Gateway Connected DVD hacking

After looking through the comments in the Gateway Connected DVD player review and my first post when I discovered it, There is a wealth of information for owners looking to extend their use of it. Here's a short list of highlights from the valuable comments that have all come in (thanks to everyone that posted and shared their info, by the way):

- How to allow >3Mbps movie streams
- Linksys 802.11g cards are supported with the newest firmware
- How to let it index and use files on mapped network drives in XP
- How to go about hacking in streaming radio support
- How DivX streaming is done and what is required for it (latest software + fast processor on your PC)
- full list of 802.11b cards that are supported
- Where to download the latest firmware and desktop server

Now, if someone could figure out how to change all the gateway graphics with personalized graphic files, I think we'd have pretty much every major feature request covered on the unit.

Comments

[adampsyche]

Sorry, Matt, I guess I wasn't clear enough in my post (rambling as usual, I guess). I could not get the Linksys card to work. I was having a problem getting the DVD player to connect and stay connected, and when I applied the latest firmware update to the DVD player, I was able to use the Gateway card without a hitch.

Without the update, the player would disconnect randomly and wouldn't play video at all, so I tried the Linksys card out of curiosity. It didn't work, but putting in the firmware update on the DVD player itself made all the difference in the world.

Sorry that wasn't clearer in my post, but I can't imagine that Gateway would not work on developing G compatibility into the device soon.

[Some Guy]

Does the software support streaming AAC files?

[Joost Schuur]

Some great stuff there. Now if only Gateway would add Windows Media video formats to their media server, we'd be golden.

[Matt Haughey]

Does the software support streaming AAC files?

Without any means of quicktime support, I don't think AAC would be possible.

[Eddy Cue]

Has anybody been able to connect the GW Connected DVD player with an Apple Airport using WEP? Its works fine without WEP. I have other devices that connect fine but I can't even ping the DVD player. I have also tried using a static ip address. When I choose the right SSID and set the WEP hex password is says it connected fine but I get nothing. I notice that even if I type the wrong password it says it connected fine. Any ideas?

[Some Guy]

AAC is not specific to Quicktime. It's an MPEG standard licensable by anyone:

http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/standard.html

The AAC files you buy from iTunes, however, are protected and require Apple software to play.

There is one media adapter out there that supports normal AAC by transcoding (realtime) on your PC. I'm hoping more will be supporting it in the future.

[Ward]

I wish someone would right a linux version of the server for this thing. Anyone know if one is in the works?

[Ward]

right = write. gees!

[juc]

so no G support yet?

[AJRitz]

I haven't purchased my Gateway Connected DVD player yet, but probably will be pulling the trigger over the weekend. Someone had posted asking for screenshots of the software. While I can't show actual screenshots in use, I was able to dig up the .pdf of Gateway's User Guide for this device. You can find it at http://support.gateway.com/s/Manuals/HomeTheater/2519945/8509283.pdf, and it includes several screenshots.

[Jay Miller]

Just got mine yesterday. I'm having trouble getting my DIVX files to be picked up by the server. AVI is enabled, but the scan won't pick a file up. Still working on that one. Otherwise, MPG and MP3 files have played nicely. As long as I don't have a problem managing playlists on my computer (which I don't), then I think the menus are fine.

I just realized that this player is the same as the Oritron Networked DVD Player NPD3117 (http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/archive/t168339.html, http://www.onmediadvd.com/onmediadvd/NetworkedDVD.html). They are both Digital 5 players, and it looks like info applying to one should apply to both. I think we can get a lot of information from their sites.

[Jay Miller]

I found the AVI problem at OnMedia's web site:

"To summarize, this includes Divx 3-5, XVID, and certain other related MPEG 4 codecs. If the video stream does not indicate one of these FOURCC codes, the file will be filtered out. AVI files must have an index chunk; otherwise they will be filtered out. The index chunk is used for fast forward and rewind. The most common reason that an index chunk would be missing is if the file had not finished downloading and is incomplete (the index chunk resides at the very end of the file). AVI files containing WMA audio tracks are filtered out."

[Juc]

Please Help: Over 1000 of my MP3's are getting filtered out and are not being included in the database---they are all 128bit--any thoughts.
Are there any other help forums out there?
thanks
juc

[Ken Axelsson]

I have several mp3 files with names that contain foreign characters, like for example ä. This is a standard ANSI charcater but when a word in a mp3 file name contains this character, the whole word is scrambled and the title unreadable. It seems like the Gatewat Connected DVD player supports onle the original non-standard PC ASCI character set. Talked to Gateway support about it, but the only answer I got was 'that is the way it is'. Anybody else seen the problem or have a solution to it?

[Juc]

Just an update--I reinstalled the software without implementing the bitrate hack and it recognized all of my mp3's. I then used the hack and it was all good---Somehow I must have messed up the filter.cfg

[MeGotNo Spam]

Greetings,

Has anyone had any success playing MPEG2 files across the network? The problem is that even low bitrate (<3000 Mbps) files are being misidentified by the server software as being high bitrate files.

BTW, I checked my filter.cfg file, and by default for "WIRED" networks it is already set to play files up to 5 Mbps.

[Juc]

Just open the filter.cfg file into notepad and change the 5 Mbps to a higher number (theoretically anything) and that should let you play the MPEG2s. However, I don't know why they are being misidentified in the first place. Maybe try reinstalling the software.

[JoeShmoe]

Could anyone who has gotten the any 802.11g adapter to work in the Gateway Connected DVD Player post the model # of the card. After upgrading to the latest firmare I cannot get the Linksys 802.11g (WPC54G) to work in the unit. It says No Card when I try to configure it. Thanks for any help in this matter....

[Jay]

Has anyone gotten the "Transcoding CPU Speed" addition to the filters.cfg file to work? I have added it like this:

[MPEG]
Transcoding CPU Speed > 750

But this has no effect...the "AVI" and "Enable Transcoding" checkboxes are still disabled. I have a 1GHz AMD Duron processor. I think it should be able to keep up, or I would at least like to give it a try.

Thanks,
J

[Jay Miller]

I was in the wrong place...this is in the netplay.cfg file.

Transcoding CPU Speed=1200

Still, though, I changed it to 750 and restarted my Media Server, with no effect. Any insight on this matter would be appreciated.

