I did the FW update on my 886 with files provided by a member over at AVS. I have to say I am a computer newbie and I was able to do the update without any issues. My biggest concern was a power outage while the update was in process. I did my 805 and 885 as well with no problems. But I am looking forward to the release of the 978 as it has just about all the features I am looking for.

Bill

True, and that would be a nice touch but the question is, will they?


As previously stated, I agree that USB makes more sense if an Ethernet jack is not co-located with the equipment to be updated. As for downloading files to USB at work, how convenient that is will depend on two things: Does the individual have their own desktop PC? Despite this being the 21st century, plenty of workers don't. Even if the worker does have his/her own PC, are downloads for personal purposes allowed by IT policy? I was a IT security auditor in a past life and can tell you for a fact the some organizations (especially ones dealing with sensitive technology or operations) do not allow file downloads from "unauthorized" websites for personal purposes. As you said, downloading at a friend's house will be an option for many people, but at this point is doesn't sound very convenient to me. Having said all this, my view is that someone who orders a 978 from a web-based site will likely have access to firmware files from the same location.


For home use, establishing a wired network should be pretty straight forward and again, if someone ordered a component via the web in the first place (increasingly common), odds are the network is already established.


Agreed, and I think it is for the better at the end of the day. It's nice to personally have the ability to easily repair or improve an electronic component at home.


I agree that USB will work for the widest range of people. I do not agree that it is the most user friendly approach. I still think that belongs to Ethernet, at least in terms of the user update process.

Of course, this is all moot since the 978 will not have a Ethernet connection.

I hadn't taken it to that extreme a position since, as you note, if downloading a file onto a USB stick somewhere in a person's daily routine is that challenging, how likely are they to even know that Outlaw exists?


I've known a lot of people for whom having a wired connection to their home network available at the entertainment center is exceedingly difficult. I was just at a friend's house this weekend - a database admin who is an extremely sophisticated user - and he was talking about how hard it was to get a wire to his living room in his older home. His Mac Mini HTPC and Wii have wireless so he hadn't worried about it in the past, but he was streaming a race from ESPN and couldn't get reliable video without a wired connection. After hours spent trying to fish a Cat5e through some abandoned radiator piping to his basement where he could get into an abandoned electrical conduit, he gave up and ran the network cable down the stairs and behind the couch. He could always do a wireless bridge if he had a device without built-in wifi, but I've known several other people (including two Model 990 owners in the Memphis area) who can't get Ethernet to their entertainment centers and probably wouldn't want to invest in the gear to create a wireless bridge unless there was a huge benefit to it.

It's a very real problem for a lot of people. The minute you add Ethernet to a product, you can expect people to start asking why it isn't wireless because they can't get a cable from their home's router to the equipment rack. I've seen it with OPPO's Blu-ray players. And wireless, while potentially not that big a deal to get working, creates a whole new universe of tech support challenges for a company like Outlaw that provides their own customer support. They wouldn't have to worry about you or me, certainly, but there are a lot of current and potential Outlaw owners that I've talked with over the years who would have a problem getting Ethernet to their gear and would need help getting a wifi-capable unit connected to their home network.


- That's true. Still, I've been persisting because I think it's an interesting and useful dialog, seeing different sides of the issue.

In a prior post, you mentioned how easy it was for you to update your Oppo player via USB at work. The only point I was making is that though it was easy and convenient for you, it may not be so for others. IMO, once you have to use the computing resources of others fix your product, the PITA factor rises.


Based on first hand experience, that's simply not the case. I'm currently living in a home over 60 years old with plaster walls. When I moved in, there was no Ethernet anywhere. I used ServiceMagic.com (they now operate in most major cities) to get multiple bids to install 7 jacks in 4 rooms. Total cost, including parts and labor, was $275 (this charge would have been less has the walls been traditional stick and drywall). Obviously, cost mileage may vary, but I don't think the delta would be large elsewhere and if were only talking about one jack near the owner's equipment, I suspect the cost would be nominal. If there's no ServiceMagic office nearby then Craigslist is an option too. Simply put, getting a hardwired Ethernet jack installed need not be complicated or expensive.


