Micca EP950! - Page 36

@Jack,

I tested the EP950 on a different tv with the 2D test file "5-Sharpness & Overscan.mp4" - the tv is a Vizio E370VA. Just as on my Samsung tv, the top and right sides of the image were cut off. The tv was set to no overscan, and playing the same test file on a LG blu-ray player connected to the Vizio tv showed no cropping.

This proves that the the EP950 is indeed not centering the image properly in 2D mode - maybe in 3D mode too but I have no test file to try that. So side-by-side playback is a major problem with this player if you're intending to let the tv switch to 3D mode and leave the Micca in 2D mode, which would be the case if you're playing any sbs file in a framerate other than 23.976.

Can you please pass this to the firmware team and stress that this should be a priority at this point? This definitely should not be overlooked - I've played this test file now on 2 different blu-ray players and 3 different media players counting my Samsung tv's built-in player and the Micca is the only one that doesn't center the image correctly.

Try this file and let me know what you see please. I heard that some Realtek powered players are known to have off center issues. I checked my old player and it is ok. Also could you check if you have a Video Reduce Size in your video setup on the Micca and make sure it is off
I would ask that a few others on here try this file and post their results. Essentially the Full Size line is supposed to be at the edge of the screen and the % numbered lines are all supposed to be inside the picture. If not then post which side/sides are affected and what line/lines are outside.
Tv's that do scaling will affect this test too so make sure your tv is set to full size or just scan or something similar and not to 16:9 or some other aspect ratio. My old Tv was doing scaling for years before I found this test and changed my aspect ratio from 16:9 to Just Scan. If you cannot download the file or the file gets removed please let me know

overscan.zip 724k .zip file
Edited by rypaul - 7/28/12 at 3:24pm

@rypaul,

I downloaded and played the overscan test file you posted above. The results are exactly the same as the results I had with the overscan file I posted earlier. The bottom and right side are both being cut off - you can see the Full Size line on the top and left side, but not on the bottom or right side. I then played the file with my WDTV Live and all 4 sides were visible, with no cropping.

That's now 2 tvs, 2 different overscan test files, and 5 different media players. Only the Micca has this problem out of all my players, and the results are the same with both files and both tvs.

Also, I do not have video reduce size enabled.
Edited by eagle_2 - 7/28/12 at 5:53pm

Ok thanks for trying it. Did you make a note of what % lines are touching the bottom and right side of your
screen? I am asking because I am curious as to how many pixels it is shifting the image by.
Also I am now immensely curious to see if anyone else tries this and sees the same issue.
This is actually a major problem to those who are video purists. Not having the screen centered is quite
annoying especially if your Tv has no options to adjust the picture position. Also as you noted SBS would
be impossible to watch due to misalignment.
The only other thing I can think of for somebody on here to try is flashing with the Himedia firmware and
see if it fixes the glitch Or maybe get somebody with a Himedia or other 1186 player to try the alignment file
to rule out a hardware issue.
I am dying to see if anybody else has this issue and if and when this ever gets figured out. I wish I could do
more for you but I am not getting my Micca till next week
Edited by rypaul - 7/28/12 at 6:15pm

My testing shows that that the image is shifted two pixels to the right and one pixel down. For side-by-side the right shift would be effectively doubled to 4 pixels since the TV will scale the image to twice its width.

Wow ok so this is definately not an isolated issue. Now we need to acertain if this is a hardware issue or a firmware one by either having somebody
try an older firmware or even a different model's firmware and somebody with a different 1186 player should publish their findings with the same image.
I am praying it's a firmware thing and it is resolved promptly. I cannot imagine how this got past Q&A testing. Actually I can imagine but such thoughts
fill my brief durations of sleep with nightmares
Oh and if it is not obvious already I work in I.T. and troublshooting and problem solving is my favourite thing to do. Problem is my nickname over here is 'PitBull' when I sink my teeth into a problem I tend to not let go and get obsessed until either it is solved or I am convinced it is 100% hopeless.
I hope I can contribute in some way to this little community and that most if not all of us will be resonably satisfied with our purchase in the very near future
Edited by rypaul - 7/28/12 at 8:36pm

Actually I'm very glad to hear that. We need some people who are willing to stick with these issues and not just give up and say "oh, well". I've faced some criticism in other threads over the months, and even in this thread, for not just letting go of an issue and continuing to mention it. I think it's for the best for all of us to keep on these issues and hopefully Micca can get it all straightened out. I keep saying this has the potential to be one of the best players out there due to the willingness of Micca to help resolve issues. If this off-center issue and a few other big ones can get resolved in the near future, I think I will be very very happy with this player. Right now though to due some ongoing bugs and this new off-center issue, I'm rather frustrated.

