Official TVonics thread

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  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    kai666 wrote: »
    Hi

    I have an HDMI cable with an ethernet connection. I would like to use it in a bid to cut down on the number of cables overflowing behind my telly.

    Is it compatible? When I disconnect the ethernet cable, and test the internet connection, it tells me to no cable is present.

    Are there settings to enable it?

    If not, is it likely to work in future updates?

    many thanks. Great box by the way

    p.s is export to an external drive a possibility in the future?

    Hi,

    No, I'm afraid the box does not support Ethernet over HDMI. The hardware on the box does not provide the option, so I'm afraid it won't be a function we can provide on your product.

    Export to an external drive is something we would like to provide in the future.

    Tim
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 306
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    that's a shame, but never mind.

    any plans for adding Netflix, lovefilm, sky go, itv player 4od etc to go with the iplayer ?

    thank you
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    kai666 wrote: »
    that's a shame, but never mind.

    any plans for adding Netflix, lovefilm, sky go, itv player 4od etc to go with the iplayer ?

    thank you

    ITV player and 4OD would just work if the broadcasters chose to implement the defined digital text method to access the services (the one that the BBC use for iPlayer) .. although I'm not aware that they have any plans to do so.

    We don't have any current developments aimed at either Lovefilm or Netflix .. although that could change in the future.

    Tim
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    Our partner (and guides) in the addition of speech to our products have made a brief announcement here .. http://www.rnib.org.uk/livingwithsightloss/computersphones/updates/techknowmore/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?id=98 ..

    Shame we get second billing to the Panasonic TV!

    .. although it should be noted that you don't need to buy a new TVonics box to get the feature, you can add it to the one you've already got (and we've added speech to every element of our user interface :0) ).

    To be more serious though I need to give credit to the RNIB, they are very much the experts in this field, they made the project a pleasure to work on and its great that the RNIB support teams will be available to those needing help with the set-up and installation.

    Tim
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,856
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    Congratulations to all of you at TVonics and to the partnerhip with the RNIB for getting this feature together.

    If you haven't already seen it, this treat from Peter White (one of the presenters of Radio 4's You and Yours and presenter of In Touch, Children of the Olympic Bid, and Blind Man's Bete Noire, and No Triumph, No Tragedy) when he took part in Stand Up With The Stars for Comic Relief in 2009.

    Peter won the competition: Evan Davis, Libby Purves, and Laurie Taylor also did great routines, my next favourite after Peter's being Libby's.
  • NEWLINEtvNEWLINEtv Posts: 5,420
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    Dear tvonics,

    Tonight, I updated my DTR-HV250 which I purchased yesterday,

    @ 8pm I had 2 recordings set, 1 on BBC1 and 1 on ITV1,

    @ 8pm the screen went black, it automatically turned over to ITV3 (nothing was scheduled on ITV3) (I was on ITV1) and said that there was a recording conflict, that because I was on a different channel (ITV3) it couldn't record BBC1, (but it turned to ITV3 by itself) then, it turned back over to ITV1, why did it change channel by itself? and why did the screen go black?

    Thank You.
  • NEWLINEtvNEWLINEtv Posts: 5,420
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    Just to post an update from my last post, the library had 4 episodes of emmerdale recorded tonight, one had 0 minutes recorded, 2 was on the itv 1 +1 channel, sounded like some sort of recording conflict, or a software bug?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    NEWLINEtv wrote: »
    Just to post an update from my last post, the library had 4 episodes of emmerdale recorded tonight, one had 0 minutes recorded, 2 was on the itv 1 +1 channel, sounded like some sort of recording conflict, or a software bug?

    Hi,

    Please select reset set top box from Menu>Service ..

    I'm not at all sure whats going on with your box ... but that will almost certainly cure it. You will have to set your timers again but nothing recorded will be affected.

    Tim
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    Sue_Aitch wrote: »
    Congratulations to all of you at TVonics and to the partnerhip with the RNIB for getting this feature together.

