Building your own DVD changer and applications
Chris worries that we don’t support the small OEMs. His post primarily revolves around CableCard certification, but I’m not an expert in that area so I won’t comment on it, other than to say, I agree with Thomas Hawk. However, he also points to the DVD changer feature as something we aren’t doing a good job of playing with small OEMs with:
The DVD Changers with Update Rollup 2 are a great answer to ripping DVDs, however with only Sony and Niveus in the game we are locked into either having a Sony XL1 or a Niveus Media Center. Powerfile, the marker of both the Niveus and Sony Changers don’t a version retail that will work with Media Center. Then there is that price tag, Niveus sells their Niveus Disc Changer (Ice Vault 200) for $2500 and Sony only sells theirs with a XL1 Digital Living System for $2300.
I’d disagree. While we did closely collaborate with Sony on the development of the XL1 changer what we built can be leveraged by anyone.
For instance here is the information you need to build your own DVD changer and get it to work with Media Center 2005 Update Rollup 2:
- Changer must either be supported by an in-box Windows driver or by an OEM provided driver which implements the Media Changer device class.
- Must expose the drive(s) as standard Windows optical drives.
- The device/drive combination must support the following IOCTLs:
- IOCTL_CHANGER_GET_ELEMENT_STATUS
- IOCTL_CHANGER_GET_PARAMETERS
- IOCTL_CHANGER_GET_PRODUCT_DATA
- IOCTL_CHANGER_GET_STATUS
- IOCTL_CHANGER_INITIALIZE_ELEMENT_STATUS
- IOCTL_CHANGER_MOVE_MEDIUM
- IOCTL_CHANGER_QUERY_VOLUME_TAGS
- The results from IOCTL_CHANGER_GET_PARAMETERS must indicate the following
feature flags:Features
- CHANGER_STATUS_NON_VOLATILE
- CHANGER_POSITION_TO_ELEMENT
- CHANGER_STORAGE_DRIVE
- CHANGER_VOLUME_IDENTIFICATION
- CHANGER_VOLUME_REPLACE
MoveFromSlot
- CHANGER_TO_IEPORT
- CHANGER_TO_DRIVE
MoveFromIePort
- CHANGER_TO_SLOT
MoveFromDrive
- CHANGER_TO_SLOT
PositionCapabilities
- CHANGER_TO_SLOT
- CHANGER_TO_IEPORT
- CHANGER_TO_DRIVE
Also if you want to build applications like Sony’s music CD ripping app you can do so by taking advantage of the changes we made to our SDK with Update Rollup 2. For instance check out MediaChanger Object which enables HTML applications to control the disc changer.
Properties:
- DriveDiscData - Gets information about the discs in the drives.
- IsLocked - Indicates whether the media changer is currently locked by any application.
- SlotDiscData - Gets information about the discs in slots
Methods:
- LoadDisc - Loads the disk in the specified slot into the specified drive.
- RescanDisc - Causes Media Center to rescan the disc in the specified drive.
- UnloadDisc - Unloads the disc in the specified drive.
If you have any questions I’d be more than happy to answer them.
The only problem with you disagreeing is that I’m hearing from smaller OEMs are telling me that none of this information has been provided to them. Is the information above published on the System Builder or MCE MSDN Sites? I searched around MSDN and didn’t find anything that would be useful to OEMs. I also looked around Microsoft’s OEM System Builder Web Site finding nothing useful to OEM’s about DVD Changers. DO I have to develop a working DVD Changer myself, eg not using PowerFiles? Who I would purchase them from, PowerFile? Where would I find that firmware update to have the PowerFile ones work? None of this information can be found by OEMs wanting to ship out DVD Changers with their Media Center machines. This is a problem.
Thank you for posting the above, however I don’t think this is exactly what smaller OEMs are looking for. They need a bit more direction here.
Chris
I’ll have to look up on Monday what document the above information is included in and who it is distributed to. But that information posted is literally a cut and paste of what we have shared to OEMs (large & small) who have talked to us about implementing their own DVD changer. It’s not a lot of direction but for an OEM capable of manufacturing a DVD changer it is sufficient.
Anyone is certainly welcome to develop their own DVD changer. Just ensure your’s implements the functionailty above for Media Changers and exposes the drive and it will be plug and play with MCE 2005 UR2. Alternatively someone can license hardware from PowerFile, but you’d have to contact them for more information on that.
It is unfortunate that the current changers are not being sold standalone at prices similar to RS232 changers but that is not within our control. We are not in the hardware business.
