TviX HD M-4100SH/5100SH support Matroska now...

[Kurtnoise]

Dreams come true ?

Below is the beta firmware for mainly testing MKV file playback feature.
We have been developing MKV support , but We could not say that we would support MKV
because the CPU speed and memory limitation could have prevent us.
Anyway, finally we have open beta firmware.
Please enjoy and give us the feedback through our Q&A or mpcclub(http://www.mpcclub.com) or avsforum(http://www.avsforum.com) forums.
We closely monitor those forums to gather feedback and make the product better.
Below is the changes and known problems.

This version works with HDTVTuner and you can delete, copy and upload files through ftp clients.

MKV related
1. X.264 and XVID, Divx 4.x,5.x video codecs are supported. (more are coming)
- Since we do not have contents, Dix 3.11, Divx 6.x has not been tested. (I may work or it may not)
2. AC3 and DTS , mp2,mp3, AAC audio codecs are supported
3. 1080p contents have lots of block noise.
- Almost all contents below 720p is OK but there is a few which is not
4. Embedded subtitles is not supported
5. FF2,4,8x is supported. Goto is supported.
6. Rewind, FF16,FF32 are not supported.
7. Goto after 40 min may not work on some files.


Others
1. This version supports VC1 codec in AVI files.
2. AC3 or DTS is not working through HDMI on most TVs.
3. Other features like JPG slide show performance remains as before.

http://www.tvix.co.kr/eng/support/betafirmware.aspx

[SeeMoreDigital]

Dreams come true ?Indeed.... Both players specifications are most impressive.

You can expect more players supporting high-resolution VC-1 and MPEG-4.10 sources soon ;)


Cheers

[BetaBoy]

Kurtnoise13... you will actually see alot more devices supporting Matroska going into XMAS. My last count internally is in about 3 DVD players, 2 DVR's (but we have talked to many more companies) and going into 2008 with CorePlayer Mobile with millions of hardware devices.

[Kurtnoise]

Yeah I know...Sound great but frankly I don't like ranting like here and there...:)

I'll more interested by some announcements on the official website. More people read the website than forums. ;)

[BetaBoy]

Well for Matroska..... we don't really push alot of the website... that will change as we have now picked up Matroska.com from squatters and plan on redirecting ppl to .org and have a new site coming later this year.

On 'pimping' Matroska and Open Source.... I do that enough with our 'Matroska Clause' that states each of licensees is obligated to support all open standards.

This goes towards our goals to eventually open source our decoders/encoders as well as BetaPlayer.

[BetaBoy]

Also... since we are onto hardware. We also plan on releasing the CorePlayer Framework as an embedded soluton. This would be in a similar fashion to how Portal Player did it. But there are MAJOR differences for us and how we would then tie into GPU, codecs, etc. As this would still require a software frontend... more details next year ;-)

[Ronin-7]

Does that means (sorry if I'm misinterpreting you) that you could be working on a front end UI that companies could license from you ?

The TViX is nice unit but it's UI is plain if serviceable and personally most media streamers/players have awful UI's nothing as slick as XBMC or the AppleTV (granted I'm aware of the difference in processing power with those having GPU's).

It would be really nice if there was a good UI that was at least on one device (that didn't require it to be modded/hacked).

[Kurtnoise]

A great review (http://www.desray2k.com/tvix_5100sh/index.asp)...although I don't like the shape.

[CruNcher]

loughable so limited and the price point of a next generation console that can do almost the same :P except MKV playback
asia SAP players seem to die in the Next Generation Codec future (if they don't heavily drop the prices at least who would buy something like that if he can have the same but more powerfull from Microsoft for the same price and update posibilities to HD-DVD) if they don't improve this fast the SAP market is gonna die sooner or later and Microsoft and Sony will own it.
At the moment Microsoft seems to have the better cards (don't they allways have them :P ?) as Blu-Rays success becomes more questionable seeing the heavy price drops on the hard drive market the last years for customers 50 Gb BDs are today nothing worth for Home use anymore even HD-DVD isn't but to have better quality Movies then DVD HD-DVD is absolutely enough and better balanced in terms of hardware costs and prodcution investments.
150 $€ more not for such a weak SAP player the prices they wan't for the Sigma Players @ the moment are awefull (Netgear,Dvico and all the others), but those blind "i want to have it first guys" gonna pay them anyways :P (better is to wait for the other players on the market like MediaTek, Zoran and ESS).

[kurt]

there is a new betafirmware 1.2.23 (2007-09-21)

*** FilePlayer related ***
* MKV (Blue Color is the added feature with this version)
1. Supported Codecs
Video : H.264,XVID, DivX 4x, 5x, WMV9
Audio : AC3, DTS, AAC, MP2, MP3
2. Trick Play
FF : 2X, 4X, 8X, 16X, 32X
REW : 8X, 16X, 32X
3. Goto after 32 - 40 min do not work - fixed
4. 120 f/s content support
5. Minor bug fixes and better sync and more stable play

- MKV Known Issues -
1. Many 1080p and some 720p contens(with L5.1 encoding) shows block noise
2. *****ded subtitle is not supported.(work on progress)

Other enhancement and changes
1. Playing from USB external storage performance has been greatly improved.
40Mpbs MPEG2 stream in external USB2.0 HDD now plays fine.
So most contents which plays fine in internal HDD will play fine also with external HDD

2. Response time enhanced
- Time to show first picture from pressing OK button.
* Time to respond "GOTO" ,FF , REV...

3. 1080p 24Hz support
- You set the output resolution to 1080p and NTSC/PAL/24, TViX will display content at their native frame rate. (either 60, 50, 24)
- NTSC/PAL Auto bug in previous beta has been fixed too.