[Jay Miller]

My bad, that did work...and sure enough, it streams fine.

[Rob]

I keep seeing references that this player transcodes Divx to MPEG-2 before streaming.

Is this only for Divx3? Or do all MPEG-4 files (Xvid, Divx5 etc.) have to be Transcoded & Streamed?

Is there a noticable loss in quality after conversion? Also, any idea on how much of a bit rate change there is? ie. does the 900Kb Divx video eat up 3Mb of bandwidth after it's transcoded?

Thanks!

[Rick]

The Gateway D5 Steaming Media Server will transcode all non MPEG-2 material (ie Xvid, Divx5, ect). I have not noticed any loss of quality as long as the tanscode setting is set to the highest setting which on my AMD 2700+ XP uses very little resources (5% of so of cpu time).

Great product, I now have over 100+ 700MB DIVX movie files on my computer and no longer have to change DVD's to view them. I usually convert 2 of my DVD's a day to DIVX just because of this player.

[Rick]

With regards to your other question on the amount of bandwidth used during transcoding I performed a test with a DIVX of Monster Inc.

The Divx bitrate was around 950kbs. The highest bandwidth I noticed while transcoding was around 2Mb/sec.

Hope this information helps you decide to pick up one.

[Slater]

I don't know if anyone realized yet, but on the server software where you specify how your DVD player is connected, you can specify wireless or wired. Well, I found that this setting just tells the software which bitrate filter settings to use, and the server has no way of verifying how the player is really connected. So a quicker and easier way to increase the limits of the wireless files is to just tell the software your player is connected wired instead of wireless.

Also, I was having an issue with choppy and studdering in some of the divx movies, and it was because my wireless was not getting a good enough signal. So I just added an external antenna to the wireless card and it streams perfectly now:

Directional Antenna

Since you will not be roaming with your dvd player like you would with a laptop, the best reception will be with a directional antenna (not an omni that will just radiate the signal where it is not needed). A decent 6-8dbi directional runs $20-$30 or you can build a proper waveguide cantenna (not the pringles yagi junk) for $5 (plus pigtail).

Of course this is only possible if your wireless card supports an external antenna. The list of Orinoco card and clones I posted all have an external antenna jack (mccard connector), but if your card does not you can add an external atennna to most wireless cards.

Here are instructions for the Dlink 650:

http://www.guerrilla.net/reference/80211_mod/dwl-650_ext_antenna/index.html

the NetGear MA401:

http://www.packetattack.com/mirrored_pages/ma401/ma401-mirror.html

and the SMC 2632:

http://www.guerrilla.net/reference/80211_mod/SMC2632_antenna_mod/index.html

Most of the PRISM-based cards are similar - here at work I added an external antenna to a generic Phoebe wireless card that was Prism 2 and internally it looked nearly identical to the dlink 650 and netgear 401. If you read the intersil prism specifications on intersil's site it outlines the speficiations and schematics which makes modifying the PRISM cards easy since they all have to implement the specification the same.

But if you start with an Orinoco or Orinoco clone, you don't have to mod anything - just plug an antenna and go.

- Slater

P.S. - I also found something of interest pertaining to adding your own background image. If you look at the gateway firmware upgrade, there are 2 files - boxedcow.thumb and Puma2-Gateway-DVD.img. Well, boxedcow.thumb is just a jpg file that has been renamed (change the extension from .thumb to .jpg and you will see the image just fine.) That means you can take any picture (the size must be 192x128x16M) and rename it boxedcow.thumb and reapply the firmware. I have not tried it, but I will and post the results. If that doesn't work the only option is to figure out how to hack the img firware file, since it should have the background image as well as the screen saver image.

[Slater]

OK, I found out what the thumb file is - it's just a thumbnail for when you select the firmware upgrade version. In other words, when you boot from the CD and scroll down and select the firmware upgrade, the thumbnail picture appears at the bottom. Pretty useless but whatever.

Anyways, the interesting thing is that when you boot from the firmware upgrade CD, the title of the screen says "Skin Update or Firmware Upgrade". So obviously this unit was built to be easily user-skinable, and either Gateway or one of the sister hardware companies (OnMedia, GoVideo, etc) may release different skins and/or the skin tool to create your own.

- Slater

[Getsome]

Gateway now has a 16 bit wirelss g card that works with the connected player for sale on their site for $50.

now if we could just change those graphics....

[al]

Hi all,

I'm considering the Gateway Connected DVD player, but I had a couple questions. I want to use it mainly to stream music, but I have a
*lot* of MP3s, well in excess of 1000 albums worth, and I'm worried that the interface will make browsing for albums a nightmare. My first preference would be that the DVD player would let me browse via the file structure on my server PC, and play entire directories of
MP3s, however I suspect that's not possible with the Gateway product. It looks like it only lets you browse by Album, Title, or Artist ID3 tags, so my question is: when you're browsing by Artist, will it let you select a particular album by that artist, or will it just list all the songs from that artist in one big list?

[Jason]

Where is the firmware that supposedly supports the Linksys Wireless G card? I have the model that is listed for the 1.22a ver. of the firmware and I applied it and tried a Linksys Wireless G card but no dice. The guy I spoke to at Gateway had never heard of a possible firmware update.

Thanks.

[Matt Haughey]

Jason,

It turns out you can't get a linksys g card to work with the existing firmware. Gateway has started selling their own wireless g cards for the gateway dvd player. I just got mine and it did come with a disc that had new firmware, though it doesn't appear to be available on their site at all.

[Jason]

You've got to be kidding - they're only providing the firmware to people who buy their cards? What a surprise. You know, I would be inclined to buy the card if I hadn't had to call to get them to replace the POS 802.11b card that they sold me with the player. After using it for a couple of weeks, video started breaking up and then eventually locking the player up so hard that I had to restart it manually. I bought the compatible Netgear card and, voila, problem solved. Of course, I still have the low quality video to contend with due to not having enough bandwidth available which would be solved by making the player G compatible. Pretty sad showing. They won't be selling this player anymore in 6-9 months if they don't get with the program with so many other companies getting ready to release better media players. Thanks for the info Matt.

