Rhapsody N35 High Def NDAS media player [Text View]

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ianooo

07-13-06, 07:12 PM

new high def media player, using the ximeta NDAS chip set.

available from dixvtech (company selling MODIX 3520 HD streamer box)

not sure if this is an extension of existing MODIX 3510 / 3520 product lines, also not sure if the N35 could be used as a NDAS server itself (bit limited with a 10/100 Mbps ethernet interface if it was operating as a server).
Same box can include a 3.5" HDD, as well as hooking up external USB HDDs via USB interface.

no info on availability / price.

v770

07-14-06, 01:52 AM

I saw this on the divxtech.com web site so I call their customer service. Apparently, they have them in stock and plan to market them on the 15th of July. Couldn’t tell me what the price is but said they will be running a promotional pricing (I don't know for how long).

Rapsody N35 is in line with Tivx 5000u and Pixelmagic MB100 so I think the pricing will be in the $350 range. I’m curious to see what their promotional pricing will be.

I had some disappointing experience with the Mediagate MG-35’s claim of NDAS so I asked divxtech as to how N35 compares to Mediagate. Other than N35 being high definition, they said that N35 incorporates Ximeta’s latest NDAS chip where Mediagate is software based and does not license Ximeta’s NDAS technology. Hardware based NDAS is 10 times faster than software based. Also, NDAS is 3 to 5 times faster than NAS. Check out Ximeta.com.

Who ever gets this in, please post your impression. Thanks in advance.

zhzh

07-15-06, 01:42 AM

I just order one, the price is $270. no tax. plus $13 shipping fee. the price is introductionary price and will go up next month.

can't wait for this cool product.

Exile

07-15-06, 09:02 AM

No pictures of the UI on their site. If anyone has found some please post a link.

A 'useable' UI is a must for me (more truthfully for the wife)

yoohoo

07-15-06, 04:21 PM

How about some links. Thanks.

v770

07-15-06, 05:22 PM

zhzh,

Please post your review. I'm very interested. Price looks excellent. I thought it would be much higher because it’s priced at 339 Euros in Europe.

yoohoo,

Here is what I’ve found for links.

Manufacturer: http://dacostech.co.kr/eng/product/product_n35.php

Sales and support in US: http://www.divxtech.com/

Sales and support in Europe:
http://www.rapsody.de/produkte/n35-1.htm
http://www.ceptra.de/frame.html?http://www.ceptra.de/artinfo.php?artnr=A9485
http://www.preisroboter.de/ergebnis2089476.html

lpr

07-15-06, 06:48 PM

Looks nice, can't wait to see the UI and read some reviews!

joenq9652

07-17-06, 01:55 PM

I cannot find the manual downloadable anywhere. Looked like this one does not support subtitles as we don't see any specification about it. That's also one of the most important features as watching movies... unless you think you don't need it. Please post your review as soon as you receive and try out the unit. thanks.

zhzh

07-17-06, 04:27 PM

i called tech surpport before i ordered the player, i was told that it does support subtitle, current firmware supports non-unicode subtitles like english, spanish, franch, in the future they will release firmware support unicode subtitle like chinese, japanese, koren, etc.

yoohoo

07-19-06, 12:33 AM

Looks nice.

N35 doesn’t seem to have any control buttons on the front of the unit. How are you suppose to manually control like ON/OFF or PLAY/STOP. What if the remote control breaks, are we out of luck?

v770

07-19-06, 04:27 PM

N35 doesn’t seem to have any control buttons on the front of the unit. How are you suppose to manually control like ON/OFF or PLAY/STOP. What if the remote control breaks, are we out of luck?
Web indicates "Touch Panel Control" so I assume it does not use the traditional mechanical switch but has something like a touch screen technology. This is way cool.

joenq9652

07-19-06, 05:17 PM

Divx Support and the Sales Manager from Manufacturing sent me link to the spec.

the spec can be downloaded from divxtech support page.

The best feature to make the name of this box is network, as it has been designed and implemented based on NDAS. However, the manual or the box itself does not have the related application. For instance, making the N35 box were a media server for a RAID. It then became media player unit for power users.

joenq9652

07-19-06, 05:22 PM

I meant the difference is terra-byte storages. Otherwise, you can get a cheap USB to wireless accesspoint to plug in your modix box as modix box is more portable and looks more cool.

joenq9652

07-19-06, 05:25 PM

Divx Support and the Sales Manager from Manufacturing sent me link to the spec.

http://www.divxtech.com/Rapsody_Files/N35_Manual_eng-062306.pdf

The best feature to make the name of this box is network, as it has been designed and implemented based on NDAS. However, the manual or the box itself does not have the related application. For instance, making the N35 box were a media server for a RAID. It then became media player unit for power users.

bruce_bruce

07-20-06, 03:45 AM

I really want a NAS device I can use for backups that can also stream movies/photos/music off of the HD directly to the TV. This looked like it might be a winner but the NDAS stuff just seems to have too many limitations.

1. It does not appear to work with Macs. The manual specifies a PC. It is not clear if this is a real limitation. Looking at the Ximeta site (the company that created NDAS), they do support Macs (though not very well).

2. If it does support Macs, it doesn't work well in a mixed Mac/PC world. In order for both to be able to access it, you must format the drive using FAT32. A FAT32 drive must be split into 32GB partitions. That would really suck on a 500GB drive.

If you don't have a Mac, the first two aren't issues.

The bigger issue is that NDAS is not NAS. It really appears to be a USB drive across ethernet. Only one computer can mount an NDAS drive at a time (like a USB drive that is only connected to one computer). You can share that drive through Windows File Sharing but that means you need to keep that computer on 24/7.

I want a real NAS, a drive on the network that any type of computer can write to at any time.

This is the only product I see that may fit the bill. Hopefully it will come out soon.

http://www.i4u.com/article5705.html

Bruce

joenq9652

07-20-06, 08:23 PM

You don't have to wait. Let take the DVP-570 from cooldrives with an accesspoint. It then becomes a wireless NAS.

joenq9652

07-20-06, 08:24 PM

Mediagate is one of those too

bruce_bruce

07-21-06, 01:43 AM

You don't have to wait. Let take the DVP-570 from cooldrives with an accesspoint. It then becomes a wireless NAS.

Interesting but it isn't available until end of August. :)

They didn't have much info about the networking part of it. I'm curious to see if it is a real NAS or something like NDAS.

Thanks for the link!

Bruce

pkeegan

07-21-06, 08:05 PM

The bigger issue is that NDAS is not NAS. It really appears to be a USB drive across ethernet. Only one computer can mount an NDAS drive at a time (like a USB drive that is only connected to one computer). You can share that drive through Windows File Sharing but that means you need to keep that computer on 24/7.
Bruce

Take a look at the Ximeta.com. Multiple computers can access/control their NDAS unit if the PCs are XP/Windows 2000. Ximeta last year put out a new driver to do this. It in all respects looks like a NAS. You don't need a PC that's always on. The Roku HD1000 contained a Ximeta software driver and could access a Ximeta NDAS directly but there was an issue that the Ximeta disk would spin down and the Roku lost it's share to it. Hopefully that issue has been resolved with the onboard Ximeta chip on the Rapsody. Hard to say till someone reports back after a test.

yoohoo

07-26-06, 12:20 AM

Just ordered mine over the weekend. I’ll put it through the ringer and post here.

I was sold on the front panel. Touch screen control and clean look should look great in my entertainment system. I’m sucker for gimmicks.

yoohoo

07-27-06, 09:20 PM

Rapsody N35 was delivered yesterday. :)

Removed the protective film from the front panel and you get a nice smooth black glass surface. No push buttons at all. Device looks better than expected. :cool:

I didn’t have a hard drive to put in yet so I just connected the power, DVI, and Ethernet. Once the power is connected, you get a red On/Off sign on the left of the front panel where you can touch and the unit turns on. Very neat.

After some setup, I was ready to go. Because I didn’t have a hard drive installed, only thing I could test was the network streaming of video and audio files. DVD ISO and IFO files played flawlessly over the network. All the menu functions worked perfectly. My divx and xvid files seems to play fine, just did a spot test.

One thing I noticed about this player compared to others is that you see the list of all your media files in order just like viewing a folder in the computer. Does not show just the video files or just the audio files. I don’t know yet if this is a good thing.

What I like is the audio play. When you play a MP3 file, new screen shows the title and ID tag, total music time and progress time. Also, while playing current music file, it allows you to browse to other files and play or browse to other folders and play files.

I plan to test the NDAS function over the weekend. I hope the speed is better than the NDAS in MG-35. Also, I plan to test using the divxtestcdv2.0.b that I had downloaded off the net (www.divxtest.com).

I read on the www.divxtech.com forum that N35 can convert to wireless and if all works out I might get another one for the bedroom where wireless will come in handy.

v770

07-28-06, 01:35 AM

I really would like your evaluation on the NDAS function of N35. Ximeta claims that NDAS is faster than NAS but having experienced less than disappointing result with MG-35’s NDAS I’m curious to see if N35 doesn’t suffer the same fate.

I was waiting until last day of promotion to pick this up but now its out of stock. I was trying to get others’ feedback, you know.

petboh

07-28-06, 04:42 AM

Are you going to install a hard drive and test it?
I might buy this so I like to hear if you like it.
/ petboh

yoohoo

07-28-06, 01:48 PM

I’ve ordered the 500GB Seagate but it won’t arrive until next week. I might just drop in an old drive to see how NDAS performs. I’ll try it tonight and post.

yoohoo

07-31-06, 08:40 PM

I’ve installed an 80 GB hard drive that I had salvaged from an old computer. It was preformatted to FAT32.

It took me a while getting it to work but when it was setup properly, it works very well. Actually, I was trying to wing it without following the manual. :p

Installed the NDAS software in my computer (Windows XP). Registered a new device as per the manual. The N35 drive came up on ‘My Computer’ and looks just like a second hard drive. Before copying the media files to the N35, I reformatted the drive to NTFS.

Copied 4 files as follows: 4 MB mp3, 65 MB HD-DIVX trailer at 720p resolution, 128 MB WMV9 video sample at 1080p resolution, 701 MB XVID movie. Total of 899 MB of files took average of 108 seconds.

On the N35, selected NDAS DISK SELECTION and the hard drive came up as DISK1. Selecting the disk shows the files that I had transferred from my computer.

Above test was repeated with N35 installed in the family room and my computer in the study with same result.

My impression is that transferring files via the home network to N35 is fast. This is compared to my experience with MG-35. I think this is what true NDAS supposed to be. I don’t have an NAS to make a comparison yet. Hope someone else can post their test result for comparison.

I plan to install a new 500 GB drive when it arrives. Also, I think I’ll buy another N35 and a wireless Ethernet converter for upstairs.

v770

08-01-06, 01:04 AM

Installed the NDAS software in my computer (Windows XP). Registered a new device as per the manual.

What do you mean “Registered a new device”. Did you have to register your N35 with divxtech.com or some company so that you can use NDAS? This is what MG-35 made me do and cost me $20.

Copied 4 files as follows: 4 MB mp3, 65 MB HD-DIVX trailer at 720p resolution, 128 MB WMV9 video sample at 1080p resolution, 701 MB XVID movie. Total of 899 MB of files took average of 108 seconds.

Is 108 seconds time copying 4 files one at a time or copying all 4 files at ones?

My impression is that transferring files via the home network to N35 is fast. This is compared to my experience with MG-35. I think this is what true NDAS supposed to be. I don’t have an NAS to make a comparison yet. Hope someone else can post their test result for comparison.

Thanks for the test. I think N35 NDAS is utilizing the maximum bandwidth of the Ethernet. This is very good.

I plan to install a new 500 GB drive when it arrives. Also, I think I’ll buy another N35 and a wireless Ethernet converter for upstairs.

Its out of stock now but divxtech decided to extend the introductory price until August 15th. They only had it on the market for week and a half before they ran out of stock. They either didn’t bring enough in or its selling like hotcakes. Well, I’m sold.

You think you could put up some screen shots? :)

Klaatu45

08-01-06, 03:07 AM

yoohoo

08-01-06, 05:07 PM

What do you mean “Registered a new device”. Did you have to register your N35 with divxtech.com or some company so that you can use NDAS? This is what MG-35 made me do and cost me $20.

Is 108 seconds time copying 4 files one at a time or copying all 4 files at ones?

You think you could put up some screen shots?

There is no registering the N35 with divxtech. This is what the manual refer to as entering the NDAS ID and WRITE KEY so that your PC will recognize the NDAS device. I guess they mean registering the NDAS ID with a particular PC.

I did this on a second PC (notebook) and now I could read/write from two PC at the same time.

108 seconds were the result of transferring all 4 files at once.

I’ll try to take some pictures of the screen tonight. Main menu, setup menu, this sort of stuff right?

yoohoo

08-01-06, 06:55 PM

Thank you for posting your review of this device. How is the playback? I am interested in the playback of HD material. HD Divx (720p, 1080i), wmv 9 (720p, 1080i), and Mpeg 2 (720 p, 1080i '10 - 18 Mbps'). Any problems with FF, RW, pause, and maybe even chapter support?

Picture quality was fantastic especially on my 42” plasma. Because my maximum resolution is 720p, I’ve set the N35 to output the component at 720p. I need to get a VDI to HDMI cable.

HD-divx:
Downloaded HD movie trailer from www.divx.com under their VIDEO ->> HD category.
Title: Madagascar, Duration: 0:01:54, Bit Rate: 192 kbps, Dimensions: 1280x720, Size 57.5MB
Note: Didn’t recognize the .divx extension. Said it could not support the format. Had to rename the extension .divx to .avi. Played perfectly. Couldn’t find other HD-divx sample with 1080 resolution for test.

WMV9:
Downloaded HD video clip from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx.
Title: Speed, Duration: 0:02:07, Bit Rate: 8447 kbps, Dimension: 1440x1080, Size: 128MB
Note: Played perfectly. No complaints.

Xvid:
Had SD movie. As expected, it played perfectly.

Mpeg2:
I don’t have HD ts files to test but have SD DVD ISO and IFO files ripped from my DVD collection. Its just like playing the original DVD disk except now the selection of movies are much more convenient. Full menu support. FF, RW, pause works flawlessly. I don’t know what you mean by chapter support but you can select other scene by going to the movie menu or using the remote and go to specific time in the movie. When you press GOTO button, DVD Search screen comes on. This is where you can enter the time. You can also specify Title and Chapter but I don’t know how to work this yet.

If you can tell me where I can download a HD-Mpeg2 video clip, I’ll test it.

Klaatu45

08-01-06, 07:16 PM

Picture quality was fantastic especially on my 42” plasma. Because my maximum resolution is 720p, I’ve set the N35 to output the component at 720p. I need to get a VDI to HDMI cable.

HD-divx:
Downloaded HD movie trailer from www.divx.com under their VIDEO ->> HD category.
Title: Madagascar, Duration: 0:01:54, Bit Rate: 192 kbps, Dimensions: 1280x720, Size 57.5MB
Note: Didn’t recognize the .divx extension. Said it could not support the format. Had to rename the extension .divx to .avi. Played perfectly. Couldn’t find other HD-divx sample with 1080 resolution for test.

WMV9:
Downloaded HD video clip from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx.
Title: Speed, Duration: 0:02:07, Bit Rate: 8447 kbps, Dimension: 1440x1080, Size: 128MB
Note: Played perfectly. No complaints.

Xvid:
Had SD movie. As expected, it played perfectly.

Mpeg2:
I don’t have HD ts files to test but have SD DVD ISO and IFO files ripped from my DVD collection. Its just like playing the original DVD disk except now the selection of movies are much more convenient. Full menu support. FF, RW, pause works flawlessly. I don’t know what you mean by chapter support but you can select other scene by going to the movie menu or using the remote and go to specific time in the movie. When you press GOTO button, DVD Search screen comes on. This is where you can enter the time. You can also specify Title and Chapter but I don’t know how to work this yet.

If you can tell me where I can download a HD-Mpeg2 video clip, I’ll test it.

Thank you so much for responding. I recorded HD-Mpeg2 material using OTA signal, using WatchHDTV 1.8 (I was a beta tester, and it works wonderfully with the ATI HD WONDER). Most of the recordings (CSI, Lost, 24, etc.) are uncompressed HD with a variable bitrate (10-18 Mbps). I was just curious about how the N35 handles high bitrate HD material. If it can handle WMV 9 (HIGHLY compressed HD trailers, at 1080p), it should, at least in my opinion handle an episode of 1080i CSI. Just my two cents. If you are willing to test it, I might be able to edit out a 20 second clip; the size is slightly under a hundred meg.

v770

08-02-06, 01:35 PM

There is no registering the N35 with divxtech. This is what the manual refer to as entering the NDAS ID and WRITE KEY so that your PC will recognize the NDAS device. I guess they mean registering the NDAS ID with a particular PC.

