Micca EP250 and EP350 - Page 12

Hi,

I received a new EP350 G2 this week direct from Micca, very fast shipping BTW. Came with new firmware (Version 3.0.2.0 - February 2012) already installed, nice.

First boot up, no internal drive, attached a 1TB USB Drive just to take a test drive, everything worked great. Installed a new 3TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 HD as an internal drive. Booted up the EP350, it saw the drive fine, I formatted the drive using the EP350. Moved some Video files over from the attached USB Drive. All worked great, no issues. Decided it was time to attach to computer to load up with files off of PC. Used USB PC port on EP350. The PC recognized the EP350 and internal HD as:

Disk of 2794.52 GB with the following partitions:
16 MB Unallocated
2793.8 GB as Mapped as E:
16 MB Unallocated
117 MB Raw Mapped as F:
16 MB Unallocated
512 MB Raw Mapped as G:

I saw the video files previously moved from the USB attach storage on Drive E: and loaded my new files from the PC to the E: Drive. After the file loads completed, I powered down the EP350 with the remote, waited for the Red light and then turned off the power switch on the back of the unit. On the PC, I went to eject the USB EP250 and it wouldn't saying files were open. I left it alone for 10 mins or so and tried to eject again, same thing. I was in a situation where I had to leave, so I shut the computer down.

Later, I booted the EP350 attached to the TV, the HD had vanished, nothing detected at all. I reconnnect to the PC via the PC USB port and PC recognized as before except now E: Drive is Raw and not shown as a formatted drive and of course not showing any files.

My questions:
-What did I do wrong to corrupt the HD?
-Is the partition and formatting applied by the EP350 to my HD normal?
-Can someone explain the partition structure, types, and formatting?
-Working to see if I can recover the Partition, any advice?

Thanks.

Hi,

How many files did you move over using the computer?

You should always "eject" from the computer first, first before powering down the player. My suspicion is that the computer was not finished reading/writing to the drive, perhaps caching some of the data. Turning off the player before it finished possibly caused this issue.

If at all possible, we recommend taking the drive out from the player and connect it directly to the computer for copying large amounts of files.

I moved a large amount, 1.5 TB worth of files. After the copy process stopped, the computer was left on 2 hours before trying to eject the Micca player. The computer would not eject the player. There was no activity on the computer and I don't think it would be caching files for 2 hours after it indicated the last copy was completed.

Would be nice if the manual would make the recommendation on removing the drive, how was I suppose to know if the manual didn't say so?

Can you please explain the partition structure, types, and formatting?

What means "using recovery mode whenever possible"

It's the process by which you should update the firmware. If you go to the Micca website and follow the firmware update instructions, you'll be using the recovery mode.

Just received my EP350 G2 Box a couple hours ago along with a 2TB Seagate drive. Hooked up/formated; everything is working so far.

I have an external 20GB USB HD that I use quite a bit to back files up and transfer to other computers. Normally 20GB transfer takes about ~20 or so minutes to do (1 foot cable) on all my computers (XP, win7, Suse).

I attached the external drive to transfer its contents and it has taken almost an hour and a half to do so. The OSD doesn't show what the MBps is; but it's very very slow. It's at 95% now. A hidden setting perhaps? HD is formatted to NTFS.

Also: anyway to switch to 12 hour clock?

I had a Boxee Box for a short while that no matter what content I threw at it; it would scour the internet and download/associate ART as well as movie INFO (IMDB summary) Is this possible with the EP350? If not; is there any way of having thumbnails generated from the files (.avi/mp4/etc) like windows/linux does?



~Paulie

I finally got mine and so far I have no major issues....but...there are a few hiccups I htink may be able to fix via a firmware patch

1. the fast forward (FF) jumps way to fast to be usable...if you go at 2x it's slow and works but if you jump to 4x or high it goes like 2 to 4 minutes past in just a second...oddly though...the rewind (FR) button works perfect...it goes in speed incriments with no problems...going forward is just not working properly

2. the subtitles keep coming on regardless if i turn them off in the options (misc) area. I turn them off by default and sometimes if I pause the track...then play it again the subs magically come on again. even in the misc. options turned off they still pop on here and there

can this be looked into?

mine came with the newest feb 2012 FW installed

thanks

Having a problem connecting external Toshiba 1TB USB HD to Micca 350. Model number is HDTB110XK3BA. I am suspecting it does not get enough power thru USB since my other older external HD that came with their own power supply work just fine. Any suggestions?

I can confirm that someone I know that has the same model has the same issues I mention above. The FF button goes forward too fast and the subtitle issue where they just turn on even though the options have them turned off.

Also he has mentioned a problem with youtubeHD. The search feature doesn't allow you to hit enter anywhere to search for videos. Basically there is no enter function on the remote so the search for youtubeHD doesn't work. I don't have my 350 connected online so I don't use the online features but I thought I'd mention it in here to see if there's a possible fix.

@reko19...could be that the unit doesn't have enough power to power that 1tb Hitachi...break it open and connect it to an external enclose that has a power cord and see if that makes it work.

I will forward the 4x fast forward issue.

