The official DVICO TViX M6500A Discussion - Page 3

Who would have thought a $180 unit from China would put fear into the hearts of Tvix supporters So is an unbiased source going to do a honest comparision between the two units?

Johny,

Please, please purchase a popcorn hour, then I can stop having to read your pathetic ramblings.

Postings like 'jack up the price' are just laughable. I get you 'get a kick' from being provocative but for goodness sake stop taking a useful topic off in circles.

Is there an 'ignore poster' ability I can set?

Tolax

Consumers will make the comparison and decide themselves.
If TViX 6500 is expensive without required functionality then it would be dead in no time. You don't have to worry about it, Johny.
Most people ignore negative sentences regarding TViX before the unit starts production. It is like screaming of a non-working ISO/IFO functionality in a beta test FW (which was compiled in the next release).

Btw, another unit from China tried to gain some market share but was unsuccessful. Though it had huge support from resellers. Consumers rule the world.

Who would that be? You?

I've tested a number of streamers so far, including several TViX models, IO-DATA Linkplayer, and Zensonic Z500. All have had their good points and shortcomings. And all have fallen somewhat short of fully delivering on their advertised features. Each newer model is improved over its predecessors but, IMO, none has yet truly reached sufficient maturity to appeal to the mainstream electronics consumer. I expect that this is also true of the Popcorn Hour.

The good news is that--unlike the HTPC, which I never expect to see in Joe&Jane 6pak's livingroom--these devices are clearly destined for mainstream adoption.

oh oh... Johny boy is add it again...

You obviously have no clue how hard I do challenge even DVICo, fact is, in both
hardware, operations, convenience and support for things, DViCo is far ahead of
that Chinese peace of crap you call "better" or try to defend all over the place.

DViCo is not perfect, by far they are not. but the company is responsive,
releases regular updates (and not only promises such like Lim), beats Tomacro
in every single way of features in files (step, frame, subs, zoom and everything
else) and I can only tell you what you ask from others... make a comparisson 1
on 1, honest and not only on 15 files. You are becoming a famous little boy on
these forums. I bet 95% already knows they should ignore you...

Since I know the lim very well...
- Do you still wait 30-60 seconds for FF to start working or resume after trick play?
- Can you still NOT browse lists during music playback?
- Are you still limited to one poor SMB and 1 poor NFS source?
- Tomacro still using GenDVD as it's puppet to do the customer support / conversations?

Oh man... how well do you know LimHD200i as it sounds to me you only seen it after a glass window...

Comparing PCH vs. TVIx
Not in the least, the PCH wins for it's cheaper price and basically offering the same features as the TViX yet in a much slower way due to HTML interface. The advantage in using this system is the integration with online content and extra's for users that want to take care of adding their own developed features but feature wise, it should close up with TViX. There is no real advantage in "playing and files supported between the two".

The TVIX would win, unlike PCH, because it can be shut down "and" powered by remote, has USB slave that makes adding content so much faster and more convenient, is quality wise a better player but also expensive. It has less features than PCH and yet charges 2X it's price but in the end convenience costs money and the level of such convenience is higher on the TViX than on the PCH.

For playback, players are very close to each other and this is thanks to community delivering feedback to both brands (yes Johnny girl, .... eu boy?), to both same feedback so no preference).

Those are the basic lines.
Should i mention the TViX has HDMI 1.3? Alluminum front? More connections
like Optical or are you again thinking about comparing 15 files only to give people your full skill full test results?

I rest my case.
You're not worth my time...

- Is picture browsing better in lim or PoPCorn? Do you even have these players?
- MP3 playback is better than on NMT: Can browse lists and such (no FLAC yet
but it has been added to the beta lately on the NMT as will DviCo add it in one
of the next releases) and you can use the display to play music without TV.
- Audio over HDMI is fine. The click issue is gone
- Icon browsing IS NOT A FEATURE of TVIX but by consumers.
(exactly my point you really just list what you want)
- Embedded subs is still buggy on PCH and added in beta indeed. Same thing will
happen on TViX soon with the difference both external and embedded subs can
be used simultaneously. TViX also uses vector fonts now and can show 2 subtitles
at the same time. Was it available on the NMT upon release? Why then are you
nagging about it if the TViX isn't even on the market? Is that not unbiased or
does that only count for others and not yourself? (If it is only about the 4100,
different product class than compare it to LimHD, does it have embedded subs?)
- Time search is already supported from the start on TViX.