I did this on a second PC (notebook) and now I could read/write from two PC at the same time.

108 seconds were the result of transferring all 4 files at once.

I’ll try to take some pictures of the screen tonight. Main menu, setup menu, this sort of stuff right?

Thanks and look forward to some screen shots.

yoohoo

08-02-06, 06:28 PM

Screen shot of N35 connected to 19” LCD monitor via DVI connector. Came out better than picture of plasma.

yoohoo

08-02-06, 06:36 PM

next 3.

yoohoo

08-02-06, 06:36 PM

last 1.

yoohoo

08-02-06, 07:06 PM

Thank you so much for responding. I recorded HD-Mpeg2 material using OTA signal, using WatchHDTV 1.8 (I was a beta tester, and it works wonderfully with the ATI HD WONDER). Most of the recordings (CSI, Lost, 24, etc.) are uncompressed HD with a variable bitrate (10-18 Mbps). I was just curious about how the N35 handles high bitrate HD material. If it can handle WMV 9 (HIGHLY compressed HD trailers, at 1080p), it should, at least in my opinion handle an episode of 1080i CSI. Just my two cents. If you are willing to test it, I might be able to edit out a 20 second clip; the size is slightly under a hundred meg.

I will test it if you can get it to me somehow. Do you have ftp?

I am also curious to see what is the capability of my N35.

mpjohnst

08-02-06, 11:46 PM

Here is a link to some .ts test clips...

http://forums.macnn.com/archive/index.php/t-216419.html

v770

08-03-06, 12:19 AM

yoohoo,

Thanks for the screen shots. Looks clean. Its not fancy but I like it.

BTW, when you scroll to a long file name, does it show you the whole file name somehow or does it cut off where the screen ends?

pkeegan

08-03-06, 11:01 AM

I was able to place an order for the N35 from DIVXtech today via their website.

Opoc

08-03-06, 02:15 PM

pkeegan

08-03-06, 07:09 PM

I was able to place an order for the N35 from DIVXtech today via their website.
Just got the email that stated it shipped along with a tracking number. Order it and shipped in the same day. Not bad. :)

v770

08-03-06, 09:08 PM

Ordered it and got my notice too. I probably get it early next week. UPS ground you know. Can’t afford those next day stuff.

yoohoo

08-04-06, 06:57 PM

Here is a link to some .ts test clips...

http://forums.macnn.com/archive/index.php/t-216419.html

Those files didn’t play well on my computer. They were very jerky and one didn’t even play at all. So, I didn’t bother testing them.

I googled and found following site for some ts files to test.

http://www.isquint.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=10;t=139;st=0

Downloaded the following files

TiVo - .mpg

HDTV 720p60 - .ts

HDTV 1080i30/60 - .ts

All three files were test played via network streamed from a PC as well as from the internal hard drive. Both methods played brilliantly. Couldn’t tell the difference in quality

yoohoo

08-04-06, 07:02 PM

BTW, when you scroll to a long file name, does it show you the whole file name somehow or does it cut off where the screen ends?

Maximum file length shown on the TV screen is about 55 to 60 characters. After that it trails with (…). However, during the music play, the playing file name is shown and if the file name is longer than the screen width, the file name would scroll left slowly to show the remaining characters.

yoohoo

08-04-06, 08:15 PM

Thanks for all the information relating to this product. I've been thinking about buying something like this for a while now.

Couple questions:
I have an older big screen projection TV and I try to be cautious about screen burn in. When playing MP3s is there a way to also cycle through photos (jpg) or is there a screen saver included?
No photo play during MP3 play. No screen saver. I usually turn of the TV when the music is going.
I believe this function is a matter of firmware upgrade. If there are enough requests for it, I would think the programmers would put it in.

Can you set up and/or play playlists from your PC or the local HDD, for MP3s or does it support random play?
Yes, I can setup and play a M3U playlists either from my PC or on the HDD.
And yes, it supports random play which was a must for me.

Does it support random play for photos?
I haven’t tried random for photos but I assume so.

One thing I don’t like with current firmware is that the slide show interval is set to 5 seconds. This is to fast for me. I would prefer something like 7 or 8 seconds. Or have more time selection in setup.

Highest resolution jpg file that I played was 4368 x 2912 with file size of 4.37 MB. I don’t know what the maximum resolution N35 will accept.

Have you tried various surround sound formats yet (THX Surround EX, DTS, Dolby TrueHD, etc)?

Tried THX and DTS from DVD ISO. What can I say, it works. I didn’t bother trying to analyze audio quality between the DVD ISO played from N35 and the original DVD from a DVD player because tell you the truth, I don’t think I have the ear for it. They all sounds the same. :D

Thanks!!!
Keep up the wonderful help!
Not at all. Having fun with it for the past week. My next project is to make this thing wireless. Already ordered the wireless Ethernet converter. If it works out like divxtech said it would, I’ll be getting another one.

degroe

08-04-06, 10:23 PM

Thank you so much for the info.

Klaatu45

08-05-06, 02:29 AM

mlm39

08-05-06, 01:57 PM

Can anyone tell me............

Does the N35 show jpg photos in HD?

Is there an option to fill the HD screen?

What is the load time between photos displayed by the N35?

Can the N35 display a "slideshow" of preselected photos or at least all of the photos in a folder?

Does it preload the next photo while the current one is being viewed?

Does the TV need to be on to listen to MP3s thru the N35?

I understand that Music and photos cannot be played concurrently. Will this shortcoming be addressed soon?

Mike

yoohoo

08-07-06, 05:12 PM

Great job yohoo, I double checked the .ts files you played (11-1080i.ts). At 1080i, 18500 kbps, same as the mpeg2 feed off OTA, the player should play HD materials fine! Other users of HD players have FF and RW problems, are there any? I forgot to mention, does the player play dvr-ms files? The microsoft tag dvr files, same stream as TS and MPEG2.

I wasn’t expecting the 1080i to work over the network streamed from my PC but I was pleasantly surprised.

I didn’t have any problem with FF and RW function on the 1080i.ts file. It was smooth. It has 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, and 32x for FF and RW. For DVD IFO play, FF and RW function only gives you 8x, 16, and 32x play. Also, there is a 30 seconds advance and replay but that function didn’t work very well (could be a bug).

From the same website that I got the ts files to test, downloaded the .dvr-ms file. The file with that extension doesn't show-up on the screen so I have to assume that N35 does not support this file type. Try to change the extension to avi but no luck.

yoohoo

08-07-06, 05:41 PM

Does the N35 show jpg photos in HD?
Highest resolution that I played was 4368 x 2912 but bulk of my photos are 2272 x 1704 connected by plasma at 720p.
[QUOTE=mlm39]Is there an option to fill the HD screen?
Photo play is automatic. Player tries to show the whole picture without cutting anything off. So the portrait photo has wide black band on both sides of the picture. Landscape is fine. There was no zoom option or at least I couldn’t figure it out.
What is the load time between photos displayed by the N35?
The slideshow interval is set to 5 seconds and can not be changed. I’m hoping this feature will be expanded in future upgrades. Load time seems to depend on the size of the photo. If I manually play the next photo, 0.5MB loads in about 1 to 2 seconds, 1 MB loads in about 3 seconds, 4 MB loads in about 7 seconds.
Can the N35 display a "slideshow" of preselected photos or at least all of the photos in a folder?
You can have it play one, all, all random, in a folder.
Does it preload the next photo while the current one is being viewed?
I don’t know.
Does the TV need to be on to listen to MP3s thru the N35?
You will need the TV in order to select the folder and song. After that, I usually turn mine off.
I understand that Music and photos cannot be played concurrently. Will this shortcoming be addressed soon?
You should ask divxtech about this. I would like to see this option be implemented in the future firmware.

mlm39

08-07-06, 07:17 PM

Thanks, Yoohoo

Mike

Klaatu45

08-07-06, 11:07 PM

I wasn’t expecting the 1080i to work over the network streamed from my PC but I was pleasantly surprised.

I didn’t have any problem with FF and RW function on the 1080i.ts file. It was smooth. It has 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, and 32x for FF and RW. For DVD IFO play, FF and RW function only gives you 8x, 16, and 32x play. Also, there is a 30 seconds advance and replay but that function didn’t work very well (could be a bug).

From the same website that I got the ts files to test, downloaded the .dvr-ms file. The file with that extension doesn't show-up on the screen so I have to assume that N35 does not support this file type. Try to change the extension to avi but no luck.

I am too amazed at how the n35 can stream 1080i material over the network, but I remained skeptical at larger files, 4 gig+, that might be where it will hit a bottleneck. But who knows. As far as the dvr-ms files, they are just your plain mpeg2 encoded files with tagged Microsoft codes as a "security measure", so only licensed decoders or filters are allowed to play those files. But there are several apps out there that strip away the MS tags. Switching the extensions will not strip away the ms tags. Thanks for your effort to educate us curious souls.

mlm39

08-08-06, 02:13 PM

Here are the answers I got from Divxtech.com

from: Support at: 08.08.2006 01:40
Subject: (no subject)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does the N35 show jpg photos in HD?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, if the output is to a HDTV.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is there an option to fill the HD screen?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

N35 always maximizes the screen display. Pictures original aspect ratio will be maintained at all times. Therefore, the HD screen may not always be filled because the original picture’s aspect ratio does not match the screen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is the load time between photos displayed by the N35?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Load time will depend on two variables. Picture slideshow interval and size of the file. Slideshow interval is currently set to 5 second. Any file greater than 5 MB will take more than 5 seconds to load.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can the N35 display a "slideshow" of preselected photos or at least all of the photos in a folder?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, N35 will play all the picture files in a folder.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does it preload the next photo while the current one is being viewed?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does the TV need to be on to listen to MP3s thru the N35?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I understand that Music and photos cannot be played concurrently. Will this shortcoming be addressed soon?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This function is being worked on for future firmware upgrade.

v770

08-08-06, 04:07 PM

Thanks Yoohoo for the excellent review. I should be getting mine any day now.

Let us know how your wireless conversion is progressing.

royalflush

08-08-06, 05:03 PM

Please clarify.

Do I need the NDAS software in my PC for the N35 to access the files in my PC?

v770

08-08-06, 07:38 PM

Please clarify.

Do I need the NDAS software in my PC for the N35 to access the files in my PC?
N35 uses SMB protocol to access the share folder on your PC. So, you don’t need the NDAS software on your PC to stream your media files to the N35. Just make your folder a share folder.

NDAS software is required if you have a hard drive installed in the N35. NDAS should give you better speed over NAS.

yoohoo

08-08-06, 11:44 PM

I’ve configured the wireless Ethernet converter and connected to the N35 (802.11g).

From the N35, I can see the PC share folders on two PCs (1 desktop and 1 notebook) and streaming play most of my files very well except the 1080i .ts and 1080p wmv9 files. The audio is distorted or no sound. These played well using the Ethernet cable. I might have to upgrade my wireless router to turbo.

720p files played well. No distortions that I can see or hear.

Divx and xvid files play fine. No problems here except during FF at 16x the screen freezes for about 3 seconds and continues (I think this happened with the Ethernet cable as well). FF and RW after the initial pause is fine. It only happens at initial play with initial FF. I think this has something to do with cashing the info of these files upfront. I had similar issue with the Modix on one of the firmware. After the latest upgrade, this problem disappeared. So, I think N35 will resolve this with the firmware upgrade.

MP3 and my playlist played flawlessly.

Ripped DVD ISO and IFO files played perfectly. At this point, I was more than satisfied. :)

Only one problem with the wireless configuration. I can’t see the N35 from my notebook or the PC. Can’t get the NDAS program to mount the N35’s hard drive. I reinstalled the NDAS program and reregistered the NDAS key but didn’t work. Reconfigured the Ethernet converter with same result.

It took me about 30 minutes to configure the Ethernet converter to have N35 see the shared folders in my PC and the notebook. Another 4 hrs trying to get either my PC or notebook to recognize the N35 without any success. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Divxtech.com forum states that they have tested it successfully. Was it excluding NDAS function? I’ll give it another go tomorrow. :confused:

Klaatu45

08-09-06, 03:29 AM

Repost from divxtech forum:

zhiguo:
"
My conclusion: almost all types of hd video can be decoded by N35, but about half of these clips, the audio part cannot be decoded properly, i mean i experience a lot stuttering.

I tried various HD videos as the following:

1080i ts (Sin City HDTV demo):
video - MPEG2 Video 1920x1080 29.97fps 38810Kbps
audio - Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch 448Kbps
No problem!

720p xivd (24.Season.5.Trailer.720P.HDTV.AC3.5.1.XviD)
video - XVID 1280x720 23.98fps
audio - Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch 448Kbps
No problem!

720p avi (V for Vendetta trailer HR HDTV 720p.avi)
video - DivX 5 1280x720 25.00fps
audio - MPEG Audio Layer 3 48000Hz 160Kbps
No problem!

720p xvid (crysis_GDC_720p.avi)
video - XVID 1280x720 30.00fps
audio - MPEG Audio Layer 3 44100Hz 128Kbps
No problem!

1080i avi ([HDTV][1080i] Discovery HD - American Chopper Contest Scene.avi)
video - MPEG2 Video 1920x1088 (16:9) 29.97fps 18200Kbps
audio - Dolby AC3 48000Hz 2ch 384Kbps
Little stuttering somewhere but not the whole sound track.

1080i ts (IMAX.The.Greatest.Places.HDTV)
video - MPEG2 Video 1920x1080 29.97fps 19392Kbps
audio - Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch 448Kbps
the sould is somewhat stuttering the whole track.

1080i tp (LG DEMO HDTV) :
video - MPEG2 Video 1920x1080 29.97fps 45000Kbps
audio - Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch 448Kbps
the sould is stuttering the whole track.

1080i mpg (Tatu -All.The.Things.She.Said.Live)
video - mpg 29.97fps 15000Kbps
audio - Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch 84Kbps
No sound at all via optical output, haven't tried analogue.

720p wmv (discoverers 720p.wmv)
video - Windows Media Video 9
1280x720 23.98fps 6000Kbps
audio - Windows Media Audio 48000Hz 6ch 384Kbps
No sound! might because it is wma ac3.

i have tried another 720p wmv, no big problem, some time sound is not instantly output via digital output option, i have to pause and play again to activate audio stram out!

these video clips can be downloaded using a p2p software..

Hope it helps!

"

My comments: I think the sound stutering could be most likely due to a software issue, but than again, encoding MPEG2 above 384 kbps is new to me, because when all OTA hd streams are put into a mpeg2 container, it usually reports 384 kbps. It could be an error in the container.

kuyawsadabaw

08-09-06, 07:01 PM

Does anyone have screenshots of the slideshow, maybe a little movie clip?

MoWheels

08-09-06, 07:28 PM

I decided to go with the N35 today. Placed an order online at 2:53 p.m. today and received a UPS Ship Notification at 4:16 p.m. Wow! - hope it works as good as divxtech's shipping dept.

svdhusa

08-09-06, 09:44 PM

Hi,

I wonder if anyone knows whether this player will upconvert videos (particularly, ISO DVDs) to near Hi-Def resolution (720/1080i) via DVI. Thanks in advance.

Opoc

08-10-06, 02:45 AM

Just placed my order 2:45 am EST

mlm39

08-10-06, 01:50 PM

For those interested in SVDHUSA's question,
here's his answer copied from the Divxtech Forum:

from: svdhusa at: 09.08.2006 20:49
Subject: Upconvert via DVI

Hi,

I wonder whether this player will upconvert videos (particularly, ISO DVDs) to near Hi-Def resolution (720/1080i) via DVI. Thanks in advance.
from: Support at: 09.08.2006 22:08
Subject: (no subject)

N35 will upscale your standard video to HD resolution set to DVI.

v770

08-10-06, 05:32 PM

Got the N35 delivered to me yesterday. At first, my heart sank when I looked at the front panel because it looked extremely scratched and dull. Then, I remembered reading in the divxtech forum that there is a protective film covering the front panel. After an effort to find a corner to lift the film, I was presented with a stunning and very stealthy front facade.

Hooked up the power, video and Ethernet cable and immediately I was watching a DVD streamed from my PC. I felt that user interface was very intuitive. Even my wife had no problem finding the DVD she wanted to watch.

My initial impression:
Packaging: Beautifully simple and high tech look
Remote control: One of the best I have seen in multimedia player
Manual: Very skimpy - I think the full manual is in the CD

Going to run home now and test the NDAS function. I hope it delivers what it promises.

Opoc

08-10-06, 06:09 PM

v770 that is good news. I'm looking forward to when mine arrives. Although I have some work to do in the mean time to run a network cable upstairs to the other side of the house.

yoohoo

08-10-06, 06:18 PM

My bad. This is what happens when you don’t followed a perfectly good instruction.

