Firmware production start to become slow ... any issue?

[marciton]

Hello,
When I looked to purchased a new MediaPlayer I wanted something who moved fast, not blocked for to long for update ...
I purchased mine for Christmas ... and now since 6 months ... no update... no update on the iOS application too by the way ...
  is there any issue? or is the 4.0.0 is stable enough?

I'm just curious to know ...

[jer1956]

The x3d has been out for some time. It is now on v4 firmware. There will always be issues with any firmware.  Many of the remaining issues are long standing related to the SDK.  Realtek have stopped fixing issues in it as they have moved on to new chips. That leaves ingenuity to patch in fixes, and the results do not get to users unless they show some improvement.

Feature wise, I am not aware of any "big" feature in the pipeline. The box is already crambed full of features that wernt in V1 firmware.


Normally we would have had a new realtek chip which would be a evolution of what went before, thus allowing code to be ported with relative ease. All chips makers have gone down the ARM route , and that is more a revolution.   It means the chips themselves have to be assessed as suitable platforms, and Sanji can't do what they want to do with any of them, especially at current prices. So there is lot of activity going on that users can't see.

Sanji will not make a new player for its own sake. I have been  pointing out that current ARM player prices will bankrupt some well meaning companies trying to keep loyal customers happy.  The x3d is still holding its own despite its age, and higher price.

Personally, I wish realtek would just produce an 1187.....a 4k bluray supporting version of the 1186 that allows code to be ported.

[marciton]

When I search 6 or 7 month ago the Med1000x3d was the best media player I found listed ... if it's already too old that's a shame ...
I would have expected few more customization on the interface, be able to optimized more the scrape, the interaction with the subtitles (select a default language ...), a more modern setup interface ...

I didn't read any updated planned on the hardware too ... is the time to look for competition again?

[jer1956]

Many people are judging the GUI by what  they  see on ARM based players.  An  1186 cant morph into an ARM looking device....it cant run the same code.   Sanji are not happy with what the latest chips can do....thay have gained in some areas but lost much of what a BD chip can  do.  

Like all  things users have different expectations. Many have no interest in Android or kodi, and appreciate what  the X3d can  do. Others may  be surprised that  something that has a good reputation isnt ARM/Andoid/kodi based already, and be disapointed as a result.  

You wont see a "plan" for a new player...ever.  Sanji only release information when they  have a working prototype that  they  are happy to go  to productiion.  Right now no one can predict what price/performance is viable.  As I said before, Sanji will not make a player for its own sake.  They are first and foremost a "business".  They wont get carried away like AC Ryan did, putting new product before profit in the priorities, and going bust as a result.

[Sunfish]

With smart tv's slowly becoming the standard standalone media players might not have a bright future. Streaming is getting more and more popular and media players already tend to fall behind. Personally I prefer local storage and not having to rely on the internet too heavily for a uninterrupted experience but the market is changing nonetheless and it seems that media players won't really have a place in it. The same can be said for bluray players. How many people actually have one? I don't and I couldn't be less interested in buying one. I've lost the taste for discs many years ago.

People talk about Android a lot but from what I read is that LG's Web OS turns out to be a much better platform for smart tv's. Critics are overly positive about the user experience. Maybe this is something media player manufacturers can learn from for future models. At least the coming years many people will still have dumb tv's in their houses that warrant a standalone player.

[jer1956]

Lg are in a battle to sell tv's. They won't offer their code to media players which mean users have no need to buy a new TV, lg or otherwise.  Licences for vod services are also restricted. TV makers are paying mega bucks to licence 4k Netflix, to sell the 4k TVs. They won't be happy if Netflix offer 4k vod via media players. Because of similar financial contracts  they only offer 720p for non TV devices already.

Companies are learning from apple. If two companies are needed to deliver a service, one may be seen a desirable, the other purely functional. Users will gladly change the functional to get the desirable.  Apple, being the desirable part gets the functional phone companies to bid against each other purely to get a regional contract.  That is before a single user has paid anything....

In this case 4k  Netflix is seen as desirable, the TVs functional. A few companies will pay mega bucks to have the few licences made available by Netflix,  the rest will just not mention lack of 4k vod.  Its a case of buyer beware.

[marciton]

My samsung TV don't do half of what my MED1000x3D is doing today ... And I want "more" with a better interface, better integration ...

The only who look close to what I want today is the QNAP HS-251 ... but it's a really different player ...

[Sunfish]

Web OS is open source.

