Netgear NeoTV Max (NTV300SL)

after the sad sad sad support for the neotv 550, I will not touch this box with a 10 foot pole. Looks like another android/hybrid so I doubt it will even support HD audio...

I asked Netgear Support a week ago:

10/17/2012 1:13:00 PM
"Hi, does the new Media Streamer NTV300SL support DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD passthrough via HDMI?"

The answer (in Swedish) was that "all info about the product has not yet been released (only:
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/21831) but that HD audio passthrough has not been a problem with the predecessors."

Duh.. So we still don't know.

Actually, it's smart.

Since Netgear probably has no clue what actually works and doesn't work, they can depend on their (small) customer base to make those determinations for them. They can write the manual from the different reviews. Cut marketing out of the loop.

Bought an NTV300SL and have done limited testing with it. Plays files easily from my TVersity server and passing through audio such as DTS MA. The Netflix app allows browsing and using the instant queue.

No. All my bluray rips are in m2ts format. Still working with the device to see if I can get FF/REW to work properly seems to work fine for things like the Netflix App but locally streamed media it does not reliably work.

Have not really spent much time with it, will hopefully get to do so soon ... work getting in the way...

I have Tversity also. Was wondering how you set it up to work with the ntv300sl

Netgear Specs: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/21831/~/ntv300sl-(neotv-max)-supported-media-file-formats

I just purchased this as an alternative to the WD TV Live, which I had to return.

The WD had a lot of glitches, but one thing it did very well was read every file type in my library!

I'm praying the NeoTV has better performance, but the deal breaker would be limited file support.

+1. The 550 was so bug-filled and support so lacking that nothing could induce me to spend money on another netgear media player.

Well I've been running my NTV-300SL for a couple weeks now... and I must say its not half bad. Personally I like the GUI & on board options better than my faulty WD TV Live.

PROS:
- Plays all my video files (AVI, MP4, MKV)
- Has a nice sleep function, and turns off ext. drive; even when turned off the WD still powers USB drive.
- Doesn't do that annoying searching for network at every startup, instead displays status in small window at the bottom of the screen when menu has loaded.
- Remote w/ keyboard is nice; but should have been backlit.
- Loading and searching of ext USB drive is fast

CONS:
- HD files play BUT.... there is no audio!
- File names don't scroll
- No resume play feature

Have not tried on line features as yet, but I like it so far.

I think if you compare a properly working WD & Netgear unit side by side, it may just come down to personal preferences

I picked up an NTV300 (not the 300sl) on sale primarily for use as a Netflix box. For this purpose the time to start up the Netflix app was longer than I was willing to accept.

This device takes maybe 35 seconds to actually start up the Netflix app from the main menu. It takes a further 15-20 seconds or so to start streaming, and 7 seconds to actually stop once the "stop" button is hit. Fast-forward and rewind are similarly slow.

Once it starts playing it's fine, seems to be able to do high def and definitely does Dolby Digital Plus.

I returned mine and got a Roku. Way faster, worth the price difference for me.

I just picked up an NTV300SL. DLNA feature works fine - my HD videos play with no audio problems. I tested Divx avi and h264 mp4 files. Fast forward works for DLNA videos but only if it's done for a short period of time... then it seems to freeze. I was a little disappointed that each time you go to the My Media channel it rescans for available DLNA servers. I was expecting it to remember the last one I used.

Netflix and Vudu apps worked well. The CNN app hasn't had a new video since 2011... pretty sure there's been something newsworthy since then.
Edited by bcarlsen - 1/4/13 at 8:20pm

Hey guys I'm new here and came across the forums while looking for answers on this device I just picked up. So far I've played locally (from USB) and streamed over wifi and it has worked well with most HD quality .mkv containers. The one problem is that if the audio is encoded in DTS then the NeoTV Max only gives me video playback with no audio. Other HD mkv files encoded in other audio codecs like ac3 or mpeg3 work fine. I have seen the chart on the netgear site listing the "supported codecs" and apparently DTS is supported under the mkv container. With my experience thus far though I have no luck getting audio on those DTS encoded files. So far I have briefly read there are a couple different versions of the DTS codec, I'm fairly new to encoding / re-encoding my own files so I'm not sure on all the details of that just yet. Just thought I'd drop my two cents and see if I can help figure out what exactly this $60 device can do for us. My main use for it is playing locally from USB or maybe wifi once in awhile. My overall impression so far is that its great for playing any 720p or 1080p mkv files as long as they are not encoded in DTS.

Has anybody had luck with dts audio encoded files perhaps under different video codecs / containers?

EDIT: The model I'm using is a NTV300SL

I don't have any DTS encoded files. I use WinMEnc and VideReDo and I don't believe they allow for encoding in DTS.

Is it doing high def audio now?

I haven't had any videos with no sound at all. When I record videos I have them automatically re-encoded in 720p h264 mp4 and I have no problems with that format at all on the NTV300SL. When I was testing formats I took a 1080i .wtv file, repackaged it in an mp4 container and tried to play it on the NTX300SL- there was audio, but it wasn't in sync with the video.

One other thing I've noticed since I got this box - Netflix is very slow. It takes a while to start up, some videos have trouble playing and when I pause a video it takes 3 or 4 seconds before it does anything. The NTV300SL specifications claim 300 Mbps wifi. I have 25Mbps internet service. But when I test the network connection it always says around 5 Mbps.

Hi,

I have an AppleTV I'm very happy with when it comes to Netflix and so but I bought a NTV300SL yesterday, primarily for the WiDi and the USB playback, both missing from the ATV3.
I'm still in the middle of testing it, setting it up was very easy (except from the WiDi but on the windows 8 laptop end, nothing to do with the NTV300SL).

First off, regarding issues with the DTS audio on MKV files, at first I thought I had the same problem but in switching the audio in the setup to "Bitstream HD" instead of "PCM Stereo" it is working great now. I can't tell if it does because I have a good receiver, or if it would work on the TV directly, so you will have to try it yourself ;-)

However, if you have an MKV movie with more than one audio track, say the primary language is Spanish and the original version, say English, in track number 2, it will play the movie in Spanish only. I haven't found any other way than recoding the file in order for it to play the original version
Please let me know if you found a way around it.

For the rest, except from the remote that could be better, I don't have any other complain so far (might be because I am not using it for Netflix based on some of the reviews I read).

So far, I must say that for this price it is doing fairly good!

It always plays a file from the beginning. It has no skip 30 seconds feature - just fast forward (which doesn't work well on uncompressed videos).