Lowly 442 Gamma end user comment
JEFFH
I have tried really hard to be patient and keep the faith but Im
getting frustrated with Neuros at this point.
Posts on the official Neuros Fourms by end users seem to be ignored and
I wanted to extend the distress Signal from over younder that is being
felt by many 442 gamma testers.
I have been really surprised and disapointed by the lack of community
and open and honest communication from Neuros to Gamma Testers on the
official Fourms.
The new fourms recently started have very little content to make them
useful.
Gamma testers have pleaded for information and updates yet nothing
substantial has been forthcoming to date.
The sense of direction seems to be approaching a Failed experiment
status from a Gamma testers perspective and still Neuros makes little
or no effort to even attempt to turn this perception around.
Im not involved in the developer google group but do keep up by reading
the latest posts and the focus has all moved to the OSD with little or
no talk about the 442.
What are we lowly Gamma testers/ end users to think?
please help me restore the Faith.
Joe Born
to the new forums, the old forums have fallen throught the cracks (at
least from the perspective of my attention) Let me get on there and
post something. Kcmark also posted something here which I'll address at
the same time. Again, sorry for letting this slip through the cracks.
Joe
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kcmark
official forums and basically received replies that I should be
posting here, so I posted a question in this Google Group and after
four days I still have not received a reply. I think Neuros is making
a mistake by focusing on the developers to the exclusion of the
consumers. Perhaps the thought is that it's ok to sacrifice the gamma
testers loyalty if it means we can focus on R&D (mostly D) and build a
new broader consumer base. If so, I understand, but just call a spade
a spade.
I think Neuros is suffering a bit from the 'have your cake and eat it
too' syndrome. They want/need to focus on development of new products
in order to stay relevant (and profitable) in a very competitive
business; however, they want to try to keep their loyal customers happy
too. They have out of necessity extended the gamma testers "trade in"
period but they have not been very responsive to gamma testers'
questions/comments about the status of the program.
The fact of the matter is the original 442 that we have was a great
product in concept but an incomplete product in practice. The fact
that it uses an image of a camcorder as the video 'player' and the
image of a film reel as the video 'recorder' indicates how rushed this
was to release. In the end, the current 442 is basically a portable a/v
recorder and video player as the usefulness of the other "features" is
severely hampered by either software limitations/design deficiencies
or poor control hardware. Gamma testers can live with these
deficiencies when we're promised an "upgrade" to the finished product
in 6 months. We are now looking at a year+ and still are not being
given any definite timeline. I understand the difficulties and
balancing act that Neuros has to perform while trying to meet the needs
arising from existing products and develop new products. All I was
asking for was a definitive timeline so that we gamma testers can make
an educated decision about whether we want to wait it out for the new
44v2 or send our 442 in for a refund. Given the delay I think we are
owed at least that much. Anyway, my two cents. - kcmark
Joe Born
From: Neuros-DM3...@googlegroups.com on behalf of kcmark
Sent: Tue 8/15/2006 10:07 AM
To: Neuros-DM320
Subject: Re: Lowly 442 Gamma end user comment
kcmark
out when we'll be able to upgrade our 442.
Joe Born
open discussion with folks about our resource limitations and what's
going on etc and then I can post a better update to the group.
-----Original Message-----
From: Neuros-DM3...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:Neuros-DM3...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kcmark
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 9:14 AM
To: Neuros-DM320
Subject: Re: Lowly 442 Gamma end user comment
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Michael Gao
/MG
Bob Faskos
Joe,
Sure.
Go ahead and schedule it.
Bob
joe...@gmail.com
JEFFH
joe...@gmail.com wrote:
> ok, I scheduled a meeting for Sat morn, Chicago time.
>
> http://open.neurostechnology.com/node/332
I missed the live meeting but went and looked at the log and there was
very little discussion or information about the 442V2 presented.
>From what was posted It looks like you have a schematic for the 442v2
but thats as far as it has progressed.
Everyone seems to be working the OSD and The one person working on the
442v2 was also pulled off to work the OSD.
The Main question we have all been asking still remains unanswered.
When is the projected ship date of the 442v2 upgrade to the Gamma
group?
The Original paid discounted upgrade for the Gamma group sounded good
last year.
Today however you can buy a more advanced full featured PMP/PMR right
now for less than the Gamma group paid for the very limited feature 442
we have now.
New software updates and improvements have stopped and its just
sitting gathering dust now as it not a very usable platform in the
current state for what I require.
Im guessing the 442v2 likely won't be available for another 6-12 months
at the Earliest.
Does Neuros plan to revise the upgrade offer?
JEFFH
The direction I originally had hoped for was having a basic working
Platform but firmware upgradable to other platforms.
