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[mediajunky500]

ECF,

there are many holes in this product.
1.  the album covers don't display correctly
2.  you can't read the entire title of anything
3.  the file sorting order with UPnP servers (i.e. the DNS-343 in my case) is all wrong.
4.  File sorting is not as advertised
5.  The UPnp Servers don't read ID3 tags, nor does the D-Link media sever software, at least the track number of the ID3, it just reads alphabetically
6.  the Netflix issue as advertised.
7.  even though a file is mpeg4, it is still very picky if it will play it or not.

I don't know if we can make this anymore clear for those of you at D-Link.  If this does not get resolved, this will be my last D-Link product.  It will also be everyone I know last D-Link product.  Keep that in mind.

[buzz]

ECF,

there are many holes in this product.
1.  the album covers don't display correctly
2.  you can't read the entire title of anything
3.  the file sorting order with UPnP servers (i.e. the DNS-343 in my case) is all wrong.
4.  File sorting is not as advertised
5.  The UPnp Servers don't read ID3 tags, nor does the D-Link media sever software, at least the track number of the ID3, it just reads alphabetically
6.  the Netflix issue as advertised.
7.  even though a file is mpeg4, it is still very picky if it will play it or not.

I don't know if we can make this anymore clear for those of you at D-Link.  If this does not get resolved, this will be my last D-Link product.  It will also be everyone I know last D-Link product.  Keep that in mind.

ECF,
So, this is the 30th posting on this topic and you have responded but it seems that you, as a representative for D-Link, I would think pass this on to your higher-up. D-Link has lost several LOYAL CUSTOMERS who
A): Have bought SEVERAL of their products (Me personally have the 520, (2) DNS-321's, and various other hardware.
B): Will NOW start NOT recommending D-Link products due to the lack of response by this company with issues with thier product.

The ending result of this will eventually put an impact on the company and will eventually cause costly cutbacks within this company, which may result in loss of employees.

Could I make this be any clearer? I hope this may be an eye-opener in our present economic condition. You should be helping customers like us since we are the few remaining consumers out there that still have the funds to buy these "non-necessary" products that keep companies like D-Link going.

[ECF]

Unfortunately I am only the massager and do not have say in whether or not a firmware is created. I have not been provided any details for any future firmware releases at this time.

[mediajunky500]

ECF
I was reading your phrase at the bottom of your posts.  "Only Dead Fish swim with the stream".  Well, pass-on to your superiors that they soon will be "down river" if they continue sell boat anchors to people.  - Or -  if D-Link doesn't want to put the time and resources into future development for the DSM-520, then release the Firmware to us, so that we may have a viable product!  Thank You.

[FoxXxz]

I totally agree with what you guys are saying. these issues need to be addressed + some new features would be nice! I wholeheartedly regret this purchase!

&ECF can you ask sombody in there if this product is End of Life so i can bin it and purchase something from a company who stand behind their products and are driven to provide the best level of customer satisfaction! ie not DLink!

[mmlevin]

WHEN?  ECF??

THE PRODUCT IS DEFECTIVE AND DOES NOT PERFORM TO SPECIFICATIONS.  TECHNICAL SUPPORT HAS ACKNOWLEDGED THIS OVER A YEAR AGO, AND STILL HASN'T DONE ANYTHING, WON'T TELL US IF THEY WILL DO ANYTHING, AND CONTINUES TO OFFER THE PRODUCT FOR SALE.

IN CALIFORNIA, THAT'S CALLED UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICES.

UNLESS D-LINK WANTS TO FIND ITSELF SLAMMED WITH THE COST AND THE EMBARRASSMENT OF A LAWSUIT, THEY NEED TO PROVIDE ANSWERS AND NOT JUST "I'M THE MESSENGER" AND I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.

I'M PISSED, LOTS OF OTHER USERS ARE PISSED AS WELL.  ONE DIFFERENCE-- I HAPPEN TO BE A LAWYER.  I'M WILLING TO INVEST THE TIME TO GO AFTER D-LINK.

THINK ABOUT IT.

[JavaLawyer]

WHEN?  ECF??

THE PRODUCT IS DEFECTIVE AND DOES NOT PERFORM TO SPECIFICATIONS.  TECHNICAL SUPPORT HAS ACKNOWLEDGED THIS OVER A YEAR AGO, AND STILL HASN'T DONE ANYTHING, WON'T TELL US IF THEY WILL DO ANYTHING, AND CONTINUES TO OFFER THE PRODUCT FOR SALE.

IN CALIFORNIA, THAT'S CALLED UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICES.

