The neuston VIRTUOSO MC-500

[Jack Tan]

The new thing. Not an MPEG-4 player. Supports MPEG-4

COPIED THIS BIT FROM THEIR WEBSITE. THINK THEY CAN EXPLAIN IT BETTER THAN I CAN!

The Virtuoso MC-500 was created with the user in mind. As a debut product of the Virtuoso series, the MC-500 sets the new platform for media files playback from multiple computers through wireless or wired network. Simply download movies from the internet through a computer, keep them available on your hard disk and the MC-500 will retrieve these files for playback on your television. The MC-500 allows you to enjoy internet movies and digital content on television so you never have to watch them on a computer monitor again.

Comprehensive Video, Audio and Picture formats

Supporting multiple formats and digital media, the Virtuoso MC-500 is everything you need to enjoy networked home entertainment in your home or office. The MC-500 is capable of MPEG-4 playback. It can connect wirelessly to your computer, and it even allows you to enjoy internet surfing on a television or home theater setup.

[Jack Tan]

Found a review on this new wireless MPEG-4 player unit. Seems to be a much easier way of playing MPEG-4 video on this unit than the MAESTRO DVX-1201 and DivX Players alike.

http://www.neuston.com/en/HWM_Feb2004.pdf

[andw]

I must admit, the idea is good, but I would still like to be able to put a disc in it...

[buts]

Originally Posted by andw

I must admit, the idea is good, but I would still like to be able to put a disc in it...

Maybe this idea is good for some people but I don't like it. The main reason why I bought DivX player is a possibility to power up the unit in few secs, drop the disk and forget about that. I have many DivX cartoons which my little daughter requires every day. And I was really sick of powering my PC,
logging Windows, opening the player, setting TV display ... each time.
Now it is simple and easy with XMS888 and I don't care about expensive networking units. What's the point to buy DivX player which transfers data
from PC ? I can just play it on PC and transfer A/V signal with a wireless
transmitter if I want to.

[Jack Tan]

Originally Posted by buts

Maybe this idea is good for some people but I don't like it. The main reason why I bought DivX player is a possibility to power up the unit in few secs, drop the disk and forget about that. I have many DivX cartoons which my little daughter requires every day. And I was really sick of powering my PC,
logging Windows, opening the player, setting TV display ... each time.
Now it is simple and easy with XMS888 and I don't care about expensive networking units. What's the point to buy DivX player which transfers data
from PC ? I can just play it on PC and transfer A/V signal with a wireless
transmitter if I want to.

'Now it is simple and easy with XMS888.' - Sounds like a sales pitch.

Your points are noted however perhaps the concept is not quite understood. The possibilities of a Media Centre (called that for a reason) are unlimited. With the base model being built, tlak of subsequent models to build on this platform is mind boggling. The introduction of the Digital personal Video Recorder is on the cards, either recording on a hard drive inside a device or even using your PC's hard drive.

For those of you that do not switch on your PC 24 hours a day, I understand the waiting time to boot up however for those who do (like me!) its a walk in the park. I bought a DivX player 12 months ago and not switched it on since owning a Media Centre.

Wireless transmission of an A/V receiver?

Firstly, you would definitely not ahve the same quality output. Remember that Media Centres these days support not only composite video but also component and DVI.

Secondly, if you paly it off your PC, how are you going to control the video. Such as Play, Stop and so forth. Get up, walk to your PC wherever it may be, FWD or REW, and then go abck to your television? I guess if you could be bothered than sure thing buddy.

'If you want to.'

[jokiin]

I think the point is that there are a number of ways of achieving the same end result, what suits me might be different to what suits you, as long as there are a variety of products there will always be something for everyone. One of these mc-500's would be nice to play with, I have pc's that are on 24/7 so it would be easy, trouble is I get that much eval product that I'm always changing stuff around anyway. They do have their place though.

[foultaste]

Originally Posted by Jack Tan

'Now it is simple and easy with XMS888.' - Sounds like a sales pitch.

Hi Jack,

Whilst we are on the topic of sales pitches, are you affiliated with Neuston in any way?

