Another couple weeks on the FW

[Brian]

[quote author=hemster board=preamps thread=10419 post=160864 t

Those "marketing stats" are way wrong. Think about it.. If 30% returned their processors, Emotiva would have enough to fill some of the back orders.
[/quote]

With USED UMC 1 lol

[DYohn]

Mar 27, 2010 8:57:18 GMT -5 ratmice said:

Mar 27, 2010 7:52:12 GMT -5 suffolk112000 said:

I am just currious butcher... where did you get your statistical info from???

Didn't you know that 87.6% of all statistics are made-up?

I think he heard them "on some other forum."

[LCSeminole]

Mar 27, 2010 9:47:54 GMT -5 ntrain42 said:

I assume the "zone 2 music was coming out of zone 1" was in reference to my review. The crosstalk was determined to be coming from the UPA-7 amp and NOT the UMC-1.

ntrain,

It has come apparent to me that one of our newest members has just not completed his homework on this subject, thus the spewing of uninformed words. Me, on the other hand, was out sick a couple of days in the middle of the week, and it took me all of yesterday evening (yes even during the NCAA Tournament games last night) and this morning to catch up on those days events. I must admit, I didn't catch Lonnie's announcement of the Ultra 12 subs being available by phone, but I'm up to speed now. I think. ;D

Butcher, maybe you and I could compare notes and make sure we're up to speed on current events.

[moodyman]

I don't think butcher meant those numbers as hard facts.... he was sarcastically replying to somebody's post. With that said I see where he was coming from and understand his frustration.

I mean come on...there hasn't been a FW update since Feb 8th.

[moe]

I see where he's coming from too...........not a place I care to dwell.

[hemster]

Strange how a lot of those complaining don't list the UMC-1 as one of their components... it's almost as if they want to see a premature FW release and then problems reported with it (since it wouldn't have been thoroughly tested) just so they can jump on the B1tchEmo bandwagon again...

[moodyman]

Mar 27, 2010 10:45:33 GMT -5 hemster said:

Strange how a lot of those complaining don't list the UMC-1 as one of their components... it's almost as if they want to see a premature FW release and then problems reported with it (since it wouldn't have been thoroughly tested) just so they can jump on the B1tchEmo bandwagon again...

Yeah...thats what I want...another lousy FW update so I can *bleep* some more.

I returned my UMC. I'd like to purchase another one in the future when its fixed. But the wait has gone on way longer then most people expected.

[ratmice]

Mar 27, 2010 10:45:33 GMT -5 hemster said:

Strange how a lot of those complaining don't list the UMC-1 as one of their components... it's almost as if they want to see a premature FW release and then problems reported with it (since it wouldn't have been thoroughly tested) just so they can jump on the B1tchEmo bandwagon again...

Well. I've got one AND I'm irritated at the wait and the bugs. Does that count? The big mistake here is the size of the FW update they are trying to produce. Would have been much better to do incremental updates, rather than wait months to get out one big one. If this one fails there WILL be a flood of returned units .They have put way too many eggs in one basket.

p.s. way too late on the premature FW release. It came that way.

[DYohn]

Mar 27, 2010 11:08:40 GMT -5 ratmice said:

Mar 27, 2010 10:45:33 GMT -5 hemster said:

Strange how a lot of those complaining don't list the UMC-1 as one of their components... it's almost as if they want to see a premature FW release and then problems reported with it (since it wouldn't have been thoroughly tested) just so they can jump on the B1tchEmo bandwagon again...

Well. I've got one AND I'm irritated at the wait and the bugs. Does that count? The big mistake here is the size of the FW update they are trying to produce. Would have been much better to do incremental updates, rather than wait months to get out one big one. If this one fails there WILL be a flood of returned units .They have put way too many eggs in one basket.

p.s. way too late on the premature FW release. It came that way.

Wouldn't you rather be irritated by a longer than expected delay but get a firmware update that works better than to fix one or two issues at a time and have to perform multiple updates? Maybe not, but I would rather not have to keep redoing it over and over.

[LCSeminole]

Mar 27, 2010 10:36:37 GMT -5 moodyman said:

I don't think butcher meant those numbers as hard facts.... he was sarcastically replying to somebody's post. With that said I see where he was coming from and understand his frustration.

