Thanks Lenny
Len Ciciarelli´s last blog ..You Cant Get There from Here

I am doing what below says… # 2 is a little confusing… please excuse my ignorance of these things

1.Create images you want to rotate and put them in your images/folder under the names bg-portait1.jpg, bg-portait2.jpg and so on.
2.Open your style.css and remove background reference from #portrait-bg section
3.Enter this code in your header.php just below the stylesheet line (one beginning with link rel=”stylesheet”)
4.
#portrait-bg { background: url(/images/bg-portrait.jpg); }

5.Replace “69″ with your maximum picture number

I already included the files there for both and gave some basic instructions in the comments area for another reader.

I”ve seen several people get a revo 3610 or 1600 and have all sorts of issues with choppy video and poor playback. Not sure if there is a driver or hardware issues as it seems the ION GPU is not being triggered to do the video acceleration or something. It’s really hard for me to sort things out from afar, especially since 6 of revo 3610’s I’ve set up and have not had such problems. All I can suggest is the usual: update all drivers and install Flash Beta, remove bloatware to free up ram and connect via HDMI to an HDTV.

Then there are TV resolution issues. Overscan, or how the TV or audio receiver interprets the signal from the Revo, which can cause issues too. From there I suggest the usual: set the NVidia HDMI out to 720P or 1080P or 1080I out and connect to the TV. After that, work through the TV resolution settings to get the best visual. Problem is every TV is different. Even brand new ones. Hell, I have a friend that has an HP media smart with HDMI out connected to an HD DPI TV and it was all whacked out. It took a mixture of trial and error PC settings and TV settings to get a good normal picture. Nothing I would have normally set it to either, which was strange.

Test and tweak the output video settings of the revo and the TV to see what is best. If it all fails, return the Revo for another one and try again.

The tiny black plug is for the SPIDF optical out to cover and protect the LED inside. I don’t know why they cover it with white tape at the factory.

The wifi? I think you have to go into the control panel and set up networking to turn it on first. It’s not on by default.
It is a notebook style card, so signal strength is not that good and it tends to hog CPU and RAM. So, I’d go wired if you can. Or buy a bridge and plug the revo into it with a eithernet cable and let the bridge do the gruntwork of wifi and not the Revo.

Thanks

I am very interested in learning to place my own photos into amazing grace theme… looking for easy helpful instructions.Thought I had it but, no go. I appreciate if you could help.

Thank You so much
Lenny
Len Ciciarelli´s last blog ..You Cant Get There from Here

I am using the Belkin N wireless router but have only limited access indicated and can’t get on line. I think my massive stone fireplace wall may be blocking the signal.

Thank you for the complements.. I really appreciate it!

The revo has an OS image backup on a separate partition on the drive. It also has a backup manager to burn the DVD’s to make a factory disc set. So, you’d have to connect a DVD burner via USB and make the disk set. Then open the unit and replace the drive. Then start the reinstall. I’m sure there are other ways that may be easier/harder, but you still need a DVD burner connected to get the factory reinstall diskset.

Actually, I was one of the first to post the differences between the U9012 and the newer U9022. The only difference is that the U9022 now has the VESA mount. The color and everything else is identical to the U9012. Buy whichever you can get your hands on first.

I know others have said this before, but thank you for everything you’ve done. I’ve spent weeks reviewing pre-built and build-it-yourself HTPC options, looked for reviews of flash 10.1, hulu, WMC, and live TV options and playback quality, and you’ve done an amazing job putting it all together!

I’m about ready to take the plunge, but I’m just curious if you or anyone else replaced the 160GB harddrive with a larger drive, and if so, is there any easy to use Acer ‘Recovery’ system available to transfer the operating system to the new drive? I don’t have a separate NAS, and because I intend to also use this system as a DVR, would like the additional storage.

Also, do you know of any difference between the 3610 U9022 and the 3610 U9012? (or is it just the color: black vs. blue). Thanks again!

Well, that’s a lot of info there.