Yeah I understand what you mean. I have encountered products over the years that on paper were very promising and intriguing only to
end up being a disappointment after hitting the market due to small and silly oversights by the manufacturers.
For example my old Samsung DLP TV used leds instead of bulbs, well on paper this seemed great cuz leds have a long lifespan, they were
supposed to last up to 20000 hours or so as opposed to bulbs which usually only last a few thousand. Well due to Samsung engineers
overvolting the red led they ended up only lasting a few thousand. Mine died after 2000 hours. Funny thing too is that the DLP chip died
around the same time due to the same engineers choosing to use a thermal pad instead of thermal compound or glue for the heatsink mounted
to it. To top it off they also undervolted the cooling fans so as to minimise noise. The effect of course of these two choices increased the chips
operating temps and helped shorten it's lifespan.
I am quite fed up in recent times due to the emphasis on mass quantity over quality in many areas of 'modern' life.
I sometimes feel that as much as we have progressed as a species in the areas of technology and science we are becoming stagnant at our core.
Anyways I apologise for getting way off topic. As I said I will have my 950 in a week so I will post my findings from my tests and experiments
Oh and just to be clear I do not feel that Micca is 100% responsible for the current issues with this box. From all I have read they actually seem like
one of the few companies that seem to want to fix the problems. Many of the other companies seem to have a take it or leave it attitude. Of course
Realtek is not helping the situation either with their attitudes regarding their SDK's and support.

I'm not surprised this isn't getting fixed quickly, how many people have receivers and projectors? Your typical person is more interested in facebook, so its no surprise that was fixed first.

yeah, the typical audience for this device is more interested in a working facebook app than a functioning unit for their theater.
you keep sounding more and more stupid to me. I may have to add you to the " ignore list" shortly..

I get the feeling after a few years of following the Realtek media player products that the companies that care and try to make changes or
demand fixes for major bugs tend to get stalled by Realtek with their sporadic updates which after a while causes companies like Micca to
lose customer base and eventually just throw in the towel from frustration. It is sad cuz there is real potential in these devices.
Jack and others like him care about their customers but when you have to depend on a third party(Realtek) to help you support your
customers it is always a risk.
Regarding that Facebook post by streamlover, I will assume you were joking cuz I am pretty certain the Facebook fix just happend to be one of the several
fixes included in the firmware. If you look around you will see that other 1186 products have that fix in their latest firmware. I highly doubt it
took long to implement and I am sure it was not flagged as high priority either. It was probably fixed due to it being an easy correction.
Someone from Realtek could feel free to jump on here and correct me
Edited by rypaul - 7/29/12 at 6:10pm

My Samsung tv is having picture issues at the moment, yet their latest firmware included support for "Angry Birds". Priorities. Lol.

Offset picture happens on Himedia 900A as well.

rgds Damon

It's still in testing right now. I am a bit weary whenever beta firmware is released. I hope sometime this week, the new firmware will be ready.

That is actually a great analogy.

As it was explained to me, the two different methods of doing firmware updates uses to different processes. The recovery mode ensures a complete and clean install of the firmware.

There is talk of eliminating the update option from the player's settings menu so that the only way to update the firmware is through recovery mode.

Guys,

Regarding the off-set picture issue, first I want to thank everyone for sharing so much information on nailing down exactly what the behavior is. So thank you eagle_2, thank you rypaul, thank you HokeySmoke, and anyone else I forgot to mention...

This is indeed a top priority, because it's not just a matter of a couple of missing lines of pixels. Rather it results in a serious artifact on the screen for SBS and over-under 3D videos.

Most likely, the current firmware that's due to be released soon will not contain the fix for this, since the firmware guys will need time to investigate and there is no need to hold back the current firmware update.

Regarding the off center problem not being fixed in the next firmware update I find that completely understandable since the issue has only now really come to light.
I wish the technical department the best of luck in dealing with this issue, I hope it turns out to be just a few lines of code

Thanks for the update Jack. Thank you for making the off-center issue a priority - I hope it's an easy one for you guys to fix.

