Official Ceton Echo Extender Info Thread - Page 180  

To me the more relevant point is that people know they'll need to upgrade to something newer eventually and it would be nice to know that the hardware we already have (Echo's for example) can still be useful at that point. Knowing up front that the Echo will be useless when that time comes should at least enter into the decision process in making the purchase.
It may not have been that simple - for example, it's possible that Microsoft wouldn't allow them to release a brand new product using Win7 embedded with WMC - only Ceton knows the real story.

Drinking the MS Kool-aid I see. Win 8 is junk. I've had a steady stream of my customers wanting to downgrade. I'd venture to guess there's far more out there that hate it than love it.

How exactly is it junk? Because it's different? Just another hater getting emotional because things are changing... GMAFB...

I've been in the industry for 20 years. I've ran every OS from Microsoft, Apple, and all the major Linux distros from 1992 until now. Change when it is an improvement is a great thing. Change for the sake of change, is often met with resistance. Vista is/was still scorned as one of the worst OSes released to date. I think win 8 is gonna trump that.

Like I said in previous posts. It looks great for a tablet/touchscreen OS. MAYBE even the casual home user. For a business use desktop, I just don't see it. I've ran windows server 2012 as well, it's just as bad. MS thinks people want a "mobile experience" on their computer. I think they got it wrong. History will be the final judge, but I'd be willing to bet money they back track in the next release.

I'm not really seeing a need to upgrade for a long time. Win7 does everything I need. I still use quicken 2003 and does everything I need so why upgrade it? Why upgrade the OS just because? I've used every OS from DOS through Win3.1 to Win7, skipping a few along the way. Win7 is the best ever released and runs every thing I need it to run. No M$ wants an upgrade for Office 2013 that is $100/year or $400 one-time with no upgrade support. Office 2010 works just fine for me so why pay more $$ for an "upgrade"?

I'm sure that Win8 would do everything I need if M$ let it but it doesn't so why should I pay for it? It isn't really a matter of hating Win8 it is just a matter of not seeing any need for it.

I think it is just purely luck. I use The Weather Channel (1080i) as my de-interlacing test channel. Some times, it is really bad, especially on the bottom scroller. It seems that Echo gets the wrong frame order. But after flipping a few channels and go back, it is back to decent/normal on the same channel.

Yes, a TV's additional feature may masking this. In my case, I'm using it on a PC monitor which has not special processing. Echo is definitely not worthy of putting on any of my HDTVs yet.

What makes Win 8 superior to 7 on a Home theater PC? What features make the HTPC experience better on Windows 8?

I'm being totally serious, not bashing you or anything.. I've never used 8, and have absolutely no first hand experience with it. But from everything I've heard Windows 7 is superior for a HTPC. That's what everyone in this thread is using the OS for.

Windows 7 comes with Media center, works flawlessly with an InfiniTV 4 card, and feeds all my XBOX extenders all the Live & recorded TV/ ripped movies they want. What improvements could I expect by upgrading to 8?

I wouldn't pay for the upgrade. In fact I never pay for upgrade of any version of Windows. I buy or build a new PC if I need the latest and greatest.

So, the chances are when you need a new PC, Windows 8 is probably your only choice.

I don't hate Windows 8. I learn how to use it and it can be more efficient and useful than Win7 if you actually put down the hatrate and learn to love the new OS. No, you don't need touch screen to master the navigation of Win8. But a good win8 touch pad will surely help you a lot for the gesture support that otherwise can only be easily activated by touch screen.

A more secure and more efficient OS. Some new features like File History and Storage Space are only available on Win8. But if you want it to be your HTPC, think before you upgrade because Microsoft already abandoned the idea of HTPC in Windows 8. Xbox is their vision of next HTPC. Basic Win8 installation lacks a lot o common codec support unless you add WMC8.

I suppose those are pretty good features if they work better than the current back up, imaging and stiped drives in Win7. Do they?

I just got an email from Amazon to review the Echo. Like me most people must be holding off on their reviews and giving Ceton the benefit of the doubt/more time because how else could they not be getting beat up on this?

They have less than 4 weeks before the first potential round of massive returns and they have pretty much been silent for over a month. They better get their act together and soon.

