Comments about TViX

[richard72]

Hi all,

I was looking for a MP3 player to play MP3's mostly in my living room. So I thought the M3 40GB should carry lots of MP3's and with the cradle, I could easy put it in the living room.
Then I found the TVix, that was the kind of hardware I was looking for. I immediatly ordered one and in two (!) days I got it (from US to the Netherlands).
Though I think it's a wonderfull piece of hardware, I have some comments on it:

1. Get rid of the FAN

The fan makes way too much noise. You can't watch a movie with the fan noise allways on the background. I'm gonna cut the wires or put a resistor in it to make it run slower.

2. Make a better interface

I'm used to winamp and it's easy to search for CD's and play all songs by artist randomly. With the TViX, I can't do that. I allways work with directory structures (C:\MP3\[ARTIST]\[YEAR] - [ALBUM]\[tracknr] - [song].mp3) But as far as I know, it's not possible to random play all tracks in a particular directory. This should be very easy to make. I don't want to make playlists for every artist and album.....
When playing a song, it should be put in a 'current playlist' or something, so that you can, while the song is playing, add more files to that playlist and act as a kind of discjockey.
The graphics can be improved, there's too little information on the screen. I'm reffering to something like winamp.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm very happy with the product and I will use it a lot but I believe that my comments are fair and easy to solve. I'd like to contribute to a better product so that life becomes a bit easier for us all...

Greetings,

- Richard -

[NeTo]

What kind of fans does the Tivx have? If they are standard PC fans, maybe you can just switch them with more silent ones. Cutting wires doesn't sound like a very practical thing to do

[richard72]

It's a very small fan (about one inch diameter), that's why it has to turn so fast. I think I'll make a switch, so I can turn it off when it's irritating me.

[longinus]

I agree with richard72. At first I didn't hear it (when the player was next to my computer... but when there is silence in the room, you can hear it).... Please, tell me if you had any sucess.. I'm afraid it'll overheat If a put a resistor to make ir run slower (but the air that comes out is never hot, only a little warm)..

One other problem I got is with subs..
Every time there is a "çã" or "çõ" or "ça" in the subs, the player show a japonese symbol instead... This is probably something that they can fix with a firmware update... but I send a note to them (from the site's form... there's any email that I could use?) and did not get any replays..

[Jetisfy]

A quiet fan yes, or an on/off switch, maybe sensor of sort would be good.

But I'm a firm believer in electronics that minimize varying temperature's last longer.
So a loud fan is better than no fan to me.

Jetisfy

[richard72]

Well, I didn't do any modification yet...

When I'm watching a movie, I put a pillow next to the fan, and it gets quiet enough. However, after two hours, there are some very hot spots so that's not reccomended.

I may have another solution. I noticed an 'ext IR' port. This means you can put the TVIX somewhere where you can't hear it, and put a remote IR receiver next to the TV so you can still control it. I haven't tried it yet, the manual doesn't say anything about that port but it looks like a solution to the noise problem....

[gregz]

I do agree that the fan is quite loud. I was also cursed with one that buzzed a bit. That was -really- annoying...

I couldn't deal with that, so I ripped the thing apart and put a trim pot on the fan power. I drilled a tiny hole in the back of the box and epoxied the pot in.

Now I can set the speed of the fan to whatever I like from outside the box using a little screwdriver. It makes a huge difference. Setting it to the minimum voltage that will get it going on power-up results in a system that stays much cooler than if it is left off.

IOW, I think that I am getting a great deal of cooling from a fan that is running a great deal more quietly...

The hard drive side of the box gets warm, but it seems as though the ventilation route in the box doesn't really do much to keep it cool in any case. The main beneficiaries are the AC to DC stuff and the main board.

[longinus]

Gregz, nice idea!!!
Do you have to use some special trim pot (ohm value, etc)...Or any one would work? (I don't know a lot about this things, apart from some LCD soldering and stuff like that).. And why make it external? Once you found out the right voltage, you don't need to toucht it again, right?

[gregz]

Originally Posted by longinus

Gregz, nice idea!!!
Do you have to use some special trim pot (ohm value, etc)...Or any one would work? (I don't know a lot about this things, apart from some LCD soldering and stuff like that).. And why make it external? Once you found out the right voltage, you don't need to toucht it again, right?

I think that I used a 5k one simply because it was with arm's reach...

As for access, I felt that I likely would need to play around a bit to determine a proper speed. There is really no drawback. You probably wouldn't notice the acess hole if I didn't tell you it was there!

(Just to clarify, the pot is inside. The hole is for the screwdriver to adjust it.)

Greg