Gateway Connected DVD player Review

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Gateway Connected DVD player Review

Gateway Connected DVD player

About a month ago I started looking for a networked media device to join my home theater setup. I loved the Home Media Option in my Series 2 TiVo, espeically for playing music downstairs in my home theater system, but I switched to a DirecTiVo system recently that lacked HMO support.

I started my search by combing the landscape. My wishlist called for music, photo, and movie streaming on my wireless network and good audio and video connections to my home theater. After checking out what was available, I eventually settled on either the KiSS DVD with ethernet or the Gateway Connected DVD. When I found out the Gateway had recently added DivX streaming support, I decided to buy one (it was also about half the price of a KiSS DVD player).

First off, I started out by using a tip someone once told me. If you ever see a coupon code box in a checkout page, do a quick google search for "company name coupon code." Using this method, I found a "$20 off every purchase $199 or more" code, making my Gateway DVD player $179 at checkout.

Setup and Hardware

The unit showed up days later and consisted of a short, wide player in silver and chrome, with a remote and a laptop wireless card that slid into the appropriate slot on the back.

The Gateway DVD player, sitting below my DSR7000 DirecTiVo unit

I installed it with S-video and optical audio connections to my home theater receiver. It also offers progressive scan connections if you've got the equipment for it.

The Gateway controller

The controller is OK, offering a pretty simple point and select pad in the middle that was easy to use without having to look down. The network functions all reside along a column on the upper left side, which is fine but the main "connect" button is the only way to access network features and is buried in the next middle row. Since I use the connect button more than the DVD features, I wish it was bigger and located in a more prominent location. Another unfortunate design choice was making the forward/reverse seek buttons the same size as the forward/reverse chapter buttons, and putting them next to each other. This means if I want to jump back ten seconds I have to look down to find the correct rewind button. It would have been nice if they were special shapes and different in size so one could use the buttons by feel.

The Network setup screen

Since I run an open wireless network at home, setup was a snap. I started the unit up, checked the network setup and noticed it found my wireless access point upstairs and joined it. If I had a WEP password, this is the screen I would have entered it. Unfortunately, the Gateway doesn't support typing network names in directly, so if you're not broadcasting your access point ID, the gateway won't be able to find it (this is how I had my wireless network setup, security through obscurity).

Screenshot of the server application running on my PC

The server software installed easily on my Windows XP box and let me direct it where to find my music, video, and image files. At first I was surprised to see it ignored all my DivX movies, but I later found out my unit shipped with the latest firmware on the DVD player, but the server software was out of date. If you want to be safe, download the server software from this Gateway Support Page (which required quite a bit of digging on their site to find, as it's not listed under support files for the device). Once I had the new software my DivX movies were all added to the list. I set a schedule to do a nightly re-index, but I did find it a drag that it couldn't keep track of my music directory automatically. If I ripped a new CD, I'd have to tell the software to re-index my collection to see the new files.

Music

Once all my mp3s were indexed, I started listening to music whenever I was downstairs doing chores (making dinner, doing dishes) or relaxing without the TV on.

Surfing the musicians list on TV

Once you've got 3000 songs by hundreds of artists in a database, it's often a challenge to find and listen to music. The programs I typically use on my desktop, iTunes and Winamp, handle the problem in different ways but both do a good job of making and managing playlists and letting you listen to all music on random. Since the Gateway is limited in interface and controls over a PC, I found it to be a bit cumbersome to find certain artists or randomize large chunks of my collection. Near as I can tell it isn't possible to play all your songs randomly, so I usually would pick an artist and listen to all their music, or pick a genre and listen to all tracks within it. I found the next problem being if I wanted to hear "Pink Martini", I had to scroll through the 10-15 artists listed on each screen all the way down to number 370 of my 440 artist collection (that's where the P's started). The scrolling was quite slow and the only shortcut is to guess a number in the list that it should jump to.

Playing music from a playlist

Playlist files are supposed to be indexed but I didn't notice any in my library. The only playlists I could get to work were the ones I made with the Gateway server software, which was easy (it was very iTunes like, you name a new list then drag tracks to it), but lame that it ignored my existing lists. Once I had a few good playlists created for each mood I found myself using the playlist feature most of all.

Images

The number of images on my hard drive is about the same as my mp3 collection, with thousands of loosely organized (by directory name) images downloaded from digital cameras. I quickly found out the server software's scanner was a bit too good at finding images, and would grab any gif or jpg on the drives I pointed it to, including all the incidental little files within software applications.

Image playing in a slideshow

Once I weeded out all the photos except for my digital camera output, I still had the same problems negotiating thousands of items with a simple remote. It did have a nice feature where it automatically grouped photos found in a directory as unique, but playlists seemed the way to go when browsing a specific set of images. Slideshows were pretty basic though I didn't notice any controls for setting how long images show up, and although I didn't expect it, it would have been nice if I could listen to music and watch a slideshow.

Movies

The Gateway Connected DVD player supports MPEG 1 and 2 and offers some DivX support though it isn't certified (also, the divx support requires the latest version of the server software).

List of videos ready to play

I don't have that many movies stored on my PC, aside from a few DVD backups I made for plane flights. I set out to find content to test this player against and downloaded every movie and tv show I could find on underground networks. From playing around with a variety of sources, I found that almost anything played fine over the 802.11b network. About the only problem files were those with errors or truncated file headers (movies that could barely play on my PC).

MPEG video paused

I was amazed at the quality and that my network could handle it. I've got a 802.11g network in the house that I use for all computers (including my PC desktop). The access point is directly upstairs above the TV in the living room, and I was worried all those walls and the entertainment unit would affect network performance. The Gateway docs say it can handle up to 3Mb/sec video and I couldn't find a single file anywhere that was encoded at a higher bitrate.

The visual quality of downloaded movies did vary. While DivX did a great job making large movies small filesizes, the videos did usually show compression artifacts (blockiness like a jpeg) that reminded me of TiVo's lowest quality recordings. Higher bitrate MPEGs looked fantastic, with some approaching DVD quality. For research purposes (heh), I went in search of every hollywood blockbuster I could find, to see if the experience of watching movies at home was better than going to a theater. For the films that were ripped from screener DVDs, the quality was great and the experience close to DVD. For shaking camcorder recordings done inside a theater, the experience was mostly crap, with overexposed images and lousy sound.

I was kind of bummed to see that it didn't support quicktime video, since that's what my digital camera records and everything I make in iMovie outputs as quicktime. It would have been nice if it supported that.

DVD playback

It's easy to forget this thing plays DVDs too, and the DVDs in my collection all seemed to play fine. The controls seemed a bit sparse compared to my older DVD player this replaced, as I found I couldn't quickly swap audio tracks while a movie played (maybe I haven't found the exact keystroke for it yet). The fastforwarding for both DVDs and Video playback leave something to be desired, espeically if you've used a TiVo. There aren't easy ways to jump forward quickly aside from chapters in DVDs. My old player worked more like a TiVo, with three levels of fastforwarding and tick marks you could jump to.

Upsides

Overall, I really like this unit and it fills the void left by giving up the Home Media Option nicely, and adds video support to boot. I was really surprised to see the 802.11b card keep up with video playback through a couple walls and only found network problems on a couple occasions when I was also downloading large files in another room. If you've got a big mp3 collection on your computer and a good speaker system in your home theater, there are few better ways than this unit to hear your music at home. As for movies, this thing reminds me of how an ipod makes mp3s useful. I never saw the point of downloading movies if you had to watch them at your computer. With this setup, I could watch them how they were meant to be shown and I found a whole new appreciation for the underground world of TV and movie traders (while I waited a couple weeks to get my DirecTV setup, I got to catch missed episodes of the Simpsons and The Daily Show). Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association of America once called the VCR the "boston strangler" when he tried to kill the technology in the early 80s, and when his MPAA folks catch wind of devices like this, I have no doubt they will call them something like "Osama Bin Laden in a box" to their industry.

Downsides

The downsides aren't too numerous or too bad. Even though I already had an ok DVD player, this was a great replacement, and if you are in the market for a new progressive DVD player, this is a great option to have. The remote control could be improved and I found it somewhat limiting to scanning ahead in DVDs or jumping around among hundreds of listings in music. I thought 802.11b would be too slow for my needs, but it worked fine (and I hear you can drop a 802.11g card in and it'll work fine though I wish Gateway would explicitly support it). It seemed to work fine on all my mp3s, jpegs, mpegs, and divx files, though it isn't officially certified for DivX support (Joe from DivX pointed out the KiSS DVD player is certified).

It'd be nice if the unit could read more video formats though the ones it does support work great. Be sure you get the latest software and firmware when running the unit, so you get all the features you can out of it. One big downside is that there is zero mac support, as the software requires a PC running win2k, winxp, win98, or winme. Another missing feature was the ability to read media from networked or mapped drives on my PC. Since it didn't have mac support, I hoped it could see my mac's music and image folders that were mapped on my PC, but it could not, only seeing physical drives. It doesn't support streaming mp3 from radio stations as far as I can tell, and it doesn't support Apple's encrypted AAC files bought at the iTunes music store. The last lacking feature I can think of is the support for inputing access point names into the network settings. There's no reason why a quick firmware upgrade couldn't let people not broadcasting their SSID connect manually.

Conclusion

Overall, I'd rate this unit very highly as a capable network media device. With a simple setup and easy operation, it was painless to use all the files from my PC on my home entertainment center over the wireless network. I expect to keep using this unit for a long time and hope Gateway continues to refine the desktop server software and player firmware. After using this for week, I went out and bought a 250Gb hard drive to add to my PC, so that I could have all my files in one place for this unit to play, with plenty of room to grow.

Helpful links
Gateway Connected DVD order page
Search on Google for "Gateway coupon code"
Gateway software and firmware download page

by Matt Haughey December 1, 2003 in Product Reviews

Comments

Any chance for Mac folks to use these boxes? As far as I can tell the 'server software' is Windows only and the unit would be useless without said software. Is this the case?

Posted by: Adam Keys at Dec 2, 2003 9:14:38 AM

Yeah, as I mentioned in the "downsides" section, there is no mac support of any kind and you need a windows box with media files on it in order for the networks parts of this DVD player to work.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Dec 2, 2003 11:29:37 AM

Heh. I have thsoe same coasters, matt. Never thought about using them for that. :)

This sounds like just the device I've been looking for. Want a progressive scan DVD player to replace my aging Apex unit. But streaming my mp3s without sticking a PC in the living room is the thing I've been waiting for.

I really wish it would support Winamp playlists. With several thousand songs, I don't fancy scrolling as you had to to find things.

Posted by: Dan Isaacs at Dec 2, 2003 11:31:38 AM

Heh, yeah the coasters are there to promote air circulation under my tivo, as I found out last year when I fried a motherboard on my first DirecTiVo device.

I need to do more digging, because the software claims to index .pls and .m3u files, though I didn't see any in my library (though I only have a few of them).

You can download and run the Gateway server software without a DVD unit. I'd suggest loading it up and seeing if it finds your playlists automatically.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Dec 2, 2003 11:41:46 AM

Just as a basis for comparison, Matt, you really oughtta check out Xbox Media Player (now called "Xbox Media Center") for modified Xboxen. Sounds to me like it covers many of the same bases as this Gateway device... only with XBMP/XBMC it's an open-source collaboration with lots of hacker cred. Getting there is half the fun (with modding the Xbox and all) but once you're there, you'd be amazed at how polished it is. I have it set to access every sound, picture, and movie off my networked Mac. With immediate access to games, multimedia, online content, and even karaoke ... the Xbox has become the digital hub in my entertainment center.

