Netgear NeoTV 550 - Page 151

colors are very deep
just kidding no deep color for those wondering

The devs pretty much nailed it with .309.
'The Thomas Crown Affair' which peaks at ~48 Mbs now runs smoothly with only a (very) brief audio interruption when the Audio select button is invoked. With .308 it was unwatchable.

Star Trek (2009) also runs without stutter at ~ 44 Mbs peak rates.
Tested both with Subtitles enabled and Audio set to DB THD and DTS HD MA and Video at 1080/24p.

I should add that the 'The Thomas Crown Affair' is not only the highest bit rate movie I have but it is an intriguing movie.

Any idea if Damian got to review it?

I won't speak for Damian, but AnandTech does have the NTV 550 for review. Waiting for the go-ahead from the project manager / lead dev before publishing it ( which means, there are multiple bugs which have been reported from our side, pending fixes )

Very unusual for them to bypass their normal beta process. I gather they want broad testing on the SMB BluRay ISO issues ASAP.

Though 309 does fix that, I saw some lockups I hadn't seen before - I posted details in the Netgear forum. I don't know yet if they were related to SMB or not.

Avatar 3D ISO...

Also posted this in the Netgear forum, but maybe some folks here can confirm the issue.

3D BluRays are authored quite cleverly - the SSIF (3D) files and the M2TS files point to the same physical sections of the disk in order to save space. So if you use AnyDVD HD to "save to image", you get a 48 GB ISO. But if you save to a folder, you get 96 GB of data.

The AnyDVD HD ISO locks up on the NTV after a couple of minutes (when the shuttle is landing on Pandora). Someone else independently confirmed this with their own rip - it freezes at the same spot on their system.

It'd be nice to know if this is unique to Avatar, or if this happens with other 3D titles - 2x the space is not nice.

Unusual indeed, probably a one time incident. Maybe if more users cooperate they will see the light and continue posting the betas. No isos nor stuttering here so can't help on this one.

There is a thread on remotecentral with Pronto Hex format for these:

http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin...i?6247#1058364

Let me know if they work.

And is there a way to get these codes into a Logitech Harmony? Or do we just have to wait until Logitech updates the profile for the Neo? Typically I have used these codes in my Pronto and then had the Harmony learn them from the Pronto. Wondering if I missed something and there might be an easier way.

You can do it yourself.

http://members.harmonyremote.com/Eas...owInfrared.asp

Although the guy over at Remotecentral says the codes won't work.

If any posters have this 5 disc edition of Blade Runner try this.

It plays fine from BDMV but the mkv version will freeze the video when subs are enabled.
This movie is one of 4 I have that use THD and subs and is by far the worst case. Just enabling subs and leaving the audio on DB digital (not THD) will cause the freeze although with some it takes a combo of THD and Subs to freeze the video.
The combo of TDH/VC1 with subs enabled causing problems with the 550 has been posted here and on the NG forums.

Moreover after this freeze the 550 is unable to play anything, ISO, BDMV VOB etc.
I then use the web interface to the Neo to do a restart, no need to remove power.
I don't remember how this rip was done, not with anydvd but most likely with a version ea3cto.

Interesting. I've never seen that webpage before and I program my Harmony through the Web UI most the time. Thanks for the link.

Looking forward to Ganesh,

I had a release unit. Good features, but slow booting plus frequent freeze ups got me lol.

I would love to give it another try, possibly add BDROM to it, but once stable and hiccups ironed!

holy crap! Been using a Harmony for YEARS and never have seen that either!

I just received my 550 today. I hooked it up via hdmi, and get no video
out hdmi. I have tried 2 different tv's (samsung and lg). I have tried
going through my receiver switching (pioneer), I have tried going through
a monoprice switcher as well. No hdmi output. I have also changed hdmi
cables. If I use the crappy composite cable it comes with, I can get a
display. Is there anything special one needs to do to get hdmi output?
The 1 page sheet it comes with says to check the user manual for display
issues. I put the cd in the computer, and navigate to the web site, and it
says there is no manual for the 550 yet.

very disappointed with the product so far. I am evaluating replacement for
my 4 Accoustic Research DMP3000's media players. I have already tried a
boxee box, and it worked. I must say I like the remote and the physical
form factor of the 550 better than the boxee.

thanks

buz

The top right of the remote has a button labeled TV Mode.
Press that repeatedly until you get a signal.

Likewise.

Had updated to newest beta 309?. Several of my mkv's stopped working. Blank screen with sound. So I back dated to the 268. As it restarted it wanted to update to 275. Did that and now my mkv's are playing fine. Then I opened firefox and it said an update was ready. A night of updates.

