Am I the Expert Yet

Possible Facebook TV Application

2009-07-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

We need some advice!

As our Facebook campaign to promote the HDX 1000 and the BOCS progresses, we want to generate a Facebook application to help spread the word! The temporary name of the application is “What TV shows you are watching tonight?” The application description is below:

The application is a box residing at people’s Facebook profile sidewall.

The application can display a small image of the TV shows you are watching tonight.

There will be a TV scheduler to let users pick the shows.

There will be a place for people to talk about the shows and provide other interesting information, such as how many users are watching what shows.

Because this is our first Facebook application, we want to use the divide-and-conquer strategy. We will make the application in four phases.

Phase I: Build the necessary features, functions and user interface of the application. The TV show data base will be limited to the prime time shows on the major networks.

Phase II: Build a program to auto-extract the TV show’s information from TV guide. People can now pick any TV show available in the US to show up on the application box.

Phase III: Build up the user interaction functions, such as building a discussion forum.

Phase IV: Find a way to make the application work internationally (to be able to display TV shows in other countries). Possibly make an interface to let people record the TV shows on their TiVo without going onto TiVo’s site.

Sounds interesting? If you have any suggestions to this Facebook application, please leave your comments here or send an email to howard_chang@amperor.com.

We are currently working on the official name of the application. Our options are: iWatch, ShowMe, TV Planer and TVBOCS. Please let me know how these name sound to you . If you can think of better name, please be sure to let me know. I really appreciate your help.

DTS downmixing is finally supported by the HDX 1000!

2009-06-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

After 6 months waiting, DTS Downmixing is finally supported by the HDX 1000. (See the firmware release notes and download it at Here.)

See my post on the Networked Media Tank Discussion Forum. I actually overlook the feature when I first download the firmware update. Stupid me...

Anyway, I 'm so glad HDX people can keep the promise this time. (Although it is kind of: meet the target in the last minute...) Good Job!

BTW, don't miss our buy one HDX 1000 get one TP-Link wifi adapter FREE event.

Xtender - Real User Installation Notes #1 - from Theo

2009-06-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

Installation notes: from Theo, a real Xtender user.

Hi Howard,

We recently installed the Xtender and just wanted to send a quick note to let you know how much we look forward to using the system! We’re just about finished up with a grueling home remodeling project, so we haven’t had a chance to really get everything we can out of the device yet. That said, after having run the system through its paces and looking at a number of different options to get our cable, DVR and DVD content throughout the house, we’re confident this system will provide us with both better picture quality and a significant cost savings relative to its competitors.

Background

Our main system in the living room is a very modest setup, consisting of a Sony 60” LCD projection TV with an HD cable box and DVD player as source components. But now that we have the remodel out of the way, we plan on upgrading our cable service to include DVR capabilities, and with good quality LCD TVs getting less expensive every day, we’re really excited about having whole-home TV without breaking the bank.
One of the features that really attracted us to the Xtender is its ability to integrate into our existing coaxial cable wiring. As part of the remodel, we had new coaxial wiring routed throughout most of the house, but the upfront costs and high monthly fees associated with having to place a cable box and DVR at every TV was a real deal breaker for us. Renting cable and DVR for three bedrooms, the kitchen and an office would have cost at least $600 a year in fees, not to mention at least $100 in equipment deposits, whereas the Xtender allowed us to save over $300 in the first year alone. Also, we were looking to wall mount the TVs without unsightly cable runs and clunky boxes in every room, and the Xtender gets every TV access to the components in the main living room setup using just the regular coaxial wiring.

Packaging

Not much to say here – as you can see, the product was packaged safely and securely.

The Xtender package came with the Xtender box, their so-called “SuperCombiner”, an AC adapter and remote control. I also purchased the additional wiring pack, which included three composite cables (color matched to the Xtender zones), along with 3 IR blasters, a short coaxial wire and cable finder tool.

Installation

Although setting up the Xtender did involve some legwork on my part, the entire process was relatively painless. Between the included quick start guide, the full manual online, and even the step-by-step videos posted on YouTube, I was able to get the system installed and set up in an afternoon.

I attached the cable finder tool to the cable outlet in the living room where I wanted to install the Xtender.

Went to the basement, used the cable finder to verify the other end of the cable going to the living room setup. The cable finder was really useful and made finding the right cable virtually bulletproof.

Installed the SuperCombiner where the main cable line comes into the house, attached the living room cable to the Xtender output, and attached the included short coaxial to the splitters going to the rest of the house.

Went back to the living room and hooked up the Xtender box, wired up the IR Blasters and programmed the IR codes in the remote. Right now I’m using the Red channel for cable and the Blue channel for DVD, but I plan to replace the cable box with a DVR and may purchase another Tivo DVR for the Green channel.

As mentioned, I haven’t picked out the LCDs for the other rooms yet, but I did have an old CRT lying around just for testing purposes. Here you can see Denzel’s handsome mug in Déjà Vu, playing on both the main system and the CRT.

Movie on Main TV

Movie on 2nd TV

Although I was initially attracted to the Xtender based on the cost savings, I have to say that I really was genuinely amazed at the picture quality. Compared to having a cable box hooked up to each TV, I was definitely expecting to see a discernable difference in picture quality. And while I wouldn’t consider myself to be a videophile by any means, I’m really not sure I could even distinguish between the different setups.

Thanks again for creating such a wonderful product! I’ll be sure to update you with pictures of the full setup when I have everything up and running.

Best Regards,

Announcement - AmperorUK has started to carry the HDX 1000

2009-05-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

Our UK store has started to carry the HDX 1000. Here is the link to the digital media device category page. If you are in Europe and are looking forward to own a HDX 1000, be sure to check out our UK website (The HDX 1000 can be found under the Audio / Visual section). I'm sure they can offer the good service to you, as we do at here in US.

The Winner of our HDX 1000 Drawing is...

2009-05-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

The winner of our HDX 1000 drawing is Henry Beecher.

Frankly speaking, we are always nervious about the drawing result. We have a random number generator to pick the winner. However, we only have the winner's name and email address. We don't know if the winner will response to our notification email, nor do we know if the winner is serious about trying out the HDX 1000.

This time, when we see Henry's response, we know the unit goes to a good hand. we were literally blown away with his setup picture.

As Henry discribed:

"In the wooden cabinet is a Vizio VW26L HD LCD TV displaying a YAMJ menu screen.

The sound system on top of the cabinet is a SoundMatters MainStageHD configured with a SubStage100 subwoofer (concealed under the cabinet) and a pair of Polk Atrium 45p rear-channel speakers (not in photo).

An Acer ASX1200 located on the bottom of the AV rack serves as an 64bit Vista HTPC running Orb, TVersity and PlayOn as well as Hauppauge HD PVR software and various video transcoding applications.

To the immediate left of the HTPC, and partialy obscured, is a Linksys NSLU2 (with unslung firmware) running TwonkyMedia which serves as a NAS and is configured with a 1TB SATA drive in an Antec MX-1 enclosure (standing vertically on the outside lower-right of the cabinet). A Hauppauge HD PVR1212 is just below the Antec enclosure. A Neuros OSD (SD PVR) is located under the lower-right corner of the LCD TV.

There are three internet set-top boxes: a Roku N1000 located under the lower-left corner of the LCD TV; a Vudu BX100 located on top of the HTPC; and a Verismo VuNow Pod configured with a 128GB SATA drive in AnyWare Xpress enclosure, both standing vertically between the Antec enclosure and the Linksys NAS (above the PVR1212).

There are thee digital media players: a Klegg MediaShareMega standing vertically to the lower left of the LCD TV (on top of the Roku); the HDX1000 configured with a 64GB SSD SATA drive stands vertically on top of the Klegg; and a D-Link DSM520 sandwiched horizontally on top of a Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray player and under a Sony RDR-GXD455 DVD recorder (all three in the mid-section of the AV rack).

Six devices (BD player, DSM520, DVD recorder, Roku, HDX1000, and Vudu) are connected via component, composite and HDMI switches. The VuNow Pod and Klegg are only connected via HDMI. These three types of switches are located on the top level of the AV rack as follows: top-most are two PylePro 4x1 HDMI switches connecting 4 devices each to the 2 HDMI ports on the LCD TV; under the HDMI switches is a MCM Electronics matrix 6x2 composite switch connecting 6 devices (listed above) to the Neuros OSD and DVD recorder; lastly, under the composite switch is an Impact Accoustics matrix 6x2 component switch connecting the same 6 devices to the HD PVR1212 and the LCD TV.

The DVD recorder is not ethernet capable. The VuNow POD connects wirelessly to the home network. All the other devices are wired with CAT5 RJ45 cable."

Item	Manufacturer	Model	Comment
HD LCD TV	Vizio	VW26L	Displaying YAMJ Screen
Sound System	SoundMatters	MainStageHD	Concealed under cabinet and not in the photo
Subwoofer	SoundMatters	SubStage100
Rear Speakers	Polk	Atrium 45p
HTPC	Acer	ASX1200	Running Orb, TVersity, PlayOn
NAS	Linksys	NSLU2	Flashed with unslung firmware
Drive enclosure	Antec	MX-1	1TB SATA drive
HD PVR	Hauppauge	HD PVR1212
SD PVR	Neuros Technology	Neuros OSD
Internet STB #1	Vudu	BX100
Internet STB #2	Verismo	VuNow Pod	w 128GB SATA in AnyWare Xpress
Internet STB #3	Roku	N100
Digital Media Player #1	Klegg	MediaShareMega
Digital Media Player #2	Digitech	HDX 1000	w 64GB SSD SATA drive
Digital Media Player #3	D-Link	DSM 520
BlueRay Player	Samsung	BD-P1400
DVD Recorder	Sony	RDR-GXD455
HDMI switch X2	Pylepro	4X1
Component switch #1	MCM Electronics	matrix 6 X 2
Composite switch #2	Impact Accoustics	matrix 6 X 2

Thank you, Henry, for such a detailed explanation of your setup. Hope you enjoy your HDX 1000. And, remember to tell your insurance agent the HDX 1000 worth $1000 dollars!

Interview with David

2009-04-26T22:56:00.001-07:00

Here are the notes from the interview session with David Feller, one of the Co-Funders of BOCS. In the interview, he went through the benefits, the installation and the future plan of the Xtender (A whole home content distribution device we have started to carry). If you have questions, please feel free to contact me at howard_chang"at"amperor.com.

BTW, come check out the Xtender Facebook page and remember to sign-up as a fan to the page.

Interview Result:

1) Who would benefit the most from this Xtender?

The great thing is that Xtender really is for everyone – but the people that benefit the most are Cable-TV customers with at least one DVR (Cable company or third party like a TiVo) and more than one cable-TV box in the home. If you and your family need multiple cable boxes so you can get your favorite digital channel on every TV or if you record shows in your living room but really wish you didn’t have to go down there to watch them, we really have something that could change the way you think about TV.

2) What are some of the benefits of installing the Xtender in your home?

I’d say there are four that we hear over and over:

a) Save a LOT of money. If you are paying the cable company to have more than one cable box in your home – frankly, you are insane. You want the cool digital channels – Disney, espn, NFL network or whatever, and the big companies have trained you to believe the only way you can get them is to rent another box for each of your TVs at up to $16/month/TV. Get an Xtender and share your living room cable box with the whole home.

b) Control – or Convenience – whatever you want to call it. Yet again you have been brainwashed into thinking that you record shows in your living room and you have to go sit there to watch them – OR you need to have a DVR in each room all recording the same show so you can watch where you want… Ridiculous – Xtender frees you from any particular room restriction and gives you whole-home control of all your entertainment devices. It kind of like having all your stuff (DVR, DVD player, iPod dock or whatever) on a little roll around cart that follows you into whatever room you go. You have access to all your stuff wherever and whenever you want.

3) So, how exactly does it work?

