Netgear NeoTV 550 - Page 4

I haven't seen any mention of Zixi or the Zixi operating system (ZVOS) in connection with any other media player. And the press release states this is the first implementation (not sure if it is exclusive to Netgear).

AMSTERDAM, SAN JOSE, Calif. & BOSTON --(Business Wire)--
NETGEAR Inc., the world's leading provider of technologically innovative branded networking solutions for homes, businesses and service providers, and Zixi LLC., a leading HD Over The Top delivery platform technology provider, will unveil the combined solution of a NETGEAR NeoTV 550 Ultimate HD Media Player (NTV550) using the Zixi Video Operating System (ZVOS) to deliver live and VOD full HD TV over the Internet, today at the IBC (International Broadcasting Convention) conference. This marks the first time ZVOS is enabled on an off-the-shelf and high-performance HD media player, the NETGEAR NeoTV 550, recently announced and available worldwide in retail and ecommerce consumer channels in the fall of 2010. Live, full HD TV broadcasts over the Internet will be demonstrated using the NETGEAR NeoTV 550 at Zixi's booth at IBC (Hall 9, M161).

The NETGEAR NeoTV 550, an HD-capable home media player powered by the Zixi platform, provides full HD streams end-to-end from broadcast and VOD servers on the Internet to the HDTV. Rooted at the heart of Zixi's platform is a Patent Protected and field proven technology for real-time video and audio synchronization. This allows the synchronization of multiple video and audio inputs during broadcasting. In turn this enables Zixi to integrate live video feeds to and from different geographic locations in the world and provide a real time Interactive TV experience to Studios, TVs, PCs , Macs and mobile device such as iPhone (News - Alert), iPad and Android devices, thereby making the Zixi platforms the first, end-to-end, Broadbandand OTT HDTV broadcasting solution. NTV550 customers will now receive streaming HD Internet content with perfect quality, no buffering, no stuttering and no pausing, as a result of the partnership.

"Zixi is pleased to announce our strategic partnership with NETGEAR, the world leader in home networking and connected entertainment," said Israel Drori, CEO and Founder of Zixi. "Users no longer have to deal with transcoders or encoders in order to experience full HD over the Internet; with the ZVOS enabled NETGEAR NeoTV 550, consumers now have a complete global solution for streaming real-time HD video over the Internet. Zixi's partnership with NETGEAR gives customers a reliable, easy-to-use device and platform to experience full, real-time HD streaming over the Internet."

"Despite the explosive consumer demand for both HD content and video consumption over the public Internet, the problem of streaming videos consistently in HD quality over-the-top to the HD TV has remained unsolved," said Vivek Pathela, VP & GM of Home/Consumer Products at NETGEAR. "We are pleased to collaborate with Zixi to deliver the perfect HD OTT platform for broadcast content providers around the globe."

The NETGEAR NeoTV550 with Internet media channels enabled and with the Zixi full HD OTT experience will be available at retail and ecommerce shops worldwide.

Thank you very much for testing and checking with engineering. I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Supports UPnP AV and DLNA... http://www.netgear.com/images/NTV550..._r118-8688.pdf

Question has been asked. I did check the product spec which states:

• Audio:
– Dolby® Digital (AC3), Dolby® Digital Plus, TrueHD
– DTS 2.0+, DTS HD and DTS HD MA (passthru)
– MP3 up to 320 Kbps or variable bit rate (VBR)
– WMA8 and WMA9 up to 192 Kbps or variable bit rate (VBR)
– WMAPro, AAC, FLAC (to 5.1, 192Khz), PCM LPCM/W AV (to 5.1, 192Khz)
– Internet radio (streaming MP3)
– MKA

Sorry, no APE (Monkey Audio) support.

Does this player plays commercial DVD and Blu-Ray discs with an attached external drive? I know the spec said it supports DVD and Blu-ray Menus, but wasn't clear if it also supports commerical discs.

I'd like to know the eSATA specs on this player. Specifically whether or not I can connect two or more drives using a RAID/JBOD enclosure or using an eSATA port multiplier. I'd also like to know if it would recognize any volume larger than 2TB.

Good lord, say it isn't so!!! Why can't any of the other boxes incorporate this super highly futuristically advanced 'feature'? My guess is they all could but it is just overlooked and ignored. Otherwise The PlayOn or the Dune would be my first choice. Wish it had bit torrent. I think I'll hold on for a bit longer until this comes out and see if any firmwares for the other boxes include support for gapless audio playback. My guess is they will fail. If one of these companies was smart they would start a thread on here with a list of requested features from forum members for a new media streamer and build the damn thing according to user wants and needs it would be the bee's knee's and they would make tons of jack... but that makes too much sense

Thanks for the heads up warunek

mistake ;.)

I don't know if anyone has noticed but the NTV550 now shows available on the Netgear Website for sale at $199.99.
Although, it shows as "OUT OF STOCK" when one goes to buy.