[JohnQ]

I just recieved my Gateway Connected DVD Player today. I had read this forum and a few others. Downloaded, and burned to a cd the Firmware update (1.22a) Dropped in my Linksys 802.11G Wireless card, and turned on the unit. It indicates "NO NETWORK CARD" I even tried a wired card on the compatability list and it says "NOT A COMPATABLE CARD" or something like that. Any suggestions, I know someone had d\said that it does not support Cardbus cards...??

Thansk all for your help.

John
Las Vegas

[Matt Haughey]

John, just buy the new wireless g card from Gateway and it will definitely work for you.

[Jason]

I actually got the nearest GW Country Store to exchange my replacement B card for a G card. Has anyone else run into trouble streaming video - I can start playing a MPG-2 file and fast forward or rewind but I can't start playing the video again after using FF and RW. Very strange behavior. The player also locks up once in a while. It seems very much like buggy firmware. Anyone else?

[JUC]

Divx Question:
I just started using the program Showshifter to record TV (It is an excellent program for PVR and incorporates TitanTV as well). However, If I use their standard settings to record to DivX and/or DivX Pro, it won't play on the player. But, the software will recognize it and incorporate it into the playlists. It will start and then either get really choppy with poppy audio or not play at all. Both setting use Microsoft's ADPCM audio codecs and DivX Pro 5.05 video codecs. The bitrates are well below my settings. Next, after fiddling with the setting on showshifter, I was able to get the files to work if I use the DivX 3 codecs with same audio settings as above. My question---if the software is transcoding the files to MPEG prior to sending it to the player, why is this not working with the DivX 5.05 codecs. Are they not fully supported? Why are they even showing up in the software?
-Note--the files work fine in Media Player, Divx player, and the showshifter player.
-A lot of info, but I wanted to lay it all down
thanks
JUC

[nadeaup]

I have a simulair problem. I was using the Hawpauge winTV card to capture video via SnapStream BeyondTV which worked great but with poor "mono" sound quality... (it's only a $69 capture device).

I then purchased VideOh! and it is awsome on the PC with beyondTV. The problem is; When the Gateway connected DVD player plays it, it is now blocky and has no sound at all! All the bit rates are within the players default range... Any idea's?

When will there be another update for this software and firmware?

-Patrick

[Juc]

Okay, I am having another problem as well. And I appologize that I am posting a more general question in the 'hacks' section but it seems that this one is the most current. Anyway, when I initially scan all of my files using the musicmatch plugin, I am able to search by artist, and then it gives me a list of albums by that artist (this is on the player itself). However, I just realized that recently, when I search by artist, all of the songs appear in alphabetical order-- as opposed to letting me select which album I want. Any thoughts?
thanks
JUC

[JohnQ]

Matt,

Thanks for the advice on the G-Card Installed it and things generally seem to be running much better. However, I am having the same issue as you. The Gateway will lock up while playing a recorded TV show. I have the Linksys 802.11G Router, with the Newest firmware update (2.02.2) The Video & Sound quality is great, then it just lockes up. Never at the same point. I have edited the FILTERS.CFG file a few times, but that does'nt help. Also looked at the NETPLAY.CFG files and edited the
"Transcoding CPU Speed=1200" line but all to no avail.

Any suggestions...Anyone.

[JUC]

Okay, I just received the G card in the mail. However, I really haven't seen any improvements over the B card. I really wasn't expecting any though because all my videos were playing back fine with B. However, as I said in an earlier post the shows I recorded using the DivXpro codecs were all choppy---and were choppy with the G card too. Oh well. Another thing that is bothering me is that with the firmware upgrade came some changes that the rest of the Connected DVD player users out there (those that did not upgrade) could find usefull. Most importantly is the time bar on the bottom and the fact that you can scan ahead in 2X, 4X, 10X 20X and 100X (maybe others too, I am doing this from memory). This feature is HUGE. I have often been stopped mid way through a movie due to a phone call and then have to FF through the movie while holding the FF button. No longer. Anyway, the point that I am making is that it is unacceptable for Gateway to only offer these upgrades to people that buy their new card. Oh yea, I also tried the Linksys G card but no luck. But I haven't tried other 16bit G cards and I think the Linksys is 32bit. So, I am returning the G card from Gateway because I think I really don't need it yet (but at least I can take advantage of the new firmware!!)

[Darkstar999]

Question for you JUC.....
How is your performance with the 'G' firmware +'B' network card? Is it smooth or choppy when playing video? I just returned my 'G' card to Gateway, but flashed my DVD player back to the 'B' firmware. It didn't occur to me to try the 'G'firmware with the 'B'card. BTW, the new 'G' server software did not recogonize my DIVX movies anymore. Did anybody else experience this? Gateway technical support thought I was nutz and wanted me to reinstall windows on my pc....haha

[JUC]

Darkstar999, When I initially started using the G firmware with the B card I was having trouble connecting and would lose the server often. After getting really frustrated, I reinstalled the software and it has been working as good as the older version firmware with no real issues--no problems getting DivX to work either.
JUC

[Jammer29]

I absolutely love this machine. Using wired version on 100mb network and no choppiness whatsoever with an AMD 2900+ server. Anyway, I have looked thru this blog and cant find the answer to how to stream internet radio. Can it be done and how exactly if so.?

Oh.. and for those of you that didnt figure it out... Just delete the line in the config file that says:

Transcoding CPU Speed > 1200

and save and you will have the transcoding option and then the .AVI option for scanning.

[Jason]

I finally resolved the problem that I had with not being able to resume playing video after FF or RW, after upgrading the firmware on my player for 802.11g support. After flashing the player back but still having the problem, I flashed it forward again and back revved the streaming media server software - problem solved. Now that it works, I do like being able to FF and RW in greater than 10 sec intervals. This player hasn't worked out like I hoped but it's a good DVD player and the streaming works well enough. This BLOG has been a big help. I hope that this post helps someone else.

Jason

[sdp]

I'm running server 2.1 B07-08, and firmware 1.22a on a wired version of the connected DVD player. I'm serving it with a 1.2GHz Duron with 750M running Win2k (SP4).

I'm having problems with choppy audio. After playing a few MP3s (192k) there's a chance the next one played will have rapid stuttering and digital noise. Pausing and resuming clears it up, but not always for very long. Selecting a different song and returning to the stuttering one seems to work better. Has anyone else seen this?

