Pioneer Steps Up Elite AVRs - Page 6

Good to know!

Well I can stream music across my windows server with ntfs volumes through my Mac mini. So, being able to read ntfs volume files from a dnla device doesn't require a license, only if you wanted to write them natively. So, there's no reason why they can't implement reading ntfs volumes.

If you notice, flash usb devices don't support ntfs volumes either, but that's just one interface. The receiver is grabbing dlna files through its network port, so it's just the manufactures being lazy by not to putting any engineering effort to get it to work.

Funny that pioneers's own blu ray players support NTFS and the oppo blu ray players too, not to mention my net gear access point dlna server and onkyo 8050 receiver and....

Really? Cool. Must be using Linux. I hope they don't up getting sued by Microsoft.

It's more complicated than that. There's been an open-source way to access NTFS shares for at least a decade now. Samba much? This predicates a) the OS is based on Linux and b) there are lawyer/engineers on hand who can ensure the bits they're making money with will NOT get snared by an open source license.

Pioneer is (as far as I can tell) using an embedded JAVA platform, and has recently gone through a pretty nasty restructuring which constricted their ability to employ lawyer/engineers. Far as I'm concerned, they'll start supporting NTFS shares just as soon as the TI DSP that represents the brain of their receivers does, and not before.

There are plenty of appliances like routers and such that have NTFS support.

Any device can read it without a license. An operating system cannot be allowed not to retrieve information stored on it's volume. Microsoft would be better off supporting ext3 IMHO.

And there's many more that support FAT. Microsoft has sued at least one company for failing licence their FAT patents, and threatened many more.

A quick web search reveals that Microsoft is in fact willing to licence NTFS, although threy don't advertize this fact like they do with exFAT and FAT. Assuming the terms are reasonable, it might also be practical for an AV receiver based on Linux to legitamately support NTFS as well.

My point about NTFS not really being necessary still stands however, so I doubt any receiver manufature is going be eager to spending all the engineer effort to implement it in their proprietary and semi-proprietary operating systems.

Well keep in mind that fat32 only supports files of 4gb in size and under. This is why I format my usb flash drives as ntfs. Most Linux distros began supporting ntfs back in 2009. This is full read and write btw. Pioneer doesn't need a license to fetch it off any particular file system. This is why dlna exist in the first place.

I mentioned that earlier. I also pointed out that's not a problem with an AV receiver that can only play audio files.

But the other issues still stand

No rear USB

No flac file support from usb

And did I mention how slow home media gallery is and primitive it is as a browser?

I understand what your saying. I'm just reiterating that ntfs licensing isn't needed to read attached storage or network served file, ie: dlna. Companies are just to lazy to rework their system to interface, hence lack of support for flac files. At least AirPlay enabled devices can stream apple lossless codec.

Tape loops or processor loops are not permitted by Dolby, so the AVR cannot be certified. Basic problem is the output level of the connected component in the loop, it can/will change levels back to the Dolby Decoder which will throw it off..

Just my $0.02...

A NTFS licence would be necessary to read from a NTFS formated USB stick because the receiver would need to have code capable of reading the patented NTFS file system.

An NTFS licence wouldn't be necessary to read a file over the network using DLNA (UPnP AV) because the receiver doesn't need any NTFS file system code to do so. Only the server on the other end would need such code to read from an NTFS formated disk.

The Onkyo AVRs are typically not sold or used by custom installers..
Instead they support the Integra line..

Primary reason is profitability...
Onkyo AVRs are sold everywhere @ high discounts as they have lost control of their distribution similar to what happened to Denon..

Though the custom installer usually make their profit margin by labor, it makes little economic sense to sell a piece of hardware that is available through internet sellers @ highly discounted pricing..

Just my $0.02..

Why do you think so many devices use Linux as the os in devices? It gets around these types of issues. Ntfs read/write is licensed under the gpl of the distro as ntfs-g3. That's why a lot of these streaming devices use the FUSE file system which can be used from a simple cell phone all the way up to osx to read/write to ntfs all compiled under a standard or custom proprietary distro.

The GPL doesn't given anyone a licence to use Microsoft's patents. TomTom was using Linux and its FAT file system driver, but not paying Microsoft any roylaties. Microsoft sued and TomTom ended up paying them in a out-of-court settlement.

Most companies who use the Linux implementation of FAT file system in their products pay Microsoft to do so. Those that don't risk getting sued by Microsoft just like TomTom did.

NTFS, like FAT, is a Microsoft invention. Anyone using it needs a licence from Microsoft.

Ross, I believe if the code is written in a clean room (no MS proprietary code) and reverse engineered the NTFS spec does not need to be licensed at all. However, if MS updates and breaks the spec, they would need to rework it again to make it compatible.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/new...sed-device.ars

It seems there were some specific patents involved, not just fat

Then I wonder how pioneer can even use fat32?

