Official Ceton Echo Extender Info Thread - Page 100  

Yes, it will.

..and no HD Audio provided either.

So you sacrifice HD audio?

Edit : Sammy beat me to it.

ffprobe -show_streams -show_format -pretty yourfile.wtv should give you a decent report on the file. It's no mediainfo but it's better than nothing.

EDIT:

Here's a sample output:
Input #0, wtv, from 'zombieland.wtv':
Duration: 01:27:42.11, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 13707 kb/s
Stream #0.0[0x4]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 640 kb/s
[STREAM]
index=0
codec_name=ac3
codec_long_name=ATSC A/52A (AC-3)
codec_type=audio
codec_time_base=0/1
codec_tag_string=[0][0][0][0]
codec_tag=0x0000
sample_rate=48.000 KHz
channels=6
bits_per_sample=0
id=0x4
r_frame_rate=0/0
avg_frame_rate=0/0
time_base=1/10000000
start_time=0:00:00.000000
duration=1:27:42.112023
[/STREAM]
[FORMAT]
filename=zombieland.wtv
nb_streams=1
format_name=wtv
format_long_name=Windows Television (WTV)
start_time=0:00:00.000000
duration=1:27:42.112023
size=8.397 Gibyte
bit_rate=13.708 Mbit/s
[/FORMAT]
Edited by pavlov70 - 11/11/12 at 11:48am

Correct. It's all about what is important to you. I was willing to give up HD audio for the convienence of having any movie play anywhere in the house with full RW/FF. Still sounds great (to me), but then again 20 years of punk shows have done a number on my hearing.

VLC can also show a limited amount of wtv file info. With a file open in VLC, click "Tools", then "Codec Information". VLC can't play protected recordings but it will still show the info.

Thanks for this. VLC is obviously much easier than ffprobe unless you need to script it.

VideoReDo, the program used to create the wtv, will display the data too.

Thanks! Excited once again!

Ray

Not so excited this morning. After more than a week of delivery time, my unit arrived DOA. Looking at Ceton beta forum, it does not look like isolated incidents.

that's a bummer, but it happens. have you tried the simple stuff, like a different power supply?

Ceton specifically said not to use a 3rd party power supply. But I did try with my Galaxy tablet power supply. Same thing. Tried different TVs and different locations. Same thing. Shame.

Don't worry, they have two a full half weeks to fix this stuff before release... and get 1080p working... and add audio passthrough... and fix the various video playback bugs... Two and a half weeks is plenty of time. They're certainly not going to release an unfinished product early just to get it out before Christmas.

Sorry to sound so pessimistic. I really, really, really wanted to fall in love with the Echo, but Ceton is making it so difficult.

Pass-through is not a release date spec. Ceton only has a couple of things to accomplish with the Echo in the next couple of weeks to meet the published specs, actually.

If they have a significant percentage of DOA units that's going to be a little harder to "fix".

Yeah, I think they need a new hardware revision to make it much more reliable. Not just firmware updates.

Where's your source for this? I am not aware of a significant number of DOA units.

Check out the beta forum and count how many reported the same problem in the same thread. Granted, some of them later magically recovered after a few hours or even days with the unit powered on. A regular consumer will not tolerate this kind of product behavior. If he turns on the unit and nothing happens in first couple minutes, he will simply send it back to the store.

You're right about passthrough, although I find it fairly ridiculous that Ceton doesn't consider that a basic feature. If Ceton makes their promised feature list by the release date, it is only because they've been so vague about what it will and won't do. Based on the development progrss, I'd be astonished if high bit-rate video works when it is released. Arguably that wasn't promised per se, although the codec is supported, and the hardware should be capable of it.

You've been following the tracker and the forum, so you know what kind of outstanding bugs are in the current firmware. Feature-wise you're right- there isn't a lot that needs to be added. But there are bugs, and some of them disrupt pretty basic stuff. Unless they push back release, or something miraculous happens on the development side, people are going to view the Echo as buggy at launch (even if it technically meets some interpretation of Ceton's careful and vague statements regarding capabilities and features). I feel sorry for some of the people doing preorders. Anyone following this thread probably has a pretty realistic idea of what the Echo will and won't do (and where it realistically is in the development cycle), but people who just saw the Echo on Newegg or Engdaget have no idea what they're getting themselves into.

While I am not too concerned about RW/FF, I am with you. I just don't see a way to get around compatibility issues and achieve high quality lossless video/audio everywhere in the home without a very expensive two box solution.

With this statement neither is DTS or 1080i/p of any kind? Unless, you mean converting DTS to DD AC-3 (which is very limited) and accepting the 1080 down convert to 720.

