Linksys Kiss 1600 review

When we looked at the Kiss DP-600 multimedia player in our December 2006 issue, it impressed us with its combination of upscaling DVD playback and media streaming abilities. However, start-up times and the menu system were sluggish.

Kiss has since been taken over by Linksys. The first thing you notice about the new Kiss 1600 is how much smaller it is than its predecessor. Although this may be an advantage to some, it does mean it no longer stacks neatly with other hi-fi components.

The 1600 retains the DVD drive, so you can replace your current DVD player entirely. It can upscale DVDs to HD resolutions and output the resulting image through either component or HDMI. However, some of our test DVDs would not upscale over either component or HDMI, due to copy-protection issues.

Upscaled DVD playback works well, although how much you'll benefit from it depends on your HD TV. Owners of modern sets with good internal upscaling will notice little difference, while those with older HD TVs or ones with poor electronics will certainly benefit. It's far harder to get excited about upscaling now that Blu-ray and HD DVD movies are becoming common.

The rear of the unit is awash with inputs and outputs. As well as HDMI and component, there are scart, S-video and composite outputs. The 1600 doesn't have the surround-sound decoder of the DP-600, but it does have both optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs so you can hook it up to a surround-sound decoder. Alternatively, there are stereo phono outputs for connecting to a hi-fi.

As well as DVDs, the 1600 is capable of dealing with a wide range of media file formats. This includes all the ones you're ever likely to need, including MP3, MPEG4 and JPEG. Such files can be streamed over a wired or wireless network, taken from USB storage devices via the USB2 port on the rear or played from a wide range of optical media using the DVD-ROM drive.

The 1600 is compatible with any UPnP server software, such as Microsoft's Media Connect, which is now part of Windows Media Player 11. It does not, however, support any kind of digital rights management, so you can't stream protected music.

Setting up the player and accessing content is very straightforward. The interface is responsive but rather minimal, and you don't get thumbnails for pictures or video clips. There's also no way skip forwards or backwards through video content being streamed, which is infuriating if you press the back button and end up at the beginning of the clip again.

The remote control is rather confusing, as the buttons are all the same colour and a similar size, so it's hard to locate a key quickly.

The Kiss 1600 is a great product with all the outputs and network connections you could need, and it supports a wide range of video formats. If you're going to use it as an upscaling DVD player as well, then it's well worth the money. If you don't need the DVD player, the 1600's tricky interface means that other streaming media players are better value.