Quite. Bob said there were implications to redesigning the bootloader, but there are implications to NOT doing so as well.

Many people will have a reasonable idea of how they expect such a product to function (and/or may develop one during the course of using it), and as long as Humax don't deliver that - unwanted activation of video ports, forced automatic creation of folders for series links / inability to delete folders from the media manager interface, etc. - then people will start to look if the grass is greener somewhere else.

I WISH MY TV WOULD AUTO SWITCH, it would save having to push four buttons on my remote to get to the HDMI input selection option.

IS THAT ALL. I have to press 5 buttons to get to my HDMI input. I do live a bit further west than you in Somerset. I want autoswitching

Bob,

Why not get him a job in Humax for, say, a week. I'm sure he'll have a new release finished for you in (irish) jig time. :yawn:

Sounds like my mates Samsung, he wanted to sell it after a month of use.

Please note, if your TV doesn't auto-switch then it is not related to Humax, auto-switching is a function of the TV upon receiving an input. I am aware that some TVs have been manufactured to only support auto-switching on their primary HDMI but I cannot confirm which models.

Bob

Hello, sleepyhead!

When you've properly woken up you might be embarrassed at the fatuousness of the above remark.

Do you belive that. overall, Hitler was bad at governing Germany?

If not, does that imply you think you could goven a country?

Do you believe that our trains are run perfectly?

If not does that imply that you think you could run a national railway system ?

Can you see where we're going with this?

Someone recognising that something has been performed, designed or implemented incompetantly does not necessarily imply that that person believes they could do a better job.

If a surgeon operated on you and left some instruments inside, you could certainly complain about their competance without some dimwit implying that because you are not a surgeon you should not be complaining.

That's just bad tv design I'm afraid.

I think whatever way you look at it, auto switching is a bad idea. Even if every connected device's vendor implements the signals properly, there will be problems from time to time and there's going to be nothing more annoying than your tv switching to the wrong input at some vital moment.
Far better to have manual switching.

Some manufacturers could do to take a leaf out of Pioneers design manual. Want to change input, they're right here:

http://img118.imageshack.us/i/pioneerremote.jpg/

Sometimes the simplest designs are the best!

And I take the opposite view!

I think that TV inputs that "autoswitch" can be extremely useful.

If I was designing a TV, I would ensure that each input was capable of "autoswitching" but there would also be an option in the setup menu to switch this feature on/off for each input, individually. This should keep everyone happy.



Graham.

I had a similar problem with my Samsung tv. I had to cycle it 6/7 times after every time I went to my other device after using the Humax, the other (Sony) device had a rgb individual cables connection - experimenting (out of frustration) I changed that to a scart connection, letting the tv do the upsizing, as it didn't really make that much difference. Now it remembers where I was and I don't need to do the cycling anymore.

It made quite a difference!

Patrick

On balance I would agree with you. I really would prefer autoswitching rather than a badly designed Pioneer remote, with keys scattered around.

Hello yourself.


Thats absolutely true. However, you have taken a position on Humax that would indicate that you have considerable expertise in the area of software/hardware integration.
If that is not the case, your comments are somewhat rash.

I have many years of professional experience, in the software development area. I appreciate the level of effort required to bring a product of this nature to market. I don't disagree that there are some issues with the Humax box - indeed, mine has been turned off for a number of months now. However, the Humax box is easily the equal of the Sky HD equivalent. Considering the relative maturity of the Sky platform, and the development budget available to their suppliers, this reflects very well on Humax.

As I said above, the problem with that is when you get a glitch.

A glitch can't physically press a remote button, but it can make your tv change channels with auto switching when you don't want it to though ruining whatever you're doing.

Then there's always issues of compatibility, as we've already seen.

You're entitled to your view, and I'm entitled to mine, but somehow I think buttons are far safer and given its no harder than changing channels, I fail to see the hassle.

I do indeed have (too) many years such experience.

That's why I don't make any fuss about the delete 'feature' because I recognise that that is a complex issue relating to the interaction between the Humax software and the Linux file system.