Everything else (except FF in a transcoded XviD) works fine. I've watched a couple movies on it (on DVD) with no trace of any audio (or any other) problem.

Gateway support has been useless for this so far. Their script says clean your cables with alcohol and keep your cables 10 feet from your TV. I suppose if I did that I wouldn't have the problem, but I'd also never get the signal into my TV. Clearly the same cables play DVD audio just fine.

I already had a progressive scan DVD player (decent ones are so cheap now), but replaced it with this because of the networked MP3 capability. It turns out this is cheaper than a piece of furniture with doors to contain all our CDs and keep the baby out of them. It's quite a bit cheaper than a SlimP3, and makes for a net zero change in remote control count.

Needless to say, this audio problem is a showstopper if I can't address it. I haven't tried swapping it for a different unit (since not one person has mentioned this problem, maybe I just have a flaky unit). I also haven't tried running the server software on a different PC (since all my PCs are either identical to this one, or much slower, I'm not hopeful about that).

My video problem sounds like one from a previous post, with a twist. When I FF in a transcoded video file, the DVD player skips to the next video file (another movie, in my case) when I let go of the button. Oddly, I don't recall seeing this problem when I transcoded at "best" quality. My machine isn't fast enough for that quality level, though, so I can't use it. Does anyone else see a correlatuon between FF problems in video files and the transcoding quality level?

A previous poster said he resolved his FF in video problem by switching software versions, but I wasn't clear what versions he ended up with. Anyone know?

Now that I've reflashed my player to 1.22a, how do I go back? I don't see any otehr firmware tarballs on the Gateway site.

One previous poster asked if you can see albums by a selected artist, and the answer is yes. When I select an artist, I get one option per album, plus an "all" option.

While I'm here, a wish list:

A "shuffle" button on the remote that applied to any selection. To get shuffle you have to make a playlist, and it only shuffles when the list is selected on the player (or so it seems). What I want is a winapm-like fast-morphing endless shuffle/repeat, with a guarantee to never play the same song twice in a row.

Music behind a slideshow.

A better scanner in the media server. After scanning my drive a couple of times, I had several songs, images, and movies in the database multiple (2-4) times (for the same path/file).

It also needs to be smarter about playlists. If it discovers a song via a playlist, and the same song via a directory scan, that's still only one song. This thing seems to add these twice. I had several directories with winamp playlists in them. After scanning once, each song showed up twice on the DVD player.

Do internationalization. I have a set of Segovia CDs ripped by iTunes. They have lots of non-english letters in the artist and track names. The DVD player removes these. Worse, it considers these files unplayable when it sees them on a CDROM (in the DVD tray). I don't know if that's the character set, or the cover art I added with iTunes (which shows up as a large hexadecimal comment tag).

Display track info when in screen saver mode. It would be nice to see the song info (briefly) even after the player has entered screen saver mode. As it is, you have to press a "safe" button ("play" seems to do it) to wake up the display whie it's playing if you don't want to interrupt the song.

Page up/down. When not playing, track forw/rev scrolls the song list. Once you're playing, those go back to track forw/reverse functions, and you have no page up/down.

Display cover art. Both in thumbnails (when selected) and in the track info. That is, assuming there's some kind of standard for the way this is added to the MP3 (e.g. by iTunes).

Scan after directory change notification. The media server only works on local filesystems, so why not subsribe to DCN on the ones it's told to scan. That way, newly imported songs and tree reorganization could be detected automatically. Obviously, it should remove items from the database for which the file has been removed.

[Jason]

I originally ran server 2.1 B07-08, and firmware 1.22a on a wireless unit. I purchased Gateway's G card which came with a disk that contained the firmware upgrade/driver upgrade for the player so that it would recognize the G card and a newer version of the media server software. I mistakenly thought that the firmware was the cause of my FF and RW problems (and, yes, in addition to not being able to resume playing after FF or RW, sometimes it would just skip ahead to the next video file instead) so I flashed the player back to the 1.22a firmware and tossed the G card in favor of a wired connection to a wireless G bridge. When I still had the problem it occurred to me to backrev the server software to 2.1 B07-08. Doing so resolved my FF and RW issue so I flashed the player back to the newer firmware and left the server software at 2.1 B07-08.

Gateway doesn't have a clue how to support this player so figuring this out for myself was necessary. Tbey're also screwing over their customers by not releasing the firmware for people other than those who buy their G card. Like I said, it's a pretty good DVD player and the streaming works OK so I'll keep it in my HT until something better comes along which shouldn't be long. I'll probably continue to use it as a DVD player and use something else for streaming media files.

[Raef]

Gateway has posted the proper Firmware for the Connected DVD player to accept the Gateway Wireless G card. Have been reading your comments, and am a big fan of the Connected DVD player.

http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/getFile.asp?id=19740&uid=44963367

[TWS]

After upgrading D5 Media Server to S3.0.14 (latest version), I can no longer import many of my DivX .avi files. The Scan Details windows show the error "Unsupported AVI file variant. Playback Disabled." I was able to import and play these same files with the previous version of the D5 Media Server. Has anyone else had this problem? I'm guessing it is due to what codec was used during the creation. AVIs that I created with AutoGK (XviD) and my ATI All-In-Wonder card (DivX 4) still import and play. AVIs that I created with Dr. DivX (DivX 5.0) won't import.

[JUC]

TWS, I too have been having the same problem. I haven't had time to run Gspot on the files to see if there is a compatability issue yet. Gateway said they added support for windows MCE files but I don't see why they would take away any--especially since the files were properly imported before. Additionally, the new software keeps crashing on me. It got to the point where I could not even open it up. I reinstalled it about 4 times with the same result...so, I went back to the old software. Is anyone else having issues with the sofware crashing?
JUC

[Greg]

I just took delivery on my connected DVD bundled with the wireless G card. After setting it up and upgrading to the latest firmware, it was able to see my wireless network, but could not obtain an IP address through the DHCP on my Linksys G router. I turned off WEP and MAC filtering and still had no luck. After spending 40 minutes on the phone with Gateway’s wireless tech support, the tech (who seemed very knowledgeable) informed me that I most likely had a bad wireless card and that I could swap it out with Gateway. Long story short, after hanging up, I began making a few configuration changes on my router when it suddenly hit me. Change the channel. I began switching through the channels and that did the trick. I played around with the channels until I found the one that gave me the most reliable connectivity. Best I can figure is that I was getting interference from either my cordless phones or some other electronic device. Seems odd though since I always get excellent signal strength on my laptop in my living room. Anyway, I thought I’d share this tip here with the hope that it could help someone else.

