View Full Version : Some ideas on KiSS DP-558 recorder
Lord_Kiron
10-10-04, 21:46
Dear KiSS beta testers ... err... users :) and tes... users to be !
I am personally not own DP-558 device and becouse I don't need one (my SVHS VCR + Pinacle video grabber serves me fine) will not in future.
So my opinion here may be not trully objective , however after having KiSS DP-500 for more then two years (so I have good idea about how KiSS and their devices operate) and reading a users' posts on the different forums I came to one simple conclusion :
DON'T BUY UNFINISHED PRODUCTS !
Don't get me wrong , personally I like the new annovations KiSS pushing forward all the time , also quality is good and when next KiSS player (DP-600 , the one that can play QPel encodings , High Deffiniton video and WMV among other things) will arrive I will buy it as soon as it mature.
However let's look on situation we have with DP-558 recorder - the manual says FTP - it's absent , where is subtitle support - absent , we have all old bugs we had on prev. players plus some new coming from the recorder part.
Except for addition of recorder capability what we have new in the player part of this , according to KiSS, completely rewritten and based on new core firmware ? - New GUI , that's all .
Well This GUI is a indeed a huge step forward , but what about other things , even such simple as FF/REW on SVCDs ?
Hi-Jack, who I personally admire for all the great work he doing here says "wait couple of weeks - KiSS promised a new firmware will be released then that fix all the problems" .
Well as any who followed the developments can say KiSS's "couple of weeks" usualy turn to be at least couple of months and "all bugs" become "some bugs" ...
Personally I believe this recorder WILL BE a great product ... sometime ... in s KiSS's "couple of weeks" , however NOW it's unfinished .
So I say - DO NOT BUY IT until they finish it !
Doing otherwise you not only will be disapointed with "your new toy" , but also will support continuation of releasing uninished products by KiSS and other companies.
Let them finish it , and then in a "couple of weeks" when someone like Hi-Jack will tell us - "I tested it with a new firmware, it have all the features it supposed to and only few REALLY minor bugs" buy it , but not before.
I am software engeneer myself , I know that according to Murfy laws "every program have a bugs" and that sometimes it's really hard to keep deadline and marketing pushes and sometimes there are not enough engeneers and sometimes testers.
BUT it's not YOUR problems it's KiSS problems , let them solve them , DON'T buy DP-558 - HELP KiSS to become more efficient.
Yes , I agree .....I sold several DP-470 to customers and there is NO any support for this model.KiSS says , not known yet when will be update for this model.
Also I'm not sure that there will be good support for the rest models.There are new models and this will be new target.Old models will stay like this until they find somone who is interested to develop them for free probably
Lord_Kiron
11-10-04, 15:36
No chance for someone to develop them for free :( Not because there are no entusiasts but becouse even if KiSS publish their code (that I doubt) the Sigma API can't be disclosed.
You admire me? huh :P
Anyways...
Let's get some things straight.
Conclusion in my review...
"We recommend the DP-558 only if the "cons" list is seriously reduced"
The cons list holds a list of items we need to see prior to recommend the
DP-558. All round, it's not a bad product but too expensive for what it offers.
With all the fuss about FTP now and the luminance problem... oh God...
When did this happen... It needs to be solved. Period.
About the older KiSS products, they will still be supported for a while.
There will even be a special team that will develop the FW for these so the
other team can concentrate on new products and DP-558. UNfortunately
indeed, DP-470 is not supported that well as the other models, they
haven't been sold as much either and it's not the customers fault...
As to what DP-558 is concerned, we expect a Time Line from KISS tomorrow at our request how the next weeks of development will fix the issues we have.
There's a lot happening behind the scene...
Let's hope it's all for the good... (or most)
GrEeTz
Lord_Kiron
11-10-04, 22:50
You admire me? huh :P
Sure , pure madness is very admirable ;)
Anyway , I am not against KiSS or this product , I do hope KiSS will fix and resolve all the issues . What I am saying is that there is no reason to by DP-558 right now and get disapointed ;) , even if you plan to buy it, better wait until all the issues get resolved.
