I'm more than a little shocked and disappointed that some reviewers on Amazon have given the HDT8520 a rating of 5/5 I can only assume that they haven't used a Sky HD+ box, or even Humax 9300T, the usability of which I rate far ahead of the 8520.

The reason appears to be that they are praising the box for the "outstanding picture quality". Hold on. We are talking digital here. The *key* concept about digital is that we can pass the data from pillar to post and back again with *zero* degredation. After all you wouldn't expect copying your MP3s or movies to a USB stick to play back differently due to the different costs of the USB stick.

Assuming that you are using a HDMI connection (digital) and not SCART (nasty analogue ) and that your TV is 1080p or 1080i capable (same resolution as the source material), then as I understand it the set-top-box can't enhance or degrade the pciture since it's role is only to extract the 0's and 1's as trasmitted, then decode the H264 and send out in HDMI format.

I agree if we are talking about re-scaling a 576i SD picture to 1080p/i format them the data has to be algorithmically processed to resize the picture, but here the (subjective) picture quality depends upon the algorithm. I assume that this must be done in hardware (e.g. STi7105) due to the data-rate, and different chips may well use different algorithms, resulting in pictures which can only be subjectively rated by the viewer. Some people are totally aware of digital artifacts on Freeview, whereas they drive me crazy (thank-god for footy HD!).

I would like to try the 8250 and another Freeview STB side by side to see if the HD pictures are really identical (but I don't have two identical tellys )

So I will judge a HD or SD freeview/sat/Sky box on the friendliness and intuitiveness of the user interface, menues etc.

I just find the whole 8520 experience - pants.

--Badsector

Jeff, not at the time. But I did receive an email about this from Pace last Friday, following up on some queries I raised the week before. As we know, the current firmware managing "HE AAC to Dolby Digital Trans-coding" has some random issues in 5.1 Dolby Digital rendering. The email I received sets the expectation of a September target, though, due to the complexity of the functionality it is a challenge to confirm exactly when just now.

I expect Philips (who are responsible for the support of the box and to end users) will eventually receive more in the way of detail from their if you like 'supplier' (Pace) about when firmware updates will be made available and what changes each will contain, near the time.

I hope it doesn't take too long for them because the competition is building up with HD PVRs arriving soon from Sharp, Toshiba, TVonics and of course Humax, who in 2008 provided the UK with their first HD PVR that coupled an extended PVR/set top box feature set together with the best stability of a PVR release we've ever witnessed.

I understand transcoding from HE AAC to DD 5.1 might need some work, however multichannel LPCM thru HDMI should be very simple to provide. The incoming HE AAC 5.1 broadcast signal must be decoded internally to LPCM 5.1 in order to be able to then downmix to stereo for both the analogue and digital audio connections, seems daft to me not to simply pass the LPCM 5.1 to HDMI.

You also mentioned that Pace told you that some user reported issues were purposely designed that way, is there anymore detail you can provide on this?

I ask as it would be nice to know what is unlikely to be changed by Pace as it's meant to be that way. That way a more informed choice can be made of which PVR to buy, as another make of PVR may have the feature either out of box within a promised future software update.

Lol are you serious. I don't mind answering but it is not very interesting.


I received a sample for a pvrjunction review (I’ve received a few boxes now so there is going to be a roundup instead). The sample I received had a fair number of issues i guess; of a level that I thought there is a risk of adverse response from retail partners and end users; did the leadership team want to know our thoughts? They did, and a conference call was arranged, it started from there. Sometimes these things happen.


Thanks very much. My understanding is that Philips or Pace have gone about collecting feedback from a variety of avenues. If you want I can tell you what process Pace follow as i understand it (no doubt this will lead to a whole 'nother debate) – those who are easily put to sleep change threads now:

Pace develop the hardware, and they develop software side, they have a classical way of working comparable to the usual B2B. Pace has a test and validation cycle in France, and in UK to perform unit testing, functional testing etc. And then they go on to an end product validation in the field.

