Ceton Echo - Windows Media Center Extender

Met all of my expectations! I happen to have a cable connection in my upstairs bedroom, but I have been looking to ditch the monthly cost of a cable box and DVR. Granted, I still have to pay the monthly fee for the cable card, but Comcast did not charge me for the card itself.Setup was easy, except for the fact that this is not a wireless solution….understood that wired is the best solution for consistent HD signals. While Ceton recommends MoCa adapters, I used PowerLine adapters with no difficulty. Picture quality is great – no pixilation! There is some delay when first accessing Media Center and some pixilation when changing channels, but when watching a show, there is no degradation of picture or sound.The only con I would give this is that the remote it comes with it is not a universal remote, so you will need a separate remote to turn on/off your TV and to control volume (even though there are volume controls on the Echo remote). The Echo does work with Logitech Harmony remotes, though. The only other issue I have with the remote is that the buttons are somewhat small. On the plus side, there are “hot key” buttons for the program guide, recorded tv and live tv for Media Center.My next move is to buy another Echo for my daughter’s bedroom, which has no cable hookup. I will buy another PowerLine for her room, which as I stated, works fine.Now I have HD programming with DVR capability, and receive all of my cable channels -- with no cable box! My wife will also attest to the fact that the size of the echo is perfect, as it does not take up much space on her dresser, which is below our wall-mounted TV.I highly recommend this product….especially where on Amazon it is $30 less than buying it direct.

Update: I'm about a year on from ditching the Ceton and I can't believe how 'night and day' it is. The regular/daily issues mentioned below just all 'went away' and I haven't seen any of them since. I'm also back to running flawlessly with the virus killer of my choice. I'm still using the same server too. It's a real pity Ceton seemed focused on trying to blame whatever wasn't their own part of the setup rather than accepting flaws with their own hardware.Original review:It did work for me, but not without numerous issues both with the unit itself and with Ceton support. I fixed all the issues by ditching the unit and replacing it with an Xbox 360. Yes, merely changing the extender resolved everything, therefore clearly (and contrary to Ceton's customer support claims) all the issues were squarely with the Echo unit.I list a summary of some of my most common problems so you can judge yourself whether they're reasonable or not for you:-Trouble re-connecting to the server, usually after the Ceton Echo had locked up and rebooted. So yes...two problems there.-Frequent lock ups/freezes on pressing pause while viewing content (sometimes with rewind/fast forward).-Lock ups just navigating menus, or even just being sat in the menus - not even playing video.-Lock ups would about 50/50 require you to pull the plug on the Ceton unit to re-start. At other times, the unit would reset after sometime, either a crash itself or a less than graceful recovery method.and it is also reasonable to give you information that will lead you to your own judgment about whether or not the Ceton Echo was at fault:-None of these problems were apparent on the Xbox 360 being used for the same purpose in a different room during the same time period I owned the Echo. I could use the 360 as the Echo was experience these problems and the 360 would be free of issue.-None of these problems were apparent on the Xbox 360 that replaced the Ceton Echo in the living room. None of these problems were apparent on an additional Xbox 360 added to another remote TV.-Server, both hardware and software and the cable company hardware did not change as I went from 'broken with Ceton's hardware included in my setup' to 'fully resolved with no Ceton'.-Update: None of these problems have been apparent on a 360 installed in the same place as the Ceton Echo...same network cable, same splitter, same TV.Either the Ceton Echo was to blame or all these issues magically fixed themselves at the point I unplugged the Echo and returned it.I had it for six months - this was not a short trial. I am very lucky Amazon accepted a return at this point.My server PC (for the record) was a dedicated media server (minimal software installed just to do the job). It could be summed up as Windows 7/Media center with a virus killer, a torrent client, the serviio media server and HD Homerun prime drivers/plug-ins. Anything else installed on the machine was merely to set it up. It is still this way today.Ceton were utterly terrible to deal with as far as customer support goes. I did everything they asked, stopping short at applying some hotfixes that were (a) unrelated and (b) what Microsoft told me not to apply (due to them not being related). Ceton were unable to find any problem (or at least denied it) despite all logic reasonably pointing to the Ceton unit being at fault. Most of what I was asked to do was nothing other than groping around in the dark and at the point where I told them I was not comfortable with applying the unrelated hotfixes (which I was polite about and decent enough to explain/justify) they simply closed the thread. The attitude was 'we don't care about your concerns, if you won't do what we asked, we won't help' with no explanation or justification, which they had been invited to provide. They were simply unwilling to honor a request to proceed and work with my in a manner I was comfortable with and they not were willing to justify themselves. I ended up speaking with their Director of Corporate Development.More on support...If you have any virus killer installed and it's not Microsoft Security Essentials they'll tell you to uninstall it and point out they only play nicely with that product, which is what they 'recommend'. This product is free and is among the lowest rated virus killers (in terms of protection) around and it has now fallen into the status of repeatedly failing the minimum certification level...which was somewhat intentional on the part of Microsoft as they have been developing the product as 'a baseline' for other vendors to develop their own virus products against. This being your only supported virus killer is simply 'unacceptable'. Software should be developed to work well with common and popular virus killers - all too common it isn't. Ceton clearly fall into this now unfortunately common 'you have an unsupported virus killer on your system' scenario and it becomes one of the default line items in the support response regardless of whether or not it is causing or even related to an issue.Which does bring me to another topic. In order to get a view of your computer (to see which virus killer and other things Ceton doesn't like that you installed) Ceton's Support workflow asks you to run a program that dumps a lot of information out for them. This is common and not an issue, provided it is not intrusive. I made the mistake of having a detailed look at the information captured only after I'd uploaded it, trusting it nothing unnecessary was going to be probed. That was a mistake. At the level this reports information to Ceton, this program falls into the Spyware category.My recommendation:You might be able to tolerate these even frequent issues on a remote TV in another room that you maybe don't use all the time, however given the Xbox 360 pricing remains quite competitive (and with deals, is often cheaper) I would be hard pushed to truly recommend the Ceton Echo unit unless it's in a flash sale and is substantially discounted.