We are not hiding things that are not there but we have a much healthier approach than you. If we would kill products because of their initial form, we shall "kill" all products. Now we only kill the ones that after 8 months still have nothing to show for like lim :-)

PoPCorn is a good player for its price. So is TViX as it does have several
advantages over the PCH (music without TV using display, browsing, usb
slave, optical, shutdown and power by remote, better hardware (more
less cheap materials than the PCH hardware, no pun intended) and more...
It delivers upon much more convenience in general but are close into capabilities
when talking video.

Now I won't respond to you anymore. People know me well enough, even
popcorn, that we are honest in feedback and work with everyone in the same
way. Nothing you can change about that by yabbing on the forums about how
you feel about TViX or me.

I don't care which one sells good or bad...
I care which one is best, most convenient and has best price comparison.
We arranged a lot of PCH to be sold because we believed in the product and
in NMT. We also believe in the TViX products which have been the leaders all
the way despite their problems... and maybe will be again. Depends on the
answers of brands like PCH and such and what DVICo will do in the coming months...

PS: For your reference. You know the PCH is Syabas hardware right? So less
cost does pull the price down as it's their own. Tell me what picture you have
comparing it to the Dune HD at €549 as that is a better comparison than against
PCH for an "honest" and "uninfluenced" match. Take away the 20$ dvd drive and
there you go... 449 vs 549. €100 euro difference. Now you tell me why?

Maybe do your homework sometimes...
The longer it takes for you to agree with me, the longer I been ahead of you :-)

Now, back to TViX discussion...

ENjoy
Hi-Jack

Hi,

Would someone be kind enough to post a real picture of the front of the Tvix 6500. I only found generic pictures and i really want to see a quality picture of the device.

Thanks in advance

Bye

Can the 6500 do DTS-MA pass through? Either via SPDIF or HDMI? I don't mean DTS-HD(HR) but DTS-MA. Let us know please.

Thanks for the report on ATSC HDTV functionality, Kei.

No. The TViX has passtrhough of TrueHD and DD+ only according to DViCo.
We have no files to test this but it should work... (maybe someone else can test)

Is there any particular reason that it doesn't pass DTS-MA? What about even the 5.1 'core' of the track? Does it pass DTS-HD(HR) at all?

No clue but i assume licensing is one of the reasons and the fact you can't play disks directly on the unit. The other formats are added because of DViCo looking into EVO support. Even that sounds a little unstable right now with HD-DVD loosing from Blu-ray which may lead to DViCo dropping its intention to support HD-DVD...

Dunno...
Players are here in a week or so so let's see what happens with the first tests for the
latest audio codecs. I checked my mails and actually DViCo only talked about passthrough
TrueHD... does not mean limited to this only...

AFAIK you only need to pay licenses for decoding but not for passthrough.

could be...
here's an interesting overview of...

http://www.idoblu.co.uk/page2%20Blu-ray%20Players.html

Yep, revision C is what we need!

Does the 6500 use revision C?

According to this it does.

Ok, DVICo just made ma a little happier. It stated it will release another update by Friday
adding embedded subs and picture rotation... It doesn't render the player to a perfect one
but it takes it again one step closer of becoming one... (in a month or 2, 4, 9, 12 :-) )

Yeap, it is a well known fact that Dvico guys work hard when you push them. It also happened with their 4100SH player - they implemented mkv & related features in a week or so. I believe they hire professional contractors only when a new player is coming or masses request a new feature for an old one. During the other time the FW development is kind of slow and suggests that only one-two people work on it.

So now is the time when you can get as many new features as you wish. Just push it through Hi-Jack or directly to Dvico.

As much as I would love to immediately agree with you this hasn't really been proven yet. If you go by the list above from Hi-Jack, which I also came across a few days ago at Doom9, you will see that all the SMP devices already have on-board DTS decoders and the current SMP8634/35 media server devices do not and I still think that's why we are not getting DTS-MA pass through via SPDIF. I say SPDIF because that's what I have but since the 6500A has HDMI 1.3a it should technically be able to pass through a DTS-MA stream for an HDMI 1.3a DTS-HD/MA avr to atleast pass the 5.1 'core' of the DTS-MA and the entire DTS-HD stream which really isn't HD anyway they just use DTS-HD as a marketing ploy when it's just a glorified 1.5mbps stream as compared to it's 768k SD brother Anyway, Madshi I know you are the HD audio guru and I know you will say that it's the way the NMT's are reading the DTS-MA headers and believe me I want to agree with you and I hope you ARE right but if you go by the list above the missing link to DTS-MA not DTS-HD(HR) passthrough is the on-board DTS decoders built into all the players on that list. Just my 2 cents.

