New Dune HD Sigma 8910 anticipation thread Q2 2012 - Page 9

Well said. I have a feeling they could be going out of business also but didn't want to indicate. Usually in this market another company will come along and gobble them up and we'll never see another "good" media player from Dune again. Who knows. Western Digital has everything in the world to make a very good media player but every one I have ever owned has never played well. What a loss.

Didn't the Dune H1 go up like $60? How is that "hundreds and hundreds more"

I just picked up a pristine 3.0 base unit for $199 shipped. Completely happy at that price. There are deals out there if you are willing to look. Having had literally, ALL of the popcorn hour products at on time or another I will stick with my Dunes!
Also didn't you track down your playback issues to moving to a new unraid software release? Agreed that it should not matter but curious why the dune had an issue with it..

Since no one else has been releasing 8910 players I am sure that there is some sort of glitch or delay that is keeping new players away...maybe Sigma is going to put out a 9000 series.

sure. ebay! I like it because I have a bracket I can use inside of it to mount a 2.5" hard drive and still use the hotswap bay!

Would be my guess, I also thought it strange as at the time I figured popcorn hour had a deal with sigma to always get first dibs on new models as they always brought out the new chipset series before anyone else.

Gus, I gotta disagree about PCH's 300 series and too many bugs. I find my A-300 to be quite solid and reliable. Think it's on par with Dune. Also, for those considering PCH or Dune, I'd suggest they also look at Mede8er 450X2 or 500X2. They're also very capable streamers. See the 500X2 thread.

I had one right at launch and found it much much worse than even the c200 I had at the time. Was there a couple recent updates? I have not been following it since I played with it initially..

Don't know as I only got mine a few weeks ago. Not to get this thread off track, but why'd you find it much worse? You may want to read through the Mede8er thread. It's a solid player (video playback, hd audio, jukebox).

The A300 at launch blew away the C200 at launch (the C200 launch was possibly one of the worst I have seen).

Just some annoyances with the A300 and some of the bugs

the main issue with the 300 series was A the HD audio bug that is still getting fixed from sigma, And B the subtitle bugs that caused all sorts of issues, If you did not use BD/HD audio or anything with subtitles the 300 series is solid.

HA HA! You named the two things I use 99% of the time with my media players!
If boxeebox would get off their ass and fix the audio issue I would give them a go again!

Brajesh,
I was making reference to the 300 at launch compared with the 200 on current firmware. Have not played with the mede8r boxes as yet..

The HD audio is supposedly fixed from sigma just have to wait till it comes in a firmware hopefully the 300 release is not to far off and hopefully they fixed the subtitles then 300 series would be pretty solid,

I dont think boxee will ever fix HD audio they are starting to remind me off xtreamer and there HD audio. A fix is coming a fix is coming and one will never come. Last they said intel fixed it its in the new sdk and we should have that new sdk out in march. One could still hold out hope though. I would tell you what amazes me the most in the media player world is how many people think its ok boxee doesnt have working HD audio, but if another plays lacks some function they blow up about it, Same with appletv, there cult following's are almost scary. there was someone on the popbox forums not long ago that was mad his popbox would not play a file and he had to remux it, then his next post was "I bought an appletv2 and ran all my files through handbrake and it works 100% popbox is junk appletv plays everything" I was speechless

^ not too many people that I am aware of think it is okay that boxee is not fixing the hd audio problem, and I am one of them, check out the rage on their forums. However, if HD Audio is not important to you and the box is meeting your needs then one is satisfied and doesn't care whether an unused issue is fixed or not. I certainly agree with your 2nd point though but you have to read between the lines on this type of uninformed comment and it is isn't that difficult, but I am sure comments like that do unfortunately influence some people.

^^ might be I dont keep up to much with the boxee stuff when it first came out I was interested and picked one up but it was the same time it was issues with some local file playback so it went up on the ebay and i have not looked back. I think my nixeus is going to go the way of the ebay here soon to, might pick up a Mede8er next to test out

^^^ I think it is a sickness... maybe a good thing there isn't a perfect box, otherwise what we do? oh... watch movies instead of obsess with these dang boxes.

lol for me the popcorn hours boxes has been good enough for my usage, I run them as my main players and user yamj/eversion, But i like to test other stuff to to see if something better/cheaper comes along, Cottoncandy fxi is also on my list

I hear you guys about the sickness. I have had no less than 16 media players this year...It is indeed a sickness (or a hobby) Hard to tell the difference some days...

Hey Diablozoe, any chance you could ask your contact if these recently announced (June):

8674 : http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products.php?id=151

8672 : http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products.php?id=152

are the hybrid chipsets mentionned earlier to replace the defunct 8910 with HDMI 1.4 enabled 86xx?

If yes, any idea when we can expect a new Dune model?

EDIT: Looks like neither has HDMI 1.4 support, so I guess it's a no.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/streamers-network-media-players/1641301-sigma-new-chip-july.html
Edited by Manni01 - 7/5/12 at 6:47am

This might not be the thread to ask, but I didn't want to start a new one. I'm interested in getting a Dune Player to replace my old WDTV Gen1, with Shocase Mod. I love the custom interface with my own background as start screen for my theater, and the moviesheets.
I saw that Dune can run the Dune Flash Interface Program over at http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27171

I checked out Dune's site and there are many many models to choose from. Would the cheapest model run this Flash Interface? Would it be somewhat "snappier" than my old WDTV? Budget is not high, but I'd like an upgrade. I play mostly MKV's at bitrates between 3k and 5k with DTS and some AC3. Would like the Master Audio, but it isn't a must.

Suggestions on a model or if the cheapest would work?

Thanks in advance guys.

If by cheapest you mean the TV101/301, they perform relatively well, but there are some audio bugs to deal with (especially when dealing with Master Audio).. The Smart series is the most reliable

Damian,

How does the TV 101/301 handle multichannel FLAC, especially MKV+FLAC+PGS?

Pass thru multi FLAC in, mult FLAC out. HD Audio on the other hand gets downmixed to 2.0 (I actually thought of you specifically as I was testing )

Yippiee!!! I have someone testing the Akira MKV+FLAC+PGS to see if it can handle it better than the 53D (which it can't). That is the only file that the 53D has problems with.

Are you saying that the device bit streams FLAC?

It decodes it via PCM and it should bitstream it but since there is no multichannel FLAC capable receivers it is impossible to test. I haven't tested 2.0 FLAC but I cannot see why it can't.

No sorry, was trying to distinguish between HD Audio. Multi channel flac it decodes as multi channel PCM. HD Audio is decodes as 2.0 stereo

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying.

Now that some AVRs support FLAC decoding if it had that feature it would have been a great way to check the implementation (i.e. bit streaming or just DLNA-esqe).

If you look at the spec sheet about the 8910 it says the samething as the 8674 does about HDMI neither says 1.4 but Integrated HDMI with CEC, 12-bit deep color, xvYCC

There's no such thing as "bitstreaming" FLAC. A device either plays FLAC (and decodes it to PCM), or it doesn't. Whether it accesses the file via DNLA or directly isn't relevant.