I mean come on...there hasn't been a FW update since Feb 8th.

Moodyman,

I'd like to ask a fair question of you and others that believe it's been to long between software updates. What is a fair amount of time to research customer problems, reproduce those problems, find fixes to those problems, rewrite the code, fix any new bugs that the new code may have introduced, fix those new introduced bugs and then iron out that last cyclical process and then get it back to Emotiva for a trial run in their demo room only to possibly find a few more problems that crept in because of situations that software experts don't have the full understanding of home theater or even a language barrier. Remember, there is a team in China and India, as well having to coordinate with Dan & Lonnie in Franklin, TN.

I'd also like to hear from those in the software business that have experience in the complexity of such stuff as code writing and potential problems that delay releases.

I'd really like to hear thoughtful, UN-NEGATIVE, insightful responses because the Moderators are not going to allow this to become a battle of typing wills or personal attacks. Personal attacks will be immediately deleted so the members of the boards won't have to weed through useless posts.

[DYohn]

Mar 27, 2010 11:22:20 GMT -5 LCSeminole said:

Mar 27, 2010 10:36:37 GMT -5 moodyman said:

I don't think butcher meant those numbers as hard facts.... he was sarcastically replying to somebody's post. With that said I see where he was coming from and understand his frustration.

I mean come on...there hasn't been a FW update since Feb 8th.

Moodyman,

I'd like to ask a fair question of you and others that believe it's been to long between software updates. What is a fair amount of time to research customer problems, reproduce those problems, find fixes to those problems, rewrite the code, fix any new bugs that the new code may have introduced, fix those new introduced bugs and then iron out that last cyclical process and then get it back to Emotiva for a trial run in their demo room only to possibly find a few more problems that crept in because of situations that software experts don't have the full understanding of home theater or even a language barrier. Remember, there is a team in China and India, as well having to coordinate with Dan & Lonnie in Franklin, TN.

I'd also like to hear from those in the software business that have experience in the complexity of such stuff as code writing and potential problems that delay releases.

I'd really like to hear thoughtful, UN-NEGATIVE, insightful responses because the Moderators are not going to allow this to become a battle of typing wills or personal attacks. Personal attacks will be immediately deleted so the members of the boards won't have to weed through useless posts.

I'm not Moodyman but I can tell you that I've been through this sort of evolution many times. Most recently with a much less complex piece of gear than the UMC-1. My company designed a temperature controller built around a Cell processor. The software coding was outsourced to India (Tata.) Now, over two years since our planned release (and a year after delivery of the first 100 units to various customers and Beta sites) and after hundreds of hours of back and forth fine tuning the unit's performance and discovering issues in various unpredicted applications, we are on Rev. 12 of the software (and Rev. 3 of the hardware) and we think we MIGHT finally have a product that's ready for the market. We hope we can announce it publicly at Semicon West 2010 - we had originally told our customer base it would be ready for Semicon 2008.

Perhaps this sort of experience (rather than me being some sort of blind fanboy as I'm so often accused of being) is why I am one of those willing to give Emotiva as much slack as is necessary to get the product and the software ready for prime time.

[klinemj]

Excellent question, Laurence...

I'm not in the software business myself, but I am in R&D and I have dealt with others developing new code on my behalf for my work (both inside and outside P&G). And, I have done my fair share of my own programming in various computer languages for ~30 years.

I have found it not uncommon for development of new code anything from a few months if simple to over a year if tough. And, that's starting from an existing base code - not starting from scratch. Last time I developed code myself from scratch, it took about a year (that was for automating a data analysis system using a software with pre-packaged routines I just linked together into an automated system) - not counting the 6 months of hand-holding of new users trying it for the first time or two (and yes, I did write a manual to go with it, but we all know - most people don't read them...).

So, for a new release to have been first available within ~1 month post UMC-1 release (as it was for the 1st update) and a second to be available in what appears will be <2 months seems pretty good to me.

And, for the company who will provide it providing on averaging >1 status updates per week on the situation is - in my experience - almost unheard of.

