Do you "Update" your firmware

[glen]

Whenever I turn on my Ht system, the LG blu-Ray wants me to Update the firmware.
Alright, I'll click ok.
Then it acts as if it is accessing the update with a 14400 modem.
I have the thing hardwired into the router, and it streams what must be gigs of movies effortlessly, but can't even update the firmware in under 30 mins?
Is it worth it?
is this normal?

 

[glen]

Download is in progress...

 

[glen]

still going...

 

[glen]

downloaded and now it is updating forever....

 

[MagickMan]

Same here. I just got home and turned it on and it started. What's worse, mine's doing it over wifi.:\

 

[glen]

What have we gained?
Is it more better now?

 

[sdifox]

smart people download the firmware on computer and put it on stick. take stick to player and update that way.

 

[MagickMan]

No big deal, gives me time to make dinner anyway.

 

[simonizor]

smart people download the firmware on computer and put it on stick. take stick to player and update that way.

The point is that there's no reason that a box that can stream high quality movies effortlessly can't download and install an update in a reasonable amount of time. Sure, we are aware you could do it through your computer in much less time, but that's not the point.

 

[MagickMan]

Mine finished downloading in ~25 minutes, but it's been "updating" for almost an hour.

 

[evilspoons]

It's not really high priority to make an efficient firmware updating system when you're trying to sell Blu-Ray players to picky consumers at a 2% margin.

The flash memory the firmware is stored on is probably horribly slow to save cost and it's swapping chunks of the downloaded file back and forth because it hardly has any RAM left, etc. etc.

Ever updated the firmware on a playstation 3? Crikey. There's plenty of evidence it's a powerful system, CPU-wise, but system updates are glacial.

 

[glen]

Does anyone know what we are getting for all this effort?
I could not find out anything from LG's web.

 

[JoeBleed]

Everything i've been told about firmware updates is related to blu-ray encryption and how it changes to fight piracy. Supposedly if your firmware gets too old and you buy a new blu-ray disk, it may not play because your players firmware doesn't have the right decrypting information. Along side that, they manufacture may be making some fixes to its operating software.

I'm not sure how accurate this is, though i remember some people buying some new disks and not being able to play them on their early generation players with out an update.

 

[sdifox]

Everything i've been told about firmware updates is related to blu-ray encryption and how it changes to fight piracy. Supposedly if your firmware gets too old and you buy a new blu-ray disk, it may not play because your players firmware doesn't have the right decrypting information. Along side that, they manufacture may be making some fixes to its operating software.

I'm not sure how accurate this is, though i remember some people buying some new disks and not being able to play them on their early generation players with out an update.

Pretty accurate.

 

[sivart]

As far as firmware goes, my motto is..."If it ain't broke, don't break it."

I normally don't upgrade until something won't play or a feature I want to use won't work.

 

[jtvang125]

Yea, updating firmware on A/V devices are painful. Manufacturers generally don't have time to design an efficient firmware updating process. On many its just an after thought. Another reason why it might be so slow is the error checking it does on every small chunk of data it reads and writes. Any errors in the process and the device could be an expensive paper weight.

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm pissed with Panasonic.... they must have updated their Firmware on my BluRay player half a dozen times in the last year and a half, and they STILL haven't added Netflix support like the new models have. Instead, I get an empty box on the Viera Cast screen saying "Coming Soon".

That really sucks, guys.

 

[sivart]

I'm pissed with Panasonic.... they must have updated their Firmware on my BluRay player half a dozen times in the last year and a half, and they STILL haven't added Netflix support like the new models have. Instead, I get an empty box on the Viera Cast screen saying "Coming Soon".

That really sucks, guys.

Hey, you could be using the LG BH200 like I am. I have to add a USB stick to the front of the device to use any BD-Live features. It will play music and pictures from a USB drive, but no other special features. Of course the one thing it has going for it is that it will play DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD...thus freeing up a slot in the rack

 

[djnsmith7]

I've always done my updates via USB stick or disc. It's simple, fast & works every time. I've read way too many complaints about the internet updates having too many issues to even deal with.

I only update my firmware when there's a known problem with a movie that won't play, or if the firmware notes reference an increase in speed / performance.