Posted by: Josh at Dec 4, 2003 9:49:42 AM

Have you tried WMA Lossless with the Gateway? Several other of the WMA-compatible players (e.g. AudioTron) have limitations wrt the bitrate they handle for WMA, which is a PITA if you've been WMA9Lossless-encoding your discs.

Posted by: Peter at Dec 6, 2003 9:42:59 PM

I bought this player based on this review. However I can't run the DivX files, the server software just wont import it.

Bummer.. Have to eat the 15% restocking fee of gateway.

Posted by: Zafar at Dec 8, 2003 12:23:28 PM

Did you use the latest version of the server software Zafar? Once I updated my server, all my divx files were ready to stream.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Dec 8, 2003 12:39:41 PM

Anyone using this with their HTPC? I have Snapstream working great on my PC, but don't want to put the PC in the living room.

Posted by: bobby at Dec 10, 2003 6:56:37 AM

If you recorded shows in mpeg or divx, The Gateway would work fine as a streaming device. About the only downside is that you'd need to delete programs from your computer, since you can't delete anything direct from the gateway interface.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Dec 10, 2003 9:24:58 AM

OK. Back again.

I was finally able to get the DivX to play. Here is the trick Gateway has done with this system.

Apparently the player itself is not capable of decoding mpeg4 but due to popular demand that added server side stream transformation in the software. Hence the server side software will tranform video stream on the fly as it is being sent to the player.

Clever, eh? Specially because this gives them the ability to support any/all formats on their player.

Downside? You need a high performance server (min required 1.2GHz CPU) and more cpu cycle.
Another downside is that the conversion quality does not appear to be very good specially AC3 audio quality was completely lost.

Since I installed the server on a PC with 850MHx CPU, the AVI option was disabled. Fortunately, the server software gets all its parameters from .cfg files in the installation dir. I was able to successfully remove the minimum cpu speed requirement by editing these files. If you are not happy with the imposed bit rate limits (the 3Mbps), just change it. Apparently there is no hardware restriction but the limit is imposed to avoid choppy videos.

I ended up returning the unit because I wanted to free up my hard drive and play divx from dvd-r. I also noticed that the colors on my streamed videos were significantly paler. If this does not appear to be a problem for you, I think that software conversion is a better proposition because you could just install any new codec on your computer and the streamer would work.

Posted by: Zafar at Dec 12, 2003 7:34:38 PM

Can you control the connected DVD (at least play much) from your PC, or do you have to use the remote and your TV? Thanks for the great review!

Posted by: JerryS at Dec 13, 2003 3:42:41 PM

zafar, thanks for figuring that out. I was wondering how they enabled a new codec without changing the hardware or firmware, and transcoding must be it.

Jerry, you can't control the DVD play through your PC, the TV serves as the only interface.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Dec 13, 2003 4:01:16 PM

Great and timely review. This points me in a very helpful direction.

I have a related question: I'm in the market for a PC for the first time in years, and so I'm spending time trying to figure out how to configure it.

Will a FireWire port accept DirecTV input, and can a PC perform a TiVo-like function while also burning DVDs from the satellite input and/or stored video files?

Thanks.

Posted by: RichardR at Dec 15, 2003 11:21:10 AM

I would just like to warn people that I have owned this device for two months or so and I really wish I wouldn't have bought it. Frankly, you're better off moding your xbox or just putting an old pc in a Shuttle case and putting it in your living room.

While there is nothing really that wrong with the Gateway, the interface is absolutley horrible. For one, it'll turn your living room into a huge ad for gateway. You can't change the "cow theme" and when you're playing MP3s, a screensaver pops up that shows "Gateway tm" floating around your screen. No thank you.

And I've had nothing but trouble getting it to show all of my mp3s. Some mp3s just don't show up. Others just don't show up correctly. Go figure.

All in all, I would recommend waiting to buy this type of technology. I was happy right at first, but quickly realized the limitations are too great at this point to be really worthwhile. Like I said, you'd be better off making your own from spare computer parts. It may cost a little more, but it'll be customizable, which is really important for a technology that is trying to do everything.

Posted by: Julius at Dec 17, 2003 12:08:15 PM

Julius - I think you are being a bit harsh. Many people do not want to have a PC in their living room for many reasons - noise and appearance being two that come to mind immediately. You can buy this for $200 (or less) and have a progressive scan DVD player that can do other things. Buying a digital-capable sound card and a remote to use with your PC will likely cost over half of what this device costs.

I agree that the interface is not so good, but hopefully some upgrades will change this. I found that this was a much better deal than the Turtle Beach Audiotron as it can play videos and photos as well as DVDs. Unlike many competitors it has digital audio out - both optical and coax as well as 5.1 analog audio out. My wife and I also love it to view photos as well as music.

Posted by: Wayne at Dec 17, 2003 8:50:04 PM

Great review! I bought one of these about six weeks ago and I'd like to add a couple of things. First there is Playlist support for Windows Media Player 9.0 and MusicMatch Jukebox. This came with the stock code!

Also - there is a flash memory upgrade available which I did. The process is very simple but more importantly it gives Gateway the ability to add additional features - one of the things that is suppose to be coming is skins! That would be great!

I have set mine up to do a scan of my Windows Media Player every 12 hours so it automatically updates the playlists. With the "auto playlist" feature on WiMP it made things even easier to scan things out by genre (my MP3 collection is also in excess of 3K).

A complaint no one brought up is one that I have. You can build a slide show with your pictures and you can set it up to music. Sweet! But one thing you can't do is have more than one song - that's a drag. Also it would be nice to be able to say - hey play my pictures along with this music - the bandwidth is there.

Finally - as I understand it there is .WMA support - but no Windows Video. Also although no one brought it up the lack of RealAudio and RealVideo support is a bit of a drag.

But I will close with this - if you're looking for a progressive scan DVD player and a way to get your pictures and MP3 files into your home theater - there isn't a better product out there bang for the buck.

Posted by: David at Dec 19, 2003 3:24:47 PM

A screen saver? I've never seen that on mine!

Posted by: David at Dec 19, 2003 3:26:10 PM

Has anyone actually successfully got the player to import files over 3mb by editing the cfg file? No matter what I set it to it still eliminates my 4 mb files with a reason of "high bitrate file". The workaround is tp scan a lower bitrate file that has been named the same as your Higher bitrate file, then swap them on the disc, But Id love to get the file working with the autoscan as I have Like 1000 of them to work with.

Posted by: will at Dec 19, 2003 10:49:49 PM

Will,

To get the program to import higher bitrate files just edit the filter.cfg and change it from:

BITRATE\WIRELESS > 3000000

BITRATE\WIRELESS < 9000000

Or however high you want..

----

Help - What codecs/bitrates are you guys using? I record TV shows via my TV Tuner card, but I can't seem to find a good codec/bitrate combo to play on the gateway. Nomatter what I try I get large artifacts, freezes, noise, etc, on the gateway output :/

Thanks!
-Matt

Posted by: Matt Farley at Dec 25, 2003 11:08:02 PM

I really like the review and comments on this product. Many questions I had about this unit got answered.

But... a couple of questions remain.

- Can you play all kinds of media also from the DVD/CD bay? I have a lot of diverse movies, pictures, music etc on CD-R and DVD-R and I'd like to access them without downloading them to the PC first.
Technically this should be a piece of cake but I wonder if Gateway supports this?

- Do you guys know of anyone who has replaced the 802.11b card with a 802.11g card? What's the verdict?

Thanks,
Peter

Posted by: PeterL at Dec 29, 2003 9:47:33 AM

Your Vonage review had me sign up for their service (and I'm thrilled with it), and the same can now be said for this device. Well, that, and the fact that they did add DivX support. I just bought one of these, and it'd be a sin to play a DVD on it without progressive scan, so I think I'll pick one up at some point this week. Too bad I can't still get an employee discount, though :)

Posted by: adampsyche at Dec 30, 2003 10:56:59 AM

Okay has ANYONE gotten this thing to play quality mpeg's/xvid's without freezing or distortion?

Posted by: Matt Farley at Dec 31, 2003 9:01:34 AM

I just bought this guy yesterday, and it's working ok so far, but I had to employ the CPU speed limit hack (thanks for the tip), but playing videos was horrible. I have a G network, and it's usually very fast (can get an 80% signal from the basement to the attic). I'd love to be able to get the logo and screensaver out, though. I'll keep fiddling with it. It does play DVDs well, but you do have to really point the remote at the unit to get it to respond, and it seems to freeze up every once in a while when navigating my music dir (though it does have @8000 mp3s, so who knows...)

Posted by: adampsyche at Dec 31, 2003 11:43:06 AM

My wireless base is fifteen vertical feet above the DVD player below and it does have the flooring and the tv cabinent as obstructions, but I've had no problem streaming video up to the 3Mbps limit clearly. My powerbook shows very high signal strength where the DVD is located.

Have you guys tried disabling other network traffic when testing out movie playback?

I've heard wireless g cards work in it, but I've never tried it myself (don't feel like doing a $79 experiment I don't need), but it's probably worth a shot.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Dec 31, 2003 12:02:15 PM

I just tried to put my Linksys G card in, and when I booted, the DVD player told me that there was no card present. Apparently, the DVD player that I got was one that needed the firmware upgrade (stoopid me should have checked that first), and since I applied the upgrade, the video is flying. Bringing up that first mpeg and the quality that it was in made this purchase worth every dime. (But I still wish there was DVD-R/RW support...)

Now, on to those Invader Zim archives...

Posted by: adampsyche at Dec 31, 2003 4:32:42 PM

Thanks for the review. I just ordered one from Gateway. That $20 coupon did not work online so I had to call to a sales person. I paid $192 for it which includes sales tax and free shipping. I hope that it will work. I already tried Oritron 802.11b dvd player and that thing barely played divx through wireless or wired connections. I hope that this dvd player will work out for me. I will post later.

Posted by: I like big speakers at Jan 1, 2004 11:53:37 AM

Anyone have a hack to get this software to index a networked (mapped) drive?

If it had this ability my setup would then be PERFECT!

Posted by: Patrick at Jan 1, 2004 6:42:07 PM

Patrick, on an earlier thread, someone posted instructions on how to hack in support for networked drives.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Jan 1, 2004 6:47:44 PM

That works for removable drives but I have been unable to get it to work with a networked or mapped drive. It does not showup as a mappable device.

Posted by: Patrick at Jan 1, 2004 9:16:27 PM

Just stumbled across this post, and after looking at the pics, I'm certain the Gateway unit is actually the GoVideo D2730 Networked DVD Player. I have the D2730, and the screenshots of the server software right down to the on-screen menu's look identical (except for the Gateway branding.) You can read my review (if interested) at epinions.

Any idea if this is, in fact, true?

Posted by: Tony at Jan 2, 2004 12:57:25 PM

Got it working... I was not putting /mnt/xdrive on a NTFS drive...

Works now!!

