Important News for OSD users!

[yanvrno]

How about a third option of a board replacement/swap. I assume the physical size of the OSD will remain the same. If not that is a pretty hefty tooling cost I would assume to the additional memory. I have no problem with removing the Version 1.0 board and putting in the new 1.5 version.

[Jeffnik]

I've actually found dealing with the Neuros folks a very positive experience, even going back to when I purchased my Neuros (1) mp3 player and having the free USB 2.0 upgrade offer.

At first I was a little dismayed having just got my unit that there would be an upgrade, but once I thought about it and conceded that I'll most likely never use my CF slot it wasn't a big "loss", and I'd rather still be a supported customer!  Plus, as another poster had mentioned, if the OS could reside on either style of memory card then I think it would work for most folks.

[zuvembi]

How about a third option of a board replacement/swap. I assume the physical size of the OSD will remain the same. If not that is a pretty hefty tooling cost I would assume to the additional memory. I have no problem with removing the Version 1.0 board and putting in the new 1.5 version.

I'd be interested in this assuming it was a reasonable cost.  I certainly wouldn't expect them to provide it for free.

Honestly, I never use the CF slot, but it seems like a lame solution.  What if my three year old pulls it out and loses it?

[yanvrno]

I have no issue with purchasing the replacement board.

But I found I like my CF card as a intermediate write too location before I auto script transfer the file to the network or a USB drive. If I dont want to record a scheduled recording I just pull the card. I dont have to reschedule. Saves a lot of steps.

[JoeBorn]

I deleted my previous post because it was a little harsh. It's not the end of the world.

no need.  I quoted it anyway   Besides, that's the purpose of these forums to allow people to speak their mind.  Certainly no offense taken by me at least, I'm grateful for all your feedback (good and bad).

[yanvrno]

How will an emergency .upk load behandled using the CF card if it has an OS on it? When will this happen?
If I am staying current with Dev releases and the new OS is transfering must I have a CF card inserted and a directory created? The transission to the new OS seems a little sketchy as to when, how and what is required. If we have issues will we beable to regress to the current OS untill all is cleared up? Sorry if this has been addressed somewheres else but I have not found reference to it. Other than its happening soon / this week.

[ifihadarubbertree]

Its late and i am tired so i will keep it short  .

1) I use the CF already to store apps / scripts etc.  So if it were to contain the GUI no big deal to me.
2) I can just use the SD card / USB for the rest.
3) I think they should look at USB Hub / card reader support if possible I think that would make people feel a little better.
4) I am glad they are bringing this out to us.  I won't turn down any thing free, but a 2 GB CF only costs like $12 at 
     Microcenter
5) I am nervous about support with this.  I hope they send some good Q & A time up front to make this fly calmly. 
6) What does this do to the current very timly updating process?  I would imagine a base install would take time and
     they would only need to do minor updates later on, but i mean are we talking 15 min to update or hours to update.  If i
     it takes too long they need to scroll funny messages to keep you intertained . 
7) The new unit that is released will require a different firmware anyway, so i hope the team is ready to support
      multiple firmware updates for the same type of product.

Ok I am too tired to continue, i post more when i am not falling asleep on the keyboard,

-Tree

[sharkey]

First of all I've been really happen with my OSD.   I do have a couple of questions that are rather off the subject.

1) Do you guys think you'll ever be able to offer playback for .MKV files?
2) With regard to the next generation device will there be additional connectivity options(i.e. HDMI,DVI...etc).  Just dreaming I guess.

Keep up the good work! 

[budwzr]

I deleted my previous post because it was a little harsh. It's not the end of the world.

no need.  I quoted it anyway   Besides, that's the purpose of these forums to allow people to speak their mind.  Certainly no offense taken by me at least, I'm grateful for all your feedback (good and bad).

Thanks, and by the way, I'm really enjoying the new (bugless) recording time/stamp feature for network recording. I freed myself from DVD's a long time ago, and now I'm free of memory chips too. Great job dev department!