UNLESS D-LINK WANTS TO FIND ITSELF SLAMMED WITH THE COST AND THE EMBARRASSMENT OF A LAWSUIT, THEY NEED TO PROVIDE ANSWERS AND NOT JUST "I'M THE MESSENGER" AND I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.

I'M PISSED, LOTS OF OTHER USERS ARE PISSED AS WELL.  ONE DIFFERENCE-- I HAPPEN TO BE A LAWYER.  I'M WILLING TO INVEST THE TIME TO GO AFTER D-LINK.

THINK ABOUT IT.

This practice is not unique to D-Link.  Most if not all of the competing media players are riddled with functionality issues and missing features that are clearly stated "on the box."  Dedicated media players are a relatively new technology with lots of bugs to be ironed out.  Since all the major manufacturers are releasing media players with incomplete or buggy functionality, one could argue that introducing media players in this state is an industry standard that consumers have come to accept.

As an owner/user of a competing brand of media player for several years now, I observed (and participated in) the progression of these players from their very infancy.  Early PCs and major operating systems (e.g. Vista) were similarly flawed in their own ways.  This is the price we pay for early adoption.

[fccgrant]

For you lawyer types...the sticking point might be the disclaimer (paraphrasing) that "Product specifications are subject to change without notice".

Seriously, no lawyer is going to waste their time on this.

[JavaLawyer]

For you lawyer types...the sticking point might be the disclaimer (paraphrasing) that "Product specifications are subject to change without notice".

Seriously, no lawyer is going to waste their time on this.

Agreed.  As an attorney myself, I think the accusations are without foundation.  Practically speaking, if we want to see more innovative products from the D-Links of the world, there's going to be a learning curve for the manufacturers and patience required for those of us who choose to adopt new/emerging technologies.

If you want a perfect bug-free technology for playing media, go out and buy a DVD/CD player.

[ECF]

WHEN?  ECF??

THE PRODUCT IS DEFECTIVE AND DOES NOT PERFORM TO SPECIFICATIONS.  TECHNICAL SUPPORT HAS ACKNOWLEDGED THIS OVER A YEAR AGO, AND STILL HASN'T DONE ANYTHING, WON'T TELL US IF THEY WILL DO ANYTHING, AND CONTINUES TO OFFER THE PRODUCT FOR SALE.

IN CALIFORNIA, THAT'S CALLED UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICES.

UNLESS D-LINK WANTS TO FIND ITSELF SLAMMED WITH THE COST AND THE EMBARRASSMENT OF A LAWSUIT, THEY NEED TO PROVIDE ANSWERS AND NOT JUST "I'M THE MESSENGER" AND I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.



I'M PISSED, LOTS OF OTHER USERS ARE PISSED AS WELL.  ONE DIFFERENCE-- I HAPPEN TO BE A LAWYER.  I'M WILLING TO INVEST THE TIME TO GO AFTER D-LINK.

THINK ABOUT IT.

This forum is for the community to reach each other and share technical information regarding the products D-Link offers. 
 
It is not a platform for you to voice your personal grievances with D-Link or it's policies as a company.   
 If you are consistently unhappy with your product or feel you have been cheated or treated dishonestly by D-Link then please contact our customer service line at 800-326-1688 ext 6314.   

 They will be the only ones able to assist you with your grievance, as it is now you are complaining to a team of technical support staff geared to moderate the forums. Not handle customer service issues.

[artem10]

I've been a DSM-520 owner for over two years. DSM-520 wasn't a bleeding edge technology at the time I purchased it, but owning a number of other D-Link products I had some loaylty with the brand.

While I have enjoyed getting what I could from the current firmware of my DSM-520, the truth is that the product never worked as expected and the 1.06.01 firmware still has a large number of holes (in fact, even upgrading to 1.06.01 was a problem by itself). As someone said in this thread above, dedicated media players are indeed an early technology and as the supporters of this early technology we may indeed need to bite the bullet.

My problem is though that two years is a LONG period of time when we talk about the new technologies. The media player industry has come a long way since the introduction of DSM-520, and I don't see that D-Link is trying to ride this wave like it seemingly does with its other product lines. I don't know whether D-Link's forray into the media players has been as promising as it might have been expected, but I can read the writing on the wall as far as expecting a new firmware upgrade for DSM-520.

I don't have a problem using other D-Link products (and I do), but as far as the dedicated media players go I'm now looking elsewhere for a DSM-520 substitute. Granted it won't be a perfect product but at least there seem to be other vendors that churn out new firmware upgrades regularly to keep up with their users' feedback and industry developments.

P.S. What's also interesting is that I haven't seen any cooked firmware updates for DSM-520 (e.g., even my older Pioneer DVD player as a number of cooked firmwares avaiable, let alone gazillion of cooked ROMs for PDAs) - maybe there's not much demand for the product these days? I'm past warranty so I wouldn't mind trying a cooked firmware for my DSM-520.

