Monday, October 24, 2005
The Buffalo Technology PC-P3LWG/DVD High Definition Wireless Media Player Reviewed
Posted by Jeremy Charette in "HARDWARE" @ 09:00 AM
That Sounds Great, But...
For starters, the video, audio, and photo menu screens can't be sorted by anything other than alphabetical/numerical order. The PC-P3LWG/DVD supposedly allows you to sort your music by library, album, artist, or genre, but I couldn't get it to recognize any of the tags assigned to my music by Windows Media Player and iTunes. It simply displayed the complete filename, tag and all. There is no indication in the manual as to what type of music tags are supported.
Figure 4: The Music browser screen.
Buffalo Technology allows you to use Windows Media Connect to play protected WMA and WMV files. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play a single protected file using WMC, since the PC-P3LWG/DVD was not listed as an "authorized" device. This is a pretty significant downfall, considering that one of the strengths of this media player is the ability to play WMV HD files. The only non-protected WMV HD files available are the sample files available on Microsoft's WMV HD website. WMV HD DVDs are available, but they don't play in the PC-P3LWG/DVD because they contain DRM encoding that only works with Windows Media Player. I also couldn't play protected music files that I'd downloaded from Napster (although the manual says that I should be able to). I also had a ton of problems with mysterious file errors using Windows Media Connect, as well as massive system slowdowns, and I'm not the only one.
Figure 5: The Video browser screen.
Photos? Forget about it. I couldn't get photos on my PC to display at all, no matter what I tried. I found similar complaints from other PC-P3WLG/DVD users.
Figure 6: The photo browser menu.
The most significant problem I had is that the PC-P3LWG/DVD can't cope with slower data transfer rates. When I used a memory card reader, or my existing 802.11b wireless router, I experienced significant stuttering and jerkiness when playing back music or video files. This made it impossible to use as a Digital Audio Player. It certainly didn't have to do with distance or a weak signal, as my router and laptop were within a couple of feet of the Wireless Media Player. Apparently the PC-P3LWG/DVD can't pre-cache files to prevent this from happening.
Conclusions
I had high expectations for the Buffalo Technology Wireless Media Player. It certainly had all the right stuff. It's one of the few stand-alone devices that can play back WMV HD video files. Unfortunately, this very capable hardware is let down by a poorly designed interface. It looks like it was created by three different designers; the setup, home, and media menus look totally different. None of them are very intuitive or easy to use.
Some of the problems with the P3LWG/DVD are beyond Buffalo Technology’s control. Windows Media Connect is not a very mature file streaming package, WMV HD content is sparse, and without High Definition Content Protection (HDCP), major content providers probably won’t allow this device to play back DRM protected content. Also, since this device doesn’t have HDCP, the DVD Consortium and the MPAA will not allow it to upscale DVDs to 720p or 1080i (DVD output is fixed at 480p).
WMV HD video looks outstanding when played back in 1080i on an HDTV. Unfortunately, WMV HD isn’t a very widely supported format, and what little content is available also contains DRM protection. Buffalo Technology claims they are trying to allow users to access more DRM’d content, but I haven’t seen any progress in this area since they released this product in February of 2005.
With an improved user interface, HDCP, and better DRM support, the P3WLG/DVD could be a truly great product. As it stands right now, however, I can’t recommend it. Get a Media Center Extender instead, or wait for the Xbox 360 to come out in November.
Jeremy Charette is a Process Engineer for a global defense contractor. When not working, he enjoys reading up on a variety of subjects, playing video games on Xbox Live, and spending time with this wonderful fiancee.