Even though you used my mega zip pack, make sure you’ve run all MS updates too including Silverlight, DirectX etc.
The screw on the bottom? There is no sticker on the USA models.
Connecting the Revo to a wireless router does not matter as long as you are not using that router as a bridge to connect wirelessly to ANOTHER router. Then that wifi connection can be the cause for a low bandwidth issue and cause stuttering.

I’ve heard that some are having issues with stuttering of video on the 3610 with IE or FFox and in boxee no matter what. Boxee I can sometimes see, but to have it with IE and FFox makes me wonder. This could, could be due to your internet connection speed. You need at least 3.0 mbps to get good Hulu (or any flash site) and NetFlix (silverlight) playback. If less than that, Flash will stutter and Silverlight will get grainy to maintain smooth playback.

The TV tuner, well who knows really. They do add another load to the puny CPU on the revo, so some say they work well and others say they don’t. I’m in the middle of getting one and testing it myself.

You did not mention what type of TV you have it connected to and the cable type?

To do list:
Verify your ISP connection speed and make sure you’re getting that speed TO THE REVO. Very important.
Install all the updates on Windows 7
Make sure you are connected to a wired connection
Undo the TV tuner and do your testing of Hulu and netflix with IE 8 (IE -8 x86 version only!! IE -64 bit does not play Flash Beta!)
Boxee is a separate issue altogether, so lets nail the flash and netflix issues in IE first.
If connected to HDTV, use an HDMI cable and set the Revo Nvidia controls to 720P or 1080P (720P is better for web viewing and little less CPU for the Revo)

Let me state that I am not using the onboard wireless as I disabled the adapter. However, I have connected my 3610 to a wireless router. This same router has an Xbox connected to it and it plays NetFlix just fine. The Revo and Xbox aren’t running at the same time.

In regards to Live TV I am using a Kworld UB435 Tuner and when I view my QAM channels I see stuttering. Something else of note is the channels appear in Letterbox format but if I don’t use the Tuner the channels are 16×9 without the black top/bottom bars. Any tweaks here are appreciated.

The last few things I want to mention is that when my Revo arrived the screw holding the box together didn’t have a warranty seal over it (anyone else see something similar – maybe the US model doesn’t have one). Finally, I was not able to burn recovery DVD’s due to a 0×207 error. I contacted Acer Support (800-816-2237) and they are sending the recovery DVD’s at no charge. I was told my recovery partition is messed up somehow (known issue) so that’s why they sent the DVD’s. I thought this could help out others that are having the same error.

http://img30.yfrog.com/i/installed1.jpg/
http://img693.yfrog.com/i/installed2.jpg/

Thanks in advance for the feedback/suggestions.

The revo supports only 5.1, so I don’t understand how one can get 7.1 from the system then?

The reason I asked about HD audio over HDMI is in relation to this article http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3411 . Most HDMI cards can’t handle HD audio 7.1 LPCM over HDMI. When it’s sent out the SPDIF out it is not proper HD audio, but a compressed version. Sometime when it’s sent out the HDMI it is also comprerssed or doesn’t pass audio at all. It would be great to know if someone has been able to get 7.1 HD audio LPCM over HDMI from the Revo. You would need a Home cinema amplifier to test with that has HDMI. (Receiver doesn’t have to have HDMI 1.3 to get LPCM). appreciat any feedback on this

Thanks

John

Hule Desktop Player is looking sweet now. I watched a few movies and television shows and they looked very good. There are a few breaks now and again, but nothing bad. Also had good results via Clicker.com. I’m trying to remember if I tried Netflix or not… I think I did and it was fine. Within Boxee I was getting better results, and I think the problems I was having were really the content or something. For example, I watched an Engadget show that was on the RSS list and it was excellent. It looked HD to me and had no problems at all. I then watched an episode of House though Boxee from the Television show list, and it was to be blunt… horrible. It seemed like it was running at a horribly low framerate and just stuttered along.