I agree and I've enjoyed our discussion. How about splitting the difference? For future AV prepros and receivers, the standard should be to include both USB and Ethernet ports so the owner can decide which one will serve him/her best.

Part of my point was that if you can't copy files onto a USB stick at home, it's highly unlikely that you can connect a processor to the Internet at home. Which is easier: carrying a USB stick elsewhere to put a file on it, or disconnecting and carrying a whole processor?

I was thinking this morning about how I've used the USB and Ethernet firmware update options with my Blu-ray players. I have used Ethernet a lot of times, and it is convenient for typical updates. USB is important to include, though, because I thought of a number of instances when I wanted to do things that I couldn't do via Ethernet. In some cases, I had to change between different firmware branches (production, public beta, or closed beta), which wasn't possible via Ethernet - I had to use USB in those cases. Other times, I wanted to roll back to older firmware. There are advantages to having USB as the primary firmware update process.


Similarly, my single-story 52-year-old house was easy to wire because I could run through the attic and drop in the walls.

On the other hand, I've got a co-worker with a 30-year-old two-story house who can't get wires run easily in his living room because he's got a slab on grade and no way to get down from above without tearing out drywall. (He's one of our electrical engineers, so part if his day job is figuring out how to run conduit and cables in existing buildings.) And the friend I mentioned previously has a ~90-year-old home with plaster walls that's been added on to a few times. He's been re-wiring the electrical one room as a time, and has a very good idea of how to get wires through his house. This particular area is very difficult to reach from his office (where the home network originates). Some homes can be wired easily, but a lot can't be for various reasons.


I still think USB has to happen, while Ethernet should be included for firmware updates if the unit already has Ethernet for some other reason. Adding the hardware and software costs to include Ethernet just as an extra way to update firmware is a disservice to customers who don't already have a network connection they can use. If the Ethernet port's there already, I agree that allowing firmware updates is a nice convenience.

For better or worse, I think Ethernet is going to be the standard for streaming and firmware updates in the near term (for at least a few years-wireless broadband may be the next big interface). Ethernet was originally only found on vendor's flagship product, but is now trickling down to lower and lower price points. Case in point: Samsung HW-D7000 (SRP: $599). I mention the pending HW-D7000 in particular to illustrate a harbinger of the future: Downloadable apps. In short, AV receivers-followed by prepros-are going to become more like HTPCs every generation; perhaps to the point within a few years where external streamers will be largely redundant. Note that I didn't even mention the 3D blu-ray player built in to the HW-D7000. It will be interesting to see how well it does in the marketplace...

That's a really bizarre piece from Samsung, but it's really more of an overgrown HTiB (with the built-in disc player) than an especially good indication of future receivers. Since it has Blu-ray, the Ethernet and apps are more likely to be showing up because of the player's SoC (system on chip) than the receiver's DSP core. Those sorts of functions are currently much more common on BD player than receivers, in large part because BD players have to be little Java-based computers. It's actually much more natural for a BD player to provide audio and video media support than a receiver (even though I still think even BD players aren't an idea substitute for a really good standalone media client if someone is serious about it). I'll bet every bit of the HW-D7000's media streaming support was ported directly from the same player that Samsung used to add Blu-ray playback to the receiver.

I think the media streamer market is still moving far too fast for standalone boxes to go away, especially since currently even the best products that also have streaming (secondary to their primary function) are game consoles, followed by BD players, and then bringing up the rear are receivers, with TV's threatening to overtake them. And since not even the game consoles can claim to be better than the really good standalone boxes, I don't see the standalone units going away soon.

Gonk, the 7000 may appear bizarre to you, but I think it will be well received by typical consumers (which we on this forum are not-In the classic words of Igor from Young Frankenstein, we are "Abi-Normal"). Samsung will release plenty of HTiBs this year independent of this piece. As speakers were not included with the 7000, I don't see how it qualifies as anything other than a AV Receiver as Samsung and reporters have described it.