I had forumed, and called divxtech.com regarding the wireless configuration of the wireless Ethernet converter because I wasn’t able to get my PC to recognize the N35 hard drive via NDAS. Well, divxtech.com walked me through the configuration. Only thing I didn’t do was setting the converter to use the MAC address of N35 and not its own. Now my N35 is fully wireless.

Just ordered another one for upstairs.

nirvana_av

08-10-06, 08:31 PM

I received my N35 yesterday. I will do a more thorough writeup soon. Right now I'm having a video setup problem that I was hoping someone could help me with.

I have tried both DVI and component video output to my InFocus 7205 projector (this is a native 16:9, 720p device). However, neither DVI nor component output allow me to set the output resolution to 720p (or 1080i). When I select 720p, the output does change since my projector reports that the signal it is receiving is 720p and a message comes up saying that "video settings have changed" and asks for a 'yes' or 'no' answer. The only button it accepts is the center check button of the remote control (the front touch panel doesn't accept the check). No remote control button highlights either the 'yes' or 'no' choices. After pressing the remote's check button, the display reverts back to the video setting it had before making the change (just as it would if it received a 'no'). What needs to be pressed for the N35 to accept the settings?

v770

08-11-06, 12:03 AM

Got the NDAS to work. Installed the NDAS software, entered the NDAS key and it did its thing and I was connected. Very easy.

The transfer speed is fast. I felt that copying file to the N35 was much faster than to NAS. Next time I’ll use a stop watch but I think it took better than half the time.

Hardware NDAS was a refreshing change compared to MG-35’s snail pace. Now I can remotely copy files.

My impression of NDAS in N35 is that it surpassed my expectation.

Now I’m waiting for my DVI cable to come in.

yoohoo

08-11-06, 12:25 AM

nirvana_av

08-11-06, 12:53 AM

Without a little bug, our lives wouldn’t be as challenging.

When the “video settings have changed” message comes up, try pressing the left button on the remote then press the check button. I believe this is what I had to do to change the resolution to my plasma to 720p.

Wow!! How did you figure that one out!! It sure did the trick. Thanks.

Now for the next problem. Even though I set the aspect ratio to 16:9 all the video that I play appears letterboxed. In fact no matter what aspect ratio I set, video playback appears letterboxed. Funny thing is that just as I "stop" video playback, for a split second the aspect ratio is correct. Of course all the system menus have the correct aspect ratio and fit my 16:9 screen. Also, DVD menus appear as if I set the display to 4:3 pan-scan (overlayed on the video portion that is letterboxed). I'm hoping the menu problem is related to not recognizing the aspect ratio in the settings. I hope you have a fix for this too.

Joseph_lin

08-11-06, 09:28 AM

does it play Divx HD?

pkeegan

08-11-06, 09:24 PM

Wow!! How did you figure that one out!! It sure did the trick. Thanks.

Now for the next problem. Even though I set the aspect ratio to 16:9 all the video that I play appears letterboxed. In fact no matter what aspect ratio I set, video playback appears letterboxed. Funny thing is that just as I "stop" video playback, for a split second the aspect ratio is correct. Of course all the system menus have the correct aspect ratio and fit my 16:9 screen. Also, DVD menus appear as if I set the display to 4:3 pan-scan (overlayed on the video portion that is letterboxed). I'm hoping the menu problem is related to not recognizing the aspect ratio in the settings. I hope you have a fix for this too.

I'm having the same issue. I have had some success changing the TV's aspect ratio and modifing the N35's aspect ratio. But it has been a hit or miss situation. I have been playing DVD iso and some smaller vob files. Since I just recently received my unit I'm still experimenting. My setup is via component set to 1080i 16x9 to a Toshiba 34" widescreen tube. My movies are stored on a seperate NDAS disc that I bought a year ago. Overall I'm happy with my purchase so far.

One issue but not a complaint is that when I changed the unit from its factory default to the Component 1080i I noticed a decrease in color on the setup screen.
To fix I just increased color on the TV settings.

nirvana_av

08-12-06, 05:01 PM

I have been looking for an HDD-based media player for quite some time. Since I wanted to use this device on several of the displays in my home as well as to take the device to my vacation home, a HDD device made sense. I will be using a variety of displays including an InFocus 7205 front projector, a 16:9 HDTV and standard definition TVs. Many of the HDD media players have very similar features, at least they claim to. I was primarily looking for reliable IFO, ISO playback and a DVI (up-scaled) output. Convenient music playback, HD playback, and HD digital photo capabilities would be considered a bonus. The features that attracted me to the Rapsody N35 over its second closest competitor, the TVIX HD M-5000, were (1) its form-factor, which is more compatible with other CE devices; (2) the lack of a cooling fan; and (3) NDAS networked drive capability. I was really attracted by the NDAS support since I wouldn’t have to keep moving the device to my computer to load media onto its HDD, it could be loaded over my home network. The N35 is also currently priced lower than the M-5000.

I received my Rapsody N35 within a week of ordering it from DivXTech, the only U.S. source for the product. Their presales support was very good, the product shipped within hours of placing the order and they have been responsive in seeking post-sales support.

As was mentioned by a previous poster, the N35 looks much better than expected. The clean, black face is very attractive. When it lights up and you see the display icons on the front panel, it looks even better. Having a touchscreen instead of buttons gives it a very high-end look and the cool-factor is exceptional. The remote control is well organized. However, as with so many other devices that allow numerous controls, it can take time to memorize the buttons controlling the more common mode changes. The remote is not backlit but several of the main navigation buttons are phosphorescent.

I installed a Seagate Barracuda 320GB HDD into the N35. I’m partial to the Seagate quiet drive technology. This was a very simple operation involving attaching the power and data connectors and then attaching 8 screws to secure the drive and replace the cover. An included CD-ROM comes with the NDAS software that needs to be installed on the PC from which you need access to the N35 NDAS drive. The software was easy to install and the instructions were very complete. The N35’s NDAS drive appeared on my PC as just another local HDD. I was able to perform all the management tasks including partitioning and formatting from the PC through the Windows XP disk management tools. This is a very slick feature.

I was then able to upload 40GB of media files that I had on by PC through Windows Explorer. The data transfer speed was impressive. It took one hour to move 40GB of data which comes out to 88.8Mbps transfer rate by my calculations. This is outstanding over my 100Mbps Ethernet network. While I was moving data to the N35, I was also streaming MP3 music from yet another PC’s drive share to the N35 without any issue. My spouse was also streaming MP3 music over my home network to yet another manufacturer’s media player at the same time as well. I tried playing an ISO on the N35 (one that had completed transfer). This played flawlessly, WHILE I WAS STILL LOADING DATA!! The hardware NDAS support makes disk access perform very well even when multiple clients are reading and writing simultaneously. I am very impressed with NDAS technology. If I am in need of any network-attached storage in the future, I sure will consider picking up another NDAS device. It might be obvious, but to have continued access to the NDAS disk drive, the N35 must be left on. It would have been nice if the disk and network circuits remained on while the N35’s multimedia components and display turned off, but this is a minor issue.

There are a few serious problems I’ve encountered thus far. The first serious problem concerns video setup, which I posted earlier, where I wasn’t successful in setting the resolution for my DVI connection. Another poster came to my rescue with the correct remote control sequence to make the resolution change to 720p. The second serious problem is that the N35 letterboxes all anamorphic and 4:3 video that I play. No change in aspect ratio appears to correct this problem. Probably a related aspect ratio problem is that the IFO and ISO menu navigation overlays are presented as if the display is setup as 4:3 pan-scan while the background video is 4:3 letterboxed. You can imagine that it’s very difficult to know what menu selections are being made. I contacted DivXTech about these issues and the manufacturer is working on a firmware upgrade that is targeted for release on 8/21/06. A somewhat poor workaround for the aspect ratio problem is to use the “zoom” feature to fill the screen or to use the letterbox feature on your display if it has one. However, this is essentially watching all anamorphic video as if it were letterboxed along with the typical letterbox resolution loss.

The N35 does not output to multiple video displays simultaneously. However, there is a button on the remote control that will cycle the display outputs (composite/s-video, DVI component and VGA/RGB). One very nice aspect of the N35 is that it is capable of adjusting picture brightness, contrast and color saturation. This allows you to calibrate the picture on your display that is consistent with your other video sources such as your DVD player and cable or DSS set-top-box. I found that the default values were considerably off for my display. I’m unsure whether these adjustments are per display output (i.e. DVI, component, etc.) or affect all outputs.

Given that there is an aspect ratio defect, I’ll still share my media playback experience assuming that the defect fix does not impact video playback performance. IFO and ISO playback works perfectly both from the on-board NDAS disk as well as streamed over wired Ethernet from a Windows drive share. Both Dolby Digital and DTS are passed-through successfully.

HD playback is hit and miss. I have a collection of sample files that I have collected including HD transport streams and the Microsoft WMV9 HD video samples. The HD transport streams play better from the NDAS drive than streamed from a Windows drive share. However, even some local HD files had audio problems. Some HD TS files had stuttering audio tracks while the WMV9 HD files had no audio at all. However, the WMV9 video streams looked very nice. I did have some non-HD WMV samples that did not play. I do not have any DivX or Xvid samples to play so I can’t comment on those formats.

As far as audio playback is concerned, the N35 does make for a fair audio player. In my opinion, unless a media player makes use of a networked server to fully organize a large music collection and present the collection using organizational categories such as genre, artist, album, track and playlists, it can’t be a top-notch digital audio player. The N35, as many other media players that do not make use of networked servers, presents all audio [as well as video and photos] in folder/file organization. Once a track in a folder has been selected, the N35 will play that track and continue to the next track (play order is subject to ‘repeat’ and ‘random’ policies that can be set). However, playback is limited to files within the folder. I found that the N35 played WAV, MP3 and WMA files without problem. The TV display does present some metadata information from the track such as artist, album and genre. Elapsed time is shown as well as another time, the nature of which I could not figure out. I was not able to play AAC and OGG formatted audio files even though the specifications claim that the N35 can play them. There is a ‘playlist’ option in the GUI that is currently not implemented. Of course, all audio selection needs to be performed with your video display on.

I briefly checked out the digital photo display feature using only jpeg digital photos. As with audio, once a jpeg file is selected, it will be displayed. After a selectable period (default is 5 seconds), the next file will be displayed. I can’t comment on the quality of the rendering since I haven’t gone back to this feature after I was able to set the N35 to 720p over DVI. My digital photo collection is composed primarily of 4M-pixel photos which appeared to render within the slideshow delay period.

I hope this review has been helpful. I’m looking forward to getting the firmware upgrade. I’m confident that the most serious problem with video aspect ratios can be corrected in software since I can’t think of any reason that hardware would be the culprit for this type of behavior. If that can be fixed as well as issues with HD audio streams, the N35 will be an excellent media player that I can heartily recommend.

pkeegan

08-12-06, 05:30 PM

The N35 does not output to multiple video displays simultaneously. However, there is a button on the remote control that will cycle the display outputs (composite/s-video, DVI component and VGA/RGB). One very nice aspect of the N35 is that it is capable of adjusting picture brightness, contrast and color saturation. This allows you to calibrate the picture on your display that is consistent with your other video sources such as your DVD player and cable or DSS set-top-box. I found that the default values were considerably off for my display. I’m unsure whether these adjustments are per display output (i.e. DVI, component, etc.) or affect all outputs.

Thanks for your review. Where in the setup can you adjust picture brightness, etc..
I'm using component out.
Thanks.
I just found it! Thanks

misko

08-12-06, 05:35 PM

nirvana_av, thank you for the comprehensive review. Sounds like a decent box, much better than the Snazzio I now have. One quick question, when you played IFO, does that mean things were in the audio and video TS directories and it worked fine? Thanks again.
Oh, sorry, another question, did you play the video streamed over the network, with the IFO on a NAS by any chance? I'm less concerned with HD playback at this time, I just want to be able to stream all the DVDs I have on my Infrant to a box that will play them, allow the menus, and give a half way reasonable way to pick a movie...

nirvana_av

08-12-06, 05:41 PM

Thanks for your review. Where in the setup can you adjust picture brightness, etc..
I'm using component out.
Thanks.
I just found it! Thanks

There is a button close to the bottom of the remote that toggles between brightness, contrast and color. You then use the left/right navigation buttons to adjust and then press the check button to end the adjustment.

nirvana_av

08-12-06, 05:47 PM

nirvana_av, thank you for the comprehensive review. Sounds like a decent box, much better than the Snazzio I now have. One quick question, when you played IFO, does that mean things were in the audio and video TS directories and it worked fine?

Yes, you have to select the VIDEO_TS.IFO and play it.

Oh, sorry, another question, did you play the video streamed over the network, with the IFO on a NAS by any chance? I'm less concerned with HD playback at this time, I just want to be able to stream all the DVDs I have on my Infrant to a box that will play them, allow the menus, and give a half way reasonable way to pick a movie...

No, I streamed from a Windows file share not a NAS device. Sorry, I don't currently have a NAS device.

misko

08-12-06, 05:48 PM

Excellent, thanks. Windows file share is more or less the same as using the NAS with SMB rather than the UPnP feature of the NAS. Might be time to order one of these...

Thanks again.

Yes, you have to select the VIDEO_TS.IFO and play it.

No, I streamed from a Windows file share not a NAS device. Sorry, I don't currently have a NAS device.

Opoc

08-13-06, 12:37 AM

Good news, got mine today and hooked it up. Bad news, can't get 720p or 1080i working. I'm using the componet connectors (I have a 65 inch Mitz rear projection that doesn't DVI). I go into setup and select componet and then select either 720 or 1080 and my TV freaks out for a split second (scrambled video of the menu) then goes to a blue screen (what it does when it can read a signal. I have a Moto STB that I use on the same port that works fine at 1080i.

Kind of bummed out about this and looking for suggestions.

nirvana_av

08-13-06, 12:42 AM

Opoc

08-13-06, 01:07 AM

Does it work at 480i over component? If it does, are you following the suggestion in post #68?

It does work in 480i and 480p. Post #68 deals with knowing to push the left or right arrow button then the 'ok' button when the confirmation 'yes' 'no' comes up.

Thanks for the try though.

v770

08-13-06, 09:03 PM

nirvana_av,

Brilliant review. Comprehensive and enjoyable reading. Couldn’t have put it better my self.

Cheers,

Opoc

08-15-06, 12:52 AM

Just got back from my friends house. He has a Panasonic HDTV that I hooked the N35 up to via the componet connections. On his TV it actually showed a picture for both 720 and 1080, however the picture was kind of blurry and not well defined at all. This was the internal menu of the N35 and also the video/picture files that were played from it. The 480 setting looked sharp and clear.

I'm assuming that my N35 has some sort of problem that makes the 720/1080 signal out of spec enough that my TV decides not to display it. And his TV, being newer actually is able to pick out an image, although it not being a good image.

Guess I'll have to figure out how to get it exchanged. :(

yoohoo

08-15-06, 08:38 PM

mlm39

08-15-06, 09:30 PM

Here's their reply to my question about the pending price increace.

"Thank you for your interest in DivXtech.com.

The price of N35 starting August 16th is about $300.

There should be another price jump after the release of second generation firmware (sometime in 4Q) which will handle VOD with enhanced GUI.

Thank you,

DivXtech.com "

Video on demand - sounds interesting.

I beat the clock and ordered mine this afternoon. This thing looks, as all of the others, like a work on progress. It still needs a lot of improvement but at least it sounds like most of the current functionality works as advertised. Lets hope they sell a ton of these things and keep the improvements coming.

Mike

Opoc

08-16-06, 12:28 AM

Contacted DivXtech and they are sending me a replacement unit. However I curious if anyone else is running either 720 or 1080 from the component out put on the N35 and if you are getting a good picture?

If not is there anyone that can try their component out put in 720 and 1080?

Thanks!

v770

08-16-06, 12:57 AM

Opoc

08-16-06, 01:10 AM

Now I’m waiting for my DVI cable to come in.

Did you ever get your DVI cable?

Where you using Component video and if so at what resolution?

Thanks

v770

08-16-06, 01:26 AM

I just read in divxtech forum that N35 is capable of playing internet radio as well as internet video.

Did anyone test this? How is the quality?

I’m on a business trip so I haven’t been able to play with my toy.
You have to see and hear for your self. You will be pleased. I was because I wasn’t expecting this function. What a bonus.

Followed their instruction, created the playlist and it played beautifully. There was an initial pause (I think it was buffering). Video quality was good as playing a video file off of the hard disk. Streamed both .avi and .divx file. It was a standard resolution. I wander how a high resolution would fair.

I feel something great will come out of this. Possibilities are great.

v770

08-16-06, 01:35 AM

Did you ever get your DVI cable?

Where you using Component video and if so at what resolution?