Update: I found out that the problem with these files is that they lack audio tracks and the M-6500A wasn't expecting such. Presumably this will be fixed soon.

Hmmmm... I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that because there are onboard DTS decoders available, passthrough can't work? Or are you saying that there needs to be a DTS-MA decoder for passthrough to work correctly?

Pls need answers on 2 questions:

Does it output native 44.1Khz/16Bit over Spdif (unlike 48Khz windows...) and HDMI during WAV/Lossless FLAC playback?

Does it have 576i/480i over HDMI output (for my VP)? if so what color space.

Thank you very much.

Yes, this is what I'm saying. Doesn't have to be a DTS-MA decoder just a standard DTS decoder. As I said, I hope I'm wrong and you're right but this is how I see it from all the evidence gathered so far. So does this make sense or am I just crazy stupid?

Evidently it does, since that's a setup option under HDMI, but I cannot test this. (And I can't answer the other question about audio output either)

Hi Kei and or anyone else close to the supply chain for TviX units,

Are there plans to release a 6500 series equivalent to the 4x00 series version of the 4x10 with integrated tuners at a significant discount compared to the separate prices of the box and tuner in the forseeable future?

Whatever TViX unit I go with needs to include the tuner as inexpensively as possible for optimal WAF since we would like to replace a nice but bulky OTA ATSC/NTSC HD tuner. Spending 419 for a 6500 plus 99-139 for an ATSC-only tuner now isn't going to go over well. Waiting a couple of months for a bundled model will go over much better, as long as it happens.

Also, speaking of the tuner/PVR features of the 6500, can you watch / pause live TV, or do you have to schedule a recording and wait until it finishes to watch it with transport control? If you cannot pause / fast-forward / rewind a recording (or "live TV") as it is happening, can you at least watch a program as it records?

...and finally, how does the 6500 handle captions in an ATSC stream either live from the tuner or from a recording? Can you enable/disable/select them with the subtitles button on the remote?

Thanks,
-GregorM

Gregor--

I don't know about the bundle, but it seems likely. However, I have bad news on your other questions. TViX does not support (so far) DTV CC, so you can't see CC either live or in recordings. (It does support other subtitles, though, so this may be a "coming feature") Also, it will allow you to view the program during recording, but there is no pause, etc., of live TV. That was said to be beyond the powers of the EM-862x chips, but I don't know if it's possible with the 8635 or not.

Am currently looking at possibly picking one of these up for use in our bedroom. A few questions.

1. Are these shipping as of yet? Hard to tell from some of the sites.

2. Has anyone tested wireless connection on this unit? Due to location, I am not sure I will be able to run a wired connection to it. I do plan on adding a Hard drive, thus I do not mind copying over data to it locally first for viewing. Main use is for convienance and not our primary viewing area. Would like to know how to get wireless to work if at all possible.

3. Comparison / advantage over exisiting units. I'll admit I just started looking and am a little confused over benefits to 4000/4100 unit. Cost are similar for all three ~ 50 - 100 difference so neither is out of ballpark so to speak.

My primary goal is to watch TV shows recorded off of my media Server (BeyondTV) both STD and HD. Thus music and picture viewing is of little importance to me. Kind of figured HD streaming is out of the questions, thus am willing to deal with copying it locally first. Looking for a player that can play without having to recode my recordings (Mpeg format for STD and standard HD streams for all HD recordings) as have a user-friendly interface (Wife factor). Will this unit do it or is it overkill? Advise appreciated.

cbb77--

1. No, the M-6500A is not yet shipping. End of this week or next week, maybe.

2. Wireless (on TViX in general) works fine for SD/DVD but not HD streaming.

3. Any TViX from M-4000 onward will do what you ask.

Thanks for reply. I think I will focus on 4000 or 6500 unit as been reading some issues with 4100. In any case my question on wireless was more on how to get it to work, which brand / devices are compatible. Haven't found much information in regards to this. Trying to determine overall cost on Tvix unit + compatible wireless adapter. If there is a list out there you can share be greatly appreciated.