Smart Home Blog

D-Link announced its new PowerLine adapters – single adapter unit DHP-310AV ($59.99), AV Mini Adapter Starter Kit DHP-311AV ($109.99) with two units and AV 4-Port Switch Mini Adapter Starter Kit DHP-348AV ($129.99). Those adapters can give up to 200Mbps speeds over existing electrical wiring (should be enough even for 1080p streaming). Which together with non-expensive price and slim design makes new D-Link products very attractive in case you don’t want additional wiring for your home network.

[via SlashGear]

As you may know the release of DLink Boxee Box is delayed till October or November 2010. But now you can see the live demo of the prototype that device (thanks to Engadget!). Even prototype looks nice. The Boxee Box is compact and stylish. It doesn’t looks like the rest media players of HTPC offered on the market.

The Boxee remote control with QWERTY keyboard on the back is really cool! This is what I’m waiting long time. It uses radio frequency but it’d be possible to control IR equipment as well by adding USB IR transmitter. Hope Boxee team will add that feature some day.

When Boxee announced its own box designed by D-Link I suspected that it should be based on nVidia Ion as a compact and the most reliable to Linux platform. I was wrong but just a little bit. The Boxee Box will use mobile nVidia platform Tegra 2. Together with a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU it should bring 1080p video to your HDTV. Except that Boxee Box will be able playback of flash HD content.

Other hardware components are RF chip by Nordic for remote control and 802.11N wireless chip by Broadcom. The box won’t have internal HDD to decrease its cost, keep it compact and chill. Many people already have USB HDDs or NASes. So, internal hard drive inside the media player is no needed. The boxee box will lack IR receiver. Sure universal remote control is good. But remote with a full QWERTY keyboard is better. In any case, Boxee team promise to add support of IR dongles in the future.

And the finally about the price and availability. Boxee Box from D-Link will be available this March at $200.

Today is benefit performance of Boxee. Together with new Beta, announced in Brooklyn last night, the information about official Boxee Box was published on the Boxee website. It’ll be Dlink DSM-380! The small device (just 120mm x 120mm x 120mm) with strange design should occupy the place near your TV. There is no hardware spec yet. But I suppose that it’ll use nVidia Ion platform (maybe second generation). There are not do many port and interfaces. Just HDMI, optical S/PDIF and Composite audio, Ethernet, 2 USB ports and SD card reader. Additionally the DSM-380 is equiped with WiFi adapter and RF remote control which looks like Apple remote.

The DSM-380 should be available in the second quarter of 2010 for about $200. If so, it might be good opportunity to get advanced media player. Because the price of its nearest competitor Myka starts from $379 but it includes optical drive.

Regarding the design of DSM-380. Sure the Boxee and DLink know better how their device should look like. But personally I prefer something more practical like AppleTV or ASUS EEE Desktop, which can fit any A/V stand or be mounted behind TV.

Dlink DSM-520 is a Wireless HD Media Player. It allows to stream music, photos, and high-definition videos to your home entertainment system over LAN. Moreover, it allows to listen the Internet radio and see content from Premium Online Services. The DSM-520 connects to your existing home network using either 802.11g wireless technology or via Ethernet cable.

The DSM-520 sports a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connector to connect directly to the HD TV. Also, it includes component, S-video and composite outputs. Audio comes from coax and optical digital audio outputs and offers high fidelity digital surround sound.

The DSM-520 supports all well-known audio/video/graphical formats. It looks pretty nice and blended in with your other home entertainment devices, makes your home theater setup complete.

Dlink Wireless HD Media Player  is available at price $249.99. Other media streamer – Sqeezebox, cannot stream video and photos  but costs about $300. So, it might be more reasonable to buy DSM-520.