    If you haven't already seen it, this treat from Peter White (one of the presenters of Radio 4's You and Yours and presenter of In Touch, Children of the Olympic Bid, and Blind Man's Bete Noire, and No Triumph, No Tragedy) when he took part in Stand Up With The Stars for Comic Relief in 2009.

    Peter won the competition: Evan Davis, Libby Purves, and Laurie Taylor also did great routines, my next favourite after Peter's being Libby's.

    Hi Sue,

    Thanks for this. I did post something to the "In Touch" web-site a few weeks ago as you suggested, but didn't get any response.

    Tim
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 6
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    I just bought an HD500 Freeview recorder. I largely chose the TVonics over the Humax for the useful HDMI switching feature I'd read about, but was disappointed to find that you can only use it to pass HDMI signals from other devices when the TVonics is fully powered-up. I was hoping that this would work in standby mode.

    So now, unless I'm missing something, if using my PS3 or Media Centre PC to stream media, as well as those devices using power, I have to have the TVonics powered up (adding another 30w or similar) to my power consumption for all the hours I'm using them. Is there any way around this?

    Otherwise, it looks like the HDMI switching feature is not very useful as it will cost a fair amount in wasted electricity over the years, in comparison with a discrete HDMI switcher box.

    Is anyone regularly using the HD500 to switch between HDMI devices in this way? Is there any solution for this problem?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,856
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    tvonics wrote: »
    Hi Sue,

    Thanks for this. I did post something to the "In Touch" web-site a few weeks ago as you suggested, but didn't get any response.

    Tim

    Hi Tim

    Sorry to read that Radio 4's In Touch producer didn't get in touch.

    Maybe an e-Press Release with demo clip on your TVOnicsUK YouTube channel of the new audio navigation software and the clip of the Colour Scheme choices - would do the trick?

    You might like to copy your National and Local Paper and Talking Newspaper or Magazine Editorial Team with this breaking news too.

    Thank you again for all your help and support to TVonics products' users.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    tdon123 wrote: »
    I just bought an HD500 Freeview recorder. I largely chose the TVonics over the Humax for the useful HDMI switching feature I'd read about, but was disappointed to find that you can only use it to pass HDMI signals from other devices when the TVonics is fully powered-up. I was hoping that this would work in standby mode.

    So now, unless I'm missing something, if using my PS3 or Media Centre PC to stream media, as well as those devices using power, I have to have the TVonics powered up (adding another 30w or similar) to my power consumption for all the hours I'm using them. Is there any way around this?

    Otherwise, it looks like the HDMI switching feature is not very useful as it will cost a fair amount in wasted electricity over the years, in comparison with a discrete HDMI switcher box.

    Is anyone regularly using the HD500 to switch between HDMI devices in this way? Is there any solution for this problem?

    Hi,

    When your box is in standby it removes power from everything, including the main CPU and the HDMI switch. Basically, it just leaves a low-power device monitoring for the standby code from the remote .. and as a result the standby power is reduced to less than half a Watt.

    The architecture that allows us to get the standby power down to such a low level makes it very difficult to come up with a half-way house that leaves the HDMI switch powered up in standby.

    The good news is that the TVonics box is one of the very best in class, using only around 12 Watts rather than the 30 you estimate.

    We have taken the approach that we leave the disk spinning when in HDMI loop through .. because we wanted to allow you to switch between TV and HDMI input relatively seemlessly and without the additional wear-and-tear on the disk of spinning it up and down each time you toggle between the two.

    So ... I guess we could look at a loop-through standby mode where if you selected standby while the box was in loopthrough mode we turned off disk and tuners but left power to other components including the switch. That would probably reduce the power consumption to 5 Watts or so. But then I do wonder whether people would then put the box into standy when it is looping HDMI, expecting it to go into standby .. and be caught out by this 'high-power' standby mode? I'd guess that from a global perspective that would result in more power consumption overall..

    I'll give it some thought .. and suggestions are welcome.

    If you're coming at this more from a cost point of view than a Green point of view, a quick calculation of the cost of the 11.5 Watt difference between standby and loopthrough shows that even if you loopthrough the PS3 for several hours a day the cost is pretty modest .. but I understand that that may not be your only concern.