Netgear unlike Boxee keeps the to do list secret. Is your bug list secret as well or can you give us a rundown? I'd like to know what bugs are being worked on.

As usual I can't fault the hardware (especially in neo's case - acceptable quality & looks, nice form factor case, same for remote) but the firmware is terrible. I wish there was a software company making firmware for sigma chips.

Most important thing on the plate is not even a bug My review will go out only after Netflix is enabled.

The priority of the devs is what the user wants (for example, stuttering over SMB wasn't even in the list of bugs I submitted because I always first test things from a local USB drive. If it doesn't work over local USB, I don't even bother to test over the network).

Some of the bugs that I have reported are as below (filenames refer to our test suite number):

1. Under Audio Passthrough settings, I still can't see an option to decode AAC to LPCM. I see Stereo, HDMI and SPDIF passthrough. However, some of the multi-channel AAC tracks did get decoded to multi-channel LPCM in the 'Stereo' setting'. I believe this just needs to be fixed in the settings GUI.

2. 1080p60 H264 playback is still not perfect [ 004-1080p60.x264.8ref.mkv ]

3. TrueHD m2ts gives static to receiver when set to HD audio passthrough [ 009-TrueHD.6Ch..m2ts ]. (Receiver in my testbed is Onkyo 606)

4. After file in (3) was played, subsequent attempts to playback some files resulted in video not being displayed [ 010-1080p24.x264.AAC.mp4 , for example ]. Choosing a few more files to play back made it OK again.

5. [ 011-FLAC.6Ch.ASS.Subs ] subtitles display is much more broken than it was in v275. Earlier, the subtitles with effects tried to appear on top, but now it appears at the bottom. Around 20 - 30 seconds into the clip, both audio and video as well as the subtitles started to freeze and stutter badly.

6. [ 038-1080p25.AVC.AAC.6Ch.MOV.mov ] didn't play back even though codecs are supported.

7. [ 048-PGSForcedSub.mkv ] : Subtitles are off by default. I think default behaviour should be 'forced subtitles on'. Any case, I turned forced subtitles on. After the forced subs started appearing, the clip just crashed in the middle of the forced subs.

Again, I have no idea what priority the devs are giving to these bugs. And this is just a subset of the bugs I had reported for v275.

Ganesh, can neo play back, dvd audio image file as lpcm?

Using firmware 312, here's the results of some brief tests with SMB ISOs:

1. I saw no stutter at all on the WHS servers. Every test that stuttered in the past is now working as expected.

2. Stutter which had been more pronounced with WHS 2011 RC is gone.

3. I can now stream SMB ISOs from two 550s simultaneously. I was never able to do that before.

4. I ran Network Test on two 550s simultaneously. After 5 minutes of watching, I never saw a drop below 62Mbps.

All this indicates that Netgear devs have resolved the SMB and SMB ISO issues.

Does anyone ever have a problem with the screen going completely blank when you turn on the 550?

It does this for me from time to time, and I have to unplug the unit and plug it for it to come on.

I know the HDMI signal is getting through to my TV, because if I use the control to go to videos, and continaully hit Ok, it will show the the UI with the timebar at the bottom of the screen, but I don't see any menus, or video, just this timebar.

Kinda weird, just wondering if anyone else has seen this.

zoro, Our test suite doesn't have a DVD-Audio test stream. In fact, you are the first person I have encountered who has asked for that to be tested I am trying to source one to add to our tests.

BobSalita can you link the 312 ?


Is anyone else having problems with stuttering on full blu ray directory dumps?
I would assume this would be easier to play than the same thing in an iso but I don't know.

Play fine when I convert them to mkv.

Just change the number at the end of the link for 309.

There is in 312 - check it out 720p - not working for me though, colours went awol... My amp & TV are deep colour enabled

If you have any hex codes which you know work, you can also e-mail support at logitech and ask them to add them your account.

Many Thanks

@zoro

I just tried playing an image of my Eagles - Hotel California dvd-audio disc. This was ripped/cloned via dvdfab. As expected the NeoTV found the image but plays it as if it is a DVD player, not a DVD-Audio player. This means when played the dvd image presents a menu showing the DTS and DD playlists, but not the hi-res lossless playlists.

FWIW, I then tested the iso by mounting it as a virtual disc in my computer - I was able 'rip' the hi-res from the iso via dvda-explorer, so the iso is fine.

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EDIT: I just tried to play the DD and DTS playlists but was not successful. There probably was a problem with the way these particular ISOs were created. When/if I get a chance I'll unpack them into folders and try again (or even re-rip the discs) just to see what happens.