This is actually pretty simple, somewhere you have a stack of “stuff” – a DVR, a DVD player, an iPod dock, a security camera – or whatever – you put an Xtender there and connect your devices to it – just like hooking a DVD player up to a TV. Xtender then creates new TV channels and adds them back into the coax cables already in your walls so all the rest of the TVs in the home can see those channels. We allow you to plug in up to three devices and we color code them to make it simple – one device each into Red, Green, and Blue channels. So now, you still have NBC on channel 9, CBS on 11 (or wherever it is), but now you have your DVR available on the Red channel everywhere in your home and your other stuff on Green and Blue.

With a BOCS remote control in each room of your home – it’s a full universal remote with three new buttons – Red, Green, and Blue – you can get to and control anything. Press 9 to watch NBC, press Red, and your DVR pops up and you have full control – play, pause, guide – anything – even if you are on the other side of the home from your DVR.

4) Is the installation easy enough for the average consumer? Or, will they need to hire an A/V equipment installer to perform the installation?

This is the best part – YES – you can definitely do it. We put a lot of work into making installation simple and straightforward. If you can plug a DVD player into your TV you can do this. Most folks can complete an installation in a Cable-TV home in about an hour. We have a comprehensive support system for you – phone support, online videos – watch one of our guys doing an entire installation, online wiki and forum community support, and in some markets there are experts who can come to your home (for a fee) and give you a hand. And in all cases, we promise not to tell your wife you had to call us.

5) Will the Xtender work for both Cable and Satellite TV customers?

Yes.

Cable TV homes are the simplest kind of installation – everything you need to get it done quickly is included in the kit. We have 100% success rate in these kinds of homes.
Dish-Network homes are a bit more difficult – there is (or will soon be) a comprehensive explanation of how Xtender works in that environment up on the support Wiki at www.myXtender.com/support . Basically, since you can use diplexers with Dish installations, it is pretty simple to combine the two systems.

DirecTV is the other end of the spectrum – it will definitely work, and we can walk you through it, but it takes a little more planning and in about 20% of installations a new multiswitch needs to be installed. We offer a free pre-purchase consultation service that includes an in-depth analysis of your home satellite setup and BOCS will provide detailed customized installation instructions for DirecTV homes.

6) As the digital conversion is near, will the Xtender help reduce with conversion costs?

If you have cableTV or Satellite, you don’t need to worry about the conversion at all – nothing will change. But that still leaves millions of Americans who use an antenna to get their TV fix. All they have to do is put a converter box on each TV – BUT the government only gives you two per home. So if you have more than two TVs you are out at least $60 or $70 per TV. So why not get your free converter and hook it up to Xtender – share the converter box with every TV in the home.

7) Is the Xtender capable of distributing HD content throughout the house as well?

This version of Xtender is HD-compatible, meaning that for the typical home (an HD setup usually in just one room – big screen, HD-DVR, and maybe a Blu-Ray player with the rest of the TVs in the home tubes or flat panels but not with HD sources) Xtender works in conjunction with your HD setup – takes those HD sources and redistributes them to the rest of the TVs in your home at DVD quality. It depends on the viewer, but the majority are not going to be able to tell the difference on the smaller TVs in the rest of the home – if you, however, are one of those folks that have invested in other large (32” or larger) flat panels, then our next generation is really going to appeal to you. Full high definition distribution will be available later this year as a simple modular upgrade to the existing system.

8) The Xtender is a good concept for the consumer market. Can business operations benefit by installing the Xtender in their facilities as well? If so, please give us some examples.

Absolutely – while Xtender was designed specifically for the residential market, it has found application in a host of commercial establishments.

We have installed Xtender in bars and restaurants all across the country – it is simple to use, gives the host/bartender complete control of all the TVs in the establishment, and significantly reduces the cost of offering entertainment to patrons.

The latest trend has been using Xtender in health clubs – instead of everyone having to watch the same show, Xtender gives full and independent control to every workout machine in a gym. Each treadmill, rowing machine, or whatever can have its own TV that the user has full control of – most places are even putting a stack of DVD players in so users can bring their own movies and watch as they progress from machine to machine.

9) This may be a bit premature, but what can we expect to see in the 2nd generation Xtender?

Current plans are to release a high definition version later this year. We have taken great pains to make sure that HD will be a simple upgrade – meaning that if you go ahead and put in Xtender now you lose nothing. The current Xtender system is, in fact, the base unit for the HD distribution upgrade. So get your system up and running now!

Interesting HDX 1000 Marketing Survey Result

2009-04-10T22:37:00.001-07:00

Thanks for all the participants in our marketing survey. There are total 105 current or possible future HDX 1000 owners turning in their answers in that short one week period. Here I want to share the result with you.

1. How do you plan to connect the HDX 1000 to the Network?

In the 105 survey participants, 74 people (70%) use (or will use) a Ethernet cable to connect the HDX 1000 to the LAN. 26 people (25%) use wireless connection. 2 people use power-line Ethernet. Apparently, most people realize the wire connection can achieve the better data transfer rate. They also have a network port available near their TV.

There are still 25% of the participants using (or wanting to use) wireless connection. According to my personal experience, the wireless connection works ok in playing 720p content. If you have a lot of 1080p content, it is recommended to switch to the wire connection for better playback quality. Besides, 25% is really higher than my expectation. Maybe I need to go source the TP-Link TL-821N wifi adapter and make it available on AmperorDirect.

BTW, I’m pretty interesting in those 2 people who are using the power-line Ethernet connection. I’ll contact them to get some real user experience.

2. What kind of the video format do you plan to play via the HDX 1000?

The top five video format people play via the HDX 1000 are: mkv (59%), avi (56%), mpeg (41%), iso (39%) and wmv (24%). The .m2ts, .mov, .vob, .mpeg4 and other popular formats are also been used by people. A person claims that he can connect an external DVD-ROM directly to the HDX 1000 USB port and use the HDX 1000 to playback the movie in the DVD-ROM. I need to try this myself. (If you have the similar setup on your HDX 1000, please let me know.)

3. Do you plan to install an internal HDD? If so, what’s the preferred HDD capacity?

Surprisingly, 84 people mention that they plan to equip an internal HDD in their HDX 1000. That equals 80% of the total 105 survey participants! Too bad I didn’t put down the question right. I should ask people to reveal if they have already installed the HDD or not. If most of them have installed the HDD, I wonder if the big argument on the NMT official forum: the heat generated from the internal HDD might affect the performance, can be true. (To me, I’ve never encountered any heat issue created by the Western Digital 1TB Green Caviar HDD WD10EADS installed in my HDX 1000.)

For all the 84 people who plan to install the internal HDD, 17% prefer 1.5TB or higher capacity HDD, 55% prefer 1TB or 750GB, 12% prefer capacity under or equal 500GB. 15% didn’t reveal their preference. More than half of them prefers a larger HDD (>= 1TB).

4. Any suggestion to AmperorDirect?

I really appreciate people who take time to write down good suggestions. The most mentioned complain is for the bad manual / setup guide included in the package. I’ll let Digitech know about the issue and see if they can do any improvements. I’ve also began to construct quick installation guide and firmware updating procedure on Youtube. Hope eventually everybody can have simple and clear instruction to setup their HDX 1000.

Some people ask for more available options, such as different capacity HDD and cable, to bundle with the product. Some ask for where to find better looking GUI and plug-ins. Some ask to enable the .rm and .rmvb playback capability. Next week, I’ll address each issue with the individual who asked the question.

Again, thanks for all the survey participants. Your efforts really help us to plan for our next move. We have marked down the HDX 1000 price to $224.88 (including shipping to 48 US states) in our Easter Egg Hunt Sale. If you have monitored our offering constantly, you would know that we seldom bring down the price to this level. Therefore, to those people who complain about the price in the above 4th survey question, it is a good time to take your action…

PS. I have not forgot the most important thing: announce the drawing winner. I’ll start to contact the winner and will post the name at here after I got the response from the winner.

Happy Easter!

Last 8 Hrs to enter the drawing for a free HDX 1000

2009-04-06T13:42:00.000-07:00

Hello Guys

Last 8 Hrs to enter the drawing for a free HDX 1000. Just go to the page at HERE, fill out some survey questions, and you can enter the drawing.

BRs,
Howard

BOCS Xtender on Buy.TV - w a beautiful show hostess

2009-04-02T14:58:00.000-07:00

As you might notice, we have started to carry a new A/V product, Xtender, from BOCS. It is a house entertainment distribution device which can send your cable TV, Tivo, DVD or HTPC output to everyplace in your house via coax connection. With the Xtender installed, there is no need to buy the 2nd DVR, receiver, and DVD player, or worry about the network connection availability at each room. In a pre-wired house, the Xtender is the ultimated content distribution device you ever need.

I'll do more posts to introduce Xtender. If you have more questions, you can check our product page or send me an email to howard_chang"at"amperor.com.

Buy.TV is now having a good introduction video produced by BOCS' CEO, Todd, and a beautiful show hostess. Click on the below image to watch the video.

Gap Issue -2

2009-03-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

First, I want to say something before getting into the main subject. After the previous post, I got several people emailing me with the great worry about getting a bad unit. Actually, the gap does not exist on every unit. If your HDX 1000 runs smoothly without glitch or freezing, it is probably working just fine. You really don't need to take the risk to open the box.

We have received the silicon pad and the thermal paste from Digitech, to address the gaping issue. However, the thermal paste is in a huge tube package. We cannot easily take a small portion out of the tube to send out! So, we have ordered some small-sized thermal paste from Internet. You can see the gap closing kit that we plan to ship out in the below picture. Supposedly, you don’t need the silicon pad. Most machines should have the silicon pad installed in the correct position. After opening the machine, if you see the pad installed in the wrong position like lordy's description here, you can first try to rotate the cover by 180 degree and see if the silicon pad can go to the right position. Remember, the cover is in true square shape and can still be installed after the rotation. If the rotation step cannot bring the silicon pad back to the right position, you can re-install the pad provided in the gap closing kit.

We will be happy to ship the kit to any HDX 1000 owners who want to apply the solution in US and Canada. Please send the request to my email address (howard_chang”at”amperor.com) with the following shipping information.

1. Full name.
2. Ship-to address.
3. The serial number of your HDX 1000.

If you are outside of US and Canada, and did not buy your unit from us, please contact Alex at hdx1080.com for the help.

Before I get into the “un-official” thermal paste applying procedure, let me state some facts so you can make your own decision on whether you want to do this on your machine or not.

1. Alex at HDX1080.com reported that less than 0.0001% of the owners raised a supporting ticket concerning gaps wider than 1mm. It is true that some owners don’t know and don’t follow this topic. It is also true that not every HDX 1000 has this gaping issue. If your unit is working without freezing or glitch, more than likely, it is just fine. You don’t need to get into panic mode and open your unit.

2. Alex at HDX1080.com does not recommend people without previous hardware modification experience to open the box. If you experience freezing or display glitch issue, please first update the firmware. If you still experience the issue after updating the firmware, please contact your reseller.

OK, the following is the “un-official” thermal paste applying procedure. It is “un-official” because I cannot get an official procedure from Digitech. It is just what I use on my unit.

1. Open the cover (un-screw 4 screws circled by red)

2. Detach the two daughter board cables. Unscrew the two screws. Carefully remove the daughter board.

3. Un-screw the 6 screws which hold the bottom piece of the case to the walls.
4. Un-screw the 2 screws which hold the bottom piece of the case to the PCB. The bottom piece should come out easily.

5. Apply thermal paste onto the heat sink of the CPU.

6. Put the bottom piece back to its position. Install the two screws on the main PCB to better hold the bottom piece to the PCB. (You don’t need to put all the screws back.) Un-screw the two screws on the main PCB. Remove the bottom piece. Check if there is any thermal paste on the silicon pad. If so, you have successfully bridge the gap. If not, apply more thermal paste onto the heatsink.

7. Re-assemble the unit.

Please note that the front panel LED indicator and the IR sensor stand up high on the daughter board. You need to be careful not to short or damage the long legs of the two parts in the disassemble process.

