Official Ceton Echo Extender Info Thread - Page 157

There is a lot of info in your post to process, however I would start with trying to nail down if the picture dropping due to touching cable is a faulty cable or connector on the echo side. Replace the cable and see if it is still "finicky". If yes, I would open a Ceton support ticket and RMA the unit. But that's just me. I think removing the obvious connection issue is the best place to start.

Sounds like ultimately it would be a software issue if you change channels and the audio returns.

Well I know it's def not the cable because it works flawlessly when I connect it from the tv to the cox dvr. I'm hoping that I'm not the only one having this audio / pixelation issue and Ceton is working on it knowing it's a known issue. I just have way too much going on to spend a lot of time diagnosing it considering I've already spent a lot of time moving things around and trying different things and removing as many variables as possible to try to isolate the issue.

If you are certain the cable is not a problem, I would open a ticket with Ceton as the connector may be faulty.

As far as the pixelation goes, I was getting massive pixelation due to a bad CAT5e cable between my router and the Echo. I replaced that and it was fine. Incidentally, this was also adding large amounts of lag in the WMC UI on the Echo. You already stated your network is fine though. The other common one is cable signal into tuner. But you said that the WMC on HTPC is fine (without pixelation?)

If that is all true, then that really only leaves the Echo. I would open a ticket.

I see alot of complaining about formats and mass storage, but I think the Echo will do exactly what I'm looking to do: Ditch my garbage Time Warner DVRs! All I'm looking for is a central DVR and TV watching ability. No plan to store DVDs or BDs. I have no issue getting up to put a disc in the unit. Want to build a multi tuner HTPC and let the kids game room utilize the Xbox 360 as its extender and an Echo in the bedroom for ours with the HTPC as the main in the theater room.

Main concern is WAF and a consistent interface for the non-tech family. Have a Harmony 900, but may move to a touch for more channel icons. Just want a solution where the wife can pick up the remote and use it without having the PC interface. I'd like a way to have media shortcuts in WMC for network websites to use their VOD.

I plan on having a wireless keyboard so I can utilize Windows functions and web browsing, but the HTPC will have zero bloatware installed. Only Win 7 Home Premium and the need drivers. Maybe a BD drive to eliminate my player. The way I see it, an HTPC should eliminate a lot of add on devices like my Roku and BD Player along with the not so Smart TV functions.

Will the Echo (or any extender) work if the HTPC is in sleep mode. At the very least will it Wake on LAN?

I see my uses for the setup I want being far simpler than most.

Yes, the Echo will send a WOL packet and wake the PC.

Excellent. I plan on taking advantage of the $50 discount on Amazon and getting the PCI Infini4 and Echo together. Want to start my build, but getting under the house to hardwire my CAT 5e lines might be a problem with the snow storm we just had!

Well I was skeptical of the UI as well but I was pleasantly surprised by this:


Not too bad for a Cisco RNG150N slave AnyRoom DVR box. Looks like they have been making strides with the UI. I mean, its not groundbreaking but it is light years ahead of what the UI used to look like when the Cable Co.'s DVR boxes first came to market. At any rate, I'll still keep my eye on the Echo. I can always kill the Comcast DVR at any time as I'm not under any contracts.

Lucky Stiff. You get "The Electric Company" on your PBS station. I have to listen to Caillou whine.

Truth be told I was actually reducing my I.Q. a bit by watching Predator 2 while I was surfing the Net... But hell, that is what our TV's are for, right?

Congratulation on your 1,500 post.....and you made it a racist one!!!!!

Really?

xnappo

I must be getting old and I have apparently missed the redefinition of "racist".

Actually, if anything it was sexist. "Blonde" is more a comment on that and meant as a pun, not an insult to blonde people. Heck, in reality, I guess I slammed myself as ethnically speaking, I am more of the blondish persuasion. Alas, nearly all gray now.