Pace started field testing in December - back then the software was an early release but it was added to between December and April. The way Pace do it is they set up some field testers in Saltaire (Pace headquarters in England) they have 30 field testers in Saltaire. On top of that, they put what Pace call a wall of picture - it is 40 set top boxes mounted in a rack with same number of TV sets on which Pace perform endurance 24 hour tests with a guy who is watching all of these screens checking that the product is stable; that the performance of the product is in line with their expectation; that the function are working well. Last but not least, Pace have VIP testers with some of their partners in the UK. By partners we are talking about organisations like Digital Tick, DTG, like topuptv if need be (I guess in the case of TVs/STBs with card slots or with whoever there is a partnership or validation requirement. These, Pace say are all the people/organisations that are involved in their business that know what a product is supposed to do in order to reach the right level of quality. So that is their process in terms of validation to ensure that the quality is the expected at the delivery time.

Once Pace start to ship products, which is the case now, they put in place what’s called a ‘fast feedback loop’. In their fast feedback loop the idea is as soon as they get the feedback from the field coming from say me, coming from consumers, coming from certification organisations, reviews etc Pace collect the feedback ASAP. Pace have a task team there to reproduce the issue, to analyse it. Some of the time no fault is found, some of the time it’s the way of using the product, some of the time its real issue, and Pace say they follow processes that enable them to react, promptly, in order to solve the issue and prepare an upgrade (via the website and or over the air – and, they say, visit the customer when needed (not sure if they meant retailer/consumer group here or ordinary retail end customers). So at the moment Pace are in this fast feedback loop. As I am one of those that have identified some issues, Pace are analysing these issues in their lab, along with yours etc.

I know I won’t have all the information about how it works in Pace; the above is probably far from complete and was delivered as an aside during another conversation. Obviously, there is the question the effectiveness of any process that enables the production of a dud.

Ooh I have to try and remember if i can and get back to you.I am in the south of france right now to visit my grandfather - 89 and still riding motorcycles! Its funny because i am the one in the mobility scooter Got here yesterday and will be back in the UK tomorrow when I can check things.

Thanks Marc, in no rush so it would be most appreciated whenever you can get round to it. Have fun in France

Hi


As you pointed out, all that testing didn't make for a good experience with Pace/Philips.

Either both testing and development is poor then, so the bugs get put in by the software developers, and then go unnoticed or unrecorded by the testers, or more likely all the issues were known about but it "had to be shipped ASAP to cash in on the World Cup"! So a decision was made to let it go in the state it is in.

The other problem is design, with little thought to how someone would use the interface. Sagemcom made a much better job of the features they added, although that also has issues, but at least they tried to make a box that was easier to use.

I noticed on a still here from the 23 March the recording library has the dates of a recording, this is much better to help find stuff, but then this was taken off. Maybe they thought it better to have more of the name so removed the date field? To me though it isn't a big leap to, "Okay thumbnails are pointless if you have to highlight each recording and wait (they were corrupt sometimes in 720p mode!), plus it is a frame from the very start so unlikely to help identify the recording, lets do away with the split screen vertically and have a long list".

A long list across the screen could easily accommodate, Date/Time, Title, Duration, Channel, plus an icon for watched, and really useful would be the time the resume point is at.

Even in March, a month before the firmware date that was shipped, there are silly spelling mistakes, for example "Press OK to play the record.", now is that 33 or 45rpm I wonder

I think this is a fairly new team put together for the DVB-T2 boxes and they just weren't up to the job.

Regards

Phil

Pointless aside: Not actually a good example because it is technically correct - in English both 'record' and 'recording' can be used to refer to the same thing. It doesn't have to be a recording stored on Vinyl, it can be a record of something made on any media.

Part of the reply I received from Philips:
"Tests have been done both whilst watching a programme from an instant record and then also from an EPG recording for about 15 minutes each. The unit was then switched off to standby and switched back on again without any interruption in recording.

