Info and forum posts by 'Bob.C'

This user hasn't used our main site yet, so has no main account at present.

Joined on: Tuesday, 14th October 2003, 13:14, Last used: Tuesday, 18th May 2010, 22:50

Access Level: Mostly Harmless

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This user has posted a total of 19 messages. On average, since joining, this user has posted 0 messages a day, or 0.02 messages a week. In the last 30 days, this user has posted 0 messages, which is on average 0 messages a day.

Recent Messages Posted:

RE: Whistling Asus Motherboard

Can`t be positive, but its a new 500w PSU bought at the time I purchased the board... Ebuyers own brand so I can`t expect miracles from it but thought that it would be able to cope as I don`t have my system overloaded with a monster of a graphics card or anything.
I do have another 400w one I can test it with though..... Not sure that it would be enough for an Athlon64.

Great snowmen btw.

Regards

Bob.C

Whistling Asus Motherboard

Hello all,

Having a problem with my spanky new Asus K8N skt754 motherboard. Since installing it I have had problems with the USB ports....

Whenever I plug anything into them a very high frequency whistling seems to be emitted from somewhere on the motherboard. It sounds like and electrical buzz or something. It is both very irritatingand rather worrying coz I am worried it it a precursor to my whole system blowing.

Firstly I thought it was just my speedtouch modem, as I found a post on another forum that has similar troubles Thought maybe it was drawing too much power... But I got a bluetooth dongle for Xmas and that has the same result. I doubt a dongle would place much demand on the PSU so I am guessing its not that.

If it helps anyone give advice my system is

Athlon64 3000+
Asus K8N
2 x Maxtor 20GB drives
1 MSI CDRW drive
1 Creative Labs DVD-ROM drive
Ancient Ati Rage Fury Pro Vivo (An insult to the CPU but couldn`t afford to upgrade yet)
512mb Crucial 3200

I got it from E-buyer.... Anyone advise me on what their returns policy is?? Coz theorectially it ain`t broken but I don`t want to leave it and it to blow my CPU and RAM in four weeks time when the MB blows. Don`t know if I could send it back on the grounds thats the LED`s on the Ethernet port seem to have stopped working????? A minor detail I suppose.

Any help greatly appreciated... as am very worried that in a few days my lovely Xmas present will be just a pile of smoldering ashes..

Regards

Bob.C

RE: Medion MD40814 Divx Player - NEW FIRMWARE AT LAST!!!!

Teetee,

*.srt are already supported but you have to select them with the Angle button before you then select the *.avi. In the new firmware the subtitle selection can be done during play by pressing the subtitle button.

You can tell when the firmware is being updated as a number of code lines appear on the screen informing you that the checksum is correct.... then some other text appears (can`t remember what) and after about a minute the player will switch itself off (don`t turn it off yourself as it will ruin the update and make the player useless).
When you turn it on you will have the new firmware.

If your having trouble getting the player to recognise the firmware, make sure you burn the disc as ISO Level 1 Mode 1 with Joliet off and no relaxed restrictions.... I still had some problems so I also included some random stuff to fill the disc a little and the player seemed to find the disc easier to read.

Merry Christmas

Bob.C

RE: DivX player (MultiRegion maybe) £39 / £35 at whsmiths online

Tried burning discs with Joliet both on and off with no relaxed restrictions in ISO level 1 & 2, both mode 1 and mode 2. With all combinations of the above I had the same results - jerky frame rate.

Tried two brands of CDR and also a CDRW all to the same effect :-( Its wierd, coz when you fast frame it seems smooth which makes me think its a firmware issue rather than anything else.

I have e-mailed a chap at Skyworth who had responded to a previous e-mail (see other Skyworth thread) asking if he has any suggestions and whether the Denver firmware would work... I hope he can help us out on this matter as I would like to keep my player but unless the playback issues can be resolved I will have to return it in favour of a Yamada. Fingers crossed.

Anyone else had any luck with different media or combinations of settings??

RE: DivX player (MultiRegion maybe) £39 / £35 at whsmiths online

Good spot on the Skyworth firmware...

Just to add to everyone elses comments... Picked my player up today and have given it a quick run through. I too have found jerky playback on many Xvids- rendering them unwatchable. Strangely this hasn`t happened on any of the Divx I have tried.

I know its not the avi`s as they all work fine on my Medion MD40814 (which uses the ESS Vibratto II chipset rather than the Mediatek). Don`t know what others have found but it seems to go worse when there is more going on in the frame.

