Rating: 
Summary: I Expected a lot more. . .
Review: ...First Impressions: Nice packaging. Nice looking device, it's not much bigger than a four port hub. It has both the Cisco and LinkSys logos on the face. Vertical or horizontal mount. The package contained the device, quick setup poster, and a CD. Installation: I have an existing server, running Win2K Server, that I store my MP3 collection on. This product works by installing an agent on a PC and then connecting the device over a hard wired LAN or WiFi (802.11b). My setup allows me to use either LAN or WiFi and of course I chose the wired setup for max bandwidth and so I could actually listen to music and use my phone or microwave without dropping packets and thus songs. The agent installation was flawless and the media adapter and my server were talking within a few minutes after cracking up the box. Once the agent is installed on a PC, you really only have one option: Point the agent to your media. So of course I decided to point it to my entire (29 gig) mp3 collection which began in a single MP3 folder. Well, it starts to "Search" and then simply would disappear. No error, no nothing. Ok, maybe my collection was too big, so I start dragging my genre folders which were maybe 1 gig a piece...same thing happend. Ok...so I decide to drag a single album over to the agent and finally it seems to take the 6 songs in the folder and I rush over to my TV to fire up the device...it was able to play three of the songs and then the entire folder disappeared and thus I had no music to pull up anymore. After a few reboots and trying different folders I had similar results. My trade, I'm an IT guy...so there were no 'technical user' issues...I can assure you of that. To this day the device is flakey. It forgets entire folders for no reason at any given time. I've even loaded XP with similar results. Audio: The sound is on par with my expectations, though I wish for the price the device would have at least coax digital out. Your stuck with a pair of RCA, which I hooked a pair of Monster cables up to for optimal sound. The unit is equipped with an Intel StrongArm 400 MhZ (The same processor the latest PocketPCs use) and thus is pretty good at decoding and playing the MP3/WMAs. Display: The menus are sloppy. There is absolutely no customization on for menus either. There are NO visualizations while songs are playing. You can't see anything important like bit rate or most of an ID3 tag (genre, year, etc.). You are stuck with an unsizable screen that shows you the track name and album name and running time. That's it. Plus they use such a huge display, that a band or song title with a long name (13 chars +) gets lopped off. Sloppy stuff all around on the visuals. Again, I expect more. Photos: Photos are displayed well. No real problems here. The device sure could flip through them faster though with this processor. One plus is the ability to play MP3s while viewing photos. However, some lag does occur on larger photos. Whether this is due to bandwidth, processor, or a combination I'll leave up to the "engineers" over at Linksys to figure out and hopefully fix over the next decade or so... Support: This is where the stars began to seriously dive. ... I doubt the engineers who designed this paper weight released this as a stable product under their free will. It's a joke. Conclusion: ... I would recommend looking at the new Gateway DVD/MP3 network device or waiting as this market opens up more. We will all want to stream over DivX movies, MP3s, and every other type of media soon. I'm just going to wait a few years while they refine this technology better.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent first-generation product!
Review: I bought this unit as an alternative to configuring a separate computer, wired or wireless, as my entertainment center's gateway to digital media. It took me about an hour of troubleshooting to get it up and running (ad-hoc or infrastructure connection? what the heck does that mean to the average end user?) but once installed it stands on its own. Pay close attention to the install rules. If you're not running WinXP, think twice. If you're not using XP's "zero configuration wireless" feature, you must attach the device wired for setup, then configure it for wireless. It's a typical first-generation product. Does a great job at the two things it's good at -- displaying your pictures and playing your songs. The interfaces suck, both for the media manager utility (non-intuitive error messages that don't tell you what's wrong, it doesn't like dashes in filenames or directories, weird stuff like that) and for the unit itself (convoluted menus, could be much simpler and more intuitive, and lacks a few features I would have included in the first generation, such as fancy fades or wipes between pictures in slideshow mode, option of flashing the song title as the song changes if you're watching a slide show at the time, etc.) Actually that wish-list helps me to realize that the unit already does more than I expected. I set the "music" side to play "all songs" in "shuffle" mode, then I switch over to the "pictures" side and start a slide show. I didn't expect the music to keep playing, and was pleasantly surprised when it did. Music and pictures. Yay. The damn thing is now an emotion factory. I expect that future revisions will have more features and better interfaces. I'll be optimistic. It's all about expectations, folks.
