[A-110] Firmware 01-17-101217-15-POP-403 (00-17-091216-15-POP-403 Apps)

[awdkoers]

Status update music playback:
Syabas tested again. The music playback problem is easier reproduced using smb share. At the beginning of the test music stopped playing every 3 / 4 songs. There is some "problematic code" during handling of large albumart. They fixed some code and the music now stops when playing music over 40 songs. At the moment they are still trying to improve this.

[J-Man]

(01-09-2011 10:10 AM)pchuser122 Wrote:  Have you thought about selling the PCH on ebay and getting another player? If you're not satisfied with the product, well you have your reasons, but that here is too much. Noone is stopping you from selling it to someone else.

I'm a happy owner of the NMT A-110 since 01/2009 with on older firmware (PCH works fine for me, so no update is necessary) and I'm saying a big THANKS to Syabas for the continued support of the device and that they still implement new features. (which is not self-evident)

So you're not affected by the update, huh! Then why even reply to my post. I can't sell the PCH on ebay because I live in South Africa and the cost of shipping is the same price as the box. So I have to live with it. You live in Germany - I can't believe Germans accepts shoddy quality and after-sales service. If your BMW was problematic and they issued a firmware upgrade on the car computer fixing a minor problem but creating another even worse problem, I doubt you'd speak the same language as you do here. The point is - you don't issue updates without proper testing - the bugs detected here were detected within a few hours of release by a relatively small population of PCH users. My guess is that the release occurred without proper beta testing.

(01-09-2011 10:10 AM)pchuser122 Wrote:  Updates cause bugs, that is well known for every (!) software that is out there. No software is bug free. Do you write texts like this to Microsoft too? How many hundreds of patches have they released for windows?
If you're so good in finding bugs, why don't you join the PCH Beta Testing team and do something productive?

No, updates don't always cause bugs (that's a rubbish generalisation) and if they do, if the firm releasing the update is worth its salt, an immediate fix release shows up within the first few days. I would never join the PCH beta testing team - for one there's no work to do - firmware updates occur once a year if you're lucky, secondly I'm not going to help sell a product I don't believe in. For the same reason I would not resell the PCH on ebay if I could - I consider that a type of fraud selling an item with known problems to an unsuspecting buyer.

So yes, I ranted. Because now I have to go back to earlier firmware. Maybe Werner ought to have updated his first post to say that it was buggy and users wouldn't update in the first place. I only found out whilst the firmware was updating and I checked out Page 5 of this thread. Perhaps I should I have read the entire thread before updating, I didn't - lesson learnt by me as far as PCH is concerned. But that still means some other poor user gets to be beta testers on a final release!

It is WRONG WRONG WRONG to release a firmware update without proper testing.

[vinylman]

(01-16-2011 08:01 AM)awdkoers Wrote:  Status update music playback:
Syabas tested again. The music playback problem is easier reproduced using smb share. At the beginning of the test music stopped playing every 3 / 4 songs. There is some "problematic code" during handling of large albumart. They fixed some code and the music now stops when playing music over 40 songs. At the moment they are still trying to improve this.

Hopefully the same code was used in the previous firmware too. As said earlier, this audio problem started with the previous firmware, not the latest. But it is worse and happens quite more often when using the latest firmware, than the previous.

[KlaasBaas]

Thx for the updates awdkoers !

One should think this is easier to fix than implement a shuffle feature

[DirtyH]

(01-16-2011 08:01 AM)awdkoers Wrote:  Status update music playback:
Syabas tested again. The music playback problem is easier reproduced using smb share. At the beginning of the test music stopped playing every 3 / 4 songs. There is some "problematic code" during handling of large albumart. They fixed some code and the music now stops when playing music over 40 songs. At the moment they are still trying to improve this.

Thanks for your efforts, I hope this problem will soon be solved!!

[philofred]

Such a regression at this time of the product lifecycle is unacceptable, listening to music being in the top 5 features of the media player.
But the big question is: why did you change the layout of the music player display?
Before:
- the album art was displayed pixel perfectly, centered,
- track info displayed and located such it had the most space in case of long title (think about classical music),
- overall was well located to be clear and avoid puzzling.
Now:
- the album art is blurry, constantly changing its texture every 2-3 seconds (look sharp, you will notice that)
- track info is located so it has a few space: 4 words in each field, that's all
- overall is shrinked to the center, worth to buy a big HD screen...

As I understood it, this change introduced the bug we know.
So I asked you to go back and keep the previous music player layout. As far as I know, I haven't seen a lot of complaint on it...

And please, no more excuse with the poor quality of the Sigma SDK. Challenge your testing method instead.

