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HomeChoice - the one big disadvantage
Inkblot
Posts: 26,889 Forum Member
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A week ago or so I asked on here if it was possible to set the HomeChoice STB in order to record programmes (on a VCR) while on holiday or whatever. The answer was no. I followed this up with a call to HC and the guy there confirmed this - they say the only way to record programmes is to leave the STB on and hope that nothing occurs to prevent the recording while you're away.
To me this is a major drawback. If you're watching a new series on E4, for instance the West Wing, you get a couple of chances to see each episode and then it's gone - maybe it will turn up on Channel 4, maybe it won't. The only way to be sure of seeing all the episodes is to tape them.
So, do other people think this is an issue? Is there any way around it? Do HC have major new series such as the West Wing available on demand? Given that the series currently on E4 probably won't be seen on terrestrial for a year or so, would HomeChoice get it before C4 or after (or never)?
Thanks for any info you can offer.
To me this is a major drawback. If you're watching a new series on E4, for instance the West Wing, you get a couple of chances to see each episode and then it's gone - maybe it will turn up on Channel 4, maybe it won't. The only way to be sure of seeing all the episodes is to tape them.
So, do other people think this is an issue? Is there any way around it? Do HC have major new series such as the West Wing available on demand? Given that the series currently on E4 probably won't be seen on terrestrial for a year or so, would HomeChoice get it before C4 or after (or never)?
Thanks for any info you can offer.
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In response to your recording question - With the current homechoice service I can't see any feasible way you can achieve this 'tivo-like' functionality. Leaving your STB running and programming your VCR is one way - but outages, powerfailures and session timeouts make this tricky.
Interestingly enough, the technology is there to enable one to access every piece of content shown on the channels that homechoice carry (via homechoice's reply function), however, this service is mired in licensing and contractual issues which prevent it (hence the small replay content).
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The best solution would be an extension of the replay facility to cover all programmes carried byHomeChoice. I'm sure the legal problems surrounding this are going to take a while to overcome, if only because overcoming legal problems is very expensive. But it sounds as if the technology isn't a problem.
So, they could modify whatever EPG they're currently using to allow customer to set reminders or channel changes that can be used to change the box over so that programmes can be recorded. And, because it'll all be controlled at their end, even if you did have a power cut, as long as the box came back on afterwards, it should still make the right changes.
Or, they could go one step further and allocate everyone something like 20 hours of programmes that they can set to 'record' on their account which keeps a copy of that programme available only to those people who asked for it (inc. ad breaks etc. so that it's pretty much exactly like a VCR or Tivo recording). For popular shows (for example soaps) they wouldn't need to put inc a copy of that episode in everyones list, they can just have 1 'master' copy and everyone else can link to that.
As long as people have to choose beforehand what to record and don't automatically have access to it, I don't see how that's any different from Sky Plus so there shouldn't be any licensing problems maybe?
This concerns me somewhat. I had the original Homechoice service (i.e. all VOD) and never noticed any problems. Are there problems watching live tv and/or VOD? What is the quality of the live programmes?
The guy at HomeChoice said more or less the same thing as phosphor, ie that you could try to leave the STB running while you're on holiday but there was no guarantee it would work. I don't think he meant there would be a problem while you were actually watching HC, just that unattended recordings might be subject to outages.
You probably shouldn't record VOD TV and films or music because you're paying to watch them on demand not off your video. But I'm asking about recording normal TV programmes as they go out on E4, UKTV Gold, etc, in order to timeshift them to a time when I'm back home again.