Much better price. I'll be prudent and wait for the real thing to come out and get reviewed and picked apart by the early-adopter members here. The real telling will be how fast the first firmware update comes out to fix the major bugs you know will be there since it will be released on a marketing schedule which may not coincide with the engineers saying it's ready.

Thanks for the heads-up. It will allow a pre-order. Here is the pertinent info received after ordering (note the anticipated release date):

Product SKU: NTV550
Product Name: Ultimate HD Media Player (Pre-Ordered)
Anticipated Released Date: October 31, 2010
Qty Ordered: 1
Amount: $199.99
Shipment Tracking Numbers:

Subtotal: $199.99
Shipping: $9.95

Tax: $0.00
Total: $209.94

LOL... my birthday and the estimated birth date of my great niece.

That means November.

Ha, wish I could argue with that assertion

Hey robkwil61,
could you test or maybe you know already can this player play videos back to back maybe an option to be selected? Say i'm watching movie trailers and want them to continue playing one after another or even cartoons maybe the Simpsons one after another? If it does work is there any gap you see? The Tvix does a nice job of this and always liked the feature plus it has random and mixes the videos up in that folder.
Another thing can you disable the OSD so when i press play for a movie all you see the the movie start to play and nothing else meaning no text?

I do this all the time with my music videos. A sort of "video jukebox". The delay between video tracks is about 5 seconds. You can browse to a folder, then hit the PLAY button and it will play all the videos in that folder, in order. Or press OK on the folder, and select the top item which is "Play All Randomly". Or scroll down the list, and hit PLAY to begin playing the rest of the videos in the list in order.

Thanks for responding glad to see they have this option wish it had no delay in between like the tivx oh well. So what about the disabling of the on screen display?

After you press play, the OSD shows a small timeline bar at the bottom of the screen which dissapears after about 3 seconds. It is not something you can disable.

Engineering has asked me to do some additional testing, but this was their responce to my question:

For FLAC, the 550 supports up to 5.1 channels, 8/16/24 bits, bitrates up to 192Khz. Incidentally there is some support for 7.1 channels, but I am not sure it is fully working (so we do not claim it). PCM WAVE has the same level of support.

For WMA, we support WMA v2, WMAPro, PCM (to 5.1), Dolby Digital, MPEG audio.

robkwil61,
are there any plans for auto resolution/refresh rate i.e 480i/576i for dvd, 1080p50 for uk blu-ray documentary, etc.

As far as I can see only 1080p24 autoswitching is supported.

Also can you force certain resolutions/refreshrates if unsupported by edid?

The decision to get the NTV550 just got a bit more difficult with the "new" Boxee Box.

Right now, the 550 is still the only option with full BD support, although it seems that Boxee is working on that.

If Boxee gets full BD support, and they both get Netflix, what are the benefits of the 550 over the Boxee Box?

It seems from Anandtech that BD Menu support is reasonably likely, so if it happens I see the Boxee offering:
1) A better UI with more access to online content
2) Hardware the offers JPEG decoding (better photo handling?)

Whereas the 550 seems to offer:
1) No fan (is that correct)
2) anything else? (except that full BD support is a reality and not a "coming soon" feature)

I'm not bagging on the 550, just trying to differentiate the two. They seem to be roughly the same price point, with similar features. I suppose some people may not like/want the online material boxee offers (I may not want it all the time, but if it does everything the 550 does + has this content then I'm not complaining).

Although, for me, this all hinges on Boxee getting full BD support. if not, then the 550 still rules in my book.

I guess only NeoTV 550 has the ability to add an external BD-ROM and play retail Bluray discs.

True. This is the big differentiating factor at this point. But, the Anandtech writer posting on the AVS Boxee Box forum stated that they are actively working BD licensing so I would imagine this feature would be enabled if they got this feature.

There are a lot of unknowns with the Boxee Box, but the Anandtech writer on these forms was of the opinion that if they followed through on half of what they were planning, then it would be best-in-class.....now, just what are they planning?

Very nice!
Maybe, at some point, they will support ape files.
If not, a conversion will be made from ape to flac.



You forgot Zixi.

Just a few random thoughts. The decision of which product really is a personal preference.

The Boxee physically is much cooler looking. Anandtech is new to the media streaming game. That could be good or bad. A fresh perspective might be a good thing. Netgear has a lot of experience and financial abilities that Anandtech may not have.

For me, I don't want to have to install software on my PC to make my media streamer work. With the Neo, all you need is a some type of network storage (NAS) and an internet connection. Especially if Anandtech requires the PC for any type of transcoding.

And no, the Neo does not have a fan.

Think you need to substitute "Boxee" for "Anandtech"

Currently, there are settings for SDTV, EDTV, 720p, 1080i, 1080p and 1080p24. There is also an option for AutoFPS.

Sorry, wasn't really familiar with Boxee until about a week ago. Sounded like Anandtech was the manufacturer. But I see now they were just a reviewer.