Always keeping the the ability to rollback to a prior or the original
firmware.
Something along these lines would have kept it interesting and the
positve buzz alive.
Joe Born
I'll respond to the previous email shortly with some answers.
Regarding the above, because I don't think there's a lot of enthusiasm
from the Rockbox crowd and we'd need considerable help from them, and
also because it would be a lot of work. As you know, our original plan
was to port uclinux to the current 442, but we abandon that thinking
that the DM320 upgrade would be easier from a firmware standpoint (and
supported by a reference design).
Frankly hacking the current 442 wouldn't be much different than hacking
an other device from an uncooperative manufacturer, since we didn't
design that from scratch and our partnership with the manufacturer
didn't yield us the source code. Which is a big part of the reason the
changes have been non existent.
At this point, I certainly can't see going back to the original plan of
porting software to the current hardware, what we need to decide is if
the current plans still make sense and a schedule if so.
Joe
kcmark
> ok, I scheduled a meeting for Sat morn, Chicago time.
What was the outcome of this meeting -- what is the expected ship date
for the 442v2??
Joe Born
I'm still working on it. Give me a couple days and I'll post a basic
plan.
BTW, all, you will all note that I am no longer plagued with "top
posting" issues having moved on (almost) completely to Evolution as an
email client. We have moved off exchange onto a public IMAP server, and
I've gotten WiFi and 我有中文！ (I have chinese input) on Fedora Core 5!
JEFFH
Joe Born wrote:
> At this point, I certainly can't see going back to the original plan of
> porting software to the current hardware, what we need to decide is if
> the current plans still make sense and a schedule if so.
>
> Joe
I agree it's way too late for that.
I hate to say it but your best business decision at this point may be
to totally back burner the 442v2 untill after you move forward and
deliver a working OSD and N3.
There are too many full featured PMP/PMR already on the market and I
belive that segment has already been lost.
The OSD is really your best hope if you can deliver the full features
promised and befor others beat you to market with something similer.
N3 seems to have a much more loyal following than the 442 ever likely
would so you should really keep that nitch market happy.
Dragon Wisard
The 442, even with it's limitations, is still better than most of the competition when you consider the screen, storage size, and battery life. If the 442v2 delivers on it's promises I think there will be customers for it. But then agian, I'm eager to get my hands on the N3 so I wouldn't mind the 442v2 being pushed back if the N3 arrives sooner.
JEFFH
Dragon Wisard wrote:
> The 442, even with it's limitations, is still better than most of the
> competition when you consider the screen, storage size, and battery life. If
> the 442v2 delivers on it's promises I think there will be customers for it.
> But then agian, I'm eager to get my hands on the N3 so I wouldn't mind the
> 442v2 being pushed back if the N3 arrives sooner.
The current 442 had promise when launched and hyped about a year ago
but didn't live up to the promise of open source upgrade and firmware
enhancements.
I have played with the current offerings from Archos/Pocket Dish and
they blow the cuurent 442 out of the water.
Several different models are offered with harddrive size of 20GB to
100GB and screen size from 2.2 to 7 inch wide screen. The Pcoket dish
version built by Archos has prices start from $149 for a 20 GB 2.2
inch screen, $299 for 30GB 4 inch and $399 for a 7 inch 40GB.
These prices are befor a rebate of $50 on the Two smaller sizes and
$60 on the 7 inch model bringing the cost even lower.
These are awesum full featured devices with great looking
displays,built in speakers,USB Host,docking cradle for easy TV
recording and battery life is 12 hours for music and 4 hours for video.
If you have a Dish Network DVR they can transfer content thru the USB
port on the DVR to the device or you can record from other video output
sources.
jackd
product in the past, or any PMP for that matter (I'm waiting for the
442v2). I'm a linux/FreeBSD junkie, a multimedia enthusiast,
audio/videophile and pretty far from your average broadcast media
consumer (sheep). I don't have cable and I haven't hooked an antenna
up to my TV in years, but I still watch lots of media - DVDs, VHS, CDs,
LPs (yes vinyl), and myriad downloaded files. DRM and proprietary
formats disgust me. I have, at times, supported the violation of
copyright on principle, and at other times paid for things that were
given to me for free (e.g. purchased an album of music licensed for
free redistribution). I've spent over $1,000 on audio and video
recordings in the last three years.