What would have been the process to talk with ya’ll about Changers? I might suggest extending this process a bit more, since everyone I have talked with knows little-to-nothing about any of this. The OEM/System Builder site has none of this information, if you could suggest around that this information be made available on sources like oem.microsoft.com/ All I see is UR2 supports them, nothing about how I would find out anything else about them. Same with Away Mode, if says OEM/System Builder only, but I don’t see any other information about what’s needed or where/how to implement it! This is the sort of thing I’m talking about. :) The fact that the OEM/System Builder site has none of this isn’t a good thing. I know their are different teams, and eHome is very different from the System Builder guys, but it makes it appear to everyone that Microsoft isn’t doing all they could.
Chris Lanier
I’ll check Monday. It should be included in the MCE UR2 Hardware Requirements document and our OPK document. I’d assume both those documents would be available to both OEMs and system builders.
Matt Goyer Replies To Smaller OEMs
Building your
own DVD changer and applications (Matt Goyer) | Matt Goyer followed up on my
post…
Matt,
Thanks for the information, I have never seen this information available anywhere on the MS OEM site. As both a DIY’er and a consultant to small OEMs figuring out things like Away Mode and DVD changers has been a futile effort.
Matt W.
Matt,
Matt, I’m sorry to say but I absolutely disagree with you. I am a small Media Center OEM. Since I first heard that DVD changers were going to be introduced (I think via a System Builder chat) months and months before the release of rollup 2, I have asked and asked and asked every contact I had at MS about what our requirements would need to be to offer DVD changers. Everytime I asked, I was told that no one actually knew what the requirements were or that no one could say anything yet (which I must say is the usual response I get whenever I ask anything). Time went by and I continued to ask. I even asked you personally at Digital Life in NYC in Oct and got limited response.
Then as soon as rollup 2 was released, Niveus annouced they were going to offer a DVD changer. Yet I had no idea as to how to even obtain a DVD changer that would work (which we obviously subsequently learned was a PowerFile). In fact, it was PowerFile that we learned what ther details were, not from MS.
So to say that smaller system builders/OEMs were told about this before hand is absolutely incorrect. Not only were we not told about it, but my active attempts to find out about it were rebuffed.
The same thing is happening again with HD DVD and CableCard. I have been asking and asking about what the requirements will be to implement these new features and have been told nothing (well, actually I was told something, but it was unofficial). There is nothing about forward looking features on the system builder website and we’re still mushrooms, as usual. Yet Niveus can come out and issue a press release stating that they will support CableCard in 2006.
All I ask is for a little more respect and a little more official communication. Currently, we know less than bloggers like Chris Lanier and Thomas Hawk. Yet we try to make a living off of selling MS products. I hate airing dirty laundry in public, but maybe someone will listen to this rant.
Amen Paul!
Matt: You, as well as anyone else know that the common System Builder cannot just decide to built their own DVD changer.
If this was something that could easily be done, why would Niveus and Sony OEM the PowerFiles? Fact is that for the common system builder to OEM the PowerFile they would actually pay PowerFile a lot more for the units than they sell for by Niveus or Sony (where Sony actually includes a PC with it), since you would have to sell a LOT of units before prices getting resonable.
Also, the end user have no options to purchase a PowerFile unit and firmware update it, since no firmware is public available for this.
This means that the end user will be down by atleast $2.200 to get such a unit, and when you have filled it up with 200 DVD’s, you are down $2.200 more.
Rumors are that Sony will sell these units for around $600 as a standalone option at some point (I got this from a user that got this from a Sony guy at CES), and this will for the end user be an acceptable price, although it won’t change anything for the common system builder, other than they have absolutely no option to compete, as their price is very likely to be above $2.000 from PowerFile.
Sure, go ahead, build your own changers, but do you actually see this as realistic yourself?
The fact that these changers has such a high price tag, and the fact that I have not been able to get a firmware for the used PowerFile units I purchased to be able to get this working, means that I have given up on implementing support for them in “My Movies” in the short term, even though I have had a PowerFile on my desk for more than a year.
As a result, “My Movies” will support the RS232 based Sony DVP-CX777ES unit in it’s next version, and sure, it isen’t a DVD drive, but a video output unit, and I agree that it isen’t as nice a solution as the firewire based changers, but atleast it is affordable for the common user, and may add value for some small system builders. Anyway - I got a $399 refurb unit, it retails in many places for $599, and includes 400 DVD’s, thats about $1.5 per DVD, purchasing a Niveus Ice Vault is $12.5 per DVD.
I hoped that Microsoft vision was to put Media Centers in the common homes - how does a $2.500 unit for 200 DVD’s go with that vision?