Similarly I can make an educated guess that if Humax are saying they can't fix the 'input switch on boot' problem then that is down to port not being clamped and thus 'activating' as soon as the device is switched out of standby - i.e. before the bootloader has even started. If this is the case then it would need a hardware mod to fix. The idea that no one could make a simple change to the boot loader is a little weird unless it's for reasons I mentioned elsewhere.

On the other hand there is a good list of UI idiocies that should have been sorted out within weeks.


I am on record as saying that the Humax is an excellent box and even if there is never an update I'll still be very happy with mine.

Nonetheless I bought the box as an early adopter on the basis of Humax's reputation for sorting out bugs quickly and efficiently so I don't think that let's Humax off the hook.

I don't think that the auto-switching problem is anything to do with the bootloader. I suspect that it is simply that the pins on the SCART and HDMI switching pins have zero volts on them when the Humax is powered down, and when the power comes on the switching voltage is applied constantly because the Humax designers did not implement the facility properly. Most TV's don't yet have auto-switching on HDMI, and most people who buy the HDR do not use SCART, or the problem would be more noticeable. Panasonic, on the other hand, have stuck rigidly to the book. More manufacturers are likely to in the future, as auto-switching is a good feature when done properly.

It might be that the HDR was originally designed to have what I would consider to be a proper standby mode, where the power was left on the SCART/HDMI pins and the operating system stayed in memory, so the problem did not occur. Perhaps at a late stage some bright spark then suggested that it would save a few watts a year if it powered down completely, and nobody thought it through. Only conjecture, of course, but it would explain how such a glaring error slipped through the net.

I'll live with the glitches. Maybe I'm lucky but I don't think I've ever had a random autoswitch from SCART or from HDMI. So, autoswitching for me please. I'd even rather the Hummy's broken implementation than none at all.

True - On the whole I find I work around those oddities, but you're right. There are some issues which don't seem to involve high-risk changes, purely UI flow and it would have been nice to see some interim release - even if it had to be downloaded and USB flashed.


I remember the first time we sat spooling up and down an HD recording in chase-playback and thinking "this is damned impressive!"


Indeed - I'd not been a Humax customer before the Foxsat PVR, but I'd seen online references to people downloading new software for previous products and thought that all looked quite promising..... I wonder what caused the change in behaviour (or is my memory wrong?).

I've said before that I can see the reason for some reluctance to deliver dribs and drabs of changes to the UI over the air - Customers buy the product, get it home, use it for a few days and then discover that it has changed, and it behaves differently from the manual.
.... I wonder what Humax have planned for custommer comms when this manyana release eventually hits the streets.

Oh well, I suppose they keep DS busy with us lot coming back to see if anything is being rumoured!

It's a small but important request.

PLEASE BOBCAT! Tell someone to sort out the shocking grammar in the UI. When I'm asked to choose between HD/SD recording, the word choice is horrendous. Have a look for yourself.

I suggest something like: "This programme is available in SD and HD. Please specify which you want to record."

It would require - I assume - a tiny little upgrade. Please?

Specify? Not a very user friendly word when sat at home in your comfy TV chair after a hard day at the office sitting through interminable meetings and a morass of babblespeak. What is wrong with choose?

I feel your pain, those "interminable meetings" get to me too.

Why not, just: "Choose Standard Definition or High Definition"?

The truth is, of course, that everyone has their own opinion as to what works best. In my game, we have much more arguements about the UI side of development than we ever have about the technical implementation. There is a strong arguement for having consumer panels as part of the developoment cycle for projects such as these.

Ok whatever! The point isn't the new wording, it's replacing the shocking old wording.

Who cares about that, theres literally hundreds of things that should be fixed before that.

The point is that choosing the right wording is not that simple. At the very least it needs someone with a different mindset by think about *what* the user wants to do and not *how* the tech guys make things happen. This is something a good Technical Author could bring to the party (although good ones are as rare as hen's teeth and the bad ones make things worse by not only mangling the language but mangling the meaning as well).

I think people are misunderstanding me. The error I'm asking to be changed isn't "poorly" worded as such, it doesn't make sense. Read it and see; it's something like "Choose programme what you want."

The new Panasonic recorders aren't much better

"The same programme in High Definition picture quality exists"

When I saw that, I wondered if it was translated or written by a native German speaker.