Have to say I am very disappointed... It being the feature that the player was bought for. Not sure if I dare try the firmware upgrade.... Maybe it would be worth giving Skyworth an e-mail... Though after last time they informed me that all mail should in future go to WH Smith.

May just have to go back to the shop for a refund and accept that its worth paying more.

Regards

Bob.C

This item was edited on Thursday, 16th December 2004, 00:48

RE: Medion MD40814 Divx Player - NEW FIRMWARE AT LAST!!!!

Hello MJC,

Afraid I can`t update you on the multi-region isue as I have had no updates myself... I am still waiting.
I ended up crumbling and udated my player with the new firmware. I can confirm; like other posters, that it does indeed lock you to Region 2 :-( However, unlike others, mine has remained Macrovision free on DVD and Divx.... Most strange....

The updating took numerous tries and did make the player sound like a car trying to start- resulting in the first disc getting scratched by the drive!!! After changing numerous settings, I discovered that the player didn`t like discs with little info on them- so I put the firmware on with some other crap and... hey Presto it worked. I must say though that in the process the drive has become unbalanced and now vibrates a little.

On the plus side, since updating it now reads discs much faster when you first put them in the drive. Prior to the update it was having increasing problems reading CD-RW; sometimes taking up to a minute to read a CD.

As another poster mentioned, compatibility has greatly increased. Xvid seems much better supported with generally no break up of picture or pixellation. Still no support for Qpel & GMC but this is due to the hardware rather than the firmware. Also, some non-standard sized Divx that previously didn`t work now pose no problems.

In addition to this, the time display is no longer on by default and subtitle selection (.srt) has now been allocated to the subtitle button instead of the Angle button.

A new feature has appeared in the menu that would appear to affect image processing, offering options such as auto, film, video and smart.... Haven`t a clue what it does and I certainly can`t see any difference.

Jpeg browsing has been made quicker with progressive jpegs no longer taking an age to load.... just one pass now and it is done. Also the thumbnail feature has been cosmetically enhanced. It hasn`t however improved support for larger file sizes; photos from my 3.2mp Kodak are shown with a rough scan that looses all the detail. You seem to have to drop down to 600k before it can manage the full detail.

So ultimately its a trade off... loose multi-region to gain in every other area. I would say that if you can possibly forego it then it is well worth it- as long as you have another multi-region in the house.

As for the issue of your discs not playing anymore - that to me sounds like a burner issue. When my last CD writer started to fail, the first sign was difficult to read discs that would sometimes take an age to read in my DVD-ROM drive. It could also be that the laser is getting tired in the Medion (as mine seemed to)... I am guess that the servo settings have been adjusted in the new firmware to account for this as that problem has gone now.

Hope this is some help. Don`t give up in the search for a region code. I look at least once a week - having tried every other Medion code and ones for a multitude of other Divx players too.

Merry Christmas

Bob.C

RE: Skyworth DIVX DVD Player available for £29.99!!!!

Hello All,

Well having debated about this player when it was £50 I`ve been unable to resist at £30... Having done so, I decided to look into the matter of firmware upgrades a little further. I sent an e-mail to Skyworth (to various addresses on the website) stating that through WHSmith there would likely be a big installed user base of their hardware in the UK. I mentioned that it is fairly common practice for makers of Divx hardware to periodically provide firmware updates to sort out any bugs. I also suggested that potential buyers are often swayed by the knowledge that updates will be made available.... For all of this I had little hope of hearing anything back - To my surprise I received a response this morning:-

Dear Customer

Thank you for your email and support to our player.

Normally we don`t reply to end user, because we are a manufacture in Mainland China, and our role is providing service to the distributor like WHSMITH.

For the DIVX update, normally we will only update the firmware by the request of our distributor, so that your comments is very useful and valuable.

I will forward your mail to WHSMITH, and I believe some of their customers service will help you, so that if you find out any problems with our player regarding to the software problems, please directly send your mail to WHSMITH and they will conclude the problems to us and we will provide a new firmware for the end users.

Once again we are thank you for your valuable advice and hope that you can enjoy your player

Thank you
Best Regards

So, it would seem the manufacturers aren`t ruling it out, but they won`t provide updates unless there is demand from WHSmith. Now its a long shot, but I wonder whether repeated e-mail requests might produce some results. Just not sure who they should be directed to within Smiths?? I have listed the player on http://www.videohelp.com, so it might be an idea for everyone to report their results & any issues they have with the player on there. If there is enough demand then the link could be sent sent to WHSmith so they can look into the matter further?? What does everyone else think?

