Official Ceton Echo Extender Info Thread - Page 51

based on the pics at engadget, it looks like moca was dropped too:

http://www.engadget.com/photos/ceton-windows-media-center-extender/#5353971

Agree with everything that everyone has said so far about the e-mail received. I just can't pony up $160 for a device that we still don't have all the details about and looks to be "shackled" with no HD audio, .MKV support, .ISO support, etc... And where is MoCA?

Hopefully Ceton will chime in and let us know what is going on.

Can't believe I was looking forward to this as a possible HTPC replacement. It really sticks in my craw that they spent time making this smaller, instead of more feature-rich. Are they really going to sell any more to the target market (i.e. people computer-savvy enough to set up WMC tuners and this thing) by making it slightly smaller?

My concern is that they have released all the details on the specs.

I was going to say, with what's listed, it should be $79, not $179. $179 is a good price for a high end extender (ala the SageTV HD300) with robust media support (ISO, DVD, Blu-ray), the specs given are not for a high end extender they're for a budget, get-DVR-to-TVs-for-cheap extender.

On the subject of form factor, I have to say personally I am slightly put off by the new size.

I have 2 DMA2100s and they are both large, sturdy and flat enough that I can stand my kitchen & bedroom TV's on top of them.

Where am I going to put this Echo box, while still retaining line of site for the IR remote?

An IR input to connect a remote eye would have been a killer feature on this.

Of course that's just my opinion and I'm sure the small size will appeal to just as many people as it puts off.

Have to concede that the 5W power consumption is very impressive.

Course if the USB port supports HID peripherals and I can connect a Gyration RF remote then I will be very happy indeed. Imagine what that would do for the WAF!

I have one of my hd300s stuck to the back of a wall mounted tv. with a decent remote, the ir bounce off the walls and ceiling works perfectly fine, no remote eye needed.

I wonder if 1080i is supported initially. My old TV only support 1080i via HDMI.

Besides the poor format support, no analog output would mean additional investment at a few locations for me. If they were shooting for disappointment, they scored.

Oh Derek don't get me started on the look of that remote ;-)

I wouldn't assume necessarily that it doesn't support MKV - it sounds like the "file formats" are supported codecs, not containers. It doesn't say that it supports DVR-MS or .wtv files though it obviously must do so. On the other hand, I would want to wait for something specific from Ceton before putting down money for this.

Thank you. The preliminary sheet does show composite video out. I thought my memory was failing.

When I got my Samsung BD-P2500 it was with "netflix streaming coming soon". Sure enough, second f/w update I received had netflix in it.

Keep in mind this is a beta. I'll bite on it because I have faith that ceton will deliver during the beta program.

Well, the specs certenly are not what we had hoped for. I really don't understand how 720P is what they want to beta? Does this mean all of the HD content that is 1080p from the CableCard is going to be converted or is the there just going to be a whole lot of overscan? This makes no sense. That isn't even what an xbox can do, I can only hope that before the end of the beta the Echo will suport 1080p.

I have high hopes that h.264 and PCM will translate into MKV support. And that MPEG-2 will translate into VOB support. While the xbox already supports MPEG-2's and not VOB, it doesn't look good.

I guess we will see.

Yes but in this case Ceton have been very clear that the specs they have just shared are for the final release version - they are not promising to add anything else at all during the beta, and haven't given a list of features to be added in a future post-GA update either.

If Ceton made a statement such as "MKV Support coming soon" then I'd be a lot happier!

people actually use remotes that come with their devices? I thought everyone here used something from urc or harmony?

I think all of us are still desperately keen for the Echo to be what we've hoped it will be, and if it turns out that way I'll be overjoyed and will buy 5 of them by the end of the year. Just waiting for someone from Ceton to join this thread and give us some more info!

Exactly, that is what I am thinking as well. As long as the actual HW Spec can support more then what we currently have with existing extenders and xbox, there is no reason to think the rest will not follow.

I will definetly participate in the beta, I absolutly cannot stand the xbox for watching tv. It is great for kids, but not in my HT!

I'm probably going to call no joy on this unless I can play my VOB files from my HTPC on other televisions. Having somewhere around 600-700 movies ripped, mainly as Video_TS/VOB, dropping $179 (or even $159) on it seems like a waste of $100.

Hopefully more info is forthcoming.

That remote looks familiar....Oh it the exact same as this:


I have one and can say it officially sucks. Sucks bad man.

In its day the DMA2100 hardware was fine. The problem was that Linksys didn't provide firmware updates.

Well, there's no mention of DTS at all, so that is not a good sign...

Good question and I also wonder if everything will be deinterlaced & scaled to 720p (as appropriate since 720p content wouldn't need to be modified) or if everything will be output unprocessed for now which might not be a bad thing as many of us have excellent output video processing available either in a standalone video processor, receiver or surround sound processor, or TV to convert it to 1080p.
TV content is 720p or 1080i. The only exceptions to this I'm aware of are DirecTV on demand (some of which is 1080p, but at a lower bitrate) or possibly some 3D content (not sure what format that is). If your TV receives 1080i or 720p, it will deinterlace and/or scale it to 1080p if that's the native resolution.

While true, the listed codecs don't include VC-1 which is a Blu-ray mandatory codec, nor do they list DTS which is required for DVD, or DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD, or FLAC (which is what all my music is in, and a lot of people used for MKV Blu-ray rips).

When people here say MKV support what they really mean is support for the full contingent of Blu-ray Audio/Video formats. This doesn't even appear to support DVD formats.

Yup, like I said, without some massive clarification, like "Woops, our marketing department sent that email, it really supports...." I'm out.

To be clear what Ceton said in the email is this:

So only the hardware is actually final. That said, their table of what's there and what's coming is quite disappointing, unless there's a lot more coming than that...

And there's no mention of the lossless Dolby and DTS formats used on Blu-ray, which makes it largely useless for playing Blu-ray ISO's even if they were to add ISO support since we wouldn't be able to access the best quality audio.

Not to just pile on, but the announced specs definitely aren't encouraging. Hopefully I won't be in the first wave of beta testers as it might give me a chance to hear some feedback from those who are and to just give it some more thought before I make a final decision.

Well they also said "The functionality described above and on the Ceton Echo website is what will be supported at launch"

They have listed 2 sets of features - one for beta and one for launch. So I would expect them to release updates during the beta which add in those missing features. But there is nothing anywhere in what I have read that suggests we'll get anything on or before release day which isn't already listed in the beta email.

I don't have a problem with video codec support. I really don't need anything besides mpeg2, h.264, and vc-1. But, I am troubled by the lack of DTS support. I probably should have seen that one coming. Its a huge problem for playing back blu-ray rips on secondary TVs without receivers. That alone is going to cause me to give this a second thought.

But really, I'm more troubled by Ceton's unwillingness to give us straight answers on media playback capabilities. We've been asking about container support for a long, long time. I really don't get why they aren't saying anything there.

Woops, I totally missed that. I basically scrolled to look for format support and then was too disappointed to keep reading.

About the only hope I have at this point is that what's listed is what the Echo can decode, but that it can pass/bitstream other formats, but at this point I'm guessing not, and it appears my WMC experiment has come to an end.

They don't list VC-1