I upgraded my Playon!HD firmware from r4824 to r4585 but had to roll it back to r4824 because the NAS function was very unstable. After going back to the old r4824 for a few days I decided to give the r4585 another go at it to check my luck out. Unfortunately the NAS performance (i.e. non-performance) is consistently bad and the player would always hang when I tried retrieving any files over the network. I decided to switch over to using FTP and turn the NAS off and the result seems stable so far after copying about 50GB of data within the last two days. The Upload speed is about 2.5-4.5 MB/s and download is about 4.0-8.0 MB/S. I am currently using gigabyte wired connection with FileZilla FTP client. I also tried out the ALFTP as suggested by ACRyan but I prefer the interface of FileZilla and also it seems faster. Another consideration was that FileZilla is a freeware and ALFTP cost $29.95 after the trial period. I hope ACRyan would fix the NAS function ASAP because using FTP is troublesome and slower compared to that of NAS under the old firmware.

Regards,

Well, I was a bit fed up of this:



and also of this:



That's a DU Meter graph on 3 minutes of file transfer to the PlayonHD with firmware 4585. Peaks at 4 MB/S and large dropouts @ 0 or 1.5 MB/S.

I flashed the "alternative" firmware this afternoon, and now here is the same file transfered:



Rock solid 4.5 MB/S.....

I will not revert for sure, this is probably the last firmware I will flash on the Playon, everything I need works fine...

@ Crrispy

I had exactly the same problem on both counts. I went back and fore and gave in to r4585 because the old firmware consistently hangs itself when browsing certain pictures. NAS is not working but FTP seems fine, so far.

Sorry guys, my comments on that FTP was working fine is no longer valid. The upload function is working and the speed would settle at about 3.7 MB/S. Downloading from Playon!HD is not working! My previous tests with some small files were fast and successful but today when I tried downloading a 4GB file it failed me all the time.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

You should do like I did...

Crrispy, which firmware do you mean by the "alternative" firmware?

//Macp

The med...... firmware hacked to run on the Playon which has already been mentioned often. The latest (4.04 rev 3) is SDK 4.x based, nice gui and works like a charm including Samba/NAS ... it also allows to tune video parameters on the Playon (brightness etc..), which the 3966 and 4585 firmwares didn't allow anymore.
Use the search function or pm me for url.

For people who think mede8er firmware will solve all their problems
Known SDK Issues (for Mede8er firmware 4.0.4)

* Sceensaver on pls Radio Station does not change song name
* MED500X cannot connect via wireless that does not broadcast SSID
* WiFi WEP
* HD Audio will only passthrough on HDMI if TV Res Output is set to 720 or Higher
* Downmix SPDIF / Co- Ax Digital must set HDMI AND SPDIF to Downmix 2 CH
* Flac .cue files support (SDK- Realtek)
* APE .cue files support (SDK - Realtek)
* ID3 tags FLAC Audio (SDK - Realtek)
* BDMV over NFS ( SDK - Realtek)
* DD+ Hardware will not Passthrough to Core5.1 from HD Audio source on SPDIF (Awaiting Realtek)
Workaround - Use the "No HD Audio Firmware Version"
* Long Playlist over 3000 songs
* Random Audio Play
* PPPoE bug (SDK- Realtek)
* Some DVD files still show Subtitles although set to "off" in the Setup Menu
* "autoplay" Folder DVD ISO from FAT32 USB stick -- Starts with no picture and press zoom button then it corrects - fixed but only plays for +- 2 min and then restarts. Suggest to use raw VOB files for "autoplay" folder

It's not that only ACR is suffering from SDK issues. btw GUI 2 for ACR is way ahead of mede8er. even mede8er users crave for it. Lets give ACR sometime to resolve issues. I am a developer myself & very well know the challenges esp if u have a closed SDK like realtek.

I Agree with u that ACR SDK is better, but mede8er is more stable. I have less hangups and less subtitel problems.
I go with stable I understand that other people make a different conclusion.

Greets

To be honest, I don't see a thing in that list that bothers me. But that's just because I don't use the things that suffer from these problems. I just want to categorize, choose and play my movies from the unit in a user friendly and stable way. Also the network function has to be stable.

Most users will also limit their music to using mp3 and will connect their home cinema (5.1 etc) with HDMI...
I really think that the majority wouldn't even notice these bugs.

But I don't want to make an argument here or speak for others. Everyone just has to choose for their selves which FW they want to use.

It's just that ACR has it's bugs on more "crucial" points in the FW, which makes it more buggy for "the general user".