On the other hand, having not got my hands on the player yet, perhaps for £30 its worth putting up with any problems... Then in a year upgrade the firmware by buying a new player :-)

Just "talking off the top of my hair-do" (quote - Victoria Wood) anyway.

Hope the above is of some help to folks.

Merry Christmas :-)

Bob.C

This item was edited on Thursday, 9th December 2004, 12:49

RE: Skyworth DIVX DVD Player available for £29.99!!!!

Paull, the most understandable answer is that GMC (Global Motion Compensation) & Qpel (Quarter Pixel Motion Compensation) are more advanced attributes that can be applied when encoding in MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid, 3vix etc.), whilst still coming under the Advanced Simple Profile banner.
The important bit is that the resultant file, MB for MB, has superior picture quality. If you wish to know the science behind it then all the info you could ever want is at

http://www.videohelp.com

The increased complexity of these files however means that some Divx chipsets are unable to decode the file. I currently have a player based on the ESS Vibratto II (as found in Philips, Crystal & Medion players) and it is unable to show anything with these attributes. They read the disc then display a message say "Qpel Codec Not Supported".

As far as I know, the only chipset that currently supports these features is the Mediatek; as found in Yamada 6600. Not sure what the Yamada 6700 has in it but I gather its a newer revision that has even more bells and whistles (maybe someone can flesh this point out for me??). The Yamada site stated before launch that there was support for Divx Pro but I see that has since been removed as the product has come to market.

Original point anyway is that if it supports these features then you have increased compatibility.

Hope this helps.

Bob.C

This item was edited on Wednesday, 8th December 2004, 16:46

RE: Skyworth DIVX DVD Player available for £29.99!!!!

Was wondering; knowing that this is alot to ask for £30....
But does anyone whos bought this player recently know whether it supports Qpel, GMC and/or B frames..... Just that my current one doesn`t and whatever I get next really needs to. Plus I am trying to legitimate spending on myself when at this time of year I should be thinking of others (maybe the cat would like a Divx player for Christmas).

Ta very much for any advice you can give.

Bob.C

This item was edited on Wednesday, 8th December 2004, 13:08

RE: Medion MD40814 Divx Player - NEW FIRMWARE AT LAST!!!!

Hello All,

Apologies for the delay in an update but to be honest there has been little movement on either Amazon`s or Medion`s part.

After over a week of nothing from Amazon, I decided to send the e-mail again with a note added informing them of my disappointment at hearing nothing. I promptly got a reply which read as follows.... (Couldn`t highlight in blue as Firefox doesn`t support it).

I apologise for the delay in responding to your e-mail message.
Please be assured that all of us here are working very hard to provide
a thorough, personal reply to each of our customers as quickly as
possible.

I want to inform you that if you plan to watch non-UK discs (i.e.,
non-region 2) on an old television they may not play in colour. This
is because UK televisions output a PAL signal and other countries
output an NTSC or some other signal on the basis of their region.
Without getting too technical it`s all down to the signal frequency
and the amount of frames per second each standard plays--PAL and NTSC
or other signals run at different rates. This isn`t an issue with new
televisions as most of these are "multi-standard" and are capable of
displaying both PAL and NTSC signals in colour. Please know that it
is clearly mentioned on the website.

If you`re unsure about whether your television will output an NTSC
signal in colour, our recommendation is that you purchase a DVD
player such as the "Medion MD40814 DivX Multi-region DVD player" that
can convert an NTSC signal to what is known as Pseudo-PAL or PAL60.
This basically converts an NTSC signal into a modified PAL signal--
although it won`t work on all televisions. If your television has
multiple video input connections, you may find that NTSC is only
possible from one video input-- consult your television manual for
more information on this.

Furthermore if you wish to return the item back to us for a refund.
Please make sure that you complete the "Reason for Return" section on
the back of the packing slip. If you are returning an item because of
an error on our part or because it is defective, please clearly state
the specific reason why you have had to return the item, or what the
fault with it is. We will be happy to refund the delivery charges
incurred in sending the item to you and your costs in returning it to
us. Otherwise, you will be responsible for those charges and the
costs of any other services provided to you in connection with your
purchase, for example giftwrapping.

So it would seem that the helpful person who received my e-mail hadn`t understood a word of what I was saying... At least they tried & ran it through an auto reply service :-).

At this point I almost gave up...... But then didn`t; instead sending a grovelling e-mail to Medion in the hope that with some further research or by contacting the German HQ, they may come up with something...

