky -- it is impossible for a normal person to use the remote and navigate through the screen. They should have added automatic playlist generation for Genre/Artist, but they don't. Makes it even worse. The web-browser is a joke -- Fonts are ugly, navigation through hyperlinks is beyond painful, doesn't have 1% of the features of a modern browser. Interface to watch video is bad -- doesnt support many video formats. You cannot FF/REW through DIVX encoded AVIs. Interface for watching photos is also bad -- no zoom, navigation is slow, no easy way to crop/rotate. The server software -- looks & feels like an undergrad project. The software keeps crashing, it uses 98% of the CPU when scanning for media (which is every time when it starts up). I had the unit for about 6 months and then I got disgusted and sold it on eBay. If you want a comparable product with a similar quality UI, buy the Gateway Network Connected DVD Player (approx $200) or the Go Video Network Connected DVD player (approx $130 this week at my local Fry's!) -- the UI on these two units are also clunky, but each of these units at least have a progressive scan DVD player.
Rating: 
Summary: A Big Disappointment...
Review: The main reason I was interested in a device of this type was to be able to access my entire music collection from my living room entertainment center, which offers superior sound quality to my desktop PC sound system (not to mention being a lot cooler to sit around with friends), but is on a different floor. Throw in the added ability to show slide shows of digital pictures, internet radio, video playback, and a host of awards from respected publications, and I thought I had found the perfect product. I couldn't have been more wrong! I use an 802.11g wireless connection, which has not been a problem, generally speaking. I have luckily not had any of the technical nightmares some of the other reviewers have encountered in this regard. My big problems with the device are mainly related to its interface and poor performance with playback. Considering that my primary concern was MP3 playback, that particular function of the device has been the biggest letdown. First of all, the ability to sort files is almost nonexistent. I have thousands of files in my music collection, which appear on the screen in more or less random order. The Prismiq creates playlists according to the names of albums (not artists). Good luck finding a file! There is an elementary search function, which can be extraordinarily awkward using the standard remote control, but beyond that, you are pretty much left to scroll through page after page of random files. If ID3 tags are supported, it could have fooled me, because the sorting options are not much different than if you were working from file names alone. Additionally, there is no support for album art, not to mention any other sort of musical visualization, which sort of defeats the purpose of integrating the television with the music. To top things off, sound quality is average, at best. As for the other features, expect the same skeletal, beta version feel. The web browser is so scaled down as to be useless, especially without the optional keyboard. It seems to have been thrown in as an afterthought. The picture slideshows take forever between images, even after "media processing," which is supposed to speed this up. Pictures don't look very sharp, and the viewing options are (surprise!) extremely limited. Likewise with video files- the supposed ability to fast forward and rewind with a scroll bar at the bottom has yet to reveal itself, despite upgrading to the latest firmware. The Media Manager software is a joke, and has the annoying habit of disappearing without a trace from my desktop, toolbars, or programs list, only to reappear on restart. Overall, Prismiq had a good idea, which is the only thing that I can imagine has warranted all of the awards this product has garnered. The magazine reviewers might have seen this thing at the trade show and fallen in love with the idea, but I can't imagine that they actually used the device much, especially with a any significant number of media files. Maybe my opinion will change if Prismiq introduces some serious functionality upgrades, but for now, Prismiq's vision is still a year or two ahead this product, and I would recommend looking elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Innovative and Smart, but A Bit Challenging
Review: This device does a lot of things for an incredibly low price. I use it for listening to my music collection, streaming the Rhapsody music service and listening to Internet radio. Purchasers should DEFINITELY read through the Prismiq forums (at www.prismiq.org) and also make sure to get a SUPPORTED wireless card if planning to use for wireless. Some of these cards are hard to find and/or discontinued. Once I found one and installed it, the unit worked beautifully on my wireless g network. Sound quality is very good, the Rhapsody interface is really great and the ability to add any .pls or .m3u radio station is great (I've added about 50 stations from all over the world). Haven't tried phone support, but every email I've sent to Prismiq support has amazingly been answered in under 30 minutes. Recommended for those who've got a bit of basic networking knowledge to work the set-up properly. Once this thing gets going, it's really great.