For the most part, I like the unit. My biggest gripe is that when you select albums by artist, it lists the tracks in alphabetical order. I fail to see how anybody would prefer such behavior. Gateway informed me that this is the way the software works. I’m tempted to contact the folks at D5Services to see if they have any thoughts on the matter. Has anyone else had any luck with this?

[hootch]

I bought this DVD player, but haven't been able to get it to recognize the 802.11g card I got with it. I'm guessing the salesman grabbed the wrong card. Does anybody know if this card (WGC-220) works with the DVD player?

[hootch]

I called Gateway and got the answer to my own question. The WGC-220 card is NOT compatible. The WGM-230 is.

[Dan]

Video and Audio is out of sync on some divx,xvid movies. I cannot figure this out. At first I thought it might be AC3 audio but some files play fine with Ac3. I encoded the movies to Lame mp3 with virtualdub and the delay is still there. In my computer they all play fine. I could encode them to mpeg2 but that is a lot of space. Gateway costumer support doesnt even have a forum to go to. Any ideas?

[sdp]

For the record, my choppy audio problems disappeared when I installed the server software on a different PC (one much too slow to transcode divx, unfortunately).

I'll probably end up using the slow machine for audio and the fast machine for video, at least until I can find the problem with the faster machine (and/or my LAN).

[Rob]

Couple general questions I couldn't find answers to. I know the new server software will convert Divx, but will it do Xvid? What is a good video conversion program? So i can convert quicktime videos to Divx or any other formate that will work.

Another thing, I want to Mac filter my network to keep it secure...how do you find the mac address of the connected dvd player?

Thanks for any help.

[Greg]

Rob -

The MAC address is located on the wireless card. On mine it is at the bottom, right below the bar code with the words MAC in front of it. You will have to remove the wireless card from the DVD player in order to see it. I'm using MAC filtering and it seems to work fine. If you are not already, I would also recommend using WEP. I was using 128 Bit, but was having trouble getting that to work with the player. I switched to 64 bit and that works fine.

[Rob]

- Greg

Thanks for the help. I will look at the card and get the address. I don't plan on using WEP because im not concerned about the data potential snoopers will be looking at (heck, if they want to enjoy my movies as i stream them to my player i hope they enjoy). Besides, WEP slows a wireless connection down and any snooper with the proper free software can crack WEP in no time. Thanks for the help though.

[TWS]

JUC, Thanks the response. At least it's not just me having the problem. I too reverted back to the v2.1 server software, and everything is back to normal. I kept the firmware update. It seems to be okay. If you figure it out, please post. I'll do the same.

[TonyR]

In case anyone is interested, this Gateway ADC-220 DVD Player is on clearance at your nearest Gateway Country store - they are closing all the stores down by Friday and they are selling these units at 86.99. I bought one and got the free G PC Card with it - unfortunately the 220 and not the 230 so I connected it wired via a Linksys ethernet card. Pretty sweet deal...

Thanks for all the posts - it has helped me tremendously. By the way since I am new, I'll post a perhaps obvious question: Is there a way to either play or convert ripped VOB files on this unit? I have ripped all of the music videos from my collection of DVD movies and want to play them randomly in a video list on the Gateway, but while I can change them to MPG extensions (and WinDVD will still play them) the D5MediaServer will not recognize the files. The filters.cfg file seems to be large enough at BITRATE-WIRED > 8388608. I would guess the suggestion will be to convert them to Divx, but I thought I would ask.

Thanks!
Tony

[Keith]

Has anyone figured out a good way to get network shares indexed in Windows 2000 Professional? mountvol and linkd (from the resource kit) don't do the trick.

[AJRitz]

Has anyone come up with a workaround to get the server software to not reject divx files with .wma soundtracks? It seems that, since the files play fine in WiMP, they ought to be able to be transcoded.

[Walt]

I actually have a question dealing with the DVD aspect of the Gateway. I hope this is not a stupid question, but here goes. I have a 16:9 widescreen tv, so I am wondering what the best setting is picture size. I do not know the difference between letterbox, 16:9 and full I think is the last one. I currently have it on 16:9, but began to wonder what the other ones were. Thanks in advance.

[Walt]

Another question. My Gateway unit came with the wireless g card, but I have a D-link b router/firewall (WEP not enabled), and also running Zone Alarm. I did not have a lot of time to do much more than set it up last night, but so far it does not appear to be connecting to the server. Anyone know if I need to make any special settings in either or both firewalls? Thanks so much for any help.

[JUC]

Walt, I would try disabling everything--all firewalls etc.---until you are sure you have a good connection to the server. Then, add them back one by one. Also, as noted in earlier posts, try different channels on the router to see if that helps connectivity--ch11 seems to work best for most poeple.
later
JUC

[brett]

Is there no way to get the player to serve up files from a Mac?

[Dustin Mihalik]

For those interested in indexing files on a network drive, you can open up the NetPlay.cfg file and modify the "HDD Scanner Paths=" line. You can put mapped network drives and removable drives in the line. They wont show up in the application, but if you hit "scan", the app will index them.

I had a lot of directories on a couple different network drives so I found modifying the cfg file cumbersome. So, I created the
Streaming Media Network File Importer
to make it a bit easier. Check it out and leave me a comment if you find it useful.

[Veetrik]

I have been using the Gateway Connected DVD player since jan 2004 and have been very pleased with it. I am considering upgrading to the latest firmware (ver D3.10.11B8.8.0), and was wondering if anyone has any input on it.

[Walt]

JUC - Thanks much for the suggestion to start by disabling Zone Alarm. It worked at first (for about 15 minutes), but then I created two playlists, and it could not connect to the server. I am baffled. It says getting IP address, connecting to server, then searching, and then nothing, it stops. I don't see any of the "My" folders or anything. I even tried turning off 4x mode on D-link server (I couldn't believe the g card worked with 4x enabled), but that does not help. Any suggestions?

