Netgear NeoTV 550 - Page 200

After using the WD Live I was assuming you could do such and never gave it a thought. My current plan barring anything I'm over looking... is to copy new content to a new folder... and transfer them to the main folder once they aren't so new.

Actually it would be a simple thing to create a new Genre [these are free form anyway]. So you could create "New", "Charles", "Oscar" etc. Tag editing is easy.

Once you've watched the movie, edit the tag to remove the word New from the Genre. This is faster than moving the movie to another drive and cleaner in my opinion.

Kurt

Thanks. I'm not sure it's easier (or faster) but it's certainly slicker to a large degree. As long as I move the movie to a folder on the same NAS (drive) it's instantaneous. However, I do like the ability to have different Genres... so I'll probably use the Tag. Tag Suite makes editing the tag easy and I'll play around as soon as I get a chance.

Update: Using Tag Suite to create new Genres worked great.

I'm thinking of getting one of these for playback of TV recordings (MPEG2, .ts) from a network share but reading through the manual I still have some questions that I was hoping an owner could help me out with:

1) Can you skip ahead and back easily while watching video? For example, a remote button press will skip 30 seconds forward and a different button will skip back 10 seconds. Ideally this would be configurable.

2) If you watch a file that is recording will the player recognize this and update the duration continuously or will it just stop at the duration when it initially loaded the file requiring you to restart playback from the beginning with a new duration?

3) Is there a way to delete files from a network share?

Thanks for any help.

I tried watching a capture of the HBO show, Game of Thrones, a few weeks ago. A TS file - the neotv played for a few seconds, then the screen went blank and the audio went into infinite repeat. I had to powercycle the NeoTV.

Remuxing the ts into an MKV didn't work -it crashed again.

To be fair, tsmuxer refused to convert it into an m2ts file. There must be something messed up with the TS file. I am 90% sure a Dune would have no problems, but I don't have a Dune.

The NeoTV is only good for gapless music playback and ISO playback. Nothing else is stable. Get a Dune if you need TV recording playback, or use an HTPC.

@maxleung I and many others can only disagree with you.. Im using it 90% for video/tvshows/movies only and internet streaming radio. Never had issues.

Now I need some advice:
I have an external 500GB Samsung drive that I want to connect via eSATA (or USB, external hdd case has both connectors) on the NeoTV 550. I will store my media on it and it can function as cache.

Via my PC, I will access the connected Samsung drive via WLAN (this should be possible, access harddisk attached to the Neotv) and download my utorrent movies/tvshows on the drive.

Would you recommend the external harddisk to be FAT32 (its fat32 now) or NTFS? Wich one is best for NeoTV?

EDIT: Since FAT32 doesn't allow files bigger than 4GB, and I will download MKVs that can be bigger.. one Logical NTFS partition is the way to go.

You've answered your own question.

Well - I can only go by my own experiences - it's a troublesome player for mkvs (even itunes-sourced ones) and TV captures, while my WDTV has no problems at all.

It's hit and miss with the NeoTV - to avoid that hassle I'll just use the WDTV or HTPC. For ISOs, the NeoTV is quite good though (aside from subtitle sync in PGS, which I can work around by choosing movies where people don't talk much, or stick with 60 hz output only).

The last thing I want to do is give crbaldwin a false report on the capabilities of the NeoTV. It would be a great disservice if he invests in a NeoTV and discovers a significant percentage of his caps will not work when there are better solutions out there. Of course, I am making the assumption that he doesn't mind spending more on a player like a Dune that has good support, yet costs 2x or 3x as much.

Thanks for the reply. I did try the new WDTV Live SMP and while it did play the recordings fine it wasn't very usable for me because it has no skip forward/back and trying to fast forward and stop at the desired location was a nightmare. So that's why I asked this about the NeoTV.

Are you willing to remux your recordings into an MKV container and see if the skipping works better for you?

Probably not unless the NeoTV has "true" skipping like I described for MKVs (the WD Live SMP doesn't support it for any video type).

With a Harmony remote you can add a key sequence to handle skip forward and backwards 10-minutes to the WDTV SMP. Sequence is >, >>l, "play btn" for skip forward. Reverse all for skip back.