@marciton: To my impression LG is the only true innovative TV maker on the market today. It's the only one with a seriously developed OLED lineup and their software integration apparently gets very good reviews. Newer models are even capable of HEVC playback. Don't get me wrong: I don't work for LG and I don't have one of their TV's. OLED is still too expensive for me but as soon as prices drop enough I will run to the store.

[jer1956]

I just did a bit of googling on webos. It used to be HP's own tablet OS , but the market demand was for android.  The problem is app development was HP driven. Without HP who will develop apps at the same pace as those for iPhone or android?  The success of a modern app driven OS is the number of apps. Apple thought they could see off android because of that.  The problem was the world is not full of apple fanboys. Lots of apple haters exist and filled the app  gap  very quickly.

[adamforeman]

I think the current firm once finalised, could do with a bit of polish here and there, but I'd like to see or know if x265 will ever be added. That codec will be the next best HD low file size codec out. I'd also like to see hard drive utilities to scan and file check etc for errors from within the unit rather having to connect to a PC to complete that task. Plus as I've mentioned before, I would like to see the ZOOM replaced with just stretch to 16:9 option next to 4:3 video. It would then simply stretch automatically when a 4:3 broadcast is recognised. It then removes the need for the ZOOM.

[jer1956]

This generation of device has a puny CPU, and a powerful codec chip. But the codecs are fixed in the design of the chip. Firmware cannot add new codecs.


The arm type devices have both a a powerful mulricore CPU, and a powerful codec chip.  The likes of Kodi, being ffmpeg based, use software codecs running on the CPU. The codec chip is totally ignored.


Its will be 4k bd player chips that really need h265. It may well be the current generation of h265 chips are a cul de sac, leaving buyers with nowhere to go .

The skepitcal might say that is why the current generation of h265 chips are being dumped at stupid prices. The makers know they are not 4k bd complient as the spec has only just been agreed.

The wise, be they user or player maker, will wait for chips explicitly designed for 4k bd.

[Ronaldk]

I would like to see the ZOOM replaced with just stretch to 16:9 option next to 4:3 video. It would then simply stretch automatically when a 4:3 broadcast is recognised. It then removes the need for the ZOOM.

Totally not in aggreement. Zoom has the advantage that you can keep the correct aspect ratio or tailor the aspect ratio if it was ripped incorrectly. There is nothing more ugly as stretched images that distort the aspect ratio  . Anyway the current zoom to width already fills a 16:9 screen if the content is 4:3 so in essence it is already provided. The custom percentage zoom helps in decreasing the screen size (when your screen is too large for the quality of video) and correcting or removing black bars however you wanted it.

[jer1956]

Screen filling modes are found in most TVs, for SD. Even they won't do it for HD.  If the player had an auto native resolution mode, then the TV would then auto distort 4:3  SD to fill the screen, if you setup you tv to do it.  The image has to be distorted because zoom will crop off peoples heads, as zoom with just show the middle 16:9 band from the 4:3. When old 4:3 programs are re-cropped for 16:9  it takes manual pan scan to find the most sensible 16:9 part to crop out, shot by shot.

[Sunfish]

About Web OS, forget about apps for a while. Apps are for the Googles and the Apples out there who want to build a whole ecosystem. I think we should focus on the OS itself. Apparently it is very well designed and like I said users and reviewers are apparently very positive about both looks and functionality. It allows TV makers to come up with a whole array of standard functionality in a smart tv, out of the box. And it makes it possible to easily add more functions such as Netflix integration later. This modular design must sound appealing to developers here who are struggling with a monolithic SDK for an older media player.

And when we talk about aspect ratios I can't wait for the day when 21:9 becomes a HDMI standard. All full HD movies on the market today are effectively less than full HD because of the letterbox nature of the picture. Although I still prefer letterbox over pan and scan. 21:9 would be great with movies finally in their highest possible resolution. And 16:9 content would look fine as well with only narrow black bars on the sides. Bars on the sides are much less obvious than bars on the top and bottom where they take up much more space, both relative to the height and in absolute surface area (square cm's, or inches so you wish).

[jer1956]

4k 16:9 TV's will have far more resolution, even using letterbox for movie aspect. Your idea is not the way the industry see it.  Mpeg type encoding wastes very little storage space storing the black bars top and bottom.  Its just not worth introducing yet another anamorphic standard. If you want more resolution,  get 4k, and wait for rips of 4k letterbox movies. Or have they specified native 21:9 for 4k bd? If they where going to do it, that would the time.


http://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-105UC9-led-tv