I am running at 720P by the way, and the Windows 7 desktop now looks very nice from the couch. I fiddled with the programming of my Harmony One remote last night and actually got functional enough that I was able to navigate the desktop and launch all this stuff and use it with just the Harmony One. I used the instructions found here – http://forums.logitech.com/t5/.....d-p/374844 . I basically setup a whole page of softkeys to do the mouse – left, right, up, down, click, and right click. With that, you can pretty much tackle anything as long as any urls you need are in bookmarks.

Now to MLB.TV. I am a little baffled by this and have yet to find someone with a good baseline experience to compare to. I think the router helped, as before MLB.TV was telling me via their bandwidth check that I was only getting 3-6mbps (I have 15-20mbps), and now its showing (5-11mbps) by their test. Before it wouldn’t give me a decent quality at all… very pixelated (it scales quality based on bandwidth I think). Now, however, when I watch something the video quality is excellent HD, but it goes for about 3 seconds then stops for 3… then repeats over and over. I’ll keep working with them to determine if there is something wrong. Its all done in Flash and their “required specs” are below the Revo; and they claim you need 3mbps from their test to get good HD.

I think we are getting there. Hulu Desktop is quite impressive and if that works, then everything else should be able to work. I dropped the idea with my wife last night that I’m thinking of ditching Cable and going OTA. Between the Tivo (OTA, Amazon, Netflix) and the Revo, we should be able to get more than enough content to watch if we are patient.

Thanks again for all the help.

I really feel you are not getting a “consistent” 3.0+ mbps bandwidth. That’s the only reason Netflix/Silverlight would change the quality on the fly. You can run up to 300 ft of cat 6 before needing a booster, so it’s not that. Since you’ve already started the conversion to the new router, I’ll wait to hear your outcome before suggesting anything else.

Now, playing older movies like those will have a grainier appearance anyway, even if they were being pushed in HD stream. I’ve watched many of that era and they are perfectly clear after a 10-15 second start up & buffer of Silverlight. As with most video streams in SD, dark backgrounds show the distortion a little (I call it oil on water effect), but there is no pixelation at all.

The simplest way to describe Hulu in a Boxee vs. IE or FFox scenario is this. They look identical to me. That is making them both full screen on a 720P or 1080p setting on the Revo pushed via HDMI to a full 1080P HDTV LCD. Now, with that said, I have no pixelation at all. There is the typical dark background swirl or as I call it “oil on water” effect, but that’s only on very dark backgrounds (same as silverlight above). But no pixelation, stutter, skips, burps, or hickups.

To compare both Hulu and NF in all players: both play and look identical for me in either— Boxee, IE, FFox, Hulu Desktop or NetFlix in a browser on the Revo 3610.

I was thinking the same thing as you and hit Best Buy and picked up a Netgear WNDR3700 tonight and am swapping it for the Airport Extreme (actually, mine is a Time Capsule). One thing I had been reading about was that QOS can help with this kind and the Apple box doesn’t do QOS. This router is top of the charts for speed, so hopefully it will alleviate any problems with potential network issues. I work from home and have had some VoIP issues sometimes and its baffled me since I’ve literally got what should be a plenty fast pipe. I consistently get about 15-20Mbps down and just under 500K up. Coming out of the cable modem I go straight into the router (now the Netgear), and then into a Dell 24 port gigabit switch. The Revo is direct connected to the switch. No long runs of Cat6 or anything… close enough for patch cords to do the connections.

I’ll test it some more tonight and see what I get. You’ve given me an idea on what to expect.

On the quality thing, not all Tivo playback of NF is HD… so I’m basing my comparisons on SD content. In fact, I’m using the movie My Cousin Vinny and Groundhog Day for comparison and I think they are both SD.

So do you get much pixelation in playback for Hulu, Boxee, etc.?

Mike

Glad my blog was able to help you get up and running!

Two things we need to distinguish:
1-Boxee
2-Network Speed

First the Boxee:
Boxee is beta and has it’s own set of bugs. So, what you get in boxee may be different that what you get using IExporer.
I’ve found no difference in playback quality in Boxee for Hulu (flash based content) and Netflix. Also, functions and such of Boxee are somewhat finiky right now. I’ve got no issues with Netflix thumbs posting quickly in Boxee.