Rating: 
Summary: Great device for getting your media to the livingroom
Review: This is a great device that (based on some previous reviews) isn't for everyone. It will allow anyone with reasonable home networking experience to play video, audio and digital photos on the home entertainment system. I went through three other competitive products before I found this one. Believe me, its by far the best. I've since found out that this company is the pioneer in home media gateways and that they do frequent FREE software updates. The kids love it for the internet radio and photo feature. I've been "backing up" my DVDs to the computer. With the MediaPlayer, I can watch any one I like without moving off the couch! My wife listens to her Jonny Mathis collection that she's stored on our PC. This prodcut works great for our family. I'm wondering if some of the previous posts are from Prismiq's competitors :)
Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint of heart or short on patience
Review: This is an intriguing device with a lot of good publicity but lackluster performance. I bought my Prismiq and after reading the documentation thought it would be an easy setup and that I would soon be wirelessly attached to my network looking at family fotos, listening to great music from the internet or CDs and chatting on line The setup was very frustrating. I had to buy a new wireless card because the one I own was not on the list provided in the box with the Prismiq player. Beware! The on-line list differs from what is in the box and there are sometimes version incompatibilities with the cards so that a card that is on the list works only, say, if it is version 1 or 2 but NOT version 4. I had to buy a second wireless card. This one was on the list and would still not link to my network. I had to buy additional ethernet cable so that I could link temporarily via ehternet to upgrade the firmware in the unit. The player works now, but the features are disappointing: 1. Internet radio does not use RealAudio or Windows Media format When it began to play I could not stop it when I went to play music from MP3 files--I had to delete the playlist for the radio stations to get my MP3s to play. 2. Online chat is awful. I chatted with a friend who is on AOL and the size of the text the system displays for the person talking to you is miniscule unless you are sitting with your face to the screen. 3. MP3 play is decent most of the time The other annoying thing is the Media Player software that must be installed on your PC....it sits there whirring and clicking from time to time slowing down everything else you are doing Finally, I am sick unto death of offshore technical support. It may be cheaper for Prismiq, but the number of times I had to wait because people would not pick up the phone to call back was unreasonable. In short, the device is fair, the support is fair but you may want to wait for streaming media home theater systems which will be released by a major electronics company in a few months. More money, but better quality.
Rating:
Summary: Answer to my Problems...
Review: This little device has been a godsend. I have it set up in my bedroom as a way to listen to streaming internet-raido, MP3s, and my DVDs. I love it because I have instant access to the music or films I want. My wife loves it because it is totally quite. The unit is solid state. No fans or drives. So, as you lie peacefully, relaxing in bed, you do not have to listen to the annoying whir of a computer. I notice a lot of complaints about support. As a previous reviewer stated, this device is "not for Grandma". This, I believe, is in part because Prismiq is a small company. So you may not get all the bells and whistles you would expect with a release from a major company. But, their size gives you two advantages: 1. The unit, for what it does, is *very* inexpensive. 2. They closely listen to their customers and try to implement features as quickly as possible. Case: I had trouble viewing large MPG files that were created from DVDs I own on the Linux version of the media server. Support reconized the issue and quickly sent me a new version of the server which fixed the bug. I do not think you would ever get that kind of support from MS, Linksys, or DLink.
I have never had issues with basic setup, operation, or upgrades on the device. Of course the device is not perfect. There are issues that still need to be worked on (quicker slideshow operation of pictures, better sorting of MP3s by ID-tag info, better interface for Linux server...) but Prismiq is aware of these and I feel confident they will address these issues in the coming months, as they have addressed every other issue that has cropped up with the unit. In closing, if you are a computer saavy tech-head, this is the device for you.
| 
