Ceton extender beta shipping in Sept

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Eric from Ceton posted the following message on AVS in February: "My test matrix includes making sure that video content from *cough*popular internet sources *cough* plays properly."

Do you have the link? I'm curious what the full context was. Many of these sorts of files will play, I have a suite of test/difficult files and most do provided the PC is configured appropriately.

Originally Posted by reggie14

I do see your point. I think I originally had unrealistic expectations given the limitations of WMC. I didn't realize until recently how splitters worked in WMC. I just assumed WMC was streaming the file like Sage does.

Yes. For anyone coming from Sage, WMC handling of containers in MCX is a source of frustration . Tying container support to MF was shortsighted.

Originally Posted by reggie14

Still, I think the Echo has a long way to go. The problems with 1080i playback and high-bitrate videos appear to be entirely Ceton's fault.
...
Given the hardware that's available today, I don't see why it should have been unreasonable to expect nearly perfect playback of 1080i material and pretty decent support for high-bitrate video (given proper container support).

For the most part I agree, DI (among other things) doesn't work and it has to. SOCs do most of the heavy lifting in HW via a playback API so these sorts of issues are usually with the underlying media framework (e.g. it's not practical to do real time cadence in SW) so it's quite possible that the newness of the i.MX6 is at least partially to blame (much like Sigma's drivers are at fault for my DTS-MA issue w/ the latest beta FW). Hopefully it's something the can work out though since w/o native output it is a major concern with the Echo.

That said, HBR video doesn't work right on the 360 either .

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Do you have the link? I'm curious what the full context was. Many of these sorts of files will play, I have a suite of test/difficult files and most do provided the PC is configured appropriately.

Sure. It's here.

Originally Posted by babgvant

Yes. For anyone coming from Sage, WMC handling of containers in MCX is a source of frustration . Tying container support to MF was shortsighted.

Did it have to be? It doesn't necessarily seem like it would be a problem if Microsoft were more proactive about supporting other formats.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Sure. It's here.

Thanks. FWIW, MKVs can work you either need to install the DiVX MF MKV splitter or use on-the-fly transcoding w/ most DS splitters.

Originally Posted by reggie14

Did it have to be? It doesn't necessarily seem like it would be a problem if Microsoft were more proactive about supporting other formats.

That's the problem. They aren't proactive, and no one else gives a crap about MF .

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Thanks. FWIW, MKVs can work you either need to install the DiVX MF MKV splitter or use on-the-fly transcoding w/ most DS splitters.

Honestly, I haven't done a lot of testing myself, but people are really struggling even with the Shark007 pack. A lot of things aren't playing properly, or at all. Combinations of audio/video codecs that are supported separately don't always work together. H.264 bitrate support appears to cap out around 10mbps. Are you not seeing those problems?

Given that they're having enough problems getting the TV stuff working acceptably, I think it will be a while before they resolve many of the imported video issues.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Honestly, I haven't done a lot of testing myself, but people are really struggling even with the Shark007 pack. A lot of things aren't playing properly, or at all. Combinations of audio/video codecs that are supported separately don't always work together. H.264 bitrate support appears to cap out around 10mbps. Are you not seeing those problems?

Given that they're having enough problems getting the TV stuff working acceptably, I think it will be a while before they resolve many of the imported video issues.

The problem with WMC's model is that it is so dependent on the cruft (or lack thereof) on your HTPC for whether it works or not. I tested a lot of different file types (mp4, m2ts, mkv) I found a few things that didn't work but most of it was expected and somethings did (like interlaced VC-1 in ts) that surprised me.

Anyway my review just went up at Missing Remote. FWIW, I think this discussion made it a lot better than it would have been otherwise - so thanks .

[gabrielcab]

Now that they announced that there will be some kind of ICS android support for the ECHO, could that mean that XBMC and BR/DVD Rips could be supported using the Android interface?

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Anyway my review just went up at Missing Remote. FWIW, I think this discussion made it a lot better than it would have been otherwise - so thanks .

I have a quick question on the review. What did you mean when you said:

Originally Posted by MissingRemote Review

As an MCX, support for WMC TV containers (DVR-MS/WTV), photos and music is good, but other file formats (e.g. M2TS, TS, MKV, etc.) is highly dependent on the host home theater PC’s (HTPC) configuration – and often requires unfortunate compromises beyond the scope of this review.

Is that referring to the potential problems people have if they try to configure the Shark007 pack to work both on the WMC server and with extenders? I'm new the WMC, so I'm not entirely sure what you were getting at here.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Is that referring to the potential problems people have if they try to configure the Shark007 pack to work both on the WMC server and with extenders? I'm new the WMC, so I'm not entirely sure what you were getting at here.

Yes.