[Walt]

P.S. I forgot to say I switched to channel 11 and then got the 15 minutes of it working.

JUC - Thanks much for the suggestion to start by disabling Zone Alarm. It worked at first (for about 15 minutes), but then I created two playlists, and it could not connect to the server. I am baffled. It says getting IP address, connecting to server, then searching, and then nothing, it stops. I don't see any of the "My" folders or anything. I even tried turning off 4x mode on D-link server (I couldn't believe the g card worked with 4x enabled), but that does not help. Any suggestions?

[JUC]

Walt, you probably tried this already, but I remembered before I started switching channels on my router, everytime I got a phone call the player would disconnect--and not be able to reconnect to the server without manually shutting down the player and turning it back on. Not until I did this was I able to connect back to the server. That may help in the short term but really isn't a good fix until you get a stable connection configured.
Good luck
JUC

[Greg]

Walt,

I was having issues similar to the ones you describe here. The first thing I did when I took delivery of the player was to run the firmware upgrade that I downloaded from Gateway's website (version D3.10.11B8.8.0 dated 3/25/2004). I started up the player and it had no problem seeing my network, but could not obtain an IP address through the DHCP on my Linksys G router (see my April 1 post above for details). Changing the channel helped a little. I was able to get an IP, but the connection was very sporadic. I tried all of the channels, I even tried adding the extended range antennas you can get for the Linksys router from Radio Shack. These helped a little, but the connection was still unreliable. Sometimes it would fail to get an IP, sometimes it would get an IP but would take several tries to find the server, sometimes it would lose connection in the middle of play. Long story short, I downgraded the firmware to the version that shipped with the gateway Wireless G card (dated 10/2003) and all of these problems went away. It now gets an IP address every time; it finds the server almost immediately; and it has yet to lose a connection even after a couple of hours of continuous play (the longest I’ve hade the unit on for since I made the change a couple of days ago).

I’m not sure this will resolve your problem, but I hope it helps.

[Keith]

I looked around for a configuration variable covering this, but couldn't find one. What about getting beyond what seems to be an ~6000 file limit?

[Walt]

JUC - Thanks! Stupid as it sounds, I didn't realize you could even manually turn it off. That button looks like an LED. I was only turning it off with remote. That did clear it up, sort of. Now the only thing I am having trouble with is 30 frames/sec. video. I am thinking I need a G base to serve it up fast enough. Has anyone else gotten such video to work well with B? My cfg file was already set to almost 9 mbps, so I cannot imagine setting it higher would do much good on B base. Let me know if anyone thinks otherwise.

[Brent]

I bought a Gateway Connected DVD wireless G card by mistake for $23 thinking I could make it work on my laptop. No luck so far. Anyone interested in this card please email me. Actual price + actual shipping.

[ottguy]

To Keith - I have over 12000 files in my library with no problems (9700 MP3s and the rest are JPGs). What kind of limit are you hitting?

On a different topic - I see awhile ago someone was looking for a page-up/page-down function. With the latest firmware, you can cursor over to the right of the scrolling list (albums, artists, songs in a playlist, whatever) to highlight the scrollbar - from there, hitting the up/down cursor keys will page up and down. This works when music is playing as well.

-OG

[Tom]

I'm having some trouble with my ADC-220. I like to watch anime, and most of my anime has hard-coded subtitles. When I play my anime on the ADC-220, there's an issue with aspect ratio or something and the very top and bottom of the movie is cut off. It's not a huge cut, but it makes my subtitles unreadable. I had a similar problem on a Lite-On LVD-2001, but Lite-On included image adjustment functions to stretch or squish the image any way you wanted. Does the Gateway have anything similar, or any other solution to this problem?

[Jason Singer]

Three things that bug me to no end about the machine. Would love to know if Version 3 takes care of any of these issues or if anyone has a workaround:

1: The damned noise every time you hit a button on the remote. That "DOODOO" is aggravating as heck!

2: The fact that when you scroll down using the page down function, you can't just hold it and have it go down. You have to continually press the button for each jump (which is aggravating enough when you have 1600 CD's in your library), but adds more opportunities to hear the dreaded "DOODOO".

3: When you play an album and it finishes,it automatically repeats! Sometimes I like to go to sleep to an album...apparently that isn't possible.

OH! a 4th issue: The second break between songs on a record. My Audiotron didn't do that, but the Gateway does...really annoying.

Okay, any and all help is appreciated!!! Thanks!!

- jason

[Walt]

Well, I broke down an purchased a G router so it could serve the videos up fast enough. Now I cannot get the server (yes, I have the latest) to recognize my AVI's. It says they are an unsupported variant. They are vids of my kids from my fuji camera, so I think they might actually be MJPEGs? My problem is I cannot figure out exactly what "variant" is required, or what to use (preferably free) to convert my variant AVIs to whatever the server software will recognize. I tried Bink (Rad Video Tools), but neither DivX nor XviD seem to work. I am at wits end with this. Help!

[Rob]

Does anyone have an idea why the audio and video on my video files aren't timed right? The videos play fine on my computer but for some reason when i play them on the connected dvd player both the audo and video play fine there just not timed right. I did play with the settings in the .cfg file. What could i have done there to make this problem? Can anyone tell me the exact settings they have that work with the G router and G card. Thanks.

[Tom]

The Streaming Media Server software doesn't appear to support VBR audio tracks on AVIs. If your AVI file has a VBR audio track, it will show up as an unsupported AVI variant. Technically AVI isn't supposed to have a VBR MP3 track, but it's very commonly done and the Streaming Media Server's inability (or unwillingness) to stream it to the ADC-220 is irritating. I'm also still bothered by the issue I described above (chopping off the top and bottom of my movies) and Gateway refuses to talk to me about it because I bought a display model. I hope Gateway eventually provides server software to stream anything your desktop can play (including alternate file types like OGM and MKV).

[Tom]

It appears that I posted my above comment too soon. The Streaming Media Server does accept and stream AVIs with VBR audio tracks. However, many AVIs with small problems (which play just fine in Windows) are rejected by the Streaming Media Server. I've fixed many files by just opening them with VirtualDubMod and saving them with video unchanged (the original VDub doesn't support VBR audio, so use VDubMod, available here: http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/). Here's the procedure:

1. Download and unzip VirtualDubMod. Run the program.
2. Open the video file that Streaming Media Server won't accept.
3. If VDubMod says that the file has a VBR audio track and asks if you want to rewrite the header, SAY NO. Saying yes will screw up your audio/video synch.
4. In the Video menu, select Direct Stream Copy.
5. In the File Menu, select Save As and choose where you want the repaired video to go. Select Save.