Let me know if you have any questions.

HDX 1000 Firmware Update released - 3/6/2009

2009-03-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

As title.

Go here to get your new firmware.

If you need help updating your firmware, click here.

The fix in this version includes:

1. Requires NMT apps 00-17-090115-15-HDD-403
2. Browser / System
- Improvement on font engine character rendering (30% speed up)
- faster navigation on local drives
- Use numeric key to input item number to jump to the page where item is located
- Improved fileplayer speed
- Fixed HDMI display output blackout issue for auto EDID
- Discrete RC (Logitech) scancode fix
- Updated network share and webservices language packs.
- Removed EXT2 option for NMT installation
- Note: due to long term reliability issue with EXT2 on device that is frequently turned off abruptly
- Additional symbols can be input from "1" key
- HTTP download manager (only works with links with special "download" attributes.
- File player hide Recycle Bin folder
- Fixed 'TV MODE' + '3' key handling bug
- Fixed recovery kernel no red screen displayed
- Browser image caching fix, should fix some YAMJ crashes or no image issue.
- Fixed HDD spin-up during standby
- Fixed slow loading of HTML pages
3. Web Services
- New UI
- customizable icon feature with browse image utility (need NMT apps)
- bug fixes on customizable service icon with browse feature.
- Web Services page modification
- Fixed a "save/remove service" bug
- Now able to customise JPG/BMP icon
- Fixed slow IR response while playback Internet Radio
- Immediate response to STOP during Internet video streaming
- Fine-tune Web Service UI
4. Network
- Improved SMB server startup time
- Improved browsing time for SMB client
- Atheros USB WiFi stability fixes
- Fixed SMB client hostname resolution picked up wrong IP address from the IP list
- Fixed file copy failed from HDD to SMB/NFS with names containing whitespace
- Fixed UPnP AV server playall issue broken in previous release
- Fixed Samba server halts after device name change
- Torrent client is now by default Transmission (btpd removed)
**** IMPORTANT NOTE: Please ensure completion with previous downloads with BTPD, as new Transmission client cannot inherit previous downloads.
- Fixed torrent schedule page not working
- Fixed occasionally newly created SMB/NFS shares doesn't show up in media source list
- Atheros USB WiFi added support for TP-Link v2 stick
- Fixed persistent private IP when DHCP server unavailable (e.g. cross-cable connection etc)
5. Playback
- Bookmark/resume for single playback
- 10 bookmarks available now
- Press stop to bookmark the last video playback
- Press enter / play with focus on bookmarked clip to resume
- Press "0" to start from beginning of clip
- Auto framerate synchronisation
- Framerate sync function in ISO playback, only for 50,60Hz modes (PAL/NTSC)
- switch to NTSC(60Hz) when selected mode not applicable.(previously, it will follow TV mode selected)
- Use 59.94 for NTSC when matching content detected.
- Fixed incorrect data shown on infobar.
- Fixed after ISO playback, screen goes blank when framerate sync kicks in
- Improved info display
- Disable incorrect video MPEG1/2 VBR display.
- Fixed incorrect framerate info for video playback (*.mov, *.mp4).
- Fixed video bitrate calculation error (less 1 packet every second)
- Modified infobar UI (height, spacing and text displayed)
- Fixed info bar losing text after paused
- Improved accuracy of mpeg1/2 bitrate information
- Photo app
- Fixed JPEG (PNG / TIFF transcode) from myiHome server cannot be displayed
- Fade-In Fade-out effect added for photo transition
- Enable large jpeg rotation. (downscale before rotate)
- Fixed faded color for jpeg at 360-deg rotation
- TV Type setting for DVD playback
- the TV type setting is now working for DVD video playback (4:3 and 16:9 only, 16:10 will treat as 16:9)
- DVD Menu
- new popup menu if MENU key on PCH remote controller is pressed
- user can select to jump to ROOT, TITLE, CHAPTER.... etc from the menu
- Modified progressive zoom and pan in ISO/IFO playback
- Removed up/down keys as prev/next track/td>
- VCD *.DAT playback fixed using soft demux
- Fixed "repeat" keypress in myiHome when playback audio caused picture playback to halt
- Improved handling of MKV H.264 profile and vlevel.
- Fixed cannot stream MPEG from UPnP AV server, liveTV
- Fixed .pls file unable to start when playback locally (HDD/SMB/NFS)
- *.m3u playlist supported.
- Fixed TS with stream6 as teletext playback cause out of memoryFixed MKV H264 L4.1 pixelated video issue
- Fixed MKV H264 L4.1 pixelated video issue
- Fixed ISO over SMB stutter issue, when no HDD attached
6. Subtitle
- Fixed subtitle parsing with BOM (UTF8 support only)
- Fixed wrong character rendered in Thai subtitle
- Changed default subtitle font size to 28 and Y offset to 10
- Exception handling in SSA subtitle parsing
- Slight adjustment of subtitle position

HDX 1000 Video Guide #2: Firmware Updating Process

2009-03-05T07:36:00.000-08:00

The 2nd part of the HDX 1000 Video Guide is to present the firmware updating process.

I've tried to change my screen resolution from 1024 x 768 to 800x600, and record the TV screen via composite output. However, the result is not what I expect to have - the words are still too small.

Just in case you cannot read it (who can...?). Here are the steps in writing.

1. At the HDX 1000, go to Setup > Maintenance and write down the firmware version. The 3rd section of the version number represent the date code yy/mm/dd. For example, 080812 means 2008/08/12.

2. Go to Digitech's website. Click on the "Download" button on the top of the web page. Then, select: "HDX 1000 Download Section" > "HDX 1000 Firmware".

3. The first firmware listed is the latest version. Compare your version wrote down in step 1. and download the firmware if you don't have the latest version.

4. Unzip the downloaded file to the root directory of a USB drive. (There should be 5 files created after the unzip process.)

5. Plug in the USB drive to the USB port right above the LAN port.

6. At your HDX 1000, click on the "Media Source". Click on the USB drive and click on the "Document" icon.

7. Run the "usbupdate.html" file. The updating process will begin. The whole process takes around 5 mins to complete.

8. Optional: if you have the internal SATA HDD installed, the NMT application will be updated as well after the firmware updating process.

HDX 1000 Video Guide #1: Quick Installation

2009-02-26T18:12:00.000-08:00

This is the first part of the HDX 1000 video guide. I'm going to go over the installation process from opening the box, connecting the cables, accessing the library resided in PC, browsing the library and do a high definition content playback.

Some computer screen shoots are surprisingly small after doing the video format converting. I'll try to see if there is any way to enlarge the screen shoots.

Our website is down

2009-02-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

This morning, we found our website: www.amperordirect.com is down, due to DNS setting conflict. We've done the process to resolve the issue. After the major DNS servers picked up the change, AmperorDirect should be up again. Hopefully, it will be up in 1 ~ 2 days.

Gap Issue -1

2009-02-21T13:54:00.001-08:00

As you might have already known, the latest HDX 1000 related news is about a gap existing between the CPU heatsink and the bottom case in some users’ machine. A user, Black6spdz, first reported this issue at NMT forum, and several people observed the same thing in their machines as well.

The Gap between CPU heatsink and the case

Just in case you haven’t heard about this, in the following is a recap from another HDX 1000 user, ydrol. Thanks for his permission of letting me use his summary article posted at the HDX official forum. He has spent quite some time on this issue and brought us some good pictures to better illustrate the gap. (He also writes some 3rd part software plug-in for the NMT application. Please see the link at http://prodynamic.co.uk/nzbget/index.html for his works.)

“I recently bought 3 HDX boxes in January.

Prior to this 'gap' issue: Two units appeared to be working OK. (though bad cooling can affect longevity of electronics)

One unit was exhibiting random Ethernet drops, and I raised a support ticket to this effect. I was trying to troubleshoot the ethernet issue, and had just moved to doing some more intensive testing (*) but upon seeing the post in the NMT forums I opened the faulty unit and noticed the gap and thermal pad placement. I trimmed down the stand-offs(+), applied some thermal paste and made sure the heat-spreader was in direct contact with the cover when re-assembled.

I had not completed testing of my Ethernet issue before making this change, so I cannot say for certain whether cooling was the root cause. I know the issue has gone away though.

I opened my working HDX box and noticed the same thing, so I changed that also.

Some observations and acknowledgements: - Thanks to Black6spdZ for spotting this issue.
- Thanks to Alex of HDX for timely response on this issue. - Thanks to Doom for some balance & sanity check

- The HDX case is very nice as we all know, and overall appears well designed. I would still recommend them over other models in terms of looks and cooling potential. My only real concern regarding recommending HDX, was general responsiveness from HDX support in the new year, but in this particular matter - I've no complaints.

- My thermal pad placement, appears to be a fairly isolated incident, judging by other posts on other forums. My HDX was ordered 7th Jan 2009 and received 15th Jan. Serial HDX1K00835*. I should really open the 3rd HDX, (which was ordered for a friend, esp has he has a proper HD setup, I'm a CRT man). But before I do, I will try my paper test (**) and report back.

- The gap issue appears to be more widespread. There is suggestion that the gap is closed when the unit is assembled and only appears when disassembled. If so, this would be solely due to pressure from the AV sockets and the 3 screws on the AV panel. I'm sceptical of this , but one user 'doom' has reported that the gap is closed (thermal paste was transferred from the pad to the heatspreader just by them re-assembling their unit)

- HDX have been quite responsive on this issue thus far, offering to send me thermal paste etc. My only experience of them has been since the new year, so I wasn't expecting this much response so soon.”

On the Network dropping issue, he also reported:

"I put the unit back together, and after a while the network dropped (this unit was working OK before this!). The LAN light on my router was flashing about 10 times a second , but the ethernet lights on the HDX appeared stable.

On further examination it looks like the component legs of the ethernet and av sockets, have scratched through the paintwork of the AV panel and shorting on the case!

I will have to revist the other boxes and make sure the component legs are not touching the AV panel."

Yesterday, I randomly picked three HDX 1000 units from my inventory and found the gap existed in one of them. In addition to ydrol’s summary, I want to add in one more observation.

During the dis-assembly process, I found the PCB is tight down to the bottom case using two mechanisms.

1. The two screws / standoffs, covered by the green glue in the below picture, help to secure the PCB’s non AV panel side to the bottom case.

2. After the AV panel is assembled onto the case wall, it then be tight down to the bottom case by the screws indicated by green color on the other side walls.

There are several screw holes reserved, but not used in the design. For examples, the screw between X4 and X7, and the two screws on the AV panel wall are not installed.

In order to observe the gap, we need to disassemble the side walls. However, when doing so, it removes the 2nd mechanism mentioned above. We all know it needs three or more screws to hold two plains together. With only two screws at work, it would exaggerate the gap.

I then push the AV panel and the bottom case together by hand. I can see the gap diminished, but still existed. However, it is not as large as I originally observed. With the gap in this size, I think applying thermal paste to the CPU heatsink to make sure the good contact between the silicon pad and the heatsink itself can be a good solution to close the gap.

Digitech (HDX) is willing to help on the issue. They are going to send me some silicon pad and the thermal paste. For our existing customers and the HDX 1000 users in US, if you want to apply the paste onto your machine, please send me an email. I’ll send a pack of silicon pad and paste to you for free. If you are not in US and didn’t bought the HDX 1000 from AmperorDirect, we will charge the shipping fee if you want us to ship the pack to you. (You can always contact Alex @ hdx1080.com for this, too. I think he will ship you the pack for free.)

I’m trying to ask Digitech to publish an official paste applying procedure. I’ll post the procedure at here when it is available.

Again, thanks ydrol for the work. The pictures in this post are all from him. Please visit his site if you want to explore the potentials to use HDX 1000 with nzbget.

Please visit AmperorDirect for our HDX 1000 product page.

