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Official Ceton Echo Extender Info Thread - Page 176

post #5251 of 7593
1/25/13 at 7:33am
Harmony 650, not having any real problem
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post #5252 of 7593
1/25/13 at 8:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by g1hopper View Post

Harmony 650, not having any real problem

Are you having a virtual problem then?
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post #5253 of 7593
1/25/13 at 8:33am
Ha, no... none of those either. Every now and then I get double input on a digit, but I am more likely to believe that this is because I am not paying enough attention when I am press them.
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post #5254 of 7593
1/25/13 at 8:42am
The echo has been known to be senitive to button presses. If you hold the button down too long it may read it twice.
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post #5255 of 7593
1/25/13 at 8:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

The echo has been known to be senitive to button presses. If you hold the button down too long it may read it twice.

+ 1 - same here.
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post #5256 of 7593
1/25/13 at 9:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by reggie14 View Post

VBR for full or almost full bitrate rips? Or reduced bitrate rips? I thought people were having success with Handbrake encodes using CQ20, which results in a VBR file.

VFR is difficult to get right. I don't know if the Xbox360 supports it. Other media streamers handle VFR, though. I remember when the Sage HD100 came out. It initially didn't handle them well. Playback was choppy with some short test files. At first Sage support didn't believe me that it was choppy. That got resolved at some point in an early firmware update, but then I noticed longer files had A/V sync problems. I was going to say Sage managed to fix it pretty quickly, but I just looked at some old emails from 2008 that showed me trying to convince Sage support that VFR files didn't play back correctly. Eventually they just stopped responding to me. But eventually those issues got worked out (I think part of the choppiness was actually a bug in x264, as this was right when Handbrake started supporting VFR encoding). I don't remember having any problems with the HD200 or HD300.

Yeah, I should have qualified that statement. BD's using HB with enough compression to keep it under 20mbps with fixed FR seem to work ok. as soon as I uncheck Fixed FR, things fall apart. And I am using the 360, because the Echo has trouble with straight DVD rips to MKV, tend to never go above 10-21 mbps. I've never had an issue with any of my HD300's as you point out.
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post #5257 of 7593
1/25/13 at 11:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kmp14 View Post

In a nutshell, it either responds too much (1 button press results in 2 responses on the echo) or it does not respond at all. If I point the harmony away from the Ceton, like toward the back wall, I get better results.

I'm using a Harmony 520. It was responding to some commands twice every once in a while so I turned the power down a notch. It has been working very good since then.

Have you removed the protective plastic film from the front panel of the Echo?
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post #5258 of 7593
1/25/13 at 1:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kmp14 View Post

Harmony Remote Question: Which Harmony models are people using successfully with the echo? I have a 670 and a 620 (pretty much the same remote), and both do not work well with the echo. I am using the Harmony Media Center remote profile, as recommended by Ceton. YES, I went through all the Harmony troubleshooting options ("unit responding too much or not enough", etc) and tried every option in the troubleshooting, no luck. In a nutshell, it either responds too much (1 button press results in 2 responses on the echo) or it does not respond at all. If I point the harmony away from the Ceton, like toward the back wall, I get better results. Again, I have tried all of the settings (1-5) in the Harmony troubleshooting, with similar or worse results. Interestingly, I had the same problems with D-Link's old MC extender. I am about 9-10' away from the echo. I have a friend having similar problems with a model 676 Harmony and the echo.

I contacted Ceton, and they said the echo will work with any Media Center compatible remote, but could not guarantee universals, although they did mention that people were having success with Harmonys.

Anyway, I am open to any Ideas to get this working, but I am also interested in what Harmony models people are having success with? Please share what harmony models are working for you!
Harmony 200 works flawlessly on the echo for me.
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post #5259 of 7593
1/25/13 at 1:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kmp14 View Post

Harmony Remote Question: Which Harmony models are people using successfully with the echo? !

I just purchased two Harmony 300s (refurb units on ebay, $18 Buy it Now price) for a couple of bedroom TVs and they are working fine with the Echos on those TVs. The Harmony 300 is a limited Harmony with no LCD screen, can only handle 4 devices, and somewhat limited programmability, but are perfect for my purpose, since I only need them to run the Echo and the TV. MUCH MUCH better than the supplied Echo remote!

