Mediaready 6000

[transco]

I placed my order for a Mediaready 6000 before finding this forum. While poking around here I found the reference to the PC Mag review of the Mediaready 5000... not very good/ I'm wondering now if I made a bad decision; i.e. was this a or purchase. Still time to cancel the order I guess. I'd appreciate any input you can provide. Apparently the 6000 just started shipping. Anyone seen it? Anyone own a 5000 and have any regrets? This is a lot of money and most likely be my major purchase for the year. I'd hate to mess it up.

[Fluffdaddy]

ohhhh 900 bucks, I would have waited for some users reviews

let us know what you think of the Mediaready 6K

[dbfresh23]

And only a 90 Day warranty! It beats the price they suggested when this was announced a year or so ago - $1299!

I can't find anything that says it still includes cablecard slots - maybe the reason for the price drop?

[Fluffdaddy]

Yep, Nothing about cablecards. For that kind of money they give you very little info. Not even a close-up picture of the rear of the unit

http://www.mediareadyinc.com/products_MRMC.php

[transco]

Originally Posted by Fluffdaddy

ohhhh 900 bucks, I would have waited for some users reviews

let us know what you think of the Mediaready 6K

Well I guess someone has to buy it to get a user review... guess that's me.

As to waiting, my ancient RCA DCT-100 finally packed it in and I needed to find a ATSC receiver. In addition, my ancient Panasonic DMR-HS2 SD recorder has only a 20GB HD (as I said, I don't have much money for toys ). Anyway the time seemed right. I have a thing about giving one more dime to Bill Gates so was looking for a Linux box... thus the Mediaready 6K. As to the cable card slot, my two sources of program material are wild feeds on C-band and off-air ATSC broadcasts; no cable, no DSS, no Tivo fees, etc... all related to the the empty pockets scenario.

I'll be happy to post a detailed review once I've logged a few hours on it.

[Panzer]

I own two 5000s that I got off ebay for next to nothing. I used them for a little while and as far as a standalone DVR they worked fairly well. There's some problems but they're more hardware than software, at least to me. If I just wanted a box that I could take out of a box and go with I'd call them a ok buy. Wish they'd have more support however.

[transco]

Originally Posted by Panzer

I own two 5000s that I got off ebay for next to nothing. I used them for a little while and as far as a standalone DVR they worked fairly well. There's some problems but they're more hardware than software, at least to me. If I just wanted a box that I could take out of a box and go with I'd call them a ok buy. Wish they'd have more support however.

I just checked Ebay and they have a single Mediaready with a fixed price of $400.00

You mention hardware problems with the 5000. What sort of problems were you seeing? If I read the Mediaready site properly, you have a 1 year return window with an openbox charge of 10%... basically $900 plus return shipping. Not bad.

[transco]

Does the Mediaready 5K record ATSC broadcasts in true HD?

[Panzer]

Originally Posted by transco

I just checked Ebay and they have a single Mediaready with a fixed price of $400.00

You mention hardware problems with the 5000. What sort of problems were you seeing? If I read the Mediaready site properly, you have a 1 year return window with an openbox charge of 10%... basically $900 plus return shipping. Not bad.

It was in October when I bought both of them, the first for $120 and the second for $70. Both came with 256mb/80gb combinations. Every once and awhile there will be a slew of them listed.
The hardware problems I had were mild but the same mentioned in the pcmag review and here. Things like the fan being pretty loud, pvr150 color hard to get perfect and the decoder card locking up when playing some particluar imported videos. The remote is pretty lousy too.

[transco]

I talked to the Mediaready people and was told the MC6000 is at least 2 months out. I also found out that there are two flavors: the MC6000 ($899.00) and the MC6000-Pro ($1299.00). No release date or hard spec's on the Pro version. It looks like, if I want a Linux based media center it is DIY for now. I'm not a Linux mechanic by any stretch of the imagination so what I really need is load-and-go software between me and the OS. I guess the next job is to search out those that have built there own Linux based media centers and see what they have done.

[waynedunham]

I've got a MediaReady 5000 and would have to advise against anything from VWB personally.

I've had a lot of trouble with my unit. I fixed the fan noise by replacing the power supply fan which is the noisiest one in the machine. It is now at an acceptable noise level for me. (your mileage may vary)

However I've had a LOT of lockups where the machine just refuses to respond. This is usually in one of two instances. 1) the machine is recording and I'm trying to do something in the menu's, i.e. setting up something to be recorded, or doing maintenance on existing recordings (setting watched/don't like, or deleting)
2) the free space is getting low.

On a couple other occasions I've found it sitting there saying that it's recording and the recording it's "supposedly" doing ended hours or days ago. Needless to say it has locked up on its own without me doing anything on those occasions.

When the machine locks up the only way out is to hold the power button for several seconds until the machine shuts off. Then when you reboot and Linux recovers the journals on the recording drive you may lose the last recording, or in some instances MANY recordings. At various lockups I've lost the last recording, and on some occasions everything back to the previous boot.

I've applied all the patches they have put out, and even wiped the machine and did a fresh install several times over the time I've had it.
I also had a problem with one of the FF buttons on the handheld remote not being bound. I could go into setup and add it, but the MR 5k would never save out that info and as soon as I left setup it forgot the button.
I complained about this to VWB on several occasions and they said it was a problem with the remote itself. I kept telling them it wasn't a remote problem, but that their machine wasn't saving the remote code when I added it.
I had to fix the problem myself by editing the RC mappings and adding the code manually to the file. After doing that the remote works fine now.

With that kind of shoddy tech support, again I'd have to advise against it.

Also be aware that at least with the MR 5000 the version of Sage they're using precludes you being able to get it to talk to another pure Sage machine running anything near the latest version.
In the beginning I kludged pure Sage onto the MR 5k and was able to run it as a Sage Client talking to my main Sage machine. However as soon as Sage hit 4.x or 5.x (I don't recall offhand which one) I couldn't get it to work on the MR 5k.

I'd have to figure that the version the put on the MR 6k would probably have a similar problem of not keeping up with the latest Sage. However I could be wrong and they could put vanilla Sage on the new machine allowing you to keep up with the latest/greatest Sage versions as they are released.

Anyway, IMHO, take a good long hard look before you plunk down that kind of $$$ on something that may not be all you thought it would be. I know I wish I'd thought a lot longer on it. <sigh>

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

I've got a MediaReady 5000 and would have to advise against anything from VWB personally.
<sigh>

Well that seals it for me.
If the 6000 would have cable-card support I would put up with some short comings. But that support same to have disappeared from their press releases. Maybe it's not their fault, I'm sure Big Hollywood wants no part of that.

[DArthur]

I saw their booth at CES this year. Asked them if their new DVR was running sage, they replied it was running Myth...

Darryl

[transco]

Originally Posted by DArthur

I saw their booth at CES this year. Asked them if their new DVR was running sage, they replied it was running Myth...
Darryl

It's no wonder it is taking so long to get the product out. The last time I looked, Myth still had problems. You'd think, for the money they are charging for the 6000 the could afford to use Sage.