tmj4 Posted October 19, 2023 Share Posted October 19, 2023 Interesting developments with R_volution as it looks really similar to Zappiti. EDIT: There is some relationship here between them and Zappiti; links on the R_volution website are linking to the Zappiti domain... Little bit of a preview by Let’s Get Physical Distribution Inc. for Michael Stevens (Youthman) from the CEDIA Tech Summit in Orlando : Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappiti Victim Posted October 23, 2023 Share Posted October 23, 2023 If it looks like a rip-off and it smells like a rip-off...... I own 2 Zappiti 4k media players the last of which I purchased only 2 years ago. Reading between the lines Zappiti seem to have got themselves in legal hot-water because their NAS product was able to rip Bluray disks and the US studios were willing to throw unlimited legal resources at them to prevent that functionality. That of course related only to the NAS product. Their media players merely facilitated playback of (percieved) copyrighted material that someone had ripped elsewhere. So what has changed with R_volution? The ability to rip commercial disks to a purpose built NAS has been removed and the player is still a 'play anything' design only with later chip but other than that..... not much. The look & feel of the R_volution product is VERY similar to Zappiti and more importantly is cloud-dependant exactly like it's predecessor. You may notice that even one or two of their web-pages they have neglected to remove the page-tab 'Z' icon at the top. OK so the lawyers were catching up with them..... Many of us paid good money for a top-of-the-range media player with cloud content-naming service that is about to be switched off. If I go out and buy the R_volution product (EUR800 by the way!) what guarantee do I have that the cloud functionalty will not be switched off when the lawyers come sniffing at their door? Zappiti now have form for this type of behavior so those who think they can leave bad business practice behind them are destined to fail. I read a suggestion elsewhere that a replacement app/service naming was going to be offered to existing Zappiti users.... of course, at a cost. Once bitten..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmj4 Posted October 23, 2023 Author Share Posted October 23, 2023 The more research I've done, the more I'm finding out this is still actually the same company, with a rebrand of the player and lineup. Evidently the "R" is to match the Reavon brand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappiti Victim Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 It is an interesting legal exercise to guess why they have done this. For sure..... anything that rips DVD or BD is defeating copyright protection even though the purchaser has legally acquired the content and does not share it with others. I believe the law on this matter is different between US, EU and UK. However selling a fully-functional multi-media player that can play anything, that has a cloud-based naming/artwork service is quite another proposition, particularly when you withdraw the cloud service without notice removing 50%+ of the functionality. If the US studios go after R_volution again because (like Zappiti) the device 'facilitates' playback of potentially copyrighted content then R_volution is already doomed. Fake it 'til you make it.... I wonder how many cloud-based $900 devices they can sell before they yet again declare the company dead and start up again with a different brand-name elsewhere. Looks like R_volution and any other any media player that relies on cloud-based facilities is to be avoided like the plague. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappiti Victim Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 Duplicate in error Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BY96 Posted October 25, 2023 Share Posted October 25, 2023 To be clear, the new NAS, like the Zappiti one, won’t be sold in the US, only elsewhere. There were never legal problems with the media players in this country, only the NAS ripper. The “legal” problem Zappiti had that led to their demise was a bankruptcy related to one partner leaving the business. Those problems had nothing to do with copyright issue. But I am not sure a C4 forum is the place to discuss Zappiti and R_volution and their chances of success. AVSForums and Facebook have plenty of discussions on the matter. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AidenL Posted December 16, 2023 Share Posted December 16, 2023 I just bought a R-volution Player One and the manufacturer has told me that the Zappiti driver will work. My Control 4 installer has added the driver on a trial, and it does work. However, the display name is Zappiti, and the remote controls don't seem to perform the same. My question is, could the name be changed to display properly on Control 4 interfaces? And will Chowmain be bringing out a separate R_volution driver - I don't want to buy the Zappiti driver if a proper R_volution driver is coming, as its not cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drmark12pa Posted December 16, 2023 Share Posted December 16, 2023 I have the basic Zappiti players and unfortunately now that they are gone they no longer have the cloud so my library art is all gone. I didn't realize it was gone as I hadn't used it in a few months and tried loading up the Zappiti Explorer the other day to find offline and then read about no more Zappiti. So now I'm wondering if there is a way to get back all of my movie art. Otherwise, the Zappiti is only good to access my network drives that have the movies stored which is pretty generic. The whole reason I liked the Zappiti was the artwork organization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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