FIA On3 Networked Multimedia System Reviewed

Anonymous Howard writes "Designtechnica has reviewed Fia's On3 networked multimedia system. It uses Linux for its OS, supports Samba, audio & video (including Ogg), but the On3 seems to be marred by a lack of some important features. For example, you can't create playlists or autoplaylists (playlists based on rules.) You can only play music sorted in folders, so if your music is sorted by artist and album, you can only listen to each folder at a time. Files are played back in alphanumeric order, so playback order depends on how the tracks are named. The On3 does not handle ID3 tags and track names are simply the name of the file. I'm trying to find a non-microsoft, out-of-the-box solution for a networked media system. Are there any other solutions out there? How do they compare? Are they worth it or does the industry still have a lot of growing to do?"

Comments

Not Just Hacking --> Easy for Chinese to Pirate

[Anonymous Coward]

Fia had better hope that its multimedia system does not become too popular. Otherwise, the Chinese will outright steal its design and stamp out millions of clones. In the end, Fia will actually lose money on its efforts because Fia will not be able to sell its product at a sufficiently high price.

Worse, the Chinese (as documented by various industry groups and the U.S. Commerce department) will block any patent applications by Fia in China. Then, Chinese companies (with implicit approval from Beijing) will submit applications, to the Chinese government, for a patent on the very technology that Fia had hoped to patent. When Fia sells its genuine systems in China, Fia must then pay the Chinese companies for "violating" their patents.

Does anyone think that the Chinese behavior stinks?