To all who have concerns about Digitech / HDX

2009-01-14T12:57:00.000-08:00

In order to find out whether Digitech / HDX is still alive or not, yesterday afternoon, we sent our top secret agent, Kevin, to their headquarters in ShenZhen, China, to perform an inspection. This is actually the first time we paid them a visit after they moved to the new office. Kevin told me that he was very nervous while driving because of the current fiasco going on over the Internet. He just doesn’t want to see Digitech moving from a penthouse executive suite, to a dark basement room (which also happens to be the boss’ kitchen and bedroom). This will prove that everybody’s guess is right!

The following is a picture taken when Kevin was stopped in traffic. This position is very close to Digitech’s new office. If you have not visited ShenZhen for a long time, you would be totally amazed by the modernization of the city.

The “Cyber Square” building is the building where the new Digitech / HDX office is located. On the lower floors of this building, there is a huge computer and consumer electronics shopping mall. If you live in ShenZhen and are a computer geek like me, this is the place which is the closest mimic to heaven.

Digitech’s office is located on the upper floor. Right before entering their office, you can see the HDX logo we all familiar with.

Besides, just to prove that the office is not in the basement, Kevin took a picture to show us the view of looking outside through their office window.

OK, let’s start by introducing the important people. The first one is their sales VP, Wood Liu. He travels a lot to develop China’s domestic market. We were so lucky to catch him during this visit. In the picture you can see his signature “buddhistic” smile and his precious baby: Mac book. He is also the first batch of people in China adapting to the iPhone.

The person in the next picture is their engineering VP, Sam Cui. He was trying to answer the interview questions while Kevin was taking the picture. You can also see that he still keeps a HDX 900 on his desktop.

There are also others. Just to show you how crowded a typical Chinese office setting can be, Kevin randomly picked a cubical to take this picture.

Here are the questions we asked them:

Q1. What is the initial design idea and expectation behind the HDX series?

Wood: We want to have a dedicated, cost effective and user friendly unit to playback high definition media content.

Q2: Reliability and sustainability always come into play while people are looking into all kinds of different NMT. Could you give us more details about how the HDX is manufactured and how the quality control (QC) is handled at your manufacturing site?

Wood: We can provide you some pictures of our production line (in the following). Increasing reliability and sustainability is the most important concept in our design. That is why we chose the thickest (compared to the NMT competitors) sheet metal as the HDX 1000 case material. Our factory uses the industry standard quality control procedures to make sure we can ship out good quality products. We also save the QC data for any future improvement purposes. We have high confidence in the HDX 1000. That’s why we are willing to set you (AmperorDirect) up and support you as our North American repair center. We don’t think the chance to perform repairs is high.

The serial number label attaching and final packaging station

Testing Stations

WIP (half assembly) units in transit

Boxes and boxes of HDX 1000 waiting to go out

Q3: What is the HDX capable of? Could you provide a detailed list of what can be played directly or indirectly through the HDX (e.g. H.264, M-Jpeg…etc.)

Sam: Mzts, ts, mpg, trp, tp, vob, wmv, mkv, avi, mp3, flac, wma, ogg, mp4, wav, mov... The detailed list can be found at NMTWiki.

Q4: Some people are still having issues updating their HDX firmware through the Internet. What’s your recommendation on how to perform the update?

Sam: The online update method should be available now as we are talking. If people have trouble connecting to the server, they can download the firmware and the NMT application, put them in a USB drive and update the system from there.

Q5: People are having HDD compatibility issues. Can you recommend certain brands/criteria when selecting an HDD to work with the HDX?

Sam: I personally like the Western Digital Caviar Green series. They are the most efficient models I know on the market and can dissipate less heat while it is installed inside the HDX 1000. A detailed compatibility list can be found at NMTWiki.

Q6: Could you provide detailed, step by step instructions on how to perform the recovery when the system is Frozen? Is there a way to reset the HDX-1000 back to factory settings by just using the remote?

Sam: On the remote control, you can hit “TV” and then hit “0”. It should reset your machine.

(Howard: I’m not very sure about this sequence. If anybody can try it, please let me know about the result. )

Q7: What is the schedule to get the DTS license to enable the dts down-mixing capability on the HDX?

Wood: At this point, I am sorry I cannot give you an accurate schedule. However, please believe me that Sam and Wood are the two people on earth who want to see the DTS license for HDX 1000 most. Getting the license is our highest work priority. We will again have another meeting with DTS tomorrow. We hope we can give you a more confirmed schedule by then.

Q8: Do you know about the current rumor floating around the Internet about Digitech going out of business? Do you wish to address this rumor?

Wood: First of all, the rumor is wrong. Digitech is still alive. The disaster is triggered after Alex booked a trip to China. He has experienced an under-staffing issue and two rounds of hacker attack. The delay in getting DTS license also disappoints people. We apologize for the inconvenience and we have surely learned a lesson. I know you (AmperorDirect) have people browsing through different discussion forums periodically. Next time, please inform us as soon as you hear something wrong on the Internet. We’ll surely take the appropriate action early.

(Howard: I don’t know when Wood and Sam started to realize about the communication issue.)

Q9: What does the future hold as far as the HDX series or other NMT development?

Sam: We expect to see the next generation NMT player has the ability to playback Bluray discs. For the Chinese domestic market, we want to have a unit which can decode the DMB-TH TV signal.

Before leaving, Kevin took another picture with Wood and Sam. In this picture, you can see the typical figure of salesman, procurement and engineer. Sales person is always trying to be friendly. Hence, he will have the arm around the other people. Procurement is always the king. They will stand in the middle of the photo. And, the engineer is always the shy guy standing at the side. But, don’t be fooled by Sam’s appearance. After he opens ups, it is not easy to stop him… :)

Check out HDX 1000 on AmperorDirect website

The HDX 1000 Free Drawing Winner and a Picture of his Setup

2009-01-08T07:52:00.000-08:00

The winner of our HDX 1000 free drawing is Glenn. He has already received the unit and has started enjoying viewing Bluray backup by using the HDX 1000. Here is a picture of his setup:

The black box underneath his hand is HDX 1000.

On right - from bottom a Laser Disc Player (out of view), Panasonic Blu-Ray, Toshiba XA2 HD Player, Onkyo 875, Sci Atlanta HD Cable Box, Viewsonic Satellite receiver.

On left - Direct drive Pioneer turntable at bottom, TEAC reel to reel, HDX1000 & Marantz mono block amp for subs.

Thanks for his picture with detailed explanation on the setup!

Popcornhour A-110 Review #4 - Conclusions

2008-12-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

Better Firmware on Popcornhour A-110?

One more thing to mention before we get into the conclusion section: people always ask if the Popcornhour A-110 has the better firmware installed. Since Popcornhour is Syabas' own brand, the firmware of the Popcornhour A-110 is maintained by the original design team. People think the original design team should know better about the code and could make the firmware work better. Is this assumption correct?

The Popcornhour A-110

The answer is no and yes. From my understanding, Digitech does not have the software programing capability yet. They still relay on Syabas to maintain the firmware on the HDX 1000. In addition, they have the agreement signed to keep up with the latest NMT software revision. There should really be no difference between the firmware on the two machines.

However, according to the history, there is still a little difference in the firmware update speed. The latest A-110 firmware update (01-17-081023-15-POP-403) happened on 11/4/2008. The latest of the Hdx 1000 (50-17-081023-15-HDD-403-000) happened on 11/11/2008. There exist a one-week delay on the HDX 1000 side. But, you can see two firmwares are both in the 081023 version. Eventually, they will become identical.

The Digitech HDX 1000

Well, don't begin to throw rocks on me. I know HDX 1000 still cannot do dts downmixing. I've heard several versions of the reasons. The only thing I can be sure of is they will eventually have that activated on the HDX 1000 (via firmware update). The estimated time for that to happen is at Jan, 2009.

Conclusion

Again, the Popcornhour A-110 has almost identical function set as the Digitech HDX 1000. They stock very similar components on the PCBs and are installed with the same NMT software. The known issues and workarounds listed for the HDX 1000 can still be applied to the A-110. I think the look and the thermal performance are the two main decision points to make if you want to pick one machine out of these two.

In the following you can see the list of all the major differences between the A-110 and the HDX 1000.

The Look: The A-110 looks more trendy. The HDX 1000 looks more sturdy.

The Weight: The A-110 weights 1.5 pounds. The HDX 1000 weights 2.5 pounds.

The Size: The A-110 is 10.5" x 5" x 1.5". The HDX 1000 is 8" x 8" x 2".

Case Sheet Metal Thickness: The A-110 uses 0.06" sheet metal on the case. The HDX 1000 uses 0.09".

Sheet Metal Painting: The HDX 1000 is easy to collect finger prints. The A-110 is not.

Output Interface Options: Both have very similar options, such as the HDMI 1.3v. The only difference is the A-110 has S-Video output. The HDX 1000 has optical audio output.

I/O Interface Option at the Front Panel: The A-110 has USB port at the front panel. The HDX 1000 has 3-in-1 card reader.

AC Power Adapter: The A-110 AC power adapter is more efficient. The HDX 1000 power adapter outputs less noise & ripple.

Thermal Performance: The HDX 1000 is designed with better heat management mechanism.

DRAM Size: No difference.

Battery on PCB: The A-110 has the watch battery installed on PCB. The HDX 1000 does not.

Check out the HDX 1000 on AmperorDirect Website

Popcornhour A-110 Review #3 - Peek inside the Box

2008-12-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Part #3 of the Popcornhour A-110 review will take you on a journey traveling inside the A-110. The trip starts from disassembling the A-110’s well designed mechanical case. Then, the secret and the benefits of the A-110’s miniature design will be revealed. At the end, we are going to compare the A-110 with the HDX 1000, again, down to the component level inside the case.

Ready to open the case?

Good Mechanical Design

While disassembling the A-110 case, I realize Popcornhour must have spent quite some time on the mechanical design. Many details are thought out in the R&D process. As a customer, I have the feeling of being very well taken care of.

On the four corners of the top cover, you will see four big thumb screws. There is no need to grab a screw driver if you just want to lift off the cover. The shining thumb screws also serve for cosmetic purposes. They take away that monotonic and computer device type feeling and create a trendy appearance.

The Shining Thumb Screws at the Four Corners

There are slots constructed on the four corner supports. You can slide the four side walls into these slots. This preformed-metal-design reduces the screw usage and guarantees an easy assembling / disassembling experience.

Slide out the Rear Panel

Two of the four side walls have venting holes built-in, to improve the A-110’s convection cooling performance.

Two Side Walls Equipped w Venting Holes

The bottom case is equipped with two long narrow-shape stand-offs. It assures that there is enough clearance between the internal SATA HDD and the bottom case (if you want to put one in). Besides, the internal HDD can be directly connected to the SATA connector on the PCB. There won’t be a long, messy SATA cable hanging around inside the case.

Room Reserved to Install SATA HDD

Miniature Footprint

The small footprint of the A-110 is achieved by a jam packed PCB design. Popcornhour’s engineer has made use of every spot on both sides of the PCB and has successfully kept the distance between parts, short. The size of the A-110 PCB is 3.5” x 5”. Compared to the HDX 1000’s main PCB: 5.5” x 5.5”, it is relatively small. If it was not necessary to reserve a space inside the case for the installation of an internal SATA HDD, Popcornhour A-110 could really be as small as an IstarHD Mini.

HDX 1000 Main PCB (left) & A-110 Main PCB + Output Interface Daughter Board (right)

The A-110 internal layout design is really compact. Components, including the main PCB, output interface daughter board and the optional SATA HDD, are arranged to sit side by side, but in a very clean and neat way. The only thing I don’t like in this arrangement is the long on/off switch cable running across the output interface daughter board. This long cable can work as an antenna and pick up noise from the busy output interface.

See the Red and Black Cables Running Across the Output Section?

