Neuros Technology Forums

Wish I could agree, but with the new firmware I'm still finding that the same video files crash the OSD. But I have seen the odd message that the file is not supported, which is an improvement!

When I have more time, I'll begin submitting to bugzilla and trying to help out.

One question I want answered: what file formats/codecs are supported by design? I don't want to log a bug about a file that fails to play to be told it's not supported.
-G

I agree, I've many .avi files that refuse to play.

There needs to be a list of supported codecs published. MPEG1 and MPEG2 are old enough, but handy to have. I can confirm that DivX3 and I think 4 play on the OSD. (isn't DivX is a type of MPEG4 encoding? Must swot up on what's what)

Since the codecs are closed source from a 3rd party, does that mean we'll only get codecs that Neuros specified when signing the deal?
-G

Well it's designed to be always on really. I think it was an auto recording feature, if you plug in a live video signal it can automatically begin recording.
-G

Here's all I know:

1. I think this will only be on sale in shops once the firmware is of production standard, which at the moment it is certainly not. then hopefully it will be marketed in shops! I also got stung with a €60 import duty, didn't realise that either!

2. I agree with you that probably a majority of customers for this will be geeks, but to have a very successful product, it should appeal to all users. I think Samba support is a far higher priority, as it is supported by everything, most non-geek types will be using Windows anyway. All geek types can set up samba in a snap. And if you're a real geek, you can get NFS working on it without too much trouble. Neuros have limited time and resources, I think it's better is they support samba properly, and not impliment 2 protocols dodgily.

3. I'm not certain of all the codecs that actually work at the moment, check out the product pages and the bugzilla to work it out. There is a list, but it's a little fuzzy! I can tell you it takes about a minute to boot up. It plays using a propietry player, tied to the graphics chip I think. (not certain). You certainly can connect to the OSD using telnet and muck aaround like that, that's one of it's advantages.

4. I don't know if it can mount an external cd drive, but if the 2.6 kernel can do it, I'd say the OSD can.

Hope this helps!
-G

I gotta agree with everything said above. The points I wish to (re-)emphasise are:

Menus aren't very pretty - I don't like the browny-red colour scheme or the background picture, it just looks pixelated and ugily. For text readability it should use more contrasting text/background colours. The menus flash like mad, the whole screens redraws when scrolling, very inefficient!

Why waste screen space with the time? My video, microwave, oven, phone, watch all have the time, I don't want my tv to have it too. If I want to know the time, I look at my watch. If I want to watch a video, I'll use the OSD.  And I'd rather you showed the capacity of the storage drives only when recording. A TV has a small screen, lets use the screen efficiently.

I really hope that they manage to build something new from the Enlightenment engine, as it's seriously cool looking, but simple to use, if you look at this. It relys on pictures more than text, as text is harder to recognise on small screens.

Remote control is a bit erratic, but I think it's because the OSD spends so much time redrawing the screen that button pushes get queued and so your selection flys off! I doubt it'd be an issue if the menus are redone.

Movie playback is a mixed bag for me. Some play perfectly. Some are jerky, I'm guessing frames are being dropped like mad which I hope is a firmware issue and not that the processor is too slow. When a file is not supported, it just crashes, which needs work. I'd rather a message going "Sorry, unknown codec!" Also I've had videos crashing mid-playback.

There are too many blank screens when using the OSD. Bootup displays some blank screens, it's hard to know what's happening. Selecting a file to play reveals a blank screen for a good 5 seconds before it plays - a simple "Loading..." message would suffice.

I know there's a bug in Bugzilla for this, but the on-screen display when pausing, fast forwarding or rewinding playback shows too many unnecessary things. Once again, the time is there! Why? Only a progess bar with current/total time of video and an icon showing what you're doing are necessary. Also while rewinding/fast forwarding, the sound is normal while the picture scans for a few seconds, strange.

Another annoyance with GUI, when you rest on a video file for a while, an info box appears. Why? I don't care when it was created or modified! Text is too small too! What I would like to see is long file names scrolling though. Nor do I like seeing a command prompt on TV! Typing on a remote to that is a terrible idea. You should only be able to play recognised videos and music files and display images, the rest shouldn't appear at all! I don't want to be able to delete or rename such files either!

For the recorder feature, if the OSD made such files, then it's okay to delete and (if you've the patience) rename them, but anything more complex you should use a PC. I'm not a believer in adding small features to complicate products, which is why I'm an Apple fan. I guarantee you the iTV won't let you delete videos.

Samba sharing is in the works, so that'll be invaluable. People are complaining about NFS support being considered too geeky, but I'd rather see the most useful protocol being perfect, than two imperfect attempts. Network time should work then too, save entering time on that page (use the number keys for entry too!). It also should have DCHP on by default, if it's not then the user has to set up a static ip anyway, if it does work then the user is amazed!

Great idea: remote being able to control TV, I like being able to adjust the volume without hunting for the TV remote (pity the channel buttons don't work, but it can be reprogrammed I think).
Great idea: allowing people to develop apps for this. If the base system is solid, people will be able to make cool modules to add features in time, but your developer manuals at the moment are in short supply. Help us to help you! (although why people insist on getting a webserver working is beyond me, why?)

I'm excited with the potential of this product, but at the moment the stability and usability are in need of a lot of work. But I eagerly await the next firmware releases!
-G

I don't think that NTFS support is working. FAT32 is fine however. You should log a bug, this issue might get seen to faster.

Maxtor Personal Storage 3100 250GB disk works well, detected correctly on startup and hotplug.
-G

I can report a Maxtor Personal Storage 3100 250GB external hard disk (own power) is working correctly with the 0.21 firmware.
It's formated FAT32. I wonder if the OSD can read NTFS? also how does it handle a few partitions?
-G