Corrupted pictures after scratching - single movies

[Fantaman]

Is this an issue with these players or all media players that scrape? My understanding from TMDB is it has been tested on other players and worked fine.

Can't Mede8er just switch where the images come from so not TMDB?

Was once a great player and but now showing it's age. The Jukebox and scraping was THE main reason I bought this player, without it working properly, I'll dump it on eBay and buy something else.

The workaround suggested on here to much of a fuff for me.

[jer1956]

The downloaded images are displayed. But buiding the About uses the faulty mime data embedded in the jpg header. Sanji have no engineers. Everthing was subcontracted. Any issues requiring changes to the hardware and the Realtek SDK cannot be done.
There is a long list of such issues. Gapless music, subtitles, MP4 with no stream data.

Internal scraping was only a recent addition. Fixing the faulty jpg header could be added to external scrapers if their designers wanted too. Most will just say tmdb are at fault.

[mike_carton]

Fixing the faulty jpg header could be added to external scrapers if their designers wanted too. Most will just say tmdb are at fault.

This is about TheMovieDB.Org:

ThumbGen is receiving faulty info in thumbnails and saving them with the DPI fields empty. The background images are coming through with correct information (72 dpi). ThumbGen is saving the about.jpg with 96 in the DPI fields. All the pictures look OK.

We haven't heard anything on YAMJ or YADIS, so they might be OK as well.

[Satnaff]

TMDB have changed the jpg encoding engine and this has caused the issue on the Mede8er Movie Scraper. We have investigated the issue and think the problem lies in the header marker of the jpg files as the parameter density is incorrect. It used to read 'density    = 72 x 72 DPI (dots per inch)' but now it reads   'density    = 1 x 1 (aspect ratio)' and we think this could be the problem.

I've had a brief look using a hex editor at the file header information on some 'good' cover / folder / fanart jpg files compared to what the database is now throwing up; the 15th to 18th bytes (APPO marker segment Xdensity and Ydensity fields) of the 'good' files have a (decimal) value of 72 and 72 respectively, whilst the more recent files gleaned from scanning the database have (decimal) values of 1 and 1 respectively.  These nevertheless appear to conform to JPEG - JFIF APPO, where these particular APPO marker fields apparently only need not be zero.

I haven't had time (yet) to check for other 'good' files that may have higher density, nor time (yet) to faff about changing the byte values to see what happens and until they find a solution I have merely re-saved the scanned cover/folder/fanart (and the values were automatically changed to 72 x 72), rescan in mede8er (to build the about.jpg) which does the trick.  I can also recommend others' suggestion and try out ThumbGen which I am frankly pleased with despite a small learning curve thus far - though this may not be a desirable option if anyone has a few hundred / thousand movies to add new art work.

Edit I: since looked at other 'good' cover.jpgs in the editor with higher density e.g. 300 x 300; these were also unaffected and allowed the about.jpg to be built.  So I'd reaffirm my earlier thoughts that the issue isn't regarding specific resolution or pixel density, it just seems that the values of 1 x 1 in the header info is clearly not 'good' causing this major tilt.

Edit 2: Using the hex editor for those 'bad' cover/fanart/folder files, I changed the byte values to (hex) 00 48 00 48 - viewed file, image displays no probs.
So why can't some software / firmware do this for us?

[PalfiZsolt]

Dear jer1956,

I'm a software developer/architect, but honestly I don't understand your arguments. You mentioned it is not possible to do anything, because the hardware support has finished. Does hardware decoder is used for JPEGs? Why this decoder works correctly when we are in edit mode? Or it is a software decoder? Then why Sanji cannot modify the code?

I cannot decide if this is a TMDB issue or not. It seems there is problem only with Mede8er players. Apart from this it is sure that Sanji's customers are not satisfied, so Sanji's interest and responsibility to provide a solution for this problem. Working with external PC application to modify the JPEGs manually is not a solution.

"Sanji have no engineers. Everthing was subcontracted." - it is not acceptable argument for me. When I bought my 800X3D, I bought Sanji's product. Not the subcontractor's product. I don't care who else worked on this product. Sanji should manage the supporting activites (as they did in the production activites) with an own developer team or a subcontractor team. I can forgive it only if Sanji went bankrupt. Is it the reality? They have the best media player, so it has to be because of the support...

I chosed Mede8er, because of performance, feature set, frequent firmware update and 5 years guarantee. Yes, I have paid for the 5 years guarantee to support me, and I still have 1.5 years back. The feature set less and less, which is not acceptable. There is no youtube, there are problems with the internet applications, the subtitle's DNS management, etc. I have paid for those features. I expect the fixes, else I will take my player back to the retailer to ask for my money back.

I mentioned I work in software development industry. I can tell several examples when we had to make software based workaround solutions to avoid our 3rd-party partners faulties. This is the life. However, Sanji still has two options: it solves the problem or it convinces the TMDB. I'm sure something legal agreement have to be between Sanji and TMDB.

