Neuros Technology Forums

Does the OSD have subtitle support even? I've a few DivX files with .sub files attached, I've not seen any mention of subtitle support yet.
-G

Even the TiVo is gradually being infected -- I like my Series 1 because TiVo isn't upgrading the software any more so I don't have to worry about advertisement overlays, locked out or limited time recordings or any of the other 'enhancements' that they've made to the later units.

Wow, I didn't know TiVo were going like that. It is a breath of fresh air that Neuros have a "just play/record the damn file" attitude, DRM is becoming far too unpleasant now.

P.S. for the record, Joe Born *does* think this product has a "geeky/tech savvy" user base, it is I who opined that it might be worth embracing the less technologically able user and simplifying the GUI. I'm an Apple user, but enjoy the BSD roots, my logic was that the OSD could be similarly designed.

Problem with those USB tuners is that they rely a lot on the PC's processor to convert the analogue signal into a picture. Just like 56k modems, these tuners just digitise the analogue signal, but the PC has to parse this digitized signal into video, which takes a fair bit of power, at least 600Mhz. I doubt the OSD has the processing power to achieve that.
-G

The remote control still is almost worthless - doesn't turn the unit on or off.

I sympathise with all your points except this one. Why do you want it to turn off? Ultimately when the software is stable, I'd be happy leaving it on all the time, saving waiting a minute for it to boot each time.

The power button on the remote turns my TV off, which I think is much handier, along with the voume buttons it saves me hunting for the TV remote for the basic functions.

The firmware is progressing, it's becoming more stable but there's still a lot to be done. It is a Gamma release after all. All you can do (aside from returning of course) is wait and see how the firmware progresses.
-G

Derobert's Guide to Hacking the On-Screen Display
Good for connecting using serial cable, getting NFS and TFTP up and cross compiling example.

Little bits of info like telnet password are hard to find. I struggled myself!
Try logging in as root, with no password. I think that works.
-G

First our user base is quite different from Apple (involved, geeky, tech saavy), second, if we try to emulate Apple, we'll surely end up in the Apple wannabe category, which is pretty much where everyone else is.

Fair enough, I perfectly understand. Your business direction is clearer to me now. Additional featurettes do appeal to this user group, but I hope these options don't make the final product look more complicated than it is?

To rant briefly, highly featured products are becoming more complicated to use, and I find it annoying that things which are supposed to make our lives easier and more entertaining instead consume our time getting them to work. For instance I think mobile phones are overladen in features, as all I really want is voice calls and text messages. If I want to send an email or surf the web, I use a proper pc with proper keyboard and screen. But not everyone's like me!

However, some of us do like the goofy solutions like this.  You just have to make sure you don't clutter up the UI with silly features that 2% of people might find useful.

Can't put it better than this. I respect other people's preferences, and believe that a debate like this will never end! Hence the old PC vs. Mac war.

The OSD has the makings of a great product, and I'm very excited by it. But the GUI needs work! Any word on Enlightment?
-G

This link might point you in the right direction for finding out about the video codecs and what's closed source. It goes into some detail, so it's a start.

http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/index.php/DM320

AFAIK, this is the only propietry code that Neuros uses.
Unable to answer you other questions I'm afraid!
-G

Yeah, you can. This guide gives you a start on connecting to the OSd thgough the serial port, and you can configure NFS from there. There's a way of getting telnet up too so you can just connect over the network:

http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/index.php/GtH

-G

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