So I just got back to town and found that Dell had delivered my Linksys DMA2100 V2 Extender. After getting it set up and played with for a few minutes here is what I have found. Be advised this is connected to a wired GB network, not wireless.

1. It is completely quiet and quite small.

2. It seems to do everything that the Xbox360 MCX does, however, the movement through the MCE menus is somewhat sluggish. The Xbox360 is obviously much more powerful and has quicker response.

3. Seems to play all of the advertised video formats fine and all throught the MCE interface.

4. Divx and Xvid playback works well so far, even played back a movie that would not on the Xbox 360 dashboard. However, these movies, which are not local but stored on my WHS take a good 10 to 20 seconds to start over wired GB network. WMV seems to start much quicker. Have not experienced this slowness on the Xbox 360.

5. Divs and Xvid can be skipped forward and back but no FF or RW. No surprise there.

6. Displays 480p to 1080i. Video quality is excellent on my Panasonic 37" plasma at 1080i.

7. HDMI handles video and audio, just like the new Xbox 360s.

8. Remote works well but has a completely different layout from the MCE remotes.

So far though I am happy aside from the sluggishness and slow startup of Divx/Xvid movies. But given the size and complete silence I feel like it is a worthy replacement for my Xbox 360.

Muxoman:

4. Divx and Xvid playback works well so far, even played back a movie that would not on the Xbox 360 dashboard. However, these movies, which are not local but stored on my WHS take a good 10 to 20 seconds to start over wired GB network. WMV seems to start much quicker. Have not experienced this slowness on the Xbox 360.

That delay sounds like the delay seen with Transcode 360.  Is the Extender really playing them nativly or transcoding?
When the DIVX/XVID movie is playing, does it immediately show the entire movie time line?
(With T360, the time line grows as it's being transcoded.)

Also, how does it handle perfectly dark scenes?
With T360 (on my V1 Extender), when watching DIVX/XVID movides, when it hits a completely black scene, it goes nuts.. it usually skips back a few seconds and then when it hits the dark scene, it does it again.

I believe the Extender is playing them natively, as I don't have Transcode 360 installed. And yes the entire timeline does show up immediately. However, I did find a Dvix file that would not let me skip forward or backward while others work fine.

And no issues with completely black scenes that I have found.

Three questions:

1. 1080p support? You mentioned 1080i, but I wasn't sure if that was all you could test, or all the extender was rated to do.

2. How about H.264 playback? Does it support AAC-5.1?

3. Will it play multi-channel audio over HDMI? That's one of the biggest limitations of the 360.

I have a non-HDMI 360, so it's not completely incomprehendable that I would buy one of these in the future, especially if the answer to 3 is in the affirmative.

Cool..  a few more quetions.

How does it handle Closed Captioning?

Does it play them for Live and Recorded TV?
And can it handle external CC for DIVX/XVID (I think they are SRT or SMI files)?

Great news that these have FINALLY been released!  Waiting for 2 (one of each) from Buy.com and crossing my fingers they will arrive soon.

Do you have MYMOVIES and does it work with that as well? I used DVD Shrink and put the movie files on my WHS (windows home server)?

Erwos,

The box states that the Extender will do up to 1080p, But I do not have that option in the settings. But again I don't have any displays that will output 1080p so I cannot confirm.

H.264 playback is supported according the the box as well. I tried to test this with a .h264 video file that I extracted from a MKV file and had no luck getting the video to show up so I could try and play it. Audio formats stated are MP3, WMA and WMA Pro, AC-3, and PCM. Does not list AAC-5.1 and I don't have such a file to test.

It will play mulit-channel audio over HDMI and will do WMA Pro 5.1 decoding.

surge:

Cool..  a few more quetions.

How does it handle Closed Captioning?

Does it play them for Live and Recorded TV?
And can it handle external CC for DIVX/XVID (I think they are SRT or SMI files)?

The remote is strange. The Volume and Mute buttons do not work at all in MCE. In the Linksys menu you can program the remote by learning from another and assign it to those keys. Not sure how to get it to mute in MCE which would bring up the Closed Captioning.

As far as CC in Dvix or Xvid, I wouldn't think so.

apodoc:

Do you have MYMOVIES and does it work with that as well? I used DVD Shrink and put the movie files on my WHS (windows home server)?

I don't use My Movies so I cannot say for sure. But previously I had used My Movies and it worked fine with my Xbox 360 Extender so I am most pretty positive it should work here as well.

When you used to use MY MOVIES how did you make it work with the 360. It is a known fact that it will not play back ISO files.

apodoc:

When you used to use MY MOVIES how did you make it work with the 360. It is a known fact that it will not play back ISO files.

I converted the files from VOB to DVR-MS or WMV.

In the instructions Chapter 3 page 22 (I know last thing you are looking at probably since you are helping everyone else) state to program the TV to the remote.  Then the mute and the volume handle the TV.

Page 23 states they have no default function and tells you how to program the remote.

No idea how CC would trigger then.

Will the new extender play VOB files without converting?

apodoc:

Will the new extender play VOB files without converting?

The Extender does not even see the VOB file in the Video folder. If I rename it to MPG it shows up and plays fine.