Not that I am saying I don’t appriciate what Microsoft are trying to do with these changers, but please find a way where it won’t kill the small system builders, and a way where the general consumer can take part in it…
Regards,
Brian Binnerup
First a disclaimer: I work for Niveus and have been developing software for the changer. I wanted to share my experiences with the changer for the benefit of those that don’t have one yet. These are my comments and don’t necessarily represent the views of my company
In response to the other messages in this thread I’d like to let people know that adding a DVD changer to my MCE system has changed the way I watch TV. I recently installed one of the Niveus changers at my DIY home theater and it’s great.
The first thing I did when I brought a unit home for “testing” was to load all my DVDs into it. Even the “bonus discs” that I would normally not bother looking at. Turns out I have about 120 discs - about half a terabyte’s worth.
Before I had a changer, I was much more likely to watch a movie on a premium channel, even if I had the DVD in my collection. I used a PS2 as the DVD player and it worked well but the hassle of finding a DVD to watch, loading into the PS2, finding the PS2 remote, switching to the right inputs on the projector and receiver, were all just cumbersome enough to keep me from enjoying my dvds. It was just easier to sit down, and find a movie to watch from the cable guide menu. I actually used to spend more time watching the cable source than the MCE source.
After using the changer for a week or so, I returned the HD/PVR cable box and am resolved to just watch DVDs and recorded SD TV until Cable Card is ready. My changer-based on demand video is better than the cable company’s “on demand” — I can browse through my archive and choose from a larger selection than was offered via cable. And the range of choices is more suited to my interests than the cable choices tended to be, for obvious reasons. Video and audio quality are superb — though not quite as good as HD cable was. I’ve decided that I’d rather wait for HD cable until it’s integrated in MCE with Cable Card in Vista. Now the only reason I switch away from MCE is to play games on PS2 or 360.
I hear many people say that they’d rather rip DVDs to their hard drive (which could be illegal, BTW). I thought about that, but it uses too much of my precious hard disk space. I really don’t want my static DVD collection to occupy that much space. Though I have over 2TB of storage at home I’d rather reserve hard disk space for downloaded movies, HD over-the-air recordings (and Cable Card HD later on) and TV recording space –temporary recordings. Plus DVD’s don’t need to be backed up. If your movies are on hard disk and the disk fails, you’re out of luck.
When Blu-ray or HD-DVD changers become available, there will be even more reason to have a changer as opposed to storing video on hard disk, even with the vaunted “managed copy” capability. HD discs will occupy 15GB per disk so a 200 disc HD changer will give you the equivalent of 3TB of non-volatile storage. Until I can afford about 100TB of replicated storage, I think I’ll prefer to have changers.
Back to my changer real-world experience: my changer is only half full (or half empty depending on the way you look at things) and I’m anxious to find more DVDs to fill it up. My wife and kids aren’t sure about letting me load their DVDs into the changer, but I have plans to set it up so we can share the changer over the LAN — perhaps that will convince them.
With the changer I find that I’m getting a lot more value out of my DVD collection. I’m watching DVDs that I haven’t looked at in years. I’m actually watching the special features and director commentaries which I rarely did before. For a remote, I’m now using the Microsoft MCE keyboard, which I really like. The DVD Menu button on it will bring up the gallery view of DVDs, or if you’re already watching a DVD, it’ll take you to the DVD’s title menu. That’s a nice feature. Another tip: you can slow-mo DVDs by pressing pause and then pressing fast forward.
A lot of people are complaining about the price of the changers. I’ve used RS232 changers like the 777ES and have even written code to make it work with MCE. Though inexpensive, it’s a very poor solution and quite inferior to the Niveus firewire changers with My DVDs. First, the information you can get about the discs via the serial I/O isn’t sufficient to identify at least 30% of the DVDs out there. Secondly, the video isn’t integrated with MCE unless you use a capture card — and then quality suffers due to the digital-to-analog and analog-back-to-digital transition. Then you have to use your own DShow graph to play the DVD with proper de-interlacing, etc. Firewire changers are definitely the only way to go. Trust me.
Remember that the $2500 price for a Niveus changer is Manufacturers _Suggested_ Retail Price. The percentage that distributors and dealers earn is part of that. Maybe you know a local home theater installer that would be willing to give you a discount in exchange for some consulting on an MCE setup. Or just ask him what his best price would be. I imagine small OEMs can buy changers through the same distributors that Home Theater installers do.
Daisy-chaining these changers just works (at least with the Niveus changers, haven’t tried the Sony). With four or five changers full of movies, assuming you only watch 7-10 movies a week, there will always be dozens of movies to choose from that you haven’t watched in over a year. And no pay-per-view charges or monthly subscription rates.