Here is the response:-

Dear Sir,

As I tried to make clear in the last mail, we really, genuinely
honestly, cross my heart and hope to die don`t have any codes for this.

When the machines left us they were region 2. When they left Amazon
they were multi-region. The only people who can help you are Amazon.

Regards,

So, still no joy, though it did provide a smile at the desperate tone of "leave us alone" coming from Medion UK. I am becoming a bit of an annoyance for them I think with my begging mail so I can understand it.

Now, by this point I have invested some time and a fair amount of impatience in this matter so I cannot give up..... Result = Another letter to Amazon, clarifying what it is I wish to know.... Highlighting the fact that on their website it states that the player has been "Modified" to be Multi-Region. Therefore someone must know what the procedure is (Arghhhhhhh!!!!!).

Response to date =

Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk with your question.

We will need to research this a bit further and will write again soon
with an answer.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.co.uk.

Warmest regards

And that takes us up to last Wednesday..... So I await with as much anticipation as I have about whether Christmas will be white. But you never know.....

Before I go, just wanted to say thanks Bob Arctor for posting what you have found out about the new firmware. I think in the end I will just have to go down your path and put up with Region 2 and Macrovision as a trade off against increased compatibility.

Regards to anyone who is reading,

Bob.C

RE: DivX player (MultiRegion maybe) £39 / £35 at whsmiths online

Hello,

Seen it in store and its a lovely looking machine & seems heavy and well built (though this could just be coz they filled it with bricks to give an air of quality).
Has two Mic inputs for Karaoke though no mention on the box as to whether it supports CD+G... Not a problem if your collection is on VCD or DVD though.
There`s a full compliment of connectors on the back including a set of phono jacks for the 5.1.
The boxes I saw in the trafford centre strangely had no mention of Divx compatibility in the print- rather it was on a tiny sticker slapped on the front; almost like it was a secondary feature!!!
Anyway.... I can`t find much out about it online at all... though purely as a guess, it seems to have an air of Yamada about it (i.e. the internal gubbins being the same)... Don`t quote me though.

Here is a link for the the manufacturers website...

http://www.skyworth-smi.com/English/avproducts/DVD.htm

Nothing is given away about it really.... and there certainly doesn`t look like there would be any firmware support.

The company is also registered with Divx.com so I guess their players must have passed the certification process.

Hope this info is of some help.

regards.

Bob.C

This item was edited on Friday, 19th November 2004, 21:02

RE: Medion MD40814 Divx Player - NEW FIRMWARE AT LAST!!!!

The Latest Developments In The Firmware Chase:-

Hello again, just thought I would bob back in with an update.... I finally got a reply from Medion so may be they are not that bad after all. Here is the main body of it...

Thank you for your message. I apologise for the slow response and thank
you for your patience. We currently have a backlog of technical queries
and are dealing with them in strict date order.

Amazon made this player region free, when they leave us they are region
2. You would need to contact them about any problems you have with
this.

I hope this information is helpful to you but please feel free to
contact us again if problems persist or if you have further concerns or
questions.

Regards,

So it would seem that on the face of it Medion strictly adhere to the Region Code thingy... however, I am sure it wasn`t guess work on Amazon`s part which allowed them to unlock the player. So I figure a handset hack must be available. Thus I have sent this to Amazon:-

Dear Sir/Madam,
Back in May I purchased the Medion MD40814 Multi Region Divx player from you. I have been most pleased with the product up to now & it has proved a bargain.

Recently Medion have posted a firmware update on their website to make the player more stable and compatible which I thought was excellent news. However, posts on line quickly revealed that the update removed the Multiregion functionality.

I contacted Medion to see if they would release a version of the update that would retain the Multi region functionality of the player, stating that I bought it from Amazon as Multiregion and wish to do the update but keep this feature. Here is the response I received:-

blah blah blah (insert letter from above)
Thus, I was wondering if you could send me instructions on how to make the player to multi region once again, whether it be though a remote handset code or a specific revision of firmware that Medion exclusively provided to Amazon.
Up to now I have been tearing my hair out :-) trying to search for a solution, until Medion pointed me back to yourselves. I hope against hope that you can finally solve this issue for me.

Thankyou so much in advance, and I look forward to your reply.

yours sincerely,

I kept the tone slighty grovelling in the hope it would help :-) So now I wait with baited breath for the response..... though I have to say I don`t hold out much hope.

I shall keep y`all posted.

Regards,

Bob.C

RE: Medion MD40814 Divx Player - NEW FIRMWARE AT LAST!!!!

