"Convergence products" like media receivers typically make a lot of promises about magically relaying all your PC's content over to your TV, but they're often complicated to set up and not quite as useful as you'd hoped. Then you have this extra box in your equipment stack that you hardly ever use, taking up one more input on your receiver or TV.

At least Linksys's KiSS 1600 media receiver includes a DVD player — and one that upconverts video to HD format, at that. The built-in Wi-Fi (802.11n, we're guessing) and streaming of PC and Web video (even high-def) are nice, but it's the HDMI output, delivering all your video in the 720p HD format, that you'll find most handy. Still, for the approximately $500 asking price, you'd think that would be 1080p. — Peter Pachal

Tech Digest, via Orgismo