I’ve been a HT enthusiast since the early 90’s when I read an article about projectors in Wired magazine. I bought my first projector in 1994 and yet I consider the DVD changer to be one of the two best additions to my home theater in a long time (the other was an HD projector.) I guess that’s because it takes that stack of DVDs that have been gathering dust on the shelves and turns them into the centerpiece of my home theater.
My DVDs is great software and it’s really not right to criticize Matt Goyer’s team for providing support for a high-end product. In my view, we’re actually fortunate that Microsoft managers had the vision of how great it would be to have all your movies in a changer.
Brian’s My Movies is a great product, too, and it has features that would be great additions to My DVDs. I really like the cast and crew photos and bio’s. BTW, DVD Profiler’s database is great. It seems to have more DVD info than AMG’s database.
One nice thing about Media Center is that it scales so well. You can have a noisy $1000 PC connected to a 27″ tube TV and still get decent integration of TV, videos, music and pictures. Add an X-box and you can share it in another room. For those that can afford a high-end home theater, the MCE really shines there, too. It has become the ultimate media source for your home entertainment.
Speaking of the ultimate, I got a chance to check out Cable Card at CES and it’s awesome. I can’t wait till it’s shipping. I checked with my cable company and they said it costs $5 a month (for the access card, not the tuner adapter) and is available now. “Only $5 a month?” I said. “But you don’t get the guide”, she said. “Wow, that’s great. Only $5 a month?” I said. “Yes, but you don’t get the _guide_.” she emphasized. I was thinking “I really don’t care that much about losing the cable box guide.”
So until cable card, my favorite MCE feature is My DVDs. I hope that many of you will get a chance to get a changer, too. I hear they may be demoing them at a chain of high-end home theater stores. Try it out and see what you think. Like me, I’ll bet you’ll get hooked on seeing that long list of movies at your fingertips.
N1cholson,
I didn’t realize that we could pitch our own products here…
While I’m glad Niveus is in the position to offer these features that the system builder channel can’t, I don’t think rubbing our noses in it is the best form. I’m gald you love your DVD changer, but system builders can’t buy their own for less than our buy price from Niveus (or Sony if they offer them stand-alone). Oh, and you can’t wait to offer CableCard? Well, neither can we, but we won’t be able to offer that to our customers either.
So thanks for reminding us all that Niveus can. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that you guys can offer these features, but you don’t have to come here and tell everyone how good you are when we’re trying to make a point about how we can’t even offer these things that you love so much.
Paul
Re: Why my blog post info isn’t available to system builders/small OEMs
We’re looking into this and trying to track down if the info is available. If it isn’t, it’s likely an unintentional gap in our system builder story. I’ll know more soon.
Also, remember to speak up! I did not realize until now that people wanted this info. No one has sent me an email nor has anyone left a comment asking how they can implement their own dvd changers. My cell number is available on my personal site, don’t be afraid to call.
Re: System builders building changers
No, I don’t expect a system builder to build a changer from scratch. I would expect large OEMs or large CE companies to do so. However, I would expect that a system builder would develop a relationship with Sony/Niveus/Powerfile to buy changers below MSRP that they could bundle with the MCE’s they are building.
Re: Cost
We developed the My DVDs functionality on the assumption that Sony was going to release a MCE PC + changer for around $2000. They ended up wth a MSRP of $2300 and can be bought on Amazon for $1700. That’s $1700 for both a PC and a changer. I do not believe ths to be over priced, I think this is a great deal. If you want just the changer buy the Sony XL1 system for $1700 and sell the PC on ebay. Hopefully though Sony will introduce a standalone changer shortly.
I also hear from many folks over and over about how they want standalone changers. Are you also talking to PowerFile? to Sony? to other companies who could build a changer and release a driver that worked with MCE? My DVDs was not designed to only work with high end changers. It will work with any changer that includes the correct driver. And while you may think we can influence these companies to release standalone changers, you, the customers (either end user or system builder), need to show them that there is market demand.
Also, an enterprising hacker may even be able to produce a driver that would work with a RS232 changer. The challenging part would be faking the video to show as a dvd drive.
Conclusion: I think the real problem here is that system builders don’t have the opportunity to buy cheap changers that they can bundle with the MCE’s that they’re building. I think the solution is for either the system builders to convince any of the three existing DVD changer manufacturers to cater to their channel, or for an enterprising company to build their own changer and compete on price with PowerFile. Unfortunately, I don’t think that I, the program manager for My DVDs, can influence either of those outcomes.