Also, I am sorry to offend. My wife and I use the "blonde comment" quite a bit between ourselves.

Originally Posted by gtgray

I will buy one when or if they actually have robust WME functionality because I have a place I can live with just a WME.....

Andy wrote "Why do you keep posting stuff like this?"




Andy, I ask why should I buy an Echo now as opposed to if and when the product works robustly as whatever it is supposed to be. It is a beta calibre product today, no more. That does not add value for me currently.

When it works as intended whatever that is, whenever that is. I will buy at least one. If I find it to work better than expected I might buy a second one. I currently have an HD300 and an HP X280n.....

I understand that I must be naive and uninformed to think that a number of years down the road from the release of those devices I should expect more in a single product that those above mentioned devices provide separately. Ceton may very well be constrained legally but they should be up front and tell us we are all in dreamland Give us the hard fact, stop beating around the bush. We should not have to wait for the high priest to come down again with another prophetic State of the Echo missive complete with incense and mumurs of mysterious ports of Android.

My life isn't ruined because the Echo is going to only have WME functionality when it is grownup. I am not sure that is worth a premium price without any premium features though. Ceton can't have it both ways. It is either fish or fowl. Why don't they just be blunt about it and we can all stop about 90 percent of the message traffic in this thread.

I think the point was that bashing Ceton doesn't really accomplish anything here. You're frustrated, we get that. So was I when I first bought the thing and it didn't work right. But Ceton has worked tirelessly to resolve all the issues, and have stood behind their product by extending the warranty and return terms.

I now own 5 of them, because my biggest desire was to eliminate cable box and DVR fees, and add centralized DVR functionality (my local cable co doesn't even offer that capability with their equipment). So for me, it's met my immediate needs. I have every belief they're going to hammer out the issues with playing dvd and blu-ray rips. When that's done, then I can eliminate another piece of equipment at all of my TVs. And with the next big plans of adding Android capability to the Echos, the possibilities are endless. They packed a lot of horsepower into a small footprint. it's only a matter of time before we get the full benefit of it.

I for one am going to spend my time working with them, because I want to see this product succeed, and so do many others on this board.

In general - if a product doesn't add value greater than the cost you shouldn't buy it. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a worthless product or the company is incompetent, just that it's not right for you. Not every product will speak to you, and that's fine, I just don't understand the need to point it out repeatedly.

As a former SageTV + HD300 user (still trying to figure out what I want to do with mine) I completely understand the sense of frustration around the Echo's capability in that context. That said, it's not productive to keep dumping on a product because it's not an HD300 when it was never promised as such. Ceton clearly has room to improve the Echo, but it's not reasonable fault it for not being a BD player, OTT streamer, HBR MKV, etc. when these features were never promised when used as a MCX. Some of these features may come (the HW is capable of most of it) - if/when they do it will be gravy.

Exactly.

Is Comcast AnyRoom still only using a two tuner box to feed all the slaves? That's what killed it at our house. 4 TV's being only able to use two tuners is not a solution. Now if your testing Spectrum then I can see it. That's not available in our area yet...well the way Comcast rolls things out...never?

I know Time Warner's idea of "Whole Home DVR" is why I'm looking to build an WMC based solution. Time Warner's Navigator is awful and all their Whole Home does is allow streaming off of other DVRs or set tops. No central storage or shared tuners so with my current two DVR setup we constantly end up with duplicate recordings in the shared list because scheduled recordings only show up on the box you set them on. If you have a client, you can't schedule at all. They've do nothing to improve it and charge a ton for it. That coupled with the constant bugs and glitches has me at my limit, so I'm looking at some Ceton products to solve it.

From what I can tell now, the Echo is stable for what I want to do which is just use it to watch cable in the bedroom.

