Digital Home Thoughts: The Buffalo Technology PC-P3LWG/DVD High Definition Wireless Media Player Reviewed

Music, Movies, and Photos, All On Your HDTV!
Buffalo Technology was among the very first to release a media player with the ability to stream high-definition video from any PC in the house. The idea is simple: the PC-P3LWG/DVD Wireless Media Player takes audio, video, and photo files from your home network, a CD or DVD disc, or an external drive or device, and plays them back on your HDTV. It can connect to your existing network with an ethernet connection, and it also has a built-in 802.11g/b wireless card, allowing it to stream data at up to 54 Mbps.


Figure 1: This diagram shows how the PC-P3LWG/DVD connects to various devices.

It can read a variety of video file formats, including wmv, divx, mpeg, vob, just for starters. As for audio files, it can play mp3, wma, ogg, wav, aac, and ac3; as well as a few others. Last, but not least, it can display various picture file formats, including jpg, gif, bmp, tif, and png. The PC-P3LWG/DVD can play back DVDs and SVCDs. It can also play back data files from various CD and DVD formats. All video files (except for commercial DVDs) are upscaled to whatever resolution your TV supports, up to 1080i.


Figure 2: Just a small sample of the formats the PC-P3LWG/DVD supports.

It All Sounds Good On Paper...
Wireless networking? Check. High-definition playback? Check. Simple, yet powerful interface? Well...let's talk about that for a minute.

The PC-P3LWG/DVD comes with the usual extras, a remote, standard RCA cables, and a user's manual. It also includes a CD with some networking software and an ethernet cable. Setup is fairly easy, just plug the unit in, and turn the power on. (Side note: why are component video cables not included in the box?)


Figure 3: Connection diagram for a standard-definition TV.

I connected the PC-P3LWG/DVD using my own component video cables. The unit defaults to an output setting of 480i, which is fine for most standard definition TVs. What to do next isn't exactly intuitive, so I had to flip through the manual to figure out how to change the output resolution. A combination of the setup and enter buttons cycles through 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i. My TV doesn't display 720p, so I got nothing but a blank screen when it cycled to that setting. Personally, I'd prefer to see a menu where a user can check off the output formats supported but his or her TV, like the menus found on my HD Cable Box and my Xbox.

Once I had selected 1080i output, I noticed that the user interface wasn't very sharp. It turns out that unless you go into the Setup menu, select the high-definition browser option, and restart the unit, it displays the same standard definition menus, no matter what display output you choose. It would seem to me that if you are using a high-definition output format, you would naturally want a sharp, clear, high-definition menu to look at. :?

The home screen displays any devices you may have connected to the PC-P3LWG/DVD, including any USB drives, networked hard drives, and other computers on your network (but only after you've installed Buffalo's LinkTheater software or Windows Media Connect). It also displays whatever disc is in the CD/DVD drive, whether it's a commercial DVD movie disc, or a data disc in any number of formats. Buffalo Technology relies on Universal Plug 'n' Play (UPnP) technology to automatically detect and connect to compatible devices. The trouble is, it doesn't always work "automatically". When this happens, you have to be tech-savvy enough to know the device's IP address and name, and be able to manually enter this information so that the PC-P3LWG/DVD can find it. Not exactly "user friendly".

Frankly, the home screen isn't pretty to look at, nor does it necessarily tell you what you need to know about what's on any of the networked devices. Fortunately, when you select a device (like a networked PC), it pulls up a much nicer interface which allows you to play back video, audio, and photo files. There's also the option of displaying RSS feeds, web bookmarks, Internet radio, podcasts, and Yahoo search. This all sounds well and good, but there are a few problems.