More T3 info required

[peteru]

No, I don't have any and I don't expect it to work just yet, given how new HEVC is.

[greggerz]

Thanks for the info everyone. I'd like to understand the IPTV features a little more. Would it be possible to use a service NetFlix, HULU, BBC IPlayer etc like you can on a PS3. Would Beyonwiz need to have an app store for this and if so what will be in it at launch or scheduled for the near future?

[cwiggles]

Here is the data sheet for the BCM7405
http://www.avs.org.cn/fruits/Doc/%E5%8D ... PB04-R.pdf
• HD/SD AVS Jizhun Profile Levels 2.0, 4.0, and 6.0 (720p and 1080i for HDTV)

So I gather from this (if the posted specs are correct) then it doesn't support 1080p?. Went to the Broadcom site but couldn't find the BCM7405 mentioned in any of their product lists. Will be a pity in some ways if it doesn't do 1080p but if the chipset is as old as Snuke indicates I suppose it's not surprising.

Craig

[peteru]

T3 plays back 1080p content. I played back 1080p MKV files with the output set to 1080i50 and 1080i60.

I've done some preliminary bitrate tests and while I don't have any definitive results, it looks like the breaking point is somewhere between 40 and 50 Mbps. That's not too shabby.

[Paul55]

So I gather from this (if the posted specs are correct) then it doesn't support 1080p?

This is exactly the sort of tangent that I feared when I read about the T3 being an entertainment epicentre or something similar. Surely its primary function is as a PVR and that should be the focus.
The same thing happened with the DP series - we read more about the things it doesn't excel at and the fact that it is a great and reliable PVR gets lost in the weeds. There are lots of excellent network media players on the market - if that's what's wanted, get one of those.
I just want my next PVR to be a brilliant recorder and player of FTA TV and to have the ability to use the recordings on my network - 1080p doesn't enter the equation. Anything else is a (welcome) bonus.

[snuke]

As Peter said, and he has posted a screen shot showing 1080P options, it does play 1080P. I had the same search, what I found is that it was approved for 1080P by the AVI people in 2006.

[cwiggles]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to bash the new unit because of the perceived lack of 1080p, just thought it a bit of a lost opportunity since it's been avail for some number of years now, and it is one of the check box options reviewers in tech mags will pick up on, esp if the competition supports it. However, PeterU's post indicates it can play 1080p videos which is good to here, and lets be honest, it's still streaks ahead over what the older BW's can do from a media player perspective. It will be interesting to see how the GUI stacks up. Despite the hate shown towards the GUI in the older DP range, I still find it easy and logical to use, so it will be nice if they have followed a similar design. Looking forward to some in-depth reviews once the units hit the shelves so to speak.

regards,


Craig

[SomebodyElse]

I started out as a vocal critic of the DP-S1 and Beyonwiz in general. As the firmware developed, it proved itself as a stable and reliable device, so much so that I added two DP-P2s to the network and counted myself as a Wiz fanboi. As the world moved onto more modern and efficient codecs, the Wizzes unfortunately become less and less viable as the home entertainment centre. I tried various combinations of media players in conjunction with the Wizzes, but with three set-ups around the home the complexity for the family just didn't cut it.

I reluctantly transitioned to Windows 7 Media Center, so I could still have a single box solution in each location. It's never been the perfect solution, and probably never will be, but it works well enough. But it is Windows, say no more!

So I have been impatiently awaiting the successor to the DP-S1/P2 units, whether from Beyonwiz, Topfield or some other player. When I heard about the T3, I really hoped this would be it, but I suspect not, sadly.