As to various comments that perhaps Emotiva should release smaller fixes more frequently as opposed to bundling all the fixes into 1 big update, that's an interesting point. While I sympathize w/those interested in that - I see pro's/con's do taking the "smaller fixes" approach.

First and foremost, many have reported that doing the updates has been tough/not straightforward. So, for some...1 big update that fixes all their issues would be less pain than several small ones.

Second, either approach they take will upset some people. If they take the several small updates approach - aside from the issue noted above, imagine the posts on "gee, this upgrade only fixed this issue and that was not as important to me as this other issue that I wish they would have done first...gosh, I will now have to wait a whole 2 weeks more to get the update I want/need." I could live without those posts, for sure.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents...or maybe a nickel's worth.

Mark (PS - I hope you are feeling better, Laurence!)

[ratmice]

Mar 27, 2010 11:20:01 GMT -5 DYohn said:

Mar 27, 2010 11:08:40 GMT -5 ratmice said:

Well. I've got one AND I'm irritated at the wait and the bugs. Does that count? The big mistake here is the size of the FW update they are trying to produce. Would have been much better to do incremental updates, rather than wait months to get out one big one. If this one fails there WILL be a flood of returned units .They have put way too many eggs in one basket.

p.s. way too late on the premature FW release. It came that way.

Wouldn't you rather be irritated by a longer than expected delay but get a firmware update that works better than to fix one or two issues at a time and have to perform multiple updates? Maybe not, but I would rather not have to keep redoing it over and over.

Well, it's a double edged sword, of course I would rather one update to fix all, but I think that's unrealistic. I'm sure some fixes are easy (relatively) and wouldn't domino into breaking other things, whereas some are more complex and likely would interact with other aspects of operation. Releasing some fixes would go a long way in quelling the unrest in the masses and help the wait for the "big" fixes to be more tolerable. The updates only take a few minutes, when you're able to get them applied. So if the procedure were more bulletproof the multiple update issue would be moot.

[edvb]

I worked on a GUI controlled door control system in a prison that took almost a year to get all the display screens and software to work properly so the officers could use it effectively. After that they worked smooth as silk.

I think the people that use this type of application in their workplace seem to have the understanding and Patience to give Emotiva the time to have these problems resolved.

They just started to ship about three months ago and have one update under their belt and soon the next one that hopefully will resolve most of the problems.

I guess I just look at the bright side of things and knowing I will be able to update to HDMI 1.4 means the processor will still be current even when all the other Manufacturers come out with their version.

I did not have that news a few weeks ago so hey I am very glad I preordered mine even if it still might have a few bugs in it when delivered.

[moodyman]

Mar 27, 2010 11:22:20 GMT -5 LCSeminole said:

Mar 27, 2010 10:36:37 GMT -5 moodyman said:

I don't think butcher meant those numbers as hard facts.... he was sarcastically replying to somebody's post. With that said I see where he was coming from and understand his frustration.

I mean come on...there hasn't been a FW update since Feb 8th.

Moodyman,

I'd like to ask a fair question of you and others that believe it's been to long between software updates. What is a fair amount of time to research customer problems, reproduce those problems, find fixes to those problems, rewrite the code, fix any new bugs that the new code may have introduced, fix those new introduced bugs and then iron out that last cyclical process and then get it back to Emotiva for a trial run in their demo room only to possibly find a few more problems that crept in because of situations that software experts don't have the full understanding of home theater or even a language barrier. Remember, there is a team in China and India, as well having to coordinate with Dan & Lonnie in Franklin, TN.

I'll tell you what my issue is...all of that stuff you just mentioned should of been accomplished before the UMC was released. There should of been a solid FW update procedure already available. Some of the bugs are so apparent that they were easily discovered within 10 minutes of powering on the unit. I find it frustrating that the UMC was released as is..then have to wait 3 months and counting for a fix.

Lets take one bug as an example...speakers levels not being saved after power off. This makes the UMC, IMO, unusable. Who wants to go in and readjust the levels everytime you use the UMC?? I'm sure that there is an easy fix for this already figured out. Why not release it so you can check off this problem??

Each FW update can be cumulative..I.E .the latest FW update will always include the previous fixes. This way you can keep building on it instead of keeping the UMC in limbo for 3 months without any kind of progress.