From a consumer's perspective, this is irrelevant. They will focus on the feature, not how it's implemented in silicon. Rather, they will focus on the value of a complete AV entertainment solution in one box that allows them to download features of value to them while allowing them to use their speakers of choice (within limits due to the amp section of course-this applies to most other AV receivers as well).


In the short-term I agree. However, as streaming and apps continues to proliferate in TVs, game consoles, and now perhaps, AV receivers (and soon in prepros?), dedicated streamers are going to become less relevant.

The 978 and prepros in general are somewhat niche in the consumer AV world, but so long as the 978 is released before the end of the year and delivers sonically at a competitive price, it should do well. However, don't be surprised if downloadable apps appear in the next generation of prepros from Outlaw's competitors. Who can blame them? If they follow Samsung's model and build their own app stores, they'll have something new and valuable; recurring revenue from component sales. I wouldn't presume to speak for other prepro enthusiasts on this forum, but if Samsung ever decided to take the HW-D7000 and build a decent (Marantz AV-7005 class) dedicated prepro under 2K, I'd give it serious consideration. I don't think Samsung will do this as their business model is oriented towards the masses via big-box retailers and e-tailers. However, I wouldn't put it past Onkyo or Marantz...

Until Blu-ray players are standard in a receiver, the 7000 is not a standard AV receiver. It is an AV receiver with a BD player built in to it. We saw this with DVD players, as well, and in many cases those receivers were offered both on their own and in packages with speakers (hence my HTiB comment). It didn't catch on, because it wasn't a good idea. I don't recall a single DVD receiver that was considered a truly top-rate receiver, although I admit that I could certainly have overlooked some and I think Panasonic had some decent entry-level units that were at least fairly respectable for the price (~$300). The argument against this "complete AV entertainment solution" is that it locks you in to that BD player (which may or may not be pretty crappy - Samsung's not had the greatest track record with BD players) and if anything fails you are potentially forced to throw out the whole thing. Sure, they may sell a lot at Best Buy or CostCo, but I don't think that it is a precursor to any sort of industry standard.

The fact that those functions are integral to the player side of that unit is hugely relevant, at least from a design standpoint. (My day job is engineering, so I may be focusing more on that than some consumers would, but I think a company like Outlaw has to think that way, too.) There's a lot of silicon and a lot of software development involved in implementing that SoC so you can have those apps and media playback abilities, and I still think it's wasteful to transplant all that hardware and software into a receiver when it already exists elsewhere in the equipment rack and can be plugged in - if the consumer wants it - with a single HDMI cable. Unless the companies making DSP chips for receivers (TI and Cirrus, primarily) start building these functions into their chipsets, I don't see an efficient way to match this level of functionality without adding new hardware. I highly doubt that Anthem will do it in either their processors or their receivers, and Anthem has been toward the forefront of HDMI implementation among small audio manufacturers. I don't see Parasound doing it. Certainly Onkyo might, and Denon might even get into the mix, but they are chasing a different customer - I don't see it being part of what the smaller companies try to do at this point. I also don't see Onkyo or Denon being able to provide functions that are as good as what can be had with a game console or standalone device unless they borrow one of those standalone devices and drop the entire thing into their chassis. Perhaps things really will change more than I expect and the generation of processors that follows the Model 998 and Model 978 will include some network audio and video functions. At this point, though, I don't see it happening, and I'm OK with that.

According to Peter T's last update, the 978 is scheduled for release by the end of the second quarter 2011. And that release was pushed back due to the decision to add Audyssey MultiEQ 32. I must be a dreamer, but I'm still hoping that the 998 is out by the end of 2011.

The Outlaws simply MUST get this prepro on the market ASAP. They haven't been able to offer anything (of their own) since the 990. High rez audio via HDMI has been available for years now, and they have been losing sales all that time.