    Tim
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,856
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    Hi again, Tim

    I've been watching the latest YouTube vid on the Colour Schemes in the PVR menus: is the voice on the vid similar to the audio navigation voice we'll be getting soon?
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    Sue_Aitch wrote: »
    Hi again, Tim

    I've been watching the latest YouTube vid on the Colour Schemes in the PVR menus: is the voice on the vid similar to the audio navigation voice we'll be getting soon?

    Yes.

    I wanted the one with a Welsh accent .. but was overruled.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,856
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    Shame: would have been good to have had Baroness Tanni, Katherine Jenkins or Eve Miles as The Voice cymraig!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 10
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    Hi Tim.

    Have you given any more thought to providing a ‘Source’ option to the video input menu which would output the video resolution and progressive or interlaced scan type as broadcast?

    My main reason for this request is that when setting my DTR-HD500 to 1080p, I can see de-interlacing artefacts in the output video. The best example of this is to watch the BBC News on BBC One HD (broadcast in 1080i) and watch the lips of the news reader when the output resolution is set to 1080p. Setting the HD500 to output 1080i removes the artefacts, I assume due to matching the broadcast scan type. The artefacts resemble a shimmering or stutter like effect. This is not present when I use the internal tuner of the TV connected to the HD500 or the LCD in the bedroom.

    Also as the BBC have recently started to output dynamically switched 1080i/25 and 1080p/25 on the BBC HD channel and a ‘Source’ option would allow the display to change to broadcast resolution.

    As the BBC are going to broadcast the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics in 3D on BBC HD, would the de-interlacing performed by the chip in the HD500 affect the 3D picture in any way?

    Thanks,

    James
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    jdstinch wrote: »
    Hi Tim.

    Have you given any more thought to providing a ‘Source’ option to the video input menu which would output the video resolution and progressive or interlaced scan type as broadcast?

    My main reason for this request is that when setting my DTR-HD500 to 1080p, I can see de-interlacing artefacts in the output video. The best example of this is to watch the BBC News on BBC One HD (broadcast in 1080i) and watch the lips of the news reader when the output resolution is set to 1080p. Setting the HD500 to output 1080i removes the artefacts, I assume due to matching the broadcast scan type. The artefacts resemble a shimmering or stutter like effect. This is not present when I use the internal tuner of the TV connected to the HD500 or the LCD in the bedroom.

    Also as the BBC have recently started to output dynamically switched 1080i/25 and 1080p/25 on the BBC HD channel and a ‘Source’ option would allow the display to change to broadcast resolution.

    As the BBC are going to broadcast the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics in 3D on BBC HD, would the de-interlacing performed by the chip in the HD500 affect the 3D picture in any way?

    Thanks,

    James

    Hi James ..

    I can't believe you haven't bothered to have a quick look back through previous posts before asking that..

    Only joking, this thread is getting a bit silly. Last answer on this was on post 796 which was ..

    "I'm afraid there is no pass-through setting.

    We did discuss this and at one stage we tried out a version. The result was an extra setting (which we generally try to avoid) but also the user experience was horrible. What happens is that as you change channel and the resolution changes the box outputs the signal and the TV takes a significant time to detect the new input resolution and switch its upscaling mode. It leads to a horrible stuttery performance and makes it difficult to read the channel change banner, etc. With some TVs it takes more than 5 seconds to settle back to a picture.

    So the long and short of it is that we concluded that this would be more trouble than it was worth."

    On the 3D question, we tried both the 3D Wimbledon and the 3D Strictly broadcasts and both worked well on the Sony 3D TVs we tried .. from both live broadcast and playback from the recordings on the box.

    Tim
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 10
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    Ooops, I should have checked the earlier posts :)

    Thanks for the quick reply Tim even if I'm a little disappointed by the answer.

    Thank you for the information on the 3D performance.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3
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    Hi,

    I have the DTR-HD500 box. For some reason, it sometimes freezes and restarts itself when I am fast forwarding a recording. What happens, is that I press the fast forward button, it fast forwards a bit, but then it freezes. I then get a no signal message from my tv, and then you can hear the box restarting. After that, its fine.

