I don't think I could come up with 10 software issues....
For me, by far the biggest issue was the "lost all recordings" problem. This is supposed to have been fixed in 1.00.06, but it's too early know for sure.
The next biggest issue is that the box should always record what you ask it to. It should never be possible to schedule a recording which subsequently fails to record. Unfortunately, several people have shown it is possible to do in 1.00.06 with certain combinations of auto-padding and back-to-back recordings. Auto-padding is a great feature, but the implementation is clearly not 100% there yet.
I can only think of two other issues: keep the EPG on disk; and make USB transfer of video files fast and reliable.
I have only one request now. Given that the EPG seems to constantly update, unlike the Fusion where it is downloaded at a certain time, surely it would be possible to have dynamic changes to recording times if a program is delayed, eg if the football is longer and means the following program that is set for recording is late. Now that we have the autopadding it means we dont need to pad ourselves and so it should always be clear to the Humax exactly what show we want to record (we just click it on the EPG). So surely this must be possible.....
Oh and maybe keep MP3s playing while in the Menu, that would be nice.
I have only one request now. Given that the EPG seems to constantly update, unlike the Fusion where it is downloaded at a certain time, surely it would be possible to have dynamic changes to recording times if a program is delayed, eg if the football is longer and means the following program that is set for recording is late. Now that we have the autopadding it means we dont need to pad ourselves and so it should always be clear to the Humax exactly what show we want to record (we just click it on the EPG). So surely this must be possible.....
Oh and maybe keep MP3s playing while in the Menu, that would be nice.
No #1 irritation for me at the moment is the fact that my Yamaha AV amp volume control changes Humax channels if used immediately after a Humax channel up or down.
Good heavens, I thought that was just me!
1. I would like the Text / MHEG to work when exiting from the menu without having to press the guide first.
2. Don't dump me out of text or annoy me with messages when recording starts.
I'd like to see the next/previous day buttons not need the 'coloured' button to be pressed first when navigating the guide .
And to show the day at the top as well as the date would be great .
I'm probably the only person to ask this , but if you use the Radio quite a bit as I do , it would be easier to use if the front display showed the channel number requested , as the old 8000T did ( -702 for example ) that way you can see straight away what buttons are pressed when the TV is turned off .
I'd still like to be able to edit the programme names shown in the display too ...
But I reckon ALL of these are less improvements to the existing software rather , additional requests ... Sorry .
I can only think of a couple off the top of my head :
Do not dump the buffer when i go into the menu and exit back out, maintain the buffer as the channel isnt changed !
An option to delete images on the Humax. If this already exists i havent managed to find it.
Make the EPG use more space on screen. Four lines of text / channels at a time is NOT enough. The screen [personally] isnt needed when browsing the EPG. Alternatively make the EPG transparent meaning we can read the EPG AND have a fullscreen tv in the background.
I can only think of a couple off the top of my head :
Do not dump the buffer when i go into the menu and exit back out, maintain the buffer as the channel isnt changed !
An option to delete images on the Humax. If this already exists i havent managed to find it.
Make the EPG use more space on screen. Four lines of text / channels at a time is NOT enough. The screen [personally] isnt needed when browsing the EPG. Alternatively make the EPG transparent meaning we can read the EPG AND have a fullscreen tv in the background.
on the tompson box, pressing guide inside the guide, toggled between big and small epg mode, with the preview suppressed in big epg mode in favor of more lines on screen.
An option to delete images on the Humax. If this already exists i havent managed to find it.
And MP3's too .
I have loads of MP3's stored on the Humax which need deleting and I dare not use E-Linker until I have watched all the TV I have waiting to be seen . Then I could just format the drive I suppose anyway .
Mind you now we are all Football Crazy us non 'footie' watchers will have plenty of time ...
Lots of excellent ideas to keep Humax working for a long time....
Two things that bother me about the otherwise excellent and continually improving (hopefully) 9200 are the intensity of the front panel display (I can read by mine) which is very bright at night in a bedroom.