The third option could be if Sanji shares the software source code with the community. I'm sure there will be some developers like me who would be happy to improve the existing firmware.

Sorry, if I was offensive some places, but I'm really angry because even a feature has stopped to work.

Thank you for reading my long post.

[Satnaff]

The third option could be if Sanji shares the software source code with the community. I'm sure there will be some developers like me who would be happy to improve the existing firmware.

Don't know if this is feasible - and I'd love to help but don't have enough programming knowledge - anyway, well volunteered 

I only recently added another new mede8er for a spare room, so am likewise disappointed with this debacle.  Especially as (IMHO) it beats the pants off the WDTV Live I used to have to labour with.

[jer1956]

I'm sure something legal agreement have to be between Sanji and TMDB.

Actually no. Both scrapers are optional freebies. They are not in the code and you can only use them by accepting the terms on the agreement.

Because OEM's like  Sanji have no engineers they cannot gureentee longevity of features. Again it says on the box all features are subject to change.

Sanji have stopped developing Mede8er products for now. And no subcontractors support 1186 coding. The subcontractors have the SDK, not Sanji. The code users a ton of Realtek libraries without which the code cannot be built into working code. Those are part of the SDK. And those libraries are where fixes are required. Realtek are now two chip generations later. They are not going to spend thousands fixing outdated SDK's. They never have. After three years of production all fixes are buy the next model. It has been like that since 2008.

[sayon]

Someone explains to me why despite the problems listed, the TV series are perfect, while the movies do not?

[PalfiZsolt]

Everything has at least 10 years support AFTER END OF PRODUCTION. Cars, cameras, PCs, Notebooks, etc. It is not possible to just "stop" the support. I think this is a legal requirement in the European Union. My Mede8er is only 3.5 years old. It was not cheap, and the current capability is not better than the other product was, but it was 30-40% cheaper.

I understand that this is because of Realtek. However, it is Sanji's fault it accepted Realtek rules. Don't tell me that there is no contract between Realtek and Sanji neither.

It is not fair play. It is not fair that the customers were not informed in advance, before the purchasing. Sorry to say that, but for my part, I will enforce the guarantee to get my money back.

[fifre]

Dear PalfiZsolt
very good product analysis, and I totally agree with you!
if we believe jer1956's comments on the problem I think it's the end of the X3D, as far as I'm concerned I'm going to another product, I'm tired of hacking manually JPEG files is not the purpose, the X3D is soon dead it feels the end with great regret for me

[jer1956]

Everything has at least 10 years support AFTER END OF PRODUCTION. Cars, cameras, PCs, Notebooks, etc. It is not possible to just "stop" the support. I think this is a legal requirement in the European Union. My Mede8er is only 3.5 years old. It was not cheap, and the current capability is not better than the other product was, but it was 30-40% cheaper.

I understand that this is because of Realtek. However, it is Sanji's fault it accepted Realtek rules. Don't tell me that there is no contract between Realtek and Sanji neither.

It is not fair play. It is not fair that the customers were not informed in advance, before the purchasing. Sorry to say that, but for my part, I will enforce the guarantee to get my money back.

You contract is with the Retailer. They should be selling these as outdated stock whose features are non functional due to external internet changes. Media players have always had features fixed by expecting users to upgrade. But Sanji have no new product to upgrade too. Sigma where famous for saying a problem had been fixed....in the next chip.

[jer1956]

Someone explains to me why despite the problems listed, the TV series are perfect, while the movies do not?

TV series do not have about files. The About file is created by processing downloaded files from the movie data base site. Those images have invalid header data. The 1186 has a puny CPU and powerful hardware codecs. Everthing is done by instigating a supplied library function to offload tasks to the codecs. That includes building the About. This is a simple case of Rubbish in-Rubbish out. And Mede8er are not creating the rubbish files.

[dntaylor]

The Mede8er is one of the best devices I have ever bought which has had some fantastic support from a great community which has lasted for some years. I am still not willing to change to another media player yet because I still think this is still the best media player for HD and 3D video, but I do feel this issue should be supported and sorted out.

[PeteW]

I purchased a MED600X3D just over 2 years ago to replace a Boxee Box which the manufacturers stopped supporting. I find myself in the same position again.  Manufacturers should support their products for a number of years post final sales.  I find myself extremely angry at sanji.  My other products are Apple, at least they support their products for several years and warn when support is going to stop.   

[jer1956]

I purchased a MED600X3D just over 2 years ago to replace a Boxee Box which the manufacturers stopped supporting. I find myself in the same position again.  Manufacturers should support their products for a number of years post final sales.  I find myself extremely angry at sanji.  My other products are Apple, at least they support their products for several years and warn when support is going to stop.   

You are comparing Apples and Pears. Apple control their internet services. They are not hostage to others changing how they work years after models where released.

Realtek, by requiring perfection keep exposing problems other devices do not. The moviedb is creating faulty jpeg's, and opensubs are using Cloudflare for something it is not intended for...interactive databases.