Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems CES Questions!

How would you know there is not such a program yet. We have people here who had software sooner than others. (no not me)

Will M make a HDMI input/output in their pre-amps ?
As far as i have understood the new generation players will output both Video and Audio on 1 HDMI interface.
Or will there be a in between device that seperates the Audio and Video ?

I have seen no indication of height channels in the announcments of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, so i guess we still will not get them (besides the <10 titles in 2+2+2)

Guys,

Let's not get too caught up with what goes wrong with Meridian (both the gear and the company) and celebrate the good things we get from using their stuff.

They have a tough job to prioritise what they do at any particular time with respect to developing new products and maintaining old equipement. This forum seems to be down on the upgradeability of G series. I don't think we know yet how good or bad that will be. If they could do it for 5 series kit they can do it for the G series as well. There will be a question of cost - but they never promised the upgrades would be cheap - and we all know from experience of 5xx and 8xx upgrades they won't be.

I think Meridian may be acknowledging problems with priorities by appointing a Product Manager - my experience (in a small software company with about as many employees as Meridian - but operating worldwide) is these guys get heavily involved with both Sales and Marketing and Development - to ensure whatever is done is consistent with the business goals - growing revenue, profit or whatever.

Their biggest problem is dealing with User Wishlists - 90% of the time they already know what they will say. The requests are all reasonable and most are easy to do - but the resources are employed elsewhere for sound business reasons.

The most important question for me would be some understanding of the direction Meridian thinks the industry (and their business is headed). Does high quality audo/video have a real future - how many audiophiles are out there and do they have enough cash to fund companies like M to keep producing state of the art equipment?

I suspect that "convergence" and integrated whole house solutions, etc. is the way the market is moving. I see this being driven in two directions simultaneously - bottom up with cheap computers and wireless MP3 solutions and top down with high quality specialist designed individual solutions.

How does Meridian see this? How do they want to play this game? Can they play this game successfully?

regards

Chris

Chris, a very salient and thought provoking post!

Mine however is much more mundane....can the setup software be ammended to REMOVE the necessity for connection to the web? I have found that aspect to be a right Royal PITA, as there must be few people who have a feasible web connection next to their hifi?

Cheers

George

Interesting Chris. I've three comments:

1) Concentrating on the positive (and I agree there are many - House of Flying Daggers sounded sublime last night...) is no comfort to the many 598/G9x owners who have paid many �000s for their kit and are still not able to play, reliably, discs encoded with the flagship audio format that Meridian has championed. In addition, I have sound drop-outs with DVD-Video navigation, but have been told that I must wait for the next "official" 598 software release. No Beta firmware for me...

2) A Product Manager makes a lot of sense - there comes a point where you can no longer develop and expand your product line based off technical leadership alone, particularly when you are heading full-on into other company's market segments (video processing and display).

3) Meridian has also recently appointed at least one Test Engineer - this is clearly a step in the right direction, but I hope this person is not expected to work miracles on his/her own, especially if testing has historically been performed by the Development team...

As an aside, I wonder how close to the mark I am with my musings on Meridian's organizational issues... I don't suppose I'll ever find out, but I wish them well anyway.

Mr Meridian wrote: "...there must be few people who have a feasible web connection next to their hifi".

I read on another forum about Philips' customers' ability to software update their LCD panels via an initial download from the web to an empty USB Flash-ROM pen-drive. One apparently plugs the pen drive into the panel and the panel then takes the software update off the pen drive.

For example, here are the instructions for their upgrade proceedure:
--------------------
You will require:

- A personal computer with web browsing capability.

- An archive utility that supports the ZIP-format (e.g. WinZip for Windows or StuffIt for Mac OS).

- A preferably empty USB memory stick.
Note: Only FAT/DOS-formatted portable memory is supported.

[1] Go to www.philips.com/support using the web browser on your PC

[2] Follow the procedure to find the information and the software related to your TV.

[3] Select the latest software upgrade file and download it to your PC.

[4] Decompress the ZIP-file and copy the file "autorun.upg" to the root directory of the USB portable memory.

---------------------------------
On the LCD panel, the appropriate button is pressed and the panel lifts the software off the pen drive.

Could Meridian be asked how feasible this approach would be for USB equipped G Series components to accomodate this method of firmware upgrading (for those of us, like Mr. Meridian, that don't have laptop computers).

Could it be as simple as an extra control on a G Series component that automatically uploads software updates from an attached pen drive?

What is more, this method of software updating wouldn't discriminate between WIndows or Macintosh users (for those that haven't tried it, Macintosh will download Windows software).

Thank you sns for your always positive and never cynical comments. I assume that when the 1080p update for the G91 is released you won't be using that aswell? Or will you then be silently enjoying the possibility M gives you?

In addition to the points already made I am curious about the future of the 861, as the flagship is only very marginally ahead of its G series sibblings, especially bearing in mind its old fashioned display panel. At �10,000 plus it should be noticeably better or be canned! Competition from Media centres will intensify and require user friendliness (for others in our families who use the kit) and NOTICEABLE quality superiority. A challenge that has to be met for M to survive. They are obviously overtrading in terms of overstreching management and technical skills, but will hopefully catch up with themselves.

A frameork that outlines where they are going - or how how can we continue to buy and support them at time when technology is changing very quickly - would be most helpful as would the underlying basis of how 8xx producs can be differentiated from the G series - and lastly a statement of intent for releasing firmare upgrades - how can one version be included with new hardware - but not released to the rest of us.

More transparency please to help us suppoort M and better adherence to promised release dates.


Rob

I think this might have been covered in all the knowledge above but i did not see it with a fast scan so just to let you know what i discovered a couple of years ago.

M does have a beta program as I knew of a chap who worked in a dealer who did much of their software and hardware testing on many products.

I would GUESS however that most of the staff do the remainder of the testing and maybe some family and friends - hell you need perks to every job huh!

Perhaps this is why we have so many glitches and perceived problems with the G -series video output. They cannot test every screen and projector on the market and we only remember the ones that complain not the silent hundreds who have a great product.
If it was all so bad I am sure M would have gone away like TAG by now. I do not think that the 25 people on this forum are their income really. hell it took me 3 years to find the forum existed let alone start commenting on it.

my two pence worth, must dash the missus has caught me on the PC over Xmas. tony

I was recently very fortunate to have a factory visit and I saw a few leftovers from TAG's extravogence that are probably only just starting to benefit the QA in Meridian's R&D and manufacturing processes.

I am no expert, but they certainly appear to have some sophisticated tools available in house that I am sure will benefit future and even current products.

The design of the HDMax 421 is possibly an example of this. A fairly ordinary product utilising sophisticated circuit board design.

Guys, I know I helped start this and I hope Meridian is reading it, because so many threads end up this way lately. But we should stick to John's topic of CES questions. There are other threads to continue this.

George,

It isn't my topic. Simon started this topic

Cheers,