I don’t think anyone is expecting you to magically make things happen for the smaller OEM’s Matt. What you did need to know was that there aren’t any resources availble to smaller OEMs on what the DVD changer specs are, and who to talk to about them (in this case PowerFile). When the DVD changers were announced it took me days of googleing to figure out that PowerFile was probably the vendor for Nievus and Sony. It wasn’t until a while later that you posted in your blog confirming this. However you blog post essentially said it is a custom firmware, I have no idea how to get it, etc. etc. So again we smaller OEM’s felt shafted. And n1cholson, please don’t shill your company’s wares here — your post was not helpful in anyway and bearly pertinant to the topic at hand, which was lack of small OEM support and specifically lack of DVD changer information.
Paul,
My post was in response to some of the invective that has been levelled against the MCE team, not an attempt to brag. I decided it would be best to disclose my Niveus relationship at the outset rather than be accused of concealing it, hence the disclaimer. Allow me to address your points:
* Regarding the changer price, Niveus Media made a substantial investment in the development of DVD changer technology and products. We are at no special advantage and anyone else is free to do the same. Are larger companies at more of an advantage in terms of being able to risk funding such investment? Of course, but many of the large OEMs so far have not chosen to take advantage of the DVD changer opportunity. So it’s not just the size of the company, it’s also a matter of commitment to the market.
I don’t understand the system builder business so maybe you can explain. Can’t you buy a Niveus DVD changer wholesale from some of the same sources you get your other system components like hard drives and graphics cards? Maybe band together with other System Builders and buy a larger quantity at a discount?
* Regarding advanced notice of upcoming features, you have access to Microsoft beta programs, right? That’s one way we stay informed of new features. I recognize the fact that some system builders may not have time to devote to the betas, and that may be an advantage of larger OEMs.
* Regarding Cable Card, we avidly follow the blogs just like everyone else. Some bloggers just post their own theories on future products and others seem to have only part of the information. It’s interesting that in one case, a blogger forecasted Cable Card support and the way it would work, long before that info was available via official sources. That blogger happened to be following the Open Cable documentation. That information is still there and available to everyone that has time time to read it.
Smaller OEMs are envious of the advantages that larger OEMs have in terms of capital, volume discounts, etc. But larger OEMs envy the nimbleness and ability to address niche markets of the smaller guys. That may seem trite, like the “grass is greener” aphorism, but I think it applies in this case.
Cable Card may be a special case in that the system vendor must be able to guarantee that it won’t violate the system configuration requirements that ensure copy-protected TV programs can’t be copied. It’s certainly understandable that the cable companies want to certify only those systems that don’t circumvent the required protections. Companies that can’t deliver certifiable protected-path systems have to be excluded. There is really no practical alternative if the goal is to have content protection on an open system like a PC.
Matt, n1cholson,
This’ll be my last post on this subject. My point is less that larger OEMs have the resources to be able to implement these features, which is totally understandable (everyone has to start somewhere), it is that system builders do not have access to the same information and communications with MS that it seems larger OEMs do.
I can assure you that had we known how to implement or obtain DVD changers prior to rollup 2, we would have done so, either under our own brand or as a Powerfile branded unit. As I said, we actively sought information as to how to implement DVD changers and were rebuffed *every* time. We did not sit around waiting for it to fall in our laps. We asked and searched, hight and low. This information just was *not* given to us and was not available pre rollup2. (As a follow up, now that we know competitive pricing, we have decided not to follow through with it, but we would have had we been able to find out how to implement last year).
Again, I re-iterate. The same thing is happening with CableCard. One blogger says we need to certify a whole system, another blogger says you don’t. ATI say that standalone CableCard readers will be available in 2007, others disagree. If this was all that I knew, I wouldn’t be issuing a press release saying that we would be offering CableCard this year unless I had access to more information. In fact, how does one get hold of a OCUR device to test our systems with???? I’d like to have one of our systems certified, but MS won’t tell me whether we’ll even be allowed to or not. N1cholson, if there is a path to getting CableCard certified, would you mind sharing it us?
So resources and funding aside, even if we did have all the funding we need, we still wouldn’t have been able to implement the DVD changers and the same thing will end up happening with CableCards.
Also, just to be clear, I think Niveus have done a fantastic job with their products and brand - It’s great what they’re doing and it definitely grows the pie for everyone. I’m just using them as an example of the information imblance when it comes to communication from MS.
Paul
Paul,
Maybe this discussion belongs in CableCard thread at this point but I think it’s fair to say that many details surrounding the technology and its deployment are still TBD or TBA.
For my part, I’m expecting to get a chance to drill down on all of the technical details at WinHEC in May. Wouldn’t it be nice if ATI handed out Cable Card tuners to all attendees? That, plus a solid RC0, would do a lot to kickstart the Vista+MCE+HDTV market. And it would give all of us enough time to put together systems and software for an end of year launch (if that’s when Vista is scheduled to be released).