When editing out part of a recording, an ad break for instance, the recording picture and sound is corrupted for several seconds either side of the edit.
Hope these are both software issues that can be addressed.
Two things that bother me about the otherwise excellent and continually improving (hopefully) 9200 are the intensity of the front panel display (I can read by mine) which is very bright at night in a bedroom.
I doubt Humax could alter the brightness, but they might be able to provide an option to turn it off. My old VCR had an option to turn the display off when in standby -- it would only keep the timer light on if necessary.
Lots of excellent ideas to keep Humax working for a long time....
Two things that bother me about the otherwise excellent and continually improving (hopefully) 9200 are the intensity of the front panel display (I can read by mine) which is very bright at night in a bedroom.
When editing out part of a recording, an ad break for instance, the recording picture and sound is corrupted for several seconds either side of the edit.
Hope these are both software issues that can be addressed.
There's always the two year RTB guarentee to fall back on, what a product!
i really only have one and that is to sort out the EPG so that when on a channel you can scroll through all the channels and times from the info button. like the Digifusion fvt145 does.
OK we've got the 9200T with loader A4.07 and software PGXTF 1.00.06
issues at the moment in no particular order are
1 - loader upgrade is apparently only available via PC and then only via serial line, capability for USB upgrades of software and loader would be very useful
as a suggestion use some space on the hdd for upgrades - possibly use a file with a specific name, dump the upgrade there and reboot the stb, the stb verifies the upgrade and if it's ok installs the upgrade, deletes the file and reboots with the upgraded software otherwise it displays a fault message, waits for an ok from the remote, deletes the faulty upgrade and reboots with it's software unchanged
without either an OTA or USB upgrade for the loader it's unlikely our box will ever have the loader updated
2 - media e-linker needs to go, the stb should just look like a large external disk or set of disks to a usb connected pc, and invalid characters in filenames of files transferred to the PC should be corrected on the fly a simple conversion to underscores would do
3 - when the machine is in standby and a recording is set to wake it up, the stb will freeze at the start time of the program, the clock will stop and the stb won't respond to the remote, setting the program for daily record will work round this, not tried weekly yet. this has only occurred since the 1.00.06 update
4 - occasionally when using BBCi or other interactive services the wrong one gets selected, rescanning the channels has fixed this so far but seems a rather drastic workaround
5 - looking at bbc news multiscreen causes the stb to forget it was displaying a favourites group and switch to the default TV grouping
6 - the remote seems awkward and tends to repeat the last button pressed despite pressing a new button, for example if you step through the channels a few times and then hit the any other button the machine will continue to step through channels, I don't know if the problem is in the remote or the STB
7 - the channel you are watching blanks for a second when a recording of a different channel stops
8 - there shouldn't be a limit on the number of scheduled recordings I would suggest using a linked list and not an array to store them
9 - the step increases on fast forward speed are 2,4,16 and 64. a 32 would be nice as 64 is way too fast, also a means of stepping back down the speed say from 16 to 4 to 2 rather than 16 to 1 would be useful
apologies if any of the above are covered in the loader upgrade to A4.09
and if anyone has recorded NYPD Blue for the last two nights and still has them I wouldn't mind seeing them as thanks to diagnosing number 3 on the list I missed them
---- edit ----
and further apologies if some of these seem more like wishes rather than bug fixes
...3 - when the machine is in standby and a recording is set to wake it up, the stb will freeze at the start time of the program, the clock will stop and the stb won't respond to the remote, setting the program for daily record will work round this, not tried weekly yet. this has only occurred since the 1.00.06 update
setting for a daily record didn't work last night, the STB still froze at about 11:30
I've noticed that when I play mp3's then go back to tv all interactive services (mhegs or whatever you call them) stop working and only a restart will get them back, I've had a look in the forum to see if this has been documented but couldnt find anything, is this a common fault?
I've noticed that when I play mp3's then go back to tv all interactive services (mhegs or whatever you call them) stop working and only a restart will get them back, I've had a look in the forum to see if this has been documented but couldnt find anything, is this a common fault?
Just out of interest whats best svideo or rgb?
