this thread seems to be gettign a little to heated (includign the moderator ).

however the questions being raised are all valid and we should not be distracted from then.
- when can we expect the next firmware release?
- what time line between future releases?
- why can we not have bug fixes in between as well?

Dave

Do you know that all realtek players come from the same factory ?
They all use the same sdk ?

-Well, I suppose that all Realtek players come from the same factory. I really doubt that they all use exactly the same SDK.

It's a marketing trick we don't do that we don't have this etc etc

-Ah, the marketing discussion. I had that one with technical support. What about AC Ryan, writing down "Gigabit LAN" in the technical specifications ? They did not mention "Streaming only" while pre-ordering was possible. It was only a day after I got the HD2 that their website was changed so it would mention "Gigabit Streaming". When I pre-ordered it, there was no information to be found anywhere that it would only allow streaming. If you watch their website and look at "Technical Specifications" it still says "Gigabit LAN" which is incorrect. The term "Gigabit LAN" is only valid if the LAN port allows speeds up to 1 GBit no matter which transfer protocol you use. For me this still counts as misleading information. Every company uses clever marketing techniques, but AC Ryan is no saint either when it comes to this.

All players from realtek have there problems sdk related or not !! And thats a fact !

-Which will prevent me for buying another Realtek player in the future. I rather use my PC now for watching movies instead of using the Playon!HD2. It seems that even after years of selling Realtek chipsets, SDK's still produce to many restrictions / problems to make their device usable. I'll rather stick to Popcorn Hour next time. At least their players work decently and are beeing updated regularly. Even the older models. Why they work fine you ask ? Well ... Oh yeah ... they don't use Realtek chipsets (PCH uses Sigma chipets).

To give you a idea

On the prodigy page they claim they have usb 3 and the china clone (mede8or acryan etc etc) don;t have it : False hd2 has usb 3

-Okay, correct. However, this comparisation chart has been on their site for a long time, even before the HD2 was released. Could also bin a mistake / lack of updating.

They claim they have gigabit lan and china clone not - Also false

-Actually, this is true. The HD2 does NOT have Gigabit LAN. It allows Gigabit Streaming. Since the RTD1185 only has a 10/100 Mbit LAN controller built in and uses an external NIC for the streaming part, the HD2 does not provide FULL Gigabit LAN functionality. Transferring data only goes to about 6 MB/sec which is equivelant to 100 Mbit Half-Duplex.

And so one.
All the options you see at the prodigy product page can also be done on the acryan mede8or etc with sdk 4.

-If this is true, why does AC Ryan stick with this horrible interface ? Why not use flash instead ? Technical support told me that they actually wanted to reduce the static PNG background from 1920x1080 to 1280x720 to make the interface react faster. What sorry-a** excuse is this ? A 500 Mhz chipset that has difficulties to make a interface work normally just because PNG background is used ?? Haven't heard of such bull-sh*t since the release of Windows 95 (in case of performance issues, remove your desktop image).

But it's a choice wich options to use or not.

-To me it sounds that AC Ryan makes all the wrong decisions. They don't listen to the input users give them and do the things they think is right for us, without taking past experiences in account. As what I wrote earlier, I think almost all HD2 users would rather get a smaller firmware update every two weeks then one big one every 3 months. I understand that programming with a new SDK is difficult, but that is something that AC Ryan should have thought of in advance. You can't just let customers wait month after month, without any kind of feedback on the progression. All you get is "We know, we are working on it but don't know if and when it will be fixed".

Next mediaplayer I buy will either be a Popcorn Hour or a HTPC. With a HTPC I have my own control over the software beeing used, because the worries that I had (about giving software development away to the vendor would be a bad idea-) came out to be true. I am just so sick of waiting and not beeing able to do anything about it.

I compare it with buying a car with a faulty engine. You have to wait for the repairshop to find out what is wrong with it but they can't give you any date when it will be fixed. Unfortunally, that repairshop only has interns as employees that can barely hand a screwdriver.

Personally I think the chances of getting a decent firmware soon are as big as my chances of survival in the Muppet Hospital. "Doctor Bob, Doctor Bob ... the patient is dying" Dr. Bob : "Well, at least his worst worries are over then, hahahaha"