Quote:
Originally Posted by Che Dog
Anyone who has updated to the release of Snow Leopard 10.6.6 have anything to report on how it works with DisplayLink, positive or negative?
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Hi! Just recently bought from my local Fry's store the Imation Link A/V Extender product which uses the DisplayLink driver for the Mac OS X. Here's my experience so far.
Hardware:
Macbook Pro (model 5.5)
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53GHz CPU
4GB RAM
Seagate 500GB 7200RPM hard drive
nVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card (native screen resolution @ 1280 x 800)
Airport WiFi card
Imation Link Wireless Audio/Video Extender
Vizio GV47L LCD television (VGA native screen resolution @ 1360 x 768 60Hz)
Linksys WRT54GL router (running Tomato firmware version 1.28)
Software:
Mac OS X 10.6.6 (not 64bit kernel as Cisco VPN client extension is 32bit only)
DisplayLink driver for the Mac 1.6b3
Firefox 3.6.13
Adobe Flash 10.1.102.64
Safari 5.0.3
QuickTime 10.0
Others:
Road Runner Standard Internet service (10Mbps download/1Mbps upload)
The first thing I did was download the latest DisplayLink driver which is at version 1.6b3 from this forum. The install wizard seems to be like any other Mac OS X installer except for the end which asked to restart my laptop. Unfortunately, the only thing the installer did was close (maybe crash?) the user interface of the OS. I hit the power button and the Shutdown dialog box appeared. I clicked on the Restart button.
While my laptop was rebooting, I connected the Imation device to my TV's VGA and 3.5mm stereo jacks. I wish I can connect the Imation device via HDMI, but my TV only has 2 HDMI jacks which are already in use. Besides, the VGA and stereo connections are good enough for what I'll be using the device for anyway. I set the receiver base right next to my Wii sensor bar in front of the TV.
Once my laptop has finished booting and I'm logged in and sitting on my couch which is about 9-10 feet away from my TV, I inserted the USB transmitter into my laptop, folded it to a 90 degree angle per the quick start guide and it synced with the receiver base instantly. I then proceeded to change my TV's resolution using the OS' System Preferences from 1280 x 1024 (weird why the OS picked this up automatically) to its native resolution of 1360 x 768. On a side note, I know not a way to have my laptop just use my TV (or any other external monitor) as its only screen so during testing I have it as an extended desktop.
I must say I am surprised to see that moving windows between my laptop and TV, and scrolling through websites (laptop connected via WiFi to router) like slashdot.org and macintouch.com displayed on my TV is pretty fast and smooth. I can only compare this USB device to the USB docking stations at work which have jittery and laggy (is this even a word?) screen refresh. I mean I had my expectations set to very low since this device is wireless compared to the wired docking stations. Then again, I also don't have any other USB devices connected to my laptop during testing so the Imation device doesn't really have any other devices to share the USB bandwidth with. So far so good!
I surfed over to crunchyroll.com to view some full screen (SD only) Bleach episodes. I headed over to gametrailers.com to watch some full screen (HD only and I'm just guessing that they are 720p as I can't find any info as to what resolution this website uses) game trailers. FYI, both sites are streaming Flash videos through Firefox. I went to trailers.apple.com using Safari to watch some 1080p HD QuickTime movie trailers. I found no problem watching any of the videos from the websites I listed above.
Other than the installer restart issue, I'm actually satisfied with the Imation device and its DisplayLink driver on my Macbook Pro laptop. I may actually buy another one for my bedroom TV. This time though I'll probably buy it from amazon.com (lower price than Fry's, free shipping, and no sales tax), and since that TV has a free HDMI jack, I will connect the device using it. I'll post a review about it when the time comes.