A-110 vs. HDX 1000

After carefully observing the PCBs from both vendors, I found that they use identical parts on the PCBs in many positions. For example, they both use Sigma’s SMP8635 as the main processor, Silicon Image’s SiI9134 as the HDMI 1.3 transmitter chip and Nanya’s NT5DS32M16CS as the DRAM. It makes me wonder if there is a reference design published by Sigma or Syabas. With the identical hardware components and the NMT software installed, you can expect to have a very similar experience when using Popcornhour A-110 and Digitech HDX 1000. (They are even produced by the same factory!)

The most significant difference between the two machines is on the heat management mechanism implemented. This is where the HDX 1000 excels. Except the thicker sheet metal and the larger metal surface area mentioned in the previous post, the larger PCB footprint on the HDX 1000 helps to improve the thermal performance, too. The big components (usually the heat generating sources) are placed further apart on the PCB. Thus, the heat density is lower in the HDX 1000 machine.

In addition, on the HDX 1000, the hottest part: Sigma SMP8635, is attached to the case through a flat aluminum heat-sink (equal to the chip size) and the white thermal grease. From my previous life as a power supply design engineer, I used to have this argument with the production engineers about the thermal grease. They always complain that the grease is too messy to use on the production line and want to replace the grease by silicon pad. But, I always find the grease ensures better contact between two hard objects and helps to drain the heat faster. Guess what... Silicon pad is what they use on the A-110 to connect the SMP8635 heatsink to the case. This is another reason why I think the HDX 1000 can have better thermal performance than the A-110.

The White Thermal Grease used on the SMP8635 Heat-sink in HDX 1000

The Silicon Pad used on the SMP8635 Heat-sink in A-110

There is also a myth about the memory size. According to the manufacturers’ website, the A-110 has 256MB and the HDX 1000 has 512Mb DRAM installed. It makes some people think that the HDX 1000 provides more memory. However, when I opened up the machines, I found both machines are equipped with 4pcs of Nanya 512Mb DRAM. What Digitech puts on their website is the DRAM type (512Mbits) they use in the HDX 1000. What Popcornhour lists is the total memory size (512Mbits x 4) / 8 = 256Mbytes in the A-110. The two machines actually carry the same amount of the DRAM, and both vendors are telling the truth. However, I found the information on the Digitech website is a little misleading.

#1 and #2 Nanya DRAM on the A-110 PCB component side (You can also see the heat-sink on SMP8635)

#3 and #4 Nanya DRAM on the A-110 PCB Solder Side

All four Nanya DRAM on the HDX 1000 PCB

The other minor dissimilarity to mention is that the HDX 1000 does not have the watch battery installed on the PCB. (The A-110 does.) According to Digitech, the battery is used to provide time information to the machine. Considering there is no time shift or advanced recording functions offered by the NMT player, the time information actually has little use. The lack of the watch battery on the HDX 1000 PCB won’t affect its performance.

Watch Battery Installed on the A-110 PCB

Battery not Installed on the HDX 1000 PCB

Check out the HDX 1000 Product Page on AmperorDirect

Popcornhour A-110 Review #2 - A-110 vs. HDX 1000 Round One

2008-12-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

Introduction

In this article, we are going to run through a detailed comparison between Popcornhour A-110 and Digitech HDX 1000. The major differences are the look, the case material used, the available A/V interface options and the AC power adapter provided. As we mentioned in the previous post, both the A-110 and the HDX 1000 use Syabas NMT software. Therefore, the user interface and the functions offered are almost identical.

HDX 1000 & A-110: Front View

The Look, the Weight and the Size (What do you think I'm talking about...:p)

Placing Popcornhour A-110 and Digitech HDX 1000 side by side, you can easily notice the difference. The A-110 has that trendy type appearance. It reminds me of the look of the new computer gadgets you usually see spread unorganized around a computer wizard kid’s PC. On the other hand, the HDX 1000 looks like an old fashion sturdy machine. It is obvious to me that Digitech wants a design of which most people won’t have issues to place it on their entertainment rack in the living room.

HDX 1000 & A-110: Rear View

The A-110 weighs around 1.5 pounds and measures 10.5” x 5” x 1.5” in size. It is wider than the HDX 1000. The HDX 1000 weights around 2.5 pounds and measures as 8” x 8” x 2”. It is 1 pound heavier than the A-110.

Case Material

The sheet metal used by two vendors to build the case is different in thickness. According to my caliper, the thickness of the A-110 case measures around 0.06 inches. On the HDX 1000, it is measured around 0.09 inches. This is one reason why the A-110 weighs less than the HDX 1000. For the A-110, the major advantage of using a thinner sheet metal is they can better control both material and shipping costs. On the Popcornhour website, the transportation cost to ship A-110 from the Far East to the US is $20. (I know they have an office in California. But, the receipt in the box shows the unit went through the custom.) On Digitech’s website, it is $50 to transfer HDX 1000.

A-110 Sheet Metal Thickness: 0.061"

However, the thicker sheet metal and the larger total metal surface area on the HDX 1000 case can definitely help to transfer the heat out of the box faster. Thus, the heat accumulated in the box during the long-period-of usage will be reduced and the life of the components in the box will be prolonged. Here is a testimonial for HDX 900 on Digitech’s website: “Leaving both the players turned on for nearly 6 hours, the Popcorn Hour is almost scorching hot to the hand test while the HDX 900 felt warm; it is still cooler compared to the Popcorn Hour.” Although the testimonial is for the previous generation machine, there is not that much change between the generations. It should still be true for the HDX 1000.

HDX 1000 Sheet Metal Thickness: 0.095"

There is one more finding I want to mention about the HDX 1000 case: the paint material they use on the case makes it easy to collect finger prints. I don’t see the same thing happening on Popcornhour A-110.

Interface Options

Two models offer similar sets of the interface options. They all have HDMI 1.3v output for HD content playback and the component video and stereo audio output for analog content. The minor differences are: the Popcornhour A-110 has two USB ports (HDX 1000 has only one) and a S-Video output (HDX 1000 has none). The HDX 1000 has a 3-in-1 card reader and an optical audio output (A-110 has none).

Popcornhour A-110 Rear View

In addition, the A-110 has put one of its two USB ports at the front panel for easy-external-HDD-connection. The 3-in-1 card reader of the HDX 1000 is located at the front panel so that users can easily plug in their SD memory from their camera so that they can share the pictures with friends on the big screen.

AC Power Adapter

Here is my favorite part. I have worked for a power supply company for almost 10 years now so I can really go on for 10 pages describing my findings. However, I don’t think that will excite anybody…:)

Both Popcornhour and Digitech are out-sourcing the AC power adapter. In the below picture you can see the AC power adapter of the A-110 on the right hand side. It is bigger in size and uses a three prong power cord. Both AC adapters are rated to provide up to 12V, 3A output. They can accept a wide-range 100VAC ~ 240VAC input. If you can find a plug adapter, both units can be used overseas.

HDX 1000 (left) and A-110's AC Power Adapter

After some further checking, I found the AC adapter comes with the A-110 is more efficient. At nominal load condition, it is 86% (comparing to 82% of the adapter from HDX 1000). It is an expectable result because it has a bigger footprint. Usually, a larger AC adapter can cope better with the heat generated and lose less power inside the adapter. It is just interesting to see that Popcornhour decided to use a larger footprint AC adapter with their relatively smaller sized A-110 and Digitech does the opposite.

The only potential issue I see with the A-110 AC power adapter is the high ripple and noise sitting on the output. In the computer world, we usually expect to see the ripple and noise amplitude to be limited at 1% of the rated output voltage. The bad news is, I see a 120mV ripple and noise on the A-110 power adapter’s 12V output while it is running in full load. It is right on that 1% limit. Maybe, on the A-110’s PCB, there is another stage of the on-board regulator or filter, to filter out the noise. However, higher ripple and noise usually tends to shorten the life-span of the parts inside the adapter. (On the HDX 1000 adapter, the highest noise I can see is 30mV.)

The 120mV noise sitting on the 12V output of A-110's AC Power Adapter

Read the #3 Part of the Popcornhour A-110 Review

Popcornhour A-110 Review #1 - A Bad First Impression turns out to be OK

2008-12-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

Introduction

The Popcornhour A-110 provides almost the identical functions and features list as the HDX 1000. I will focus on the unique things I discovered on the A-110 and run through a comparison between the A-110 and the HDX 1000. If you are interested in the A-110’s basic functions / storage options / web services information, you can click on the listed hyperlinks. The links will point you to the related review sections of the HDX 1000. As I mentioned at the beginning, they work almost identical in these areas.

Popcornhour A-110 Front View

Waiting Period for my Popcornhour A-110

I placed my order at the Popcornhour website around October 30th. How soon did I receive my A-110? In about two and a half weeks. Compared to the ridiculous waiting period it took to get the previous version: A-100, the order fulfillment speed was actually very impressive at this time.

Popcornhour A-110 Rear View

Many Networked Media Tank sellers, including Popcornhour and iStarHD, have a bad reputation of charging customers’ credit cards first and delivering machines a month later. One reason that I know for this to happen is they don’t have enough capital to buy materials up front. If you are lucky to place the order at the time when they have already gathered enough orders / money to do a production run, you might be able to get your NMT player soon. Otherwise, you might need to wait. The other reason is those Asian sellers are more like “a manufacturer equipped with an e-commerce website” than a true marketing entity. Sometimes, they are not accustomed to demand forecasting. Sometimes, they simply don’t want to produce enough machines to meet the forecast because of the risk involved to keep a large quantity of stock on hand.

This is where AmperorDirect.com can help. Before NMT can get popular enough to be carried by BestBuy or Amazon, we want to become the place to stock enough inventory and be able ship units within 24 Hrs after receiving orders. We also have a phone number for customers to call to ask questions and will establish ourselves as the RMA and repair center if something within the unit goes wrong.

A Bad First Impression Turns out to be OK

I was not very impressed when I first received my Popcornhour A-110. It arrived by DHL , in a thin plastic bag similar to the below picture. It makes me wonder how my unit survived the international shipment.

DHL Plastic Bag

Inside the plastic bag, there was a box wrapped by a big black nylon-like cover. Usually, this kind of the cover is used on an idling device to keep dust away, not for protection purposes.

The big black nylon-like cover

Sure enough, when I pulled out the package, I noticed a dent on the box. My worries about receiving a damaged A-110 has climbed up to a sky high level.

This is the Condition of the Box I Received

Dents on the corners

When I opened the box, I finally realized the reason behind only using the DHL thin plastic bag for packaging. In the following picture you can see the built-in protection in the box (the white buffering section). Popcornhour must believe the box by itself is strong enough to survive international transportation.

Popcornhour A-110 in the Retail Box w White Buffering Section

I’m not here to complain. My A-110 did arrive without being damaged. However, it is just so different from the now-a-day standard online shopping experience. Pretend you are currently opening a delivery from Amazon.com. No matter how strong the product package is, you can expect to find it sitting securely inside another brown shipping box surrounded by bubble wrap. We customers have been educated so well by this scene that our brain can immediately release an anxiety relaxing signal after seeing it. Although we still have not physically finished tearing up the box, we can now switch our mind set in planning how to enjoy the product.

Shipping Method

Besides, the package itself is a part of the product. If I want to give this out as a gift, I would prefer not to see any dent on package.

Click Here to Read the #2 of the Popcornhour A-110 Review

Come Join the Holiday Giveaway for a free HDX 1000

2008-12-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

We will have a drawing for a free HDX 1000 on 12/12/2008. Just go to this page, enter your name and email address, and tell us what you think the "X" in "HDX" stands for, you are in for the drawing.

Need hints?

It's not Xmas, although we people at AmperorDirect wants to say Merry Christmas to you.

It's not Xiphosuran. I don't know what this word means.

It's not X-ray. Why do you need to put a high definition X-ray in your living room? To point to your lousy neighbor?

It's not Xbox 360. HDX 1000 runs very quite, not like X-Box 360. Besides, you won't have chance to see RRoD on HDX 1000.

