Een UPC Saga met goede afloop

Omdat mijn oude werkgever mijn internet abonnement niet meer betaald, zocht ik wat anders. Een alles in 1 pakket was de meest logische keuze gezien de kosten. Dus vragen we voor onze vakantie het digitale pakket van UPC aan.

Terug na 1 week vakantie hebben we 1 pakket binnen. Kabelmodem en HDTV pakket. Aansluiten dan maar. Gezien mijn ‘netwerk’ ervaring een fluitje van een cent, maar na uren wachten geen ONLINE status van het kabelmodem en ook geen ‘On Demand’ functionaliteit.

Dan ga je dus voor 0,10 cent per minuut bellen met de Helpdesk. Sorry dat ik het moet schrijven UPC, maar daar zat iemand die zelf uit Maastricht kwam en niet wist dat Apeldoorn niet dicht bij Amsterdam ligt (ja in het alfabet). Dit om toch mij maar te vertellen dat

MediaTitan

Ah .. I see that people at work made public one of our latest projects: The Conceptronic MediaTitan and someone told mpcclub after reading the newspage

a complete new kind of media player (yep all kind of formats can be played (like the cfullhdma)) / recorder with DVB-T functionalities. Especially for those countries with large DVB-T usage (free to air) .. the remote control is awesome rocking in usability but totally different in what people are used to use …

the design is slick and slim and it was kept very simple.

Internal is a nice new processor (will be revealed later) ;-)

Especially on the GUI the dev team has worked hard for many month’s to get a nice usable GUI (Graphical User Interface)

A small hint or tip of the main menu:

CFULLHDMA: Release Candidate: 1.09.32.06 Firmware

After getting valueable feedback from beta testers using e-mail and the bugtraq system I’m about to release a new firmware version (Release Candidate).
We do release this firmware with Kernel 2.4 so that’s why you will see 1.09.32 as firmware version
Kernel 2.4 firmware images will be released in the 1.09.xx. range and Kernel 2.6 firmware images in the range 1.10.xx 

Firmware versions in the 1.10.xx range will not be released to the public yet. 

It is the intention to release this version (1.09.32.06) as internet upgrade and as downloadable firmware file from the official website before the end of this week.

New Beta firmware Release (Release Candidate)

  • fixed: issue where watchdog could not operate
  • fixed: ogg music playback (fast backword to the begin of music file)
  • fixed: zoom minimum size is zero
  • fixed: Some playlists were not played well
  • fixed: In certain conditions MKV file could stutter
  • fixed: IMedia could crash
  • fixed: zoom button keeps in screen (press zoom, adjust screen and after few seconds icon disappears)
  • fixed: DVD cannot display subtitle when there is only one subtitle track (no menu)
  • Improved: Recognize playlist by it’s extension (treat as a folder)
  • Improved: iMedia music stream robustness
  • add new feature: flac support: (note: some FLAC files could give issues: which is under investigation)
  • add new feature: increase zoom rate
  • add new feature: when playing music enable also the screensaver
  • add new feature: support external subtitles for ts, mov, mp4 and wmv, m2ts
  • add new feature: support IGMP for UDP streams
  • add new feature: Save Samba Username & Password
  • add new feature: seek by time. Press 0 to enter 00:00 [hh:mm], if you want to jump to 50 minutes you enter: 0->0->5->0 at the screen you will see: GOTO 0_:__ [hh:mm]” when ‘0’ is pressed (not for DVD playback)

This upgrade is available now. Use the Internet Update function in the setup menu to update to 1.09.32.06 People using beta 1.10.xx.xx should upgrade manually by USB. The update file will be available through the official website tomorrow 15/08/08

CFULLHDMA: 1.10.05.06 beta

As we are busy to move the CFULLHDMA from Linux 2.4 kernel to Linux 2.6 we are mainly testing it internally. Today I can present you an update beta firmware which is experimental so very limited support.