Thanks
Got the DVI to HDMI cable for my plasma at 720. Before that, I had it connected to my old Toshiba with composite. Didn’t try the component. I’m afraid to after your experience. :D

Wouldn’t worry too much. I’m sure divxtech will resolve this bug soon as long as its not hardware related.

Opoc

08-18-06, 09:17 PM

New Firmware pushed back a couple weeks from original date of August 21st.

Quote (http://www.divxtech.com/forum/index.php?method=showhtmllist&list=message&rollid=14%2C302&clearoff=1) from DivXTech Forums:

Update: Spoke with Jaemin today and found out that the development team is aware of this problem and they will try to put in the fix in the next firmware release. Hopefully this will fix my problem! Originally Jaemin said that the next release would be August 21st, but it looks like it is going to slip out approximately two more weeks to get all these fixes in.

v770

08-19-06, 12:00 AM

Opoc,

OK. I tried the component cable. Sharp at 480. Letters looked out of focus on 720. Looks better on 1080 but still slight blur on letters.

On 1080, video looked fine. Had to adjust the contrast and brightness a bit on the unit.

Back to DVI for me. :)

Opoc

08-20-06, 04:30 PM

Thanks for checking it out.

yoohoo

08-20-06, 10:09 PM

I finally got around to installing my second N35 in the master bedroom with wireless Ethernet. Composite to Sony 36” CRT. Everything came up and works great.

I have discovered the following;

1. Second N35 can see the first N35’s hard drive and stream a DVD from it and play it on the second N35.
2. At the same time, the first N35 is playing a separate DVD file from its internal hard drive.
3. At the same time, my PC is transferring about 10 GB of video files to the first N35’s hard drive via NDAS.
4. And, for the hell of it and at the same time, my notebook via wireless is transferring about 28 GB of MP3 files to the first N35’s hard drive via NDAS.

How’s that for performance. This is amazing.

I’m thinking, that I should just get a separate NDAS server and not have any hard drives in the N35. Also, I wouldn’t need the computer to stream off of. Any recommendations on a NDAS server? I think about 1TB in size will do.

yoohoo

08-20-06, 10:25 PM

You have to see and hear for your self. You will be pleased. I was because I wasn’t expecting this function. What a bonus.

Followed their instruction, created the playlist and it played beautifully. There was an initial pause (I think it was buffering). Video quality was good as playing a video file off of the hard disk. Streamed both .avi and .divx file. It was a standard resolution. I wander how a high resolution would fair.

I feel something great will come out of this. Possibilities are great.

After a week of anticipation on internet music and video, finally had chance to try it.

One word. WOW!!!

Honestly, did not expect this level of quality. Couldn’t detect any significant pause as you put it (cable modem). :p
I thought the video quality was excellent. Like watching a cable TV program.

I would be happy with just the internet radio but internet video too, we hit the jack pot. Although we need to wait and see how all this gets integrated into the N35 firmware, but I’m just excited at the prospect.

v770

08-20-06, 11:48 PM

I’m thinking, that I should just get a separate NDAS server and not have any hard drives in the N35. Also, I wouldn’t need the computer to stream off of. Any recommendations on a NDAS server? I think about 1TB in size will do.
Check out the NetDisk for home. Available in 4Q of this year. Nice form.

http://www.ximeta.com/web/products/index.php

NDAS has made a believer out of me. This is going to outperform any servers on the market.

I’m getting a second N35 delivered soon. Going to make this baby wireless. Whish me luck.

jdt

08-21-06, 01:41 PM

Is there support for OS X and/or Linux using NDAS?

My video recorder is MythTV running on Linux and the rest of the house is OS X.

John

pkeegan

08-21-06, 11:00 PM

Is there support for OS X and/or Linux using NDAS?

My video recorder is MythTV running on Linux and the rest of the house is OS X.

John

Yes for OS X
Beta drivers for Linux
check ximeta (http://www.ximeta.com) support pages.
Ximeta is the manufacturer for NDAS technology that Rapsody uses in the N35.

Klaatu45

08-22-06, 03:58 AM

Just out of curiosity. What processor does the N35 run on?

drutten

08-22-06, 05:03 AM

I have tried to figure out if the N35 supports .sub or .srt subtitles but have had no luck. Can anyone confirm this? If it is supported, is it unicode capable? I live in Sweden with a wife that needs swedish subtitles..

\Drutten

sep1

08-22-06, 09:35 AM

Has anyone experience with HDV (m2t) material from a HC1, or HC3. In the german "videotreffpunkt" forum, a member tested the N35 an posted that the m2t video (coded with 25 mbits) was only played with stuttering and without sound ?

mlm39

08-22-06, 09:53 AM

Just out of curiosity. What processor does the N35 run on?

See Specs at
http://www.divxtech.com/product.html

jdt

08-22-06, 10:58 AM

pkeegan

08-22-06, 11:27 AM

So I need someone to explain how the N35 works to me.

I have a IO-Data LinkPlayer2 and have used some of the other players with work with a UPnP server. For these devices you have to run a server (http based) on your computer that serves media files.

Does the N35 work this way in addition to the NDAS and SMB shares?

How does the UI handle all the different ways to access files?

If I have a server with the following directory structure how would it look on the N35?
/TV/
CSI_Miami/
Fast_Lane_0821
ER/
Kenya_0520

etc.

John
Check out the ximeta (http://www.ximeta.com) for further info.
With the N35 you can install a hardrive which can be accessed remotely by NDAS
drivers on your PC. Or you can buy NDAS enclosures, with or without drives, that can be attached to your network by plugging in an ethernet cable from your router to the drive. Your PC and N35 can access the network attached drive.
Directory structure might be:
//disk1//TV/
CSI_Miami/
Fast_Lane_0821
ER/
Kenya_0520

etc.
The Rapsody N35 will find all the NDAS disks on your network that are turned on.
It will label them NDAS1, NDAS2 etc. which can then be browsed from the N35 GUI. It typically wont find your PC local hardrive via NDAS browsing. It can find
your PC local harddrive via normal SMB but the connection will be slower. No
server software is provided.

With the NDAS drivers installed on your PC you can access the NDAS drives in either the stand alone enclosures connected on your network or the disk in the N35. NDAS doesn't use SMB to my knowledge so file read/write is much quicker. This eliminates a major headache that many of the other media players face. Some use NFS rather than SMB to eliminate the file read/write rate problem that plagues HD (and sometimes DVD) playback.

Since NDAS disks can be stand alone you don't need a PC on to "serve" your media. NDAS stand alone discs are more like NAS units. Multiple NDAS disks can be cofigured for RAID.

Hope this helps.

jdt

08-22-06, 12:09 PM

So I think I understand it now. I have a Linux server running 24x7 recording TV using MythTV (2 HD and 2 SD tuners). All the shows are stored to a local drive on the Linux server. None of the media players talk directly to Myth and the local file names don't mean much to a normal person, so something to convert the names or copy the files is needed and I can handle that.

My only issue with copying the media files to a drive inside the N35 or a NDAS server would be the fact I would have to wait until the recording has finished. If I was streaming from the Linux server then it might be possible to watch a show before it was finished recording.

From a past post I read, if you had 2 N35 units with drives they could see each others files and play them. I am guessing the other unit just shows up as a NDAS2, etc.

John

Klaatu45

08-22-06, 12:36 PM

I was looking at the spec of the sigma chip used in the n35, and it answered some of my questions regarding playback issues with some HD videos I reposted earlier. Its clock speed runs around 200 Mhz (in a lab environment, meaning real world processor speed various depending on temperature, humility, firmware, etc…) Most of the time, the processor runs slower than Mhz, which might answer the inconsistence with some HD playback. I think the n35 is a perfect machine for playing ISOs, xvid, and divx movies, but for HD playback, I would hold back.

Just a side question, Sony is coming out with the PS3 on Nov 17 (will most likely be pushed all the way to thanksgiving). With the much hyped Cell processor. Wouldn’t be a safe bet to buy a PS3 at 600 bucks and wait for some firmware hack to stream xvid, divx, isos and what not… I mean, the ps3 looks like it could be a decent machine as a digital media server. Sorry for the side topic, I just couldn’t decide rather to buy the n35 for the inconsistencies in HD playbacks.

pkeegan

08-22-06, 01:44 PM

pkeegan

08-22-06, 01:58 PM

My only issue with copying the media files to a drive inside the N35 or a NDAS server would be the fact I would have to wait until the recording has finished. If I was streaming from the Linux server then it might be possible to watch a show before it was finished recording.

From a past post I read, if you had 2 N35 units with drives they could see each others files and play them. I am guessing the other unit just shows up as a NDAS2, etc.
John

Just a Guess. If you streamed the show directly to the NDAS disc and limited your file sizes to break apart the show you may be able to read the first file while subsequent files are being written to the disc. This would in effect be streaming close to live via the N35. When I save shows via MyHD MDP-130 it limits the file sizes to a preset value and names them sequentially with a number at the end. The N35 plays the files to the end of the files. I haven't tried this but theoretically
it should work.
PS I don't know what format Myth TV saves the files in
and whether they can be read by the N35.

jdt

08-22-06, 02:20 PM

Just a Guess. If you streamed the show directly to the NDAS disc and limited your file sizes to break apart the show you may be able to read the first file while subsequent files are being written to the disc. This would in effect be streaming close to live via the N35. When I save shows via MyHD MDP-130 it limits the file sizes to a preset value and names them sequentially with a number at the end. The N35 plays the files to the end of the files. I haven't tried this but theoretically
it should work.
PS I don't know what format Myth TV saves the files in
and whether they can be read by the N35.

Well I could live with the delayed playback if I had to.

Myth records MPEG2 for SD shows and HD shows are TS streams (no encoding).

John

eleson

08-24-06, 01:26 AM

And I was hoping for a WOW experience, but I'm not there yet.

This is my first media player, and the worst so far ;)

After installing NDAS on PC I got a BlueScreen first time copying files to the N35.
I think that is an issue together with WPN111 from netgear.

The copied mp3 files played for a few seconds per song and then muted?
- Is there a difference between mp3?

So I tried to copy the savedfiles after some DVDschrink sessions,
but copy was slow and almost locked the PC up.
... and the resulting film wasn't fluent.

Which file format should I go for, having DTS sound wherever possible, and 2 languages and optional subtitles on some films?

So, looking at it from the bright side,
from here it can (almost) only get better,
and if it delivers what it promises (and flac support, please!)
I'll be more than happy.

Cheers
Erland

danberg

08-24-06, 05:43 PM

Hi,

First excuse my english. My native language is german.

I would use mine for showing pictures from digital camera on my HD-LCD-TV.
But the pictures are not sharp, no matter if I use the Component or the DVI output
and also no matter which resolution I set, the pictures are showed always the same bad way.
I have checked with my computer-monitor, it is the same. It shows for me as the pictures are always in a 'tube-TV' resolution.

Can this be a bug (always rendered to 'tube TV' resolution) ?
Anyone who use it for showing pictures on a HD-LCD-TV with better results ?

Thanks

svdhusa

08-24-06, 11:57 PM

Hi,

Can Rapsody N35 be connected and streamed from IPTV devices like the Slingbox or the newly released Hava? Does anyone have experience on how the Rapsody 35 performs on either devices? Thanks.

pkeegan

08-25-06, 04:07 PM

Hi,
I would use mine for showing pictures from digital camera on my HD-LCD-TV.
But the pictures are not sharp, no matter if I use the Component or the DVI output
and also no matter which resolution I set, the pictures are showed always the same bad way.
I have checked with my computer-monitor, it is the same. It shows for me as the pictures are always in a 'tube-TV' resolution.
Can this be a bug (always rendered to 'tube TV' resolution) ?
Anyone who use it for showing pictures on a HD-LCD-TV with better results ?
Thanks
My N35 is like yours. Pictures are not sharp. New firmware is due out. Let's hope this gets fixed.

mlm39

08-26-06, 09:54 AM

I already received my N35 but haven't opened the box yet as I am awaiting delivery of some cables. I selected the N35 mainly to display HD photos on my HDTV via DVI, secondly to listen to MP3s on my surround system. Hopefully, the firmware will be upgraded to do both concurrently.

I was impressed by the fact that the N35 loads the next photo while viewing the current one, thereby eliminating (most of) the lag time between photos.

I am concerned, however, about the folks who are reporting fuzzy HD photo display from the N35. If this an inherent problem or there some of you who have successfully displayed sharply defined photos at 720p via DVI on their HDTVs?

If not, I may send mine back for a refund and look for something else.

compagnion

08-30-06, 04:11 AM

Has anyone been able to test play back of WMA lossless?

In your opinion, is this player a high quality audio player when hooked up via optical to a hifi receiver?

Opoc

08-30-06, 11:42 AM

Has anyone been able to test play back of WMA lossless?

In your opinion, is this player a high quality audio player when hooked up via optical to a hifi receiver?

Not sure about music or WMA lossless, but I have a Rotel processor that is connected to it via optical and have listened to a THX DTS/Dolby Digital Demo DVD that was streaming from my pc. The sound to me was sweet. However I don't have a really good ear compared to some when it comes down to music.

MikeAlletto

08-30-06, 05:35 PM

Opoc

08-30-06, 05:41 PM

Yes, the interface to the media (video and audio) is through a directory/file browser.

nirvana_av

08-30-06, 05:49 PM

From what I've read in this thread it sounds like the hardware is really nice but the interface for accessing music and video is just like all the other crappy interfaces these devices have. Nothing more than a file browser. True?

Some of the hardware features including the form-factor, really nice front plate and NDAS support are what differentiate this box from others. As has been mentioned, the browsing is a very, very basic file/folder browser like so many others. Us owners are currently in a holding pattern waiting for the first firmware update that will fix some fatal flaws that have been brought up in other posts.

garciaba79

08-31-06, 02:34 AM

I would not buy this product until they release a firmware update or at least show some potential to update the product. I never looked before buying the product but once I bought the N35 I visited the forums and divxtech. I noticed they do not reply to most of their posts and they have been around for a while. They also do not have any information about what they are doing for and with the update. Currently the firmware is delayed.

I am happy with the player and use it to mostly play music and various video files. I do not use it to play HD videos like some of you want. But The interface is alright and simply a file broswer. It will not play some mp3's. Maybe it was because they were variable bit rate I did not check into it yet. It will not play any wmv for me at all. It will only play one out of many avi files and most mpg files will not play. I am not sure if its because of bit rate or what. I have not had the time to look into why it will not play the files yet. The NDAS works great and it is fast. Overall I am satisfied and use it mostly to play music right now. It is hooked up to my Pioneer via fiber optic. I have had my pc hooked up via fiber optic before. I think the quality is the same. The N35 outputs a little bit louder then the Creative Audigy I did. I like that its a little louder so that way I do not have to turn up my receiver sound level too much.

cpgator

08-31-06, 01:33 PM

Can the N35 only be made wireless with an ethernet converter, or can I use a USB converter? I currently have an extra USB one, and was hoping to not have to purchase a different one.

degroe

08-31-06, 10:12 PM

Just tried the new firmware. They removed the > for 30 sec forward function and basically make > as FF key on the remote.
The image is maybe a little bit sharper and the xvid HD play is still jerky.
Just fyi.

v770

08-31-06, 11:00 PM

The beta firmware fixed the aspect ratio on 16:9 output. However, when I press the ZOOM button during a DVD play, it looses the aspect ratio of the video. Long as I don’t press the ZOOM button everything is OK.

The initial pause when 16x FF on a .avi file is fixed. It is smooth now. Most of my videos are DVD so this never bothered me.

The bug fixes are progressing nicely it seems.

jwpolley

09-01-06, 12:45 AM

You can also now toggle through the audio channels in a DVD, but the subtitles and angle buttons still do nothing.

nirvana_av

09-01-06, 01:27 AM

I installed the beta v1.12 firmware successfully. As has been mentioned, the aspect ratio problem appears to be fixed. I was able to play numerous ISO's and IFO's without problem and DVD menu navigation overlays work correctly. I did experience a device hang where I had to restart the player. It was when I selected a special feature in an ISO menu to play. Now I will be making some long-term use of the N35 so we'll see if any other issues arise.

This firmware is a huge step to making this a great player. For my top needs, ISO and IFO playback, it does the job. For those that require HD features, hopefully the next firmware will take care of those defects as well.

compagnion

09-01-06, 03:54 AM

Does anyone know if the file names (for music or video browsing) will be correctly displayed with accented characters (French)?

Thanks.

janco_nl

09-01-06, 07:51 AM

Hi. Received my N35 last week and have been experimenting with audio mostly. Unfortunately, I find the sound quality through the analog outputs is not that great. It sounds quite distorted with loud passages in songs (especially the high frequencies). Perhaps one of you has tested both the digital and the analog outputs on their N35. In that case I would be interested to hear about the differences. I am trying to find out if it is a software thing or that the problem lies with the digital-analog converters (in that case, only a digital audio connection may help...).