Cheers.
Yep, when you go into the menu (which you have to do to paly MP3s) interactive services are disabled.
You don't need to resart the box, just press guide twice.
6) Ad skip and replay buttons should work better -- press them too quickly in succession and they stutter instead of skipping/replaying.
This is fixed in the latest version (1..0...6?)
Commercial skip needs a 2 minute option added to the list.
Now the buttons can be pressed fast this is hardly needed. I find I'm overshooting a couple of presses into the program because of overenthusiastic pressing :eek:
So several people have said (although I think they said it seemed better to them, rather than fixed). However I have noticed no difference whatsoever. I think maybe people are now used to pressing it at the "right" speed (quickly, but not too quickly). Try doing it really quickly -- taptaptaptap -- and you will find that it stutters and you have to press it twice as many times. Humax have made no claim of having fixed/improved/tampered with it AFAIK.
EDIT: I partially retract what I said above (and previously). It appears to be fixed for playing (not sure about chaseplay), but not buffering (or is intermittent, I'm not sure which).
Here's my ten No particular order or importance...
Some have been covered by others, some not...
Bug fixes:
Missed recordings due to autopadding
Remote control clashes changing the channels
Advance date stamped on repeated timers recordings
Think it is still recording
MHEG/Lock-up - provide MHEG on/off switch at least
Lost of all recordings!
Improvements/niggles to fix:
Stored EPG
Schedule timers should at least 100
Recording message should not appear
No messages should appear on VCR SCART
Autopadding - smarter padding, use of 2nd tuner when available
Chase Play - return to real-time channel when chase play buffer is exhausted
Truncated names of recordings in 'recorded programmes list should not happen
Weekdays and Weekends repeated timers option
x32 speed option should be available - plus step down in speed as well as up
Recordings list - should be able to do more when in it, like EPG info, and delete from there - not just Play.
Display another channel line in the Guide
Should not dump buffer when using Guide to 'preview' channels. Only dump when exiting, otherwise keep when returned & exit.
You should not need to 'delete' channels - just marked as 'not shown' - then a re-scan/tune should not bring them back and hence does not need deleting again.
Wish-list/Feature requests:
Faster, more robust USB recordings transfer - improve eLinker too
Hooks into the OS for 3rd party developers & hackers
Here's my ten No particular order or importance...
Some have been covered by others, some not...
Bug fixes:
Autopadding - smarter padding, use of 2nd tuner when available
Excellent summary list, the 9200T would be unbeatable if we get this lot, one question?
What does the above referance to auto padding mean?
Currently if recordings are consecutive, auto padding is dropped, if recordings only overlap, autopadding is added to both, so the second tuner is already being used??????
Or do you mean use the second tuner if free to pad the recording on the first?
Is this really required? Can the video stream on the first channel not be written to the end of the first programme and the start of the second at the same time? And same with the second tuner? Sound's easy but probably not!!
Excellent summary list, the 9200T would be unbeatable if we get this lot, one question?
What does the above referance to auto padding mean?
Currently if recordings are consecutive, auto padding is dropped, if recordings only overlap, autopadding is added to both, so the second tuner is already being used??????
Or do you mean use the second tuner if free to pad the recording on the first?
Is this really required? Can the video stream on the first channel not be written to the end of the first programme and the start of the second at the same time? And same with the second tuner? Sound's easy but probably not!!
Woolfynorm.
Seems like autopadding is a bit of a miss and hit and it doesn't seem to do what you expect it to do.
It is hard to conclude what is happening from the autopadding experiments thread, anyone care to give a concise sumary/conclusion?
I think smarter here is the keyword and the second tuner bit should be employed when in standby - i.e. when the live buffer is not needed. I got a feeling that the autopadding logic is the same whether the box is in standby or not...(?)
niggles to fix - Increase the size of the Mp3 partition... So simple to do, or have an option on initial factory start up of setting an MP3 Partition size...
It's the only thing currently stopping me buying one of these!!!