Just take a look at the picture gallery section of the product page on our website, you will know what X is.

Have Fun.

An Update for Establishing AmperorDirect as the HDX 1000 US RMA Center

2008-11-29T09:42:00.000-08:00

In the previous post, I've mentioned that AmperorDirect.com is working with Digitech to establish itself as the North America support and repair center for HDX 1000. It turns out to be not easy to do - it is very difficult to track if the returned units are still in warranty period if they are not sold by us!

Open the HDX 1000 Box to change PCB

So, here is the revised proposal: AmperorDirect.com will offer repairing service to the units sold by AmperorDirect.com only. If you buy the HDX 1000 from us and experience issues in the warranty period, you can ship the unit back to us for repairing. The proposal has been deviated from our original plan to supporting all North Amperica market. But, without going through the hassle to gain cooperation with all other resellers in NA, we can at least help our own customers to save time and money to transfer units back to Digitech in China if their investment goes south.

Let's see if we can make this deal go through.

See us change the PCB in this post

Confused...???

2008-11-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm pretty confused now. The store I used to buy my iStarHD 1.3 unit has expended to carry Kaiboer K100 NMT. Aren't they the iStarHD people? Is Kaiboer a brand from iStarHD? Or, is the iStarHD.com actually a middle man in US, but not the iStarHD's own employee?

I'm really confused. It makes me wonder if I bought the iStarHD 1.3 from manufacturer or from another reseller like us? If somebody knows about the inside story, please let me know.

HDX 1000 - 30pcs Arrived at our Houston Warehouse

2008-11-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

Good News! The 30pcs HDX 1000 Fedex shipment has already arrived at our Houston warehouse. We did some incoming-material-exam. They are all good. We have put up the product page on our website. See Here. Please note that the price including shipping to US. And, we always have the 5% off coupon: alien, available for you to use.

We have already sold 3 of them. Therefore, there are currently only 27pcs left on our website. Our sea shipment should arrive here in 4 weeks. Hopefully, it can be here before Christmas time.

BTW, we are currently working with Digitech to establish AmperorDirect.com as the North America support and repair center. The way we envision the setup is: no matter where you buy the HDX 1000 from, if you are willing to pay for the shipment and can prove the unit is still in warrenty period, you can send the unit to us. We will do the basic diagnosis and change the PCB for you if it is needed. Sounds good, right? Hopefully, the deal can go through.

HDX 1000 - Factory Visit

2008-11-19T15:03:00.000-08:00

Factory_Overview

We are so thrilled to know that our first batch of the HDX 1000 is ready to be picked up at Digitech’s factory. Therefore, we sent our best product inspector, Kevin, to check the products. The factory is around one and a half hours away from our Shenzen office by car. It is actually not very far away at all.

Testing_Video

Results? We are happy! We see our products sitting in the warehouse. We randomly selected several boxes to test out their performance. Pleasantly, we found that they all worked as they were designed to. We then had a chance to tour the factory. It is really a busy place. It appears as if the Networked Media Tank (NMT) Player is becoming more and more accepted by the market.

Testing_Audio

One more interesting thing to mention… Guess what? The production line is pumping out all kinds of NMT players. No kidding. This place is producing NMT players of other brands, too! This factory is really the mothership of NMT players!

Testing_Card_Reader

We have immediately shipped 30pcs HDX 1000 via Fedex to our US office early this week. We have selected the fastest transportation method (The shipping cost is so very expensive!). They could arrive at our Houston warehouse any time now.

HDX 1000 Review #7 - Known Issues, Workaround, Conclusions

2008-10-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

Introduction

This is the 7th part of our HDX 1000 review. This part will first go over two known issues and the work-around. We will then deliver our final conclusion of this HDX 1000 review series.

You might be curious about why an important part of the review – content format compatibility test is missing. As stated in the first post of this blog: I’m still new in this HD digital entertainment industry. I have not collected my set of the content samples (in different codec / format). I’ll need to do this before I can start the compatibility test. Please send me the file through email if the file size is small. Otherwise, please send me a link to download the files. Your help will actually expertise my process to collect content samples so that I can come back to complete the review sooner.

Known Issue #1 – My Slave USB port on HDX 1000 does not Work

There is a USB slave port on the back of the HDX 1000. The design concept of having this port is to make your HDX 1000 work as an external portable HDD (if there is an internal HDD installed in the HDX 1000). Accompanied with the attempt to reduce the weight (see description here), users now can move the HDX 1000 around, connect it to the PC through the USB cable and transfer files between the two. If you are a person like me who is biased and thinks the file transferring via network is slower and unsecured, you can perform the transfer in this way.

This design looks wonderful on paper. However, when I first connect my HDX 1000 to my PC through the USB slave port, I can see the HDX 1000 trying to remove the internal HDD from the ‘Media Sources” menu (See the picture taken during the removing process at the end of this paragraph). But, my Vista notebook just cannot recognize the HDX 1000. After consulting with HD Digitech, they explained that when I first installed my internal HDD into HDX 1000, I formatted the HDD in EXT2 format. This is actually the default format the NMT application setup wizard will do, so more than likely you will have your HDD formatted in the same way. Furthermore, EXT2 is a Linux file system. This is why my Windows Vista notebook cannot recognize the HDD.

The application HD Digitech suggested for me to install on my notebook is Ext2Fsd. If you experience the same issue, you can go give Ext2Fsd a try, too. It did help me solve my problem. My notebook can now treat the internal HDD inside HDX 1000 as a removable HDD. The only caution to the Vista user is that Vista has a very restricted user account management system. You need to use your administrator account to sign in before you can use Ext2Fsd (or your Ext2Fsd will not find any HDD attached to your PC at all).

Known Issue #2 – My HDX 1000 Freezes

Depending on the content format you are trying to playback, you may experience a “freezing” up of your machine. You will need to reset the box to get back the control. I think it is an issue on Syabas NMT player software. All media streamers (Popcorn A-110, iStarHD Mini HDMI 1.3 NMT Player…) using the same solution should have the similar symptom. I’ll give you some examples below.

I tried to use the HDX 1000 to access the Bluray ROM on my computer. I was hoping this setup could be a cheap Bluray playback solution. The result was not good. It would freeze my HDX 1000.

I tried to rename a .dat VCD format file to .mpg and used my HDX 1000 to playback the renamed file. This action froze my HDX 1000.

I tried to use the HDX 1000 to playback a comic clip I downloaded from the Internet. It froze my HDX 1000.

As you can see in the list, the HDX 1000 tends not to be happy when you try to get it to perform some weird actions of which it is not designed to do. In addition, it is better to download the contents with high user completion number or contents from well known sources, to help you filter out bad formatted contents. There are a lot of contents which are coded improperly on Internet. If you feed your HDX 1000 one of these contents, you might need to hit that reset button very soon.

Conclusion

I found the HDX 1000 is stable enough to perform the main task – playback contents stored in your PC on TV – what it was designed to achieve. The various storage options and services has broaden the experience and makes the operation easy. The HD playback capability is also a plus. Although I have stated several suggestions all along the review, I still found the benefit of having the HDX 1000 out-weighs the disadvantages. As long as you can operate the HDX 1000 in the way it is designed to, you can limit the chance of having issues. Besides, comparing to many other solutions from big name networking equipment companies, the price of owning a HDX 1000 is reasonable. If you are an early adopter like me and have the need to playback downloaded contents on TV, you should consider to give HDX 1000 a try.

Go to the HDX 1000 Product Page at AmperorDirect.com

HDX 1000 Review #6 - Comparison

2008-10-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

Introduction

This is the 6th part of our HDX 1000 review. We are going to compare HDX 1000 with its previous generation: HDX 900 and one of its competitors, iStarHD HDMI 1.3 Mini NMT player.

HDX 1000 vs. HDX 900

Function-wise, the HDX 1000 works almost identical as the HDX 900. The major change on the HDX 1000 is the adoption of the HDMI 1.3 standard. (According to Wikipedia: the single-link bandwidth to 340MHz (10.2 Gbit/s) is the HDMI 1.3 version). It will supposedly enhance the performance of the HDX 1000. However, I have not learned a quantitative way to test the results yet. I can only say, judging from my eyes, the content playback is a little smoother on the HDX 1000. But, again, the “smoother performance” can be no more than a illusion generated by my brain after learning the difference between HDMI 1.1 and HDMI 1.3 on Wikipedia.

The most significant change to the HDX 1000 is on its design and the output interface. A picture with HDX 1000 and HDX 900 placed side-by-side is present above. The right one is an HDX 1000.

You can see the size of the case has shrunk. The trim down of the metal used on the case has lowerered the weight of the machine itself from 3 lbs. to 2.2 lbs. This will help users to save on the shipping costs.

The sharp corner of the HDX 900 case has been redesigned to an oval shape. Compared to the HDX 900’s industrial equipment appearance, the HDX 1000 now looks more like a consumer electronics product of which you would have little objection to placing on your home entertainment rack.

The VGA display output on the HDX 900 has been removed and replaced by a coaxial and component output. Now you don’t need to have a HDTV to use the HDX 1000. It can work with an analog TV, too. I guess HD Digitech has listened to customers’ suggestions.

The SATA port (data only) presented on the HDX 900’s back panel has been removed on the HDX 1000. The SATA connector without the power portion can be a headache to users because they need to go find a power source to power the HDD they want to install on the HDX 900. The SATA port has been moved inside the case on the HDX 1000. It is a complete connector with data and power ports provided. It is also safer to have the HDD placed inside the case, thus reducing the chance of having the HDD electronics components exposed to users.

The power hard-switch on the HDX 1000 has been moved to the back panel. (I like it on the front panel better, for easy-access purposes.)

With the HDX 900, there is a chance of having the VGA connector head / SATA connector head / HDMI connector head interfere with each other. In other words, you might need to unplug one of the connectors in order to have another connector plugged in. This is not an issue any more in HDX 1000.

A card reader is installed on the front panel of the HDX 1000. Please see the below picture.

Overall, HD Digitech includes several design changes to the HDX 1000, which have been requested by real media streamer users. It indicates that they have a good attitude of listening to customers and trying to provide what they need. I certainly appreciate this attitude.

HDX 1000 vs. iStarHD HDMI 1.3 Mini NMT player

HDX 1000 and iStarHD HDMI 1.3 mini NMT player are based on the same media receiver solution: Sigma 3865 chipset + Syabas NMT player. Hence, they perform very similar functions. The differences are in the design, cooling and output ports selection.

In the picture below you can see the box size comparison between the HDX 1000 and the iStarHD 1.3. The latter is almost half in size.

The most significant difference between the two units is the case material. The HDX 1000 is made of aluminum and the iStarHD 1.3 is made of plastic. Thus, the iStarHD 1.3 is a lighter product.

On the other hand, the aluminum case material enables the HDX 1000 have a better heat transfer characteristic. That is why the iStarHD 1.3 needs to install a Fan inside the box, but the HDX 1000 does not. This allows the HDX 1000 to perform with less acoustic noise. In theory, the cooler operating temperature will help components to achieve a longer life. However, this needs to be verified with the HDX 1000.

There is a card reader on the HDX 1000, but not on the iStarHD 1.3.

The SATA HDD connector is located outside of the iStarHD 1.3 case. Therefore, the “internal HDD” needs to be installed outside of the iStarHD 1.3 box. With the HDX 1000, the “internal HDD” needs to be installed inside its box.

HDX 1000 provides more options regarding output interface.

It is a classic trade-off situation. The iStarHD 1.3 offers a cheaper solution while the HDX 1000 provides more value (card reader, aluminum case, more output options…). You can make your own decision to see if the price difference for the HDX 1000 is really worth the money.

More…

At the time this review was written, I had not yet received my Popcornhour A-110. After I receive my machine, I’ll add a HDX 1000 vs. Popcornhour A-110 section to make this review more complete.