Anyway , I am not against KiSS or this product , I do hope KiSS will fix and resolve all the issues . What I am saying is that there is no reason to by DP-558 right now and get disapointed ;) , even if you plan to buy it, better wait until all the issues get resolved.
It's so nice and a truly noble gesture from your part to be recommending these things specially since you've said that you have no interest in said device. What if you bought one and you are not disapointed? What do you care either way?
Since you dont have one and you dont plan on getting one, why all the FUD? Why not let us who have one to wish for future features and fixes.
Lord_Kiron
12-10-04, 00:30
zorglub , you missed the whole point ,
I DO wish people that got one to get their fixes , morever chances are that if people will stop buying the recorder until the problems fixed the likehood of getting this fixes faster will increase.
Comerse is a two way communication , but when in some cases company fails to listen to their customers the only chennel that left is money.
I am VERY disapointed from this product , after 1.5 year of delays I did not expected it to be bugfree completely , there is no such a thing , but at least I expected it to be "well polished" .
Instead it in worse state then DP-508 when it first arrived.
Do you really like EVERYTHING about this product ? Or you , excuse me for being direct say "if I got f$%ed, why not everyone else?" . I hope not .
Now about why it my consern even if I do not own and do not intend to own this recorder - very simple, I am DP-500 owner and I sencirely looking forward for DP-600 or may be DP-608 (depends on wether or not I gona need HD for video playback from then internet).
And I want to HELP KiSS see the problem here , if they do not see it by themselves , because I want my future player to be released as well polished as possible , I want my current DP-500 (that I still love and use almost every day DESPITE zillions of small problems , bugs and unconvinientses) to be as polished as possible .
Both people and companies learn from their mistakes , buth they both can learn from such only if they recognize "this is mistake" otherwise if it "goes" it's OK for them. And I am trying to help KiSS to see their mistake by "sending a signal" - something is wrong here .
I am an owner of a DP-500 for almost a year and have been following this forum and gooddvdstuff quite closely.
According to what I 've seen so far, I would put it this way:
1) There are people that have had enough with Kiss and its bugs and will not buy poducts from them again. These people probably don't participate any longer in Kiss forums as this one.
2) There are people (like Lord Kiron) that have been disappointed by their Kiss product but are still optimistic and continue to hang arround hoping... Since I 'm writting here now, I 'll consider myself to be in this group too. But let's take an outside look at ourselves: Lord Kiron, before buying a DP-600 will wait for it to:
a. Be pre-released and pre-ordered (According to latest Kiss tactics this procedure will last a ...while)
b. To be released. With new and old bugs. Also according to latest experience on the most expected "new core" DP-558 firmware: What a new joke that was... But even jokes tend to be bad jokes, especially when they are repeated.
c. To mature according to customers expectations. Also based on all Kiss products by now and the improvement pace, this will not happen. Ever!
So Kiron, even if one day all these happen it would be too late for the product's life cycle, won't it? There are much cheaper players arround for some time now having similar capabilities to DP-600. I am talking about Mediatek based players, of course. But you know that much better than I do. You may even prefer spending the much more extra cash for Kiss due to their Ethernet interface. But it is not worth so much more, being that buggy and all. So, Kiss has you on this one, you just don't have other options and what can one do?
3) There are also those who repeatedly declare happy with their Kiss product. I can't say I disrespect their opinions, but I find it very difficult and illogical to beleive someone who so passionately support Kiss and doesn't mention anything negative (that actually bothers them) for their Kiss product. And their tone usually come as if they don't respect other people's opinions concerning their own Kiss experiences. By doing that they insult other people's intelligence, people who find Kiss problems irritating; yea sure it ...plays but how well could/should it play? And compaired to other 50? players, how well does it perform in similar functionality (DVD)? The people of this 3rd group are the minority, it is their word against all the rest actually, the numbers are an indisputable fact.