Posted by: Patrick at Jan 3, 2004 9:37:27 PM

I am new to the connected DVD player. Let me say that I love it. I also have the Prismiq and the Gateway beats it hands down. Two questions. First, when the other threads were mentioning getting the media software to recognize 'removeable drives'--does that include CD-roms and writers (D:). Basically I want to be able to see the cd-rom drives so I can add or view contents directly from the bay rather than copying it to the HD? Second--I want to use my G-wireless card but it is not recognizing it. I checked to see if I needed to update my firmware but the download page only specifies certain versions that need updating--mine isn't one of them. Has anyone got this to work yet? Thanks

Posted by: juc at Jan 7, 2004 12:49:43 PM

Really basic question here--How do you go about editing .cfg files--I would like to employ the bitrate hack but when I click on the file it is not recognized.

Posted by: juc at Jan 7, 2004 1:02:19 PM

I just bought and hooked up the GoVideo player which is essentially the same player. I've had no trouble with music and photos but I cannot get it to reconize the videos that I am recording with Snapstream. The default recording format is MPEG-2 so this should be a no-brainer but after I import media files they aren't there. Anyone else run into this problem?

TIA,

Jason

Posted by: Jason at Jan 7, 2004 8:34:01 PM

I purchased the Gateway connected DVD player (Wireless) about a week ago, and have to echo some of the earlier comments about challenges with set-up. I am running a 1.3ghz Sony Vaio with windows ME and I couldn't get this installed successfully. I didn't have any trouble getting the unit to see my network (Linksys B) or computer, it just wouldn't connect. After 3 hours of troubleshooting myself, and a completely useless hour on the phone with Gateway tech "support", I gave up and installed the software on my work laptop (Thinkpad 600x, Win XP) and it installed in 5 minutes, worked 1st time.

Since I can't keep this software on my work computer, I decided to upgrade to XP on my desktop. So $125 more in RAM, $99 for XP home edition, and 12 hours trying to get XP installed and working at home, I now have this thing working. I had read the reviews and knew I might have a problem, but it's very difficult to follow logical troubleshooting with this. Buyer Beware.

Posted by: JB at Jan 9, 2004 10:02:11 PM

--will the hack for networked drives work for CD-Roms on the computer? I followed the instructions and created the folder /mnt/edrive in a NTFS drive and when I opend the program--it sees the folders, but not the disc that is in the drive. Is this even possible?

Posted by: juc at Jan 10, 2004 10:44:25 AM

The CDROM is likely using the FAT file system, not NTFS so I doubt it would work.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Jan 10, 2004 11:04:46 AM

Thanks for the reply---is there any way to change the CD-Rom file system to a NTFS? Or a way to get around it---The Prismiq Unit can take media from ANY drive---networked or removeable or whatever with no problem so there should be a way around it--
-Also, does anyone know if there are any Gateway supported Forums for this site like Prismiq has--it is an excellent tool for users to troubleshoot and for gateway employees to see what is actually going on in the real world. As I have posted previously, I own both and the Gateway is so much better (for me) even with the limited B support. One more thing--OnMedia's GoVideo which is essentially the same thing as this has released a second version that supports wireless G---anyone know if gateway plans on releasing a new version and leaving us users high and dry or are they planning on helping us out with only a software upgrade to allow G support?
I know, lots of questions in one post...
later
juc

Posted by: Juc at Jan 11, 2004 6:40:22 AM

OK, I sent back the GoVideo player and bought the Gateway player instead and I've got this one working on my home wireless network. I also hacked the filters.cfg file to allow the server software to recognize mpgs with bitrates over 3mbps (thanks Matt). I use Snapstream's Beyond TV 3 to record television and now I am able to stream those shows down to my home entertainment center - cool. Video quality isn't great, however, and higher bitrate files do get choppy. So my questions, has anyone actually gotten this player to work with a wireless G card? How do you enable Divx support because my software (ver. 2.1 B07-08) doesn't see them.

TIA,

Jason

Posted by: Jason at Jan 18, 2004 10:43:13 AM

couple of points:

First check out the twin of the DVD:
http://www.acekaraoke.com/hamipl9200.html

There is reference to an ADC-320 under the tech support page. This may be a new and improved DVD media hub.

The wireless DVD player is no longer on the gateway site. Don't know why.

The Player does not accept 32 bit cards. I learned this the hard way when I was given a new Linksys card by the salesman at Gateway. The player will not recognize the card. I believe all G and some new B cards are 32 bit.

My player did not work at first. Not until I upgraded the firmware. Seems odd that my player would ship not functioning. Plus the guys at the Gateway store had no clue. Wish I knew about this flaw before I took apart my network and put it back together trying to get this thing to work.

I purchased this player a few days ago. I plan on returning it, since there is a 15 day return policy.

I love being able to access my music...but I am not crazy about the funtions(or lack of)on the player. Unfortunately most of my MP3s are not tagged properly...so I have to scroll down to find music.

I really like the Creative Player. Although it is only for music, It my main focus.

Plus I believe this new market will grow very competitive and we will see superior products within the next few months.

That XBox idea sounds good...any good links for that.

Mike

Posted by: Chris at Jan 26, 2004 10:32:27 PM

Did you try playing the audio tracks downloaded from the Napster, those encrpted files refuse to play on mine. Do you have an answer for this...? ASAP ....plz

Posted by: Ken at Feb 29, 2004 9:02:00 AM

I appreciated all the great information on this site. It helped me make my purchase decision.

I just purchased the Gateway Connected DVD. I have several avi files I have created from my DV camcorder. I am having a problem playing these files via the Gateway DVD through the network. These files are not recognized by the software. It appears to be a codec problem. However, I can't find any help about what to do with these existing avi files. I captured the video using my Nero Ultra 6 software and also Adobe Premiere. Both of these software programs created avi files that the software that came with the Gateway that it refuses to play or list as a choice when I attempt to import it into the Gateway software.

Can someone please point me to information about how I can modify these avi files or how to capture and use the avi files in the future. I have other small avi files from my HP Digital camera that play through the system but without sound.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Marlo

Posted by: Marlo at Mar 8, 2004 1:37:43 PM

Marlo, are you using a wired or wireless setup? If wireless, make sure you have implemented the .cfg hack. They may be at too high of a bitrate for the software to recognize them. Also, make sure the AVI box is checked in the settings/options page in the software (if it is greyed out you need to use another hack). I have successfully used both snapstream and snowshifter with good results on the Gateway (although snapstream's Beyond TV doesn't work well with ATI cards). Hope this helps
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Mar 8, 2004 3:31:15 PM

Thanks JUC for responding.

I'm using a wired version and have the correct settings for the wired and avi selected (avi is not grayed out). I'm using an Nvidia card with the latest drivers installed. I'm beginning to suspect that its a software problem with Gateway's D5 software.

I attempted to download several avi files from the net as a test. Most of them were not recognized by the software except for the "Unsupported Codec" message I received when I clicked the Details button (on the Media Import display) after attempting to import an avi file.

I went to a site - codeccorner.com/ae.html that contains many different avi file samples using a variety of codecs. I downloaded and attempted to import several of these sample avi without much success. A very few did work: div3 - Divx4open - Divx503 - Xvid4.

I have tried capturing short video segments from my JVC DV camcorder via Premiere 6.5, Nero Ultra 6 version, Showbiz by Arcsoft, and finally via the latest version of Windows Movie Maker. All these attempt failed to produce an avi I could import into the the player.

I also have Gateway support working on it. They are trying to be helpful. However, their latest suggestion is to contact JVC about the camera but since all the other avi samples also do not work it has to be something else.

I will investigate and try the cfg hack you mentioned as see if that helps.

I really appreciate your willingness to try and help. I'm a novice when it comes to codecs and video stuff. This is the only place on the net I've found where I think I can get some help.

I'm also guessing that there are some other guys out there with the same problem.

Thanks Very Much!
Marlo

Posted by: Marlo at Mar 8, 2004 9:33:05 PM

Mysterious Frustration Solved!

I guess being a beginner has its problems and I'm a little reluctant to advertise my lack of experience but sharing my struggle and lack of experience might help another person avoid the problems I have encountered and save them some time and frustration. I guess we all have to start from somewhere! Thankfully there are some helpful people out there like the ones that read this blog.

I was unaware that I needed to specify a specific type of codec / compression option when I was capturing video from my DV camcorder. The automatic or no compression selected does not work on my system with the Gateway software. (I could play all my previous captures with a variety of other players except for Gateway)

I discovered that if I changed the capture option from DV to custom (in the Nero version 6.0 capture software - Select Capturing Template) that I could select from a list, the different codecs installed on my system.

The only trick is to select the right codec that is compatible with the Gateway Digital 5 software. I noted that the small sample avi files listed, in my earlier post, also indicated which codecs would work. I also captured just a few seconds of video as a test to check quality when played back on my TV.

This has been a difficult challenge. I'm just glad I can make it work.

My final question. Does anyone have any suggestions as to which codecs provide the highest image quality? Obviously, the codec will also have to be compatible with the Digital 5 software on my system.

Thanks,
Marlo

Posted by: Marlo at Mar 9, 2004 1:16:16 AM

Hey everyone, I posted a question in the 'hack' section of pvrblog for the gateway but have yet to get an answer so I will try here. I just started using showshifter to record TV. However, the only codecs that I can get to work with that program is the DivX3. When I switch to DivX pro (or 5.03) the media server software recognizes the files, but when they play they are all choppy and the sound is extremely poppy until it eventually cuts out. When I switch back to DivX3 I keep the same audio codecs and they work fine. The files do play on DivX player and Windows media player. I have a wireless connection using their new G card so I don't think the bitrate is an issue. Any thoughts?
Thanks
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Mar 11, 2004 4:25:16 AM

One more question. When you search by artist, does a list of the artists albums come up for you to select? My problem is that after I import music into the software, I can search by artist, then see the artists albums and go from there. However, if I restart the program or computer, the next time I search by artist, it just gives me ALL of the artists songs with no album identification. This happens all of the time and requires me to manually delete my software dataway and then rescan it everytime I start the computer--which really sucks. So, which way are you seeing it: artist---album---songs, or just artist---all songs.
Thanks
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Mar 11, 2004 4:29:49 AM

Hello everyone, I have to say that this site is very informative.

I purchased my connected DVD player a few months ago and I just bought the Wireless-G upgrade that Gateway has released. Unfortunately, as soon as I popped in the card and upgraded the firmware with the CD that came with the G card, things started going wrong. The player is now much slower and songs sound like they are skipping. Music sounds better if I disable WEP on my network but that is not a long term solution. I don't want to leave my network open like that. Nothing like this happened with the old firmware/card. Has anyone else encountered this problem? Gateway has offered to fix or replace the player but I would rather fix it myself if possible. Anyone have any advice?

Thanks!!!!!!!

Posted by: Robert at Mar 11, 2004 11:27:56 AM

I have a media center pc and I am interested in the gateway device in order to fully exploit the PVR functions as they do not require a subscription service like tivo does. No mention of anyone hooking this thing up to a media center pc- anyone? also are the same slowdown/quality issues present in a wired network apposed to the wireless model?

Posted by: Jason at Mar 12, 2004 10:21:02 AM

Great Review. I have been waiting for this functionality and just hooked this unit up last night.

The server connection seems to work properly but any PC file I select plays for 15 seconds and then it jumps to the next item in the play list goes 15 second and then jumps again... Gateway though it was the wireless connection cutting out but I doubt this due to the regularity. I have been through the manual several times, but cant find any setting to change. Has anyone run across this or offer any suggestions. Thanks.

