Viewsonic NexTV VMP75 (has Netflix & Web Browser) - Page 11

OK, well I guess that explains it...but I still think this box had a shabby showing.

CD

I had the same issue w/PlayOn as CD -- I could navigate PlayOn through all the different shows/programs/episodes - but when I finally chose something to watch, I got "File not supported"

I knew that the VMP75 didn't support 'rich content' flash - so I got in touch with PlayOn support (which I do often) because every time they bring out a new release version to fix something, something else breaks - btw if your in the mood for trouble shooting, there's a new version of PO out now - v306.1075 (can't wait to install it and then start emailing PO support)
They told me that PlayOn serves all its' content as MPEG2 - so armed with that info - I called VS CS and explained that PlayOn via UPnP works as far as the navagation goes but when finally clicking on something to watck the "Flie not Supported" message popps up for 'ALL' content offerings - and of course they tried to tell me that it's because the VMP75 doesn't support rich content/flash
When I told him I just contacted PlayOn and they said all content is MPEG2 - all I got from VS CS was Hmmm!, we'll get back to you in 24 to 48 hours - and since August 5th, I'm still waiting for one of those 3 promises to call me back in 1 to 2 days

I'm glad to be rid of both the VMP75s' I recently RMA'd -- but I'm afraid today starts a new era of trouble shooting when my HP MediaSmart server gets delivered
Digital toys can be cruel sometimes

MMMMkay. Last night I talked to a CSR who actually seemed to have some clue, unlike the other guys I've spoken to before.

He had me upgrade WMP from version 9 to version 11 (I never use WMP, so I hadn't done this) and add all my video to its library. Then, in WMP, under "library options" he had me share it, and the VMP75 comes up as a connected device upon which I enabled sharing. Now, my network share shows up under UPnP, and I am able to access everything WMP is able to find on my HDD. Pics, MP3s and videos. The only problem? WMP doesn't support .MKV files so those don't work. Anyone know of a workaround for that?

Also, I used my USB thumb drive to set up a local share on the VMP75, and was able to connect to that from my PCs. So my hypothesis is correct, I can drag and drop files from any of my PCs onto a drive plugged into the usb port on the VMP75.

Still can't navigate from the home screen to any of my Network Folders, however. No one can tell me why the computer named STUDIO shows up under shares, but navigating to //STUDIO/video (which is F:\\video locally) doesn't happen...

It shouldn't.....the WDTV Plus can play Netflix either through the native client or PlayOn. I agree with the rest of your thoughts......

Mine couldnt, I originally bought a WDTV Live Plus and it froze every time it would try and play Netflix through my PlayOn, nothing ever fixed it, plus the native Netflix on my Live Plus gave up the ghost and stopped working all together, WD decided (after 2 weeks of trying to get a reply) that it was defective and I should send it back, so I decided on the popbox since it got release early right as I was sending my WDTV back, got one of those and have been waiting for basic functionality for a month now, no subtitle support, messed up network UI, IMDB issues identifying easy to identify file names and of course other problems, my popbox didnt have any hardware issues like others had and it played every MKV file I have but without subtitles and other UI fixes it was starting to be a pain, just the other day they announced that the next update is still a month away and nothing was specified about WHAT for sure is going to be in that update, so my popbox was sent back today and I ordered one of these, from the sounds of it, it should work great for everything I need it for. I'm also one of those people that have never had network issues with my WDTV (besides PlayOn not working) or the Popbox, my popbox could access my Windows 7 machine easy, a ton of other people could never get it to work, so I'm not sure what people's problems are with their networks, my Viewsonic should be here tomorrow so we will see how things work this time, 3rd times a charm!

about to return this to amazon.com...
the same problem a lot of others have, but no solutions..
NETWORK Shares

i got a SIMPLE windows 2003 server machine, sharing a media folder, inside that folders and video files...

the 75 sees the machine, but never shows me any folders or files, just that annoying message
"no Available file to playback"

anyone solve?

Nope I have the same problem, even simple shares from a Windows XP machine dont work, everything else I've tried out has seen them with no problem, but I can browse through uPnP to get to them which honestly makes no sense, I've tried everything I can think of and there has got to be something in the nextv itself that isnt working right, but since uPnP is what I used on the PS3 to browse to my stuff, I'll just use that for now as it works and streams just the same, I wouldnt send it back just because you cant get to it one way, when another works just fine......

