Official Ceton Echo Extender Info Thread - Page 168

The last time I tried to connect it to my htpc with networked drives, the echo couldn't see any of the networked drives or the content on them. This was over a month ago so I could try to re-configure things... I just have my doubts since nothing significant has happened in the last 6 weeks...

Ditto. Seriously, let it go and let's talk product.

Can someone tell me if I should be updating from 1219 to 1228 (or whatever the 'new' beta release is)?? Is there a performance boost? I get a little bit of jittery playback... I'm running at 720p with no bitstreaming at the moment. I would like to be able to enable bitstreaming again...

Are the shares authenticated? If so, it's important to remember that MCX sessions run in a different user context than "you" when logged into the console so logging in as "you" automatically to access remote resources won't work.

Ceton was working on an easy way to manage this authentication mess. Not sure if it is deployed yet, I broke down and manually added them back in on the Echo.

FWIW, I've been running 1228 (latest AFAIK) since it came out. Most stable rev to date.

I found that I had to use actual network drive paths rather than networked drives in MediaBrowser Configurator to get my library to show. How do you have it set up?

I found the 1214 to be better than anythign since. On the 1214 i could run in native mode and get AC3 audio bitstreaming. On the 1228 I can only use 720p to get audio.

Do you mind telling how your system is set up? Right now I have the echo connected to my Denon AVR-2313ci via HDMI and then have HDMI from there to my Samsung LN40-650A.

realtight - basically what babgvant said. I have no issues with my extenders (and Echo) accessing my authenticated shares on my NAS. The trick is that you have to setup the media library FROM EACH EXTENDER/Echo. Even though you already set them up in the main HTPC (w/authentication), extenders will ALWAYS attempt to use a guest account/access unless you re-setup your shares per extender.

It's annoying and not readily apparent - but it does work.

Echo -> Yamaha YSP-2200 -> Panasonic TH-C42FD18

So that is basically the same..

The thing for me is that it worked better under the 1214 f/w. I'm considering taking the AVR out of the middle and going direct to the HDTV to see what happens but have been actually hoping for a new f/w that brings back the usability of the 1214 f/w while adding even more functionality.

The YSP-2200 behaves oddly w/ the EDID and does absolutely no VP (it can't even overly its setup OSD on HDMI) compared to how Denon does it (I have an AVR-1909 as well), it's possible that is an influencing factor.

My old 889 had no OSD overlay either. This is part of the reason I upgraded last year to the 2312.

What do you mean by "The YSP-2200 behaves oddly w/ the EDID"?
Edited by Sammy2 - 1/16/13 at 9:13am

Instead of building a new EDID, it appears to overlay its capabilities on top of the one from the TV. So for e.g. connected devices can detect that it supports HBR audio, but thinks it's a Panasonic device.

Mine is the other way around. It is reported as a Denon "Display Device" and the Samsung doesn't show at all. Could my problem be with the Denon or is it the echo?

Like I said the 1214 f/w did not have the problem with no audio in 1080p or native mode and audio only working in 720p.
Edited by Sammy2 - 1/16/13 at 9:19am

Echo. It has to be able to deal with the myriad of EDID/HDMI oddities out in the wild.

IIRC, they were working on some HDMI/EDID issues in the different FW revs. It's quite possible that something they did to fix someone else's problem broken your environment.

Did I say that I hate DRM schemes?

A bunch of extra work on the part of developers to make products compatible with each other.

To those people who say the Echo works fine....

I suspect your cable provider either doesn't provide - or you don't record - shows from certain "problem" channels. Or you have tiny TVs. Or, worse yet, you are watching old, standard definition TV and think everything looks just fine.

Some things I want to know... did Ceton have a working model of the Echo a year ago at CES? They didn't notice problems then? Were they using a different processor? What processor did the other, older extenders use?

The Echo seems to be soooooo close to working, I upgraded my ratings of it a few weeks ago thinking the firmware back then had fixed things. Right now it can't seem to handle videos affected by the 29/59 bug. And if AMD can't fix their expensive video cards to handle these, I worry that maybe Ceton can't either.

Ok, jump in everyone!
Edited by Roginator - 1/16/13 at 11:31am

Mine worked fine on the 1214 f/w and works pretty well on the 1228 f/w using 720p and none of your assumptions about my set up are true. If you bothered to read a few posts up you'd see that and would also see that Andy doesn't have a slacker system either. I know the echo can work well but it is going to be a matter of time and effort to get it to work well with so many various combinations of EDID/HDCP/HDMI set ups. I even previewed it on a 29/59 channel (Starz) when I was accidentally getting it for free and the picture was better than my HTPC could produce.