Read the 7th part of the HDX 1000 Review - Known Issues, Workaround and Conclusions

Go to the HDX 1000 Product Page at AmperorDirect.com

HDX 1000 Review #5 - Services

2008-10-23T07:51:00.000-07:00

Introduction

In this 5th part of our HDX 1000 review, we are going to go through the services it provides. The services can be categorized into two parts. The first part, “Web Services” are pre-installed in the HDX 1000. In other words, users can enjoy the benefit of using the out-of-box HDX 1000 to browse some pre-selected video / picture / news sharing websites. The second part of the services will be available when an internal SATA HDD is installed. It includes functions of file transferring and BitTorrent downloading.

Web Services

The “Web Services” are described in the introduction section. The browse-able websites are listed below in four categories. The link to each websites is also provided for preview purpose.

1. Video (21)

2. Audio (8)

3. Photo (4)

4. RSS (7)

As of today, Oct 22, 2008, the total number of the browse-able websites via HDX 1000 web services is 40. Syabas is in the process of adding more channels to the list.

HDX 1000 Works as a NAS (Network Attached Storage)

You can setup your HDX-1000 (with the internal SATA HDD installed) as a NAS device and move contents in or out of the HDX 1000 from your PC. The way to do so is shown below:

1. Access the HDX 1000 by IP address.

Go to your HDX 1000.
From Root menu page, click on “Setup” at the left-hand-side navigation bar.
Click on “Network” on the left-hand-side navigation bar.
You can see the current ip address on the screen.
Go to your PC. Click on Start\Run in a XP machine and type “ \\(Your HDX 1000 IP address)“. (If you have a Vista machine, please go to Start and type “ \\(Your HDX 1000 IP address)“ at the Start Search Box.)
Enter the User name and Password, you can login to your HDX 1000 from your PC. (Default user name is “nmt”. Password is “1234”.)

2. Map the HDX 1000 as your network drive.

Right click on the “share” folder. You can see one option as “Map Network Drive”. Left click on that.
Select the drive label you want to assign to the “share” folder, and click “Finish”.
The mapped drive should appear in “My Computer” for easy accessing.

Access HDX 1000 via FTP Service

When installing the NMT application package on your HDX 1000 Internal SATA HDD (See the procedure here), by default you are adding a ftp server onto it. Later on, you can access HDX 1000’s internal HDD via FTP Service.

You first need to have a ftp client application installed on your PC. I recommend to use FileZilla (download from here). It will make the ftp tasks much easier.

Type the following server / login information into FileZilla site manager, hit connect, you should be able to access to your HDX 1000 now.

Host: “HDX 1000 IP address”
Port: 21
Username: ftpuser
Password: 1234

myiHomeLite Server

When installing the NMT application package on your HDX 1000 Internal SATA HDD (See the procedure here), by default you are adding the myiHomeLite server onto it. You can do two things with this service:

You can playback content stored in HDX 1000 on your PC. However, I cannot make this function work on my system. Since I usually need to stream the content in the opposite direction, from my PC to my HDX 1000, I don’t care if this function works or not.

You can upload a torrent file onto HDX 1000 and let the HDX 1000’s built-in BitTorrent application download the file for you. The downloaded file will be stored in the HDX 1000 Internal HDD.

The way to access the myiHomeLite server is to open up your browser and type “http://(Your HDX 1000 IP address):8088 in the URL box. You should be able to see the myiHomeLite welcome page display. The rest of the operation is intuitional.

Conclusions

The services listed above have added convenience when using the HDX 1000. I’ve found the NAS service extra helpful in transferring files in to and out of HDX 1000. The BitTorrent downloading service is also a plus. With this service, I can use my HDX-1000 (with internal HDD installed) to perform the download task and leave my PC to rest at night.

As to the web services, I have mixed feelings. The service can definitely do the job and it offers a good variety of channels to see. However, I just don’t like to use the limited buttons on the remote control unit to navigate. Imagine you are using your cell phone key pad to browse the Internet and do any necessary search key-in. This is exactly how it feels. In addition, there is also one thing you need to know when using the HDX 1000 to perform web browsing: on a PC, you will receive a buffering message warning when the PC is retrieving data from Internet; on the HDX 1000, you will just experience a pause during data retrieving. Please go watch the following video clip. You can better understand the scenario. This is not a bad thing, but is something that may take getting used to. Usually, this pause only happens when you first try to load the media.

Read the Part 6 of the HDX 1000 Review - Comparison List

Go to the HDX 1000 Product Page at AmperorDirect.com

HDX 1000 Review #4 - Storage Options

2008-10-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

Introduction

This is the 4th part of our HDX 1000 review. We are going to go through all the storage options listed below:

Store content in a remote PC (Covered in our HDX 1000 #2 Review – Basic functionality Test)
Install an internal SATA HDD inside HDX 1000
Connect a USB HDD / Flash Drive to HDX 1000 via the 2nd USB port (above the LAN port) at the back panel
Connect a SD Memory via the Card Reader Port at the front panel

Internal SATA HDD

See our previous post of opening up the HDX 1000 box. You will need to do this to in order install the internal HDD.

One thing we noticed is that the cover is in a true square shape. No matter how you turn the cover (90 / 180 / 270 degrees clockwise…), you can see the four screw hole positions matched on the cover and on the case – and you can still screw down the cover! This offers some flexibility when determining the installation location of the internal HDD. Based on the included SATA cable length, you can put the internal HDD in the following two directions.

We found the latter one is more appropriate because we don’t want the SATA cable to sit right above the output video channel (just in case there is any interference…). You need to be careful not to snap the SATA cable (see the picture below) when putting the cover back or you will run the risk of damaging the SATA cable.

If this is the first time you have installed this HDD to the HDX 1000 machine, you will be prompted for the NMT application wizard. The functions of the NMT application will be explained in the next article. At this point, we’ll just go through the installation process.

Select if you want to do typical or fresh setup. The typical setup will keep the content file already in the HDD. The fresh setup will do a fresh format. Both options will install the NMT application.

I want to keep the contents in the HDD so I chose the typical setup. The system will display a warning message. Just click “next” if this is the right option.

Select where the NMT application setup file is located. I can never successfully initiate the process by connecting to the online server. Therefore, I pick the USB option. (You need to download the NMT application setup file from HERE to your USB Drive root path. Be sure to have the related firmware updated and rename the downloaded file to “syb8634.nmt”. I wasted a lot of time by not having HDX 1000 locate the setup file because I didn’t rename the file!)

You will see the installation process begin. After it finishes the process, it will re-boot the system.

After your HDX 1000 is re-booted, you can see the “HARD_DISK” folder in the “Media Source” page. You can navigate to the content you want to playback in the HDD from here.

External USB HDD / Flash Drvie or Memory Card

The HDX 1000 has two USB ports on the back panel. Only the bottom one (above the LAN port) works! HD Digital Technology has moved the internal circuitry of the top USB port to support the memory card reader on the front panel. The top USB port can only work as a USB power charging port. You can plug in your USB HDD or USB Flash Drive to the bottom USB port. Just like in the computer system, the USB devices can do plug-and-play on the HDX 1000. You will be able to see your USB device pop up in the “Media Source” page and locate your contents from here.

You can also plug in a SD card to the card reader slot on the front panel. Among all the Syabas based NMT player, this is the feature only offered by HDX 1000. It comes in very handy if you want to display some pictures from your digital camera. The card reader slot also supports hot-swapping. You can plug in your memory while the system is running, without damaging the memory or your HDX 1000.

Please note that the SD memory card will be shown as a USB drive under the "Media Resource" page.

Here are two pictures displayed on TV using HDX 1000. The first one is taken when I went to source LED lights in Chinese. The second one is a tree fall-down in my community during hurricane Ike.

Some Suggestions for the Next Generation Media Player

Can the USB ports be moved to the front panel? It will be easier to access to the USB port while the HDX 1000 is placed in a home entertainment cabinet.

I really love the card reader design on the HDX 1000. It is in the front panel so there are no complaints about the port location. If the Syabas software can offer an interface to do small icon preview, it will make the picture browsing experience more friendly. Besides, if the “next” button on the remote controller can be designed to activate the next picture stored in the same folder, it will reduce a lot of button hitting efforts.

Enjoy the review? Want me to cover some other things on the HDX 1000? Please give me some feedback. In the next article, I’m going to go over the services (web, ftp…) provided by the HDX 1000.

Read the Part 5 of the HDX 1000 Review - Services

Go to the HDX 1000 Product Page at AmperorDirect.com

HDX 1000 Review #3 - Specification and Peek Inside the Box

2008-10-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

Introduction:

This is the 3rd part of our HDX 1000 review. Two things are covered in the article:

1) A list of the HDX 1000 product specifications from HD Digital Technology.
2) Peek inside the magic black box.

HDX 1000 Product Specifications:

CASE

* Solid Aluminum Alloy Case
* SDHC, MS and MMC Card Reader
* Compatible with 3.5" and 2.5" SATA HDD
* Hardware Power ON/OFF Switch
* Supports Vertical or horizontal placement

CPU

* Sigma Designs SMP8635 Rev. C

Memory

* DDR DRAM : 64-bit 512Mb
* External NOR Flash : 16-bit 256Mbit
Audio/Video outputs (gold-plated connectors)

* HDMI v1.3a (up to 1080p)
* Component Video (up to 1080p)
* Composite Video
* Stereo Analog Audio
* S/PDIF Coaxial Digital Audio
* Optical Digital Audio
Hardware Connectivity

* 2x USB 2.0 host
* 1x USB 2.0 Slave
* Serial ATA (SATA)
* Ethernet 10/100

What’s inside the HDX 1000 Box:

Who can resist the desire to peek inside the black box? I cannot. But the good news is I’m going to open my HDX 1000 so that you don’t need to open yours.

The cover is actually designed to be on the bottom of the HDX 1000. After turning HDX-1000 up-side-down, you can see the four screws which hold the cover.

There are two PCBs in the box. The small one is to handle the card reader function in the HDX front panel and the infrared communication between HDX 1000 and the remote controller. The big one is the main PCB which processes all the other functions. The PCB component side is facing down so that you cannot see the chips. One thing to note is that a SATA cable is attached to the main PCB. You don’t need to buy another cable if you want to install a SATA HDD inside the HDX 1000.

This picture is what it looks like after removing the main PCB. You can see the white heat-transferring glue left on the case. That is the relative position where the main controller chip, Sigma 8635, locates on the PCB. HD Digital Technology claims their aluminum case and the heat dissipating architecture is so efficient that they can eliminate the fan inside the box. Without the fan turning wild in the box, HDX 1000 can operate very quiet in your living room.

This is the component side of the main PCB. The big chip with white heat-transferring glue on it is the Sigma 8635. It is the powerful engine of the HDX 1000.

A jumper wire? I must have got a sample unit.

OK, this is how the inside looks like for HDX 1000. My next step is to put everything back. As you might already know, putting things back is usually more challenge than taking things apart.

Woola… My HDX 1000 is put back together and is still alive. People in HD Digital Technology: I guess I am qualified for your tech-1 support job in US. Want to hire me?

Next time, we are going to go through all the storage options.

Read the Part #4 of the HDX 1000 Review - Storage Options

Go to the HDX 1000 Product Page at AmperorDirect.com

HDX 1000 Review #2 - Basic Functionality Test

2008-10-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

Introduction

This is the 2nd part of our HDX 1000 review. In this article, we are going to run through a high-level functionality test which covers installation, start up sequence, GUI and playback functions. We will put our suggestions and tips of operation in the article, as well. This can also be used as a user quick-start manual.

Testing Goal

A high-level functionality test will be performed to see if HDX-1000 can accomplish the core benefit of a digital media streamer: playback a digital media file stored in a remote content library. (In the test, a HD content will be used because HDX1000 is designed to be capable of decoding the H.264 HD file format).

Installation

Installing HDX 1000 is a breeze. Just follow the below steps, and you can have the box ready to go in 10 minutes.

