Poll: What do think of the new HD extender

[rdefino]

I ordered the new HD extender, but haven't received. But, I'm seeing some threads of others who are having problems with theirs.

I'm curious who's happy or unhappy they ordered one.

[bastafidli]

Here are my impressions

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=955297

[autoboy]

So far I'm impressed with the HD extender. It did get so hyped up that I thought it would perform identically to my client, but there are some minor differences.

Picture quality is top notch. I've never had a smoother, more fluid picture than on this HD extender. I haven't tested any difficult 1080i material, but it appears to do a great job on the material I've thrown at it so far.

The default menu is not as responsive as my client. Button pushes on my client are instant, while the client has a tiny lag. This won't kill me, but sours the experience a little bit. The default menu is also rather drab compared to the equivalent on my Client. The colors POP more on the client, but admittedly, I have not done a full calibration on the extender input and I'm using the free slim cables that came with the unit as component cables because I've run out of HDMI cables. Frys seems to have increased their generic HDMI cable prices to $20-$25 from $15 and this is getting to be an unacceptable price so I won't buy them anymore. I'll have to mail order. Some of the animations and see through menus are not consistent in color between when you start the program and when the video actually shows up, but this is a minor gripe.

IR range sucks on the HD extender and I'm considering ways around this from an IR extender to drilling a hole in the case like another user has done.

My harmony Xbox edition works great with the default codes now loaded up at Logitech. Button presses are a little slower than the stock remote but range is slightly better.

Fast forward and rewind do not work properly. Hitting the skip button results in a bit of stutter as the program skips forward on the extender. I'm gonna look more into this.

The stock remote layout is not good. I'm always having to reposition the remote to find the button I want. The playback buttons should be on top and replace the numeric keypad. The keypad is so rarely used by me, but I'm always struggling to find the play and fast forward buttons. My next task is to get my MCE remote mapped to work with the extender. It is such a better remote it is not even funny.

Overall, I'm very happy with the extender and the picture quality is top notch. I'm confident that these little quirks will be worked out and none of them affect me from really enjoying the content. I'm an early adopter so I figured there would be some things to work out.

[SHS]

From the look of it look like a manufacturer mess up and they forgot to alllow for clear smoke circle for the IR lens when they did the molded no wonder why the IR dosen't work well.

[Ken C]

Agree with most of what's already been said.

I'm using the Harmony 676 remote, works lots better than the stock.

Hopefully, future firmware upgrades will make the unit more responsive, it is slow.

PQ is great. No more driver upgrades, yea !!

Currently, both the extender and the HTPC are sitting next to each other. And with both responding to the same IR codes, things were interesting till I hid the HTPC's UIRT.

Sitting next to each other also forced me to connect both to the LAN via a switch. But, the videos are smooth. Next week, the HTPC gets moved into the office and the switch is eliminated.

Wonder what the USB ports will be used for ?

[toricred]

My responsivness is actually really good. It was slow at first, but then I noticed that my server was sitting at 100% CPU (due to compressions). I tweaked the compressions and everything became much snappier. The next step I'm going to take will be to move the compressions to another system.

[Fluffdaddy]

4 1/2 stars out of 5.
IR problem an cheap feeling remote keeps from being 5 out of 5

[sam99]

messing with the ir/remote problems has been a drag, but I am still glad i got it. I have confidence it will very quickly replace my pc client on my 60" LCD projection. As fluff put it, the ir receiver keeps it from being a 5/5 for me as well. The remote, meh, I had not planned on using it anyway. I can not stand using more than one remote and since it can not control anything but the extender, a programmable remote is just an assumed in my househould. But those RC5 toggle codes give me headaches.

[castylx]

I'd give it a 5/5 stars so far, no complaints, works GREAT! Remote has good range in my house.

Sage give me 1 button so I can program the TV power button.... ONLY THING MISSING!!!

[TimmyToo]

I got mine yesterday. Still working on testing it.

The Good
- No problems with the HDE firmware upgrade.
- HDHR recordings look good.
- 720p MKV files play very well

The Bad
- DVD playback is a bit dark and pixelated
- color accuracy a bit red
- remote (keypad should be at bottom)

I'm using a HDMI cable to a 32" Vizio LCD. I'm going to try component cables to see if there is any difference.

I upgraded my SageTV server from 6.1.9 to 6.3.5. Not sure if that is causing me any issues. I'm going to move my server to a new PC with a fresh install of XP and SageTV server.

I expect to work out the glitches and replace my PC client with the HD Extender.

[MTuckman]

You left out one additional choice in the voting:

• Wish I had ordered more than 1 before the stock ran out

I am actually very happy now. I have only had two issues so far, and both of which I am no longer worried about:

1. IR Reception, but that appears to be an issue with the front panel not being transparent enough - I see a fix in the future.
2. Interface was a bit sluggish, but that appeared to be fixed by changing from composite to component output and changing the available TV resolutions to only 720p and 1080i. It almost seemed as if the extender was working harder to display the interface, especially the menus, at 480i.

