The softness could, of course, have something to do with the rather cheap, unshielded D4-to-component video dongle included with the player (it offers no dedicated RCA-type component output). Since the D4 output is rather uncommon in North America, I couldn’t pop down to Best Buy to buy a better one. However, the extent of the softness seems too severe to attribute entirely to a lackluster dongle.

In retrospect, it seems as if I’ve been a bit hard on the AVeL LinkPlayer 2. Its faults are many, but then again, so are its strengths. Said strengths, though, can be summed up quite easily: It takes audio and video from there and moves them to here, and has little competition in its price range.

If you are intrigued by the AVLP2’s features, it might be worth a look, but only after I-O Data works out all the kinks in the firmware.

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RATING: GUARDED
Description: I-O Data AVeL LinkPlayer 2 Network Media Player with built-in DVD Player
High Points: Plays DVDs, and streams most major computer audio and video formats over a home network; MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX HD, Xvid, and WMV9 HD, as well as MP3, WMA, PCM, and AAC; access to internet radio; very easy setup
Low Points: Sluggish response; unimpressive video quality; prone to crashes and lockups; inferior DVD performance; no DTS audio CD playback; no DVI or RCA-type component video output
Contact: I-O Data, 800.522.3340, www.iodata.com
Price: $249