If you have any input, thanks in advance! Greetings Janco

****

Hi. In fact I can now answer my own question. I found an old DCC (obscure Philips digital tape deck) in my closet which has fine digital-analog converters. The N35 sounds a lot better through it :), using the optical audio output of the N35. So for those who are interested in the N35 as a hifi music player, in my opinion it is only suitable as such if are able to use the digital audio outputs. Greetings Janco.

Opoc

09-01-06, 10:50 AM

Well, bad news. The V1.12-060831 firmware didn't fix my problem of not being able to switch to 1080i over component output to my 65" Mitz TV.

I didn't see anywhere in the V1.12-060831 release notes that they fixed the out of spec HD signal.

I posted out on Divxtech Forums (like that will help :( ) and see what kind of response I get. I'll probably call in and talk with Jaemin again today if he doesn't respond to my post.

I'm beginning to wonder if they even have the faintest clue of what I'm talking about when describing my problem. I'll probably have to return the N35 for a refund and look some place else for a product that will do 1080i over component correctly.

REALLY BUMMED OUT :(

smovid

09-01-06, 10:54 AM

Since it looks like they are serious about this box with the first firmware upgrade, I dediced to order the N35 last night. I was debating on the TvIX5000 instead, because support seemed very good and specs apeared close, but I really like the NDAS on this box, so.... gave it the benefit of the doubt on the support side and that issues will be resolved..

mlm39

09-01-06, 11:12 AM

Opoc

09-01-06, 12:16 PM

Opoc,

Every Micro projection (DLP or LCD) TV I've looked at (except for the new 1080p)has a native resolution of 720P. Have you tried it?

Mike M

Hello Mike, My TV is a Mitsubishi WS-65819 rear projection. It is not a DLP. It has 3 inputs on the back of the TV for "High Resolution Inputs" They are:

1. Component 480i/480p YPrPb
2. Component 480i/480p YPrPb
3. (DTV) Component 480i/480p/1080i YPrPb/GRBHV

My TV does not support 720 at all.

For those who are interested the diagram on the back of my TV is on page 13 of the Owners Guide (http://www.mitsubishi-tv.com/img/220928).

mlm39

09-01-06, 02:23 PM

Sorry Opoc, my mistake. Yours looks like a CRT rear projection set.
A clue may be on page 65 but I don't know enough about this stuff to make any sense of it.
I hope Divxtech can find a solution for yor problem.

I have my N35 but haven't opened the box yet. I'm waiting to see if they can resolve the "Fuzzy Photo" issue.

Mike M

jedillwag

09-01-06, 06:17 PM

Can someone who owns the N35 test some files for playback and sound.

FROM NERO
http://trailers.nerodigital.com/Disney/TheGreatestGame_Stan_ASP.mp4

http://trailers.nerodigital.com/Disney/TheGreatestGame_Stan_AVC.mp4

http://trailers.nerodigital.com/Disney/TheGreatestGame_Cin_ASP.mp4

http://trailers.nerodigital.com/Disney/TheGreatestGame_Cin_AVC.mp4

http://trailers.nerodigital.com/Disney/TheGreatestGame_HD_ASP.mp4

http://trailers.nerodigital.com/Disney/TheGreatestGame_HD_AVC.mp4

http://zdpub.vo.llnwd.net/o2/dltv/episode91/dl.tv.091.i.mp4

http://zdpub.vo.llnwd.net/o2/dltv/episode91/dl.tv.091.mov

http://zdpub.vo.llnwd.net/o2/dltv/episode91/dl.tv.091.wmv

http://images.apple.com/movies/wb/teenagemutantninjaturtles/tmnt-tlr1_h480p.mov

http://images.apple.com/movies/wb/teenagemutantninjaturtles/tmnt-tlr1_h720p.mov

http://images.apple.com/movies/wb/teenagemutantninjaturtles/tmnt-tlr1_h1080p.mov

Please try these locally, and networked if possible. I basically want to know about Picture and sound.
I know this is alot, But I think it covers a few things people like me want to know.

Opoc

09-02-06, 02:29 AM

Downloading them and will try them out tomorrow. However I'm unable to run mine in 1080 or 720, but will let you know the results.

garciaba79

09-02-06, 06:33 AM

Ok, I tested the files just read my notes below.

First of all I only have a 32 in. flat screen sony 480i so I only tested the video with svideo, rca stereo audio hookup, and fiber optic with the N35 encoding off. All of the video looked good to me but I do not have a HD tv so it was good for my tv, LOL.

I did not test try to play any of these over the network because I cannot see the files in the shared folder from XP Pro. I can see the shared folder but not the files so I do not know if its only my share settings or what.

None of the .mov files showed up.

I tested fast foward, reverse, play, pause, info and timer, analog audio out, digital audio out, and svideo out. If I do not mention any thing wrong with any of these then they were good.

Can someone who owns the N35 test some files for playback and sound.

FROM NERO
TheGreatestGame_Stan_ASP.mp4

No digital audio out.

TheGreatestGame_Stan_AVC.mp4

Black screen, audio stops after 10 seconds.

TheGreatestGame_Cin_ASP.mp4

Video starts to stutter and audio stops after 10 seconds

TheGreatestGame_Cin_AVC.mp4

Black screen no audio

TheGreatestGame_HD_ASP.mp4

Video starts to stutter and audio stops after 10 seconds

TheGreatestGame_HD_AVC.mp4

Black screen no audio

dl.tv.091.i.mp4

Black screen and no digital audio out

dl.tv.091.mov

The .mov file does not show up in the browser so I could not play or test the file.

dl.tv.091.wmv

Reverse fails at slow speeds, reverse is slow at high speeds, some times the audio does not play after fast fowarding but can be started again by pausing and playing.

tmnt-tlr1_h480p.mov

The .mov file does not show up in the browser so I could not play or test the file.

tmnt-tlr1_h720p.mov

The .mov file does not show up in the browser so I could not play or test the file.

tmnt-tlr1_h1080p.mov

The .mov file does not show up in the browser so I could not play or test the file.

Please try these locally, and networked if possible. I basically want to know about Picture and sound.

I know this is alot, But I think it covers a few things people like me want to know.

Like I mentioned above the picture is good to me other then I do not have a HD tv. The audio sounds good when it is working. LOL

jedillwag

09-02-06, 09:51 AM

garciaba79
Thank you so much for testing. It is a mixed bag of results. If I am not mistaken here is what I get from your results.

did any .mov files play????
did the apple trailers of the turtles play??? with some sound??? I am sorry I did not understand about this.

The device seems to be capable of playing AAC 5.1 but is buggy because the audio stops (and its down sampling to your stereo RCA I think).
The device seems to be able to play h.263 but is buggy because of your commends of "Video starts to stutter and audio stops after 10 seconds"

I wonder does anyone know how to officaly ask the company about these codecs.

I really am thrown off by the mov files, I don't want to jump to conclusions here so I will wait till you say if the files did work.

Again Thanks.
jedi

garciaba79

09-02-06, 02:40 PM

No Quicktime .mov file played at all. I am sorry. I should have mentioned that. The .mov files do not even show up in the browser so I could not even play them.

The device can decode or pass 5.1 audio to the receiver. I did not turn on decoding. I only passed the audio through to the receiver and the 5.1 digital worked if I did not mention it not working.

Like I mentioned some of the videos would start to play but after about ten seconds the audio would stutter and then stop and then the video would stutter but the video would keep playing. I would not know why the video and audio would start to stutter.

I looked at the technical specifications for the N35 and it does not mention being able to play Quicktime or .mov files anywhere so it is not supported.

_ear

09-06-06, 11:38 AM

Been a little quiet in here. Really trying to decide on which unit to get. Everyone that has one still happy?

mrkz

09-06-06, 04:20 PM

Did anyone already tried Rapsody N-35 with Infrant ReadyNAS? Will this work?

misko

09-06-06, 11:44 PM

Did anyone already tried Rapsody N-35 with Infrant ReadyNAS? Will this work?

Yes, I run it against my Infrant NV. Accessing DVDs on the Infrant works fine as does accessing movies. But I have trouble with some films hanging which I believe to be a player issue as I can play the movies fine via SMB from my PC using Intervideo WinDVD. I'm hoping the firmware upgrade folks are talking about will help.
It doesn't seem to do uPnP, but just straight SMB when talking to the Infrant.

Speaking of the upgrade, has anyone found any menu item for upgrading the software? I'd really expect to find one, but I haven't seen one.

garciaba79

09-07-06, 02:52 AM

Speaking of the upgrade, has anyone found any menu item for upgrading the software? I'd really expect to find one, but I haven't seen one.

Are you asking for a menu item to update the firmware? If so there is no menu item. Just copy the firmware over to the internal hardrive or access your pc and select the firmware file. It will ask you if you want to continue. If you selest yes it will erase the firmware and then install the new one and then reboot.

misko

09-07-06, 05:03 AM

Are you asking for a menu item to update the firmware? If so there is no menu item. Just copy the firmware over to the internal hardrive or access your pc and select the firmware file. It will ask you if you want to continue. If you selest yes it will erase the firmware and then install the new one and then reboot.

Cute, thanks for the info. Guess I'm used to seeing a button to start the upgrade process and then browsing for the image. I'm assuming this works over SMB, and doesn't require the NDAS software be installed on a PC, as I've never installed the NDAS software. I store everything on my Infrant and stream from there. No disk in the Rhapsody, never share from my PC.

Thanks again.

ptwyzard

09-07-06, 09:24 PM

misko

09-07-06, 09:41 PM

This looks like a very nice device.

Can you stream media from you NAS to this without having to have your PC on or running server software?

Will it play VOB files?

Someone mention all files are listed together. Can you list videos, music and photos separately?

Thanks.

Yes, streams from the NAS without PC running anything, just simple
windows file sharing (SMB).

Plays VOB, although I've had trouble with a few.

It lists files like a typical directory browser. So if you organize your files with music in a directory with a bunch of sub directories, videos in a directory with a bunch of sub directories, etc, you can usually find what you want.

ppl4world

09-08-06, 11:14 PM

misko

09-08-06, 11:58 PM

Hi, quick question to all you Rhapsody owners (as I'm wrestling with the question to become one too). How/Why did you choose the Rhapsody rather than say TVix? Would you make the same choice again? Would you now consider the Z500?

Thanks for helping out!

Cheers

Peter

I see you posted the same question on the Tvix thread. I'm anxious to see your responses.

As for the Rhapsody, I bought it based on early feedback, no fan, good network support. I'd probably try something else before I bought a second one as I've had some issues. I was pretty ignorant of the Tvix when I bought the Rhapsody. I am looking at the Z500 and the Tvix and some others as possible alternatives as well as waiting for Rhapsody updates to their firmware. Price on the Rhapsody was very attractive.

I suspect the responses you get may depend on how people use the box. So for clarification I am only interested in being able to play DVDs saved to my Infrant NAS box via hardwired ethernet. I haven't saved any DVDs yet as ISOs, just
the video_ts/audio_ts directory structures. In some cases I've combined the DVD into a single VOB file, in others they are as they appear on the original DVD. I have no hard disk in my Rhapsody.

garciaba79

09-09-06, 01:11 AM

I am happy with N35. Like Misko say's, it depends on what you want to use it for. I have been reading a lot and it seems that most people buy N35 to play DVD's.

I am not happy with the slow developement but it is a new device and I did play ginipig. LOL I guess the biggest reason I was not happy is because I use N35 to play miscellaneous files and music more then DVD's. Music plays great but N35 is not good at all for a music library/player. I had to convert various videos or recode them in order to play them. I was surprised that none of my avi's from my DV camera did not play.

I used recode and placed the files for a dvd onto the an internal harddrive. I am not sure what the best method is but N35 would only play file by file and not in order.

I then used ripit4me and created a dvd iso and the movie played great. I believe the subtitles are not working right now. You can select audio tracks though.

Good luck!

yoohoo

09-11-06, 04:02 PM

I am also a very satisfied user of N35.

I have 2. One in the family room with 500GB hard drive. Second one is in the master bedroom with no hard drive and with wireless connection. The second one streams the video from the first.

My main use is for DVD with some music.

My reason for choosing the N35;

1. CE style with simple and attractive look
2. Hardware NDAS is fast for network file transfer
3. Less expensive compared to others

It has been less than 2 months since its debut and we had one firmware upgrade since and more to come I am sure. Patiently waiting for N35 developers to activate internet radio function.

v770

09-14-06, 03:31 PM

FYI

New firmware upgrade for N35. Version 1.13 at http://www.divxtech.com/support_N35.htm.

Just noticed it so I’ll try it tonight.

mlm39

09-14-06, 07:27 PM

Still waiting for sharp 720p dvi photo play and concurrent play of music and slideshow.
Can someone try these please?

v770

09-15-06, 04:03 PM

Firmware version 1.13 adds some improvements on the DVD ISO, IFO play.

Now you can change the subtitle of the DVD while playing the movie instead of exiting and making changes on the DVD menu. Pressing the subtitle button on the remote control will cycle through all the subtitles in the DVD (ie. English, Spanish, French, etc.).

Also, you can dynamically change the audio channels during the DVD play. By pressing the audio button on the remote, N35 will cycle through all the available audio channels on the DVD (ie. English, Spanish, French, etc.).

There is a bug fix for smi subtitle and audio synchronization. I didn’t noticed there were any problems before. Also there is fix for subtitle position. Subtitles are now lower on the screen.

It seems to me that we are getting new firmware with improvements and bug fixes on a regular basis. Last update was about less than 2 weeks ago. This is good.

smovid

09-15-06, 07:40 PM

Finally had a chance to set up the box I received early this week. Put Firmware 1.13 on it. It's clear some usability and compatibility issues still need to be worked out, but I also thought that I should share that after reading all the posts, I am pleasantly surprised with the box. I added a 300GB NTFS maxtor drive so I can put the higher bitrate files local.

I did do some tests with many of my home movie mpeg files. I noticed consistent behavior. The Variable Bit Rate files all seemed to play just fine when served from an hp a530n PC over my 100MB lan (via 3 hubs)! The 8000 fixed bitrate mpeg (2) files consistently had some audio stuttering in them, while LCPM audio stream is the same at 48Khz. When I get a chance I will re-encode them to vbr to see if that solves the problem.

My feeling is that it all comes down to how much traffic is generated over the network (versus perhaps an issue with the box) and how forgiving the firmware is with not being able to flow the filesize (audio and video bitrate), given the available network bandwidth and pc's computing capacity.

Unfortunately I cannot check HD at all as I do not have HD equipment. I'm just running S-Video out into a 53" Sony projection screen. So-far all video looks just fine on it. Very impressed how it reads ISO files and menus, including detection of 5.1. I do get come slight 'clicks' in the audio as it reads files to determine what audio mode to go into. Now if I only had one more coaxial input on my receiver.. :(. Time to go get an optical cable to hook my dvd player up again.. (This box is getting priority over my DVD player at this time :)

Does anyone know if the USB attached drive can be accessed via the NDAS connection? That would be an excellent feature.... Just add USB drives local at the box when you need more space in order to eliminate any network performance & network file access issues, while still being able to push files to the device remotely.
9/16 update - I tested this and was unable to locate the USB drive, so it appears that functionality does not exist (yet?)...

Szilard

09-16-06, 07:38 PM

I am new here, I have a question. I read that the n35 has an OTG feature. Has anybody eventually tried to copy photos directly via USB from a camera to the hard disk of the player without a computer?

Thanks in advance!
Szilard

SuperCurro

09-17-06, 03:25 AM

Hi from Spain...

Here N35 is not yet arrived, but the it will be in a few days....

The best price is 259€ but is better to buy with 300 GB HD at multiregalos point net:

I have read all forum and I have the same question, Has somebody test to put two external hard drives USB 2.0?

Can N35 put these External USB Hard Drives in network?

If It does I will buy one of this today.... :)

SuperCurro

09-18-06, 10:27 AM

official answer:
"El N35 sólo pone en red NDAS el disco duro que tiene alojado en su interior.

Dispone de dos entradas USB para conectar cualquier dispositivo USB, pero sólo reproduce los ficheros multimedia que pudieran contener, pero no pone dichos dispositivos en red.

También es capaz de reproducir cualquier fichero multimedia alojado en cualquiera de los ordenadores de la red local a la que está conectado.

Esperamos haber podido contestar a sus preguntas."

That means N35 doesnt support NDAS for the USB Hard drives, it only play the files inside them.

:( :( :( :( :( :( :(

I will try with Argosy HV355 that is the unique HDD Multimedia that with low price runs without problem, with 300 GB it cost 170€ and every body its happy with it, no problems with subtitle or coded or photos....

cpgator

09-19-06, 11:28 AM

I am having a problem with video playback...