For the Toshiba 1TB drive, do you have one of those USB Y-cables that has two USB host connectors on one end? This will double the power sent to the hard drive.

As a note, the latest 3.0.2.0 firmware makes the EP250/EP350 G2 compatible with the PlayOn.tv software, so you can stream videos from Netflix, Amazon VOD, and Hulu.

Better yet, use iMediaShare on an android/iphone device to browse for videos on PlayOn.tv and send it to the EP250/EP350 for playback.

thanks for the heads up Jack...appreciate the response

Any software like Zappiti,yaDIS or griffith for this Player?

Nope. Zappiti and Yadis is pretty much for Dune.

And for the MICCA which would you recommend?

If you guys are using a large drive, 3Tb in my case, in my experience, I would not format it with the EP350 G2, use your PC instead. When I used the EP350 G2, I got all kinds of issues, not so with regular PC formatting. Everything working great in the EP350 G2 now.

When I tried out the EP350 with a WD 3TB WD30EZRX drive the only issue I saw after formatting with the 350 was a delay when you first booted up the player. I saw other posts for other players suggesting it was mounting delay during this time period. Other than that it worked fine...for the short period I had the player.

EP350 G2 with latest firmware:
Have BD navigation turned on, but it's not working. My BD ISOs are playing the first title and not seeing any addition titles and no BD menus. What's up?

You can transfer files from PC to Micca through the network cable?. I could explain how to configure this?

I replaced the LED in the Micca remote with one out of an extra AT&T U-verse remote I had and it has fixed the whole line of site issue. Really simple fix, took about 10 minutes.


Micca (top) U-verse (bottom): note how clearer the LED on AT&T is.



Only tools you'll need is a flat head screwdriver to pry the remote apart and a solder iron to remove and replace LEDs.

Jack,

First, thank you for all the support you provide here, it's very much appreciated.
I've had an EP350 for 2 or 3 months now and it's great, but starting with the 3rd or 4th time I turned it on I got a fan grinding noise that I first thought was the hard drive I'd put in it, but I've since localized to the cooling fan. I've never timed it but it lasts a good 15 to 20 seconds before it stops, then it's as quiet as can be.
I have it plugged into a Belkin power conditioner which is plugged into a good-sized UPS, so I doubt it's a power supply issue. Is this a fairly common problem and is there an easy fix like maybe a drop of 3-in-1 oil?

Thanks,
Mike

Looking at moving away from Argosy 335T and to a smaller "newer" unit. Had internal hard drive in the 335T and found having an external drive makes more sense. Easier to put files on, etc., as don't have to have the media player turned on to access the networked drive.

How well is the 250 working for LAN access to a NAS?

Also seems like the remote IR emitters need to be improved?

Mike,

It sounds like the fan's bushing is vibrating on initial startup. Once it gets going, the bushing self-lubricates so the vibration goes away. I don't think it's a power supply issue either. Have you contacted support about this?

Hi,

The EP250 G2 is based on the 1185 chipset so it is a fairly powerful player. It has 100mbps LAN, which is fast enough for just about all media types. It supports Realtek based WiFi adapters that are available for about $10-$15, though generally speaking WiFi streaming will only bee good for up to about 720p. Anything higher than that can be problematic. This is true for just about all media players out there. This is why thus far we have not made WiFi standard in any of our media players.

Are these three companies related?

Hi, I have a quiestion with EP250 with wifi and internal HDD facilities.
I installed de ftp service and made the wifi setup, looking for a way to see the EP250 from the network´s pc.
The EP250 get an IP address, all is ok. But I cannot see the device with my computers. The router confirm the connection with an IP of the same group of my home network
With a browser ftp://IPaddress open a loging screen called NEIGHBOR WEB. The EP250 dont has a window for setting user and password. I tried with a lote of users and password without luck.
Can you help me with the default user and password?

(I started another thread, then realized this might be the best place to post, apology in advance ).
Just got a Micca EP250 G2 network media streamer. I want to stream from the internet, and it has preloaded sites. If i want to stream from another site such as live365 or specific internet radio broadcast, can't do it. Any ideas, hacks, software, etc? Even youtube, which is "preloaded" won't stream (?).
BTW, I have the proper network adapter installed, and can see the network as well as stream some of the preloaded radio stations.
Tnx
Leon

Hey,

There is currently no way to setup streaming from a site that isn't already listed in the list of Internet media stream providers.

One way to work around this is to enable the DLNA renderer on the player and then use a program like iMediaShare running on an Android or iOS device to send media files to the player to stream. iMediaShare can browse for videos from a variety of sources and once you find one, just send it to the Micca player for it to be played back.

Hey Jack, are there any short term plans to implement this capability? If not, long term? This is one of the things i wanted to be able to do... What about youtube that won't play?
Tnx
Leon

Youtube changed their interface recently, as they do every so often. Youtube wants all the media players to use the Youtube XL interface instead. So in a future firmware release, the old Youtube interface will be eliminated, and replaced with YoutubeXL.

I recommend trying out the iMediaShare application (it's free) and see how well that works for you in terms of getting other media sources onto the player. Take a look at the program's website: http://www.imediashare.tv/android-guided-tour