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Need help with Viewcast Niagara Pro II. Won't boot up.

I hope I am at the right place. If not, Mods please move to the right place.

I purchased a Viewcast Niagara Pro II on a whim while bidding on something else from NASA. I am involved in the local music scene and I was planning to use it to stream bands and artists I work with live on YouTube, and even stream their recording sessions. As a regular on government auction websites I should have been aware that the government removes hard drives but I kind of assumed that this not being a computer they might leave the drive intact with the original software.

I won the bidding, got it to my recording studio, however when I turned it on, it would go up to showing the version and serial number, and then stop at booting. I have not opened up the Niagara Pro yet. It has rounded hex screws and the fact that NASA seems to have opened it up already has slightly stripped the screws so I plan to open it up as a last resort.

I am assuming two things; either the drive has been removed or the drive has been erased. I am betting there is no hard drive. I have a few questions.

  1. Does the message on boot up mean anything in regards to the hard drive? I am assuming like a computer without a hard drive you can still boot up to the bios message.

  2. What are my options? I downloaded the Windows Embedded Standard 7 and since the serial is on the Niagara I am guessing I should have no problem installing that. However the issue seems to be the SCX software. I can’t get hold of it nor would even know how to go about installing it over the Windows. I contacted the company that now owns the Viewcast line. They have been very kind and helpful, however their options are very expensive for me. A box just to return the Niagara to them would cost me $100. Their best price to fix the issue is $3655 plus shipping. For that money I am better off simply buying a newer and better one off Ebay.

  3. I am at a loss at what to do next. Has anyone been faced with the issue of of reinstalling the Niagara software on a clean hard drive? I was told there is no way this can be done without sending the device back to them. Do I have alternative options? Can I install something else and still use the device? While researching it I noticed that Cisco sell an identical system. This leads me to believe there may be alternative software that can be installed. I truly would appreciate any help in going about in getting this to work. I was really excited about streaming the bands and artists live and it has been a big let down.

Thanks.

Rick.

Hi,

In my opinion, the only way of having your Viewcast Niagara Pro II work is to have the original software re-installed. Since the manufacturer of this device requires you to send it back to them, it would suggest that there is no installation software/procedure available for public download.

Zoran

Yes, it seems you are right that it is indeed my only option. However for the price they are seeking, I am better off buying one working off Ebay for half the price, something I plan to do. By the way for live streaming is there something better or cheaper out there? What are most people using to stream?