Just wondered if they have got it to the public testing stage yet?

Also did I recall that Humax (Bob_Cat) said they never did public testing?

Also if anyone does have it does it actually fix any of the boxes other issues?

I myself have no interest in the BBC or ITV player product on this device but would like to know if they have addressed the basic box issues.

Automan.

Im supposed to be one of the ones testing it. I got an email a few weeks back which I posted a copy of on here where they said that they were just emailing to say that they hadnt forgotten us and they were doing some more tweaking of things before the trial and that they'd be contacting us all again shortly. Not had any news since tho.

Their previous email had ended with the words "further details will be emailed to you in early September". I guess in this case the further details were that it wasnt ready yet.

Perhaps they have given up on and have all their resources trying to get next years model to work?

Automan.

The public testing is of iPlayer by the BBC/Freesat, not of the HDR by Humax.

Rgds.


Les.

Public testing for iPlayer on beta has not started yet, but alpha testing by certain individuals has been on-going for a couple of months now with reasonable success.

Sounds like a resounding endorsement, not.

That's roughly what you expect of alpha testing.

It starts of with things being quite ropey and gets progressively better until there are no, or very few, obvious bugs amongst the small test group at which point it needs to go to a lot more people to try and find the more obscure problems.

OTOH, it certainly doesn't sound as if we're likely to be getting it 'anytime soon'.

Just so long as it gets rid of the vast majority of the reported bugs.

I for one will be extremely p'd off if they deliver an iplayer - which I did not purchase - and do not sort out all bugs in the PVR - which I did.

But its not Humax that are delivering iPlayer, its the BBC using the Freesat HD spec.

I strongly suspect that iPlayer as an "application" will be interactive MHEG pages (like the BBC news pages etc) of which clicking a "link" will then begin to download / stream the relevant video via your ethernet cable / port. If the Freesat spec was delivered properly, then all Freesat HD devices (including panasonic TVs, Humax PVRs etc) should act in the same way when the MHEG application works.

Matt

I'm already dubious as to how good iplayer will be on freesat seeing as its already been confirmed that the stream will not be buffered onto the hard-drive of boxes, so unless you're lucky enough to have a very reliable high speed connection, chances are it will be a very fractured experience. However, I await my beta kit to be able to find out just what it's going to be like.

How typical of this farce of system that Freesat have once again deliberately specified things in such a way that they are a lot less useful then they could and, indeed, should, be.

One has to start wondering if they are in the direct employ of Murdoch.

So not only do we have to wait even longer for our bug fixes but the thing that is the cause of the delay won't even work properly (even the best ADSL will have occasional glitches).

You think? Given the availability of 500kbps, 800kbps, and 1500kbps streams, you'd think at least one of them could make it into most people's homes without a problem.

"No buffering on HDD" can't mean "no buffering at all" - this is video over IP - of course it's buffered. 500kbps is ~64kB per second (definitions of "k" vary!) - how much memory does the HDR have? How long a buffer do you want?!

Cheers,
David.

To answer that question you need to ask how many people can watch the tiny pictures on 'youtube' or similar and never experience any 'hangs' in the stream. I don't know anyone who can. Apart from anything else the Youtube servers themselves are sometimes overloaded.

It's no good telling people they have the option to watch grotesquely compressed video that will look appalling on anything bigger than a 14" portable. If they are watching broadcast programming they will want broadcast quality or very near.

When someone has paid £300 for a box with an HD in it they will have every right to be annoyed if they are expected to watch glitchy TV that is either very poor quality or stops and starts when the HD in the box could sort out the problem.

I expect the original freesat boxes have very little free memory to buffer a video stream.

And what free memory it has I imagine is used to cache the epg so I suspect the performace of the box may suffer all for iplayer that all will want to use or can use.

Automan.

All the more reason, then, to cache the complete programme to the HDD prior to playback like any other pre-recorded programme.

What are "freesat" thinking, do they want this to fail?



Graham.