What I dont like though is that viewsonic doesnt have their own forums to discuss any of these problems, even though WD took forever to answer people's questions at least they had their own place for people to talk about their problems and get them worked through, otherwise this box is working great with all my stuff, although there is some weird issue with Netflix, after loading it up and then going back to the main menu it kills my net connection even though I can still get to everything on my network, plus my MKV files arent recognized after that either, this has happened once and I havent tried it again, but after loading Netflix back up my files would then play again, although the internet connection never comes back until I reboot, will have to test this a little bit more

Uh, let's see; it doesn't see your network shares, you have problems with Netflix, your MKV files, and the Internet. It doesn't sound like it's working great with your stuff. What do you consider to be "great"; it works if you know how to tweak it and reboot to get it to work?

More and more, this box sounds like a hunk o' junk.

CD

Same OS and everything works fine. The only special thing I did is set a reserved IP address in the router so I don't have to guess an IP to connect to it with remote desktop as it runs headless. And, as I mentioned before, I'm using specially setup user/password for connecting to it.


I noticed similar problems related to Netflix, but I didn't check if I can browse my network after I got out of Netflix. I do know, however, that web browser shows "Unsupported web page" if I go to google after getting out of Netflix and the only way to fix this is to power-cycle the unit.

as I said I havent tried this again with the Netflix issues, networks shares can still be seen under the uPnP section so that really isnt a problem, sure it would be quicker access to go straight through network shares but I havent figured out what the problem could be yet as its a simple XP machine just sharing drives nothing more. MKV files didnt play one time after exiting Netflix (this is obviously a Netflix issue somewhere) but otherwise everything has worked like a champ if I didnt mess around with Netflix.

Mind you I've owned a WDTV Live Plus and a popbox before I got this one and this has been the best working so far, at least Netflix actually works on this (even though it goofs things up once you exit) which is far better than my Live Plus which had its built in Netflix up and die all together and WD couldnt figure out what was wrong with it, so I then moved on to the popbox, which honestly I probably should have just kept that one and waited for the updates but that was my choice and I got tired of waiting for basic subtitles and audio track changing, plus the IMDB scraping was sometimes really bad and other UI issues were just stupid and needed fixed as well, so now I'm on to this one and so far it hasnt got everything right out of the box either, but it seems Netflix causes a lot of these problems, if I dont run Netflix (which I dont have to really as I have PS3 and Xbox 360) everything works fine besides the networks shares which I said I can still access through uPnP anyways

Did you do anything specific to get the NexTV to see your shares? on the XP machine I just right clicked and shared the folders/drives (either one doesnt seem to work) and made sure everyone could get to them, every other device I've tried has seen these right away, so I have no idea what settings are in the NexTV that cant see simple folder shares in its own network shares section

It seems to me that VMP75 has problems with simple sharing. I'm using advanced sharing and a special user I setup for the media player along. I described my setup for the XP here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post19047028

You can try to replicate this setup and see if it works for you. Let me know if you have any questions.

not to mention, i had the box lock up a few times
ok, back to amazon...

it does seem NO one can product a good media player
they all BLOW!

the funny thing is i just need the basics, QUALITY Studder free playback over wired network, with full HD Audio passthru
and most boxes cant do that well
back to my Egreat m34a, at least its smooth playback

mitch

Don't you mean stutter?

Yeah still no dice, the networking on this thing is really crappy, doesnt matter what I share nothing will show up under network shares on this thing, I'm not even sure how uPnP is even working on my XP machine, only 2 of the four hard drives I have shared actually show up and I cant figure out why, must be something with the software as doesnt this use the same type of chip the WDTV Live does? Not sure if I should keep this one either, no box I've gotten has worked for me out of the uh....box, I've had something wrong with three different brands of these things

Well I did find out something interesting, I use static IPs and the DNS numbers of my cable provider on my PCs, I set the VMP75 back to DHCP and my networks shares disappeared entirely, keeping the DHCP numbers but changing the DNS to match my cable provider made them show back up again (but still no luck getting into them from there), when I get home from work I'm going to change all of them to use the router as the DNS and see if that does anything, obviously not having the same DNS is affecting this box somehow, so another thing to try out if you are having issues

