Neuros Technology Forums

I thought it was in the WIKI, but apparently it is no longer there.  

The 442 uses the same power supply as the PSP.  You should be able to find a PSP power supply someplace.

l8rZ

quote:Originally posted by FJ

Try to update your video playlist and see if that has any effect. We have not been able to reproduce this locking problem yet, but I will keep you posted.

I didn't actually try this, I forgot when I went to use this.  However, it appears that is now a non-issue.  My hard disk appears to have gone out.  I am not sure if that has anything to do with the strange issues with reboots and lockups, but it may be something.

The other day I was watching a video and after about 20 minutes my 442 just rebooted, usually mine locks up when it has a problem, but this time it just rebooted.  After that it played fine for the next 10 minutes or so until I had to go do something else.  Then, the next day I went to turn my 442 on and it wouldn't turn on.  Although I have read that other people have experienced that I have not.  I went and found a paperclip and reset it and it started up.  However, when I went to play a video there wasn't anything under Video Player.  I went under Files management and all that was there were lots of files with strange 3 character filenames.  They were extended characters as well as a semicolon at the end of many of them.  I figured that the partition table went weird when I reset it, so I figured a format would probably fix it.  

Before I tried that, I thought to see what would happen if connected it to my computer.  I plugged it in to my OpenBSD box and

Code:

mount -t msdos /dev/sd0i /mnt

as I have done before.  This time however it said

Code:

mount_msdos: /dev/sd0i on /mnt: Inappropriate file type or format

 

So I thought to try it on a Windows XP box.  On Windows, the 442 shows up in Explorer but when clicking on it it claims the disk is not formatted and asks if I want to format it.  For now I said no, stopped the device and unplugged it from the computer.  

I then decided to try formatting it.  I browsed to the Files management -> menu -> format disk, and answered Yes.  It said "PLS Check with PC".  

So, I plugged it back into the Windows box and allowed Windows to attempt to format it.  Windows XP will only format that size disk NTFS so that is what I tried.  Windows went at it for a while and then said "Windows was unable to complete the format".  So I tried it again using a quick format and it came up with that error immediately.  

So, I stopped the device, unplugged it and rebooted.  This caused it to ask if I wanted to format the disk.  I said Yes and it said "PLS Check with PC".  

I then tried a few things with fdisk and disklabel on my OpenBSD box and didn't get anywhere.  So, back to the Windows box and Disk Manager.  I noticed that when I plugged in the 442 it showed up as a 167Gb drive and wouldn't let me do anything to it.  So I stopped it and plugged it back in and it showed up as 37.? gigs as I expected and it would let my try to format it.  However, I ran into the same issues as above.  I unplugged it and plugged it back in a few times and it would sometimes say 37G and sometimes 167G.  At this point I am pretty convinced it is just broken :-)

I did try some stuff again today and I was able to use the 442 to format the disk.  This created the PFR and VOICE directories and I was able to mount it on my OpenBSD box and copy files to it.  When I browsed the file listing in Files management I noticed that there were now spelling errors in the filename so it did not get copied over correctly.  So, I formatted it again and tried to create a directory with the 442.  It ended up named "dm`".  I created another one and again "dm`".  Two directories with the same name!  And I can't change into them.  Plus, I now have files "aedall.m3u" and "fidall.m3u".

I am now emailing this to support@neurosaudio.com in hopes of getting it replaced.  I wish I could just send it in for the 442v2, but it isn't ready yet :-(  


l8rZ

quote:Originally posted by ice.skillz

Is there a way to make a playlist. Without having to put every file as "favorite". Maybe by editting the "audall.m3u" or "audfav.m3u" we can achieve this? A mp3 player isn't complete without having to make your own playlist. I just want to know if this is possible on the current 442.

I wrote a perl script that would take the audall.m3u, randomize it and rewrite it as the audfav.m3u, that at least gives me a "shuffle all songs" playback.

In the m3u file they use, each MP3 takes 2 lines, the first being the name of the song and the second being the path to the song.  I am not sure if this is a standard m3u file.  

I have the script saved as random_m3u.pl, and I run:

Code:

random_m3u.pl audall.m3u > audfav.m3u

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my @list;
while (<>) {
my $comment = $_;
my $file = <>;
#print $file, "-",$comment, "\n";
push @list, {
comment => $comment,
file    => $file,
};
}

fisher_yates_shuffle(\@list);

foreach (@list) {
print $_->{'comment'}, $_->{'file'};
}

# fisher_yates_shuffle( \@array ) : generate a random permutation
# of @array in place
# from perlfaq4
#    http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq4.html
sub fisher_yates_shuffle {
    my $array = shift;
    my $i;
    for ($i = @$array; --$i; ) {
        my $j = int rand ($i+1);
        next if $i == $j;
        @$array[$i,$j] = @$array[$j,$i];
    }
}

l8rZ

quote:Originally posted by Philipe

Hi, I just heard of the Neuros 442 today and I browsed and browsed looking for info and most reviews said it was great. I really need a decent PVR.