I also have a Harmony 670, but it is for use with the A/V system in the family room, and is working great with my HTPC with a Ceton InfiniTV 4, a Panasonic plasma, Pioneer A/V receiver, and a Panasonic blu ray player.

I had not tried the 670 with the Echos until you prompted this question, so I tried it today and the 670 seems to operate the Echo just fine.

I have all the Harmony's programmed to the Microsoft Windows Media Center SE "device" in the Harmony database.

--leftcoastjayhawk
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post #5260 of 7593
1/25/13 at 2:07pm
Thanks for all the feedback on Harmony remotes. I am going to check out a Harmony One.

Yes, I did remove the plastic film from the front of the echo.
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post #5261 of 7593
1/25/13 at 2:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kmp14 View Post

Thanks for all the feedback on Harmony remotes. I am going to check out a Harmony One.

Yes, I did remove the plastic film from the front of the echo.

You will like the Harmony One. I have three of them and they all work very well.
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post #5262 of 7593
1/25/13 at 2:45pm
I just noticed FW version 2013.0122.1356 is on the beta channel.
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post #5263 of 7593
1/25/13 at 2:48pm
Enjoy!
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post #5264 of 7593
1/25/13 at 3:32pm
I have kept both my units on the stable channel after some Beta issues, just checked and am updating to 2013.116.1545 Stable.
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post #5265 of 7593
1/25/13 at 5:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken.F View Post

I just noticed FW version 2013.0122.1356 is on the beta channel.

This update appears to have killed my fast forward preview ability. It goes to single frame and does fast forward, but there is no live preview. I.e. I can't see where to stop the fast forward. When I hit play again, it pixelates and resumes where the fast forward got to. Anyone else?
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post #5266 of 7593
1/25/13 at 5:26pm
I think I noticed that this morning but am still pleased with the PQ and AQ as well as stability. As of this morning it was stable for 36 hours, on the whole time with the AVR and TV power cycled many times. Did the pixelation go away after resuming playback?
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post #5267 of 7593
1/25/13 at 7:19pm
Yeah, but there is no way to tell when an add break finishes when I am fast forwarding. (until I press play again)
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post #5268 of 7593
1/25/13 at 10:35pm
Just got the 122 firmware. Very first recorded show I watched was an old pre-WWII B&W movie from TCM. It appeared the movie wasn't being deinterlaced at all with terrible combing. So I hit stop and resumed. Worked fine after that.
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post #5269 of 7593
1/26/13 at 5:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by th3Pil0t View Post

Yeah, but there is no way to tell when an add break finishes when I am fast forwarding. (until I press play again)

Yup. That is an issue but for me the playback PQ and AQ is the best it has ever been and stibility is there too. Mine's been on since Wednesday with no lock-ups or green screens with several shut downs of the AVR and TV and also switches back and forth from the HTPC to the echo.
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post #5270 of 7593
1/26/13 at 6:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by th3Pil0t View Post

Yeah, but there is no way to tell when an add break finishes when I am fast forwarding. (until I press play again)

Yes - same issue for me of course. I am sure this will be addressed in the next beta.

For now, a question? Can we back rev from beta to stable? Not sure if that would work or not? If so, quick fix for this issue while waiting...
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post #5271 of 7593
1/26/13 at 6:08am
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Originally Posted by Xenethyl View Post

Can a few of you check your C:\Users\Mcx1-USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp folder and see how many ctnecho_xxxx folders are there?

Every single time I boot my Echo up it creates a new folder with the same files in it. There's also a corresponding .cmd script file in the parent folder that appears to be setup to delete the previous folders (but is apparently never successful). As far as I can tell, the folders that are generated are for the settings plugin you can access from the TV. It's pretty annoying because my software firewall treats each instance of the plugin as an unknown executable and consequently asks for permission to access my network. If I'm not at my PC to allow access, I can't bring up the settings from the TV. Plus, I don't want to have to worry about cleaning extraneous files out of that folder all the time.

I'm sure it's just a bug, but I was wondering if others are experiencing it as well.

This has been fixed in the 116 f/w I believe. I just checked. No more extra folders, just the current one.
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post #5272 of 7593
1/26/13 at 7:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by th3Pil0t View Post

This update appears to have killed my fast forward preview ability. It goes to single frame and does fast forward, but there is no live preview. I.e. I can't see where to stop the fast forward. When I hit play again, it pixelates and resumes where the fast forward got to. Anyone else?