Paul, I’ve forwarded this thread to our system builder person. I was unaware that this information was not available to that channel and will push to have it published asap. As for CableCard, you’d be surprised about how much I learn about our business by reading ChrisL’s blog :). But I will also bring CableCard up with our system builder person and ensure that we are disclosing information appropriately.
n1cholson: Actually, as I see it, this has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of “My DVD’s” and the quality of these changers.
We all can agree that the technology here with FireWire based changers is preferred, and is a great solution, but it does not change the fact that:
- Prior to release System Builders have not had any informations about these changers.
- System Builders would have to OEM them from Niveus, Sony (direct competetors) or PowerFile which is impossible to play with economically, I am sure that you can feel that if/when Sony releases a $600 changer that you OEM for atleast double that price.
- Microsoft did NOTHING to inform System Builders about this, they started a project with Sony and Niveus, and stuck with that. I am not sure how Niveus got these informations (or well, both you and I may do, but that is another story), but that is Niveus’s luck, as no one else knew about it - I know how shut Microsoft were with information on this.
- Microsoft could have made a deal with PowerFile while doing this, they take economical riscs in all other areas, why not here. They could have guaranteed PowerFile a quantity of sold units, and pressed the price so that all registered system builders could OEM for $500, and they could have made a driver that worked on the OEM box. The System Builder could then ship with a Microsoft logo, or change the exterior of the changer if they wanted to.
To be it sounds as though Microsoft knew that harddrive space is actually the way to go here, if it was legal, and don’t believe in the changers themselves.
And I don’t buy the “precious harddrive space”, fact is that Niveus NAS device is cheaper per DVD than their changer - you can buy other NAS solutions at 1/3 of the price per DVD.
Sorry Matt, as this is your feature - I really like the feature, and I for one know the users wan’t it, but again MAKE IT AVAILABLE!
Congratulations to Niveus of being a part of something that anyone else can’t be. This is not Niveus fault, and I hope they sell a lot of these changers, but I still don’t like the way Microsoft handled this, and if we don’t shout out here, the same thing will happen with CableCards.
Regards,
Brian Binnerup
Matt, thanks for publishing the info and looking into making this available though the official channels.
Looks to me like PowerFile is more to blame here than is anyone else. Their webpage shows that their changers are available through distribution:
http://powerfile.com/index.php?file=c-distributors
but they are not releasing the custom firmware to make it a viable product for system builders and enthusiasts (only to Sony and Niveus). As this feature becomes more popular, hopefully PowerFile or some other changer OEM will respond and not play favorites.
For now, I think a RAID hard disk array (coupled with Brian Binnerups My Movies plug-in) is the best solution, but a BluRay/HD DVD changer may change my opinion of hard drive solutions.
Hey guys,
I work for PowerFile and have been following Matt’s blog since before CES. My contact information has been posted on this blog since early January, I have received plenty of feedback, but not from anyone on this thread. Moral of the story is you don’t get what you don’t ask for.
Sony and Niveus approached PowerFile with sound business plans, firm commitments, and both have made substantial investments to develop unique and innovative features.
I can assure you this has nothing to do with playing favorites and everything to do with Niveus aggressively pursuing a product vision. It is really unfair to put Niveus in the same camp as Sony and especially harsh to come down on Nicholson for a generic changer review that I found to be enthusiast driven.
Regards,
Jim Sherhart
jsherhart@powerfile.com
Jim: I have in two occations asked your support staff if there was any way of getting the flash tools and flash files to get my used PowerFile’s up to date to be able to use them for testing and including support in “My Movies”.
In both cases I was told that I could get an answer for this if I purchased additional guarantee for my PowerFile’s at a million billion $ (prices set for large companies).
So currently I had been hoping to get some help from PowerFile with no success, even though I tried to explain that my purpose was to support these changers in “My Movies”, which hopefully would mean some people would purchase these changers, if not from you, then from some of the companies that OEM them.
I am not a system builder, so if these are the ones targeted with your post, I can’t say that this is untrue, but for me personally, I asked for it, but diden’t get it.
I can understand that PowerFile is used to working with huge companies, and have these guarantee rules, however I don’t understand why you can’t see that helping out here is also your own best interest. I specifically mentioned that all I needed were files…..
I have two PowerFile’s, one I tried flasing with a never flash I got in an unauthorised way, which wasen’t good (it now says Download FlashMon 2.1), and the other one I haven’t dared doing anything to, but it’s firmware is either wrong or too old to work with Media Center.