I copied a couple home videos to the internal HDD on the N35, but when I play them on the TV, the image is horizontally compressed. The video is full screen, but the image displayed appears wide screen.

I have the N35 set to output at 4:3 letterbox, and the tv is a 4:3. The N35 is connected to the tv using composite cables.

When I played the video file on Windows Media player, the image showed correctly (full screen). The pictures I loaded to the N35 also show correctly, and fill the screen.

Any thoughs?

mlm39

09-20-06, 09:49 AM

How about some user feedback on firmware upgrade V1.13-060908 beta.

What did it fix?

What did it screw up?

eleson

09-20-06, 10:09 AM

How about some user feedback on firmware upgrade V1.13-060908 beta.
What did it fix?
What did it screw up?

Subtitles and language buttons now works.

Before, volume was displayed with a graph and number
( up to hundred if I remeber correctly ) Now it is the graph and
three stars for full volume, one for very low and otherwise 2 stars.
EDIT:
Incorrect, numbers still remain when playing MP3's.
/EDIT

DVD menus seems weird, marking of choices doesn't get displayed in
the right location. I use and old fashioned 4:3 Tv and box set to letter box.

And old spelling error still remains; pressing zoom multiple time it finally shows "BASIC SECREEN", what is that? ;)

nstelmach

09-20-06, 01:55 PM

I´m wondering what I´m doing wrong with mine...

I simply can´t get mine to play any dvd remotely (streaming) and I have tried two different PCs (with different drives) with the same result:
When I execute the .ifo file it simply goes black screen forever (until I press stop). If I execute the .vob it will start playing but it will only show 1 frame every 30 second...

Rapsody is connected through wired 100 mbit lan (also tried crossover with same result).

Any Idea???

BTW. avi files plays perfectly.

But its not really a HD player and that was the major reason I bought it. I have 3 HD files: HBO teaser, Sony HDTV demo, IMAX - Magic of flight and they all stutter endlessly in both video and sound. I have tried playing them both streamed and locally with the same result - Shame. Are there really not any reliable HD-player out there:-(

ptwyzard

09-20-06, 06:36 PM

Good evening.

Looking for something that will stream music, video and photos to our bedroom TV. This looks like an interesting device.

1. I thought I read where everything shows up in one menu? Is this true or will it allow you to just select video, photos or music?

2. I have all my media on a NAS. Will I be able to stream directly from this without having to have my PC on?

3. I have separate folders on my NAS, one for DVDs, one for music, etc. Will this help with the question posed in #1?

Thanks for the input.

eleson

09-21-06, 01:49 AM

Hi,
you basically get a file/folder interface.
On the top level you choose disk, and then my internal N35 disk starts with
Music , Film, Photo at the top level.

As always, these devices should be run over a wired network.

One little caveat is that this device has no display , so you need to have the TV
on to se what you do.
/Erland

smovid

09-24-06, 03:48 PM

Does anyone know if step 9 (setup/initialize) on the firmware upgrade is required, or a step to re-initialize the firmware back to the original version? I've done all the steps on v.13 upgrade, but experiencing poor performance over the 100MB network (To NAs and PC shares).

eleson

09-24-06, 05:40 PM

On the startpage for the device, doesn't it say the firmware version in the upper right corner?

smovid

09-28-06, 10:16 PM

Thanks - Found the firmware version - it's on right top corner in the SETUP menu. I just wasn't sure if step 9 was required to make it active. It appears not.

FYI.. some results... (I run S-Video, sorry no HD info here... ).

* Changing Photo slide mode time works great in firmware v1.3 :). I found around 2 seconds to work best. How long can one stair at one picture anyway - The default 5 seconds seemed way to slow.. btw the interface for this is a bit clunky (Under setup)... you have to move to the (last) digit you are changing and then go up/down to change the numer highlighted.

* Changing video modes, subtitle text, etc.. on the fly during video play is great! Just need to select another funtion (like brightness) to get the video mode display to turn off. It doesn't automatically dissapear.

* NDAS access and transfer speeds are great! Still would be nice if USB port/drives would be accessible via NDAS protocol. Since they aren't, I decided the below solution (Cheap PC with large USB attched to serve video files, so I can update them from my video capture PC where I do all the home movie editing).

* File serving videos/home movies (the challenge...):

Anyone know what bitrate is for HD? or Filesize / hr? While I don't have this capability yet, I would like to plan for the future to make sure any hardware upgrades I do will support HD in the future (E.g. Gigabit lan, maybe NDAS).

On the playing video's over the network issues, I've discovered most of my DVD limitations on the hardware that is serving the files side, not the N35. I've found that over my 100 Mbit LAN, I get no video/audio stuttering, so long as the file serving hardware is fast enough. Per my calculations, 100Mbit LAN should be able to handle about 40GB/hr transfer, so, given that a 1hr DVD is about 5GB, that should be no problem. (100Mbit LAN = 100Mbits/sec = At 8 bits/Byte that is 100/8 = 12.5 MBytes/Second. At 60 sec/minute that is (*60) 750 MBytes / Minute = and at 60 min/hr that is (*60) 45,000 MBytes / hr. With some file protocol overhead and hub loss, I figured probably close to 40GB/hr effective utilization without trouble (No other competing network traffic).

My problem was that I had a problem with one of my older PC's that I wanted to dedicate to serve the files. It is a PIII/450. Unfortunately it has a USB 1.1 (OOps...). Forget trying to run video from a drive connected to that. Attaching the same USB disk locally to the N35, no problems. Attaching it to a faster PC with USB2 via 3 hubs, no problems either. Using the internal drive of the old PC no problem either (So bus & processing is fast enough). So I'm looking into upgrading the old PC with a USB 2.0 card which should handle the speed just fine & basically use it as a cheap file server with USB's attached (Cheaper and more reliable then going with NAS or NDAS). Not sure this would work for HD though...

Still having trouble with most of my mpeg home movies - I think at least some is due to a formatting issue (some sound did not play) or maybe the Buffalo Linkstation NAS device I have serving these files is too slow - It's been pretty unreliable from day one.... When converted to a DVD and extracting as IFO/VOB files they all seem to play just fine from my faster PC & USB 2.0 drive. Not tried ISO yet. I still have to try to move these files back to the NAS to see if the results are still the same (bad), which would tell me it's just a slow NAS device...

Bottom line... As long as the Hardware (USB/PC/NAS/NDAS) can transfer the bits fast enough to the LAN connection, looks like 100MB LAN is ok at least for standard DVD (Not sure what filesizes/birtate HD is). I think I'll put the file serving hardware on a switch nearest the N35, so basically this minimizes the risk of other network traffice competing for bandwidth (e.g. internet / games) between the file server and the N35.

pkeegan

09-29-06, 10:56 AM

smovid

09-29-06, 11:52 PM

wow - that seems very high. 9MBytes/sec = 32.4GB/hr, when typial DVD quality is ~ 5GB/hr. That means ~6x the filesize? Either that means a lot of overhead or network competing traffic. I'm pretyy much dedicating the network section between the PC service the files and the N35 to just those devices, so hope to get much more out odf that set-up. Do you know of any reference material available on this? I'd like to calculate things out vs. trial and error to make sure I plan the hardware for future HD.

jwpolley

09-30-06, 01:23 PM

I'm told, you need about a 19MB/sec transfer rate for HD. DVDs need about 9MB/sec.
Network Lans are always much slower than rated. A lot depends on what else is going on with the network as well as the hardware/software on the equipment.
I think you are off by about a factor of 8. At top quality, a DVD is 3.2 GB/hr. This give a bit rate of (3.2 GB/hr * 1000 MB/GB * 8 b/B * 1hr/3600s = 3.2*1000*8/3600 Mb/s) 7.1 Mb/s. B = Byte and b = bit. If you assume 1024, rather than 1000, you get 7.3 Mb/s.

smovid

09-30-06, 07:41 PM

That sounds more like what I was expecting. All the home movies I burn are at 7200 vbr (little more then 1hr/DVD). So I think just add some efficiency losses due to file handling protocols should set the minimum required network bandwidth at about 6 or 7 GB/hr or so. I understand windows (smb?) is pretty inefficient versus NDAS, Samba, etc.. So if HD is about double the size of DVD (Is this true?), that means ~12-15GB/hr? If that's the case, this still is well below the ~40GB/hr that a 100Mbit LAN should be able to handle,which confirms my suspicion that, if there are any problems playing files over the network, one should look at the file serving hardware (speed) first (Assuming no other network activities are flooding the network / competing for network BW).

I don't get the results I expect with streight mpeg (2) files though, so I suspect something else going on there. More testing when I have some 'spare' time :(. Somehow the N35 seems 'sensitive' to the settings I use to create mpeg movies, just haven't figured out yet which settings cause it to stutter (as if it can't handle the bitrate). Doesn't appear to be bitrate, maybe which field is used or audio compression or ????

Has anyone tried divx over a 100Mb network yet?

Paul_Ness_

10-01-06, 01:59 PM

I'm very intrigued by this Rapsody N-35 device. First of all, it seems to be a better option than the Mediagate MG-35 from an overall quality perspective. It seems to do what I am looking for -- playback ripped DVD VOBs. Correct me if I'm wrong.

However, in my case I'm trying to replace my clunky Windows XP Media Center which is very unreliable and noisy. So I was wondering ...

Will the N-35 allow me to connect 5 USB2.0 Hard Drives behind a USB2.0 hub (meaning, I plug the USB2.0 hub into the N-35, then plug 5 USB2.0 drives into the USB2.0 hub)?

In case you're wondering, the USB2.0 hard drives are currently being used on the Windows XP Media Center and have all my content on them (Ripped DVDs, Photos).

Thanks.

smovid

10-01-06, 05:06 PM

Paul_Ness_

10-01-06, 05:31 PM

Don't know about using a usb hub on the N35, but why not leave the USB storage on the media station and share them out to the N35 via the network?
This way you could place the media station somewhere else where the noise and cosmetics won't need to be near the entertainment center, while at the same time you retain access to the USB storage (without having to physically move it) to add more stuff...

Good point, I could do that. but then I have this 200W device just sharing out the drives. I guess I could also buy a USB-NAS device.

But honestly, I was kinda hoping I could buy a $10 USB2.0 Hub, and plug in the drives...

Is there any way you (or someone else who has a device) could try to hook up a USB Hub and plug in >2 drives (so we can see if there is a hard coded limit of 2 USB drives in the firmware)?

I'd greatly appreciate it.

smovid

10-02-06, 12:46 AM

Sorry, I don't have a USB hub to try that out (Would test if I did), hopefully someone else does.
The reaon I am using the PC sharing USB dirves set-up (An old PC I had sitting around, in which I added a USB 2.0 PCI card this weekend, which is sharing the DVD's just fine :)) is, so I can update/add files on the USB drives (E,g, when capturing/editing home movies).

Now if they updated the firmware for tne N35 so it could actually share the USB connected drives via the NDAS connection, that would be ideal :). So-far they don't support that functionality.

eleson

10-08-06, 03:05 PM

We have gotten some hints on future firmware support for lossless audio,
but do we have any info on which format(s) is in the pipeline?
/Erland

yoohoo

10-11-06, 09:51 PM

Its been a while since I had visited this thread and I just want to add that N35 is a fantastic device. I believe my wife and kids are having more use out of it than me.

Anyway, here is what I have been doing on N35 for the last month or so.

Pod casting. I have been adding latest pod cast episode to m3u playlist and playing it through the N35. You can create the m3u playlist as follows (its one of my favorite HDTV pod cast):

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:1920,HDTV-2006-10-10.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-10-10.mp3
#EXTINF:1922,HDTV-2006-10-06.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-10-06.mp3
#EXTINF:1835,HDTV-2006-10-03.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-10-03.mp3
#EXTINF:1983,HDTV-2006-09-29.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-09-29.mp3
#EXTINF:1352,HDTV-2006-09-26.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-09-26.mp3
#EXTINF:1524,HDTV-2006-09-22.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-09-22.mp3
#EXTINF:1311,HDTV-2006-09-19.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-09-19.mp3
#EXTINF:2165,HDTV-2006-09-15.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-09-15.mp3
#EXTINF:1591,HDTV-2006-09-12.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-09-12.mp3
#EXTINF:1435,HDTV-2006-09-08.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-09-08.mp3
#EXTINF:2384,HDTV-2006-09-01.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/hdtvpodcast/HDTV-2006-09-01.mp3

And video blogging. Copy the following lines in the m3u playlist. It’s an episodes of ROCKETBOOM.

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb 06 oct 11.MP4
http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb_06_oct_11.MP4
#EXTINF:-1,http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb 06 oct 10.MP4
http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb_06_oct_10.MP4
#EXTINF:-1,http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb 06 oct 09.MP4
http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb_06_oct_09.MP4
#EXTINF:-1,http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb 06 oct 06.MP4
http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb_06_oct_06.MP4
#EXTINF:-1,http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb 06 oct 05.MP4
http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb_06_oct_05.MP4
#EXTINF:-1,http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb 06 oct 04.MP4
http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb_06_oct_04.MP4
#EXTINF:-1,http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb 06 oct 03.MP4
http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb_06_oct_03.MP4
#EXTINF:-1,http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb 06 oct 02.MP4
http://www.rocketboom.net/video/rb_06_oct_02.MP4

The pod casting works great. The video blog starts out fine but some minutes through the video it starts to be jittery and looses audio. If I rewind for a second and play again the video is fine again. I think my internet (DSL) is not fast enough to get the file streamed properly. Any of you who have cable modem, please try the video blog and see if you are seeing the same thing.

gluetolf

10-12-06, 07:50 AM

Hi@all

I got my N35 last week and I'm annoyed by the bad programming the developers did on that cool device. The naming conventions for filenames are very strict so that you can't play a stream from a server without hostname (only ip) and port different to 80 because N35 will skip files from displaying containing at least characters: ":." The protocol has to be "h_t__t_p : / /" and there has to be a correct file extension that N35 supports. I tried adding ?.mp3 at the end of an URL but I didn't get it to work properly.

Please let me know if you get to work any of these things. I could imagine that it could work by encode the non-supported characters.

So long...

I have been adding latest pod cast episode to m3u playlist and playing it through the N35. You can create the m3u playlist as follows (its one of my favorite HDTV pod cast):

...

The pod casting works great. The video blog starts out fine but some minutes through the video it starts to be jittery and looses audio. If I rewind for a second and play again the video is fine again. I think my internet (DSL) is not fast enough to get the file streamed properly. Any of you who have cable modem, please try the video blog and see if you are seeing the same thing.

eleson

10-12-06, 12:02 PM

New firmware 1.14,
Beta as usual ...
http://rap-sody.se/component/option,com_docman/task,cat_view/gid,14/Itemid,31/

WeeboTech

10-12-06, 12:26 PM

Has anyone tried reading DVD ISO's from a Kurobox or Linkstation NAS device?
I have a network of them and I'm considering this device as a focal point.

mlm39

10-12-06, 02:59 PM

New firmware 1.14,
Beta as usual ...
http://rap-sody.se/component/option,com_docman/task,cat_view/gid,14/Itemid,31/

At least we know they're working on it!

yoohoo

10-12-06, 04:07 PM

I got my N35 last week and I'm annoyed by the bad programming the developers did on that cool device. The naming conventions for filenames are very strict so that you can't play a stream from a server without hostname (only ip) and port different to 80 because N35 will skip files from displaying containing at least characters: ":." The protocol has to be "h_t__t_p : / /" and there has to be a correct file extension that N35 supports. I tried adding ?.mp3 at the end of an URL but I didn't get it to work properly.

Please let me know if you get to work any of these things. I could imagine that it could work by encode the non-supported characters.

I just cut and pasted the contents of my m3u file thinking you guys could recreate it. Lets make it easy. Please download the attached files. They are sample of some m3u files for pod cast.

v770

10-12-06, 10:33 PM

I just cut and pasted the contents of my m3u file thinking you guys could recreate it. Lets make it easy. Please download the attached files. They are sample of some m3u files for pod cast.
Pod cast works great. Thanks for the info.

I have DSL also and experienced similar condition on the video casting. I think it’s the rocketboom’s server because I noticed a pause when trying to download a mpg4 file. Try linking to a wmv files. They seem to work better. You will have to be patient because I think N35 is trying to cash enough of the video before start playing.

ptrlhd

10-13-06, 02:35 AM

Hi All,

I have a question regarding the N35's USB Connection... Has anybody tried connecting a DVD-ROM drive through the USB connection and play DVDs?
I'm interested in the N35, but I want a device that can also play "physical" DVDs not just ripped ones.

Thanks.

gluetolf

10-13-06, 08:34 AM

I won't copy my music library to the N35! It would be much better to configure the location and other settings trough a GUI like on audio streaming clients. Lets see if we can trick the N35 to read the files from a remote location by redirecting it when it accesses the playlist-folder on disc1.