They did go with a different processor than was demoed in CES 2012. As a matter of fact I think that was a mock up that did not function at all but don't quote me on that.

My Echo is working great 99% of the time for watching live TV and recorded TV. I'm still not able to view my ripped movie collection, but that's wasn't in my initial expectation, so it doesn't bother me. I watch many channels, including the "problem" channels without any problem! I have a 39" TV and I'm definitely watching HD.

The only issues I've run into are 1) the FF/REW playback is not great such that it's hard to tell how far you've backed up or skipped forward, and 2) it will occasional freeze and require a reboot; this happens maybe once a week.

I have high confidence that Ceton will resolve all the issues that are in their control. If it turns out to be a problem with the chip they chose, then that may be a different matter. In either case, I'm willing to give them the time to resolve it, Beta or not.

I'm only using the Echo as a replacement cable box and for whole home DVR. It seems to freeze often, but the main issue is audio skipping.

Love Media Center, but don't know if my intended solution will pass the WAF. We are already fed up with the Time Warner equipment. If its just me I could deal with the glitches. Plus I'm not sure i want to drop hundreds into a HTPC without knowing how reliable the system will perform.

May try to use the Xbox 360 Slim and do some comparison.

Ohhhhhh... I so hate the FFW/RW on this thing. I'm TRYING to use the commercial deletion from Videoredo now. When it works, it's great. WHEN it works.

Anyone else using commercial deletion programs? Comskip? Showanalyzer? Lifeextender?

EDID and DRM are 2 completely different animals. EDID is just a block of data that lets the source know what the other end of the cable is capable of for audio and video format support so it can make sure it doesn't send something that's not compatible. The problem is that it's not especially well defined and a lot of devices screw up management of the data so there are a ton of special cases that need to be handled. It's definitely a royal PITA to deal with.

I seem to be in a similar situation as you (with the added bonus of currently not being able to play protected content as I put in an earlier post). If you do anything with the xbox 360 slim I'd love to hear your thoughts on how it compares.

You will need to ensure that permissions are setup correct if it is on a networked drive. You could also try adding the media libraries directly on there as it will prompt for username/password. I am using an echo right now with networked content so I know it works just fine, there is sometimes some weird things that windows does that blocks permissions. Easiest test is to try to add via media libraries and see if it even shows up when you are in the echo media library settings.


2012.1228.1447
focuses on audio fixes and some interlacing fixes.

What issues were you having with bitstreaming? Was it simply not working?

Okay.

2012.1228.1447 focused on breaking native video playback that was previously working for me so now I have to use 720p to get audio to work.

This is from my original post "So on 2012.1219.1030 I was playing back a movie rip last night and getting serious stuttering on all resolution settings after about 20-30 seconds. Once I turned off bitstreaming, it fixed it completely. Turning it back on bought the..." issue back.

I seem to recall the reason I turned it off was because of playback of ripped content. I will do some testing tonight, then update the firmware and see what happens I might be angry tomorrow (like Sammy ). Lol.

Anyone else having complete loss of audio? I just came into the room where I left the Echo running and audio was out. Usually a channel change will get it back.

I'm starting to wonder if my TV is having HDMI issues because I had audio issues with my Time Warner box as well, but its slightly different. That motorboats whereas the Echo skips at intervals or goes out altogether.

Other issue is the preview window is only showing the bottom corner of the screen instead of shrinking the whole image. It's as if you just laid a cover over the screen with the corner cut out to see through.

I can't remember off hand, I'll check tonight - that's a good point... years ago I had all my htpc's manged on w7 homegroup which was nothing but head ache after head ache.


I have have issues with Windows arbitrarily screwing with permissions in the past but thought they were good to go when I first connected the echo. I'll have to check them once again.

I hold the skip button down until I see the position thumbnail, then skip forward or back until it's where I want to start playing again, then hit OK. When the thumbnail is displayed each press of the skip forward or skip back button is 30 seconds.

I've used a combination of dvrmstoolbox with DTB addin and comskip. I followed the method outlined by winterscape here. It was pretty good at finding the commercials and skipping them, and it doesn't modify the original recording. If it messes up you can still FFW/RW to the parts it should or shouldn't have skipped. I stopped using it when I got VideoReDo. I manually edit my "keepers". I prefer frame accurate edits and want the skipped segments removed to conserve disc space.