Status is that although I would love these changers supported in “My Movies”, I have given up on it. I am sorry that developing free software just doesen’t give you the funds that pays such money for this.
I think that the reason that people came hard down on Nicholson was that such a review wasen’t well placed in the ongoing discussion - I am sure Nicholson meant well, as he is a very nice guy - but for System Builders missing this opputunity, it’s easily seen as a provocation. Fact still is that most of them did not know about the option to contact PowerFile before the products were released.
Regards,
Brian Binnerup
Jim thanks for replying.
If you read my comment from the 6th at 8:25pm you’ll see that the smaller OEM’s had no idea who to even talk to about getting a DVD changer until quite a while after Rollup 2 was released.
What this all comes down to is a breakdown in communication to smaller OEMs. Helping smaller OEMs find the resources, etc.
Really all PowerFile and MS had to do was, back in August or September, publish the fact that PowerFile was the currently available vendor supporting the DVD changers for Rollup 2 to their OEM site. I think you’d have found a flood of e-mails from OEMs all over the place trying to get DVD changers out before Rollup 2 went public.
Oh one more thing for Matt:
What about Away Mode support? Information on that is also non-existant.
[…] After reading Chris’s post about us ignoring small OEM and system builders and all the comments on my response I was worried that maybe we had screwed up and had not properly disclosed the information. To fully understand the situation I sat down today with the eHome program manager who represents the system builders. […]
I’ve owned a Powerfile C200 since 1999, which I purchased for $2500 direct from Powerfile’s site.
Like many startups, Powerfile was hungry at that time, and willing to deal with retail hassles in order to keep the lights on.
The unit gave perfect service until the day I allowed SP2 to inflict itself on my system. This killed the Powerfile unit. That was in ‘04.
That’s when I discovered that retail customers of any kind (whether prosumers or small system builders) are irrelevant to Powerfile. They only want to deal with ‘real’ OEM customers (Niveus isn’t large, but they’re real, and they’re good.)
PowerFile has no interest in updating the firmware on the C200 or its drives. They want you to buy a new R200 for thousands more, unless you’re a ‘real’ OEM, in which case they’ll give you a big discount.
Welcome to the technology business. Powerfile has suffered in obscurity for a long time. Now MCE has put them on the map, and they’re the only game in town. They’ll make hay for a short time, and then someone with economies of scale, probably Sony themselves, will deliver vastly cheaper technology that specifically targets the mass market, and Powerfile will either be out of business or back in their niche.
It’s a safe bet that cheap changers will happen soon. In the meantime, kudos to Niveus and Powerfile - they’re not selling to your customers anyway, if your customers are concerned about price.
Personally, I think this entire category (DVD changers) is ultimately doomed, along with DVD’s themselves (except possibly for the high-definition stuff).
It’s early days yet, but Google and Vongo and MovieLink and CinemaNow are betting that broadband plus compression plus DRM will allow on-demand Internet-driven content access that’s economically viable and consumer-preferable to DVD’s. I think they’re right, at least for anyone with decent broadband and a fast PC next to the home theater (exactly the target market for DVD changers!).
I loved having my Powerfile working when broadband wasn’t, but today it’s an anachronism, only useful to someone who can’t get their content delivered over the Internet. MCE’s belated support for changers doesn’t alter that reality. Try Vongo and you’ll understand.
Final prediction: Google’s ultimately going to win this. Reason is that good search is the key when there is such a vast array of stuff to deal with. Google ‘gets’ search, and Microsoft obviously doesn’t, at least based on MCE and its supporting services today.
I was once fairly exercised about the changer dying. No longer. Bet on the future, not the past.
- Mitch
P.S. - Regarding hard drive storage vs. changers
The DMCA makes the process illegal, yes, but the DMCA’s Constitutionality has not yet been tested before the Supreme Court, and there’s good reason to believe that it’s totally unconstitutional.
OEM’s would be ill-advised to advocate violating the DMCA, but we all know that individual consumers do so all the time, most of them in a perfectly legitimate fashion under existing copyright and fair use case law.
If a consumer has a reasonably powerful PC and enough snap to get the right freeware tools to do it, he can easily rip a DVD to hard disk, DeCSS the files, and transcode them to a vastly more space-efficient format than MPEG-2 for storage and playback.
With no detectable loss of video or audio quality, a 4GB DVD can be reduced to less than 1GB of on-disk space.
If there’s one thing a big hard drive is good for, it’s storing this kind of content very cheaply, and with near-instantaneous access times (and a much lower failure rate than a mechanical changer).