As you mentioned that quality is different for different people. It’s very subjective. And Netflix will be in HD via the Tivo but is not in HD on PC’s (that’s NF’s decision to do that).

Network Speed:
Netflix is Silverlight and will start out grainy for about 20 seconds then go clear (in Boxee or IE). Now, the issue with Silverlight is that it’s quality (graininess) is based entirely on the pipe the data is going through. If it’s under 3 mbps, Silverlight will throttle back the quality of the picture to keep the playback smooth. With RR turbo, you should not have an issue to the house. Maybe you have a network issue inside the house that is choking back the bandwidth? You may need to do some testing. At least open Taskmanager and see how much bandwidth you are using. The fact that you are getting grainy playback that comes and goes and slow loading thumbs in Boxee makes me wonder if you have a bottleneck????

I don’t have RR turbo but rather the std 7.5 mb set up. Turbo is based on demand…maybe it is throttling back too far and giving you only 2.0 mbps? That will make NetFlix get grainy! Also, that airport router? Man, I’ve heard nothing but trouble with bandwidth issues with those things. Do some checking to make sure you’re getting all the bandwidth you should be to the machine.

MBL? Don’t use it. So no input.

But I think you have a bottleneck in your network. Start with that Apple product you have in the middle. I bet it’s you whole problem.

Thanks so much for the work you’ve done here. It has save a lot of time for folks trying to get going with the Revo. I started a quest to get this working primarily to feed my wife’s MLB fix for this season, after getting very frustrated with Time Warner’s handling of MLB Extra Innings and their insistence on blocking Tivos from recording the content. I figured MLB.TV would be better and via Boxee is should pass the “wife test” on ease of use.

Out of the box, I was not very impressed with the Revo, but its gotten better with all the tuning steps you recommended. I am trying to understand what I should expect from this, as everyone’s idea of “good” is different. I am not a videophile and although I love good HD, I can live with television grade SD content as well. We’ve been watching a lot of content through our Tivo from Netflix and have never been disappointed with it.

So I have the Revo 3610 now for a few days and I think I’ve done most of the things you suggested… purging bloatware, upgrading Flash and Nvidia, etc. I have it attached by wire to a gigabit switch, which is in turing going through and Airport Extreme router to a cable modem… connected to Time Warner Road Runner Turbo (~18mbps down, ~0.500mbps up).

Here is what I’ve experienced last night when doing some testing:
- Within Boxee, going into Netflix it seems to take a very long time to paint the cover art… like a minute or so when I jump into a section. Playing a video is tolerable, but I’m getting quite a bit of pixilation beyond what I’d expect.
- I tried Hulu desktop, Boxee, and Clicker and playback of content is again tolerable, but there is pixilation which degrades it to less than SD quality. Its kind of odd, because at times its really sharp, and at other times its not. And when you have an abruptly changing seen, it is kind of jerky and not smooth.
- You haven’t discussed MLB.TV, so I assume you’ve not tried it. Same thing with that… video is not smooth…. quite a bit worse than Hulu and Boxee actually. I think some of that is on MLB.TV’s end as they admit they’ve not turned all the good stuff on and won’t until regular season starts, which is a bit frustrating since the whole point of this was that service (and to eventually be able to pull the cable plug).

I’m just looking for “what to expect” and also how to best isolate where the problem is if I’m not getting the same level of quality that you are getting. I’m actually willing to switch anything in the system to try and get this to work. This stuff is SO close to being the greatest thing since sliced bread, but just not quite there yet.

Not sure if you’ve tried it, but I’m now working on trying to get my Harmony One remote to control everything… some work has been done on that to potentially even control the mouse.

On a closing note, I admit I’m jealous of your job! I used to do a lot of drag racing in younger years and now am a project manager, but not in something as cool as that! The one area of content that will likely keep my cable connection going is being able to watch NHRA on ESPN2. I wish ESPN would get a good internet driven service.