If only ppl can lay down their blind hatrate of Win8, there are many things Win8 did it right. My favourite is launching any app by simply type the name. Much like Win7 but without the need to hit the start button first (there is no start button and frankly I don't miss it at all).

I use Win8 out of necessasity because Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 app developement requires Win8 PC. I just don't understand why ppl hate Win8 so much other than they don't like change.

Having not used it, I can't hate it. I just don't need to have more $$ extracted from my wallet either. I still have a couple Win7 licenses unused but I suppose when those are gone, I'll go to Win8 or whatever is current then. I don't forsee using up those licenses very soon, actually.

I haven't reviewed it yet but suppose I could. It works fine for PVR type duties but that is about it. Considering that an additional STB from Charter would be $5/mo it will take 36 months to break even on it if Charter doesn't raise their rate and that never happens.

I wouldn't put myself in the category of a Windows 8 hater. I mean, I actually like the idea of the start screen, and I think over time I'd learn to like the full-screen interface of Metro apps. From an interface perspective I just hate going back and forth between the "modern" environment (i.e., start screen and metro apps), and the "legacy" environment (i.e., the desktop and legacy apps). I would have preferred that Microsoft "metrofy" legacy apps, probably by wrapping each running legacy app its own metro window. But then you really wouldn't be able to use Windows 8 like WIndows 7.

While there's certainly some interesting security features underneath the covers, and a few nice new features (as other said, file history and storage spaces come to mind), I don't really see a compelling reason to switch on an HTPC. Storage spaces could have been a good reason, but its too quirky in practice (particularly when it comes to adding drives to the pool). I'd understanding wanting to upgrade a workstation that happens to double as a WMC server. Personally I don't see anything particularly compelling there either, but I understand that some might. I actually bought a couple Win8 upgrades expecting that someday I'll feel the itch to upgrade one of my machines.

I think gsr makes a good point when he said, paraphrasing, that Echo users understandably don't want to get left behind. Its quickly getting difficult to find new systems with Win7, and in a year its going to be difficult to get a copy of Win7 (though I think OEM versions will be sold for one more year). I already have a few spare Windows 7 licenses, and I build my desktops from parts, so I don't see much of a problem for myself. But, I see why others might be concerned.

I'm sort of going to repeat myself here, but I'm not a big fan of the Win8 interface. If you mostly work in the legacy desktop environment, then the start screen is a nuisance. And I'm convinced that its designed to be a nuisance. Microsoft wants laptop and desktop users to stay in the metro interface to create demand for metro apps that will be ported to Windows RT tablets (since MS tried to make that relatively painless). That's why the start menu isn't in the legacy environment, and that's why you can't boot straight to the desktop (without unsupported tweaks). I don't see any added value to the start screen if you're mostly going to be in the desktop environment.

The launch by name feature doesn't really help that much. I mean, you had something similar in Win7. In both cases you still need to do an action (for obvious reasons) prior to typing the app name. It's just a different action in the Win8 case. I still find the Win8 approach more disruptive if you're working in the desktop environment.

That's not to say I don't like the metro interface. I actually like it a lot. I just hate the combination of the modern and legacy environments.

My dev tools are all legacy desktop apps. But that doesn't mean I can't pin them to the start screen as tile and launch any desktop app from there. You don't have to use desktop mode even if you use legacy apps.

Thanks! I used to like that a while ago. Not anymore. I will stick to xbox for a year more and switch to something else after.

Thanks

I have seen that a new version of the FW is available (on the stable channel) since my echo is now saying "new version available, press 1 to install". Does anyone know which level this is? I haven't switched to the beta channel because I wanted to not lose the ability to see the image in FF/RW.

The current is drifting hard to the port.. We need a new f/w to discuss!!

Skip pressing 1 and load the interface and check it there or go to the webGUI on another machine to find out what it is first. It may be 3012.122 with the >> and << full screen preview fixed.. or not.

When I say desktop I mean the environment in which windows run on top of the desktop. The desktop tile on the start screen doesn't take you directly to the desktop- it makes you to the desktop environment, with any open windows you had from the last time you were there. You just described the normal way to launch legacy apps. When I've installed newer apps on Win8 machines they've always pinned the app on the start screen.