The only way i do my network is Static IP with the DNS as the router on my PC's and networked items. The Viewsonic still doesn't work even with this setup. I've tried everything i can think of and nothing. I'm not sure if it has to do with Windows 7 Home (as i've heard some success with Win 7 Home) being a stripped down version of other Win 7 OS's like Ultimate, Enterprise, Pro etc... I'm tired of waiting for a firmware. I own a Popcorn Hour A-110 and am completely happy with it. I bought this because it's going on a second TV and was a bit lighter on the wallet and i really don't need two devices that have hard drives. I was planning to just stream content from my PC and the A-110 to the VMP75. Not even that works. I have a friend that wants to buy this off of me rather than returning. I'll be seeing him Labor Day weekend. If there isn't a solution from Viewsonic (or even any info as they are the WORST for support) i'll sell it to him and get myself the Popcorn Hour A-200. At least it will work with Windows 7 AND see my A-110 properly. I hate to sound so fed up with this unit but i can't help it

Thanks for everyone looking into possible solutions for this. Unfortunately unless Viewsonic gets their act together i feel that this thing will just go by the wayside and be forgotten. There is a reason that Syabas is as good as they are. They have great forums, release firmware on a regular basis and make good products. Now i know they rushed the Popbox and it has its own demons but i can guarantee they will be resolved and be as stable as the rest of their product line in due time.

another VMP75 review, same network share access issues listed so you are not alone...

Okay I can confirm you all are not going crazy and it doesn't matter what OS you have because its not that issue. My network as follows:

4 PC's all XP SP3
1 Netbook XP SP3
Synology DS209+II NAS/Media Server (kick azz btw...you must get one)
ADSTech Samba NAS
DLink DGL-4500 x2 (one as a repeater)

I bought the VMP75 because it supposedly streams iso's flawless via network shares. FAIL!!! Just like you I can use uPNP just fine and yes if I wanted to convert my entire library from iso's to mkv uPNP would be a perfect solution...but that's not what I want.

Anywho...it doesn't matter what you try to connect to. I can see every device on my network in the network shares feature of the VMP75 but when you go to connect the infamous "No media files found" or whatever msg. uPNP works fine and all my other network devices play nice with each other so it's not a networking issues from MY network perspective. It is a defective SAMBA client on behalf of the VMP75.

I have an escalated ticket in as well but support is borderline horrible from Bangalore and I'm done with this puppy. It's going back to Amazon by Friday if it isn't fixed and by what I'm reading here it aint gonna get fixed that quick.

After reading everything I think it's time owners take proactive action against Viewsonic. What they have done is WRONG! I suggest everyone file BBB complaints and complaints with Ripoff Report and all the other watchdogs out there on the net. I suspect Viewsonic will come up with a fix real quick after that.

I had this EXACT same issue. I would play Netflix fine, and when I would exit back to native VMP75 UI, the weather would not show (meaning it didn't have a connection.)

The thing I did to fix mine is disable DHCP. Has been working fine ever since! Like others it would seem that not only is the Samba client on the VMP75 bugged, but DHCP might have some issues as well. I'm using an Alfa WiFi dongle BTW (recommended on Viewsonic's site)

I tested it with DHCP enabled. When I get out of the Netflix I can browse my network shares and still play files from them, but all Internet content doesn't work. It' either "Unsupported page" for the browser and YouTube (which is run through the browser) or Network connection problems for things like Flickr.

As I understand, the Netflix client completely takes over the network connection on the hardware level when started and when you get out of it the regular firmware fails to re-initialize DHCP correctly. I think that DNS portion is the problem in this case as my internal network works fine.

I would think that, as you suggest, disabling DHCP and assigning static IP and DNS should resolve this, but it's a bug nevertheless.

Your Samba network shares work? Are you sure about that? Nobody elses is?

Yes, network shares work for me with three different windows os (still want to test some linux distros, but don't have time) and I didn't have a single problem with it right form the start. I mentioned this multiple times in this thread and looks like I'm the only one without a problem.

Every time I read this thread I'm starting questioning if it really works , but it does. Being a "networking guy" by the trade I still do not understand what is so different about my network and why it works for me.

What make and model router?

