Rating: 
Summary: Great
Review: Setup - not that difficult - some people have voiced concerns about the setup - I had no problems. It is important to follow the setup guide. I connected to my Wired hub, followed the steps and had no problems. They device can use any directory (folder) you add via the setup process, as long as it's on the PC used. Other folders can be added/removed via the folder manager applet. Note - I am not using it in wireless mode - although I have a wireless (mn500) router, I prefer to use wired connections when possible. Usage - Very nice and intuitive. It uses the TV screen to present either Music or Picture selections - you can browse by artist (and albums for each artist), genre, playlist, and folder. The selection is very intuitive. I personally like the TV interface for this type of device... The display is simple - album/artist/title - there is great room for advancement here - i.e. cover art, playing time, etc, but it is functional as is. The use of a tv monitor - makes great sense as it is usually the central device in a media room, and the size makes it easy to see from across the room (as contrasted to an audiotron for instance, which has great functionality, but is really hard to see from the sofa). I would like to see a list of songs in the queue as an option howerver, instead of just the currently playing song. Picture display - very nice - select a folder, and see the thumbnails - you can then play a slideshow of those, zoom,etc.
Very usable, as long as you have a logical folder structure for your pics... Only thing here - when picture folders are added - the folder manager app is slow, as it apparently is making thumbnails of each image.... Only needs to do this once though... Negatives:
All interface items -
1. Not possible to queue up songs/albums - if one is playing and you select another, the first one stops and then new one selected plays immediately... lineup a few albums to be played.
2. Not able to browse albums as a top level option - only under the artist.
3. Not able to select by either artist or album under genre. i.e. In my case, if you select rock, you can either individually pick from the several thousand entries, or select all... Would be nice to have a select within genre on artist or album... I'm sure that there will be more and more of these types of products with new features coming to market eventually - as of now, for $... I am satisfied with this.
Rating: 
Summary: There are better alternatives
Review: There are a growing number of these "media adapter" styled devices coming into the market right now. From minor outfits like cd3o and Slim Devices to majors like Linksys and HP. In general, it seems as though the little guys are doing a much better job than the majors, and this Linksys gadget is no exception to the rule. For starters, the Linksys has a horrible interface - one that forces you to use your television as a display, and then proceeds to utilize the screen poorly. The HP suffers from the same television-based drawback. Ugh. Who wants to hear the high-pitched whine of a television set while they're trying to listen to music? Unless you have a perfectly silent LCD display or are completely deaf to high frequencies, devices which rely on your tee vee set are a non-starter. Here the Slimp3 from Slim Devices and cd3o's players hold a real advantage - the Slimp3 has a bright built-in display, and the cd3o forgoes a display entirely and relies on its voice guide and effective remote control. Score one for the little guys. The Linksys, Slimp3 and HP models also lose points for failing to support uncompressed audio. I find .mp3 and .wma fine for portable use, and even car use - I'm willing to trade a bit of fidelity (which you probably aren't going to notice in those noisy environments anyhow) for the convenience. But if I'm going to go to the trouble of ripping my entire CD collection to the hard drive, I want to rip them in an uncompressed, uncompromised format, thank you very much. That way I can file away my CD's in the back of the closet, and retain the ability to produce .mp3 compressed copies of the .wav files on my drive for use in portable devices and my car. Only the cd3o, with its ability to stream uncompressed .wav, files makes any sense. Playlist management also strikes me as something of a joke on the Linksys. No native support for albums? What's that all about? I suppose if you're a teenager who stole all of their music off of the Internet albums don't mean much to you, but for those of us who have hundreds of albums, including classic records designed to be listened to as a complete work (like Sgt. Peppers or Ziggy Stardust), the lack of support for albums is another deal-breaker. I guess the Linksys and HP devices only go to show that just because you're big doesn't mean you're better. Both of their media player devices are oddly flawed creations that simply don't get the job done. My advice would be to seek out alternatives, starting with cd3o's wonderfully conceived product. They obviously put a lot of thought into how this kind of device should work, and it shows.
Rating: 
Summary: Get it to work and you will enjoy this product.
Review: I agree with many of the reviews written. Once you get it working, it is a great. The problem is getting it to work. Yes the documentation is very weak. I got many clues to getting this to work by looking at the different reviews on this Amazon site. I got so close to getting it to work smoothly until I completed the configuration screen and then the device would not connect. I hooked up the device and I turned on the device and nothing. With no connection and it does not work - of course. I loaded an updated firmware for my Linksys BEFW11S4 v.2 wireless acccss point router. It was version 3 or the latest one. Next big thing was to change the local area connection - properties / advance / setting to - allow other area network to connect through this computer's internet connection. Where is this written? It was on this web site that I saw that. I was so happy the application appeared finally. It took me over an hour and I kept saying how hard can this be? It is hard when there are not many directions and no FAQs or trouble shooting guide. Once you have it up and running, you will enjoy it. It is so cool to have access to my MP3 files on my surround sound system rather than my little computer speakers. The menu and the screens are boring and not very interesting. Linksys needs to get their screens and interface menus updated. It is not that hard to make them better when the screens are so basic and plain looking.
Rating:
Summary: Does what it advertises
Review: The Linksys Wireless Media Adapter was everything it was advertised to be. I was pleasently surprised at the ease-of-setup and use. Someone had previously complained that playlists weren't usable, but I had no problems with that. If you use Windows Media player, just save your playlist as one of the supported types that the Media Adapter supports - no problem. Works great - very pleased.