[JavaLawyer]

I don't have a problem using other D-Link products (and I do), but as far as the dedicated media players go I'm now looking elsewhere for a DSM-520 substitute. Granted it won't be a perfect product but at least there seem to be other vendors that churn out new firmware upgrades regularly to keep up with their users' feedback and industry developments.

I can personally relate to your concerns, but the grass isn't necessarily greener if you go with another brand.  I've been an owner of a competing product for over 2 years and many of the stated features still don't work or may work but are buggy.  From my understanding, the reason for the problems experienced with media players in particular is the fact that the manufacturers are designing them to play a very wide berth of media formats. Getting a single unit to properly play so many formats is no easy task. . . which stretches development resources thin.

On the flip-side, if media players are redesigned to support fewer container and video formats, a huge number of consumer products which export to non-compatible formats would be unable to easily use the media player without owners first going through a recoding exercise.

[artem10]

I can personally relate to your concerns, but the grass isn't necessarily greener if you go with another brand.  I've been an owner of a competing product for over 2 years and many of the stated features still don't work or may work but are buggy.  From my understanding, the reason for the problems experienced with media players in particular is the fact that the manufacturers are designing them to play a very wide berth of media formats. Getting a single unit to properly play so many formats is no easy task. . . which stretches development resources thin.

On the flip-side, if media players are redesigned to support fewer container and video formats, a huge number of consumer products which export to non-compatible formats would be unable to easily use the media player without owners first going through a recoding exercise.

Thank you for your comment. I agree and understand that competing products aren't perfect, but, frankly, I'm getting tired of having various media files, some of which are becoming increasingly popular, converted (often with substantial loss in quality and functionality) just to be able to play them on my DSM-520... it's just not worth my time. I don't know the exact nature of the technical challenge, but maybe you are right about finding the balance between the versatility of played formats and stability of performance, which makes it a Catch-22. 

It is quite possible that DSM-520's chipset is simply not capable of playing the latest audio/video formats - I'd rather be able to play more types of media files on my DSM-520 than spending another several hundred bucks on an upgrade. But with no firmware upgrade for DSM-520 on the horizon, c'est la vie.

[xman1]

I think the DSM-520 is an exceptional product, except for the album art and the picture scaling.  It is also very specific on what it can and cannot do, both in the manual and online.

Advanced Simple Level 5 for you MPEG4 people.  That means, max bitrate of 8K for the video portion.  No Quarter Pixel and no Global Motion Compensation.  It however does not care about Adaptive Quantization and it does not care about B frames - plays both fine.

It even does some things not listed, such as playing ogg files that even hit 700 kbps or higher!  I'm a fan of using ogg's that have special tuned engines behind them and this thing plays it like a champ.  These are things that I cannot get to play on a SlingBox for example.  The SlingBox pukes trying to play them.

Other things is, it does not care about resolution of your vid.  Feed it a 1080p stream and it will eat it fine.  

So I can't see the comments about what it doesn't do being valid.  If you follow the rules, it will play your file and works as advertised, except where mentioned above.  If you download movies off the net, and they are AVI's, be warned that a lot of those guys use XVid and they will enable those unsupported features.  I have yet not had it play soemthing where I followed the rules.  If you need the bandwidth, use MPEG.  It will take a 25 mbps file on MPEG-2.

Crud.  I even have this thing feed AC3's to my proc.

-X

[simoncutting]

At the risk of piling the DSM-520 has a lot of quirks that you either have to put up with or use it as a door stop.  I've had the DSM-520 for a couple of years and have come to accept its short-comings plus I've found ways around the most annoying features (like the track order being whacked in all views accept Folder - the tracks being out of order is an irritant for pop music but renders it useless for classical music).

I've tried talking with the D-Link support people who are all very nice but I didn't get anywhere - as Dr Phil says "how's that working for ya'"?

It's not clear to me that even if the D-Link elves were working on a new firmware release that they know what to fix.   From a business perspective why would D-Link invest in the DSM-520 anyway?  It's hardly a cash cow being constrained by the lack of spiffy new firmware.  I never got the impression that customer support were listening or being kept up at night worrying about the deficiencies of the DSM-520.

Anyway, it's not lost on me that all the media file flavours play without complaint on my Windows 7 PC.  Couple that with the dramatic way that hardware costs have come down and I am going to build my own media PC which I will hook up to my receiver.  It's not hard to do and I can then retire the DSM-520, which has not been useless but hasn't been great either.  I would include my wife's summary of the DSM-520 but it can't be repeated in polite company.