Rating: 
Summary: I am returning this
Review: I wish I had read the amazon reviews before I bought this. I seem to be having the same problem another reviewer had, which is that the utility software is not working on my Windows XP Home PC. The service XWPCHostService crashes right after it is started. I've spent days trying to fix this, from re-installing .NET (which, for some reason Linksys requires for this to work), scanning system files, even re-installing XP. Also, as some other reviewers have commented, support is horrible. Over the phone, forget it. It took me 30 minutes to get someone on the lines. Then, you will be talking with someone over in India, I believe, who you simply do not understand. To make things worse, they have no clue what their own product has. The person I talked to did not know what a "service" was. And XWPCHostService.exe, which is their OWN software supplied with the product!!! Finally, they have some type of voice over IP communication system, so the person you're talking to, not only is difficult to understand, but is constantly breaking up... The only thing I understood was "try re-starting your PC". Excuse-me? Then I've sent an e-mail to technical support and, guess what: no response after 4 days... They are definitely giving me my money back on this one...
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't deserve the bad rap it gets!
Review: I was influenced somewhat by the reviews I have read for this product. You tend to hear a lot of complaints about ease-of-use in both the interface and installation of this unit. I let the price convince me that this unit was worth taking a risk on and I am glad I did so. I agree with one reviewer on this string that stated it "works as advertised" and nothing beyond that. This unit is very small and light. It is very simple in engineering and will barely be a noticeable addition to your system. The interface is not the best thing in the world and it is not as easy as using a music interface on your PC to play music, but given the limitations of processor and bandwidth this is to be expected. The interface is very simple, fast and easy to use. Although you cannot access artists by quickly typing in the first letter of the name, you do have a page up/down button on the remote that makes an easy task of this. The volume control on the remote is a plus as it the ability to quickly move between picture/music mode. You can play music while looking at a slide show and you can access playlists you have put together in WMP and ti plays .wma files, which not all of these type units do.
Granted, the installation of the unit, as with ANY wireless/wired networking interface, is not for everyone. I consider myself moderately skilled at installation and it took a quick glance at the owners manual's troubleshooting section to get the unit up and running (firewall issues).
Bottom line: for less than $150, you cannot do better than this unit. I have a TIVO with Home Media Option that truly does a poor job of streaming music, not to mention at an increased monthly charge. The Linksys unit interface is basic, but nice and the control has everything you need.
Rating:
Summary: Works as Advertised
Review: I'm surprised to read all the negative reviews on here for this product. You'd think that Linksys promised the moon and the stars and somehow came up short. They did not. Very simply, this product hooks into your wireless network and then plays mp3s on your stereo/tv and displays photo images on your television set. Nothing more, nothing less. Setup was quite easy as far as installing network devices go... If you have already set up a wireless router in your house, you can handle this with no problem. I have found with other Linksys products that their technical support is fantastic, so if you really get in a bind, don't hesitate to call them. The method of choosing music and pictures is very basic as many have mentioned, I have found that creating playlists on my PC is the best way to queue up music. I'm sure in a couple of years that there will be much better products on the market, but for now, if you want to show your friends and family pictures, there's no better place to show them than on your big screen TV while sitting on the couch instead of your relatively small computer screen. And if you're going to listen to your mp3 collection, why not use your stereo instead of your wimpy little computer speakers. The fantasy is that this product should be the ultimate entertainment product. The reality is that this product gets you out of your computer room and into your living room when listening to your music and looking at your digital pictures.