That's it! VirtualDubMod will create a copy of the video file with a proper AVI header and index. This will fix many problems where a video file works fine but Streaming Media Server would not recognize it.

[Walt]

Tom - thanks much for the info about the AVIs. Unfortunately, I am also having the problem that videos (in this case, MPEGs) the server software will accept, will not play consistently on the Gateway Connected. It just cannot seem to handle the stream. The rate in cfg file seams fine, and I have a G network. For me, this product just isn't there yet. Thankfully, I am still in the return period for both the Gateway and the G equipment I bought. I'll return to my B network that works fine for everything else I need. Maybe the next iteration. Until then, I have ordered the Bravo D1 as a consolation prize (uses DVI connection and upsamples to 1080i, supposedly great picture). Thanks to all for the help along the way.

[JUC]

Tom, thanks for the info on unsupported variants. I haven't had too much trouble, but I do have a few movies that wouldn't scan correctly and this fixed it! I always knew about virtualdub but have never really used it before. Thanks for the easy tutorial.
later
JUC

-Walt, sorry to hear you jumped ship--keep us posted if you find any good alternatives.

[Ron McAdams]

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

[Eric]

After reading the review and comments here, I bought one of these bundled with the 802.11g card. I mostly want to stream low bit-rate TV recorded off the air with an ATI All-in-wonder.

I found it only plays about 5 minutes of a VCD-quality video before degrading and breaking up. Then even if I start another video or MP3 file, the problem is immediate. Although 802.11b should be OK for 1.1 Mbps, I upgraded my 802.11b router to 802.11g, disabled WEP, tried many channels, killed all other processes on the PC and still have the problem. I also tried both the 1.3 and 3.0.17 versions of the D5 software.

The problem seems to be on the PC, as I can restart the D5 software to clear the problem. Restarting the player doesn't help. Now, it's an old P3 CPU at 733 MHz but it meets the min specs of 700. I am surprised what a heavy CPU load the D5 server places on it.

Does anyone have a success story on a slow PC like this? Any other suggestions? If I have to buy a new PC too, the WAF (Wife Approval Factor) goes way down. "Should've just bought Tivo like Chrissy."

[JUC]

Eric, glad to see you jumped on board. It seems like you have paid attention and are working on a fix. The only thing else I have to suggest would be to try sofware 2.1. When I initially upgraded to the G card, firmware, and version 3 software I was having similar issues. It kept disconnecting and I couldn't get it to reconnect as well as the media cutting out all the time. So, I downgraded the software to 2.1 (I obviously wanted to keep the G firmware) and it solved my problems. Hopefully that will help. If not, it seems like you have tried most other fixes. One more thing--do you have any other wireless-B clients on your network--they will bring down the speed of the entire network so be warry when mixing speeds.
Later
JUC

[Eric]

Thanks for the tip, JUC. I tried software version 2.1 now too, and it didn't help. Also, no B clients on the net (or any other clients period). Good news, though: I installed the software on an old Celeron 466 MHz PC with fresh WinME install, and it works fine! So it's not CPU capacity. It's probably a software or hardware conflict with my PIII machine.

I've learned a bit more. Hope this helps someone:
- The problem described above is best described as choppiness in video, whereas mild bandwidth problems show up as pixelization
- 802.11b at 50 feet and Celeron host are sufficient to stream VCD-quality MPEG1 files

[AJRitz]

"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."

That's odd. My server machine is very similar to the one that gave you problems - A64 3200+ with a gig of ddr400 RAM and a 10k Raptor hard drive. But I'm not having any streaming problems. Most of my media content is on an external firewire drive though. I wonder if the issue is somehow related to the data transfer rate of a high-RPM SATA drive overwhelming the transcoding software's buffer?

[Dan]

Boy, gateway support stinks. My "connected" adr-220 stopped reading all cds and dvds and heres how Gateway support tried to help:

ME -"could you tell me how to find out if my adc-220 is covered under warranty? It will not read any dvd or cd media, comming up with a BAD DISC error on the display. The dvd drive spins up a few times but cant seem to read. I have tried lens cleaner also. its serial number is 10g0303889bn with a date of july 10, 2003 on the back. If it is not covered, can you tell me how to buy replacement parts such as the DVD drive for it? thanks!

GATEWAY: Hello Dan, Thank you for using Gateway's Online E-mail Support. I gather from your e-mail that your ADC 220 DVD player gives 'Bad Disc'error message and fails to read any CDs or DVDs. I appreciate that you have tried the lens cleaner, However the issue persists.I would like to inform you that your DVD player is outside our service
warranty. It appears that your warranty expired in April 20, 2000. I recommend you to buy a new DVD player to resolve the issue as we do not provide any replacement parts for your unit.From the description you have provided in your e-mail, it appears you would be interested in purchasing a DVD player. Are you aware that Gateway can provide you with the hardware, and we can also train you on how to use it?

ME: How can my gateway connected dvd player be out of warrenty in April 2000 if it wasn't made until July 10, 2003????? Instead of trying to sell me
something (especially your BS) why don't you try to be helpful otherwise I will not order anoter product and I was just thinking about ordering a
laptop for my wife... so if you can not assist me will you get a support person to contact me that knows what DVD player I have then when I get this resolved I will give you the sale for the laptop, I am going to purchase.Thank You.

GATEWAY: Hello Dan,Thank you for using Gateway's Online E-mail Support.I apologize for providing incorrect information in our previous e-mail
response. According to our records, your system was not shipped with a DVD player. I request you to please provide the order number through which you bought the DVD player. This information will help us to isolate the exact model number of the DVD player shipped to you and provide the necessary steps.

ME: My previous emails were about the gateway connected dvd player model adc-220, not a computer. Do the gateway connected have warrantys?