Comments
For me, by far the biggest issue was the "lost all recordings" problem. This is supposed to have been fixed in 1.00.06, but it's too early know for sure.
The next biggest issue is that the box should always record what you ask it to. It should never be possible to schedule a recording which subsequently fails to record. Unfortunately, several people have shown it is possible to do in 1.00.06 with certain combinations of auto-padding and back-to-back recordings. Auto-padding is a great feature, but the implementation is clearly not 100% there yet.
I can only think of two other issues: keep the EPG on disk; and make USB transfer of video files fast and reliable.
Oh and maybe keep MP3s playing while in the Menu, that would be nice.
Sky+ can do it because Sky maintains the TiVo TV prog info in the UK!?!
Good heavens, I thought that was just me!
1. I would like the Text / MHEG to work when exiting from the menu without having to press the guide first.
2. Don't dump me out of text or annoy me with messages when recording starts.
An 8x FF/REW sounds a good idea .
As does a 32x ...
I'd like to see the next/previous day buttons not need the 'coloured' button to be pressed first when navigating the guide .
And to show the day at the top as well as the date would be great .
I'm probably the only person to ask this , but if you use the Radio quite a bit as I do , it would be easier to use if the front display showed the channel number requested , as the old 8000T did ( -702 for example ) that way you can see straight away what buttons are pressed when the TV is turned off .
I'd still like to be able to edit the programme names shown in the display too ...
But I reckon ALL of these are less improvements to the existing software rather , additional requests ... Sorry .
Do not dump the buffer when i go into the menu and exit back out, maintain the buffer as the channel isnt changed !
An option to delete images on the Humax. If this already exists i havent managed to find it.
Make the EPG use more space on screen. Four lines of text / channels at a time is NOT enough. The screen [personally] isnt needed when browsing the EPG. Alternatively make the EPG transparent meaning we can read the EPG AND have a fullscreen tv in the background.
on the tompson box, pressing guide inside the guide, toggled between big and small epg mode, with the preview suppressed in big epg mode in favor of more lines on screen.
And MP3's too .
I have loads of MP3's stored on the Humax which need deleting and I dare not use E-Linker until I have watched all the TV I have waiting to be seen . Then I could just format the drive I suppose anyway .
Mind you now we are all Football Crazy us non 'footie' watchers will have plenty of time ...
Two things that bother me about the otherwise excellent and continually improving (hopefully) 9200 are the intensity of the front panel display (I can read by mine) which is very bright at night in a bedroom.
When editing out part of a recording, an ad break for instance, the recording picture and sound is corrupted for several seconds either side of the edit.
Hope these are both software issues that can be addressed.
I doubt Humax could alter the brightness, but they might be able to provide an option to turn it off. My old VCR had an option to turn the display off when in standby -- it would only keep the timer light on if necessary.
There's always the two year RTB guarentee to fall back on, what a product!
Woolfynorm
issues at the moment in no particular order are
1 - loader upgrade is apparently only available via PC and then only via serial line, capability for USB upgrades of software and loader would be very useful
as a suggestion use some space on the hdd for upgrades - possibly use a file with a specific name, dump the upgrade there and reboot the stb, the stb verifies the upgrade and if it's ok installs the upgrade, deletes the file and reboots with the upgraded software otherwise it displays a fault message, waits for an ok from the remote, deletes the faulty upgrade and reboots with it's software unchanged
without either an OTA or USB upgrade for the loader it's unlikely our box will ever have the loader updated
2 - media e-linker needs to go, the stb should just look like a large external disk or set of disks to a usb connected pc, and invalid characters in filenames of files transferred to the PC should be corrected on the fly a simple conversion to underscores would do
3 - when the machine is in standby and a recording is set to wake it up, the stb will freeze at the start time of the program, the clock will stop and the stb won't respond to the remote, setting the program for daily record will work round this, not tried weekly yet. this has only occurred since the 1.00.06 update
4 - occasionally when using BBCi or other interactive services the wrong one gets selected, rescanning the channels has fixed this so far but seems a rather drastic workaround
5 - looking at bbc news multiscreen causes the stb to forget it was displaying a favourites group and switch to the default TV grouping
6 - the remote seems awkward and tends to repeat the last button pressed despite pressing a new button, for example if you step through the channels a few times and then hit the any other button the machine will continue to step through channels, I don't know if the problem is in the remote or the STB
7 - the channel you are watching blanks for a second when a recording of a different channel stops
8 - there shouldn't be a limit on the number of scheduled recordings I would suggest using a linked list and not an array to store them
9 - the step increases on fast forward speed are 2,4,16 and 64. a 32 would be nice as 64 is way too fast, also a means of stepping back down the speed say from 16 to 4 to 2 rather than 16 to 1 would be useful
apologies if any of the above are covered in the loader upgrade to A4.09
and if anyone has recorded NYPD Blue for the last two nights and still has them I wouldn't mind seeing them as thanks to diagnosing number 3 on the list I missed them
---- edit ----
and further apologies if some of these seem more like wishes rather than bug fixes
setting for a daily record didn't work last night, the STB still froze at about 11:30
Just out of interest whats best svideo or rgb?