[bastafidli]

I played with it much more tonight and the IR reception is OK. I still have to point the remote to the extender but the way our house is setup that is not an issue.

[nielm]

Wished I could order it?

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by TimmyToo

I got mine yesterday. Still working on testing it.

The Good
- No problems with the HDE firmware upgrade.
- HDHR recordings look good.
- 720p MKV files play very well

The Bad
- DVD playback is a bit dark and pixelated
- color accuracy a bit red
- remote (keypad should be at bottom)

I'm using a HDMI cable to a 32" Vizio LCD. I'm going to try component cables to see if there is any difference.

I upgraded my SageTV server from 6.1.9 to 6.3.5. Not sure if that is causing me any issues. I'm going to move my server to a new PC with a fresh install of XP and SageTV server.

I expect to work out the glitches and replace my PC client with the HD Extender.

Try component cables. HDMI is finicky with a few devices not just this.

B

[toricred]

Interesting to not that nobody has selected "Wish you didn't get it."

[FMAX]

The remote issues I have are very minor, I'm sure after playing wit it for a little while I get it just right. Supplied remote works better than MVP and my Programmable 'R7' Remote. Select button is a little lagging, but very minor.
Only 12hrs into Testing, but my 'R7' remote produces codes then immidiately a 0, when using 'show sagetv remote codes' in the commands set-up.

This is a very good product, maybe rushed out for the holidays, because of the huge demand. I thank sageTV for making the big leap no other PVR or HTPC programs have made! I think the vast majority of people who wer fortunate to get the 1st shippment, have little issues, but are very happy!

People reading this and thinking on buying one, don't wait. 1st shipment sold out in 1 week, next shipment jump on it! NO CODECS,NO DRIVERS, NO NOISE, extreme upside with a supported product with controled hardware issues.
SageTV and there user support will have all the little issues eliminated very quickly. Soon after they started supporting the MVP all my issues went away(with SD content). New technology always poses issues but with this release sageTV shows me that they want to stay in pace with the times.

[KJake]

Originally Posted by toricred

Interesting to not that nobody has selected "Wish you didn't get it."

I bought two, and while I'm not happy with some of the things I've experienced, I am still happy that I got them. The biggest reasons are, 1) no computer fan of a client PC, 2) PQ is great - even on my client PC that could handle HD recordings, I would still get the occasional tearing of the picture, or the computer would have to work really hard to play it back making the fan speed increase. Also, I had some funky HDHR recordings that the PC client would have a hard time playing back (it would skip around the recording) - I tried those same recordings on the HDE today and there were 0 issues.

[evilpenguin]

I'm incredibly impressed with the HDextender. Once I got SageMC setup the way I liked it I couldn't even tell that I wasn't using my full client, minus the absolute silence. I only have a few issues and i'm going to submit support requests on them this weekend.

1) The video brightness/contrast of the video is a little off. I'd like to be make some adjustments to the video only (The UI looks perfect).
2) A lot of my self encoded shows don't play correctly. My aac 5.1 shows only screech and most of my other shows play at double speeds.
3) It doesn't understand my MCE remote, whenever I try and use the codes come out to be huge negative numbers rather than resonable values.

#1 I'm sure is fixable.
#2 Should also be as I did all of my encoding with my plug-in so Sage should be able to reproduce it easily. Either they can figure out how to make it work or tell me how to change my encodings to make them work.
#3 Might just be a bad remote as its been acting funny for a few weeks now.

[sam99]

definitely had some quirkiness today. Couple My Name is Earl HD recordings had buzzing noise instead of dialog in the middle of two different recordings, but only during the commercials at the 15 minute mark. Thought that was odd and have not proved to myself that it was the HD extender, though i never had this before on my pc client.

Also, watching Polar Express from my harddrive a few minutes ago, had probably 20 little skips, kind of like having a scratched record, that I definitely did not have on the pc client watching the same movie last weekend. Have not spent any real time playing in the menus tho, have to "fix" the ir lens before i do since the remote is completely frustrating me right now.

oh, my learned MX700 codes leave big negative numbers as well. Something in the area of -578239423 or so, but they work when they get through.

[DigitalMan]

The extender is snappier and plays 1080 content better than my PC client ever had. I'm very happy with it except for a few items:

1. I'm not getting a video window playing while using the guide, VMR would be nice
2. I submitted a support request for a way to enter a server address rather than rely on the extender finding it.
3. having to point the remote right at the box is annoying
4. it seems to be quite slow showing thumbnails for photo's.
5. I haven't had time to check it out myself, but if it indeed has open ports and no password then I'm going to need to create yet another network segment to isolate the extender(s) once they fix issue #2.