Due to the difference in kernel it can happen that an already fixed issue is happening again or that there is a new issue seen you did not encounter with the 1.09.28.06 firmware.

issues reported which are not solved yet or mentioned are under investigation, being fixed etc..

v01.10.05

  • fixing MKV embedded subtitle issue: (S_SSA or S_ASS type)
  • fixing playback audio codec AAC-LC within MKV 
  • fixing FF or FB does not work: becomes slow motion after pressing five times te slow button an pressing FF or FB.
  • Disable FF, FB, Repeat, AB mode, Pause, and Slow for Internet streaming.
  • fixing SRT subtitle control code < > characters issue
  • fixing SRT subtitle issue with dummy extra new line
  • Resume music playback when playing the music file which is playing now.  (Do not play it from the begining).  Cannot support this feature for Internet streaming.
  • Fixing some music file cannot be continously played after exiting the play music window if set “Music Auto Play” as “Repeat”.
  • Support for external subtitle when playing MP4 files
  • Remember Samba user name and Password (1 username/password right now)

v1.10.04.06

  • Fixing the URL of iMedia may end with space of invalid character. 
  • Fixing that system need longer time to power off if USB storage is attached.
  • Fixing  a system crash when decoding some JPEG files.
  • Fixing a system crash when play mkv files in some cases.
  • Fixing a system crash when playing next music files sometimes.
  • Fixing samba client feature cannot automatically scan again.
  • Fixing that DMS server won’t be removed if power-off or unplug cable of PC which running DMS.

v1.10.03.06

  • Fix that cannot resume playing video files in kernel 2.6.15.
  • Remove the debug message “cdrom: This disc doesn’t have any tracks I recognize!”.

feedback is appreciated in http://www.aroundmyroom.com/bugs

Beta testers have been informed. Right now there are no open positions for beta testing

CFULLHDMA: function implementation

A much requested feature is the ability to jump into a movie on time level. Right now we only implemented a jump feature on 50% level.

Our current design is: when entering 50 you will jump to 50% of the movie. This function we will keep (I like it very much).

New: when pressing 0 it will enable the: ‘seek by time indicator’ function and show: 00:00:00 for the time input. If you enter with the numeric keypad the following sequence, for example: 0 010010 than you will jump to 01:00:10 into the movie; 0 005000 will jump to 00:50:00 into the movie. etc..

This is the first step which needs to be completed and if complete than we can also adjust the time jump function using the PREV/NEXT key.

Feature is under development now

As an experiment I have added a kind of ‘bug/feature trac system’ so that everyone can enter his ‘issues’ in it. Maybe this would be helpful for us.

CFULLHDMA: beta firmware 1.09.28.06

  • Just released before the weekend for beta testers: version 1.09.28.06
  • Samba Mount could not be removed after unplugging cable
  • Samba shares could not be found, when you leave the server and you enter it again adding a new Samba share it will not show server list (code scenario)
  • Fixing the display of JPEGs not correctly (grey images with wierd stripe through it)
  • Fixing a space in the URL issue (web interface)
  • Fixing DVD chapter issue (hickup video/audio)
    note: many times IFO files are incorrect and causing issues during playback of a DVD,. So rather denying an error we have to make ways around the error.

Beta program stops 31-07-2008

Official Release: CFULLHDMA 1.09.25.06

Ah .. good start of the week ..

Just released through official channel (internet upgrade) CFULLHDMA firmware version 1.09.25.06

  1. Updated: support changing audio track (Lang Key) for MKV files.
  2. Fixed: sound disappears after fast forward for playing some wmv files.
  3. Fixed: iMedia list restore issue after power down.
  4. Fixed: NFS shares cannot resume and play.
  5. Fixed: DVD menu issue.
  6. Fixed: MKV subtitle disappeare issue.
  7. Fixed: DVD [LANG] key issue.
  8. Fixed: AVI mutltiple language srt issue.
  9. Fixed: When a Samba device could be mounted with Public/Guest it was not possible to enter a folder of that share which was protected with a username / password, now it is possible cause a username and password is asked.

CFULLHDMA: Remote Control

I saw a request (but cannot find the e-mail anymore) from someone asking if it could be possible to separate the power ON and power OFF for the CFULLHDMA

Unfortunately, the Power ON/OFF is not only controlled by Firmware. the IR codes are, next to firmware, also controlled by another micro processor (a very small IC on the PCB) so therefor it’s not supported. I’ll keep it in mind.

If you want to have the IR codes: find them here