What’s needed is a high-quality interface to allow the user to quickly access the ripped and recompressed movie files - an interface like that of MyDVD.
That same interface should apply to remote content as well.
Sure sounds like an opportunity for a clever MCE plug-in writer, and the quasi-legality of it all ensures that MS will stay out of this sandbox…
- Mitch
Mitch, I completely agree. HD-DVD combined with managed copy and cheap storage is going to obsolete the DVD changer category in a few short years.
And of course, I disagree that Google is going to win in the living room :).
Mitch - Sorry you feel that way. As I’m sure you are aware, 2003 SP1 and XP SP2 really do a number on the FIreWire driver regardless of the device that is attached. No guarantees, but we have heard of many having good success with XP2 by using the SIIG 64-bit FireWire adapter listed on the qualified components section of our site. It seems to solve the issue regardless of whether the host is 32 or 64 bit.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of you that DVDs will soon be dead - it would be silly and naive to think otherwise. However, I do think the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD nonsense is going to extend the life a bit. Many people (myself included) are going to hold off for one to become a clear winner or a hybrid drive, whichever comes first assuming the drive is priced right.
Oh and Matt - Go Blu-ray! ;-)
Jim
[…] 00:50 Coming up this week 01:25 Email - Intelligent Recording 02:53 Audio problems 04:20 Keeping the PC quite 06:14 Play DivX on XBOX 360 07:03 Roll Up 2 issues - from Aaron Stebner 07:28 Microsoft Ignoring small OEMs? Chris’s post, Matt’s reply 08:53 A great guide to Cable Card 09:50 A fix for my RSS reader on the XBOX 360 10:50 Onevoice Media Center Communicator 11:41 Send my your product reviews 12:00 Win mcePhone for Skype (link to the award show) 13:32 Interview with Joe Harris of Digital Deck 15:16 Use a PC as a Server 18:55 Networked DVR 19:41 Thanks to Joe 19:54 A Message from TPN 20:45 Ian interviews Ian! 23:33 What caught my eye 26:10 Ian’s thoughts on Media Center 33:00 What is holding back Media Center 35:50 Get rid of boxes! 39:16 Networked Media 43:00 Was this the year of Media Center at CES? 46:40 Have Apple got it wrong with Frontrow? 47:23 New Vista Media Center remote 49:54 Where were the other Media Center type apps? 52:45 Thanks to Ian 52:57 Coming up next week 53:30 Catch you on XBOX live […]
The Windows Media Center Show #44 - CES Roundup
Smaller OEMs to Get Access To New Media Center Data
More on system
builder information disclosure (Matt Goyer) | Well, it looks like my post
about…
I find it disappointing that Jimbo from Powerfile never responded to Brian Binnerup’s request for firmware support for his PowerFile firewire DVD changes. Looks like the firmware is available, but only if you are a large OEM customer.
I’ve tried to use the MMC API, it completely sucks. It has all sorts of side effects with PowerFile’s changer, including timeouts and single PowerFile support. We developed a PowerFile Audio Ripper and found there’s no tools to just perform basic operations. So we’re finally releasing PowerExplorer, for those of you interested in just the basic functionality. A nice Explore namespace integration tool that makes it easy to load/unload/mount/unmount any of your disks. Check it out. http://www.mammothi.com/index.php?show_aux_page=12
Bulk CD Ripping — Part One: Hardware…
This is going to be a multipart blog series on ripping CDs. I had some vacation time to burn and rather…
What’s the IO call for ejecting a disc from a slot out of the device entirely? Not moving it to/from a slot to the drive mechanism, actually popping it out of the changer entirely. I don’t see it at all in the .Net object, so is there something in the window IOCTL? There’s gotta be some way to do it as MCE itself offers the ability to eject a given slot independently of anything current mounted in the active drive.
I am a personall hardware ‘hacker’ not a professional developer. I know that most of the folks here seem to be small OEMers, and want to develop a ‘killer app’ for the windows market.
Could I suggest another tactic? Make a ‘network appliance’ that you can drive with DOS or Linux (or some other UNIX clone) and be used by any platform (Windows, Mac, or UNIX in its various flavors - especially with open protocols like SMB or NFS).
Personally I have thought of having a ‘black hole of data’, that has hard drives, and keeps itself backed up to multiple DVD-RW or DVD-RAM media (or combinations of media and other media too). Using a HSM kind of software could make the disk space (I personally like IBMs TSM that could manage a media library and does HSM too. It will even handle non-TSM media, but that is an advanced application.) TSM does work with Windows, Novell, and UNIX of many falavors - no I don’t work for IBM, but I have been a TSM admin for a number of year.
Just a thought.
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