1. Connect AC power adapter, network cable and A/V cables to the back panel of HDX 1000.

2. Put batteries into the remote control unit.

3. Turn on the power switch.

4. Grab your remote control unit. Sit back on your couch. You are ready to rock.

One thing to be noted is that HDX 1000 is designed by the HDMI v1.3 standard. Be sure to grab a v1.3 cable if you want to use HDMI interface to connect HDX 1000 to your home entertainment system. It will help you maximize the full potential of your HDX 1000.

HDX 1000 Start Up Sequence

Right after the power button on the back of HDX 1000 is pushed, you can see a “X power by HD Digitech” message on the screen. The message can stay on the screen for around 60 seconds. Then, you will see the screen switching between “black screen” and “no signal” mode for about 30 seconds. Because the “black screen” mode output is black and the “no signal” mode output is bright blue, it is kind of annoying to watch the screen flickering back and forth between dark and bright colors. Here is my first suggestion to HD Digital Technology: it might be better to disable the output or keep it in a dark black color during this 30 second period. There is a big chance that an inpatient user like me will hit the reset button during this confusing period and not allow the box to fully start-up.

Anyway, there are many components in the HDX 1000 box to be woken up during the turn-on sequence. The whole process will last for around 90 seconds. Don’t go into panic mode if you wait longer than you expected.

Welcome screen / GUI Root Menu

After successfully booting up HDX1000, users can see the welcome screen and the GUI root menu appear on the screen. On the left-hand side, there are three main function categories: media source, web services and setup. This article will be focused on the “media source” function. (The latter two functions will be covered in upcoming reviews.) Comparing to the GUIs from other digital media streamers, this interface (from Syabas NMT player solution) is actually the most clean and simple one we have ever seen. Hence, it can generate the most straight-forward menu navigation experience.

Discover and Browse Digital Content Library

When using HDX 1000, there are several places where people can store their content library. It can be in a PC residing in the same network, in an external storage device (such as USB HDD, USB Flash Drive or SD Memory), or in a HDD installed inside the HDX 1000. I will focus on the first method and leave the introduction of the latter two in another article so that I won’t create a 10-page monster to bore you.

OK, while leaving the HDX 1000 on, please move back to your PC. There are works to do to make your HDX 1000 and PC talk to each other.

1. Go download and install the Window Media Player if you don’t already have one running on your computer. The link to download the page is at Here.

2. Bring up the Windows Media Player 11 (WMP11).

3. Click on the Library button on the WMP11 tool-bar. Then, click on “More Options”.

4. Click on the “Configure Sharing” button in the Library tab.

5. In the new pop-up Media Sharing window, activate the “Share my media to” option in the sharing settings section.

6. You should be able to see the PCH-A100 (XX-XX… Mac address of your HDX 1000) icon in the available-neighbors window. Click on the icon and then click on the “Allow” button below the available-neighbors window.

7. Click on the “OK” button to close the Media Sharing window.

8. Click on the “Monitor Folders” button in the Library tab and add-in the folders you store your contents into the monitoring list.

9. Click on "OK" to finish the setting.

Go back to your HDX 1000. Use the arrow keys on the remote control unit to click on the “Media Source” on the left-hand side of the screen. You should be able to see your computer’s label appear on the media source menu. Click on your computer’s label, select the media file type from the four icons (video / Audio / Picture / Document), and you can start to browse your content library.

One thing to be noted is that you won’t be able to see all the files after selecting the media type icon. In other words, after you click on the video icon, you won’t be able to see any audio type files in the folder. This actually confused me the first time I used Syabas based machine. However, after getting used to the settings, I found no problem in locating the file I wanted to play.

(There are other ways to connect HDX 1000 to PC, too. I'll list them later if I have time.)

Playback Functions

After successfully locating the file you want to play, the rest of the operations are intuitional. The “play”, “stop”, “pause”, “fast-forward” and other playback function buttons are all included on the remote control unit. They are also clearly marked so that there is not a big chance you will miss them. In the following, there are several observations I have which might help to improve your remote control smashing experience.

1. “Return” and “Stop” buttons do two different things. When you are in the file browsing mode, the “return” button can bring you back to the previous page. When you are in media playing mode, the “stop” button can stop the playback function. There is no such short-cut as hitting “return” button to stop the media playing and bring you back to the previous browsing page. You need to press “stop” and then “return”.

2. The “fast-forward” and “reverse” playback function can still use some improvement. The display starts to skip frames when the “reverse” function is activated. In addition, depending on the file type, the transition between “fast-forward” and “play” function can sometimes be not smooth.

3. A good feature of digital movies is that every small piece of the movie is indexed by a time frame. While playing the movie, the “left” and “right” arrow on the remote control unit can help you navigate the movie to the time frame you want play, in a very fast way. Now, if you are an action movie fan like me, you can memorize the time index where John McClane takes down the F-35 in Live Free or Die Hard and easily jump to the spot as many time as you want.

Conclusion

We achieved our testing goal with the HDX 1000, which was to playback an HD digital media file stored in a remote content library. It is always good to watch the HD content on a big screen TV. In the next review, we are going to go over the specifications and lift the HDX 1000 cover to see what’s really inside this magic black box.

Read Part 3 of the HDX 1000 Review - Open the Black Box

Go to the HDX 1000 Product Page at AmperorDirect.com

HDX1000 Review #1 - Package List and Picture Set

2008-10-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

Introduction

This is the 1st part of our HDX-1000 review series. Two things will be covered in the article:

The reason why we chose the HDX1000 as our first focused product in the Digital Media Streamer category.
A picture gallery of the HDX 1000 and the accessories included in the retail package.

Why We Chose the HDX 1000

As we discussed in the previous post, there are several digital media streamer solutions on the market. Although they are referred to by different names, their major function is the same: they can playback the digital contents stored in your digital library. After comparing the available products, we believe the one that uses Sigma 8635 chipset and the Syabas NMT software as the solution provides the most value. It offers H.264 high definition playback capability and has an acceptable user interface.

There are three major players using the above mentioned solution: Popcornhour A-110 from Syabas, iStarHD Mini 1.3 from ISTARHD, and HDX1000 from HD Digital Technology. We have contacted all three of them to express our interest in becoming their exclusive US dealer. (After experiencing the nightmare of waiting for months for a Popcornhour A-100, we want to stock enough inventory in our Houston warehouse and use AmperorDirect.com’s established e-commerce website to make the experience of owning a digital media streamer in the US much easier). The responses from the three vendors were totally different. For Syabas, they don’t care about setting up a US reseller. Their main purpose for the Popcornhour A-100 / A-110 is to promote their Syabas NMT Player solution. As to working with iStarHD, it has been a unique experience. Although we have already established the channel to purchase and re-sell iStarHD Mini 1.3, we still cannot get a physical phone number from them. Every time we send an email to them, we pray that the email will not be overlooked.

Our experience in talking to HD Digital Technology has turned out to be the best among the three vendors. Their Sales V.P. is very friendly and can be easily found on Skype. Their Tech Support guy works almost on US hours. Additionally, their Engineering V.P. is extremely knowledgeable (and very talkative in a good way…:)) about the digital media streamer market. He is even willing to sacrifice his bed-time to help a novice user like me across the pond to get familiar with the machine. Besides, he and my grandfather are from the same town south of Beijing. To a Chinese guy, “Lao Shiang” (pronounced as “Low Shawn”, and represents a group of people coming from the same hometown) means a lot. That’s why we chose HD Digital Technology’s HDX 1000 as our first main focus.

(OK, ok… this is why my boss cannot let me put this article on our website. I need to be more serious.) During the past several months working with HD Digital Technology, we feel that this company consists of good people and can provide a good product. “Good Products” and “Good Service” happen to be the two core values AmperorDirect.com wants to offer to our customers, as well. We are pleased to find a company that shares the same values as us. This is the real reason why we chose HD Digital Technology’s HDX 1000 as our first main focus.

The Package Includes:

HDX 1000
Remote Control Unit
Battery for the Remote Control Unit
One HDMI 1.3 Cable
One USB Cable
One Universal AC Power Adapter w US Power Cord
Four Rubber feet for the HDX 1000
Six Screws (for mounting HDD)

Here are some Pictures about the HDX 1000:

Retail Box:

Just pretend you are listening to Back in Black from AC/DC
...
Cause I am back on the track,
And I'm beating the flack,
Nobody's gonna get me on another rap,
...

HDX 1000 Front View:

Card Reader on HDX 1000

HDX 1000 Back Connection Panel:

HDX 1000 Ports -1:

HDX 1000 Ports -2:

HDX 1000 Bottom View:

HDX 1000 Accessory Set: (A little complain: the screws can be put in a small plastic bag...)

Stay tuned. We'll have more reviews on HDX1000 to come.

Read Rart 2 of the Review - Basic Functionality Test

Go to the HDX 1000 Product Page at AmperorDirect.com

What is a Digital Media Streamer?

2008-10-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

What is a Digital Media Streamer?

The Digital Media Streamer is a device which has the capability to playback your media contents (video / audio / picture) stored in the computer on your home entertainment system. It usually contains the following components:

1. Connectivity:

To the digital media library (usually stored in the computer): A Digital Media Streamer can connect to the home network and access the digital library stored in the computer using either a wireless or wired connection.

To the home entertainment system: Different digital media players equipped with different video / audio connection interface to work with the home entertainment system. Some high-end digital media streamers output Hi-definition content to home entertainment system via HDMI and S/PDIF cables. Others output analog signal via S-Video, Composite, or A/V cables.

2. User Interface:

The media streamer usually makes use of the display in the home entertainment system to present an interactive graphic user control interface (GUI).

Users can use the remote control that comes with the digital media streamer package to browse the digital media content stored in the computer and to perform playback functions, such as play, fast-forward, stop, and etc…

3. Digital Media Streamer Box:

Connection Ports: Digital Media Streamer box contains different ports to interface with computer and home entertainment systems.

Processing Power: The digital media streamer is equipped with processing power to browse, locate, decode and playback media files stored in the computer. It can also manage the communication between the box and the computer / home entertainment system.

Infrared Port: To let the remote control communicate with the box itself.

Power unit: Usually an AC power adapter is included to power the box.

4. Storage Device:

Some digital media streamers include an internal HDD to store content inside the box.

Some digital media streamers provide ports, such as USB port, e-SATA port or card readers, to let users hook-up external storage devices to the box.

Currently, there is still not a unified way in which to refer to the digital media streamer. The following outlines how different vendors refer to their devices:

Netgear: Digital Entertainment HD

Linksys: Media Extender

D-Link: Media Player

Syabas based digital media streamer vendors, such as iStarHD, Popcornhour and Digitech: Network Media Tank Player

Although they may be called by different names, their basic functions are similar.

Why I Start This Blog

2008-10-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

My name is Howard Chang. I work for an online e-commerce store called AmperorDirect.com. We sell Skype products and accessories.

In the middle of this year, I was assigned to open an HD entertainment category for our store. However, I was not familiar with this category until that point. I didn't own a big screen TV or a Bluray disc player and had no experience in setting up home theater equipment. I needed to dedicate a lot of time to study the terms and technologies related to this industry.

After months of preparation and several visits to vendors in China, we have decided to start a new HD category, stemming from the Digital Media Streamer related products. The reason is very simple. First, we don't want to get into direct competition with the big guys, such as BestBuy or Amazon.com on the popular and commodity type products, such as LCD TVs, at the beginning. Besides, we are from the computer industry. The major feature of the media streamer is to enable users to playback their digital contents stored in their computers on a big screen TV. If we start with this category, we at least are starting with something we are familiar with.

Eventually, we will become the experts in the HD entertainment industry. This is essential in order for our new category to survive. We think this can also be a fun journey and we want to record what happens throughout. Hopefully someday this blog will offer help to another individual who decides to equip himself with the knowledge about the HD entertainment industry.

We have created a community at Ning.com. Come visit us and enjoy the better community interactive functions at there.