Michael

Posted by: MB at Mar 18, 2004 8:30:02 PM

Michael

Do you mean ALL of your files only play for 15 secs --video and audio. If it is only your video files, what type of files are they? Maybe you can try to restart the player and software. If I am having any problems with videos not playing that usually helps.
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Mar 22, 2004 5:37:12 AM

Thanks for the review! Too bad I found it too late, oh well, I missed out on the $20 coupon code... :(

Mine should be delivered tomorrow (why does Gateway offer "overnight shipping" when they don't even process the order for 4 days?!?) and I hope it works as well for me as it seems to have done for you!

Posted by: LoveGravy at Mar 22, 2004 11:09:03 AM

I have a Belkin 802.11b card, and the player won't recognize it. I have the latest firmware installed. Gateway says the player only works with Gateway or Linksys cards (odd). Any advice, or do I suck it up and buy from Gateway???

Posted by: Confused at Mar 26, 2004 4:50:32 AM

I just bought the AC-220 and really like it. Plays DVDs well and was pretty easy to set up. That being said, I'm having some serious problems streaming video. My computer is 2.0 GHz and the video files I've tried to stream are xvid and vcd. They all work - for about 10 - 12 minutes. Then, out of nowhere the video stops, the DVD player tries to reacquire the server and I get a "Lost network connection" message. Then it goes to "Failed to connect." The only way to get the same video file back up is to power cycle the DVD player and try again. I realize that the server software is converting the video on the fly so I tried to close all programs, etc. Anyone have any ideas that could help? Also - I'm running the latest firmware / server software off the gateway site. Thanks

Posted by: SupNow at Mar 27, 2004 11:08:53 PM

SupNow, do your MP3's play the entire length? Maybe your have another application that is coming in after 10 minutes or so that may affect it--screen saver (although I don't think this would be a problem), firewall, ...). Also, if you are running a wireless connection the microwave or phones may be interfering (sp) with your connection. Have you tried reinstalling the software--that may help. Good luck
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Mar 28, 2004 6:24:56 AM

JUC,

Thanks for the quick reply. I took your suggestions and turned off my cordless phone (it was 2.4 GHz band, and I'm using a type G wireless card) and I reinstalled the server software.

Again, a video file would stream wirelessly with no problem for about 10 minutes with no trouble, then hang and the DVD unit would lose network connection. I monitored system performance during this 10 minute period and the processor usage hovered around 25% for the entire time except for every 2 or 3 minutes, the processor usage would dip down to basically zero for a second or two, then jump back to 25%. The same exact problem happens with music or photos. Like I said, I like the DVD player but if the thing hangs after 10 minutes, it's useless as a wireless media server / center.

Also, I have no firewall software running and no screensaver that starts in that time. Anyway, thanks again for the help you've already given. Do you have any other thoughts? Have you noticed a processor usage dip while playing video files?

Posted by: SupNow at Mar 28, 2004 2:59:41 PM

This is a great forum and I appreciate the free advice you're providing all of us. I have had the ADC-220 for about two weeks now, and I have had several problems.

First of all, Gateway's latest version (released on 3/25) of their D5 Media Server software does not seem to work. Every time it trys to scan my computer (running windows XP), I get a fatal error and the server shuts down. I have uninstalled the newest and installed their last version which seems to be running for now.

I am running a 802.11g network in my home and have upgraded the Gateway firmware. I have never been able to play a video file longer than ten minutes without it freezing, regardless of the bit rate. I have similar results with MP3s but while they are playing, there are annoying and loud popping noises randomly throughout the song, until they eventually freeze as well. I though that I might not be getting a solid signal from my router, so I moved the router to about 5 feet away from the player, resulting in the same performance. I have tried files of nearly every format and bit rate. I have tried files recorded with the SnapStream PVS with the lowest bitrate (about 1000000) and no success.

As for AVIs, they will play for about 7 or 8 minutes and the player will stop, and begin playing the next file in the folder. I saw someone mention this in this forum, and I wonder if they ever solved this.

Atleast I have a progressive scan DVD player? Well, yes I do but even while just playing DVDs, I have had the player freeze twice resulting in me having to turn off the power to the player and restart.

I am reading that this month, Gateway released a "New and improved" connected dvd player (Model ADC-320). Does anyone know if there is really any difference between this and the ADC-220? Like I said, I ordered this player two weeks ago and received the ADC-220, with a Wireless-G card.

I am not ready to give up, and I am thinking of running an ethernet cable into the living room to see if I get better results. Although, I have trouble believing that it will solve most of these problems. Also, the Wireless-G card that comes with the player (WGM-240) does not seem to work with a laptop, and Gateway does not provide these drivers. So it may be useless to everyone if you need to replace it with a 10/100 ethernet card.

Sorry to ramble, it has been a long two weeks. Thank you for any advice.

Posted by: Craig at Mar 29, 2004 8:02:45 AM

What channel are you guys using on your router? Try 11, 9, 2, and then 4 and see if any of those help. 6 is not so good and is what many routers come set with.
Good Luck!
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Mar 29, 2004 1:58:47 PM

I am planning to purchase this particuluar dvd player by this weekend and i a question to ask you.

Does it support full versions of DivX 3.11 ~ DivX 5.something, and mpeg4?

Thanks.

Posted by: SEAN at Mar 29, 2004 5:25:42 PM

i to am having problems with the newest firmware and server. i can only stream for about 3 mins
then stops trys to reconnects and fails. also the server software you can sync databases but this doesn't work very well at all. i'm using the wireless g 2 bout it last week and i'm happy but unhappy with the fact it won't stream for very long at all. does anyone how to fix this

Posted by: ibigpapa at Mar 29, 2004 8:36:01 PM

i also found out that after 4 mins or so of an mp3 playing it does the same thing. i called gateway they are sending me a new wireless g card i'll let every know if that helps.

Posted by: ibigpapa at Mar 30, 2004 6:47:51 PM

JUC,

You rock. Switched to channel 11, was using the default channel 6, and now video and audio play flawlessly on my DVD player. That was a great tip!

Thanks

Posted by: SupNow at Mar 30, 2004 9:04:55 PM

Anyone having trouble with the new software version continuously crashing on startup?
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Apr 1, 2004 9:25:45 AM

Does anyone know if this would play windows media video (wmv) files? I have a lot of video in that format and would like to watch them on my TV. DOes anyone know of any player that would play wmv files?

Posted by: Uvozone at Apr 4, 2004 10:02:08 PM

I picked one of these up in my last days at a Gateway Country store. Some stores may still have a few in stock. Clearance price is approximately $80.00+ $17.00 for a Linksys wired ethernet card , so you really can't go wrong. The first time I tried it out it was impressive.

Posted by: Matt at Apr 5, 2004 10:09:43 PM

Plugin Support??

Does anyone know of a way to tell the server software to look in plugins besides Windows Media Player. Has anyone found a way to have it look in iTunes and download playlists from there?

Let me know.

Posted by: Brian Adams at Apr 6, 2004 12:41:40 PM

Well, I also switched through channels and the player did player a little better, but I have given up on the wireless, and just ran an ethernet cable into the living room. Now the DVD player runs nearly perfect. I still have a few problems/questions that some of you may have run into.
I am having problems with some videos, particularly AVIs. I have a few AVIs that are about an hour long each, and they will run until certain points in the file, and will stop and begin playing the next video in the library. These points in the video remain constant each time I play the files.
Has anyone figured out how to get the player to recognize MP3s that have been purchased online (license protected). I have some that I purchased from the new Napster and the player does not recognize them.
Whenever you press the 'Next' button during video playback, it will skip ten minutes. Has anyone figured out a way to adjust this time, say to 30 seconds?

Thanks again

Posted by: Craig at Apr 6, 2004 2:23:56 PM

Craig, I think the new firmware addresses the issue of FF times. It now lets you FF in increments of 1X,2X,4X,10X...and you don't even have to hold the button down anymore. Not sure about your other issues yet.
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Apr 7, 2004 5:20:58 AM

JUC, you're right, the new firmware does allow you to fast forward in speed increments up to 100X but I'm actually talking about the 'Next' button or 'Next Chapter' button, not the 'Fast Forward'. During playback of a video clip, like a half-hour recorded tv show, the next button will jump you forward ten minutes. I noticed that you use ShowShifter. I'm using Snapstream, and you know it would be nice to have an adjustable skip for commercials.

Posted by: Craig at Apr 7, 2004 6:34:19 AM

Anyone know how to serve a ripped DVD (vobs) back to the Gateway connected player.

(Note: Most are ripped at much higher then 3mb/sec bandwidth)

Posted by: Divx at Apr 7, 2004 8:23:03 AM

Craig, sorry for the confusion--although I am glad you replied because I wasn't aware of the 'next' feature. However I plan on using it now! I would actually prefer to use snapstream but my ATI card really doesn't work that well with their software--the quality of the video is really poor compared to showshifter. But, I just got an email that said they added interlacing that may help my problem--if it does I will probably suck up the money I spent on showshifter and move to snapstreams nice interface and user config. settings. If I think of anything about your other AVI problems I will post later

JUC

Posted by: JUC at Apr 7, 2004 9:34:03 AM

JUC, according to what I have been reading in the Snapstream forums, the ATI cards are now working very well with their software. Snapstream has now released 'Beyond TV' which claims to provide "full support for ATI tuner cards". I am using the WinTV PVR-250 which works great, but I would download the BTV demo, and see how well it actually works with ATI. BTV has several MPEG-2 and Divx settings that work well with the Gateway Player. Like you said, their interface is fantastic, but it really doesn't matter if you're using the Gateway Player.

Posted by: Craig at Apr 7, 2004 12:35:50 PM

15 Second and Other Timeout Problems: I was having the same problems some of the other posters were having with my DVD player timing out on songs after 15 seconds on every song. I downloaded the new server software from Gateway support (http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/search.asp?st=pn¶m=2519945) and the new firmware for the DVD player. After resetting everything, it now timed out at 41 seconds every time! Better, but not really the result I wanted. Since it was so regular, I figured something was forcing it to time out. So I turned off all of the programs in my system tray in the lower right hand corner of the Windows XP screen. I am not sure which of the programs I exited (OpenOffice, Palm HotSync Manager, Kazaa, etc.) was the one that was triggering the timeouts, but one of them was because as soon as I turned them all off, it started playing every song all the way through. I then downloaded a program called "Startup Co!Pilot" - free trial version - to turn off all but the essential items in my startup folder to try to avoid this program in the future. I think there are several other startup folder control programs like this out there. Good luck! This was a very frustrating problem until I found out what it was, so I hope that this post helps some of you.

Posted by: H at Apr 7, 2004 8:59:26 PM

Posted by: H at Apr 7, 2004 9:01:35 PM

Just an update on the Snapstream software for those who are interested. I downloaded the new trial and it worked perfectly with my ATI card--they added something to do with the overlay that fixed the jerky video problem (I mentioned previously that it was interlacing but it is overlay). Anyway, just thought I would pass on the info. Thanks Craig.
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Apr 8, 2004 6:20:27 AM

1st, Juc thanks so much for you support of this forum.

My 15 second time out issue was solved by turning off zone alarm.
Following the firewall settings in the help file seems to do the trick too.