Same here, and I consider this a serious bug.
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post #5273 of 7593
1/26/13 at 7:18am
ceton is aware of this and is already working the fix from what I understand.
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post #5274 of 7593
1/26/13 at 7:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

ceton is aware of this and is already working the fix from what I understand.

Good to hear. Wifey is trying to convince me to buy one for our bedroom now. Pretty good result really. I still really want to see:
  1. Support for TV library in 'My Media Centre'
  2. Support for various file types playback that were promised
  3. Renaming of Echos to meaningful names (e.g. 'Bedroom', 'Lounge', etc.)
  4. 'Resume' added to 'My Media Centre' GUI. I seem to only be able to initiate playback. (unless use the 'remote' function and use the GUI on screen)

Plus I'm still having an issue where button presses on my 'My Media Center' device are sometimes completely ignored. I'm thinking this might be a network issue though if others don't get the problem. Planning some network architecture reconfiguring this weekend.
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post #5275 of 7593
1/26/13 at 8:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

The echo has been known to be senitive to button presses. If you hold the button down too long it may read it twice.
Not only that, but the Echo won't sense a too-short button push, nor will it readily read off-axis signals. It has the worst IR response of any device I've ever had. I don't know whether that's fixable by firmware, or whether that requires different IR hardware. I'm really surprised by this defect, because I thought the IR component has been in use for so long, that it's mature technology.
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post #5276 of 7593
1/26/13 at 8:26am
Resume playback on a different Echo:

I started watching a movie (recorded from TV) in the bedroom, and I stopped playback. As usual, the display showed the option to resume playback. I turned off the bedroom system and a little later decided to finish the movie in my den. When I scrolled to the movie, I did NOT get the resume option. I had to start playback from the beginning and I used fast forward to get back to where I was.

I thought that WMC was supposed to keep track of this, and let me resume playback at any extender? Has anyone else run into this?
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post #5277 of 7593
1/26/13 at 8:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsurkin View Post

Resume playback on a different Echo:

I started watching a movie (recorded from TV) in the bedroom, and I stopped playback. As usual, the display showed the option to resume playback. I turned off the bedroom system and a little later decided to finish the movie in my den. When I scrolled to the movie, I did NOT get the resume option. I had to start playback from the beginning and I used fast forward to get back to where I was.

I thought that WMC was supposed to keep track of this, and let me resume playback at any extender? Has anyone else run into this?

I have been able to do this between the echo and my HTPC. I only have one echo and no Xboxen so I'm not sure about it on extenders but it would seem it should be able to be done.
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post #5278 of 7593
1/26/13 at 8:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsurkin View Post

Not only that, but the Echo won't sense a too-short button push, nor will it readily read off-axis signals. It has the worst IR response of any device I've ever had. I don't know whether that's fixable by firmware, or whether that requires different IR hardware. I'm really surprised by this defect, because I thought the IR component has been in use for so long, that it's mature technology.

Interesting. I'm using my H-900 with one of the blasters to the side of the echo. In fact I block the face of it when not in use so that no rogue signals leak into it, but when I try to control it with a Rosewill 11001 MCE remote I have to aim it right at the echo. That said, the echo is on a narrow shelf (3" tall) and back in about 4" from the front. I am going to (finally) pull the echo out of the a/v cabinet this weekend and I guess then I will know how sensitive it really is..

EDIT: I pulled it forward and it seems to be working okay with the Rosewill remote from across the room.
Edited by Sammy2 - 1/26/13 at 8:43am
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post #5279 of 7593
1/26/13 at 8:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsurkin View Post

Resume playback on a different Echo:

I started watching a movie (recorded from TV) in the bedroom, and I stopped playback. As usual, the display showed the option to resume playback. I turned off the bedroom system and a little later decided to finish the movie in my den. When I scrolled to the movie, I did NOT get the resume option. I had to start playback from the beginning and I used fast forward to get back to where I was.

I thought that WMC was supposed to keep track of this, and let me resume playback at any extender? Has anyone else run into this?

I have no problem resuming between my 3 Xboxes and the main PC. Never tried with Echo though as I don't use it regularly.
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post #5280 of 7593
1/26/13 at 9:39am
I've stopped playback on my xbox and resumed later on my echo w/o a problem. I don't think I've tried the other way.
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