Netgear NeoTV 550 - Page 3

WHAT!!! you didn't spend your whole weekend catering to the obsessive needs of the AVSforum members.

Thanks for the info...who knows, maybe they activated the esata port for external BD drives in the new firmware.


On a separate note, i saw an older post from Engadget stating that the FCC is documenting a Roku/Netgear box, the "Negear Roku XD".

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/02/r...r-hit-the-fcc/

Could it be that the online streaming stuff will be available on this combo box, and not the Netgear only box? Seems strange, but why would they be partnering with Roku if they've got this new box coming out? NDA on this combo unit lifts on Oct. 23.


----edit----

just did a bit more looking around, and it looks like this Netgear/Roku device will be called the NTV250. That sounds a lot like Neo TV to me!

Now, wouldn't it be a shame if the 550 can stream a plethora of local content (BD isos, etc), and the 250 gets Roku's nice web implementation! Please don't segment your lineup like that...let's hope the 550 gets all of the Roku web streaming goodness, and the 250 is just missing BD licensing etc.

How did you come to this conclusion?
I assumed all media players at this point cannot play gapless.

I, too, have been comparing this player with the Dune models.
If it can play all my high rez music files (ape, wav, wave-dts, flac & flac multichannel), I will not hesitate a purchase.
What drew me to the Dune series is that they play just about any music file.
I could care less about the video side of it (though, it would be an added bonus) because I have an OPPO BDP-83 that will play my AVI & MKV files.
Another thing that the Dune models have going for them is firmware support.
I hear that the firmware support on the Netgear isn't very good.

I can confirm the Neo will do gapless playback. It has been a long awaited feature. The only caveat is you have to tell the Neo to play the entire album.

I can confirm it will play WAV, DTS and FLAC. I have no samples of FLAC multichannel to try. I was going to check out APE this morning, but my unit crashed and was hanging on rebooting. I did not have time before work to troubleshoot the issue.

As for video on demand services, I can only say there is a main menu item for this, but when you enter that menu, there is a message that says something like "not yet implemented" or "Coming later". My guess is they are hammering out all the legal issues before they turn on the code.

Netgear is actually pretty good about firmware, contrary to what some people believe. But there are some people out there that aren't happy their EVA8000 isn't supported under Windows 7 and feel Netgear should put out another firmware. Same for the 9150 after YouTube made changes and broke YouTube playback. And I will agree the last beta firmware released for the 9150 has some major bugs in it, and another firmware has been promised.

It is true the updates have stopped since the Neo firmware has been under developement. I think some people got spoiled with their 8000 and the almost weekly firmware updates. But to me that just says the unit was released way too early if they were producing that many updates. Granted there were many new features added, but also a lot of bug fixes. I look at other products I own who put out maybe one firmware a year. I guess it all comes down to your expectations.

Thanks for the review. An extract below:
"The Neo can decode the following:

Dolby TrueHD – can decode to 2.0 or 5.1 channels
Dolby Digital Plus – can decode to 2.0 or 5.1 channels
DTS HD Master Audio – can decode to 2.0 channels"

Is there any reason the formats can't be decoded to 8ch pcm? Is it a firmware issue and will it be fixed?

Where/When can I buy one?

Hi. In addition to robkwil's confirmation, the review (link earlier in the thread) confirms this.

That's great news about the gapless robkwil61. I'm also very interested in multichannel FLAC (I've ripped a lot of my rock DVD-Audio discs to my hard drive)... if interested/willing to test 5.1 FLAC, below are a couple of links for some test multichannel flac that I found:

FLAC test files in 24bit 88.2kHz 5.1:
http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-down...testfiles.aspx

FLAC 24BIT/96kHz (but these ones are larger):
http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html

Either way, thanks for the testing and posting that you've already done.

Sherbona,

The review that is linked to above states the specs for the 550, and the specs state that FLAC up to 5.1 is supported (up to 192 kHz)

Any word at all on price?

