LG ANWL100W Digital Device 1080P Media Streamer

LG ANWL100W Digital Device 1080P Media Streamer[Compatible with 2010 LG TVs
  • 1080p Wireless Transmitter
  • Wireless Receiver Included
  • 4 HDMI™ (3 back / 1 side)
  • 2 Component AV Input, PC Input, 3.5mm Audio Input
  • IR Blaster
  • Physical Characteristics-Depth-8.9
  • Physical Characteristics-Height-1.7
  • Physical Characteristics-Width-12.8

I purchased the LG 60pk750 a few weeks ago and love it. I have it wall mounted in a location which is VERY difficult to run wires to. Until now, I have had it temporarily hardwired to my DVR with exposed cable until I found a better way. Enter the "LG AN-WL100W Wireless Media Kit". I was skeptical about wireless HD, but decided to give it a try after reading the small amount of online reviews. Really not much info available about this product, but did find useful info at Crutchfield and home theater magazine. I hope that this review informs people about this product better.

Functionality:

Before I mounted my TV back on the wall, I decided to test the results through the AN-WL100W (smart, huh). I was actually very surprised... the picture was really good. I watched Discovery HD for a while, flipping between hardwired and wireless and saw NO difference. At times I thought I saw picture degradation, but I would flip back to the hardwired and realized that the source was the problem (broadcast HD is hit or miss). Don't have my Bluray yet, so this is the best reference I had. Sound was never a problem, though I was just using the TVs tiny speakersI can say that it sounded just like the hardwired. For this test, the head unit was about 4 feet away, directly behind the TV, behind a wall in my garage(drywall-studs-plywood-drywall).

Later, I mounted my TV with the wireless dongle connected and in place, and put the headunit where I planned to keep it, in a AV closet approximately 10 feet from the center of the TV, to the right front of the TV. This time I could not get sufficient signal strength to get picture. I could not believe it! The total distance from the headunit to the dongle was about 12 feetline-of-sight obstacles were a regular interior wall (drywall,studs,drywall), and the TV itself (since the dongle is mounted on the back). The screen would show that it saw the headunit and was tryng to establish picture, but signal strength was too low.

Form:

The product itself is really nice lookingno question. However, I have a huge issue with the dongle size and installation. The dongle is TOO BIG. The AN-WL100W was custom designed for these LG TVs, yet they still managed to allow the dongle to be the tallest protrusion on the back of the set! WTH?!? This is a problem if you are wall-mounting (why else would you buy this product if you were using a stand on a cabinet?). Similarly, the HDMI and control cables which plug into the back of the TV are not designed with 90 angles, so they get all bent and crimped up against the wall too. With so much design going into the electronics of the AN-WL100W, it simply blows my mind that they didn't make wall-mounting a slam-dunk by making the dongle just a bit thinner and supplying cables with 90 bends!

Summary:

I was hoping that going wireless (and paying $300) would simplify my location situation. I also liked the fact that it had nice IR repeaters and integrated switching controlled by the TV. The signal quality was good at very short ranges, but was useless at about 12 feet with a reasonable obstruction. I don't know how practical this is, because I think most people shelling out $300 for this are buying it because they might have an obstruction or distance situation. I would have kept fiddling with it if it hadn't been for the wall-mounting issues mentioned earlier. This sealed the deal for me to return it.

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We have a cable TV set-top box in our master bedroom, along with a home entertainment system. We also have an LG 55LE5400 HD TV against a wall in our living room, with about 35 feet of open space and one normal drywall between the two spaces. I needed a way to get the HD signal from the bedroom, through the wall, to the living room TV, and this looked like it might do the job.

The product description on the LG website includes the statement "The kit sends an uncompressed, full HD 1080p signal to your TV from up to 50 feet away, even through walls and doors." If this statement were true, my review would read differently. Unfortunately, this did not turn out to be the case, and a red flag went up in my mind when I noted that the documentation provided with the device also included a "recommendation" to "place the Media Box and the TV in the same room". Since the distance between my living room TV and the Media Box was only 35 feet, I thought it might work adequately. However, mounting the dongle (receiver) on the back of the TV as suggested in the documentation led to an unusable signal strength at the TV, with frequent drop-outs.

After some experimentation, I have settled on positioning the dongle (receiver) flat on the tabletop under the living room TV screen, with the end with the LG logo pointed at the media box, which is behind the wall in the bedroom. The supplied connecting wiring is barely long enough to permit this, but it's workable, and with the dongle in this position, the signal drop-outs ceased, and picture quality is pretty good.

So, in summary, we're getting acceptably good performance from the system at a distance of 35 feet through one drywall. There are no other 5Ghz signals in this environment to cause any interference, and the distance between the Media Box and the dongle is all clear space with no furniture or other obstructions. My opinion is that the LG claim of a useful reception distance of 50 feet is exaggerated.

I rated all item "attributes" for this item midto -high except "Protection", which I did not rate at all due to lack of relevance.

Read Best Reviews of LG ANWL100W Digital Device 1080P Media Streamer Here

This product is advertised as wireless HDMI so I was expecting that this product will not alter video quality.

Unfortunately it does compress video and shows artifacts even at very close range.

I did some further testing and saw that the video is not 1080p 60 but doing a 3 frame interpolation, so it is really doing 1080p at 20Hz, which mean it is lossy video compression, also colors are downgraded.

For a product at this price point this is not matching the quality expected from LG's product line.

Also be aware, the LG TV supports 3D but this product does not.

Anyway I can't find a good point about this item.

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I got this free with the purchase of an LG Tv. It does exactly what is says, broadcasts HD without wires. I have it hooked up in my living room to my main cable box via an HDMI splitter and the TV is in my bedroom. The signal does transmit through the wall with out much trouble and the picture is normally perfect. I had some troubles after I mounted the wireless receiver to the back of the TV. LG reccommends the placement but you may want to play around with it before settling on a spot. I moved it a couple inches and now the signal seems to be coming in fine. I did have to get another remote from my cable company for their box, the LG remote wont work with it throught the wireless media kit, the cable remote does just fine. Over all I am really happy with this unit, especially since it was free!

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For some reason after several months the signal does not reach my television. Nothing has changed as far as location but some how the signal has become too weak to be recognized. Not sure what has happened...

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Cut a hole in the wall and ran the wires from our living room cable box to the unit into our bedroom. Did not need to buy new cables, the onles included with the unit were long enough. Must have been a streaming issue with the wall blocking the signal. With the unit now in the same room on separate walls the TV and unit are less than 15 feet apart. Everything is working perfectly now.

---------------Up Date------------

The unit died again. It cannot send an uninterrupted signal to the TV even with the unit being in the same room as the TV and with a clear line of site. I loved the concept so much when it was working I bought a new unit, it was cheaper than sending it in for repair. Once installed the new unit acted the same as my old unit. The signal pulsed on and off and would not work properly. I sent the unit back for a full refund. I'm very upset as I loved how things worked when they were working. Back to the drawing board!

This product is great! The picture quality is fantastic! Colors are stunning and the connection is rock solid!

I am streaming wirelessly full HD 1080p 60Hz from my Blu -Ray player to my new 55 inch LG LED TV and the quality is just as good as a top-of-the-line HDMI cable. In fact, I tested it just to be sure, and I could not tell the difference between HDMI and wireless. I can have all my A/V devices hidden in my media center cabinet and wirelessly send the video to the TV across the room. The receiver unit is small and hidden behind the TV, and it gets its power from the TV. So my set up is now clean of unnecessary cables and picture quality is superb.

Great Product! highly recommended!

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