GATEWAY: Dan, from your email I understand that the DVD player is not able to read the DVD disks as well as CD's. I appreciate your concern and thank you for the confidence that you have displayed by considering us for assistance. Dan there are multiple reasons due to which the drive may not read the disks such as either the drive is not getting recognized or is not being getting initialized properly or the media which is used for reading might not be supported by the drive or probably the media might have gone bad. In case of bad media you get the error message of "Bad disk" or similar kind of error messages. Hence I would like you to try reading different disks also try reading the same disks in other drive and check if they are read in the other drive as well. However in order to troubleshoot the issue with the DVD drive I would like you to perform following troubleshooting steps.
1. Run Gateway GoBack if available.
2. Verify that the CD-ROM drive is assigned a drive letter in My Computer or Windows Explorer.
3. Check the Device Manager.....and they go on a full page of how to reinstall the pc software..... BUT ITS NOT A PC!!! ITS A GATEWAY CONNECTED!!!!! ARRRRGGHHH! FAGITABOUTUIT!I'll buy a new Oritron Networked DVD Player NPD3117, at least I know they have bad support

[jnz]

I wanted to play files from a network drive, but I couldn't get the instructions linked in the article to work. They seem to apply to CD-ROM drives, not network drives. I came up with the following alternative:

Make sure the server is not running, open D5MediaServer.exe in a hex editor and search for: 83 F8 03 74 05 83 F8 06. Change the last byte from 06 to 04, then restart the server. Any network mapped drives should now show up in the Media Import tab, and from there you can import whatever you like.

[Jonathan]

Jnz,

How on earth did you find that out? It seems so random!

I'd really like to access my network drives, and am thinking of giving this a try as nothing else has worked. You can for sure map external drives, but not network ones.

Cheers,

Jonathan.

[Jonathan]

Jnz,

Well, that bit change did indeed work, so I could import from a shared file to the play list. But, I still could not stream the files. Same problem as before. The player sees them and knows how long they are, but it barfs on playing them.
There was another work around that got me this far too. It involved manually editing the config file that lists the source directories of the playlists.
It beats me why it can't stream though. So does it work for you okay?
Incidentally, after an edit of the executable, I later had problems connecting to the server. So I had to revert to original executable after a bit.

thanks!

Jonathan.

[enddogg]

I just upgraded to the latest firmware on the Gateway Connected DVD player and there are definately a lot of improvements here. First, the interface for the network files is much more user friendly. There is a scrollbar that allows faster access through files or folders using the remote. To me it seems to also load servers much quicker. One big improvement is the fact that the software allows you to view pictures and listen to music at the same time; however, I haven't been able to figure out how to stop the pictures without stopping the music as well. The firmware I'm using is the latest firmware available (3/25/04).

[jnz]

Jonathan,

It seems less random if you have a disassembler handy. :)

I've been poking around some more and I've found a couple places that can be patched. I'll describe them here.

1)
Effect: Lets you drag and drop network files from Explorer
Search for: 83 F8 03 75 77
Change the last two bytes to: 90 90

2)
Effect: Makes network drives show up in the media import tab
Search for: 83 F8 03 74 05 83 F8 06
Change the last byte to: 04

3)
Effect: Unknown
Search for: 83 FF 03 75 E9
Change the last two bytes to: 90 90

I'm not quite sure what #3 does. It seems to be some sort of sanity check on requested files. If you can add files but can't play them, you might try #3 and see if it helps. I have mine working without having to use #3 though.

[Sean]

I purchased an ADC-220 a couple months back and have no significant problems to report. However, last week I installed the latest version of the firmware on the box, along with the “upgraded” version of the server-side software. Since then, my music files are sorted alphabetically rather than by track #. WTF…who would want to do this??? I called Gateway support and the CSR said this was the first time he had heard of the problem. Anyone else experiencing this? Is there a work-around? Can I modify some configuration file somewhere to change the sort order? Any help would be appreciated.

- Sean

[Dustin Mihalik]

For those interested in streaming Shoutcast streams to their connected DVD player, I put up a post describing how I did it last night. I think there's going to be a lot of possibilties created by the fact that V3 of the firware supports UPnP music servers.

[Lawrence]

Dustin that was some good info about being about to stream shoutcast streams to your connected dvd player. I was wondering if you or anyone else coupld give some more info about being able to connected your gateway connected dvd player to rhapsody. I was able to get the dvd player to see rhapsody but when I would go through and try to play a song it wouldn't play. I went through and made sure the the UPnp in rhapsody was enabled. Like I said I could see the artist, playlist, and songs form rhapsody but when I would try to play them it wouldn't play. This would be so cool if I could get this to work iff anyone has any ideas that would be great. Streaimg shoutcast radio through winamp like Dustin mentioned worked great. I believe the new version of firmware for the Go Video networked DVD player that was just released supports all of them but will the Go video player mess up the GAteway connected DVD player if you try to install it on there? Currently of running the lasted firmware from gateway, does anyone know if they are coming out with a update anytime soon. I hope some of this makes sense.

Lawrence

[Sean]

Dustin,

Thanks for the update...works great. Also, I fixed my sorting problem. Uninstalled the latest server software, then installed the prior version. Sorting is correct!

[David Lynch]

I have the Gateway DVD with a g card. I had a b router and found that the video was blocky after about 30 seconds regardless of the video bitrate. I bought a 'g' router to try to fix it but I see no change whatsoever. It makes no difference what the video file is (.mpg, .avi, etc.) or bitrate. video is completely unwatchable. Mp3s work fine, and the player plays just about any disc I give it. Seems to me that the problem is in the server software, not the network link. I killed everything on my system but no change at all. Anyone solve such a problem? By the way, I can run a laptop over the network with no problem at all.

[David Lynch]

I have the Gateway DVD with a g card. I had a b router and found that the video was blocky after about 30 seconds regardless of the video bitrate. I bought a 'g' router to try to fix it but I see no change whatsoever. It makes no difference what the video file is (.mpg, .avi, etc.) or bitrate. video is completely unwatchable. Mp3s work fine, and the player plays just about any disc I give it. Seems to me that the problem is in the server software, not the network link. I killed everything on my system but no change at all. Anyone solve such a problem? By the way, I can run a laptop over the network with no problem at all. I have the latest firmware and server.

[Jonathan]

Jnz,

That's very good information! Many thanks for improving the product!

Cheers,

Jonathan.