    Other than this, the box is great. Just gets a bit annoying when this happens.

    Thank you.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1
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    HD500 running the latest firmware V2. Elderly mum's new machine with a couple of observations / problems:

    1. The startup time from standby seems slow at around 20-30 seconds to get a picture on the TV. Why so long?

    2. More seriously, the Guide sometimes drops channels e.g. today ITV1 (Ch3) wasn't showing at all in the guide (went straight from BBC2 to Channel4 listings) even though visible on screen and in the Info screens. I did a system reset and it reappeared. This happened before with other channels and a retune fixed it temporarily. Any ideas?

    Are these kind of problems addressed by this week's software update?

    Viv
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    gt26 wrote: »
    Hi,

    I have the DTR-HD500 box. For some reason, it sometimes freezes and restarts itself when I am fast forwarding a recording. What happens, is that I press the fast forward button, it fast forwards a bit, but then it freezes. I then get a no signal message from my tv, and then you can hear the box restarting. After that, its fine.

    Other than this, the box is great. Just gets a bit annoying when this happens.

    Thank you.

    Hi

    Do you have the latest software installed?

    Tim
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 524
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    vhs25 wrote: »
    HD500 running the latest firmware V2. Elderly mum's new machine with a couple of observations / problems:

    1. The startup time from standby seems slow at around 20-30 seconds to get a picture on the TV. Why so long?

    2. More seriously, the Guide sometimes drops channels e.g. today ITV1 (Ch3) wasn't showing at all in the guide (went straight from BBC2 to Channel4 listings) even though visible on screen and in the Info screens. I did a system reset and it reappeared. This happened before with other channels and a retune fixed it temporarily. Any ideas?

    Are these kind of problems addressed by this week's software update?

    Viv

    Hi

    I'm afraid the long boot-up time is a consequence of the very low standby power. In standby pretty much everything on the box is off .. the chief delay in starting up the box is the time to spin-up the hard disk and the second biggest is the time to get the Linux operating system operational. The task in waking up the box is pretty much the same as booting a PC and unfortunately there isn't much we can do to speed it up .. or at least not much we can do while keeping the very low standby power consumption.

    The only thing I can think that would remove a channel from the guide but still allow you to tune to it would be if it was hidden by a selection from the menu "hide channels" option. Hide channels is the first option on the menu so you may have done this accidentally? If there is a toddler in the house that is where my finger of suspicion would be pointing! If it happens again, check menu>hide channels, which will display which channels are hidden.

    Tim
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1
    Forum Member
    My dtrhv250 has the latest firmware, when I insert the usb and go to beta video and press play the video plays but without sound.I have tried with various formats in particular avi, but with the sme result.Brilliant picture no sound?. Mike
  • nebogipfelnebogipfel Posts: 8,375
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    Thanks for the extra sort by date within alpha sorts. Grateful for that - takes the fiddle out of our "watch a stack of the same thing" sessions.

    We're sticking with the groovy Onyx colour scheme though. :)
  • tweenietweenie Posts: 500
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    I'm posting here as this is the official TVonics thread although my question is not about a recorder.

    Does the MDR252 require higher signal strength than other freeview boxes ?

    My parent has a MDR252 supplied by the helpscheme. It is connected via a passive splitter and a cable length of 2 rooms - the splitter and cable provided by the helpscheme.

    Prior to DSO the picture was fine unless it rained then the picture completely broke up. The signal level was showing as yellow.

    On switchover day I tried a full retune and reset ( several times) however it was worse than before DSO. Complete picture breakdown (it was raining). The signal level still showing as yellow. I had expected to see an improvement in signal level.

    I plugged in an old Digihome box and that shows a nearly full signal and there has been no picture breakdown in the rain.

    I tried the MDR252 at my house and it gets a better signal.

    I'd like to try the universal remote to try and control the Digihome (its remote has very small buttons). Where can I find the codes for the Digihome and also the MDR252 if I wish to reset it back.
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