Humperdink wrote:

I'm really hoping the xbox360 ends up as an acceptable solution to all these problems.

-- Rick

You and me both Mate!!!

And for those who may even hang on for the PS3... what you gonna connect the HDMI output to? At least X-Box360 can connect to your existing HDTV monitor. I'm just reticent about committing to any of these new players after my experience with these pieces of overpriced junk. I thought politicians were the only humans capable of making outlandish promises that are never lived up to, but my experience with HD capable media players is showing pollies have got a lot to learn!!

It's the growing arrogance with which corporations are treating consumers that is become galling though.

Perhaps if we refuse to buy their crap until they provide the hardware that consumers deserve... Oh hang on, it is crap that we deserve for being suckers again and again and again.

Steve Criz wrote:

And for those who may even hang on for the PS3... what you gonna connect the HDMI output to? At least X-Box360 can connect to your existing HDTV monitor.

My current Samsung DLP that I bought in Jan-Feb of this year. Will the X360 or PS3 have card readers that it can mount? If anything, the PS3 and X360 will make the PB and others advance to the next level. Just like when I new electrics store open in your area, all the current ones have to step up to the new benchmark.

soiaf wrote:

plays my DVDs

soiaf wrote:

allow MPlay to support DVD menus etc.

I'd really like to understand why this particular capability is so difficult. There are applications that run on a Linux machine and play DVD's with full menu support, subtitles, etc. The PB is afterall just a highly customized Linux computer.......

dgburns wrote:

soiaf wrote:

plays my DVDs

soiaf wrote:

allow MPlay to support DVD menus etc.

I'd really like to understand why this particular capability is so difficult. There are applications that run on a Linux machine and play DVD's with full menu support, subtitles, etc. The PB is afterall just a highly customized Linux computer.......

First off, the PhotoBridge has dedicated MPEG hardware, so it's not as straight-forward as a standard linux box which would use the CPU to do the decoding. Second, the only way to hook into the MPEG hardware is via the Cascade API. Having said that...

The main problem is with the internal buffering in the MPEG decoder. There is no way currently from the SDK to determine the buffer fullness of the decoder, nor is there any way to find out what frame was last decoded. Another problem is there is no way to flush the decoder without closing it and re-opening it, which as can be seen in MPlay when you fast-forward/rewind, causes a noticeable black screen. The result is either a black screen when you access a menu item, or a several second delay before the menu item is accessed due to the decoder playing out it's buffer.

On top of those issues, sub-picture streams are also not exposed by the SDK, so menu overlays (and subtitles) are not available.

The question is, how difficult is it to expose the information detailed above? The answer is, I don't know...

I've actually written a working DVD player application for the Roku, but the inability to display still frame menus (because of the first point above) makes it virtually unusable with 90% of the DVDs out there.

TheEndless

Burkhardi wrote:

My current Samsung DLP that I bought in Jan-Feb of this year. Will the X360 or PS3 have card readers that it can mount? If anything, the PS3 and X360 will make the PB and others advance to the next level. Just like when I new electrics store open in your area, all the current ones have to step up to the new benchmark.

So you'll be all right Mate... but what about the rather large percentage of current WS/HDTV owners who bought their sets before this much hyped HDMI codswhallop became the must have? Oh, that's right... let's resort to the "just go and buy an all new set" response. Wouldn't it be lovely to have that much spare cash lying about.

You honestly believe that PB owners who have had experiences like my own, are going to be hangin' on the Media Player that Roku may or may not bring out in response to the X-Box 360 or PS3? If the X-Box 360 or PS3 play PAL 25Mbit HDV MPEG2 ts from my camcorder without glitching... why in God's name would I bother. Mind you I don't necessarily trust their marketing machines over the HD playback capabilities either.

I reckon the fact that the X-Box 360 specs include 3 USB2 ports is a fair indication that you'll be able to access memory cards etc. I don't remember the PS3 specs off hand, but they will no doubt be similar. The X-Box 360's 20Gb hard disk will be a worthwhile place to store HDV, and still images, or one could even use a laCie USB harddrive to supplemement.

You can use an HDMI to DVI adapter, like I do with my HDTiVo.

In case you are keeping track for the poll question, we are now in Q4 2005...

ddruker wrote:

In case you are keeping track for the poll question, we are now in Q4 2005...

Or Q1-2006 if you think in federal government terms....

My HD1000 is running the latest beta, and it still freezes after an hour or two. It's been doing this for atleast 1-2 years. I can't reliably use it as a screensaver, since it freezes completely, and obviously I can't watch TV through pass-thru since it freezes so it's not very wife-friendly.

