Ceton extender beta shipping in Sept

[cncb]

I ended up giving in and buying 3 of these at the end of December since they had a discount and extended warranty and return period. I thought there was plenty of time to fix things up. Foolish, I guess.

Since then there have been just a few minor updates to essentially still get basic playback working properly! Absolutely no word in all this time on Windows 8 support, DTS, HD MKV playback, or Android. I have another month to return these but if something major doesn't happen in the next few weeks these are going back. Ceton doesn't inspire much confidence to say the least.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by cncb

I ended up giving in and buying 3 of these at the end of December since they had a discount and extended warranty and return period. I thought there was plenty of time to fix things up. Foolish, I guess.

Since then there have been just a few minor updates to essentially still get basic playback working properly! Absolutely no word in all this time on Windows 8 support, DTS, HD MKV playback, or Android. I have another month to return these but if something major doesn't happen in the next few weeks these are going back. Ceton doesn't inspire much confidence to say the least.

Actually they did anounce win 8 support. M$ stepped in and is only offering support fo rht exbox on windows 8, efectivly killing Cetons chance of supporting this. Atleast that's what was posted by Erik on the windows 8 topic.

Android was promised two months ago and said something like maybe by Christmas. No word since, No real update since, No support offered what so ever on ripped content other then what is already working. DTS has never been mentioned by Ceton since the beta. No theme support either. The device does not even come close to the xbox, efectively it should cost $99.99 just like the Vizio Google Tv box.

[Clift]

I got three of these also and an Infinitv 4. They lasted about a week. And 5 of those days was me waiting to box them up and ship em back. The UI was just so slow and choppy. The extender choked on an xvid standard def video. Not worth it IMO. I went back to my tried and true SageTV system keeping my fingers crossed for a Sage 8 Google TV hybrid... hopefully Jeff and co will throw us a bone.

[Skybolt]

I sent mine back. I figured three months after release is enough time to get somthing right? The basic's aren't even close to the 360 and for an STB close to the price of an xbox, it should be better then the xbox IMO. And the xbox isn't that great ...

[reggie14]

I sent mine back too. Through December I really planned on keeping the Echo, even if I wasn't using it regularly, just to monitor Ceton's progress with it. I think they're going to try to do something exciting with the Android environment, just because I don't see how else Ceton could possibly survive as a company with WMC being abandoned by MS. But, I really had to interpret the near-total silence from Ceton as a bad sign.

This has easily been one of my most disappointing tech toys. I had really high hopes for the Echo, which may have led to unrealistic expectations.

I just hope someone comes out with a good alternative in the next year or so.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by reggie14

... I really had to interpret the near-total silence from Ceton as a bad sign.

That was my biggest source of frustration up until now. They seemed to promise the world to keep your interest and then nothing, for what ever reason. But they should have been a little more reserved in there initial responses with everything, especially the Android thing.

This has easily been one of my most disappointing tech toys. I had really high hopes for the Echo, which may have led to unrealistic expectations.

I couldn't say it any better then that!

Lets hope for something great in the next year. I do have to say the PQ of 7MC using CC is awesome though.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

That was my biggest source of frustration up until now. They seemed to promise the world to keep your interest and then nothing, for what ever reason. But they should have been a little more reserved in there initial responses with everything, especially the Android thing.

Actually, they came pretty close to promising nothing. Remember, Ceton has always been incredibly noncommittal about specifics. They refused to say anything until right before launch. At that point, they hedged, saying its unsupported, but third-party addons should work (they only kind of do). They've never been willing to talk about what bitrates are supported.

Basically, they let people's imaginations and expectations run wild, and did nothing to contain them. That's almost as bad, in my opinion, to promising the world.

[Skybolt]

They did make a public statement about DTS support, or should I say DTS made a public statement about Ceton being the first embedded device to support DTS. But your right, that in and of itself led us to believe big things. Along with suddle comments here and there by a key marketing rep in Ceton.

[reggie14]

That's the thing- motz is a developer for Ceton and erickotz is a QA manager. These weren't some marketing folks that lacked enough technical expertise to know they were exaggerating. These two should should have known what expectations they were setting in the avs thread.

[Skybolt]

Totally agree with you on that, but they were acting as marketing reps every time they eludded to another "Feature" they could make work. This is definetly a huge disappointment either way you look at it.

I am sure it will take Ceton down a few notches as a result. I for one will never go near any of their products. They handled everyone very nicely, but disalusioned all on the whole.