On the Neo you can punch in the time stamp for a jump to that location. I find that feature the most helpful. Then I can FF or RW to the exact spot I'm looking for. On MKV movies you can go directly to chapters. I've never had a problem on MKV rips using MakeMKV. I used to have some audio issues on VC-1 encodings with TrueHD, but that seems to have been fixed some time ago with the MakeMKV software.

Thanks for the replies but I just want to easily skip forward and back a few seconds from the current position so based on your comments/suggestions that is not possible.

@ crbaldwin

It is possible, but not in easy way. If you hit TmSeek button on remote, then current time is displayed and you may go to specific time (hh:mm:ss) of the movie.

I had high hopes for the 550 model considering its current price point. Unfortunately, the unit went back into the box it came with barely after 1 hour of use. Main reason is its spotty network performance.

My current setup:
- WDTV Live Plus
- Gigabit wired network
- Media stored on two Win7 PCs

My WDTV works great and I can browse my media collection on it with ease: just a quick scroll through folders on a share, select a file and voila!
The same could not be accomplished on the NTV550 which displayed "no media found" or something like that on those rare occasions when it could actually see my files. Most of the time though, it couldn't.

My quest for a good bitstreaming player continues. Next up is Micca ep600 G2.

 

It might never end as user error is probably coming into play (or user setup). I have both players (new version of the WDTV) and the 550 is flawless in finding my media and playing it via several NAS devices complete with tags. If one (only) wants HD playback which happens to be what I'm looking for it's beyond a bargain.

Dune!

My guess is you were trying to use media server functionality (which I use with my WD in order to get good network performance).
On the Neo, that is very flaky and not the way to go. Network shares work perfectly on the Neo (and do not work well network wise on the WD).
Try network shares... For $85 bucks for a Neo, I am considering a second. Never met a perfect media player, but I love the neo.

1 hour of troubleshooting?

I had to fiddle with the nas settings and eventually swap a new network switch to finally get close to flawless use. i still occasionally get a constant menu pop-up on a couple of bluray iso's - which doesn't even happen everytime which makes it difficult to diagnose, but i'd say my success rate on iso playback is over 95%

Yes but the price ... ouch!
My plan is to try out the Micca and save over $200 if the player does what I want it to do (solid network performance, bitstream everything, decent menu structure and excellent video)
If not, I'd have to decide between the Dune and building me a sub-$400 HTPC with the new bistreaming version of XBMC or JRiver.
Dune is an excellent player (from what I've gathered so far). Heck, it might be THE ONLY player worth buying but I'm not ready to spend that kind of money on a 2-year old chipset.
Besides, with Amazon's help trying out different players is fun.

I hear you. Call me lazy but there was absolutely no reason for the Neo to struggle with my network. Heck if the WDTV does it well then I expect the next player to do it well too. Maybe my Neo was defective. I am glad you and others have better luck with it.

Let me know how the micca is. If it does 3D bluray iso's, I might get one.

Does micca do full menus for bd iso's??

From what i've read so far, it does: http://www.amazon.com/review/ROYZPLVL12TG/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_1
At least according to Christopher A. Pearcy's review.

With Amazon's return policy it's a no brainer. Go for it. I am waiting for my NeoTV return to post first.

Are we reading the same post? He states that he can NOT get 3D blu ray menus to work and neither could I when I had it. I have about 6 TB's of 3D iso's so I would like menus when possible. My oppo 93 is the only thing that plays them at this point reliably.

Micca EP950 / 600 G2 play 3D movies, but a lot of people have issues with a few saying its flawless.

Ah, my apologies. Although it does support 3D BD ISOs people seem to have problems with the menus. I've missed that part.

The current WDTV Live SMP does have a jump to timecode function and also a skip by 10 minutes function. It also supports MKV chapters.
The previous WDTV Live Plus has MKV chapters support and 10 minute skip function but no timecode jump option.

Regards.

Lt. Dang

I tried searching with little success and I know I'm very late to the party but I'm just starting to think about ripping my CDs to a ReadyNAS (network share) for playback on the NeoTV 550... and I'm wondering if there is a best app or whatnot for getting album covers. etc. I'll probably rip to FLAC or MP3 320 kbps. iTunes can handle MP3 with my Mini however I'll have to go looking for something if I decide to use FLAC.

 

I use Tag Suite for my MKVs and it works wonderfully... just trying to find its match for music.