It's 2014, and I read that it's based on a 2008 chipset, really?! It's using USB 2 and fast ethernet rather than USB 3 and gig ethernet, really?! The previous models have lasted for about seven years, and have been showing their age for the last few. Buying something based on six year old technology and looking seven years into the future, that's not a great scenario! I read the debate about 100 meg being fast enough and USB 2 being fast enough, and I'm afraid that's the same thinking as the oft-quoted Bill Gates 640K comment. I used to copy stuff off the Wizzes a lot, and the slow speed did my head in. Today if I want to copy off one of the Media Center boxes it will do a full show in a couple of minutes, my gig ethernet is running at about 70% during that copy. That's seven times the maximum throughput of the T3!

Don't worry all you Beyonwiz veterans, I'm not coming back to pay out again! I simply wanted to express my disappointment that after such a long wait the replacement is already outdated.

[snuke]

I also feel it is disappointing to be using a 6 year old chipset. Broadcom do not make a newer one that suits though. Intel has a far newer one the ICE TV are going to be using in their own unit released later this year.

It seems that the T3 covers most all bases for now, but I do wonder if we will be in the same boat in two years time when it starts to struggle.
X265 playback is not confirmed yet, as it seems no one has a file to test.

[Raid]

Don't worry all you Beyonwiz veterans, I'm not coming back to pay out again!

Welcome back.

For those who may not know the Intel i7 was released in November 2008 making it the same age as the BCM7405, but that is beside the point.

This is still a current chip, used by other manufactures. Let us all wait and see what the product is like in the flesh.

[polak]

Re: 1080p, It appears that this unit can accept 1080p content, but does not output 1080p, It scales it down to 1080i, Is that correct?, by the way my dpp2 series 1 can play mkv's with a few hiccups every now and then and also iso's, I think it was the series 2 which went down hill in this regard.

[grl]

For those who may not know the Intel i7 was released in November 2008 making it the same age as the BCM7405, but that is beside the point.

This is still a current chip, used by other manufactures. Let us all wait and see what the product is like in the flesh.

That's drawing a long bow. The i7 has had multiple refreshes since release. I am with you on the wait and see approach, however. I really don't think lack of gigE is a problem. If you want to get stuff off a T3 in hurry, then don't put it there at all, record to NAS with gigE (and USB3) up front.

It can't be easy to build a device like this in a competitive market. Keeping HW costs down is a must so you can bump the retail device price up enough to cover software development costs. There are lots of cheap boxes out there, most of which are rubbish. The general public don't see that when they go shopping. They see the retail cost and the bling the box has. A few will look a bit deeper at features. And a very few do more intensive research by reading forums like this one. You need to sell enough boxes to make some profit, so capturing some of the general public sales is a must. Therefore a low retail price with enough profit built in is a must.

Besides that, is there a "high definition (HD) satellite, cable, and IP set-top box DVR System-on-Chip solution" available that has gigE and USB3. The quote is from the BCM7405 datasheet. The alternative to system on a chip would be a bigger multi-component, more expensive, power hungry device, wouldn't it?

[Raid]

For those who may not know the Intel i7 was released in November 2008 making it the same age as the BCM7405, but that is beside the point.

This is still a current chip, used by other manufactures. Let us all wait and see what the product is like in the flesh.

That's drawing a long bow. The i7 has had multiple refreshes since release.

You are correct, there are 3 main fabrication revisions of the i7 Core 45nm, 32nm & 22nm with frequent small revisions that they don't tell you about.

The BCM7405 was originally fabricated in 65nm, which at the time was a solid high yield process. This gives them high volume and low cost, this is the market imperative (note they may well have moved to a newer fabrication process, but they won't tell the public).

Back to the point.

PC based solutions (Windows Media Center, MythTV, HTPC etc) are for me, not an option. They all have high standby and run power consumption when compared to a dedicated unit. As the PVR is off more than its on, I want a unit with <1Watt standby and <50W running, this is very easy for all new PVR's to obtain.

I don't have a problem with offloading files from the S1 to my NAS because I batch them overnight, so speed is not important.
I like most have had problems playing some media on the S1, but I have also had problems with this on my PC (although not as often). What I generally do is run the file through "HandBrake" and it always provides a viewable version for me.