[subbase]

It's a **** system.
Mine works with the known bugs but I bought one for a friend of mine with exact the same harddisk and configuration and such. All those two years what ever I tried with his apparatus, it was never possible to download torrents.
It alway's crashes.....all firmware updates, and whatever did not work. (less connections, low speeds and so on)
All helps one or two day's and then the same problem starts. For the amount of money this is crap.

[mrdenn1s]

2 major issues with this firmware release (that outweigh any good stuff that is in there by a big margin):

1) mp3 playback via SMB is now rooted
2) ISO or VOB playback via SMB share now stutters

Both occur every time!

mp3 playback can be worked around using myihome version 5.0.2 via the itunes directories

Unfortunately myihome doesnt play iso (at all) or vob correctly, so the stuttery smb playback has now made my 3 NMT network redundant

Thankyou PCH for wrecking what was almost a perfect product

[vinylman]

(01-16-2011 08:40 PM)philofred Wrote:  Such a regression at this time of the product lifecycle is unacceptable, listening to music being in the top 5 features of the media player.
But the big question is: why did you change the layout of the music player display?
Before:
- the album art was displayed pixel perfectly, centered,
- track info displayed and located such it had the most space in case of long title (think about classical music),
- overall was well located to be clear and avoid puzzling.
Now:
- the album art is blurry, constantly changing its texture every 2-3 seconds (look sharp, you will notice that)
- track info is located so it has a few space: 4 words in each field, that's all
- overall is shrinked to the center, worth to buy a big HD screen...

As I understood it, this change introduced the bug we know.
So I asked you to go back and keep the previous music player layout. As far as I know, I haven't seen a lot of complaint on it...

And please, no more excuse with the poor quality of the Sigma SDK. Challenge your testing method instead.

I cannot agree more.

I also liked the previous music player layout better. it allowed more space to show the information from the tags. And the only picture needed is the front cover art.

To not sound too negative I have waited with comments on this until the player worked perfectly. But I couldn't resist when reading your post :-)

[marmic0]

I just did an online update of A-110 to latest firmware (dec 2010). Everything went fine - except: My ISO files are not playing !!!! They played very well using the old firmware (can't remember version). Can anyone explain, please

[Foamy]

(01-16-2011 08:01 AM)awdkoers Wrote:  Status update music playback:
Syabas tested again. The music playback problem is easier reproduced using smb share. At the beginning of the test music stopped playing every 3 / 4 songs. There is some "problematic code" during handling of large albumart. They fixed some code and the music now stops when playing music over 40 songs. At the moment they are still trying to improve this.

I have the same problem playing mp3's from the sata hard drive. Not sure if it is the same bug, but from another thread I learned that if you disable the screen saver, the mp3 playback bug goes away.

[sparkyjuice]

Disabling screensaver does help, with mp3 playback issue, found this out myself by trial and error. Am running Dec. 2009 firmware, put off upgrading by posts like the above every time Syabas release another firmware upgrade.....Did not like the whole music GUI/setup on PCH-a110 so now use Sonos SP-90 connected to my AV Amp when I want to listen to music. Works flawlessly, except for Flac Cue file issue. Point is I use my popcorn for video only, would be nice if it could be jack of all trades, but I'd rather it be at least master of one......Issues in both video and audio functions are a real show-stopper as far as this upgrade is concerned. I have to agree that whilst it is nice that support continues, it does feel rushed and untested.....samba share to folder full of mp3s is surely the set-up the majority of users have ? And most will not have embedded cover art if ripped from CD ?
PCH-A110 running Oversight is an ALMOST perfect video jukebox, will not be updating yet.

[awdkoers]

Thanx Foamy: Disabling the screensaver seems to be a good workaround for the mp3 playback issue. Up till now 45 minutes of continuous music and still playing.....
I reported it back to Syabas engineer so they can have a look at this.

[lucky_jl]

(01-19-2011 09:49 PM)awdkoers Wrote:  Thanx Foamy: Disabling the screensaver seems to be a good workaround for the mp3 playback issue. Up till now 45 minutes of continuous music and still playing.....
I reported it back to Syabas engineer so they can have a look at this.

That explains why i never had that bug

I am with the old firmware and the only reason i am considering the upgrade is because the "mkv header compression issue", but i don't wan't to lose the current music interface, the new one is ugly and buggy!

[Foamy]

(01-19-2011 09:49 PM)awdkoers Wrote:  Thanx Foamy: Disabling the screensaver seems to be a good workaround for the mp3 playback issue. Up till now 45 minutes of continuous music and still playing.....
I reported it back to Syabas engineer so they can have a look at this.

Thanks but the credit should go to Atreyu from this thread:
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showth...?tid=48636