For the newcomer in this forum: The only optimistic view of Kiss is the delusion it will eventually become bug-free after many many firmware updates. But this takes time, will have you stuck in these forums for many hours-days-months-years hoping until realising it is a delusion. Some even profit from this situation, no offence Hi-Jack, your work is a take AND give dealing, I have the outmost respect and admiration for people who turn their hobby into profit :twisted:
The finest example of the Kiss delusion: The "new core" that has been so very much anticipated to replace the old buggy one proved to be even worst! So, either the same bad programmers did their "magic" from scratch and produced the same old errors (which means it will always be like this) or they just used the old unstable crapp with new options and really made the damn thing stuffed like hell and FUBAR for an eternity. Which is even worst and unrecoverable. They could still, of course, have built a new crapp from scratch using Kiss's favourite programming techniqe: copy-paste code from their good-old firmware. This would also explain the features missing (subs). Don't be surprised if similarities with old core will keep popping up.
Oh, what a beauty this so called "new core" is! :lol:
Pick your choice, there isn't much left on the subject, really... Still, if you think there is, take a look arround this forum and here:
http://www.gooddvdstuff.com/kissdvd/
Lord_Kiron
12-10-04, 07:05
I have MediaTek based player too and saw a few , the MPEG4 decoding quality is not to my liking , Sigma's chip does much better job.
And like it or not , so far KiSS was the company who released most of the updates, improvments and fixes for Sigma based players.
There for my goal is not bitching KiSS , but to help them understend where they are wrong and correct themselves.
For the newcomer in this forum: The only optimistic view of Kiss is the delusion it will eventually become bug-free after many many firmware updates. But this takes time, will have you stuck in these forums for many hours-days-months-years hoping until realising it is a delusion. Some even profit from this situation, no offence Hi-Jack, your work is a take AND give dealing, I have the outmost respect and admiration for people who turn their hobby into profit :twisted:
Hi Qspock,
You really think running this site is giving me any profit?
You need to see my phonebills, you should buy the players we buy for review and sell again at low prices to the ones supporting us, you should see the bills of stuff we offered in contests etc... and you should look at the value you get in return for that very low support we ask because whoever becomes member is the one gaining... Not me!!
The site is "costing" me money and 1 new member a day will not cover that
by a long shot. (As that's how it's going)
About your opinion from kISS, indeed, the figures don't lie, almost 80% can
live with the players which does not mean they are perfectly happy or don't want improvements. It's finding a way to get the best use of it :-)
KiSS ain't perfect by far, but which one is?
Most opinions are based on MTK chips that make it "superieur" because it can handle Qpel. That's bullshit.
They don't handle better subtitles then KISs
They don't offer better Quality
They don't offer that kind of support like KISS (even if wrong) etc...
It all depends from which point you look at it.
You look at it from a personal point of view as you had bad experience with
KiSS, i look at it froma global point of view and can easily see all players
have their own pro's and cons.
As long as we are in the first generation of players, we'll be open for these
things. As of the second generation, we crack it down if this happens. There's a certain knowledge you need up front when buying any player
today, accept it's not perfect.
About the messages coming from KiSS about new kernel and stuff, I agree,
they don't often match the truth and KiSS should be more carefull with that.
Loads of other things i agree, the bugs, the endless fixes and so on...
Same thing happens with other brands and products...
KiSS ain't that bad as some post on the forums and they really try to
progress, they made big improvements with DP-558, just not enough.
We still wait and see what they deliver in the next 6 weeks to make their
products a lot better. (All players get 2.8.9 firmware or higher soon and for
DP-558 multiple releases are expected in the next few weeks)
regards
Hi-Jack
Hey qspock,
It sounds like you are option 4 that you forgot to mention in your long post full of crap - people that keep on posting how bad these players are, about how there are soooooo many better players than Kiss that play soooo many more formats and cost soooo much cheaper. What I havent figured out is why if you have such negative opinion why dont you just sell your damm player and MOVE on. But no, instead you fill these forums full of hate, complaints and negativity and keep them stuck in this eternal negative loop. What, you think you are a beacon of light helping people know the truth about these players? bffft give me a break, you just come out as a sad little person who has some kind of irrational twisted personal vendetta against a home electronic device and have nothing better to do than insulting, day in and day out, anybody that has something positive to say or tries to help someone else.
Move on.
Ok guies...
Now let's all try Buddhism. let's be Zennnnnnnnn...
We are a community of users trying to find proper products of our dreams.