I also don't think it's a good solution to expect a hdd in N35. I'd like to run my N35 without internal hdd because of the noise a hdd makes.

eleson

10-13-06, 11:23 AM

mlm39

10-13-06, 11:51 AM

I read somewhere in the N35 user manual that the file names it accesses must be no longer than 12 characters "alphabetic".

What is acceptable other than A thu Z? 0 thru 9 Space - . _ or other special characters?

I am going to use the free File Renamer Basic to prepare my files for use by the N35.

v770

10-13-06, 04:23 PM

I have file names in excess of 100+ characters, specially for mp3 files and N35 can access them just fine.

mlm39

10-14-06, 02:23 PM

Can the file names contain spaces and special characters such as period, dash and underscore?

edinaz

10-14-06, 08:44 PM

I have had the N35 about 3 weeks now and it appears to be an excellent hardware unit. The NDAS is great for downloading files to the units hard drive provided you have a hard wired ethernet connection. FORGET ABOUT WIRELESS.

I am using a Widescreen (16:9) TV with the N35 DVI output (no difference in symptoms using composite output). I have the latest V1.14 firmware (V1.0 firmware gives same results):

I am only using the N35 to play .jpg or .iso or .vob files and am disappointed due to zoom mode and aspect ratio problems.

(Problem 1) A 4:3 aspect ratio .jpg file is displayed stretched to fit the 16:9 screen and the Zoom button has no effect (does not select any zoom mode).

(Problem 2) A 4:3 aspect ratio video file (.iso, .vob, or .mpeg) plays stretched to fit the 16:9 television screen (FULL SCREEN). The Zoom button allows you to select "PAN & SCAN" and "BASIC SCREEN" modes as well as "FULL SCREEN" mode. The "BASIC SCREEN" mode results in black bars at the top and bottom of the screen with the 4:3 image stretched to fill the screen horizontally (very distorted picture). The "PAN & SCAN" mode fills the screen with the 4:3 image, however the top/bottom of the 4:3 image is not correctly cut off. The image on the screen is distorted and does not have the correct aspect ratio. Note that the "BASIC SCREEN" mode does not display a video with an aspect ratio of 2.x correctly either. "FULL SCREEN" mode will display video files with an aspect ratio ratio of 2.x on the screen with what looks like the correct aspect ratio!!!! The "PAN & SCAN" mode displays video files with an aspect ratio of 2.x full screen but distorted with the worng aspect ratio.

(Question 1) Can someone verify that their N35 works the same way as mine as described above under Problem 1 and Problem 2 and that I do not have a bad N35??????

(Question 2) Am I correct in assuming that the "BASIC SCREEN" mode should display a 4:3 .jpg file or a 4:3 video file on a widescreen 16:9 TV with black bars on the left and right so the image fills the screen vertically and has the correct aspect ratio??????

(Question 3) Am I correct in assuming that the "PAN & SCAN" mode should fill the screen with the top/bottom of the 4:3 image cut off so that the image on the screen has the correct aspect ratio????

nirvana_av

10-15-06, 04:06 PM

(Problem 1) A 4:3 aspect ratio .jpg file is displayed stretched to fit the 16:9 screen and the Zoom button has no effect (does not select any zoom mode).

This is a problem. However, they still aren't able to display jpegs in full high-definition. I'm hopeful that they will correct both of these problems soon. However, my priority usage is playback of ISO and IFO video.

(Problem 2) A 4:3 aspect ratio video file (.iso, .vob, or .mpeg) plays stretched to fit the 16:9 television screen (FULL SCREEN). The Zoom button allows you to select "PAN & SCAN" and "BASIC SCREEN" modes as well as "FULL SCREEN" mode. The "BASIC SCREEN" mode results in black bars at the top and bottom of the screen with the 4:3 image stretched to fill the screen horizontally (very distorted picture). The "PAN & SCAN" mode fills the screen with the 4:3 image, however the top/bottom of the 4:3 image is not correctly cut off. The image on the screen is distorted and does not have the correct aspect ratio. Note that the "BASIC SCREEN" mode does not display a video with an aspect ratio of 2.x correctly either. "FULL SCREEN" mode will display video files with an aspect ratio ratio of 2.x on the screen with what looks like the correct aspect ratio!!!! The "PAN & SCAN" mode displays video files with an aspect ratio of 2.x full screen but distorted with the worng aspect ratio.

I own a high-end Denon DVD player that does not pillar-box 4:3 video. I have to tell my projector do display as 4:3 in order to get the proper aspect ratio. In that respect, I can't say that this is necessarily a bug with the N35. However, they do imply that you should be able to combine and choose aspect ratios using the modes you have mentioned so they probably do have some aspect ratio defects.

edinaz

10-16-06, 05:45 PM

I own a high-end Denon DVD player that does not pillar-box 4:3 video. I have to tell my projector do display as 4:3 in order to get the proper aspect ratio. In that respect, I can't say that this is necessarily a bug with the N35. However, they do imply that you should be able to combine and choose aspect ratios using the modes you have mentioned so they probably do have some aspect ratio defects.[/QUOTE]

I am still trying to determine if I just have a bad N35. It makes no difference with my N35 if the TV is set to 16:9 or 4:3 in the N35 setup screen. The displayed image for a 4:3 video is the same on the TV screen in all zoom modes with either setting. You can set my widescreen TV to display 4:3, but only if the composite input is used. You cannot adjust the aspect ratio in my TV if Component or DVI input is used. With my N35, a 4:3 video will only play correctly on a 4:3 TV with the N35 zoom mode set to "FULL SCREEN". The "BASIC SCREEN" zoom mode results in black bars on the top/bottom of the 4:3 image on the 4:3 TV screen. A 4:3 movie on my widescreen TV displays the same if the TV is set to 16:9 or 4:3 in the N35 setup screen. In "FULL SCREEN" mode the image is stretched to fit the 16:9 TV screen. The "BASIC SCREEN" zoom mode results in black bars on the top/bottom of the 4:3 image which has been stretched to fit the 16:9 screen in the horizontal direction.

I have posted a number of messages on the divxtech forums with only one reply from a kind soul who responded that; "On my N35 if I set it to 16:9, the movies are stretched to full height instead of full width!" I would think that this would mean that 4:3 videos are pillar-boxed with his N35 and that I have a bad N35???

mlm39

10-16-06, 10:12 PM

Most HDTVs are native 720P. Give it a try.

nirvana_av

10-16-06, 11:22 PM

I have posted a number of messages on the divxtech forums with only one reply from a kind soul who responded that; "On my N35 if I set it to 16:9, the movies are stretched to full height instead of full width!" I would think that this would mean that 4:3 videos are pillar-boxed with his N35 and that I have a bad N35???

Are you sure you have upgraded to the v1.4 firmware? The aspect ratio problems with v1.0 were pretty severe and there was a noticable improvement with version 1.1.

edinaz

10-17-06, 11:04 AM

Are you sure you have upgraded to the v1.4 firmware? The aspect ratio problems with v1.0 were pretty severe and there was a noticable improvement with version 1.1.

I have the latest v1.14 firmware. I went back and tested with the v1.0 firmware and there is no change in the aspect ratio or zoom mode operation on my N35 between v1.14 and v1.0. I have requested an RMA number to replace the unit. Thanks for your help.

edinaz

10-17-06, 03:24 PM

I have the latest v1.14 firmware. I went back and tested with the v1.0 firmware and there is no change in the aspect ratio or zoom mode operation on my N35 between v1.14 and v1.0. I have requested an RMA number to replace the unit. Thanks for your help.

Correction: I went back and tested again. There seems to be one small change which is that when I start to play a video file with V1.0 firmware, the default (starting) zoom mode is "BASIC SCEREEN" and with the v1.12 (and later) firmware the default starting zoom mode is "FULL SCREEN". Note that with my N35, zoom modes other than "FULL SCREEN" do not result in a correct aspect ratio video (on my widescreen TV) for ANY type of video (1:85, 4:3, 2.x) with any firmware version or N35 TV type setup. In "FULL SCREEN" mode, 1:85 and 2.x videos have the correct aspect ratio (black bars above and below the 2.x video to maintain correct aspect ratio. I am now wondering if I really have a bad N35. Maybe I am the only person that has tried the zoom modes and expects one of them to correctly pillerbox a 4:3 video on a widescreen TV. But then, you would think that the "BASIC SCEREEN", and "PAN & SCAN" modes would have some purpose.

My TV (RCA D52W20) does not support 720P. I get the same test results using DVI/1080i/480P or the composite input.

It will be interesting to see the response for my request for an RMA number.

pkeegan

10-17-06, 07:41 PM

edinaz

10-17-06, 08:39 PM

The zoom function of the N35 with my 16x9 TV is quirky. I use componet 1080i. I don't think I have tried to watch any 4x3 video. Mine is exclusively widescreen. Zoom only does a minor change from basic to full on many of my DVDs on others I do get a full screen. Not sure why this happens. Anamorphic, typically animation movies, does best at full screen on my TV but other movies have the bars are the top and bottom. In full screen I think the bars are a little
smaller, so I do see a bit more.

Sounds like yours works the same as mine. N35 support did send me an RMA number per my request but they also added the following:

"
The [ZOOM] button on the remote performs TV out aspect ratio change and not a conventional zoom function. Also, there is a bug in the [ZOOM] function where by pressing the [ZOOM] button will disrupt the correct aspect ratio of the video to that of the TV out aspect ratio. The developers are aware of this bug and are trying to resolve this issue. To view a video in a proper aspect ratio to that of TV’s screen ratio, please set the proper screen ratio and resolution on the SETUP menu. Also, while playing a video, do not press the [ZOOM] button.
"

I now think that my unit is working the same as everyone elses. With the TV type set to 16:9 in my N35 SETUP menu, videos with an aspect ratio of 4:3 are stretched to fit my widescreen (16:9) TV resulting in a distorted (wrong aspect ratio) picture with the default zoom mode which appears to be "FULL SCREEN". The other zoom modes do not correct the problem.

I can only hope that the problem will be fixed in a future firmware release since the N35 cannot be used to view 4:3 dvd .iso images on 16:9 TV. This also means that 4:3 dvd .iso movies with letterboxed widescreen will not display properly.

Konsti

10-18-06, 05:00 AM

Guys hello, I have been following the developments in the N35 which I am seriously consider buying to replace my TViX M-3000U which has been more than faithful to me.

For the 4:3 problem playing on a 16:9 television, I want to say that the TViX *does* pillar-box image shaping when the setup is set as 16:9--last night I watched some episodes in 4:3 normally, with black bars on the sides (via component output). It IS A FIRMWARE issue.

What TViX does, it takes the 4:3 image, adds black bars on the sides, and stretches it vertically so that it can be anamorphic--it's squeezed back vertically by the 16:9 tv set or projector. This is NOT happening, for example, with my Denon 1920 player that just displays everything 4:3 no matter the setup (and it's horizontally stretched....)

I am glad to read that 16:9 dvix/xvid avis are displayed properly (i.e. they are made 4:3 anamorphic so that the tv/projector can resqueeze them vertically) because this was a serious issue...

I suggest to the friend who wants to return the N35 to hang on to the next firmware updates or call me to sell it ;-)

Has anyone tried to playback .avi files with AC-3 audio (e.g. dvd conversions by retaining the AC-3 original stream)? Via digital out, does your digital amplifier PROPERLY detect the 5.1 streams and plays like a normal DVD player?

Thanks, Konsti

Opoc

10-18-06, 04:17 PM

Has anyone tried to playback .avi files with AC-3 audio (e.g. dvd conversions by retaining the AC-3 original stream)? Via digital out, does your digital amplifier PROPERLY detect the 5.1 streams and plays like a normal DVD player?

Thanks, Konsti

It does, I've tested it sucessfully using .vob with DTS and Dolby Digital.

nirvana_av

10-21-06, 11:03 AM

edinaz and Konsti,

I hadn't used the N35 after I updated to v1.14 firmware until last night. It turns out that v1.14.has re-introduced the aspect ratio defect that was in v1.0. You should go back to v1.13 to correct this.

I''m also experiencing a problem where once in a while, it will forget its settings. I then have to go back and set everything on the setup page, adjust the volume and of course recalibrate the brightness, contrast and color.

I have also experienced a problem when adding more content to the internal NDAS drive. After adding a new entry such as an ISO, the entry shows up but it will play a different media file instead. To fix it, I have to turn off N35 and then turn it back on (the refresh menu item on the NDAS main page does not work).

As a software developer myself, I'm very disappointed in the people writing the firmware for the N35. I can understand performance issues with codecs and formats. However, these "minor" issues should be easy fixes.

edinaz

10-21-06, 01:08 PM

edinaz and Konsti,
As a software developer myself, I'm very disappointed in the people writing the firmware for the N35. I can understand performance issues with codecs and formats. However, these "minor" issues should be easy fixes.
I am also a software developer (retired - 38 year computer career) and am also disappointed in the people writing the firmware for the N35. If you cannot fix minor repeatable bugs, now do you ever fix major bugs. The V14 firmware introduces a bug whereby you can no longer set the time delay to 3 seconds. Entering 003 on the remote will not change the time. If you enter right arrow, right arrow, 3, you end up with a black screen which requires a power off/on to recover. It has been reported to the developers via the DivXtech forums. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to be fixed.

nirvana_av

10-21-06, 01:25 PM

I am also a software developer (retired - 38 year computer career) and am also disappointed in the people writing the firmware for the N35. If you cannot fix minor repeatable bugs, now do you ever fix major bugs. The V14 firmware introduces a bug whereby you can no longer set the time delay to 3 seconds. Entering 003 on the remote will not change the time. If you enter right arrow, right arrow, 3, you end up with a black screen which requires a power off/on to recover. It has been reported to the developers via the DivXtech forums. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to be fixed.

I'm being patient because the platform is just what I was looking for and with the v1.13 firmware I can watch ISOs and IFOs without problem (with the work-arounds for the issues I've already mentioned).

However, it would be great if they would just provide the firmware SDKs for "open" development. Just look at the success of so many "community" development projects in the digital entertainment space such as the Slim Devices products (now owned by Logitech).

EFLA

10-22-06, 04:55 AM

Hi, I just received my N35.

I've installed 1.4,but (as before with 1.1) I have a serious problem with the audio.
The tempo is not the original one but a much slower one.
I think it plays audio at +- 75% of the original speed

It like in the past, you played a 45T vinyl having the disc-player setup to 33T.

Very strange.
Anyone else having had/solved this ?
Without correct audio, this box is unusable. :(

Also the quality of displaying jpg files is very poor ... to not say also unusable :(

I hope to have these problems fixed somehow, because this box looks very attracting. The NDAS is just ... terrible :)

Thanks

ptwyzard

10-22-06, 02:48 PM

Good afternoon.

I have a Rapsody N35. I have it connected directly to my network and everything is working fine. I found a good deal on 300gig drives and was wondering if it's worth putting on in my N35? Will I gain anything? Also, is it possible to update the firmware without having a hard drive installed?

Thanks.

bildirutan.se

10-22-06, 03:18 PM

I have it connected directly to my network and everything is working fine. I found a good deal on 300gig drives and was wondering if it's worth putting on in my N35? Will I gain anything?

The things you gain is that you can store movies, pictures, music etc. directly in the N35 and don't have to have other equipment running to use it. You can also use the N35 as a NAS for your PCs on the network.

Also, is it possible to update the firmware without having a hard drive installed?

That's no problem. Just put the firmware on a USB-stick or memory card and connect to the N35. Then just point to the file.

EFLA

10-23-06, 12:55 PM

Hi, I just received my N35.

I've installed 1.4,but (as before with 1.1) I have a serious problem with the audio.
The tempo is not the original one but a much slower one.
I think it plays audio at +- 75% of the original speed

BTW, it's not only the audio but everything that is played, including video.
In that case both video/audio are slow.

For instance a video of 45 seconds is played over 60 seconds.
Also if I test the Internet Radio (via the M3U trick), it's the same

I do suspect a hardware problem

Ikke_23

10-25-06, 12:37 PM

Is the H.624 codec suported by the N35?

Thanks,

Peter

bildirutan.se

10-25-06, 12:41 PM

Is the H.624 codec suported by the N35?

You probably ment H.264. Sorry, the N35 does not support that in the current firmware.

mlm39

10-25-06, 02:56 PM

The N35s Sigma 8621 chipset won't support it.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=717909&highlight=8621

mlm39

10-28-06, 10:07 AM

Divxtec has just released a fix to the last update snafu.