As of right now Xbox is still the king of the extenders. Both on price and features.

1080p output was in the release specs that Ceton e-mailed out to the public when the beta started. Still isn't working, though. DTS was nowhere to be found in that email. They've all but said decoding isn't going to be in at release time. We'll see about passthrough.

+1 and the echo is a pretty expensive 1 trick pony (at the moment). The potential is there as others have done it. Look at the WD Live products or even a plex enabled device. I just don't think a remux to WTV from m2ts or MKV is the answer. It would be much easier and less consuming for most to convert their RecordedTv (or even transcode on the fly) libraries than it will be to do ones entire movie library.

Ideal state is native container/file support but given constraints (development cost, time or legal) support of codec solutions that would assist the echo would be ok. Not saying they should support all but pick one and do it well. Even if it has to be the MS library of tools. Right now it's near impossible to get any HBR content to run stable.

And it may be MS goal to keep it that way. It probably better to have 99% of 5-6 million than to have 50-75%, no?

To my thinking outside of a few die-hard techies who would entertain the Echo? Even for them after 10 months how much faith does one give the device... going forward. Mainstream (which isn't really mainstream based on the market for such) can add a game machine (along with a ton of streaming services) from an known identity isn't going to spend the same for far less (even if it supports a few things XBox 360 doesn't... the Xbox supports countless features the Echo never will).

I consider myself close to a WMC fanboy without the tunnel vision and I still can't take it serious. For me it's...

• Image quality
• Pricing - including resell if/when Microsoft punts WMC
• Lack of WiFi - yes I can steam 1080i nicely over the network (if need be)

Some may feel they can offer both a world-class streamer and extender although I simply don't buy it. I'll stop repeating myself but I'd love to buy a killer extender only (perhaps they could even release such before WMC disappears) for $79 -$99. Those with a real interest in streaming already have such or won't settle for the features it will offer. Outside of a few die-hards hoping it becomes something it ain't. I'll place an order for two the moment they strip everything but TV/DVR features.

It's easier for other streamers to deal with streaming local media files. It's my understanding all other streamers just stream the files (basically) directly. It's only the MS extenders that do this weird splitting on the PC side first. I think that's going to really restrict what Ceton can do.

I don't understand your thinking here. While I disagree with you, I understand why you're not interested in streaming media with the Echo. I'm not going to rehash that argument. I don't understand why you would want Ceton to strip those features. For the most part, the Echo has very, very little local media streaming capabilities. It was obviously meant to stream TV, and they're just throwing in the basic media streaming features from WMC. I doubt those other streaming features even add anything to the cost of the hardware, except for DTS support if it eventually comes. Since the ARM chip supports VC-1/H.264 decoding, and WMC has a video/audio catalog, it would be pretty weird for Ceton to NOT include some sort of rudimentary support. That other support certainly isn't responsible for the $80-100 difference in the Echo's cost versus what you want to pay.

If its just a cost thing, just wait a while. There's no way Ceton is going to be able to keep the price at $179. Once the early die-hard adopters get it they're going to have to cut the price significantly. $79-99 seems a little unrealistic just because Ceton probably isn't going to sell a ton of them, but $120-130 seems completely plausible.

The problem here is that I don't think there's any money in it for them at that price, given the inflated price they're putting on what's turning out to be just another extender now. I think ditching the Q and the promise of additional custom features based on that is going to limit the Echo sales in the long term, because there won't be enough value-add to justify the price for many.

Could be wrong, though, and maybe they'll add enough stuff to the Echo over time to make it worth $150 or so even without the Q. Or maybe the Q will get reincarnated in another form and the Echo will get some good stuff to go with it.

For three reasons...

• Dedicate your time to TV/DVRing - from what I understand these features are far from polished - and the window for selling this device is closing.
• Why create a so-so streamer - I'll never use it nor anyone serious about streaming. If HD audio and such is important one will certainly be willing to purchase something else that does the job nicely.
• Cost - perhaps the hardware is overkill so they can't save money on less. However development time, support and whatnot does cost money.

And to a lesser degree if the device is defective it becomes tainted to some degree. I think a perfect example is the Boxee Box and it's HD audio issues. It did/does many things very well but that feature alone doomed it in many eyes. I ended up returning two of them (after waiting for the rumored fix that didn't come). If I knew going in it was like the WD TV Live and didn't fully support HD audio I may have very well held it to another (lesser) standard. And finally, in my eyes I see the streaming side as an endless pit that will never satisfy users... they will always want more features than it can/will offer. Figure out your niche and run with it... the only niche I see viable is extenders.