Despite the growing on-line community for the Buffalo LinkTheater (see site below), I returned my LinkTheater to Fry's yesterday. It wasn't easy for me to do as I really wanted to like the product and I really wanted to use it, but it had some major drawbacks. Firstly, it only works with UPNP-enabled devices, so the Hawking network storage enclosure I bought won't work, and thus, my whole plan falls apart. There are some external storage devices that the LinkTheater works with - most notably, other Buffalo devices - the LinkStation, to be exact - but it doesn't work with the one I spent $100 on and can't return to Newegg due to their horrible return policy - see if I ever shop there again - they used to be my favorite online store for tech stuff.
Also, the LinkTheater was fairly buggy. I installed the latest firmware, but to no avail - fast forwarding and rewinding was difficult at best and navigating pictures was a chore. Overall, the concept is very nice - I'd love to own one in the future - but first they've gotta iron out the bugs and get it to work with network attached storage - not just UPNP devices.
So now, I'm using the $100 network enclosure with my $110 hard drive I got at Fry's with the LinkTheater as a back-up device. I was going to take back the hard drive too, but since I couldn't return the network enclosure, what's the point? Might as well put it to good use. So now I at least have my important data backed up on an external drive (I'll probably move it to another location in the house since it's pointless to have them in the same room should a fire or some similar event wipe out my computer).
So, all in all, I'm disappointed with the LinkTheater and the limited feature set, but it is nice to see an active community working to make it better. Should there be more options out there in the future, I will most likely buy a LinkTheater later - for the basic playback of video files, it worked very well. Maybe I'll go back to my original idea of modding and networking an Xbox for playing media files. I guess it's pretty easy and with the Xbox 360 coming out later this year, the first gen consoles should drop even further in price.
URL: My Buffalo LinkTheater.com :: Portal
Also, the LinkTheater was fairly buggy. I installed the latest firmware, but to no avail - fast forwarding and rewinding was difficult at best and navigating pictures was a chore. Overall, the concept is very nice - I'd love to own one in the future - but first they've gotta iron out the bugs and get it to work with network attached storage - not just UPNP devices.
So now, I'm using the $100 network enclosure with my $110 hard drive I got at Fry's with the LinkTheater as a back-up device. I was going to take back the hard drive too, but since I couldn't return the network enclosure, what's the point? Might as well put it to good use. So now I at least have my important data backed up on an external drive (I'll probably move it to another location in the house since it's pointless to have them in the same room should a fire or some similar event wipe out my computer).
So, all in all, I'm disappointed with the LinkTheater and the limited feature set, but it is nice to see an active community working to make it better. Should there be more options out there in the future, I will most likely buy a LinkTheater later - for the basic playback of video files, it worked very well. Maybe I'll go back to my original idea of modding and networking an Xbox for playing media files. I guess it's pretty easy and with the Xbox 360 coming out later this year, the first gen consoles should drop even further in price.
URL: My Buffalo LinkTheater.com :: Portal
posted by Blake | 21:17
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