I'm happy to wait and see what is does.

[gra]

Questions for the Beta Testers
1.has the Production T3 hardware changed any from beta test units?

2.and with the future Firmware updates,
will there be an auto update from internet
and a downloadable update
so as to update manually or go back a revision if needed?

3.will the developer software be like an add-on / plugin / T3 app that can be downloaded to the T3 via a browser like GUI from a central store?
or a download from beyonwiz support site and manually installed?

4.will the smartphone apps be available around the time that the T3 is shipped?
and will there be both iphone and andriod apps?

5.how will Stream and View Multiple Live TV Channels over your Home Network to your PC or Laptop work? will you run that through a browser or a program ie VLC player?

Thanks Guys some great info from the testers

[prl]

Questions for the Beta Testers
1.has the Production T3 hardware changed any from beta test units?

There have been two test versions of the hardware. A small number of pre-production units were tested initially. Then a larger number of production units were made available. My understanding is that apart from some very minor changes, the units the beta testers are using at the moment will be what will be commercially available.

2.and with the future Firmware updates,
will there be an auto update from internet
and a downloadable update
so as to update manually or go back a revision if needed?

It has the capability to update and to add plugins from the internet. It can also do a complete overwrite of the firmware from a firmware upgrade package on a USB drive/stick. If these packages are also available, you could archive them yourself and use them to go back to earlier firmware. I have a pretty complete set of upgrades for the Beyonwiz model that I've owned. I don't know exactly how Beyonwiz intends to distribute firmware, but I suppose that they will need to have some way of upgrading T3s that aren't, for some reason, connected to the Internet. The fact that there's a T3 area on the Beyonwiz Downloads page indicates pretty strongly that firmware updates will be made available there.

3.will the developer software be like an add-on / plugin / T3 app that can be downloaded to the T3 via a browser like GUI from a central store?
or a download from beyonwiz support site and manually installed?

The source code for the T3 has been made available to the beta testers through a git source repository. So far, I've only worked on modifications to the T3 skin, but some of the other beta testers have been looking at the program source as well. My understanding is that read access will be made available publicly. I don't know what the process will be for user contribution to the firmware, but I understand there will be a process. There is a plugin API, and a mechanism for downloading packages froma pligin service. It's also possible to copy a plugin onto the HDD and install it from there.

4.will the smartphone apps be available around the time that the T3 is shipped?
and will there be both iphone and andriod apps?

None have been made available to beta testers. Any browser that can reach the T3 on the Internet can be used to do basic control via an built-in Web server on the T3, but it doesn't support playback.

5.how will Stream and View Multiple Live TV Channels over your Home Network to your PC or Laptop work? will you run that through a browser or a program ie VLC player?

The T3 can be set up as a Windows Sharing server (Samba), NFS server and/or DLNA server. VLC should allow you to play back recordings on the PC using DLNA, but I haven't personally tried that. If you mount the T3's HDD as a Windows share on a PC, you should be able to do anything to the recordings that a PC can do to a file on a Windows share (including play the recordings using VLC).

[gra]

Thanks Peter
Fantastic stuff

[peteru]

The T3 web interface has buttons you can click for streaming content from the tuners or recorded on the T3. When you click on one of those buttons, the T3 serves a playlist which points to a HTTP served stream.

It's pretty simple to set an association in your web browser to a player that understands M3U playlists and can stream content via HTTP, such as VLC.

[prl]

I'll just make an assumption that it [DST transition] works properly. The software that the T3 is built on has a European legacy, which means that it would have been tested through a few DST transitions.

The T3 EPG for Sunday 6 April after the DST transition looks correct (e.g. ABC 1 Evening news at 19:00 local time). The EPG timeline for early Sunday morning is: 00:00, 01:00, 02:00, 02:00, 03:00, i.e a 25-hour day. I'll set some timers for after the transition and check that they run properly.