It is a nice machine, and the v2 looks like it will be amazingly better.

quote:There was one review that said you can't browse your 442 while you're listening to music, because the back button also stops the music.
Is this fixable? Is there a firmware that fixes that?

That is true, and currently there is no fix.  I expect that the v2 when it comes out will not have these issues, or if it does, I expect them to be fixed fairly quickly.

l8rZ

quote:Originally posted by Luckychunk II

Every time I attempt to output to TV or fast-forward video viewing directly from the unit, the output does one of two things:

- the video freezes, and repeats one word over and over, requiring a push of the Reset button
- the 442 reboots, either instantly or after ~1 minute of playback

Just wanted to say that I have intermittently had this issue on mine as well (firmware v2.0.0).  Not often, probably 10 times since I have had it (I wooted mine) but it is rather annoying.  I had not noticed that it had anything to do with FF or TV out, for me it does it just playing videos.  It does those same lockups including the screen with vertical stripes, but I have not found a pattern of what causes it.  

It appeared to me to possibly be heat related because when mine locked up it was after playing for a while (last time was about 20 minutes), and if I try again immediatly it locks up again, but if I wait a while (I waited an hour or so this last time) it will play that same section of the same file just fine.

I will pay more attention to what I am doing when it happens in the future.

l8rZ

quote:Originally posted by manorin

does anybody know how many soldout on WOOT!?

Looks like[1] it was 500.

[1] http://www.woot.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=273032

l8rZ

quote:Originally posted by atodaso

I am unhappy with Neuros Support right now. [Snipped] It didn't take long for me to realize that my replacement had the same battery problem that is decribed in several posts on this forum. The battery simply will not charge! before my 442 broke I recommended Neuros to another friend who bought one but has the exact same battery problem now too. I knew something was wrong when my replacement would not turn on right when I took it out of the box.  The fact that Neuros sent me a broken product without even bothering to test it as a delayed replacement for a another broken product shows that they don't really care much about their customers or their products.

From what I have read, although there have been a few issues with Neuros support, overall they are doing well.  I am sure Joe Born (the guy in charge at Neuros) wants as many customers to be happy as possible.  Worst case, he has an email address available with some easy searching.  I know he reads it because I have corrosponded with him myself.

I will admit that I do not know what Neuros replacement shipping policy is, or even what testing products go through before being boxed and sent out.  I do know that they care about their customers though.

l8rZ

quote:Originally posted by 2020
However, I've noticed that from what I can tell, there is no consolidated source of information for the outside hackers/developers.

As far as I have seen, there isn't a consolidated place.  There are some sources of information though.  The ones I have seen are:

http://svn.neurosaudio.com/
http://groups.google.com/group/Neuros-DM320Hardware
http://bugzilla.neurostechnology.com/
http://www.theneuros.com/index.php/Main_Page
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Neuros442/

quote:In that light I would request that the most recent content for the recorder three developer board be placed in this forum or in another suitable location. I'm looking for the following if possible: Gerber files, BOM, assembly procedures, firmware, software, etc. I've seen a piece or two for each of the different products but I think this would be most beneficial for the development boards.

I haven't seen much but discussions (on the google group) and source code (on the subversion site) regarding the R3 though.  The last few days there has been some discussion on the google group about the R3 and features though.

quote:I would also like to make it known to the forum that my company is trying to make a camera module as an offshoot from the Neuros design/development, with Joe’s blessing of course.

That sounds pretty kewl.   Some sort of video camera?  What is going to be special about it that one of the regular bullet cams that people have been using with their 442s doesn't do?

l8rZ

quote:Originally posted by JEFFH

I reported a issue on Bugzilla in the past where I found MP4 files over 1 GB show as unsupported and would no play on the 442.
MP4 files under 1 GB can be read and play fine on the 442.

Ya, I just found the other thread[1] where there was discussion of this and found your reply when I was looking for this thread to make a link to it in my reply to the other thread.  

However, the mp4 files I am having trouble with are only just over 500 megs.  I wonder if it is a time issue rather than a size issue?

I will have to go post a comment in the bugzilla.

[1] http://www.neurosaudio.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6511

I am playing with converting some stuff to mp4 for a friend with an iPod with Video and so was testing some of it on my 442.  Most of it plays fine, but it appears that anything longer than 1 hour will not play.  I have not done a lot of testing, but I have several files that are 40 minutes and they work great, but I have other files that are more like 1  hour and 40 minutes and those say "Unsupported" and will not play.  However, they do play just fine on the iPod.  

I am encoding them at MPEG-4/320x180/16:9/768k in the Videora iPod Converter 0.9[1] as they are 16:9 content.  That is a custom setting I made for the 16:9 content in Videora.

Anyone have any other experiences, or should I do more testing and put something in bugzilla?

[1] http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/