[EyeTV]

Having only one week using my OSD, I will welcome a new GUI and as long as there is no performance hit I like the solution to keep early adopters in the loop and look forward to seeing where this OSD system is heading.

[earthman]

I dislike using the USB port, because the IR receiver is directly above the USB, and the USB cord blocks the remote signals, lowering the range and reliability. I've been using a 2GB SD card as an intermediate storage location before transferring the videos to my main storage, but 2GB isn't very much, and the larger SDHC cards aren't supported on the OSD. I tried recording directly to SAMBA, but sometimes the video gets choppy if my network gets slow. So then I shopped around for a larger microdrive solution, coincidentally on the very day that this change was announced, and discovered 4GB drives for under $20, 8GB drives under $50, and 20GB drives under $100. CF also comes in up to 16GB sizes at a higher price. This sounds like it could have been a nice improvement over my current situation. Now I'm not sure what to do.

If I got a commitment that I could use this storage for the OS and for recordings as well, that would help a lot.

Also, what happens if I lose the card, and insert a blank?

[akts(at)sbcglobal.net]

I like this move and welcome any move that further moves along the development of the Osd. I did not really use the Cf slot anyways.. using usb or sd card to record anyways..

[rblanco]

Great news to hear about such further product development and improvement! Keep up the great work.

How about a third option of a board replacement/swap. I assume the physical size of the OSD will remain the same. If not that is a pretty hefty tooling cost I would assume to the additional memory. I have no problem with removing the Version 1.0 board and putting in the new 1.5 version.

I would like to second this proposed idea. I would rather swap out the board, than to loose the CF Slot. I know that I can connect a USB CF Card reader to the OSD but this takes away from the portability and relatively small case size of the OSD. I do use my OSD CF slot.

Sorry if  this has been discussed before but what about CF card slot speed? I thought that the interfaces were not high speed USB 2.0 equivalent(?) Would this hinder offloading a new GUI operating off a CF card?

If developments are limited as such, I could give up the CF Slot, but I would like the option to return to a previous firmware easily.

In any case please keep us all informed of any developments.

Thank You.

[mtn]

This sounds like great news. I have been impressed with the OSD thus far.

[nerochiaro]

Thanks for all comments so far, it's good to have so much feedback and there were good questions.
So let's try to clarify some things.

When updating from old (let's call it TORFU) to new firmware (Arizona) we are trying to make the transition as smooth as possible.
First off, we will make sure your installed TORFU is beyond a certain release number. Older TORFU will need first to update to something more recent.
Then you have the usual options for installing:
- using the build-in updater in TORFU and either fetching from network, or by selecting in the TORFU file browser an Arizona upk package you put in some media.
- putting the Arizona upk package on a card, and rebooting the OSD (so called "emergency upgrade" mode)

All these options will require you to have the CF card in the slot to be able to upgrade.
The upgrade process will format the CF card and will use it for the Arizona firmware's own purposes.
You are not supposed to mess with the CF card anymore after that, or the whole thing may stop functioning.
Once you have updated to Arizona, if you ever try to boot without the CF card, or remove the CF card while running, you will get a message on screen telling you to put it back, and you will need to reboot.

Now, some of you like your CF cards, or even better your microdrives. I can understand that.
However, initially we will not allow any other use of the CF card, to reduce complexity. There are already plenty of things that can go wrong.
Once the Arizona software gets more mature, we plan to see if possible to do any of the following:
1) create only a partition large enough for our purposes on the card, and let you repartition and use the rest as you please
2) allow you to decide which card slot Arizona will use
3) you tell us (but i don't think the USB multi-card reader is an option, due to the USB issues and big number of brand/models/behaviours of these things)

Actually i bet most of the people in here would be already able to use some partition resizing tool on the post-update CF card to claim back most of the space. You just have to do it all over again after each upgrade, but it's a small price, i suppose.

Speaking of price, I'm not working in operations dept myself, but last I heard the CF card we send out to current OSD owners will actually be free (as in beer). Yeah, we love you that much But ask Joe to be 100% sure.

Hope this helps clarify a bit.

Cheers,
--
nero