The obvious answer to this problem is to pay to license the patents or do a patent exchange

Pioneer receivers and products are filled with licensed stuff,

Clean room techniques only prevent copyright infrigment. The patents still apply. TomTom wasn't using any Microsoft proprietary code in their products either, they still got sued and they still ended paying up.


They licenced Microsoft's FAT patents.


Yes, as I already said licencing the patents is an option. That's assuming the terms are reasonable. Unlike with FAT and exFAT Microsoft doesn't have a publically advertized licencing program for NTFS, so it may not be as simple or as cheap as just paying Microsoft $0.25 a unit like it is with FAT.

A more significant problem is actually implementing NTFS. The open source implementations can't just be dropped into Pioneer's proprietary OS. A lot of engineering work would be necessary, which is hard to justify when it's not really needed. If Pioneer ever switches to Linux then it would be much easier.

Using exFAT instead would be both be simpler to implement and to licence. It's far more likely that Pioneer will choose this option once USB flash drives bigger than 32GB become common and the need to support something other than FAT becomes a real issue.

Doing a little more research it seems Microsoft has never asserted any NTFS patents, so unlike with FAT and exFAT that may not be an issue. It's suprising though that Microsoft filed patents for FAT but apparently not for their much more sophisticated invention.

It seems it would only be the technical problems of supporting the very complex NTFS file system that's keeping AV receiver manufactures from using it.

Well it's probably cheaper for pioneer and everyone else to just make their own media server to interface with the avr running a Linux os. At least this would guarantee compatibility with serving media with their receiver line and enable dlna headache free. streaming is the future, like it or not.

This is why apple has been so successful with controlling both hardware and software. However, it has now produced self cannibalisim within their genealogy. The Mac will be reduced to ios with the downsizing of hardware and their betting the farm on cloud computing.

I think the consumer just has to voice what they want and these companies simply need to listen and deliver, or else they won't be around much longer.

Well it's been ms's plan to abandon ntfs and move towards a root password type file system. They wanted it rolled out in windows 7, but missed the boat. Now with windows 8 they changed their direction trying to copy apple by wanting a level os playing field among all of their devices. So all of their work for the ntfs replacement has been put on the back burner and they want to implement a file system to work for all of their devices like the Xbox, windows phone and pc os. On the server side of things, they probably will leave it alone. It's this whole push for cloud computing and Internet based applications rather then local installation. It allows them to control software licensing more then anything else.

MS gave up long ago trying to stop Linux developers from windows compatibility. Once WINE came out, ms threw in the towel.

The days of owning physical media are over you will either download it or stream it on a rental basis

To me the thing that makes the most sense for legacy stuff, records, CDs,etc is to digitize/rip it and pit it onto a hard disc and connect that to the receiver

In that way you don't deal with dlna but for various reasons pioneer, and to be fair, a lot of receivers are weak in this area

Apple has an interesting model where the have a continuous yearly update of products and yet, they don't drop support for previous years models. And intact when new models are released, older models get up grades in software

In turn, this keeps the selling price of older models higher and customers happier

Contrast that with pioneer's scorched earth clean slate approach and yearly half price sale

The bar has been set and I as a consumert have high expectations for an elite receiver with a price of almost $2,000

Unlike a logo fpeople commenting, I do own one of the most current high end receivers (perhaps some of you already learned the hard lesson) but I did not buy the bd player as I planned after watching the slow train wreck of all the issues unfold

And while I respect walkamo's willingness to post and understand his stance in explaining pioneer's decision

Whether it was a flawed business decision or poor design, pioneer leaves owners behind and given the present policy, I will not buy another pioneer product.

Some of us enjoy holding physical media in our hands and knowing that neither the studios nor a power spike can take it away from us with no warning. Finding a player for obsolete media is another matter, of course.

One word or is it two? Download, the physical media you will hold will be a storage device

Burnable CD/DVD/BD media has a limited lifetime -- just a small number of years. A dropped hard drive is recycling material. Periodically recopying to new media or a new format before the old is obsolete is a royal pain -- and sometimes you don't realize you need to copy it until it's too late.

Aluminum on plastic can last a very long time. I'm still watching old laserdiscs.

wow, and some people accuse others of going off topic...

Sorry, it's something I feel strongly about

So is there any rumor that MCACC will be extended to do subwoofer equalization? Perhaps next year?

I've also been wondering the feasibility of a workaround: if one plugs a pair of powered subwoofers into the main left and right preamp outs, and "normal" speakers into the main left and right speaker outs, and configures the AVR with "no subwoofer", will MCACC do a correct full frequency equalization of what it thinks are the main speakers?

I believe mcacc doesn't apply any eq below 63hz.