[Biggen]

Ceton must be run by a couple of dolts. To design two products (Q and Echo) on the "assumption" that WMC will be fully functional and working within Win8 without doing the proper due diligence is just dumb. Secondly, to have a product that in 2013 cant stream HBR .mkv's or pass through DTS-MA or Dolby TrueHD is almost mind boggling.

Newegg and Amazon are beginning to discount the Echo. I don't know if that is Ceton driven or not but to see a hardware product that is only a couple of months old already being reduced in price can't be a good sign. I bet the sales have been dismal.

This could bankrupt Ceton. It can't imagine what the costs of developing the Echo and Q were but they must have been extraordinary.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by Biggen

Ceton must be run by a couple of dolts. To design two products (Q and Echo) on the "assumption" that WMC will be fully functional and working within Win8 without doing the proper due diligence is just dumb.

It is also possible that that did their due diligence to the best of their ability, but got screwed anyway. Its not like MS never screwed any of their partners before.. And heck, in this case, it might not even have been intentional.

Drew

[Biggen]

Originally Posted by drewg

It is also possible that that did their due diligence to the best of their ability, but got screwed anyway. Its not like MS never screwed any of their partners before.. And heck, in this case, it might not even have been intentional.

Drew

I'm not willing to give Ceton that benefit of the doubt. They still can't get the Echo to play HBR .mkv's. Should we blame that on Freescale? Maybe Freescale screwed them over on that and Microsoft screwed them over on the "Q"? What about the remote? Who screwed them over on that terrible design?

Perhaps if Ceton is gullible enough to get shafted by two different companies I can finally offload my swampland in Arizona I have been looking to get rid of.



Whatever actually did happen my confidence in Ceton "fixing" the Echo is nonexistent.

[nycjoe]

Ceton just published a new 'state of the echo' blog update
at
http://cetoncorp.com/blog/state_of_echo_3/

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by Biggen

... to have a product that in 2013 cant stream HBR .mkv's or pass through DTS-MA or Dolby TrueHD is almost mind boggling. ...

It's hard to even type those words, let alone read them. I don't think they put too much thought into this whole adventure. To me it looks like they completely change venues just before the beta, for what ever reason. And they have been lees then honest about anything going on.

I truely hope they can get their act together to complete the Echo, but I think is just more wishfull thnking.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by nycjoe

Ceton just published a new 'state of the echo' blog update
at
http://cetoncorp.com/blog/state_of_echo_3/

Well isn't that a day late and a dollar short? I really, really want to eat crow on this. But that's to good to be true. You go Ceton, you go.

[cncb]

I don't know what to make of this. It seems like they have totally changed course and now it won't necessarily be a Windows Media Center extender as they have advertised it to be. And just because it will be running Android doesn't mean it will support HBR MKV or DTS and they didn't bother addressing these issues in the blog post.

[Biggen]

Yeah, I can't fault Ceton for wanting to do "something" to make the Echo relevant but...

A whole new OS to the platform? Man, this thing will take ages to flesh out. And we thought the public beta was bad.

[reggie14]

For the most part it seems like its in audio/video playback where the Echo really struggles. For all we know Freescale may have things working better under Android. My guess, though, is that the old environment was Linux-based just like Android is. But that still means anything Freescale does should work with Android.

I think the announcement was the best news we could have hoped for on the Android plans. I'm hopeful, but somewhat skeptical, that Ceton will get this working well. If they do I'll probably give the Echo another shot.

[davefred99]

Wow how time flies. I just went back and read my original posts and I have to say while the Ceton Echo has not fulfilled all of my hopes and wishes it has evolved into a useful product for the most part. It is in no way equal to what Sage did with there extenders but it is the only game other then xbox 360 in production and available at this time.
I had hoped that by now The Echo would be where it could be used as a primary device and my MCE HTPC could be used like Sage as a headless server but that is not to be. I use my Echo as an extender in my bedroom and have a small form factor MCE HTPC connected to my Main Home theater TV.I do have high hopes that Ceton will eventually be closer to the device they originally promised and the move to Android IMHO is a step in the right direction. Some how they have to break free from the choke hold that Microsoft has on them as MCE is EOL in a few years.
It would be the cats Meow if Sage now owned by Google would become a consumer product again and perhaps Echo could team up with them but I fear Google has no plans other than there Google fiber project on a small scale. In the mean time I still have a Sage server with and HD100 running as my back up & MCE/Echo as my main system.