Kelson,

According to the Anandtech article (link of 1st page), the MSRP is $219.

us $219.99, 199.99, £149.99

This is great to hear but it doesn't state at what bit rate (16/192 kHz or 24/192 kHz).
Sorry, but I just need to be sure before a purchase.
After all, it all has to be implemented in the firmware for it to work correctly.
I'd be happy if it just did up to 24/96 kHz.

I'd sure would like to know if it plays ape files.

$199.99 would be a better price.

Thanks! I missed that... since supported and working aren't always the same thing, I'm still hoping for an actual test result at some point (i.e., to make sure it works and rule out that they might mean only multichannel flac in a container such as mkv as part of a video).

Another question, I see that in the specs it lists "DLNA/UPnP". I'm wondering if the NeoTV 550 can also be a DLNA "Renderer" such that one can use "Play To" (Push To) feature from something like the JRiver Media Center or windows Media Player to "push" content to the 550, essentially controlling playback from JRMC or windows MC/media player application? Probably one of those strange questions that can't be answered yet, but thought I'd throw it out there.

can the 550 pass-through TrueHD, DTS HD streams in mkv files?

I haven't been able to confirm it, but it is supposed to be able to pass it through, or stereo downmix it. However, since TrueHD tracks in MKV don't have an embeeded AC3 fallback, it will need to be tested to know for sure how the Neo handles it.

I understand that the EVA9150 would freeze or stutter with high bitrate blu-ray files (over 40 Mb/s). Is there reason to believe that the NeoTV 550 will perform better?

Maybe, I missed this but when is the release date?

The 9150 wasn't even designed for blu-ray. At the time, the BD/HDDVD was still waging. However, the 9150 will play high bit rate m2ts files (ripped from a BD disc) and play them well if they are stored on a the local drive or an NFS share (like a ReadyNAS). Depending on the rate, they sometimes did stutter if on a PC or other SMB share.

The Neo uses the new Sigma SMP8642 chipset. I have succesfully played BD ISO rips stored on my ReadyNAS NFS share without stuttering.

Thanks for the info. My recollection with the EVA9150 is that people reported sporadic problems for scenes when the bit rate of the m2ts file exceeded 40 Mbs/s. A scene in "Cars" apparently had this problem.

Nice to hear the 550 is playing blu-ray iso rips nicely. I'll see if I can dig up the particular scenes that caused problems for the 9150. Would be interesting to test those with the new chip.

Thanks again.

P.S. Here is a thread reporting that Star Trek m2ts crashes with the 9150:
http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=6105
You wouldn't by any chance be able to test a Star Trek blu-ray iso with the 550?

Okay, I looked through the entire Thread (plus the Netgear Website) and can confirm that I do not see an official release date.

Anyone see this review yet?

http://havetheknowhow.com/Hardware-r...iew-page1.html

That review is posted earlier in the thread. It reports that "The anticipated release date for the Neo is mid-October 2010"

Yeah, but that is in Europe.
What about North America?

I don't think anything official has been published by netgear. Besides, "anticipated release date" and "actual release date" can be two very different things

Netgear's press release stated availability "in the fall 2010."

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...101870423.html

Nothing in the release to suggest that U.S. release will lag behind Europe. I'm anxious, too. But I guess we'll just have to be patient.

I want to add that this is the best, most detailed review that I've yet seen on any media player.




Well.... I hope they hurry up because I needed/wanted a Media Player like yesterday.

Me, too. It is going to be hard to resist the new Dune smart series when it starts shipping supposedly this month. But I think this Netgear product will likely interface well with my C4 system and it appears to have a better built-in interface. Oh the agony!

Didn't have a lot of success with multichannel FLAC or the hi bitrate FLAC samples from those links. I'm going to check to see just what engineering says they are going to support.

Oh, boy!
I guess, it's back to the Dune series.

Looks like Zixi technology will be intergrated with the 550. Here is a video from IB showing improved HD VOD over the internet through a netgear box.

http://www.zixi.com/

Very nice!
I wonder if any other streamer brand will be using Zixi.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed on High Rez flac, etc.