HD100 - LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!!

[showson1]

Ok, first of all to those complaining about the ordering. I ordered mine (shipping via UPS ground) on Thursday, it shipped on Friday and got here Monday.

I hooked it up, did the firmware upgrade, set it for HDMI and... (this will sound like an Apple commercial ripoff) it just worked!

I had an MVP, but when we got our HDTV I stopped using it to focus on a solution for playing my media with an HD box. I tried several different boxes and settled on the Netgear EVA8000... however it wouldn't play the videos from my camera (even though they're MP4), the pictures displayed really slowly and some other little problems, but I loved it.
I'll be putting the MVP in our "work out room" since we only have an SD TV in there.

After hooking up the HD100, I will be putting my EVA8000 on Ebay tomorrow.
This thing plays all my media flawlessly!
The EVA8000 would stutter and struggle with some HD content, I haven't been able to get the HD100 to choke on any of my media files.. everything looks beautiful and plays beautifully... plus we have another device to watch TV if something is being recorded in the living room (I'm sorry I just CAN"T give up my Tivo).

.. I should say I can't give up my Tivo YET, I may end up ditching now that I have an HD extender.

This unit is great and the WAF has gone through the roof!

[Fluffdaddy]

So you like it then?

[timnelsonic]

I echo Showson1's comments: The HD extender is great and just plain works. I love that the server doesn't have to transcode mp4 videos anymore -- I have a rather large video collection -- freeing up the processor to do other more important stuff (com skip, etc.).

I've had a glitch or two, but I'm not sure if they were caused by the extender or my server, as I'm doing a lot of experimentation with my setup at the moment. In any case, it's minor stuff and absolutely nothing to fret over.

BTW, I'm using mine with Linksys PLE200 powerline network adapters. No streaming issues at all, even with HD, although I haven't really stress-tested the system yet. After I've beat the system up some more I'll post separately about these adapters.

[showson1]

Originally Posted by Fluffdaddy

So you like it then?

Oh yeah.. did I mention that I love it?

[thomaszoo]

I received mine yesterday and had no issues setting up the extender itself (component cables, SPDIF, network and power). My problems were that the SPDIF cable was bad (an old one, but I had another old one that is working just fine) and getting my MX-850 remote setup how I like it. I think there is still some tweaking of the remote to do, but the extender itself is working great! I did a firmware update (which took less time than the tweaking of the remote), loaded a few STVi's and then set the overscan for the menus. The total time minus the remote and the bad cable diagnosis was about 10 minutes.

I did have one recording that didn't want to play, but I suspect there is something wrong with it. All else is working just like my MVP, but in HD!

Wayne

[ybrew]

Hooked mine up today. Took a few minutes only. Worked perfectly.

I too LOVE LOVE LOVE it.

how do I upgrade the firmware though?

[gplasky]

Power off and on from back switch. Wait and watch for screen and press OK button on remote within 5 seconds when it tells you to. Choose upgrade firmware from settings menu.

Gerry

[BFisher]

Or (if I remember right), when the unit is powered off (with remote), press the home button (on the remote). When it comes back up, you are at the config screen.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by ybrew

how do I upgrade the firmware though?

There is a printed manual in the box with the HD100, which exlpains how to update the firmware, plus there is a FAQ thread that has firmware update & recovery procedures as one of the topics.


Edit:

Just to clarify... You don't need to use the power switch or wait 5 seconds to do a firmware update:

Originally Posted by gplasky

Power off and on from back switch. Wait and watch for screen and press OK button on remote within 5 seconds when it tells you to. Choose upgrade firmware from settings menu.

This one gets you to the extender's servers menu, where you can then proceed to the Settings menu:

Originally Posted by BFisher

Or (if I remember right), when the unit is powered off (with remote), press the home button (on the remote). When it comes back up, you are at the config screen.

- Andy

[ybrew]

Thanks. I did search the forums, but missed the faqs. I also had did get the manual, but glanced at it very quickly and missed it.


I need to get at least one or two more of these.

[valnar]

I got my two. So far so good! 'twas a long wait.

More to come later this weekend after I test everything out.

Robert

[Serra]

I got my two today and it took about 30 minutes to set them up and get the new firmware installed.

I think my wife, who is very not very quick to adapt to new things summed it up. She said about SageTV and HD-100, "Its like Tivo, ReplayTV and her DirecTV dvr all rolled into one, but better." That was a very glowing endorsement of the SageTV product.

I can honestly say that I set up two of them and tested both and didn't have a single issue, beyond needed an extra LAN cord (the one provided was too short) and having to go back and enable commercial skip.