The 442v2 is one of the most exciting products I've ever seen. I've
been waiting with unbridled anticipation since I first heard of it,
following the blog and the groups weekly. Portable AV recording and
playback at DVD quality? Burr-brown ADC/DACs? USB Host? And it runs
Linux!!?? I'm by no means a gadget junkie - I own maybe 10 electronic
devices less than two years old. And that's because I didn't waste my
money on disposable, locked-down, worthless crap built on a business
model of planned obsolescence. I waited for the cream to rise to the
top, the hype to die down, and spent my money on well-built,
well-designed products. And I have been and will continue to wait for
the 442v2. PLEASE DO NOT EVER THINK OF NOT CARRYING THIS PRODUCT TO
FRUITION!!! I will weep blood. There is nothing that I have seen
approaching the plans for the 442v2 either built or planned at any
price.
Also, thank you for your efforts to bring open source software to a
wider audience, to explore an open development process, to listen to
criticism, to consider the desires of users and potential users of your
products and to fight for sane copyright/IP laws.
Hopefully that did not sound too insane.
-Jack
Dragon Wisard
Joe Born
> been waiting with unbridled anticipation since I first heard of it,
> following the blog and the groups weekly. Portable AV recording and
> playback at DVD quality? Burr-brown ADC/DACs? USB Host? And it runs
> Linux!!?? I'm by no means a gadget junkie - I own maybe 10 electronic
> devices less than two years old. And that's because I didn't waste my
> money on disposable, locked-down, worthless crap built on a business
> model of planned obsolescence. I waited for the cream to rise to the
> top, the hype to die down, and spent my money on well-built,
> well-designed products. And I have been and will continue to wait for
> the 442v2. PLEASE DO NOT EVER THINK OF NOT CARRYING THIS PRODUCT TO
> FRUITION!!! I will weep blood. There is nothing that I have seen
> approaching the plans for the 442v2 either built or planned at any
> price.
Doesn't sound insane to me, I'd love to hear what others think.
There've been a lot of varied opinions on this one. I setup a poll to
get a general feel, so all, please vote:
http://forums.neurostechnology.com/smf/index.php?topic=7418.0
Gour
> Doesn't sound insane to me, I'd love to hear what others think.
> There've been a lot of varied opinions on this one. I setup a poll to
> get a general feel, so all, please vote:
Dear Joe,
today I visited forums and discovered that the N3 is very far away from
the release :-(
I was very eager to buy N2, but when seeing that many units are
arriving dead, I could not afford to risk buying one overseas (I'm in
Europe) and paying extra $s for shipping to get a new one(s), and you
didn't arrange for some dealer in the Europe.
I was also not happy by your not-completely-user-replacable batteries
and decide to wait for N3 buying in the meantime just cheap flash
player.
However, the need for some 1st class quality audio device is still
there, i.e. one with hi-quality recording and playback and build to
last for some time (no matter the price), which uses standard batteries
as many pro(sumer) devices, runs on open-source platform (rockbox,
linux), updateable firmware etc. is still there, but it looks that
Neuros is shifting their focus on video-enabled gadgets and thereby
losing its loyal audio fans - turning away from its roots - trying to
compete with other well-established brands on the market.
Moreover, I agree with other posters (here & in the forums), that if N3
won't appear soon, it will already become obsolete.
V442 was success after hiting the market, but others (more established
brands) are filling the market, and you will lose niche market where
you could become Audio Emperors by having better quality control in N2
and/or producing N3.
So, according to the last news, it seems I'm better going to look for
my audio device somewhere else :-(
Sincerely,
Gour
kcmark
> > What was the outcome of this meeting -- what is the expected ship date
> > for the 442v2??
> On Mon, 2006-08-28, Joe Born (joe...@gmail.com) wrote:
> I'm still working on it. Give me a couple days and I'll post a basic
> plan.
Joe, I've waited patiently for your follow up posting with a basic
plan. A "couple days" has now turned into a couple weeks and we still
have no 'basic plan' or actual timeline. Your recent posts regarding
the 442v2 on the new forum
(http://forums.neurostechnology.com/smf/index.php?topic=7306.15) were
sufficiently vague with enough unknowns and contingencies that it
appears that the answer to the original question (appended above) is
basically, 'Unfortunately, we do not know when it will ship but, at the
earliest, it will be Summer 2007, maybe later, if ever.'
I don't like to paraphrase others, but what other option is there? I
cannot imagine that within Neuros there is no discussion about actual
target release dates or goals set to achieve X and Y, so that Z can
occur. We've been told that "[Neuros will] be candid and let the
original purchasers decide for themselves what's right for them," and I
guess that's what we're now left to do, despite 'candidness' being a
fairly relative term.
Notwithstanding my noticeable disappointment, I do appreciate you
taking the time to respond. That is more than some companies will do
and I give Neuros credit in that regard. I think I now have an answer
about the 442v2; unfortunately, it was not the answer I was hoping for.
I will still follow the 442v2's development with interest but going
forward it may or may not be as a gamma tester. Best regards.