I’ve been using my V2 Linksys Media Center extender for a few weeks now and thought I’d post some thoughts on the experience.
- The form factor is great. It’s very small and utterly silent.
- Linksys include a set of each cables (aside from HDMI) which is nice.
- The included remote feels much cheaper than those included with V1 extenders.
- Setup was super-easy and the non-extender setup pages are well implemented.
- Startup times are abysmal. It takes around 60 seconds over Ethernet and longer via Wireless-N. Powering down also takes a surprisingly long time.
- Video quality is excellent for both SDTV/HDTV, as well as XviD.
- The menu and selection transitions are painful to watch. Turning them off gives a much better experience.
- On an HDTV, areas such as the menu backgrounds and fonts are of a noticeably lower quality than within Media Center itself, or when using the Xbox 360 as an extender. These differences are largely unnoticeable on SDTV.
- There is no 4th Zoom option for watching a 4/3 video on a widescreen TV.
- All of the Media Center backgrounds, menus, and text appear embedded in the firmware. Due to this I feel it’s unlikely V2 extenders will be supported on the next major release of Media Center (and since the hardware already appears underpowered, this may not be a bad thing).
Overall I would say I’m neither impressed nor disappointed with the new extenders. The experience is generally very good (once you turn off the transition animations) but at $250+ they feel overpriced and the startup time is disappointing.
If you’re looking for an extender for the living room, particularly for an HDTV, then I’d suggest considering an XBox 360 (particularly the quieter model, or if you have a cabinet to muffle the fan sound). For a second extender in the bedroom then the Linksys V2 extenders are a good choice.
Footnote: I believe that the forthcoming extenders from companies such as D-Link are all based upon the same internal hardware, so the experiences are unlikely to differ much.
