Official Denon AVP-A1HD/AVP-A1HDCI and POA-A1HD/POA-A1HDCI owners thread. - Page 503

Are you using HDMI Control? Or alternately, do you have a power-up macro programmed into your remote that might be selecting the input or a Quick Select option?

Just to be clear, you have your STB plugged into HDMI1 (DVD) and you want that to be the default input when you power up? The AVP should always go to the last-used input unless another commend or HDMI Control changes it.

[BTW, I suspect the problem is HDMI Control is turned on somewhere.]

That's exactly what it is.. make sure it's off on both the AVP and TV.

I just figured it out!! My Mits has CEC control(what the hell ever that is) and when I activate it, the Mits now turns the AVP and POA on and off when it starts up or shuts down. Neat feature!

CEC Control = HDMI Control.

= One of the worst "features" in the HDMI protocol. Nothing but trouble.

hehe ..

Daniel.

Why is the CEC a bad control? Now that I have it set, it seems to be working fine for me!

Howdy,

I have a question I'd like cleared up on updating.

I know it is considered a "no no" to attempt updates via wireless. But I assume that is only 802.11b/g etc.

The reason I ask is that I receive internet to my house via wireless (~850mhz NextG), not cable. But I update the unit while directly connected to my modem/router.

Can anyone see a problem with this? Just to be clear, I'm not connecting to the AVP via wireless, but cat6 cable.

Cheers
Jamie

Hey, maybe it'll work for you. But it's pretty crude and more often than not exhibits unwanted behaviors. For example, just changing your TV input might power on/off other equipment or change their inputs when all you really want is that one initial operation. I find that even the most basic programmable remotes accommodate more complex macros and more fine-tuned control of multi-component setups.

Not sure what your mean about your internet access (it's actually delivered wirelessly to your house?), but my AVP is connected in a similar fashion. It's connected via ethernet cable to a wireless bridge on my 802.11n network, so it "thinks" it has a wired connection, even though it's really not.

Its all about having a stable connection, if you feel its stable you should use it. Even if it locksup changes are you can recover but there is extra risks. Its not black/white even with a wire you can have a bad connection. In the end its your call and how you feel your connection is.

Daniel.

progprog, yes I get internet over the cellular network. I'm in a country area and don't have access any other way.

danielo, I consider my connection very stable. It almost never drops out (maybe 3x over 2 years) Its a 2mbps speed connection, so quite reasonable. And I don't remember the last time I downloaded something that got corrupted during the process.

I'll add that I have had my AVP in at the repairer for 4 months now!! (parts come sea freight ex Japan) after I was updating, and it got half way through and came up with an error.
Its going to be a very lengthy and expensive repair bill, and I don't want it to happen again. Therefore I am trying to ascertain if the problem occurred due to my connection, or if it would have happened regardless.

I bought it secondhand. Although now it is going to cost me the price of a new one, once repaired!! Grrrrr. I haven't used it once either!

If it's still at the repair shop, maybe you could have them install any outstanding firmware updates before getting it back to you.

Hai,

@wilsonj, sorry to hear that your avp has been in the shop for 4 months, Maybe you should get D&M involved. So far the general consensus was that the A1 line gets/should get special attention it almost sounds like your repear shop is not part of that extra level of support. Not good hope it will be resolved for you now.

On a general note, work on DMS (Denon Management Server) is going ok, I worked on DACP this weekend so we can control itunes running on remote machines (AppleTV, mac mini's) and its kinda working the idea is that DMS controls the library remote and controls what comes into the denon proccessor. Now it seems that Apple doesn't want to tell us how DACP works (funny) someone decoded it for Android support but there are holes in how it works (stable) so i am reverse engineering it myself watching every byte that comes over the line and thats a lot of work and many aha moments. Got the DMS and AppleTV to pair up and send simple commands sofar so its looking good its just a little unstable .

Daniel.

PS: for more on both DMS and my flash application see the remote area.

PS: changes are Apple will refuse my app with DACP support, so we might have to use jailbroken itouches.

yikes thats no good ! out of curiosity, was this with the first firmware upgrade the unit had ever had ? because I can only ever remember this kind of thing in the very very early days. And since with a subsequent update they made sure after downloading an update, it thoroughly checked it over before applying. If any errors occur, you just abort the update start over and it just takes off where left off.

Denon do not recommend doing updates over wireless, I do wonder if doing the update over a "cellular network" is similar to doing the update via wireless. As that too was attributed to issues early on and various warnings posted including on the apg website not to utilise wireless for updates.

regardless hopefully it all gets sorted soon wilsonj not good at all ! the denon avp-a1hd is one serious piece of equipment, hopefully can get it goign soon to enjoy what it has to offer

Agree, get them to sort it out so if there is a problem it can be sorted straight away.

I really think that, from the AVP's perspective, that's not the same as wireless. The AVP only knows whether it's connected via the ethernet port or via the wireless antenna. Whatever form the network takes further upstream is irrelevant, so long as it's a stable connection.

There are several of us who have our AVP on a wireless home network, but connected through a wireless bridge. The AVP, for all practical purposes, is "hardwired" and I don't recall anyone ever having issues with firmware updates when using this setup. I think it's the AVP's actual wireless hardware/software that yields a less-stable connection.

I am on WISP with no issues.

wireless can have issues, and just wondering if this "cellular network" can have the same. Cellular networks arent the best in oz, certainly not my experience of them especially in country/regional locations.