Rapsody N35 Firmware V1.14-b5-061025 (BETA)

1. number buttons 1 - 6 on the remote fixed

elee532

10-31-06, 08:23 PM

We have gotten some hints on future firmware support for lossless audio,
but do we have any info on which format(s) is in the pipeline?
/Erland
Are you saying that the N35 does not support WMA lossless? This would be a deal breaker for me as nearly my entire music collection is ripped to WMA lossless.

Thanks for any info.

wwyjoe

10-31-06, 08:24 PM

Hi all,

My N35 is connected to a widescreen Sharp 37" LCD TV (native 1366 x 768) via DVI. Under the setup menu, i've configured to DVI output, 1080i, TV Type 16:9". Running firmware v1.14b5

When i play ripped DVDs (VOB files) with Zoom set to "Basic Screen", I get black bars top & bottom, but the picture looks stretched horizontally. When set to "Full Screen", the picture fits my 16:9 TV nicely, & aspect ratio seems correct, but this cuts the picture slightly top & bottom

Is this a firmware issue? I've tried 1.13 and same problem exists. Do you all view your videos in Full Screen or Basic Screen?

Thanks!!

nirvana_av

10-31-06, 09:11 PM

wwyjoe

10-31-06, 09:19 PM

I have not had aspect ratio problems with firmware version 1.13 on my 16:9 display. I can play both anamorphic titles and letterboxed titles correctly. I did have aspect ratio problems with version 1.14.

Hi nirvana, what is your Zoom setting? Basic, Full Screen etc......? Are u using DVI at 720p or 1080i? Thanks

nirvana_av

10-31-06, 09:48 PM

I'm using 720p DVI. I do not mess with any of the zoom functions. I use it at whatever the system default is. I'm wondering if that zoom button logic is defective.

wwyjoe

10-31-06, 09:57 PM

I'm using 720p DVI. I do not mess with any of the zoom functions. I use it at whatever the system default is. I'm wondering if that zoom button logic is defective.

Thanks. Sorry just a few more questions:

1) How do i go to system default? I don't think the menu has a reset option to default settings? So the only way is to reinstall the firmware?

2) With 720p DVI, do you get any thin black bar at the left side of the screen? That's what happend to mine

nirvana_av

11-01-06, 12:44 AM

1) How do i go to system default? I don't think the menu has a reset option to default settings? So the only way is to reinstall the firmware?

There is a setup menu item to reset the system settings. However, it doesn't appear to do that. There is another defect that I found where 'sometimes' it resets if you turn off the device and turn it back on. You'll know it reset because right away it wants you to select the language.

2) With 720p DVI, do you get any thin black bar at the left side of the screen? That's what happend to mine

I don't get a thin black bar at the left side of the screen.

wwyjoe

11-01-06, 12:51 AM

There is a setup menu item to reset the system settings. However, it doesn't appear to do that. There is another defect that I found where 'sometimes' it resets if you turn off the device and turn it back on. You'll know it reset because right away it wants you to select the language.

I don't get a thin black bar at the left side of the screen.

thanks bro.

looks like the firmware is really buggy...

nirvana_av

11-01-06, 01:07 AM

looks like the firmware is really buggy...

It is. However, it's been servicable enough for me to play ISOs which is my number one requirement. I would like to see all the flaws fixed and then some cool features such as HD.

eleson

11-01-06, 05:31 PM

Are you saying that the N35 does not support WMA lossless? This would be a deal breaker for me as nearly my entire music collection is ripped to WMA lossless.

Thanks for any info.
Yep, no lossless support at this point.
see also
http://www.divxtech.com/forum/index.php?method=showhtmllist&list=message&rollid=14%2C334&fromlist=topic&frommethod=showhtmllist&fromid=14&words=lossless&clearoff=1

/Erland

pkeegan

11-01-06, 07:38 PM

I posted this at Divxtech.com a while back.

"I tried using a Pronto TS1000 learning remote and have had limited success. On keys that need to be repeatedly pushed, ie zoom or picture, to cycle through to subsequent settings, the first push is ok but nothing happens on subsequent pushes. I'm not sure what's going on in those cases. I use this remote to control my entire system so I would like it to work properly for the N35. Any help would be appreciated."

I finally found the answer at remote central (http://www.remotecentral.com/features/premotes.htm#parity)
The fix for us older Pronto users is to add an extra code after the desired code. For example to cycle the audio modes I learned the audio button and added a 0.6 delay followed by the alias for the previously learned down button. This allows me to cycle thru the audio options by repeated pushing of the audio button on the Pronto. I used this same technique for the search and picture buttons.
I would still appreciate the hex codes for discreet on/off
commands.

elee532

11-01-06, 08:16 PM

Yep, no lossless support at this point.
see also
http://www.divxtech.com/forum/index.php?method=showhtmllist&list=message&rollid=14%2C334&fromlist=topic&frommethod=showhtmllist&fromid=14&words=lossless&clearoff=1

/Erland

Wow, I really can't believe how complicated it has been to find a player that meets my needs.

My minimum requirements: Stream DVDs from my PC with menu support, play WMA lossless audio files.

Things I would like to have: Stream HD video, ability to stream supscription music from Napster or Urge, form factor that fits with my other audio gear

I had been looking at the AR Digital Mediabridge, but (1) it's discontinued and (2) it apparently doesn't work well with an active VPN connection on the server PC. Now the N35 fell off the list due to lack of WMA lossless.

Anyone have any reccomendations?

qz3fwd

11-01-06, 09:22 PM

Did you try Tvix HD M5000?
1. Stream DVDs from my PC with menu support-Check (or from NAS or optional internal HD)
2. play WMA lossless audio files-Specs. list WMA-not sure about losless
3. Stream HD video-Check and double check.
I have 2 of these and if you can tell me where I can d/l a wma losless clip I will try it for you.
Actively supported and improved by the manufacturer.

mlm39

11-07-06, 12:07 PM

I found this firmware - release 1.15 here. It's not yet on the Divtech site.

NEW / 7 November 2006:

Stable Firmware (recommended): v1.15

>> N35 Firmware v1.15

Changes: Added support for video files with 2 audio streams. Press the Audio button on the remote control to switch (note: currently this may take 10-20 seconds).

http://www.swissbull-it.com/support.shtml

WeeboTech

11-08-06, 11:42 PM

Anyone mounting the N35 NDAS disk on a linux system or get EXT2/EXT3 to work with the internal software?

I bought an N35 and found the NDAS part works with ext3, yet the software on the N35 cannot see the data on the filesystem.

I also tried plugging in 2 usb drives with ext3 partitions and they were unseen.

I wouldn't bother asking except for the fact the website makes note of ext2/ext3 support. (guess it's not accurate).

Anyway... my goal is to have my linux NAS synchronize one of the spindles onto the NDAS disk as a means of backup. (or vica versa) A kuro box in the other room would do just fine.

As cool as ndas is, I wish I had NAS access to the internal drive (speed is not an issue for me)

pkeegan

11-09-06, 01:40 PM

mlm39

11-09-06, 04:32 PM

I don't know. The same update from a different source is mentioned in a post on the Rapsody N35 forum. They are both European sources. Jaemin hasn't posted lately or responded to my email. Maybe he's on vacation or ?????????

Still waiting for that "next major release".

mlm39

11-11-06, 12:42 PM

I briefly checked out the digital photo display feature using only jpeg digital photos. As with audio, once a jpeg file is selected, it will be displayed. After a selectable period (default is 5 seconds), the next file will be displayed. I can’t comment on the quality of the rendering since I haven’t gone back to this feature after I was able to set the N35 to 720p over DVI. My digital photo collection is composed primarily of 4M-pixel photos which appeared to render within the slideshow delay period.

Hi nirvana_av,

Hope you are watching this thread.

Refering back to your great review, how do your photos look over DVI? Are they displayed in HD and is the original aspect ratio retained?

Can you play mp3 during a slideshow?

Thanks, Mike

QuickBen

11-11-06, 02:12 PM

@mlm39:

Unfortunately, photos look like crap even over DVI. Not HD and the aspect ratio is not retained. They show up fuzzy, with washed out color and stretched to the TV aspect ratio.

No, you can't play mp3 during a slideshow.

Hopefully these are issues that will be corrected in a firmware update soon.

More important is to add support for 720p encoded with x264 as this seems to become the dominant 720p format on the net...

mlm39

11-11-06, 03:26 PM

nirvana_av

11-11-06, 08:58 PM

Hi nirvana_av,

Hope you are watching this thread.

Refering back to your great review, how do your photos look over DVI? Are they displayed in HD and is the original aspect ratio retained?

Can you play mp3 during a slideshow?

Thanks, Mike

QuickBen is correct. We can only hope that they will fix the picture digital photo issues in a future firmware release.

alolmo

11-12-06, 03:41 AM

Is this for non DVD iso files? Currently with 1.13 I can switch audio streams on DVD iso files in less than a sec with the audio button.

I downloaded this new firmware (version 1.15) and it works with AVI files (it takes about 15 seconds to switch audio) but I tried it with VOB files and I can't to select any audio streams.
Does somebody knows which file types works with this feature and which ones not?
Can you help me with subtitles?, they don't work either.

QuickBen

11-14-06, 08:04 AM

mlm39,

Yep, I have no problems changing resolution to 720p, the problem is to get it to stick for more than a day or so... It keeps resetting to composite and 576p after a while.

To bad about the x264. It's hard to find series etc in 720p Xvid or Divx, but x264 mkv is everywhere.

Thanks

EFLA

11-18-06, 05:50 PM

cigaroasis

11-23-06, 03:33 AM

Does the n35 have the capabilty of playing ipod video formated mp4 files

EFLA

11-27-06, 05:38 PM

Does the n35 have the capabilty of playing ipod video formated mp4 files

No :(

tvang

11-29-06, 01:14 PM

As I found out you can only transfer files to it if it is turned on. Would it be safe to leave it on all the time so that I don't have to go the living room to turn it on and then mount the unit everytime?

I just received mine last Saturday and still waiting for my 500gb hd to come in. Currently I have a 80g hd in there to test and play around with. So far I'm pretty satisfied. Now I'm just comtemplating whether I should sell my sony 400 disc dvd changer and go disc-less with this unit.

WeeboTech

12-01-06, 06:27 PM

As I found out you can only transfer files to it if it is turned on. Would it be safe to leave it on all the time so that I don't have to go the living room to turn it on and then mount the unit everytime?

The unit will spin down the hard drive after a period of inactivity (if the drive is unmounted)

So far I'm pretty satisfied. Now I'm just comtemplating whether I should sell my sony 400 disc dvd changer and go disc-less with this unit.

This is what I plan to do. Although I've been disc-less for a long long time with the Roku HD-1000. I've just decided in the past few weeks I do not need the disc changer any longer and I need to free up rack space.

mlm39

12-01-06, 06:58 PM

Is the N35 better than your Roku?

yoohoo

12-01-06, 07:12 PM

tvang,

Mine is on 24/7. I don’t remember when was the last time my n35 was shut off.

Hard disk starts spinning only when I’m accessing. Other times its quiet and cool.

bandgap112

12-01-06, 09:31 PM

Hi all,

I just join the club and would like to say hi to all members.

I'm also interested in the Rhapsody N35. I have a 720p/1080i 50" plasma HDTV and wonder about the video output quality of this box.

1) How good is the DVI video output? Does it look good on plasma screen?
2) When playing DVD ISOs, does the unit always up-convert everything to 720p or 1080i?
3) Is the up-converted picture quality comparable to those high-end stand-alone DVD players?

Is it worth to buy this Rhapsody N35 or should I go with the Xbox XBMC route?

Thanks,

Bandgap

t0tor0

12-01-06, 10:40 PM

hi all:

i have just got a N35 and have some problems.

This is my setup. My connected a hard disk in the N35. N35 is connected through a adsl modem/router. I also have a NAS (Synology CS-406) connected to the modem/router.

My problem. I cannot access my media files on my NAS! I can access the media files in the hard disk of N35. When I go into the PC connection, i can see my NAS. When I get into the NAS, I can see my 1st level folders. However, there are no files! When I go into specific folders, there are no files too! I try putting in some simple files with short names thinking that maybe the N35 cannot read long names. However, it still would not display. The same files show up on the hard disk in the N35 and played perfectly though. I downloaded the firmware and upgraded to 1.13 and 1.15. both version does not correct this issue. And also, the firmware upgrade file also does not display in the NAS. Only in the NDAS hard disk.

I thought something was wrong with the N35. So I brought it back to the shop. They connect the N35 to their NAS and it works fine! So cannot be the N35 but some configuration.

Brought back my N35 and try again. Same old ****!

Wondering if anyone experiences the same and can give some help or suggestions.

Thanks alot!!!

t0tor0

12-02-06, 04:27 AM

Anyone mounting the N35 NDAS disk on a linux system or get EXT2/EXT3 to work with the internal software?

I bought an N35 and found the NDAS part works with ext3, yet the software on the N35 cannot see the data on the filesystem.

I also tried plugging in 2 usb drives with ext3 partitions and they were unseen.

I wouldn't bother asking except for the fact the website makes note of ext2/ext3 support. (guess it's not accurate)...

Following up from my previous post.

I just found out that the file format for my NAS (Synology CS-406) is EXT3. Could this explains also why I am not seeing anything except my root files in my NAS?

WeeboTech: Have you found a solution to your problem?

Thanks

pkeegan

12-02-06, 09:09 AM

Is the N35 better than your Roku?

I had a Roku till it died. The PS died and took out some other component of the ROKU. I have a working N35.

For photo viewing the Roku was better in image quality and features by a long shot.

For DVD viewing the Roku, via MPlay, has a much better interface with the ability to display cover art and info. The N35 with the ability to play iso file formats and use the full DVD navigation is better. The N35 also has DTS support which the Roku doesn't. DVD video quality is about the same. The Roku had only component, the N35 DVI, but I would be hard pressed to notice any significant differences as I have great component cables. Note: the N35 component output is poor. In conclusion I believe the N35 via DVI is better for DVD viewing although I miss the great MPlay interface.

For TS streams the Roku is better. The N35 has a hard time keeping audio and video sync'd.

For networking since I had already had an external NDAS drive the N35 has worked well. I haven't tried SMB networking on the N35 but I didn't have any
networking issues with the Roku and a NAS once I manually set ip addressing.

These are just my thoughts.

mlm39

12-02-06, 10:41 AM

pkeegan

12-02-06, 02:19 PM

Thanks pkeegan,

My main interest is HD photo and music play with video as a possible future interest. The best players for photo and music seem to be the non-Sigma HD1000 and the AR Mediabridge. Unfortunately, both have been discontinued. Maybe the Xbox360 is the only viable alternative - and it has the potential to keep up with technology, at least for a while.. What do you think?

Mike

If you don't need it for the next 6 months I would wait. Music play can be tricky on any of these machines. Different codecs, codec processing requirements and DRM make universal play nearly impossible to work on any of the machines. Media players are relatively new to the market and many have issues, just look at their forums. Given time hopefully one will come to market that actually works with only limited issues and has a decent interface.

What really bugs me about the media players is that the developers have no real clue as to how to fully integrate these boxes with home theater systems. No discrete IR control for Power On and Power Off. No standard IR input port on the back. Lack of published IR codes (ccf format) as to integrate with home theater remote controls. At least Roku developers did produce the discrete codes for their system and did produce a ccf file but it came later only after people requested it.

I'm not that familiar with the XBOX 360 or the new PS3, although with its cell processor and I believe I read you can install Linux on the PS3, the PS3 has the potential to become a media hub. Time will tell. At the moment i don't think either are ready.

My 2 cents

souwalker

12-06-06, 09:51 PM

Hi
I don't think this question have been asked yet.
Does the N35 display the proper orientation of an jpeg? Say I take a vertical picture. Will the N35 display it vertically (correct orientation) instead of horizontally?
Thanks
Patrick

v770

12-14-06, 11:49 PM

I’m not too big on photos but as I recall, yes. Essentially, what ever the orientation you had on the file will be shown as is.

eleson

12-16-06, 12:29 PM

shannonrawls

12-16-06, 10:39 PM

Does this media player have a "PLAY ALL" function, where it will play video files 1 by 1 in a folder until it plays the last one then stops?

bildirutan.se

12-17-06, 03:38 AM

Yes it does. You have Play All function for movies, pictures and soundfiles.

v770

12-17-06, 10:44 PM

Play options are

1. play one file only
2. play all files once and stop
3. Play all files in a loop
4. play all files in random and stop
5. play all files in random in a loop
6. I’m not completely sure but you should be able to play one file in a loop as well

Rocker_lx

12-21-06, 10:13 AM

I'm seriously considering the N35, but have a further question.

Does it offer a movie / audio resume function. So when I stop watching a movie and power it down, does it start playing it immediately at the position I stopped watching, after powering it up again?

I recently bought a cheap cyberhome DVD / DIVX player with had this feature advertised, but it turned out it was just for DVDs and not for DIVX files.

Thanks.