On another note I wanted to mention that the unit has frozen several more times in the last few days on the Micca boot screen. This is happening regularly and the same thing happened on my last unit. Can this please be passed onto the firmware team? I would really like to see this resolved as it is very annoying when it locks up and I have to reboot.

Hi,

I ordered the EP950 from www.adorama.com since amazon doesn't deliver to The Netherlands. I got the EP950 early July 2012. Last week the remote didn't work anymore and the batteries got very warm. Is that a known problem? I can, off course, ship it back, but the shipping costs are very high for just a remote.
Any suggestions, like another remote or application on Android phone?

Thanks.

Personally I don't love the remote. The buttons feels very cheap to me - not nearly the quality of any of my other remotes, including the WDTV live. The buttons are hard to tell apart from one another also unlike most of my remotes that are either lit, or at least have different groups of buttons in different layouts and different colors, to help you. Plus the text is very hard to read on the buttons and I'm not convinced that the text will not wear out sooner rather than later. I had asked before if Micca had any intention of getting the alternate illuminated remote that HiMedia offers in Asia - I've seen pictures of it and it looks really nice, much better layout, better buttons and illuminated. I'd love to know how to get one of those.
Edited by eagle_2 - 8/3/12 at 8:05am

This worries me because the EP950 is of course useless without the remote. What if the remote breaks a year from now like yours did, after they stop production on the units? A good quality remote should last years and years. If we can't get replacement remotes for these, we won't be able to operate the units.

is it the remote itself that is bad or the unit not receiving the ir from the remote. who the hell uses a factory remote anyway? Don't you guys have a REAL remote like a URC or logitech? :-)

Not everybody is made of money. I use the factory Micca remote. Plus it has tons of custom keys - what remote will be able to mimic all those keys? Sure you can use a learning remote - but most remotes now have tons of custom keys. That's a lot of programming, plus they are expensive. Most of my devices have great remotes - the Micca is by far the cheapest feeling of the bunch - maybe it will last, but the buttons are hard to see and they just don't feel great, and it isn't illuminated, which is almost required if watching 3D in the dark with glasses on. And the text is hard to read on the buttons - grey text on black buttons - you can barely read them. I'm not the one having problems - I was simply expressing some concern over it's overall quality. But if the remote doesn't work and it used to and the batteries get warm than I'd say it's likely it's the remote not the unit that has the issue.
Edited by eagle_2 - 8/5/12 at 8:45am

If you use your home theater on a regular basis, there is simply no reason NOT to have a good universal remote, IMO. I just don't get that people will drop thousand for their system and them cheap out on the one piece that can control the whole thing. You can pick up a harmony 300 for about $13 shipped that would be a huge step up from the factory remote AND would control 2 other devices. I hardly call that "expensive"..

Refurbished (previously broken). But thanks for the link - I didn't know they could be purchased for so little refurbished.

That's not the point though. All I was saying is that most of my other remotes are very well made - this one, not so much. If i choose to use several different remotes, that's my choice. That's doesn't mean all included remotes should be cheaply made.

I just bought a $10 remote from Panasonic for their blu-ray player - the one they include is a wacky touch-remote that really sucks to use - but their "standard" remote works with it but you have to buy it separately. Their $10 remote is made way better than this remote - colored keys for different functions, nice layout, solid feel, white text on the buttons so I can read them.
Edited by eagle_2 - 8/6/12 at 9:59am

Yes, "previously broken"...sheesh, don't bother to look at the reviews or anything..

I'm sure they're great remotes, no question. I just commented that it was only so cheap because it's a refurb.

Also, that's a very basic harmony remote. It wouldn't come even close to duplicating all the custom buttons on my receiver remote (84 buttons), the Micca, my tv remote (illuminated) with all the custom 3D and app buttons, etc.

Sure I could program some of the basic functions, but I use many of the buttons on my tv and Micca remote regularly, and there's no way to map them all onto a remote like that. Plus, I would then need to remember what each button is mapped to for each device - it's not worth the headache to me.

I have no problem with multiple remotes. I do have a problem with cheap remotes.
Edited by eagle_2 - 8/6/12 at 10:44am

It was merely meant a replacement for the micca, since you were bitching about it... sorry if that was not clear.

Ive just bought a couple of 650's eagle -brand new on runout- the lcd panel has pages you flip through that map all the functions on my epson tw9000;oppo bdp95 cary11a to name but 3 ive programmed. Better than my old phillips pronto ;so easy to program

http://www.logitechshop.com.au/logitech-harmony-650-remote.html