Firstly, thanks Jimbo for the response... I knew about the macrovision thing but the position on multi-region players seemed less clear to me. Just odd that manufacturers sell players region locked through some re-sellers yet others sell unmodded multiregion versions of the same machine.

Now the update...... I`m guessing that not many of you own one of these Divx players and went more sensibly for the Yamada DVX6600 (n.b.- you seen the DVX6700 that is coming next month - sounds v good).
However, for those that do ---- I have now mailed Medion three times requesting info on the firmware update and had no response!!! Terrible customer support it would seem. I could understand if they just responded telling me that they aren`t allowed to provide info on hacks, but to say nothing is just poor!!

I have also trawled the net for hours looking for a hack and come up with nothing. I have even tried all known Medion remote hacks for other players and no joy. Going along the lines that it may be a generic Divx player with a Medion badge I have also tried hacks for various other brands of Divx player......And guess what..... Nada....

So my search hits a brick wall and unless Medion suddenly decide I am worthy of their help, it looks like firmware updates will be out of bounds. I dont want to rule out playing half of my DVD collection that is region 1.
Needless to say a lesson has been learned- the next time I decide to get a new player, I shall pass Medion by in favour of Yamada; who seem to show good support to their customers.

Rant over :)

ttfn

Bob.C :D

RE: Medion MD40814 Divx Player - NEW FIRMWARE AT LAST!!!!

Back with an update.....

I also posted this message on http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers.php?DVDnameid=4215&Search=Search&#comments and have had a response. It would seem that the new firmware sets the region code at 2 and from searching the web there doesn`t appear to be a remote hack to change this. Thus, if multi region is important to you, don`t update your firmware for the moment.

I decided to email Medion UK about this matter and await a response... It seems odd to me that Amazon.co.uk can sell this player region free and yet Medion seem unable to provide firmware updates that are too.... They can`t even provide a handset code though they don`t deny there is one (or so I have read on other forums). Does anyone know why this might be???

Regards

Bob.C

Medion MD40814 Divx Player - NEW FIRMWARE AT LAST!!!!

Hello all,

Just been searching for firmware updates for the MD40814 (the one that was £50 at Amazon) as I have done every month since May..... and.... Hoorah!! found one!!!

Released just over a week ago, Its available at http://www.medion.de in the updates section- just input the model number in the search box.

Ran the text through Babelfish to see if it gave any info on whats been changed but had no joy; just lots of warnings about doing the update right. There are two flavours of the firmware available and should be used according to the serial number of your machine.

Heres the rub though..... I haven`t tried it as currently my player is both region & macrovision free and I have no clue as to whether this update would change that (REALLY don`t want to loose the macrovision free).
I thought of emailing Medion for further info though not sure its worth it as last time I tried to contact them I heard nothing back.

So is anyone else less cowardly than me??? Willing to give this update a try or can provide any more info on it.....

Look forward to any responses... knowing all on here are a friendly & helpful bunch.

Regards

Lenoxx HT600 - Potential Issues / Problems

Hello all...

Thanks to the positive comments on here I decided to go ahead and purchase the Lenoxx HT600 at the weekend and in general am happy with it. However, I have a couple of issues with it and was wondering whether they are unique to my player. Hope someone can advise...

When playing MP3 files the first couple of seconds are often cut off the track though if you rewind it will play them. This is on both VBR and CBR. This also seems to be the case for the first track on some audio CD`s.

JPEG images are displayed with NTSC style borders and so image ratio is slightly distorted.

When adjusting the individual speaker volumes in Dolby Pro-Logic, the rear speakers do not seem to retain settings when you move through the menu to the next speaker. It would seem that although it allows you to adjust the vol. seperately, they default back to the setting of the louder of the two (does the above make any sense?!?!). This is not the case in DD or DTS though. It would be handy to have seperate volume control so as to compensate for uneven speaker positioning.

The built in tuner seems to need a strong signal to be of any use as often it seems to lock on to a signal, only to play buzz and hiss.

I would be interested to hear of other`s experiences.

I have put a similar post on DVDRhelp.com and would recommend people post on there so that users may compare compatibility notes etc.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

Regards

Bob.C :)

P.S. Anyone thinking of purchasing one of these units should note that although it can be made multi region it does not support true 60hz NTSC refresh rate or Pal 60. Thus any foreign DVD`s played appear jittery as they are only using 50hz. Have double checked all the menu`s and there is definitely nowhere you can select the format. Just thought it would be of interest as I was dissapointed when I found out.