Posted by: mb at Apr 9, 2004 10:35:35 PM

I love this unit. The progressive scan is right in line with this price point. However you get all these extra features for just a few bucks more when everything is tallied up. Heck, you get a Wireless G card for 10 Bucks!!!

There is only one complaint and for me it is a big one because I like variety and unpredictability when I listen to music. I have about 5000 songs on my hard drive and I cannot listen to my genres randomly. It seems to only give you alphabetical playback. Has anyone figured out how to do this yet or is there a hack I can use to gain this feature?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks.

Posted by: DB at Apr 11, 2004 10:50:06 AM

I had a problem with the software continuously crashing on startup. Evidently when I tried to remove and reinstall the software (gateway version) it had problems. So I downloaded and installed the go-video version and havent had startup problems since!

Posted by: ctcoinman at Apr 11, 2004 4:43:26 PM

Has anyone found a way to get internet radio to work with this? It recognizes the musicmatch plugin but doenst seem to support url's for internet radio...

Anyone?

Posted by: rpi86 at Apr 11, 2004 4:45:07 PM

I've had the player for a few months now...loved it...no problems at all...but recently I bought a new TV, and when I tried to use it with component cables, I cant get a picture. I've done everything to narrow down that it is the player’s outputs, and not the TV or the cables. Has anyone else encountered this? Any advice on what to do? whats gateways policy for stuff like this? doubt I have the receipt still...bought it in January or about. Would the gateway store where I bought it take it back if it’s actually defective? Am I doing something wrong so the output isn’t working correctly? Any help would be great. Thanks. -jeff

Posted by: Jeff at Apr 11, 2004 10:52:02 PM

Jeff,

Did you know that you have to hit "video out" button repeatly to select the correct output? Apparently the output aren't on all the time, you have "switch" to component from whatever port you were using before. I had a hell of time setting my the player for S-video. Just a though.

Posted by: faradhim at Apr 12, 2004 6:01:11 AM

WOW...I had no idea...i'm at work now, but i'll try it when i get home...is the video out button on the remote or the box?? If this works I owe you big time. Thank you for such a quick response. -jeff

Posted by: Jeff at Apr 12, 2004 1:38:13 PM

Yes, it's on the remote. That's in the quick start instructions that come with the box. You know, instructions. As much as we hate them, that's the place to check. But only after having trouble. It's much more fun to try without first.

Is there a list somewhere of supported wired ethernet cards? I'm having no problem with mp3s but I am getting disconnects, usually after four or five minutes, watching avi files of TV shows. I think it may also be causing my server machine, also wireless, to disconnect. This hasn't happened before, even when download large files at full speed off a wired box (my Tivo).

The gateway is sitting about a foot and a half from the access point. I figure, if I can get a cheap enough ethernet card, it will be an easy enough thing to check.

I tried a D-Link I had around here but it wasn't recognized.

Posted by: craig at Apr 12, 2004 9:54:38 PM

I have a bunch of ripped (backedup) DVD's on my computer; can these be streamed?

Posted by: Earl at Apr 13, 2004 8:56:03 AM

Hey Craig, I also gave up on the wireless. I have a 50' ethernet cable running into the living room and a Linksys PCM100 card. Works great.

BTW, let me know if anyone has any luck in getting the player to recognize licensed MP3s (Purchased from the new Napster).

The Other Craig

Posted by: Craig358 at Apr 13, 2004 9:09:48 AM

Can Ripped Backed up DVDs, rsiding on the Hard drive be streamed?

Posted by: Earl B. at Apr 13, 2004 10:07:48 AM

Earl, it only streams mpeg or avi (divx), not vob or other sorts of dvd backup files.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Apr 13, 2004 1:41:44 PM

Help! This is driving me crazy. I purchase the ADC-220 with the G-wireless card. I have been going through the install and I have been able to hook everything up, load the software on my desktop and everything seems to be working fine. However, I'm stuck on the P-to-P connection. I'm able to set up the network and it sees my Wireless Linksys router fine. However, there is no P-to-P connection on there to hook to my desktop. I do not have any firewalls set up and I'm able to access my desktop fine from my laptop. Any ideas on what I'm missing here?

Posted by: Chas at Apr 20, 2004 9:04:38 AM

Nevermind... I went home last night and turned it on to start the battle again and the system came up just fine. Very strange, but true. It found my computer right away and I started playing my MP3s. I love this device and my heartache is over!

Posted by: Chas at Apr 21, 2004 1:19:42 PM

Go Video's version is onsale for $117 at http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?dpno=259971

Posted by: Kevin at Apr 23, 2004 6:03:37 AM

My apologies if this question has been asked before, but after downloading the latest software/firmware upgrades, I've encountered an issue that really bugs me. I'd like to view and play the ablums songs in numerical order, not alphabetical order. I can't find a setting anywhere that allows me to make this change. Is there someting I'm missing - I could have sworn the previous software version permitted this.

Thanks, Joe

Posted by: Joe at Apr 24, 2004 3:33:54 PM

Yo...great forum...has anyone noticed after installing the upgraded D5 Media Server software that there is not longer a Rrecently Played Playlist? This was an addition of the previous upgraded software but it is now gone....or am I just crazy?

Posted by: E at Apr 26, 2004 2:11:35 PM

Be careful with this player - I had a problem with the audio clicking during DVD playback (although the MP3 streaming worked fine) and called them three days after I received it so that I could get a replacement. After two months of calling once a week and simmering in tech support purgatory, I gave up trying to get a replacement. Now I can't return it because more than 15 days have elapsed since I received it, even though it has never worked properly and my first call was three days after I got it.

My advice - if you have problem with a Gateway, return it immediately! Otherwise they've got you.

Posted by: Greg at Apr 28, 2004 3:07:51 PM

Does anyone know where to get a cheap replacement remote? Or would be willing to let me send them a learning remote to "learn" the codes off a original gateway remote. I was messing around with my GoVideo Connected DVD player (basicly the same as the GW unit) and flashed in the GW firmware. It boots normaly, but I can only assume the gateware remote codes are different than the GoVideo ones, thus I am locked out of the unit :(

Any help would be greatly appricated.

Ron McAdams

Posted by: Ron McAdams at Apr 28, 2004 8:46:10 PM

Greg, that would be no problem to program it for you. If you email me we can figure out the specifics. gjackson@summitenergy.com

On other news, I just bought this unit about 2 weeks ago. I am a network admin at an energy company. We buy ALOT of gateway computers using our corporate account rep. So needless to say I could not resist buying this thing knowing that I was able to return it at any time no questions asked. And I have to say I am surely impressed! I am streaming 400mb avi files with no problems whatsoever. At first I had some issues with getting it to play the video smoothly. After calling Gateway they suggested that I change my Beacon Interval on my router to 50. After I did that I could connect to the router that is in the basement with no problems. All audio, video, and pics are playing great. One thing that I think has been missed in the review is the fact that the Gateway 220 will play burned DVD-R and +R. It is great!!

I have a question about showshfter and recording my shows to be played to the Gateway. I am using the Hauppauge PVR-250? I think. Does anyone know what the best format to use is? I want to be able to play it directly from the HD to the Gateway at the best quality. I am sure that someone here has tackled this already.

Thanks for all of your help and input.

Gary

Posted by: GroundZero at Apr 29, 2004 9:03:12 PM

Hey Gary, I use showshifter and it is a great program that works well with Gateway. I usually record directly to DivX. The setting that works best for me without killing my CPU is the DivX Pro Home Movie setting. You will have to change the audio codecs though because I cannot get the gateway to use the one that is standard (IMA AD???). Download the LAME codec and use that--it gets really good audio compression and works flawlessly with the Gateway (there is instructions on Showshifter's knowledgebase about it).
Let me know if you have a different config. that works well too. BTY-showshifter if completely redoing their showguide and it should be out in a few weeks.
later
JUC

Posted by: JUC at Apr 30, 2004 12:59:10 PM

Thank you for the info. I looked in my Showshifter and I do not have a DivxPro option and I am not sure which lame codex to use. I am pretty new in the 'pvr' realm. Could you please elaborate on exactly what I need to do. Thanks again.

Gary

Posted by: GroundZero at May 1, 2004 5:16:54 PM

Gary, if you do not have a divx pro option you probably do not have that codec installed on your system. You can get a version from their website. There is a free one with ads or you can pay as well. Install and restart showshifter. You should now be able to see the divx pro option. In the knowledgebase section of showshifters site there is specific info on the LAME codec and installing it (its better there than what I can give you). Finally, once you get it all set up and recording you can schedule the gateway software to scan your video folders every hour to pick up any new shows you recorded with showshifter.
JUC

Posted by: JUC at May 2, 2004 6:47:47 PM

I am sorry to bother you but I am so new at this. I looked for the lame plug in and added it but when I tried to convert an .ssf to the newly created codec showshifter said that I was unable to convert it. I am using Showshifter 2.01.2075. Is there a reason I should get the newest version of Showshifter? Can you please send me the url’s for the codec’s or email them to me. Also is there a way to save the files from the tv in the new codec without having to convert it. Converting a 1 hour show takes over an hour and hogs up my 2.4Ghz with 512mb RAM machine. I am sorry to be such a bother. Another question, I was testing all of my files through the Connected DVD Player and I found one mpeg that I had downloaded from Limewire. It was 450mb for a one hour tv show. It looked AWESOME!! Is there a way to figure out what codec they used. I would like all of my content to be saved in that format. Once again that you for all of your help!!

Gary Jackson
Summit Energy Services Inc.
Network Administrator
gjackson@summitenergy.com

Posted by: GroundZero at May 2, 2004 7:17:16 PM

Gary, I am going to give you an email so I can give you some links and more info on showshifter.
JUC

Posted by: JUC at May 3, 2004 6:45:14 AM

Is there a way to get the D2730 to play *.wav files?

Posted by: joe at May 5, 2004 8:47:00 AM

Hello All,
I was just about ready to drop this player from a 2 story building just to see it break into pieces. I was really frustrated with this player.

I had all the problems some of the other people mentioned here, like playing it for 5 minutes and then freezing the whole unit or choppy frames every 3 or 4 minutes, audio getting out of sync.

I called gateway a couple of times and they said it could be because of my wireless connection getting dropped. So I bought a wired linksys pcm100 just to try it out. Well that didn't work

then I called gateway again and this time a lady said how fast is your machine. I have real nice rig with Athlon 64 3200 and a gig of ddr400 and a nice SATA drive. so there is no way it is cause of a slow machine. Then she says tat could be a problem. High end machines was showing the same symptoms in their test lab.

so I put the server on my old P3 900 MHz. and Voilaaa!!!!! the whole damn thing started working perfectly.

I wonder what sort of idiots coded that server software.I mean I can understand if the machine is too slow to keep up with the realtime decoding and transcoding. but you can always throttle down your code on a fast machine.

Oh one more thing. Instead of getting the gateways latest server, get the one from GOVideo. I could never get the gateway server software to work perfeclty. Both of them uses the D5 streamer internally.

Posted by: Fleming George K at May 5, 2004 2:43:44 PM

Could someone clarify for me how the music file navigation works on the gateway? If I browse by artist, does it then show me a list of all songs by that artist, or does it show a list of albums by that artist which I can then select? I have a *lot* of albums, and I don't really want to select one from a list of all my albums, I'd rather first select the artist, if that makes sense.

Also, is the player decent about not introducing gaps between played songs?

