NeoTV 550 Media Player

[sholling]

B&H Photo is having a sale and it's time to update the media player in my bedroom . I really-really enjoy my old WDTV Live players but they just can't do justice to my growing collection of 24bit FLACs. Well I've been eyeballing Netgear's NeoTV 550 media player for a while because it has some solid specs at a good price. They usually sell for between $163 and $170 but B&H Photo has limited quantities for $110 with free shipping so I pulled the trigger. I don't spend enough time listening to music or watching Blu-Rays in that room to justify spending more.

It should be here Thursday or Friday and I'll write up my first impressions this weekend or early next week but in the meantime I'll explain my reasoning. First off I don't want to be an early adopter again and prefer to go with a mainstream brand that will update their products regularly. According to forum reports Netgear has been releasing a steady stream up firmware updates since it's release. I also want idiot simple with a responsive and intuitive remote - no @#$% mice, trackballs or keyboards!

What I want from it:

• Idiot simple remote control
• Easy Harmony remote integration
• Simple to use
• Network ready
• Option to navigate by shares and folder structure
• Blu-Ray ISO support with full menus
• Stutter free 1080P
• DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD pass through
• 24bit and multichannel FLAC support to 5 channels @ 24bit / 192khz

According to reports and reviews it does all of the above. Where it reportedly comes up light is streaming but that could change in the future or I can just add a Roku or the new Sony SMP-200 streaming media player later should I decide I want one.
Roku vs. SMP-200 discussion

Neo550 reviews with good information:
http://www.havetheknowhow.com/Hardware-reviews/Netgear-NTV550-Review-page1.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSANq8yQjLw

I'll report back soon with my first impressions. Hopefully I'll be wowed.

 

[sholling]

First Impressions

It got here a bit early and I'm still testing but I can give my first impressions. The box itself is the size of a small router and is a fairly unobtrusive dull black with only USB and SD card slots, a power button and tiny power light. A good fit for my TV stand.

Setup is easy because it detected my shares in seconds and then allowed me to choose which shares should show up. Then you set video resolution and audio decoding for PCM vs pass-through. The default is decode to PCM. The menus are beautiful and navigation is simple but there are enough options that it takes a bit of playing around to get used to. What it needs is a way to set more user preferences for navigation. I say that because I'm getting an occasional unasked for toggle between track order listing and alphabetical listing. Still I'd rate it as almost as WAF friendly as a DVR as long as you aren't using a Harmony remote (see below). Navigation is fairly intuitive but there are a lot of buttons.

What works: First off DTS-HS Master Audio pass-through! I haven't had time to watch an entire video yet but I watched long enough to confirm DTS-HD MA was displaying on my receiver. 24bit 96khz and multichannel FLACs also playback but I don't have any 24bit 192khz FLACs to test with.

What's up in the air: By default it was over-driving the heck out of the the audio creating more than a bit of harshness and distortion. To get that under control I had to set the NeoTV's volume to -10 which is as low as it can be set in fixed mode. This is a must if you have dynamic compression disabled! -10 or better yet -12 seems to have solved the harshness and distortion issue. Playing the same BD side by side with my Opp the 93 the volume from the Oppo is still much lower making me think that the NTV550 at -10 is still a bit over-driven but usable. I'm going with -12 for now for the cleanest possible sound.

What's missing: Streaming movies and TV. There's a TV & Movies menu item but under it it just says something to the effect of coming soon. What it does have is Internet Media which includes RadioTime (beta), RadioIO/Shoutcast, Flickr Photos, Internet News Channels and Weather. It also has a connector for a Netgear ReadyNAS enabled NAS photo streamer. I haven't had time to look at any of those yet.

The second thing that's missing is preconfigured Harmony support for the NeoTV 550. You can assign keys yourself of course but there are a whole lot of keys that need assigning. All of the media playback keys, number keys, navigation keys, and at least 8-10 more. I'm sure I'll get around to it but not today.

Keep in mind that this is just a first impression. I want to spend a few days A/B testing CDs and FLACs and well as some videos before saying thumbs up or thumbs down but it's for sure a keeper for my bedroom. The only question is whether or not I put one in the family room (in combination with my Roku) in place of my HTPC.

 

[sholling]

Update

I found the NeoTV550 settings for the Harmony under Media Center PC. For some reason the Logitech software kept trying to move it to appliance which is what had me confused. But if you carefully put in NeoTV550 under Media Center PC it will work. The key is using the right name. Like the WDTV Live and the Roku adding a bunch of custom mapping helps a lot with usability.

 

[JohnA]

Question,

What does this do that a Roku won't do

 

[sholling]

Question,

What does this do that a Roku won't do

A lot because they are totally different animals like cats and dogs. They specialize in different types of entertainment. A Roku is an internet content player, the internet equivalent to TV with a very limited ability to play local files. The NeoTV550 is a very full featured local media player with a very limited ability to play online content. I buy a lot of my music in the form of 24bit FLAC files and darn few media players can play them without down-sampling, the NeoTV550 can. The bottom line is that a two-box solution is probably the best bet for those with a large collection of media at home, and a desire for online content. BTW I'm not endorsing the NeoTV550 yet. I probably will at some point but I haven't had enough time with it yet.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Besides lack of streaming stuff - what else did you found you didn't liked ?

My custom ion htpc looks like dying and it never proper supported hdmi anyhow..
I'm looking for something with quick power on/off and low power use.

Does mkv support works right? Did you had a chance to test movies with subtitles ?(not hardcoded)

 

[sholling]

Besides lack of streaming stuff - what else did you found you didn't liked ?