I really think the whole perception of the UMC would be so much better at this point if people saw incremental improvements over the last 2 months.

And imagine a worst case scenario for a moment...suppose this next large FW upgrade, trying to fix every known issue at once, causes new issues. I think it will be the last straw for a lot of people who will just write off the UMC and look for something else.

I want the UMC to succeed..I just wish the FW fixes were being approached a different way.

[DYohn]

Mar 27, 2010 12:27:08 GMT -5 moodyman said:

Mar 27, 2010 11:22:20 GMT -5 LCSeminole said:

Moodyman,

I'd like to ask a fair question of you and others that believe it's been to long between software updates. What is a fair amount of time to research customer problems, reproduce those problems, find fixes to those problems, rewrite the code, fix any new bugs that the new code may have introduced, fix those new introduced bugs and then iron out that last cyclical process and then get it back to Emotiva for a trial run in their demo room only to possibly find a few more problems that crept in because of situations that software experts don't have the full understanding of home theater or even a language barrier. Remember, there is a team in China and India, as well having to coordinate with Dan & Lonnie in Franklin, TN.

I'll tell you what my issue is...all of that stuff you just mentioned should of been accomplished before the UMC was released. There should of been a solid FW update procedure already available. Some of the bugs are so apparent that they were easily discovered within 10 minutes of powering on the unit. I find it frustrating that the UMC was released as is..then have to wait 3 months and counting for a fix.

Lets take one bug as an example...speakers levels not being saved after power off. This makes the UMC, IMO, unusable. Who wants to go in and readjust the levels everytime you use the UMC?? I'm sure that there is an easy fix for this already figured out. Why not release it so you can check off this problem??

Each FW update can be cumulative..I.E .the latest FW update will always include the previous fixes. This way you can keep building on it instead of keeping the UMC in limbo for 3 months without any kind of progress.

I really think the whole perception of the UMC would be so much better at this point if people saw incremental improvements over the last 2 months.

And imagine a worst case scenario for a moment...suppose this next large FW upgrade, trying to fix every known issue at once, causes new issues. I think it will be the last straw for a lot of people who will just write off the UMC and look for something else.

I want the UMC to succeed..I just wish the FW fixes were being approached a different way.

Just a note: the "speaker levels not remaining set after power off" was absolutely not a universal problem. My unit has never exhibited this behavior. I set mine once and they always worked. So it is not like it was something that was certainly known and ignored, as it was not an issue in every device. Same with the EQ issues: although the Emo-Q routine did not work as well as it could have, the EQ settings in my unit worked, as opposed to reports from other users. So I ask that you keep that in perspective: you are understandably frustrated that your device has these issues, but don't blame the Emotiva engineers for knowing about them and ignoring them, as it is entirely likely they were an issue that revealed itself only after a number of units had shipped.

[LCSeminole]

Mar 27, 2010 11:37:22 GMT -5 DYohn said:

I'm not Moodyman but I can tell you that I've been through this sort of evolution many times. Most recently with a much less complex piece of gear than the UMC-1. My company designed a temperature controller built around a Cell processor. The software coding was outsourced to India (Tata.) Now, over two years since our planned release (and a year after delivery of the first 100 units to various customers and Beta sites) and after hundreds of hours of back and forth fine tuning the unit's performance and discovering issues in various unpredicted applications, we are on Rev. 12 of the software (and Rev. 3 of the hardware) and we think we MIGHT finally have a product that's ready for the market. We hope we can announce it publicly at Semicon West 2010 - we had originally told our customer base it would be ready for Semicon 2008.

Perhaps this sort of experience (rather than me being some sort of blind fanboy as I'm so often accused of being) is why I am one of those willing to give Emotiva as much slack as is necessary to get the product and the software ready for prime time.

dyohn,

I have just a little experience in writing code from my BS in Applied Statistics at Florida State University and to be honest that's the last time I've ever wanted to write it, in other words I hated those courses(especially the Numerical Analysis class I barely skated by on). Just curious, Is outsourcing the software side of projects like the one you're involved with pretty common in your line of work? Revision #12? That to me makes the UMC-1 software sound rather tame, and that is not a dig at Emotiva just an observation.