WMC uses Media Foundation (MF) to split and stream ES to MCX, when it can't negotiate a supported format (note it doesn't try very hard to do this) it tries to transcode the ES to WMV. Also Windows 7 includes a limited MF spltter for TS so by default most basic TS/M2TS files will play on MCX. Unfortunately 7MC also prefers MF for local PC playback so if you have more complex M2TS files (HD audio or VC-1) they will not play correctly. A common "fix" for this is to disable the preference for MF, which forces the PC to use DirectShow (DS) for local file playback but this breaks MCX playback for most non-MS TV video containers.

Add to this that there is a (pretty terrible) MKV MF splitter available from Divx and that MS provides a DS-to-MF source wrapper and the matrix for what works, and what doesn't, in what permutations, spirals rapidly out of control.

Ultimately until someone writes a proper DS wrapper or creates legitimate MF sources it's a very complex problem to sort out unless you want to convert everything to a single container w/ a limited set of codecs.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by babgvant

...MKVs can work you either need to install the DiVX MF MKV splitter or use on-the-fly transcoding w/ most DS splitters.

Why do you say DIVx MF MKV Splitter, opposed to Haali or LAV? I am under the impression htat hte DIVx splitter is not as good as Haali or LAV.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

Why do you say DIVx MF MKV Splitter, opposed to Haali or LAV? I am under the impression htat hte DIVx splitter is not as good as Haali or LAV.

Your impression is correct (although I think LAV is the only one that really gets it right). The thing that divx has over the others is that it is a native MF source, where Haali and LAV are DS.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Your impression is correct (although I think LAV is the only one that really gets it right). The thing that divx has over the others is that it is a native MF source, where Haali and LAV are DS.

That is interesting, so based on what you previously posted, the Divx splitter should prove better in the end?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

That is interesting, so based on what you previously posted, the Divx splitter should prove better in the end?

If it worked properly, and supported the myriad of codecs in MKV, yes.

What really needs to happen though is for someone to build a LAV for MF. That would make a huge diff for both MCX and WMC playback.

[Sparhawk6]

Is the released version and latest firmware still limited to 720p?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Sparhawk6

Is the released version and latest firmware still limited to 720p?

No.

[cncb]

I am no expert but I thought the point of these SOCs is that playback is "handed off" to them and just works and works well? If we are relying on Ceton to write "code" to get playback working right and fix these reported glitches that concerns me that they may never get it right...

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by cncb

I am no expert but I thought the point of these SOCs is that playback is "handed off" to them and just works and works well? If we are relying on Ceton to write "code" to get playback working right and fix these reported glitches that concerns me that they may never get it right...

The i.MX6 is brand new (announced at the last CES), so it's quite possible that some of the issues are related to the relative lack of maturity of the SoC.

Also, WMC in the mix muddles the story significantly (see previous posts).

I suspect that one of the ways that the Q was going to help with this is to remove the MF streaming and let the Echo pull the file directly (similar to how the HD300 works).

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by babgvant

... I suspect that one of the ways that the Q was going to help with this is to remove the MF streaming and let the Echo pull the file directly (similar to how the HD300 works).

I think thats what everyone (here anyway) was expecting. Couldn't this still be accomplished with a plugin (lack of a better word) of sorts? The Q would have had to work like that, or Ceton would have had to reinvent the wheel with there own MCE?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

I think thats what everyone (here anyway) was expecting. Couldn't this still be accomplished with a plugin (lack of a better word) of sorts? The Q would have had to work like that, or Ceton would have had to reinvent the wheel with there own MCE?

Maybe. The Q was going to be a closed box so they had a lot of freedom to manipulate the environment in ways that aren't possible on the PC (both from a technical and legal standpoint).

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Maybe. The Q was going to be a closed box so they had a lot of freedom to manipulate the environment in ways that aren't possible on the PC (both from a technical and legal standpoint).

But it was still just going to be a Win7/8 Embedded box, wasn't it? Moving away from MF would have required some pretty deep changes to WMC, wouldn't it have? And I didn't think MS lets you muck with the source of Win7/8 Embedded like they did with WinCE.

It seems like it would have just been easier to create some MF splitters.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by reggie14

But it was still just going to be a Win7/8 Embedded box, wasn't it? Moving away from MF would have required some pretty deep changes to WMC, wouldn't it have? And I didn't think MS lets you muck with the source of Win7/8 Embedded like they did with WinCE.

You can't change the code on Embedded per se, but you can do things that wouldn't be reliable, legal or safe on a PC. Dll injection and tricky COM things that force your object to be loaded instead or overlay the base are a couple e.g.; it's essentially up to the OEM what parts they want to use and what parts they don't - MS doesn't care much what they do with it.

Originally Posted by reggie14

It seems like it would have just been easier to create some MF splitters.

Splitting on the server (push) isn't as good a model as letting the device read it an split (pull). For e.g. seeking (especially large delta or random) will never be as clean.