Posted by Mike S. on 11/23/06 18:19

In article <4565ac81.350861515@news-server.houston.rr.com>,
Citizen Bob <spam@uce.gov> wrote:
>On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 13:57:44 +0000 (UTC), retsuhcs@xinap.moc (Mike S.)
>wrote:
>
>>>I was looking at a few standalone DVD players to buy and some of the
>>>reviewers mentioned that there was a new firmware update for one of the
>>>players. How in the heck does that work? I've never heard of that for a
>>>standalone player and can't figure out how you would go about updating
>>>it. Could someone please explain this? Trying to stay up-to-date with
>>>all this new technology is a real pain in the rear.
>
>>Usually this is accomplished by downloading a file from the manufacturer's
>>web site, which contains data that must be burned to a recordable CD. You
>>place this CD in the player and it reads the data file and updates the
>>firmware from it.
>
>I suspect we will be seeing less of that as the manufacturers settle
>in on stable designs. The Polaroid DRM-2001G (WalMart $220) and the
>Insignia NS-DVDR1 (Best Buy Online $115) do not have upgrade
>capability. But then they do not need it except for some minor
>glitches that are not worth fooling with.

I disagree. I see the examples you cite as evidence of poor after-sale
support by the vendors of low-end, mass-market equipment. Many of these
models have a short service lifetime and are sold to consumers that are
not expected to pursue or utilize tecnical resources like firmware
upgrades; but that does not mean they will not be necessary.

Firmware updates for optical disc recorders is often made necessary due to
the continuing changes in disc formulations which require different write
strategies to optain optimal results. It's not an issue of stable
equipment designs, as it's the consumables that are constantly changing -
and there is nothing inherent in the design of optical disc recorders that
can accommodate that in all instances.

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