Here is a forum. Not a parliament... so, let's return to more constructive conversations.... love and peace :D
Well, the responses are more or less what expected. Again there seem to be:
People who still hope kiss will get better most probably in vain (Kiron I hope that too, all these things your wish for to happen, I just don't share your optimism).
People who do keep supporting kiss creatively and deserve to get something out of it (their tone in the posts gives them a lot of credit too), Hi-Jack you did help a lot of people and continue to do so, you clearly own a sponsored forum which I whould support myself if it gave me some personal gain (like what ET do with his quite usefull firmware releases, had I got a credit card by now I would already have thanked him). I can never be against your way of thinking and functioning, since I agree with it too. I hope you do get something out of this in the end, because you do deserve it for those long ours spending for these things and for the people that you help.
And there are still others that attack for their obscure reasons.
I had no intention of flaming this topic, but I got aggravated by several posts lately and decided to express my thoughts and reveal some facts that bother me. Let me say again, I don't take it kindly when attempts to insult my intelligence are being made and dislike this happening to others too. And I 've seen this happening systematically lately, so this is why I posted here and revealed all these nice things that had on my mind. I don't mean to persuate someone not buying kiss products, this is not my goal you see. But I did mean to say something here and that is why I posted. Checking the whole topic will make my point clear by now, even though an apparent attempt to blur it is being made. I will not participate in this any longer if I consider it to be unworthy.
Actually, I own a DP-500 with 2.8.8 firmware and got the less problems people about here have. No remote problems, no freezing problems in xx minutes, no general problems at all. I use it a lot, it does the job I bought it for but: The nature of its firmware and kiss updates indicate it will never be as good as it can be. The ff/rw in divx files is quite useless, you simply preffer not to use it, DVD playback lacks basic features other players have and you go: Why not buying a second DVD player when it only costs 50??. And these things will not be corrected in the feature, kiss is too busy dealing with newly introduced bugs and newly instroduced bugs in newly introduced products. That leaves a bitter taste for the 280 ? I 've spend for a DVD/divx player, doesn't it? Given their potential with firmware upgrades (that is a main reason I bought it) I see that in the end it takes up much more of my time than it should be and delivers much less than it actually can.
Just 1 question :
Why are other competitors absent from the race (I mean not the leasts : Philips, Sony, Thomson, JVC....)
It's because creating such a player is a long and difficult work if you want it to run just like a coffee machine :
I am computer engineer, but what I want from such a product is to be perfectly stable, usable and respectful from the fonctionnalities that are stated in the manual.
Kiss is not doing this, and that's why it can be in advance.
Do you really think the Philips HDRW720 is as buggy as the DP-558 ? NO.
It can be used by anyone, including wife and children, that don't have to be a geek and "excuse" the fact that you have to press several times a button before having the action done, when it's done, and so on.
So my decision will be to buy such a player (hard disk recording from multiple sources and ethernet access) only when :
1/ Full fonctionnalities promised in the DP-558 will be running smooth
2/ Another "real" brand will out such a product, even with less functionnalities.
CU
Lord_Kiron
14-10-04, 15:35
I think others do not make such players because the technology is still too new and untested , big companies can not allow themselves to put their reputation on spot because of the products to new to be really stable , while for small companies like KiSS and others it's a chance to make a "big score" .
Also keep in mind that its DivX we talking about , where let's admit it 90% of content is pirated .
Do you really think companies like Sony that controls and get money from the half of the Holywood will gladly support ?
They will - and they are - as they did for the MP3.
This is almost another thread but you are not totally right when you say that other companies do not produce such a player because of legal problems.
Yes, it is part of the reason, but right now many player support DivX and MP3 and I still believe the main reason we are still waiting such a recorder from other companies is that they want to release a finished product.
I personnaly love the Philips attitude : go to they site and you will see that they made some really cool products, including Wi-Fi Audio-video streamer, supporting DivX and MP3.
And I bet it has less bugs than DP-558.
All that just to say that I am OK with you main idea : DON'T BUY UNFINISHED PRODUCTS.
DP-558 is not an incredible thing - they are just in advance (hum) because they dont care about quality insurance.
So I think it is a wise decision to wait for the concurrence/or the correction of the bugs.
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