The problem was prior to the update they put in that checks downloads before applying them. Was why I asked wilson if this was the first update the avp had ? since then the risk with wireless is much reduced. the warning on using wireless is still on our local denon website and not something they recommend. I use my avp over a wireless network too, but always wire up for software updates. Perhaps no risk now, but I'd rather be safe than sorry

All of this highlights the need, I think, of offering alternate ways to update. Providing for USB updates would accommodate folks who have unstable connections, as well as those (there really are people like this out there!) who don't have internet access at all. Many manufacturers will send out their updates on a USB stick for those folks.

Al, yes this was the first update! I wasn't aware that later ones verified the update before applying it. Hmmmm.

I am pretty confident of the Next G network. I get excellent reception with no drop outs ever. Only time was when the tower was being updated and transmission was turn off. This didn't happen during the update of the AVP btw.

I might contact the Denon distributors to get their opinion also.

I'd certainly rather updates via USB key. It might not be as streamlined, but its more reliable in my mind.

I really doubt we will ever see USB updates come back to denon devices, There are several reasons why they want to use online updates one of them is selling features other is the many different versions they now have as a result.

Daniel.

I do get those reasons, but don't you think it's pretty unrealistic/unfair to expect that every single owner has their AVP online? (Even most BD player makers don't assume that.) It just seems kind of bizarre to leave some owners completely out of luck with no way to update....

Yeah, these days it's a bit overblown. Most A/D is done at 24/96 or better, and that's pretty transparent.

All of my audio actually winds up going through another $5K box that applies 24/96 A/D - D/A so it can perform all my speaker crossovers and alignments (and a wee bit of EQ on the sub). It's pretty transparent, more so than a bunch of capacitors and coils ever could be

BTW- I spent hours this weekend figuring out how to cleanly convert all my .WAV files to FLAC, and to do so with metadata intact.

Way harder than it seems. But I now have a some scripts and configs that will do this (and quite configurable at that) for large (>1,600 albums) data sets.

If anyone has huge amounts of wav files and is looking for an easy way to automate the conversion, I'll consider writing a Blog post about this (and sharing the scripts & configs).

One caveat, you must have MP3 or other format with metadata of the tracks in the same directory. That's where we grab the corresponding track info once the .wav is converted to FLAC.

And on the topic of FLAC and DLNA playback on our AVP's, you all need to go check out the latest versions of the Linn software:

http://oss.linn.co.uk/trac

The Kinsky Control Point is pretty slick. It allows you to manage what's playing on your AVP without putting up with the sub-par AVP UI.

Very interesting to see that several brands are now moving to 'non-disc' solutions. I also like some of the points linn makes.

I think we will end up with 2 ways to doing things the dlna way or the itunes way. For now i am going first for the itunes way because i think it has a lower total cost of ownership. If i aim all on a mac mini ($500ish) you should have a total solution that i will be able to integrate into/as a DMS node and can do it all, no external rippers, harddisks, rs232 convertors are needed anymore. Nice thing ofcourse is that it can also be a dlna server itself.

On the topic of getting your metadata you have been working on, i was also pondering how todo that infact until i found out the internal streamer of the avp sucked (control) i was planning on 'stealing' the xml files itunes uses. So you import all into say wav into a itunes it adds all the meta info you copy to DMS (that reads the xml) and add/convert to flac in the same dir. Now that i am able to talk to itunes using DACP i can just read all and store them in xml and use them in a cached way until something is added to a itunes lib.

All very interesting things, maybe 2010 will be the year brands move to the new world lets hope denon also agreed that the internal USB/DLNA/IPOD/ITUNES integration sucks form a user and CI point of view.

Daniel.

I thought it might have been. yep since that initial update it now downloads updates, checks it over and only then applies it. If there is an error in the download you can just abort the update, switch off and switch back on and it just picks up where left off.

applying updates can be a pretty risky thing, we're lucky denon even alows us to do that. companies like yamaha, nad, marantz and onkyo for instance require you to bring your avr or processor into their service centre to get updates done.

to be honest have found the update process pretty fuss free myself and happy we have the option to keep units upto date.


I agree, doubt we'll see usb updates. one of the main reasons being they dont want the unscrupulous getting hold of the update and trying to crack it and all sorts of beta versions popping up all over the place as happened with the tosh hd-dvd players for instance.


I actually know a couple of avp owners who have never ever done an update since purchase a year and a half ago ! whenever I ask them if they have updated theirs they ask why

I guess thats the beauty of the AVP. been rock solid since day one and just works and a real polished design with any updates being more about a bit of finesse around the edges

Speaking of updates, any news on the latest 13min update posted by Danielo about a week ago? So far it didn't show up on my avp.

Yep, lots of room for improvement in the UI's.

Some vendors, Such as Meridian-Sooloos have done a really great job on both the UI's and the audio quality. But one pays a price.

I think DLNA has the best chance of seeing widespread adoption by the CE industry, as it is open standards, has a good bit of manufacturer support and the dev community is coming along on control points and servers.

The Apple ecosystem is another one that will flourish; since it's a vertically integrated solution, it generally wins on the user experience front.
Where it sometimes falls short is in things like support of more open standards (like FLAC), or in delivering ultimate audio quality (unless using bit-perfect transports, but that's hard to do sometimes).

I documented where I think a lot of this is going in this article.