Cheers,

Foul.

[andw]

I think the media center idea is great - I just simply want to be able to put a disc in it as well.....

[foultaste]

Originally Posted by andw

I think the media center idea is great - I just simply want to be able to put a disc in it as well.....

I considered the media centre myself, however, I realised if all my media was hard disc bound, I was going to need way more than the 150gb of measly storage I have currently.

Grabbing movies, burning them off on a cheap 30c cd and clearing my disk is the only way to go. The cost per megabyte with blank media is way less than a cent. When you compare this to the cost per megabyte on Harddisks it quickly becomes clear that it is not cost effective to archive all your movies on a hard disks.

I liked the concept of the mc500 but not the harsh realities of media housing costs.

Cheers,

Foul.

[Jack Tan]

Originally Posted by foultaste

Hi Jack,

Whilst we are on the topic of sales pitches, are you affiliated with Neuston in any way?

Cheers,

Foul.

Ha ha. I sense an element of hostility however, no I am not but it seems that there may be a few XMS supporters in this forum.

I have always thought that this forum had few choices on topics of conversations and with remarks like that, I'm happy to share my views else where.

Why do we not talk about other MPEG-4 consumer products available in Australia that are not XMS?

[jokiin]

Originally Posted by Jack Tan

Ha ha. I sense an element of hostility however, no I am not but it seems that there may be a few XMS supporters in this forum.

I have always thought that this forum had few choices on topics of conversations and with remarks like that, I'm happy to share my views else where.

Why do we not talk about other MPEG-4 consumer products available in Australia that are not XMS?

I have to admit that I thought the same before due to the Neuston being your favourite subject, however I think it's more a case of you love the thing that much you can't stop talking about it. If it's working good for you why not, it would be nice if all products were so trouble free.

I'm sure that there will be plenty of other product to talk about real soon (hence the Divx & stuff forum), I think the abundance of xms related stuff is only due to the fact that it was the first widely available product and has had a very rapid uptake in the Australian market, I'm sure that this will balance out in time and not look so xms focused, we just need more products. They are coming.

[foultaste]

Originally Posted by Jack Tan

Ha ha. I sense an element of hostility however, no I am not but it seems that there may be a few XMS supporters in this forum.

I have always thought that this forum had few choices on topics of conversations and with remarks like that, I'm happy to share my views else where.

Why do we not talk about other MPEG-4 consumer products available in Australia that are not XMS?

Hi Jack,

There was no hostility intended, unless you had answered 'Yes'

Just browse back over your posts. Your posts read more like a sales pitch than that of an avid enthusiast. I guess from Jok11n's response I was not the only one who thought that.

As you know this is not only anXMS forum, I for one am hanging to get more first hand info on other newer models with more features, however I would hazard a guess currently that thats why the majority come here.

Seeing as you are clearly an early adopter of the Neuston products, perhaps it would be beneficial to all if you started posting a bit of incite into how you find your Neuston products day-to-day rather pasting marketing blurb from the Neuston site and documents.

I for one would be first interested to know what was wrong with the 1201 that made you change it for a MC500? Perhaps a mini review of the products when you have time that gives us a balance of the pros and cons also?

Cheers,

Foul.

[Jack Tan]

Originally Posted by foultaste

Hi Jack,

There was no hostility intended, unless you had answered 'Yes'

Just browse back over your posts. Your posts read more like a sales pitch than that of an avid enthusiast. I guess from Jok11n's response I was not the only one who thought that.

As you know this is not only anXMS forum, I for one am hanging to get more first hand info on other newer models with more features, however I would hazard a guess currently that thats why the majority come here.

Seeing as you are clearly an early adopter of the Neuston products, perhaps it would be beneficial to all if you started posting a bit of incite into how you find your Neuston products day-to-day rather pasting marketing blurb from the Neuston site and documents.

I for one would be first interested to know what was wrong with the 1201 that made you change it for a MC500? Perhaps a mini review of the products when you have time that gives us a balance of the pros and cons also?

Cheers,

Foul.

