My experience so far with the Gateway Connected DVD Player

Posting it here just in case it gets bad press with C-Net and/or
Gateway (I'm paranoid about living in a free society [no offense
C-Net) and/or Gateway :
"How would you rate this product?"
Value: 3/10
"Service and Support:"
Value: 1/10
(I was on-line with Gateway support via chat for 2 hours, and the
technician never even answered my question, I think they are still
supporting computers and not home electronics, although they are
advertising that they sell home electronics at the moment)
"Quality and Reliability:"
Value: 2/10
(Well, it used to work for me until I applied a new firmware update
advertised on their site. I'm very regretful that I ever applied the
firmware update. )
"Features:"
Value: 9/10
They introduced a "static IP" feature with the new firmware (or you
can still use DHCP), and keying in numbers/letters for a 128 bit
Wireless Encrypted Network is much nicer now, however, the technical
features do not outweigh the drawbacks of applying this firmware.
"One-line summary:"
Lacking formats, new firmware even worse!
(The new firmware does not support quicktime or asf files. No big
deal, not too many people use these formats anymore, and the ones that
do have conversion tools.)
"Product Pros:"
This DVD Player is an incredible multi-format player, though somewhat
limited at the current moment to MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video standards. A
strong player in the "connected" wireless home future! The GUI
interface is incredibly nice with the new firmware. Let's just hope a
better firmware comes out from Gateway our a third party developer can
do better.
"Product Cons:"
I just applied the new firmware to it tonight and found it somewhat
lacking. The new firmware is version 1.22a and was released
08/05/2003. I was anxious for Gateway to release a new firmware so
that I can play additional formats, however, when I attempted to play
any type of video encoded with even old standards it came in blocky at
best. This occurence happens with all .mpg videos attempted to be
played from a server to Gateway's DVD Player. If you have purchased
this product, by all means, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, update the
firmware or you will encompass problems as I have. For now I think I'm
going to resort to contacting Gateway tomorrow for an old firmware
release to fix my current problems and wait until the next available.
My problems are that current ".mpg" videos being streamed from a
server via the "Gateway D5 Media Server" are coming in blocky and at a
very lossy format (however, they still play - but who would want to
watch them heh?). If you would like to "beta test" their new firmware,
it is located at
http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/search.asp?st=pn&param=2519945.
I would definitely be interested in any other consumers' opinions. For
me, it feels like for $250, I bought a little toy that does nothing
(literally now since I applied the new firmware).

Well, that's all I have to say for now I suppose. I've been doing
quite a bit of research on the web for this DVD player and the fact
that they threw in a wireless router at the time with the $250
purchase made it worthwhile, however, I'm having 2nd opinions about
the DVD/(supposed Media player). I'm almost wondering if the money
would have been more well spent towards the purchase of a low-end
processor laptop with composite out and RCA out to my audio??!?

Any comments?

Ray

 

Got it to work! Download this software and use it with the Gateway DVD
Player. Works great. Also check out the conversation on
alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 for additional links.

In other words, I retract the below, but still, would like to comment
that support from Gateway concerning their product really is horrible.
They should have posted the software release with their new firmware
release on their web site.

 

In using the slideshow feature there are two defaults that I would
like to change/eliminate:
1. Is there anyway to turn off the "grey" caption line at the bottom
of the screen that displays for a few seconds with each new slide?,
and
2. Is there a way to change the default delay between slides from 5
seconds to something of your own choosing?

Any help would be appreciated.