Finally, is there any decent way to queue up songs from the remote, or do I have to create a playlist on my server PC?

Thanks,
-Al

Posted by: al at May 7, 2004 12:39:02 PM

Cool. Just ordered the unit. Will see how it works out.

Posted by: andrew at May 9, 2004 12:10:52 PM

Hello all,

I had a read through most of the posts here and did not see any mention of the problem I am having. I have been experiencing skips and pauses while watching DVDs (not streaming, physical DVD watching). Most of the time, these DVDs are from Netflix, so they have a little wear on them, but definitely not major scratches or marks. I am wondering if anyone else has had these issues. Could it be that this unit is very sensitive to read errors? I never had any of these problems with previous players. I love the media streaming, so I would love to keep using this unit.

Thanks for your help!
-Pieter

Posted by: P-Dub at May 14, 2004 9:25:41 PM

Sorry if this is a dupe, the last time I tried to post, it didn't seem to work...

Hello all,

I had a read through most of the posts here and did not see any mention of the problem I am having. I have been experiencing skip and pauses while watching DVDs (not streaming, physical DVDs). Most of the time, these DVDs are from Netflix, so they have a little wear on them, but definitely not major scratches or marks. I am wondering if anyone else has had these issues. Could it be that this unit is very sensitive to read errors? I never had any of these problems with previous players. I love the media streaming, so I would love to keep using this unit.

Thanks for your help!
-Pieter

Posted by: P-Dub at May 14, 2004 9:27:11 PM

ok - so far so good, bought the player, hooked it up - hate the fact that I can not hide my wireless lan but I geuss the security settings will do for now.

What I really need to know from anybody is.. I have lots of dvd's that I want to place onto my hard drive and play through the dvd player. Can anybody tell me the best way of doing this please, ie what software should I buy to copy from the dvd and place onto the computer and what format should I copy to ie mpeg, divx or other? I am running the latest firmware on a g wireless. Please help me cos I am stuck with this problem at the moment.

cheers

Wayne

Posted by: wayne at May 16, 2004 8:37:28 PM

Pieter,

I rent discs from netflix and have not had a problem, but have only used about 4 discs so far.

Eric

Posted by: Eric at May 17, 2004 4:57:47 PM

Al,

After selecting Artist, you get a choice of album or "All."

Haven't noticed either way about pauses.

There's no facility for building a queue, as in "play this, then that, then the other."

Posted by: Eric at May 17, 2004 5:01:10 PM

My player was working fine until I recently upgraded my system with a faster hard drive. Now the mp3's play for a few seconds, and then start to play really fast, pop etc and then skip to the next song and to the same thing. I also get some loud pops during the playback.

I have installed the lastest Gateway Server software and upgraded the firmware.

Do I need to change something in the cfg file to slow the transfer rate or something?

I see someone recommending the GoVideo software as a solution to a similar problem.

I would really like to see someone rewrite the server software. I would even be willing to help. FYI - I'm a software developer - a very small company with even more limited resources. We have just patented and released a new photo / video, audio, text database program that would do wonders for management of 1000's of multimeda files. If anyone has the programming skills to create a new server software program that we could interface to our program - I'd be very interested.

Thanks Everyone,
Marlo

Posted by: Marlo at May 17, 2004 9:09:10 PM

Marlo,
That's interesting. The media server runs fine on my Celeron 466 machine with correspondingly slow disk. Yet it has problems similar to yours on my PIII 733 with fast disk (7200 RPM and 8 MB cache). It could be caused by anything, but the disk is now an additional suspect.

Others have suggested various versions of the server software, and I've tried 3 different Gateway versions, and GoVideo too, with no improvement. I notice that the CPU load shoots up when the problem occurs, but I'm not sure what to conclude from that. Perhaps a fresh OS install is next, but that requires a whole weekend.

For now, I copy files to the Celeron to play them, but this isn't a long-term solution.

Eric

Posted by: Eric at May 18, 2004 7:25:03 PM

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the suggestions.

You can rule the new OS install. I lost my C drive a week ago (which is why I upgraded to a faster HD) so I had to reinstall XP Pro and I assumed that a 7200 rpm HD would speed things up a bunch - and it did except the Gateway.

At first I thought it was one of my raid drives that was bad so I first replaced my two raid drives. Sob story I know.(joke) One good thing was that Costco has 160 gig, 7200 rpm drives with extra cache for a little over a $100 each.

I was considering installing the other versions of the server software but you saved me some time with your experience. Earlier today I reinstalled the lastest server software and flashed the firmware just in case. No change.

Today I spent over an hour with Gateway support and four different support guys. They tried but no success yet. They think it is a codec issue and suggested I make sure that I have the latest Windows Media Player 9.0 which I reinstalled just to be sure. No luck.

I also downloaded some attitional codecs from Microsoft. Gateway also suggested that I come directly off my router instead of off the hub I now have it on with the computer. Yes, that causes me moving cables, the router and cable modem around. Isn't new technogogy great? Instead of plug and play I call it plug and play around.

I have another older computer on my network so I might try that. Its a shame to have a nice DVD player that I can't use with my fast upgraded system that now has lots more HD space.

I may try messing around with the some of the setting in the filters.cfg file and see what that does.

I guess we just have to look at this an adventure in the digital cosmos and hopefully it won't end up with a big bang!

Thanks,
Marlo

Posted by: Marlo at May 18, 2004 8:29:33 PM

PROBLEM SOLVED - SORT OF ;>)

Eric,

I have good news and bad news, although the bad news isn't so bad.

In my instance, it's the network connection / configuration that turned out to be the trouble maker (and that seems really weird to me). I haven't the time to really test this in detail but I've done enough that I can make it fail consistently and work consistently.

FYI. I had the DVD player connected to a hub connected to my computer (with the server software) and two other computers. The hub is connected to a router with feeds a couple of computers and also a cable modem. Nothing too strange here. It works fine.

Here's how I tested.

1. First turned off the router and cable modem.
2. I upplugged the network cables to the other computers on my hub and moved the cable to the DVD to the next plug on my hub to my computer.
3. Started the server software and fired up the DVD. IT WORKED correctly for first time!
4. Turned the router back on and within a few minutes the DVD lost it connection to the server software.
5. Rebooted the DVD with everything on and the old skipping popping and hung mpg problems magically returned. I did this a couple of times and there was a consistent failure within a couple of minutes. Unplugged the router to my hub and it all works again. When I turned on the cable modem to access this site that also bombed the DVD but that could just be the router again.

First I thought it was my new fast drive because that's all I remebered changing in the system. However, when I reinstalled everything I also took the time to reogranize all the wires to my computer etc. and I probably also moved the position of the cable, in the hub, to the DVD or something like that.

I guess I will invest some more time in prevention and move the router and modem to the faster computer and maybe I will get lucky and it will work like it is supposed to. Gateway support said the DVD works best if its connected to the router.

I hope this will help you.

One last comment I just have to make that I feel I am qualified to comment based on my recent bad experience and profession. As a software developer I find it interesting that Gateway would select software that has so many problems and limitations. Maybe its the best of the bunch or, worse yet, no other choices are available. That casts some real bad shadows on an otherwise fine networked DVD. It makes it look like it's Gateway that has the problem. I would classify the software as a weak "Alpha" release, and not even rate it as a beta release.

I hope this helps others avoid all the lost time and frustration I have struggled through trying to solve this problem on my own - and thanks for a forum where us can fight technology together.

I should also verify that Gateway support said the software does not support avi streams even though there is a checkbox for it in the software setup.

Regards,
Marlo

Posted by: Marlo at May 19, 2004 9:40:20 AM

Hello,

Thought I would post my thoughts on this player and ask a question. I have been using this player for about 2 weeks now, and have run many mpg, divx and xvid avis through it. I plays the avis (divx and xvids) really well, but it has a little tic with the xvids. If I just play them straight through without any rewinding, f-forwarding or pausing, they play perfectly with perfect sync. However, without fail, if I do any of the above things, the aud-vid sync goes off slightly and it never gets better or worse. I have the latest version of WMV 9 and all of the newest codecs. The xvids play perfectly on my system. I can't figure it out and Gateway claims that the streamer doesn't support avi even though it is an option on install and the server accepts the files. BTW, I don't have this problem with Divx (any version). I was just wondering if anyone else had problems such as these and fixed them. Also, I am very happy with the MP3 capability. I changed the settings in the filters.cfg to accept lower bitrate MP3s (radio rips), but while I can get the server to accept them, they will not play on the DVD player. A quick reencode does the trick - just a minor nuisance. Hopefully newer versions of the software will do a better job of organizing the files and have some sort of playlist feature. Overall I am pretty happy with the player and would be extremely happy if I could solve my XVID problem.

Tim

Posted by: Tim at May 19, 2004 4:57:49 PM

Hi
I just bought a ADC 220 from ebay. It came with a gateway wireless card. I bought a linksys PCM100 because I do not have a wireless network. If I insert the wireless card the setup screen lists the appropriate choices. When I insert the linksys card it just says no network card. I tried the linksys card in my laptop and it automatically found the device. It seems to indicate that the card is okay. I then went to the store and bought a linksys PCM200. (Apparently the PCM100 is an old model). It still doesn't recognize that a card is inserted. I bought a Network Everywhere card (model NP100-WM) at Wal Mart to try something else. It's manufactured by linksys and is 16 bit so I thought I had a chance. I plug in the card and the leds light up. (No lights on the PCM100). But the setup screen still says no network card. arrg! I don't know what else to try.

Any suggestions?
Brent

Posted by: brent at May 20, 2004 6:59:41 PM

Brent, your best bet is to go to the Gateway site and see the list of compatible cards. Of course the gateway ones work well. I have an extra Gateway B card available if your interested--but remember it is slow. Also, as you already know, only the 16 bit cards will work correctly (unless the new firmware supports more but I don't think so).
later
JUC

Posted by: JUC at May 21, 2004 6:33:13 PM

I hooked up my gateway connected dvd player two weeks ago, strictly for running my audio files from my desktop (upstairs) to my stereo receiver (downstairs). It reads all of my mp3's and wma files beautifully, except for all the WMA files I have purchased from iTunes and MusicMatch. The D5 Gateway server rejects these files as "protected". I asked Gateway tech support, and they told me to download the latest D5 Streaming Media server software and Firmware Update. I completed this update, but the WMA files from iTunes are still being rejected as "protected" when it scans my hard drive for audio files. Any suggestions?

Posted by: Carter at May 24, 2004 12:29:21 PM

It will not play protected files. The only device of this type that I know will is the Audiotron.

Posted by: PeterS at May 24, 2004 8:15:37 PM

Does the newer software support WAV or lossless WMA? I can't believe these features were left out, since transcoding audio is trivial compared to video.

Posted by: Tiroth at May 27, 2004 11:53:53 AM

I bought the Gateway ADC-320 along with the Gateway G Router and Card. Music and pictures and Mpeg 1 and 2 are fine. The issue is the Microsoft Media Center PVR files. The video is unwatchable and locks up the player afte a few minutes. I tried putting it in the same room as the router to make sure it wasn't signal strenght, but still no luck. Anyone else getting really bad reseults trying to view Mpeg4 or Microsoft PVR files on this device?