Rating:
Summary: Works as advertised - most reliable of those tested
Review: This review is for the wireless WMA11b. I switched to this after a horrendous experience with the HP e5000 wireless media receiver. My setup is cable modem upstairs, with Linksys wireless router plugged into modem. 4 computers in house run off of wireless network. The Media Adapter is downstairs on my main TV, about 40 feet through walls and floor, and I get 92% signal strength (as reported by device). A little install trouble. Couldn't get it to recognize my wireless access point. In order to install, I had to plug network cable directly from router into the device and use their program to set the wireless settings, but then the installation went smoothly. I then took the device downstairs to my TV, plugged it in, and voila! I have had no problems with this device. It responds reasonably fast to the remote (1-2 seconds max), and handles my large collection of WMA and MP3 files just fine. It basically works exactly like Windows Media Player on your PC, but using your TV instead. I love the "Folders" heirarchy that allows me to find music in the folder structure I put together (rather than just by "Artist, Album, Genre...). I also love that it will handle any playlist I put together - I use it to put together 6 hour playlists for our parties, something I can't do with CDs (it even has a "randomize" feature). A couple of missing features would make this product perfect. The ability to select file attributes to display on the TV (other than title, artist, album as it does now) would be very nice. In particular, some indicator of song length and progress would be very useful. All in all a very decent first release for Linksys at a reasonable price.
Rating:
Summary: Incomaptability with firewalls is a serious drawback
Review: The idea behind the WMA is great. But it has a serious problem. You cannot use it if you use the Windows XP firewall. I just contacted the Linksys technical support chat and they confirmed that you can't do it. The box in which the adapter comes provides no warning, and the installation instructions mention the firewall problem way back on page 35 in Appendix A. One would be justified in wondering whether the product is technically smart and whether the packaging and instructions might not be more transparent.
Rating:
Summary: Let down by software
Review: This product can be very hard to setup, for example it will not run at all if the Windows Firewall is enabled which is an abvious security risk and at least in my case caused me to spend hours on the phone to various utterly useless Indian help desk people ("Sorry could you repeat that?", "Is there anyone there who speaks English?", on and on ad nauseum). Eventually I only found a solution to my problem by searching the internet for problems other people have had with this unit. There are quite a few - even Tech TV could not get their test machine working for their review. Also, the software that goes onto your PC that shares the music and pictures is by far the worst software I have ever seen from a reputable company. The software will crash on a regular basis and whenever you start it up again you will have to reload all of your media which takes a fair few minutes - the idea you can just start playing music anytime you like just doesn't work. In other words the wind has to be blowing in the right direction with the planets in alignment before anything will even work at all. Having said that when it does work it does the job ok although you can only play MP3s/WMAs and not stream any other type of audio (for example internet radio). It just isn't worth the money or the time you have to spend messing with it make it do what you would expect it to do immediately.
Rating:
Summary: Could not be happier
Review: I have just completed getting this puppy up and working in less that 10 minutes. I configured it directly from the PC I intended to run the host service on. I had none of the software installation issues that other people had (I am running XP Professional Sp1) apart from the fact it seems to want to work only on channel 6 so I had to reconfigure my linksys wireless hub as I had it transmitting on channel 1. I then connected it up to my tv (using a Radio Shack A/V switch) and it works great. No issues with playing my digital photos or music (mp3 320kbps). I love the ability to play a slideshow whilst listening to music. It is also a lot smaller than I expected which I am pleased with. There are a few downsides: It is a blit slow to power up up as it seems to be downloading a fair amount of info from the PC host. It is slightly lacking in terms of format as it only works with mp3's and not AAC or OGG. Maybe there will be a driver/firmware upgrade to help with this. For me though as I have invested a lot of time (2 weeks) burning my CDs to 320kbps mp3s I am in no rush to burn them again. Also it only works with 802.11b and not 802.11g. It does not seem to have any effect on my ability to use the wireless network. When playing music there is no indication of track time. I did think about either getting the Creative "Sound Blaster Wireless Music" music player (no picture capability) or upgrading my Tivo 1 to a Tivo 2 and spending the extra $100 on the HMO (kind of expensive considering I have Tivo). In the end I am glad I made this choice.
Rating:
Summary: Not ready for prime-time
Review: It turns out that it's fairly easy to set up -- if you totally ignore the instructions shipped with the unit! The easiest way to set it up is to connect it directly to your TV/stereo and use the remote control to set it up (rather than the complicated connect-to-your-PC approach they recommend, which doesn't work unless you are lucky enough to have your PC setup exactly they way they expect -- which might work if you own a linksys router and haven't done any changes, but is unlikely to work otherwise). Warning though: it does not work with newer computers. Turns out it doesn't support the latest Microsoft Windows updates.
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