I can't find much to complain about. The NeoTV550 does the job of playing 24bit 96khz FLACs including 24bit multichannel FLACs and playing BD ISOs with DTS-HD MA pass-through so well that I've retired my almost brand new HTPC. In fact I bought a second one and a second Roku for my bedroom. There are only a few minor quibbles. One is that the NeoTV550's folder views default to a photo wall (great for videos) but not ideal for my music's nested (artist\album) file system. But one button press brings up a list view or you can use one of the other ways of viewing files, I just like using shares and navigating by folders. Second the NeoTV550 does not go out and find cover art on the internet. If you want it to display cover art you need to put a JPG in the folder with the ISO or FLAC. To speed things up the NeoTV550 maintains a local database of the contents of my server. That database can be updated manually (manual scan) or can be scheduled to automatically update every day. They do recommend plugging in a small cheap thumbdrive in the back and letting the NeoTV format it for use as a cache. The final nit-pick is that it enforces region codes. My old WDTV live just ignored them. I can't think of any other nit-picks and I like it a lot. The interface is very nice and the default skin looks nice. It does work well with a Harmony remote but I recommend a bit of custom button mapping to get the most out of the Harmony. Having a remote and using it with an interface optimized for a remote is just so much better than any of the HTPC keyboards that I tried.

Note I have not tried it with DLNA because i like using shares.

B&H still has them for $100.

Does mkv support works right? Did you had a chance to test movies with subtitles ?(not hardcoded)

I've never had any luck making an MKV that worked right with anything and the only rip I have handy was ripped without subtitles however it played back in DTS 5.1. I use ISOs which work perfectly with full menus including subtitles (tested just for you). Note that I'm using Cat5e and not wireless. I haven't tested with wireless.

----------------------------------------------------------------------​

As I said I'm using a Roku XS for internet programming and it just spanks the Boxee software I had on my HTPC and the old (non-plus) WDTV Live. I watched my first 5.1 Netfix movie last night, Revision3 works perfectly as does Amazon Prime and HBO-Go (free for FiOs customers). I don't Hulu so I haven't tried Hulu Plus. The Roku will work with a Harmony but set the Harmony's push button delay to the minimum. But honestly the Bluetooth remote that comes with the XS is so much faster that I prefer to use it.

Neither device does youtube or Photobucket though so if that's a deal killer you may want to keep looking. Rumor has it that there will be a Google approved Roku youtube app in the future but you know how rumors are. But they almost have to to drive customers to their new premium video channels. FWIW they recommend using a 2GB MicroSD card with the Roku XS for added memory. It seems Angry Birds is a memory hog and eats up too much on board storage.

I haven't tried the new version of the WDTV Live but it may be worth a look. The new one does some level of Netflix and reportedly does Dolby TrueHD pass-through but there is no word yet on DTS-HD MA or 24bit FLACs.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Thx a lot sholling,
I'm slightly concerned over weaker mkv support, but I guess I better switch to BD ISOs

Yes, I use photobucket, but photos on TV are not my priority - so I don't really care...
Unfortunately it looks like Boxee team completely abandoned the PC version and all the changes and updates are done on the boxee box hardware - so will Boxee Box match Roku - I don't know, but I feel that comparing older product would not be fair, that said - Streaming is really not a priority now since I still get plenty of tv of cable and thou it cost me about 65/month ($132-$50(inet)-$15 boost=$67 - im not counting the voice part since I don't use it) - the quality is significantly better than most streaming videos

p.s:
god bless CV for not using download caps

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I ordered the NeoTV 550 few days, should get it tomorrow - I got few BD ISO's ready - T4-Salvation and Tron-Legacy. Hopefully I'd see DTS-HD MSTR label lid up on the avr for the first time ever

 

[sholling]

I ordered the NeoTV 550 few days, should get it tomorrow - I got few BD ISO's ready - T4-Salvation and Tron-Legacy. Hopefully I'd see DTS-HD MSTR label lid up on the avr for the first time ever

I thought B&H was just a subway ride away from you.

Let us know how it works.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I thought B&H was just a subway ride away from you.

Let us know how it works.

true that But I shipped to my manager home to save on the sales tax Whooping $10

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

sholling, what software (if any) do you use to organize your movies for Neo 550?
(Album art , fan art etc)

 

[sholling]

sholling, what software (if any) do you use to organize your movies for Neo 550?
(Album art , fan art etc)

I don't use anything but if you have a suggestion I'm listening. I oragianize on my server by shares and folders for example: BD-Movies\Title or BD-Concerts\Title. Or for music: Music\Artist\Album.

For movies I just download poster art for each movie and stick a folder.jpg in each folder. I have a lot of catching up to do with my music folders because only about 10% so far has the cover art and I use Monkey Media to find CD cover art.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I don't use anything but if you have a suggestion I'm listening. I oragianize on my server by shares and folders for example: BD-Movies\Title or BD-Concerts\Title. Or for music: Music\Artist\Album.

For movies I just download poster art for each movie and stick a folder.jpg in each folder. I have a lot of catching up to do with my music folders because only about 10% so far has the cover art and I use Monkey Media to find CD cover art.

There is got to be a better way :
NETGEAR NeoTV 550 (NTV550) - How to tag your video files

This one looks promising:
Media Center Master official website

Nickel and dime of MyMovies licensing feels confusing and overpriced

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

There is also Yammm
Mikinho | Yammm

 

[sholling]

There is got to be a better way :
NETGEAR NeoTV 550 (NTV550) - How to tag your video files

This one looks promising:
Media Center Master official website

Nickel and dime of MyMovies licensing feels confusing and overpriced

I just tried Media Center Master and like it.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

one more :
evatag | Free software downloads at SourceForge.net