Posted by: Pete at May 27, 2004 1:27:50 PM

Does anybody have info about Go Video
D2740 Progressive Scan DVD with Networking 802.11g WiFi? It seems to have same price (or bit cheaper), but capable to play DivX without streaming from PC. Can somebody confirm that?

Posted by: MOCKBA at May 27, 2004 3:15:54 PM

I ordered the GoVideo D2730 model from eCost ($109). It should arrive Tuesday. I'll try to do some experimenting and report back here. With the upgraded firmware available at govideo.com (http://www.govideo.com/Index.asp?GV=D2730V3), these features (and some others) are added:
• MPEG4 Transcoding, enabling you to watch MPEG4 movie files.
• Ability to view BMP, TIFF, PICT, PSD, and JPEG files.
• Support for other UPnP (Universal Plug ‘n’ Play) compatible premium servers, such as Musicmatch, Rhapsody, Fjord, etc. Note: GoVideo customers can try Real Rhapsody free for 30 days!
• StreamLink™ 2.0/Improved wireless streaming in noisy environments.

The support for UPnP servers is very interesting -- this would mean internet radio could probably be streamed pretty easily. I'd also love to find a way to stream RealAudio (w/o converting formats). From what I can tell, the GoVideo model DOES support a wide variety of playlist formats (anybody know for sure?).

To Wayne and others wondering about streaming DVD copies: don't buy any software until you try the free stuff. DVDDecrypter and DVDShrink are both free and fast for making DVD backups. I imagine you can find other free software to do the conversion (you'll have to convert to one of the supported formats -- like someone else said, you can't stream vob files or disc images).

Posted by: bb at May 30, 2004 8:54:16 PM

http://dmihalik.com/ is a blog w/ some great info.

Posted by: bb at May 30, 2004 9:06:51 PM

FF button work correctly with Media Center recorded files?

I ordered the Gateway 320 wireless DVD player (802.11g). Set it and my router up and in about 1 hr. Only problem I have is when playing tv shows recorded on my Media Center pc, the FF button does not work correctly... it jumps to the next tv show when I try to exit FF mode by hitting the PLAY button. All other types of media (MP3, DVDs, home movies etc) the FF button works correctly. Only the Media Center recorded files have this problem. I tried the original software version that came with the unit, same problem. Have the latest firmware too. Anyone else have this problem or have a MEDIA CENTER PC that it works correctly?

Thanks!

Posted by: Steve Larson at May 31, 2004 9:17:12 AM

To those looking to stream protected WMA files (purchased from Napster, MusicMatch, BuyMusic...):
Just found a tutorial for converting the protected files to plain ol' (unprotected) mp3. It's involved and somewhat time consuming (essentially, you burn to CD, then rip to mp3), but it seems to work. Full tutorial here: http://www.zittware.com/Products/CDMaster32/Tutorials/CopyProtected_WMA_to_MP3.html.

Posted by: bb at May 31, 2004 9:21:17 PM

A very active board regarding all D5 players at http://www.media-servers.com

Posted by: stryguy at Jun 3, 2004 2:40:18 PM

Stryguy - this is more like it.. thanks for the link. Everybody - this site http://www.media-servers.com is great to find what you are looking for. The problem I have found with pvrblog is that so many people post in here that your questions can easily go unanswered - although everybody has been fantastic in helping out I have just found it hard to trawl through it all. I ended up printing 47 pages (the current length of this post) and each time I popped out for a cigarette I would take it with me and read through the next bit.. :) Can pvrblog not set up a similar system where we can post a question that is not lost by 10 subsequent comments like 'this player rocks' etc resulting in us having to re-post. You have all been so helpful to each other - just thinking this might make it easier. Regards.

Wayne

Posted by: wayne at Jun 7, 2004 3:24:46 AM

This PVR rocks etc!

Posted by: Craig at Jun 11, 2004 8:55:04 AM

To "Marlo at May 19, 2004 09:40 AM" -

I have the same problem of having xvid encoded files get out of sync if I use the "skip 10 minutes" or the FF buttons. If I let the video play through from the start without pushing those buttons, it works fine. Also, this only happens with certain rips... others seem fine.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

- Keith

Posted by: Keith at Jun 21, 2004 1:53:56 PM

Oops... I misread the Blog... my comment about audio and video getting out of sync is a problem shared by "Tim at May 19, 2004 04:57 PM", not by "Marlo at May 19, 2004 09:40 AM".

- Keith

Posted by: Keith at Jun 21, 2004 1:59:12 PM

I "upgraded" my GoVideo 2730 Networked DVD Player with the firmware from the Gateway Connected player (hoping to resolve some streaming problems I was having). Now I can't revert back because I can't move down to the "Full upgrade" of the GoVideo firmware.

I don't have a super-programmable remote (like a Pronto), but I do have a Sony learning remote, so I was wondering if:

a) If you have the gateway unit and are in the Bay area, could we meet and I could have my sony learning remote learn the down arrow directly from your gateway unit.

b) anyone is in the Bay Area (San Francisco area) and has the Gateway "down arrow" code programmed into a remote (or can program it into a programmable one) if there's any way I could meet you and "Learn" the down arrow code so I can reset my player's firmware.

Thanks a lot for any help.

- Keith

Posted by: Keith at Jun 23, 2004 11:09:21 AM

Keith,

I solved my problem with the audio sync recently and thought I'd share. The problem seems to be in the way the server transcodes the avi files on the fly. I found that this problem only happens on avis with a variable bitrate (VBR)in their audio track. Ripping the sound, re-encoding to constant bitrate (CBR)and rewriting the header on the avi solves the problem permanently. I'e got it down to about 8 minutes total on a 700MB avi on my P4 2.8. I use Virtual Dub and GoldWave for the conversion. For more info on re-encoding avi's etc. -- http://www.videohelp.com. Hope this helps.

Tim

btw, now that I solved the sync problem, everything about this player rocks.

Posted by: Tim at Jun 26, 2004 4:40:47 PM

Tim -

Thanks a lot for the info. I discovered the same thing about the audion sync myself last week (guess I should have posted the answer, but my main question was about the gateway remote).

For me, I stumbled upon the solution because I noticed that AutoGK (the tool I use to create xvids) was sometimes choosing AC3 and sometimes choosing MP3 VBR. I discovered that if I force it to be AC3 (for AC3 sources), or MP3 CBR (for 2 channel sources), the problem goes away.

Seems like a bug that Go Video and Gateway should fix. I agree with you, though, that now that I've fixed it, the player does rock!

Meanwhile, one of my players is still dead because I don't have the Gateway remote :-(

Posted by: Keith at Jun 27, 2004 11:55:25 AM

OK, here's the answer to how to control the Gateway Connected DVD Player if you don't have a remote (for example if you upgrade your Go Video 2730 with the Gateway firmware and your remote no longer works):

- Buy a user-upgradeable OneForAll remote (e.g. model # URC-8910)
- The code you want to program into your remote is 1073 to the "DVD" key (I got the code from OneForAll Customer Support)
- Your remote will tell you "Not found" when you try to input it, because you need an upgrade.
- To get the code added to your remote, call OneForAll customer support (they answer the phone very quickly) at: 1-330-405-8616. Tell them you want code 1073 added. They will play a modem-like tone on your phone which you hold up to the back of the remote and it will program the remote with the new code
- Now use the normal remote code-setting procedure to set the remote to 1073... It should now say "success".
- I'm not sure if *all* keys work (e.g. I can't figure out what "system" is), but up, down, left, right, enter ("select"), play, pause, etc. all work
- The "return" key is set to "exit" (to go up a "level" in your navigation)

NOTE: Use the "stop" button on the Go Video player to open/close the drawer if you have the Gateway Connected DVD Player firmware installed.

NOTE2: I didn't see any benefits when I was running the Gateway firmware (and it's actually a bit behind the Go Video in version #, so I switched back)

Posted by: Keith at Jun 28, 2004 11:50:10 AM

I read the bit about playing protected WMA files but what about playing a UPnP Rhapsody stream which is apparently WMA based? My Rhapsody UPnP server comes up in the network scan just fine but when I attempt to connect to it I get a sharp metallic click and then nothing. All my GoVideo firmware and software is up to date as is the Rhapsody app. I sent the GoVideo tech support folks an email about this and they just said my WMA files were bogus. Well,I can do something about that but I can't do much with the Rhapsody stream. The fact that GoVideo was promoting a month of free streaming from Rhapsody would indicate that this player is capable of playing it. Mine doesn't. Anyone else confronting this issue?

Posted by: Scrotox at Jul 11, 2004 2:12:39 AM

To people having trouple with FF. I also had this problem, I chatted With Gateway Tech-useless! I've emailed Tech support--useless! They have a hard time with the units serial #. The Tech people apparently think Gateway only sells computers, so when I reply it takes 5 emails to get them to understand that this is not a computer.....Anyway....MPEG2 files recorded from ATI MMC won't FF correctly-can't tell ya why yet but they don't. Buttttt... in the ATI setup if you switch to SuperVideoDisk or Video Disk they will FF just fine. VCD quality is very poor but SuperVideoCD is Ok and the FF works with these file types. It must have something to do with the way ATI time stamps the recordings in MPEG2.
Gateway wants me to send it in, but I feel it is a problem with the server software not the player.

Posted by: Bill at Aug 5, 2004 7:11:09 PM

I was just experiencing the 15/41 sec problem with the player skipping to the next music track. I traced the problem to my Windows XP SP2 built-in firewall. The Gateway docs are incomplete regarding which ports you need to have open, make sure the following ports open in your firewall and it should work, did for me:

1028 TCP
1360 TCP
1900 TCP
3640 TCP
3641 TCP
4000 TCP
4001 TCP
4001 UDP (missing from Gateway docs)
49200 TCP
49202 TCP
7001 TCP
7001 UDP (missing from Gateway docs)

Posted by: scapflci at Aug 7, 2004 12:38:26 PM

All,

Fast Forward will not work unless your *.mpg files are encoded properly. Try using TMPGenc Express or some other tool to fix the video stream. The stream has indexing frames in it (supposed to) but many capture sources, or ripped sources do not put those in correctly.

Also look for the TwonkyVision plug in for WINAMP to stream live streamcast audio to your player. It works.

Running for a week now, and everything works everytime, with no crashes, no problems, no glitches. All my video, audio, and pictures files play.

Posted by: Kevin at Aug 9, 2004 7:16:07 AM

I'm struggling to resolve a problem with new Gateway 320. Everything is working fine with one exception - it can't play WMA files ripped from CD's using Media Player 9. I've tried files of different recording quality. No luck. I can select file, see it attempt to start (from video screen), but not a sound and it skips to next track instantly. I shut down all firewalls and turned off WEP just to check. Still no luck. I have all the latest firmware and software installed. Any ideas? Gateway tech support no help to this point.

Posted by: ALF at Aug 10, 2004 7:21:25 PM

I've seen a couple of questions, but no answers, about the ability to play audio files randomly thru the Gateway ADC-320. When you create a playlist, there is an option to "Randomize" but I can't get it to work on my media server. Anybody else have this problem and/or a solution?

Posted by: Russ at Sep 17, 2004 8:06:46 PM

Hello everyone,

This link is really informative and I'm thikning of buying a Gateway player as well but just want to confirm whether is the DVD player "region free" or can it play other regions DVD other than region 1?