These things are more plug-and-play than any DVR type item I've ever had.

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by valnar

I got my two. So far so good! 'twas a long wait.

More to come later this weekend after I test everything out.

Robert

I didn't realize more were available. Just ordered another one (wanted to start with 1 first). Didn't realize how good this device was. My plan was to put it in my media room, but after seeing it for just a few minutes, realized I wanted one in my family room as well.

While the remote isn't very good, the options available with the buttons (instant access to Delete) are cool.
And watching HD on an SD TV is still a huge improvement over my SD Signal.

[valnar]

I noticed immediately that the color/brightness/saturation quality was much better than the Hauppauge SD MVP. It's almost as good as my Radeon 2600 Pro in my HTPC.

Robert

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Serra

I think my wife, who is very not very quick to adapt to new things summed it up. She said about SageTV and HD-100, "Its like Tivo, ReplayTV and her DirecTV dvr all rolled into one, but better." That was a very glowing endorsement of the SageTV product.

I can honestly say that I set up two of them and tested both and didn't have a single issue, beyond needed an extra LAN cord (the one provided was too short) and having to go back and enable commercial skip.

These things are more plug-and-play than any DVR type item I've ever had.

Unfortunately, I have not received mine yet - but as of now, the UPS tracking says "out for delivery", which means it will probably arrive on my doorstep around 5:45 pm tonight!

But I installed the SageTV software on my server PC this past weekend, and showed my wife briefly (though I have no intention of watching TV on the PC in the future, and it does not have the specs to handle HD viewing at all). Just from the onscreen window in which I showed her the interface, she was absolutely ecstatic. From what she could see, it was just like our Tivo, plus has MP3 and video capabilities from the PC and even the online video surfing. I received many compliments for "discovering" this option, to allow us to ditch the Tivo and go OTA.

I have the cables all fished and I'm ready to hook them up tonight when they arrive. If all goes well, she'll be able to watch her "American Idol" in HD on the Extender this very evening.

[mrwolf]

Mine came today and while I was unsure in the first 15 minutes after I hooked it up, after I went through the settings and used it a little, OMG! I am amazed. For those who haven't seen my other posts about what I've done, I recently upgraded to HD with DirecTV and I'm coming out of the composite video of the HD receivers to my SageTV servers. This way I get far better SD video quality than I did using the regular SD receivers. I was pretty happy with what I was getting with PC clients, but OMG, the HD extender is incredible. On HD channels I get full 16:9 video even though it's coming through the composite input and the quality is the best I've seen short of DVD or HD.

I *CAN'T WAIT* for the HD-PVR!!

[heffneil]

I just got mine and unboxed it. I don't have sage implemented but I am anxious to do so. I am a little disappointed that the unit doesn't have 1000 Mbit (gigabit) network capabilities. Has anyone measure network consumption of the most network intensive stream which would prove that I am just a complainer

Thanks!

Neil

[mrwolf]

Originally Posted by heffneil

I just got mine and unboxed it. I don't have sage implemented but I am anxious to do so. I am a little disappointed that the unit doesn't have 1000 Mbit (gigabit) network capabilities. Has anyone measure network consumption of the most network intensive stream which would prove that I am just a complainer

Thanks!

Neil

Funny...I've been working in I.T. so long I don't even think about anything coming without GB network any more. I had no idea it was not GB. I've been watching and playing with mine for a couple hours and I've been watching OTA HD on it this evening with no problems.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by heffneil

I just got mine and unboxed it. I don't have sage implemented but I am anxious to do so. I am a little disappointed that the unit doesn't have 1000 Mbit (gigabit) network capabilities. Has anyone measure network consumption of the most network intensive stream which would prove that I am just a complainer

Thanks!

Neil

Just do some basic math. The largest television video streams (1080i) use a maximum of 9GB per hour recorded. This equates out to approximately 2.56 MB/s or about 20 mb/s. This makes anything greater than 100mb connections useless for this sort of thing. Even if television started to use 1080P and if that doubles the bandwidth needed, that would still be only 40mb/s which again is well below the 100mb connection. No need for GB ethernet connector for this device. It would just be an added expense.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by heffneil

I just got mine and unboxed it. I don't have sage implemented but I am anxious to do so. I am a little disappointed that the unit doesn't have 1000 Mbit (gigabit) network capabilities. Has anyone measure network consumption of the most network intensive stream which would prove that I am just a complainer

Thanks!

Neil

You won't come close to 100Mb.

Robert