[monkumonku]

Mar 27, 2010 11:20:01 GMT -5 DYohn said:

Mar 27, 2010 11:08:40 GMT -5 ratmice said:

Well. I've got one AND I'm irritated at the wait and the bugs. Does that count? The big mistake here is the size of the FW update they are trying to produce. Would have been much better to do incremental updates, rather than wait months to get out one big one. If this one fails there WILL be a flood of returned units .They have put way too many eggs in one basket.

p.s. way too late on the premature FW release. It came that way.

Wouldn't you rather be irritated by a longer than expected delay but get a firmware update that works better than to fix one or two issues at a time and have to perform multiple updates? Maybe not, but I would rather not have to keep redoing it over and over.

That is true.. because you know, if the FW update fixes a few things, you are going to hear nothing but howls from the people who have issues that were not addressed in that update. And of course each time you perform an update, there is a risk of something going awry during the process.

[LCSeminole]

Mar 27, 2010 11:41:07 GMT -5 klinemj said:

As to various comments that perhaps Emotiva should release smaller fixes more frequently as opposed to bundling all the fixes into 1 big update, that's an interesting point. While I sympathize w/those interested in that - I see pro's/con's do taking the "smaller fixes" approach.

First and foremost, many have reported that doing the updates has been tough/not straightforward. So, for some...1 big update that fixes all their issues would be less pain than several small ones.

Second, either approach they take will upset some people. If they take the several small updates approach - aside from the issue noted above, imagine the posts on "gee, this upgrade only fixed this issue and that was not as important to me as this other issue that I wish they would have done first...gosh, I will now have to wait a whole 2 weeks more to get the update I want/need." I could live without those posts, for sure.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents...or maybe a nickel's worth.

Mark (PS - I hope you are feeling better, Laurence!)

Mark,

Thankfully I am feeling 100% today, I had a stomach virus from hell on Wed & Thur and am finally rid of it.

Being the R&D guy you are, The first thought in my mind was, is it more expensive to do fewer big updates that take say 2 months between updates as opposed to the smaller more frequent weekly/bi-monthly updates? In other words is it significantly more efficient and less costly one way over the other?

To be perfectly open here, my experience and emphasis in education was the Quality Control & Production Analysis of large corporate companies and their processes. I have my own thought but I'm quite interested to hear it from someone such as you with vast experience in Research & Developement.

[DYohn]

Mar 27, 2010 12:51:34 GMT -5 LCSeminole said:

Mar 27, 2010 11:37:22 GMT -5 DYohn said:

I'm not Moodyman but I can tell you that I've been through this sort of evolution many times. Most recently with a much less complex piece of gear than the UMC-1. My company designed a temperature controller built around a Cell processor. The software coding was outsourced to India (Tata.) Now, over two years since our planned release (and a year after delivery of the first 100 units to various customers and Beta sites) and after hundreds of hours of back and forth fine tuning the unit's performance and discovering issues in various unpredicted applications, we are on Rev. 12 of the software (and Rev. 3 of the hardware) and we think we MIGHT finally have a product that's ready for the market. We hope we can announce it publicly at Semicon West 2010 - we had originally told our customer base it would be ready for Semicon 2008.

Perhaps this sort of experience (rather than me being some sort of blind fanboy as I'm so often accused of being) is why I am one of those willing to give Emotiva as much slack as is necessary to get the product and the software ready for prime time.

dyohn,

I have just a little experience in writing code from my BS in Applied Statistics at Florida State University and to be honest that's the last time I've ever wanted to write it, in other words I hated those courses(especially the Numerical Analysis class I barely skated by on). Just curious, Is outsourcing the software side of projects like the one you're involved with pretty common in your line of work? Revision #12? That to me makes the UMC-1 software sound rather tame, and that is not a dig at Emotiva just an observation.

Yes, it's extremely common these days to outsource not only software but hardware designs to companies in India, China or Turkey. It is IMO unfortunate, but when a company can pay an Indian engineer with a master's degree and ten years experience $30 a day VS an American engineer just out of college with a BS but no experience $30 an hour, the business decision becomes rather easy to make... although in some cases you DO get what you paid for.