Posted by: Joe at Sep 21, 2004 8:38:06 AM

Yep Joe, you can make it Region-Free by following the instructions in this comment above:

http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2003/10/gateway_connect.html#c501114

I did it on my own player, ordered some DVDs from amazon.uk, and they played fine with the hack in place (set your region to 0)

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Sep 21, 2004 9:50:23 AM

Can I use my own codec to play DivX?

Posted by: Young at Sep 22, 2004 11:48:52 AM

Has anyone tried any xvids with q-pel enabled? How about gmc?

Posted by: Hilton at Sep 22, 2004 11:55:01 AM

I just installed the 320 model (they are on sale for $119 at Gateway right now.) Anyway, I setup the wireless network and the DVD player says it sees the network and joins it. However, it won't get a DHCP lease. When I assign an IP to it I can't ping it. So basically the player sees the wireless network and joins it but I can't ping the player and it can't get a DHCP lease. Not sure what I'm missing there. Does the media server have to complete it's file scan and import first?

Posted by: andrew at Sep 24, 2004 4:24:24 PM

Hilton, I had a problem that sounds simular. the system said it was connected but it could not find the server. when i looked at the IP address I had no idea where that address came from. Auto IP and DHCP auto both returned this "bogus" address and the static IP address did not work either. i was able to fix my problem by picking a static address (even though i know it would not work), then picking the DHCP auto choice, and while it was trying to get the address i went up and selected the wireless network (SSID) and told it to "rescan" the network. that seemed to cause a proper IP address to be assinged and the rest of the functions worked. My scan on the media server was still running at the time.

Posted by: jrctexas at Sep 29, 2004 11:28:21 AM

I installed the Gateway ADC-320 last night and everything worked perfect. It recognized my Windows Media Player 9 playlists and did not have any problems until I upgraded my Media Player to version 10. At that point, the Media Player plugin option disappeared from the server software. Has anyone gotten the server software to work with Media Player 10?

Thanks for the excellent review.

Posted by: jerald at Sep 30, 2004 11:41:42 AM

This question was aske once before, but I didn't see an answer. Has anyone been able to hack the D5 Server to play *.wav files?

Posted by: G. Britt Whitman at Sep 30, 2004 1:38:22 PM

Has anybody found a solution for the WMA issue pointed out by Kevin on 8/9? As Kevin experienced, my player will not play any WMA files via the D5 server software. MP3, JPG and most video files work fine, the problem is strictly with WMA files.

All my WMAs were ripped from CD using either Creative Mediasource or Windows Media player v9, at 96 or 128kbps, with DMR disabled. The D5 successfully "scans" and finds these files, and they DO appear in the players onscreen display. However if I attempt to play one, it tries to play for a second or two, produces no audio and skips to the next file. It will continue to skip until it comes across an MP3 file, which it will play fine.

I'm using the latest firmware, and the latest D5 server software, as downloaded from Gateways site. I've tried the software on two different XP machines, with the same results. I've also tried stripping down the startup sequences on both machines (in case of conflict) and disabled firewall software, with no change.

Posted by: Larry Goodwin at Oct 1, 2004 12:52:48 PM

I neglected to point out, that if I burn the same WMA files onto a CD and place it directly in the player, they work fine! The problem is strictly with streaming them via the server software. Even the two samples WMA files included with Windows XP don't work, so I'm sure it's not a file encoding issue.

Posted by: Larry Goodwin at Oct 1, 2004 12:54:44 PM

ok.. so what's the 'hack' to play DIVX?!?

I have the latest on a 2.4GHz machine.. and no DIVX's..

thanks.

Posted by: Robert at Oct 2, 2004 4:22:45 AM

Windows Media Player 10 Plugin: I'm having the same problem as Jrctexas. There is no plugin listed for Windows Media Player in the D5 server software. I'm running the latest XP (SP2) Pro with WMP 10. I was told by Gateway that version 10 is in beta, so it is not yet supported. So I've been trying to find a plugin that I can try (maybe for version 9). No luck finding one yet. Not on the D5 CD that I can find, and nothing on the computer that I can see. I'd be willing to bet that the plugin for 9 would work, but I don't know for sure.
Also having some wireless probs with signal strength, but I think I can solve that. If anyone has anything specific to offer, I'd surely be willing to hear it. Running 802.11g with the gateway G router. Thanks in advance.

Posted by: seatech1 at Oct 2, 2004 1:14:51 PM

Not sure if this is just because I have an SMC wireless router, but I wanted to share some info I received from Gateway Support. My player would work fine without WEP turned on, but with it on I couldn't get an IP. This is there response:

Key 1 on your Access Point or Router corresponds with Key 0 on the Connected DVD player. Key 2 on your Access Point or Router corresponds with Key 1 on the Connected DVD player... [and so on]

Posted by: nefarious at Oct 6, 2004 12:33:42 PM

This is a great review and tempts me to buy this device except I am not sure I want to rely on my PC for music - it is not really a very reliable device !

Another option I am considering is saving all my MP3s on a few DVD-R discs and using a DVD changer to listen to them all. However I am unable to find a DVD player/changer which will play MP3 from a DVD-R. Does anyone know of one ? This seems technically possible but I tried on couple MP3 capable DVD players and then can only play MP3s from CD-R discs.

Posted by: snb at Oct 11, 2004 8:56:34 AM

Looks like Gateway has pulled the product off its site :(

From all the messages above, I bet they were taking a beating in the support calls and decided to pull the plug.

Posted by: Rob Jones at Oct 11, 2004 2:41:24 PM

Has anyone encountered this problem with the 220? I have succesfully set it up and configured it on my network. It finds the access point, gets assigned a valid ip address, and can browse the media on my pc. When I try to play a song, it shows the play symbol at the bottom of the screen, but no sound comes out. If I try to view a picture slideshow, the screen goes blank, but then comes back. Its as if its playing the track, but just not outputting the sound. Running the slideshow, just not outputting the image. I know the palyer is hooked up to the stereo ok enough for me to watch a DVD. I get sound and video with no problems on that.
Any help would be appreciated.

Posted by: Rhyno at Oct 15, 2004 2:43:12 PM

DOES ANYONE know what other media servers work with the Gateway Connected DVD player (220)? D5 sucks, bad categorization, no album art display..... ANYONE???????????

Posted by: G. Britt at Oct 15, 2004 7:59:54 PM

I have the Go Video D2730 version of this player, and I use Gateways version of D5 Media Server.

I found TwonkyVision UPnP Media Server http://www.twonkyvision.de/. To be a great alternative to the above. It works perfectly and has a limited, Music only, free version.

Also, Intel's UPNP SDK kit comes with some pre-compiled software which works seamlessly with the DVD player.

Posted by: Gary G. at Oct 18, 2004 8:32:54 AM

Hmm.. Kinda sucks that this product has been discontinued. I really wanted to get it, I guess I showed up at the wrong time. Are there any other comparable units? Linksys is coming out with a unit but it doesnt suppost anything but WMV for videos.

Any chance someone is selling theirs? :)

Posted by: Dave M at Oct 18, 2004 10:52:06 PM

I just talked with a Gateway service rep and he indicated the Connected DVDs are on back order and until that situation is corrected they have pulled all related sales links. However a quick search on Google reveals other companies who sell the Gateway Connected DVD.

Has anyone tried using the GoVideo Media Server with the Gateway? I am tempted to try it since GoVideo has issued a SP2 upgrade but I wonder if I need to do a firmware change on the player too or is installing the GoVideo server software sufficient?

Posted by: Rick at Oct 19, 2004 1:50:00 PM

Rick, I have my doubts. I am sure that is what they told you but all referrences to the connected DVD player have been "forgotten". at least in the store (there is still stuff in the support section) I think we have seen the last of the Connected DvD player. on your question of switching to the Go Video version of the server - let us know what you do. the worst part of Gateway droping the player is the fact we will never get anymore updates.

Posted by: jrctexas at Oct 22, 2004 12:37:55 PM

I have been using the GoVideo Server with my Gateway player since I bought it. The performance difference is significant. It recovers from network hiccups perfectly. However, I wish Gateway would learn how to run a company! Their last update was 3/2004! How terrible is that!!?

Posted by: Peteerererere at Oct 22, 2004 4:30:51 PM

Anyone happen to know if the remote for GoVideo's D2730 works on a Gateway ADC-220?

Reason I ask is I have an opportunity to get a ADC-220 for a low price but it has no remote, but my universal remote is capable of becoming a GoVideo remote (atleast its got a few codes for it)

Posted by: Dave M at Oct 26, 2004 9:03:11 PM

Apologies if I missed it, but a couple of people have asked about the songs being listed and played in alphabetical order vs. the order they are actually on the album. Do I need to go through all 4k of my songs and number them or is there a way the D5 can be configured to do this?

Posted by: Travis at Oct 28, 2004 11:50:17 AM

These are available at Gateway refurbed for $99. Ordered one. Will let you know the condition and accessories it has or does not have...
http://www.gateway.com/reman/hm_CE_1532959_14_Gateway_Reman_Gateway__Connected_DVD_Player.shtml

$99.99 + $10 to ship

Posted by: Eric T. at Nov 1, 2004 3:20:28 PM

can you surf the web with this one or the GoVideo version while in front of the tv?

Posted by: zoom1973 at Nov 1, 2004 3:24:48 PM

Zoom, you can have surf music, surf pictures and even surf movies but no web surfing.

Posted by: jrctexas at Nov 2, 2004 7:56:23 AM

I saw this message above .. but haven't seen a reply yet ... I'm exactlty in the same situation. Can you please help:

I have succesfully set it up and configured it on my network. It finds the access point, gets assigned a valid ip address, and can browse the media on my pc. When I try to play a song, it shows the play symbol at the bottom of the screen, but no sound comes out. If I try to view a picture slideshow, the screen goes blank, but then comes back. Its as if its playing the track, but just not outputting the sound. Running the slideshow, just not outputting the image. I know the palyer is hooked up to the stereo ok enough for me to watch a DVD. I get sound and video with no problems on that.

Posted by: rts at Nov 4, 2004 10:30:33 PM

Adam, I just purchased this refurbed from Gateway. When I install the upadated D5 software, it asks for a cd key. Where in the world is that and why doesn't it ask for one with the original CD?

Thanks!

Eric Townsend

Posted by: Eric Townsend at Nov 12, 2004 4:30:13 PM

Eric, see here:
http://support.gateway.com/s/issues/2-1347275847.shtml

I installed the GoVideo D5 software, the CD key for that is on the GoVideo site with the download.

Posted by: bigboy at Nov 12, 2004 5:13:48 PM

OK, the file at www.govideo.com/download/d2730serverv2.zip worked!

However, my Linksys WPC54G PC Card did not work. I don't even get a power or link light with it and the player responds with "No network card".

Is the card too new or is the player hosed? The player is a refurb that I just got.
Thanks!

Posted by: Eric Townsend at Nov 12, 2004 7:28:10 PM

Oh, and I just ran the player upgrade which seems to have worked...

Posted by: Eric Townsend at Nov 12, 2004 7:29:25 PM

Can someone who has the 16-bit Gateway 802.11g card that works with this device give me its part no# please? Thanks in advance.

Posted by: David at Nov 14, 2004 11:27:32 PM

to all referb buyers,
what has been your experience with the referbed Gateway connected DVD player? any warranty? does it come with a wireless card? condition?

Posted by: zoom1973 at Nov 15, 2004 3:52:41 PM