When you launched a pinned legacy app it takes you to the desktop environment. Sure, the app you just launched will take focus, but the other apps in that environment are there too. If you want to run legacy apps, there's no way to avoid the desktop environment. And since there's no start menu, and you're forced to boot to the start screen, there's no way to avoid the metro environment.

I have various complaints about this. But mostly it comes down to that its weird to have two different environments where apps look and behave different. You have the modern UI apps, which are full screen and basically close on their own. Then you have the legacy apps that run windowed, and don't close until you tell them to. They're sort of linked together through the start screen, but not particularly well. For instance, if you pull open the menu of recent/open apps from the start screen you don't see different icons for the apps running in the desktop. You just see one for the entire desktop environment. A lot of this is just the pain of trying to manage the transition from legacy apps to metro apps on the same OS. But I still think Microsoft could have done more to make things operate more consistently. Or, at the very least, made sure they finished the MS Office metro port before Win8 was released. At least then a lot of average users would never have to leave the metro environment.

Did you verify what this stable f/w version is yet?

This post indicates that it is 2013.116.1545.

I'm having a great experience with my echo and have been for at least the last few updates. Setting it at 1080p output gives me an excellent picture as well as music, picture and recorded tv playback. Waf is high and when it can play back native dvd rips I will be completely satisfied. Yes I still have the preview window issues that everyone else is having, but overall mine has been great.
I found that replacing the xbox with the echo has caused me to make minor changes to some nic settings as well as a few windows settings, but I now have a near perfect experience with it.
Here's hoping that the next few updates will put me right where I hoped to be when I first bought into the beta.
People tend to not post about good experiences so I believe there are more happy campers than not, so even though there are some who will return theirs I think that many more of us will keep them.
Just my 2 cents.

I'm with hub1. Really all positive, though my wife uses pretty much as cable signal replacement (live TV) and for playing back recorded video. She does not like the remote and I want to get a universal, but am afraid it will not be able to "mouse" the Internet once browser capability hits the Echo. How are all of you dealing with this issue? Don't want to buy two remotes and don't want to spend a ton of $ to control 2 devices, her TV and the Echo

They are the necessary evil to live with for now. Even most of the system administration apps in the OS are still legacy desktop apps. The Metro apps in the Win8 just not enough to manage all aspect of the OS. Even the Win8 RT tablet, which can't run any 3rd party legacy apps, has this same conundrum.

I have a mini Rii keyboard that I use with my HTPC. When this is activated in the echo I will use it or another similar device. Note also that there are mouse commands that you can program into a Harmony. I don't use them ever but I programmed them in.

You've said nothing... I've also used every operating system under the sun for the last 20 years, so what? Because you have a negative attitude towards what is a noticeable improvement over win7 because it's different means nothing. This is an HTPC forum, not an enterprise IT help desk. Win8 is not ME2000 or Vista period. If you don't like something that is more tablet optimized I feel bad for you because that is where the future is going, desktop is slowly dying.

There are numerous apps out there now that allow you to add the traditional start menu back to win8... If I'm working on desktop only apps I find that I don't need to use the "metro" interface if I don't want to.

If only MS would allow users to install the RT version of win8 on arm hardware and include the tuner/dvr functionality from media center, it would be the perfect htpc...

As it pertains to "HTPC", and specifically Ceton/CableCard applications, is Win8 an improvement over Win7?

Because that's the topic at hand. If it's "better as a tablet", but a step backwards in terms of HTPC/CableCard/WMC applications, then for the purposes of this thread, it's a step backwards, and it shouldn't be surprising to hear HTPC/CableCard/WMC users grumbling about it.

Unless, of course, Win8 Tablets/Convertibles were fully-functional WMC extenders. Which, as I understand it, to-date, they are not. Which is too bad, IMO, because that's one thing Microsoft could have done to easily differentiate themselves, at least for me. So as it stands right now, I have yet to hear a compelling reason for me, personally, to "upgrade" to Win8. I'll continue to run my Win7 desktop as my HTPC, and I will continue to use my iPad for tablet purposes.

Without the ability to take over a Live TV Tuner, a Win8 tablet doesn't promise any *desirable* functionality for me that it's Android/iOS competition can't also deliver... and as such, Microsoft better be able to undercut the competition on price if they are going to *win* my wallet at the checkout line.