4. HDMI Audio On/Off Added
- When HDMI Audio is Off, no audio will be out to HDMI port.

5. TVOUT button cycle changed
- It will cycle through NTSC->PAL->Auto EDID
- It is recommended that you set desired resolution using set tup menus after you see the screen using TVOUT button.
- When Auto EDID does not work, please connect TViX using composite cable and you will see the screen either in NTSC or PAL mode.

6. Multilanguage selection menu changed
- It will show menu in native language for the selection

- Other known issues -
1. Slide show is not stable. It is less stable especially when playing with music.
2. DVD juke box when playing DTS track will hang the system.
3. HDMI compatibility problem with some Display.
Please send us .TED file which is created on the internal HDD for our analysis.
4. When playing HD quality files consecutively, sometimes TViX hangs.
5. REW in TP files is not supported


*** DTV Tuner related ***
1. Depends on HDD, the problem that Record being stoped within 10sec is fixed.

2. Other minor bugs were fixed.
- Some EPG bug fixed
- Some shcduled recording bugs fixed
- ETC
http://www.tvix.co.kr/eng/support/betafirmware.aspx

looks good :)

[Kurtnoise]

did you buy it already ?

[kurt]

nope, but I know someone over at the german doom9 forums :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

From what I understand Hi-Jack (over at MPC) knows quite a bit about this player...

[THCM]

I've got one at home and sold a few to some customers. It has some nice features like autosetting the refresh rate, but also has some nasty bugs, like loosing audio after some time.

[Eri2]

TVIX HD M-41/5100SH Firmware 1.3.05 RC1 (http://www.tvix.co.kr/eng/support/M41_5100firmware.aspx)


*** File Player related ***
MKV related
1. Fix video artifacts with some 720P and most 1080P source.
2. Fix audio dropping issue.
3. Improved rewind.
4. Some AC3 will not sound. This is due to the AC3 data is compressed.
- MKV Known Issues -
- *****ded subtitle is not supported.(work on progress)
Others
1. Improved Jpeg playing stability.
2. Fixed DVD jukebox bugs.
A. Fixed DTS audio changing issue.
B. Fixed some ISO files issue.
3. Fixed H.264 AVI out of synch after FF, RW or Go to.
4. Improved FF and Goto for M2TS, TS, TP and mpeg files.
5. Improved HDMI audio output compatibility.
6. Changed the default value of Contrast and Brightness
A. For the 24Hz, it will adjust the brightness and contrast automatically.
7. Changed : When you press TV out key on the remote it will changed to NTSC->480P->PAL->576P.
8. New : Now shows album art when playing audio files.
A. It will show jpeg files in the same folder.
B. It will slideshow all images in the current folder and the slideshow time in setup will be used for the delay.
C. Only image files under 720 * 720 will be shown.
9. Added a new screen saver mode called “Except Audio”
A. It will not start the screen saver when audio is playing.
10. Now shows FTP id and password in setup and info page when you press info key on the file browsing mode.
11. Improved subtitle handling.
12. Fixed the bug DTS audio setting is not saved.
13. Fixed some minor bugs and messages.

- Other known issues -
1. HDMI compatibility problem with some Display.
Please send us .TED file which is created on the internal HDD for our analysis.
2. REW in TP files is not supported
3. When playing HD quality files consecutively, sometimes TViX hangs.
4. FF, RW, Goto many not work with audio files
─────────────────────────────────────────────
*** DTV Tuner related ***
─────────────────────────────────────────────
1. Fixed the crashing after changing to some channels.
2. Fixed EPG data is not showing specially there are many channels.
3. Added auto DST settings.
A. We recommend to enable this settings in the area of using DST.
4. Fixed incorrect Time zone is selected when a specific location is selected
5. Fixed DTV does not work when CP1251 is selected in the location setting.
6. Fixed the LED on the external tuner is not controlled.
7. Fixed Audio pitch is changed when volume is changed.
8. Fixed the EPG table cannot be removed when the recording is started while EPG table is been showing.
9. Fixed zoom related bug.

*Thank you all the people who helped us make a better firmware by giving us right feedback.

[Satviewer2012]

I have quite a few DivX DVD players and have also owned the Prismiq and the Avel Linkplayer. In the future, I'm never going to buy another one of these "All in One" hardware players, as all of them will eventually be left unsupported by their manufacturers. At some point (usually after a year or so), it will not make financial sense for them to continue to support their players, instead, the company will have either disappeared (eg. Prismiq) or have moved onto selling newer models (eg. Avel). This exact scenario has in fact happened to ALL of my hardware media players.

For the price of these players, you could build a computer/HTPC which will virtually never become obsolete, which is what I'm doing from now on. So no matter what new video format comes out, I'll always be guaranteed that it'll play on my HTPC (or just any Windows based computer). It's unlikely that any codec will require more processing power than what is currently available, so I won't have to upgrade my CPU/MOBO in order to play the newest HD videos.

[halcy]

All prospective buyers: find a person who actually uses and understands hw players and their limits AND owns the player you want.

Ask them.

They will tell you what works, what doesn't.

Regardless of what the fw release notes say.

This applies to Tomacro/Dvico/Sybas/etc boxes.

The competition is really intense and everybody is overpromising. Everybody.

In real life the products work a lot less flawlessly than claimed. A lot.