Okay, thats fine then. I found with the DVX-1201 and all other MPEG-4 DivX players that the compatibility of codecs was far superior on the MC-500. It seems as if the firmware updates are a lot more complete. I realised also that although its cheaper perhaps to store your movie data on CD's, it disallows you from having one large file, for example a 1GB file in XVID because the quality with this sorta thing is really cool. It wouldnt fit on a normal CD-R therefore making it a little harder. After taking the lid off the products, also realised that its all SIGMA driver, supposedly better or so I read.

I understand the opposing views on the MC-500 as when I bought the DivX player, I thought it was really awesome and that the wireless hard drive idea was just annoying and inconvenient but when you do ahve it, its a whole different ball game. It really dictates the phrase, control at your fingertips. The function of internet radio was also equally appealing. Lets you connect via preset channels, or you can set your own too. I especially liked the jazz presets, pretty funky stuff.

I wouldnt exactly recommend anyone buying the DVX-1201 anymore, or any product of its sort after owning a Media Centre.

Thats my 2 cents worth.

[Jack Tan]

After my last post, ive been doing some serious hardcore surfing as to figure out what is out there in the future. I think that we can all agree that so far, the only two genre's of consumer electronic products that are MPEG-4 enabled are in fact MPEG-4 DVD Players (so many brands its impossible to track) and Media Centres (neuston/Pinnacle/Play@TV and many others which I think are OEM's from other manufacturers. Think there's about 15 maunfacturers out there now.)

I was just wondering whether anyone knew what the new ESS chipsets are going to be able to do. Ive always been a SIGMA based buyer so I figure, if im so interested to see where I think guys like neuston are going with their products, I can just go and look into SIGMA's newer chipsets and their capabilities, then knowing what the newer products have the potential to do. However, dont know much about ESS. All I know so far is that its DivX 3.11 playback seems a little better than SIGMA's.

ANyone care to shed a little light on the matter?

Perhaps the DivX DVD Players and Media centres are not the end of it!

[Jack Tan]

After the release of the latest firmware for the MC-500, new features have been added once more. It now takes USB thumdrives, portable hard drives and card readers for easy plug and play usage should you not want to upload data on your PC!

The MC-500 also has volume control but I reckon its relatively useless.

Other refinements include support for mp3 playlists and just cool stuff to make the product better.

Check it out for those who own it! And for those who dont, get one if you like the concept!

[andw]

Originally Posted by Jack Tan

After the release of the latest firmware for the MC-500, new features have been added once more. It now takes USB thumdrives, portable hard drives and card readers for easy plug and play usage should you not want to upload data on your PC!

The MC-500 also has volume control but I reckon its relatively useless.

Other refinements include support for mp3 playlists and just cool stuff to make the product better.

Check it out for those who own it! And for those who dont, get one if you like the concept!

Hi Jack Tan, could you post a link for those people who want to get the latest firmware?
Thanks.

[Jack Tan]

Andw,

The firmware upgrade is actually built into the box so when you switch it on, go to the info pages and update rom.

The newest software for the MC-500 is at www.neuston.com

Cheers,
Jack

[andw]

ah, very clever of it.

[Jack Tan]

Originally Posted by andw

ah, very clever of it.

I reckon they do it like that to try and stop people from trying to exchange the different software packages as the hardware for such devices is fairly similar.

Probably like people changing the software for encoding and capture cards between Snazzi and Pinnacle.

But ive read that people cross the firmware between neuston's box and others. They try and load neuston firmware on other boxes. I wonder how they do it?

Anyone know?

[sirhc55]

Well I must say that although I have an XMS888 and Digitrex GK4000 I decided to get the Neuston MC500 about two weeks ago.

I can understand that everyone has their likes and dislikes but I have to admit that I use all three units.

The Neuston is connected to my wireless cable router and runs at 54Mbs unlike the card that can be used on the MC500 at 11Mbs. I have run avi and vobs directly to my home theatre system and the results are superb.The sound from mp3 is outstanding and all from a Mac.

The systems now allow me to decide which way to go - from my computer directly via the MC500, write to DVD or CD for the XMS888 or GK4000.