Cheers.
You don't need to resart the box, just press guide twice.
Now the buttons can be pressed fast this is hardly needed. I find I'm overshooting a couple of presses into the program because of overenthusiastic pressing :eek:
So several people have said (although I think they said it seemed better to them, rather than fixed). However I have noticed no difference whatsoever. I think maybe people are now used to pressing it at the "right" speed (quickly, but not too quickly). Try doing it really quickly -- taptaptaptap -- and you will find that it stutters and you have to press it twice as many times. Humax have made no claim of having fixed/improved/tampered with it AFAIK.
EDIT: I partially retract what I said above (and previously). It appears to be fixed for playing (not sure about chaseplay), but not buffering (or is intermittent, I'm not sure which).
Some have been covered by others, some not...
Bug fixes:
Missed recordings due to autopadding
Remote control clashes changing the channels
Advance date stamped on repeated timers recordings
Think it is still recording
MHEG/Lock-up - provide MHEG on/off switch at least
Lost of all recordings!
Improvements/niggles to fix:
Stored EPG
Schedule timers should at least 100
Recording message should not appear
No messages should appear on VCR SCART
Autopadding - smarter padding, use of 2nd tuner when available
Chase Play - return to real-time channel when chase play buffer is exhausted
Truncated names of recordings in 'recorded programmes list should not happen
Weekdays and Weekends repeated timers option
x32 speed option should be available - plus step down in speed as well as up
Recordings list - should be able to do more when in it, like EPG info, and delete from there - not just Play.
Display another channel line in the Guide
Should not dump buffer when using Guide to 'preview' channels. Only dump when exiting, otherwise keep when returned & exit.
You should not need to 'delete' channels - just marked as 'not shown' - then a re-scan/tune should not bring them back and hence does not need deleting again.
Wish-list/Feature requests:
Faster, more robust USB recordings transfer - improve eLinker too
Hooks into the OS for 3rd party developers & hackers
Excellent summary list, the 9200T would be unbeatable if we get this lot, one question?
What does the above referance to auto padding mean?
Currently if recordings are consecutive, auto padding is dropped, if recordings only overlap, autopadding is added to both, so the second tuner is already being used??????
Or do you mean use the second tuner if free to pad the recording on the first?
Is this really required? Can the video stream on the first channel not be written to the end of the first programme and the start of the second at the same time? And same with the second tuner? Sound's easy but probably not!!
Woolfynorm.
Seems like autopadding is a bit of a miss and hit and it doesn't seem to do what you expect it to do.
It is hard to conclude what is happening from the autopadding experiments thread, anyone care to give a concise sumary/conclusion?
I think smarter here is the keyword and the second tuner bit should be employed when in standby - i.e. when the live buffer is not needed. I got a feeling that the autopadding logic is the same whether the box is in standby or not...(?)
Sort & Group recordings - by programme names, channels, genres, put recorded programmes in folders and subfolders...
It's the only thing currently stopping me buying one of these!!!
Paul