What makes me really freakin angry is that Viewsonic had to know this problem existed and I'm now going on 2 days to hear from their socalled escalation department. They don't know me too well. Every minute I wait is going to translate into lost revenue. I own several websites and the word is already out...don't buy this product. I hope their marketing department is following this thread...tick tick = $$ down the drain because I have one huge blogging mouth.

The samba client on the VMP75 is severely broken. It's able to see my shares on my FreeBSD server running Samba v3.4.8, but it's unable to connect to any of them. However, it will connect to the shares on my Windows 7 box, but playback of any large blu-ray rip is jerky at best. Now if I share out my blu-ray collection via UPnP it plays everything great, including the highest bitrate movies such as Avatar or Transformers. It even bitstreams TrueHD and DTS-HD audio flawlessly.

The main issue I'm having is with PGS subtitles, the timing is way off which seems to make it miss following subtitles, and they look a bit blurry. Also, the 24Hz sync setting could use more work. Even with its faults it's still my current player of choice for watching my blu-ray collection. My current collection of streamers in order of preference include the VMP75, Popbox, WDTV Live, and bringing up the rear is the Xtreamer Sidewinder.

Thanks!

The router is whatever Verizon supplies for it's FiOS service, Actiontec MI424WR. All my desktops and VMP75 plugged in to the TRENDnet switch, TEG-S80g, which connected to that router and my laptop connected to the router through 802.11g.


I believe it was mentioned on this forum, SAMBA uses TCP, UPnP uses UDP. UDP has much less overhead and that is most likely why your BR rips play better using UPnP.


You realize that Viewsonic doesn't even claim that unit supports PGS subtitles? I guess we're lucky that it does.


What kind of problems you have with 24Hz? It seems to work fine but maybe I don't know what to look for? If the file is 23.976 my TV shows 24p.

Verizon FiOS Router
Model #: MI424WR (Next Gen) for Verizon FiOS
The Verizon FiOS Router, a fiber optic, broadband wireless router for Verizon FiOS digital homes, packs in more features and performance capabilities than any other fiber router on the market. It is the first device to feature a dual-core, 64-bit processor that allows it to support home networking speeds over to 100 Mbps and permits FiOS TV and other content to be distributed to multiple devices in the home over coaxial cable. The router supports MoCA, Ethernet and wireless networking.
Premier router used in Verizon FiOS homes
Superior routing and networking capabilities
Industry's first dual-core 64-bit processor
Able to support speeds well beyond 100 Mbps
Enterprise Level Security
Customizable firewall
Stateful Packet Inspection
Denial of Service protection
Content Filtering/Parental Controls
Intrusion Detection
WPA and WEP WiFi encryption
Hardware-enabled QoS (Quality of Service)
8 input and 8 output channels
Frees up CPU for other bandwidth needs
TR-69+ Remote Management

The Actiontec Routers are really not very good. I have three of them here that FiOS sent me over the last three years. My Dlink DGL4500 produces much faster speeds than the Actiontec, plus the FiOS Actiontec routers are only 100mbs. I can get over 900mbs throughput on my internal network through my DGL4500.
But you need the Actiontec if you are using any FiOS STB boxes or are using MoCA to the FiOS ONT. I use the ethernet connection on my ONT and I don't use any FiOS STBs any more. But I do periodically change my setup and have an Actiontec connected to the ONT and my DGL connected to tha Actiontec or I just have my DGL4500 connected directly to the ONT, which is the setup I'm currently using.

Actually I'm using uShare and it's running on TCP port 49152, which I verified by doing a packet sniff. Regardless, it shouldn't matter as the hardware is more then capable of streaming blu-rays via Samba as my other Sigma based streamers do it without issue.


It also doesn't say anything about streaming HD audio in the specs, but it does that perfectly. Hopefully they fix the PGS subtitles soon as that's currently the only thing holding it back for being a great device for streaming blu-ray M2TS files.


I was having an issue where it wouldn't switch out of 24p after stopping a movie, but I just turned on "Auto Sync" again and it now appears to be working fine, maybe it was just a fluke.

Simple way to remedy the network shares problem is to just use a program like Tversity on your PCs, everything should then work through uPnP without any issue, all my Divx movies and TV Shows play natively through Tversity to my Viewsonic, no conversions or slow downs or stutters it just streams right to the box, so I'm just using that right now till things get fixed up with the Samba.....other than this my issues seem to be very minimal, but I think I'm missing my popbox more and more even though it was missing basic things