I am only using one DVR box, yes. However, every "slave" box is a standalone full fledged HD digital box. So while I can't record more than two shows at one time since the AnyRoom DVR (Comcast calls the DVR the "media hub") is a only a dual tuner system, I can still watch whatever I want to watch on the slave boxes even if the DVR is busy recording two shows. The AnyRoom DVR only feeds the slaves when you want to watch what you recorded. Other than that, the slave units function on their own as a regular HD digital box.

There is a downside. First, you can't hit record/pause on any slave box when watching live tv. You have to setup and record your shows/series from the main AnyRoom DVR box. That is my only real grip as if you could issue record/pause commands from the slaves I would be happy as hell. Luckily, Comcast has an app in that you can actually use your smartphone to begin recording shows. So, for instance if we are in the bedroom which has one of my slave HD boxes and the wife wants to record a show she is watching I can fire the app up and hit record right from my phone. After a few seconds, the DVR will begin recording what I told it to. It beats walking out to the living room and turning on the TV, Cable Box, AVR, etc... to hit record. It's not ideal but it works.

I have had the system for the last week and am very happy with it. I have three TV's in my home so I have two slaves and 1 DVR. It's a give and take with what I have compared to my old Sage system. Yeah, I am paying a bit more but I don't EVER have to worry about building out and maintaining a server to watch TV. Now with a baby on the way in just 4 weeks I think our free time is gone so the less I have to do keeping the WAF factor high the better...

Okay..

Yeah, because this thread has NEVER gone OT...

There has been a lot of comments made about beta firmware but not so much about the "Stable" firmware. I would like to know how well it is performing, stability, minor and major issues.

Not sure if this was posted but the espn 3 WMC addon actually works on the echo. The problem is i'm not sure how to make the video window full screen.

I have a unit that has been on the stable firmware for just over a week now, no issues, has worked as expected..

Good to know, thanks. Ceton currently has an End of Year-Save Up to $50 sale going on for those interested.

Picked up an Infini4 and Echo under the current special. However, it may be springtime before I add OTA to the mix. We got clobbered with snow!

I received my RMA replacement Echo right before Christmas and it's a world of difference between the one I sent back to Ceton. Live TV and playback of recorded shows now works without stuttering, pixelation, or freezing. I couldn't conduct an honest evaluation of the Echo because I never knew if the problems I was having were unique to my unit or issues that everyone else was having. I'm relieved to find out that it was just my Echo. The 1080i playback issue appears to have been corrected. Right now I'm waiting for Ceton to get mkv playback working with HD audio and/or DTS. I'm hoping the Echo will eventually replace a SFF HTPC that's in my spare bedroom. The major limiting factor that's kept me from using extenders throughout my house is that they can't stream movies from my server, If they can get that working then I may consider replacing other HTPCs in the house as well.

Thanks all for the explanations. I'm learning I can't get what I want from an HTPC: whole house DVR with 4+ tuners, and whole house ripped disc playback. My goal was an HTPC in the basement media room, connected with extenders in the living room and bedroom. I could watch TV (live and recorded) in the living room and bedroom. I could watch movies in the basement, and ripped TV DVDs in the bedroom -- including the fantastic commentaries on Futurama.

If I want give up whole house DVR,, I can stay with my Tivos. Maybe upgrade to the Premiere to get 4 or more tuners in the house.

If I give up Blu-ray quality and bonus features, I can do streaming ripped/compressed movies.

I want ripped disc playback, with menus and special features, first because my wife and I watch the bonus materials. Second because its fast and easy. Hard drive space is cheap. I'd rather buy more drives than spend the time necessary to pick the right set of fussy transcode parameters to maximize quality, minimize space, make it play right on the Xbox, pick the right title to transcode, wonder if sub titles are there for foreign films...and then spend the year of weekends getting all the transcodes done.

A so-called 'whole home' DVR from Comcast that only has two tuners and limited storage is really not worth discussing here, go over to dslreports' Comcast Cable forum and have fun. What a joke.

Darn. I just need ONE echo... I'll wait till it goes on sale.