Rating: 
Summary: No Network Drives!!!??? Intriguing but not quite there.
Review: Unlike several of the other reviews, I'd characterize the setup as very straight foward if you're familiar with WiFi networks. My first and only obstacle - the deal breaker - came when configuring my playlists. Even though the playlists are those available to the host computer, it will not see networked drives. I must be assuming, incorrectly, that I'm in the majority in placing the many gigabytes of MP3s, JPGs, and other media files on a network server instead of a local hard drive. When I try to add a locally mapped drive, which is already available on the host computer, to the media play list, it simply will not accept it. A quick call to Linksys support confirms this. They suggested that I copy my files to the local drive and then add them to the media play list. In between chuckles I noted that it was impractical and I had no intention of moving 15 + GBs of storage to individual local hard drives when these files were already accessible to every node on the network (accept the WMA11B) from their file server storage location. Until a media adapter supports something as simple as a network drive or share, it will not be of any use to me.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to get running, but once setup, works excellent!
Review: I agree that this unit is dificult to setup. It took me (an A+, MCSE, PC technician etc...) about 2 hours to get running. My problem was simply making sure "Infrastructure Mode" was selected, as it was trying to connect directly to the wifi card on my laptop instead of my Wireless Access Point. I already had my 2 XP home machines set up in a workgroup, so there were no problems with the unit accessing the files on any of these PC's. A lot of the problems people seem to be having appear to be related to the settings on the their computers. This is beyond the control of Linksys and reviewers should be cautious not to slam Linksys because of their personal firewall software or home Active Directoy labs don't allow file sharing. Yes the screen is too big, I wish it played movies, and it was a little confusing to setup at first, but it does what it advertises and I enjoy nothing better than putting my entire WMA collection on random and my entire "My Pictures" folder on random and enjoying the show for the evening. I guess with that said, WMA's sound WONDERFUL on this unit, I don't use MP3, so your mileage may vary.
Rating:
Summary: This is a great product
Review: ... I have to say as an owner of this device I couldn't be happier. I initially ran into the same hiccups installing the device, hit the "Waiting for Host" issue. It is not too clear in the setup instructions, but it is best to have this device hooked into a wired ethernet network when you are performing the initial installation. Once I re-installed and setup with it hooked into the wired network, I then transferred it downstairs to the home theatre system and had no further problems. The thing I like the best about this device is the fact I can browse by folder. I have over 1000 CD's that I have burned onto my hard drive simply because it was not practical to try to find the CD I wanted amongst 1000 anymore. With a heirarchal folder setup I can access any CD I want in seconds. Using playlists and ID3 tags does not allow me this level of heirarchal flexibility while preserving the ability to listen to individual folders as if they were the native CD. ... I currently have the linksys media-b hooked into my home theatre system and the sound quality is solid. ...
Rating:
Summary: It does play music, but not well. Check out SLIMP3 instead..
Review: I was really excited to try out this device, but was ultimately disappointed with it. First, I don't want to have to turn on my TV in order to listen to music. Second, the thing was a pain to set up. Third, I have a fairly large collection of MP3s, and browsing through it with the Linksys interface was really cumbersome. The LinkSys software is rudimentary, you can't create playlist or really your manage your music. The photos feature is a neat trick, but it's not something I really care about. If you really want easy access to your music library, this isn't the product for you. I've been spoiled, I guess, with my Slim Devices SLIMP3 Network Music Player. In comparison, the open source SLIMP3 software provides a super easy-to-use remote control interface using the very bright and readable built-in display. Additionally, you can browse, search and create playlists from any web browser on your home network with the SLIMP3. You have to use another program to do this with the Linksys device. Finally, the Linksys works only on Windows XP, but the SLIMP3 works on Mac, Windows 98/ME/NT/2000 and XP, Linux and a bunch of other operating systems. The downside of the SLIMP3 is that it's not wireless, but I use one of mine with a wireless bridge and the other is connected right to an ethernet port on my DSL router. So the Linksys is going back and I'm ordering another SLIMP3 for the house. p.s. My experience with Linksys support was laughable. The wait was long and the support guy at the other end was clueless. Luckily, I was able to figure out how to set up the thing myself. The knowlegeable folks at Slim Devices answered my questions quickly and efficiently (of course, I should have read the FAQ on their web site first...) They rock!
Rating: 
Summary: Good first try
Review: The TV display is the weak point of this promising product. Track and album names are cut off at 20 characters, which isn't always enough. Example: "Joe Blow's Greates..." is a problem if you own Volumes I and II of Joe Blow's Greatest Hits. It would be better to display the full names, dropping the font size a bit if necessary. For classical music, the Artist / Album / Song hierarchy doesn't make much sense, especially since the PC software insists on putting the composer in both Composer and Artist, and ignoring the actual conductor, orchestra, soloists, etc. Tech support, as others have noted, is worth what you pay for the call, i.e. nothing. These guys know literally nothing about the product; they're just trained to look up something on a screen and parrot it back to the caller. Finally, there's no screen saver, and the fixed portions of the display don't move or change color. I'm worried about burn-in on my expensive rear-projection system.
Rating:
Summary: Finally It's set up
Review: It took me forever to get the thing set up but now that it finally works, it's great! At first, it would work great when wired through an ethernet cable but it worked VERY slowly and was unusable wirelessly. After calling tech support to no avail, I decided to upgrade the firmware on my wireless access point. Like magic, it worked. If you're having the same problem, see if you can download newer firmware from the Linksys web site. You'll be happy with the results!
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