The Ceton Echo is very good, but not great yet, but it has the potential to be.. I will be comparing this unit to the Xbox 360 and a former competitor the Sage HD 200.. When it comes to setting the standard for extenders, the SageTV HD200 was by far the best until Google bought them out and SageTV has essentially ended.. The SageTV HD200 felt like a console unit and hardly used any resources no matter how many you are extending... In addition it played just about any file. The Ceton Echo once the software is updated, feels a lot like a console unit.. It does take a little while for it to boot up, but in my opinion the picture is very good and gives it a console look although it does have problems with some horizontal panning.. Minor, but Ceton is making improvements.. It will only play the files that WMC plays or you have set up the main CPU unit to play. It is still disappointing that you cannot FF or RR anything but a WMV or WTV file. I have converted most of my collection to WTV files to have this ability but what a pain.. The Sage extender played nearly everything so that is an opportunity. Also despite having 14 gigs and a quad core processor, the resources average about 25% for one extender and about 35% for 2.. With SageTV HD 200, you didn't even know if it was on. The resources used were about 5%.. When compared to the Xbox 360 it seems to respond quicker overall. The animation however is sluggish and slower than the Xbox when activated.. It is also not smooth in the animations.. The form factor and the energy needed is clearly an asset and best in class to the Ceton Echo when compared to any extender out there.. That being said, I would sacrifice some form factor for a more powerful, smooth running unit that can play nearly any file.. The alleged potential of having Netflix and other streaming video apps remaing to be seen and until it does, it has to be taken at face value and not based on rumored potential. If that does happen, it will be worth the price of 179.99.In closing, my final assessment is incomplete until Ceton works out some minor bugs and see what this will be at if it develops apps for it such as Netflix and VUDU.. It was a risk when reading all of the complaints and Ceton clearly launched this device way too soon. That being said, I am overall happy with the Echo. The price point with its current features is high.. For 20.00 more, you can get an Xbox gaming console that will do essentially the same thing with better animations.. I will find out within the next year if some of Ceton's rumored promises of Netflix among other streaming apps will be available as well as DTS ability that the chip has the potential of producing.. By then It will be pretty obvious to see if I made the right decision in purchasing this or an Xbox. I do think it should be against the law for Xbox not to allow you to use your subscription to Netflix or any other service that you are already paying for without subscribing to their Gold service.. That is why I went this route. For now I will use my Smart TV. My girlfriend likes it and accepts it and we use it in the living room.. It is not as responsive as the main unit, however it has no video connection issues to the TV like the CPU so it can't be all bad. Good device with a lot of potential, lets see what develops..