Having to explain to my wife that the TV doesn't work because "the Roku freezed, you have to do this to reset it, wait about 180 seconds, then put it into pass-thru mode" renders a response like "what is that roku for anyway? it's nothing but problems. get rid of it"

Reality is that two of my four Roku products are unusable, and not by my handling of it.

The HD1000 is now forever unplugged! Not a single firmware upgrade ever fixed my freezes, nor did creating a CF swap.

Perhaps I should cancel my SoundBridge Radio pre-orders!

Zanoryt wrote:

My HD1000 is running the latest beta, and it still freezes after an hour or two. It's been doing this for atleast 1-2 years. I can't reliably use it as a screensaver, since it freezes completely, and obviously I can't watch TV through pass-thru since it freezes so it's not very wife-friendly.

Having to explain to my wife that the TV doesn't work because "the Roku freezed, you have to do this to reset it, wait about 180 seconds, then put it into pass-thru mode" renders a response like "what is that roku for anyway? it's nothing but problems. get rid of it"

Reality is that two of my four Roku products are unusable, and not by my handling of it.

The HD1000 is now forever unplugged! Not a single firmware upgrade ever fixed my freezes, nor did creating a CF swap.

Perhaps I should cancel my SoundBridge Radio pre-orders!

Sounds more like a ventilation/heat problem than a software problem, in which case there's nothing a firmware update could do to fix it.

TheEndless

I agree, I used to have freezes regularly until I pulled the PB out of my cabinet. I can't remember the last time mine froze.

So we are now at the end of life for this original poll - when we started it last spring 2006 seemed a long way off. I myself sure didn't think we still would be in what is really an Alpha release (not feature complete) going into 2006 with really nothing new since spring 2005.

So going forward - is the smart money betting that the HD1000 is a dead platform, or that there will be work done to make the 2.0 release feature complete after the engineers roll off the other products ?

From a hardware perspective - is the hardware in the unit still reasonably current - or is ATI several generations ahead now ? Seems to me that Roku hasn't updated the hardware except to add more memory in what must be getting close to three years now - this would appear to be an eternity given current product cycles... I would guess things like hdmi / hdcp support in hardware are getting more and more important for HD media players as we move into 2006, and I expect other technologies have marched forward a bit as well.

Any other thoughts for 2006 ? I still hope they can get 2.0 feature complete and out the door someone soon.

as are compatibility with higher bitrate HD streams.

Not trying to disagree with your accessment of the situation in general, but the HD1000 is compatible with hgher bitrate streams. In fact it can handle higher bitrate streams than most people will ever encounter and can handle much higher bitrate streams than any of the competing products. So, that is not an issue. In fact, it's really the one advantage the HD1000 has and the reason why some of us have stuck with it.

Happy New Year!!!

Roku (Anthony), get your company back on track! Please!

ddruker wrote:

I myself sure didn't think we still would be in what is really an Alpha release (not feature complete) going into 2006 with really nothing new since spring 2005.

Out of curiousity, what features do you think are missing (that you think were promised for 2.0)? In another post I gave a list of things I'd like to see, I don't expect everyone to agree with it, but it would certainly make me happy, but some may not be achievable etc.

http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=36946#36946

ddruker wrote:

From a hardware perspective - is the hardware in the unit still reasonably current - or is ATI several generations ahead now ? Seems to me that Roku hasn't updated the hardware except to add more memory in what must be getting close to three years now - this would appear to be an eternity given current product cycles... I would guess things like hdmi / hdcp support in hardware are getting more and more important for HD media players as we move into 2006, and I expect other technologies have marched forward a bit as well.

The main competitor (chip wise) currently is the Sigma Designs EM8620L, which supports DivX, WMV, WMV HD etc. This year Sigma Designs be releasing the EM8622L which will add H.264 support (and have a few other features, memory support increase, clock speed etc.).
The ATI chipset has obviously much less support for these video codecs, but what it does support (MPEG2) it seems a very capable chip. ATI are obviously capable of adding extra video codec support to their chips, theres lots of talk on the net about how their graphics chips already have in-built H.264 support for example. We are starting to see devices coming out with HDMI support, so I agree we're going to see more of that.
I'm quite happy with my PhotoBridges, but there is a new hardware box coming out in a couple of months that I plan on getting. Its definitely not perfect (some things the PhotoBridge will do better), but it should make an excellent addition. And it has both VGA and HDMI outputs

ddruker wrote:

Any other thoughts for 2006 ? I still hope they can get 2.0 feature complete and out the door someone soon.

I want to see the Radio shipped! Hopefully then we'll know where we stand. I'd like to see my wish-list developed and released.