[guest]

Like many other prospective consumers I've been paying attention to these latest products offered in the form of the ISTAR MINIHD and the PCH A-100. To this point, these units show promise, but are missing some of the full features that would make these units a "must buy".

Questions:

1.. What are the full specifications and price of the ISTAR H10?
2.. Are there pictures of the unit yet?
--- Someone commented that they had seen the unit.
3.. There has been comment on the inclusion of space for an internal HDD
--- Will this internal interface be SATA or ATA?
--- Will the H10 support 2.5" and/or 3.5" drives?
--- If SATA, will firmware support reading S.M.A.R.T temp data from HDD, and being accessible in an ISTAR debug menu?
4.. Will the ISTAR H10 have a DTS license and support DTS decoding?
--- This will enable downmix of DTS audio to stereo on televisions that do not have DTS decoding. (Great for bedrooms)
5.. Will the HDMI 1.3 interface be capable of passing through DTS-HD & True HD?
6.. Will the ISTAR have gigabit ethernet for fast transfer of files to the internal HDD?
7.. Will there be any improvements with H.264 content and L5.1 playback?
--- If so what is the max number of reference frames per resolution? (720p, 1080p, etc)


I posed similar suggestions for feature improvements to a future Popcorn Hour unit in an official thread on the networkedmediatank forums.

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/viewtopic.php?t=2098

Listed by level of importance 1. On/Off Switch 2. INTERNAL SATA interface (let's face it manufacturers have been ceasing production of ATA drives for awhile) 3. DTS Decoding (important to hear audio without AV receiver) 4. S/PDIF optical (DTS can either be decoded by PH or configured for pass through) 5. HDMI 1.3a 6. Gigabit Ethernet 7. Rear and Front USB ports 8. ESATA Interface 9. Wireless N (too expensive for integrated, maybe as a separate adapter) 10. Intergrated Blu-ray Drive (would be nice, but still too expensive. You can't keep pricepoint low if you add this) The first seven revisions should be possible at a minimal increase in cost. You'd have to pay licensing for DTS and HDMI 1.3a, but the basic design and dimensions of the present unit would not need to change much. A better option for those wanting Blu-Ray would be to design a new PH with a removable external 5.25" drive slot in the unit and then provide an updated list of supported and tested 3rd party drives (plextor, LG, etc). This would keep the cost per PH unit down but still allow an owner the possibility to upgrade. Supported 5.25" Blu-Ray drives could be bought by PH owners from online PC parts stores like Newegg.

[lymzy]

Hi,

We hear your request. H10 should include most of these features except the bluray and wireless N part.

DTS decoding card will probably optional. But we might make it default at the last minute.
Please note DTS decoding ISTAR MINI version has already being sold in mainland China for a while.

S.M.A.R.T temp data from HDD and H.264 L5.1 are interesting subjects. We need rely on Syabas NMT for this.

Please wait for the details in two weeks about H10.

[Hi-Jack]

The playback not only depends on Syabas but also on Sigma SDK code and it
seems these files (microblocks sometimes) cannot be resolved due to some
memory setup (virtual memory) being insufficient... The isues should only affect L5.1 encodings that actually use 16 frames which I still find rare...

[guest]

Thank you for your replies. I look forward to hearing about the new unit in two weeks.

Concerning L5.1 H.264 playback, I was aware that the Popcorn Hour A-100 was limited to 8 reference frames at 1080p. I am not sure if this is also true for the Istar MiniHD.

It hasn't been made clear if issues with L5.1 H.264 playback on NMT players using the Sigma Designs SMP8635 was a limitation of the chip design or from the amount of physical RAM on the PCB that the SMP8635 has access to. If it is the later of the two, then this compatibility issue should easily be corrected by adding more ram so that the unit can playback 1080p with more reference frames. If Istar units can already support more than 8 reference frames it would be beneficial to list and highlight this information to differentiate from your competition.

This is a topic I'm sure that would be of interest to many people as these NMT units appear to be purchased due to their ability to playback H.264 at 1080p. This is mainly why I'm interested at least

[duramaximus]

Originally Posted by lymzy Hi, We hear your request. H10 should include most of these features except the bluray and wireless N part. DTS decoding card will probably optional. But we might make it default at the last minute. Please note DTS decoding ISTAR MINI version has already being sold in mainland China for a while. S.M.A.R.T temp data from HDD and H.264 L5.1 are interesting subjects. We need rely on Syabas NMT for this. Please wait for the details in two weeks about H10.

What? There is already a newer model coming out???

Is this newer model going to do anything different than the MINI 1.3?

I might have two ISTAR MINI 1.3 versions for whomever didn't get an invitation.

[IstarHD-Engineer]

Originally Posted by duramaximus What? There is already a newer model coming out??? Is this newer model going to do anything different than the MINI 1.3? I might have two ISTAR MINI 1.3 versions for whomever didn't get an invitation.

H10 would be a "high-end" NMT solution. (read: cost much more)

[duramaximus]

Originally Posted by IstarHD-Engineer Originally Posted by duramaximus What? There is already a newer model coming out??? Is this newer model going to do anything different than the MINI 1.3? I might have two ISTAR MINI 1.3 versions for whomever didn't get an invitation. H10 would be a "high-end" NMT solution. (read: cost much more)

The real question for me is what are the differences? Depending on that, the extra costs might be OK

I would really like to see DTS-HD or TRUEHD pass through.

[F-Forward]

Originally Posted by duramaximus Originally Posted by IstarHD-Engineer Originally Posted by duramaximus What? There is already a newer model coming out??? Is this newer model going to do anything different than the MINI 1.3? I might have two ISTAR MINI 1.3 versions for whomever didn't get an invitation. H10 would be a "high-end" NMT solution. (read: cost much more) The real question for me is what are the differences? Depending on that, the extra costs might be OK I would really like to see DTS-HD or TRUEHD pass through.

AFAIK, that is not up to Istar to enable, but it's something for Syabas/Sigma to solve. If it gets implemented, it will also be possible to output that on the Istar mini with 1.3 HDMI-version.

[duramaximus]

AFAIK, that is not up to Istar to enable, but it's something for Syabas/Sigma to solve. If it gets implemented, it will also be possible to output that on the Istar mini with 1.3 HDMI-version.[/quote]

This would be awesome! I was not sure if it was a firmware update or hardware update that would enable TRUEHD/DTS-HD pass through.

Can anyone from ISTAR confirm this???

[wfiguero]

Any news about the specs. , price and ETA for the H10.

Thanks