Therefore they have advised that if this continues to happen with your unit there may be an issue with your particular unit, and we would advise to contact the store where you purchased your unit from for an exchange under the warranty.

With regards to your other enquiry about the padding, this is not available on this unit and is unlikely to be included in future software release.

The reason for this is because normally the Free view signal guarantees that you have the whole event without adding any margin. Adding a margin at the start is not possible because moving the start and adding margin after the event increase conflict between other events and it is for this reason Pace have not included this in the software."

This was in reply to around 8 different problems. As you see only two addressed.

I was advised that the absence of a Manual Tuning option was an intentional design decision.
Is Philips/Pace intending to rectify that omission?

It would appear not!!

Well, the inability to add any padding pretty much rules out this box for me. I've tried many times in the past to use the EPG on my Sony PVR to set recordings up, but I still end-up with vital pieces of programmes chopped-off because the programme ident has changed prematurely, causing the recorder to stop too early. I recall other people having similar problems too. I get round this by setting-up my recordings using manual timer entries, but this means that if the programme changes its time, the manual timer misses that change.

I really can't understand why Pace has decided not to include this feature, given that so many people believe it necessary. Still, we're only customers after all.


Clem

Hi


The same here, accurate recording just isn't. Why they can't keep EPG tracking and serious link and just use padding in place of accurate recording I don't know. This is much easier as well to resolve conflicts, as the start/end times are fixed and not variable as they are with accurate recording.

Still we only have this from first line technical support at Philips and they are not a reliable source of information!


Probably because they are struggling to get the PVR software reliable and just dont't have the resources to add the minimum of features, hence the box arriving in the state it has They couldn't even get the unique lighting feature doing anything useful!

Regards

Phil

I know this has been mentioned before, but with all their experience the cack-handed way Pace have gone about developing and launching this box is really quite unbelievable.

Hi


You have to wonder if the box is so poor deliberately so they don't upset their other customers that a well designed HD PVR would compete with, i.e. Sky HD. Which begs the question why did they bother at all

Regards

Phil

When companies such as Sky get someone to make them a box, they don't send them away and tell them to come back in six months and surprise them. They tell them exactly what they want and kick butt until they get it. Following your general theme however it would seem more likely that Pace can follow instructions and get things right when controlled, but left to their own are pretty clueless at reading what the market demands and designing boxes to suit.

In many ways you are right. Though you need to know that H264, like many other video codecs do not output an exact copy of the 0 and 1 stream that was input to the encoder. So the decoder will produce a slightly different image to that which was encoded, the difference should be small, but could be seen if the box did not play a few tricks to mask them.

You can't send an MPEG2/4 stream direct to a TV through HDMI. All STBs and TVs have hardware and software decoders that take the compressed video stream and turn it into a standard video data stream for HDMI. These decoders will have different profiles/parameters/filters which result in picture differences - some look softer - that is why the Philips looks different to the DigitalStream for example.

- Simon.

All I want is a Pace Twin brought up to date, ie. with HD, record two channels at once, series link and alternative recordings, HDMI output, and probably one or two other things I've forgotten right now. But apparently that is too much to ask for.

Why do manufacturers forget what they learned from the past? People love the Twin's intuitive user interface and many have said so publicly (I love it apart from pressing OK in the EPG tunes to the channel which I hate, you lose where you were in the EPG). You'd think someone at Pace would make a note to copy that UI and re-use it, but they seem to start from scratch with a different design ever time.

You can be sure there are employees at Pace and everywhere else who shake their heads in despair when yet another highly paid bunch of sales and marketing twerps are parachuted in to lead their company at high speed down the rocky road of novel, pointless, unworkable and unwanted design ideas. The engineers know what sensible things they can do with current technology, what people are happy with, and the realistic timescales needed to complete reliable products. Unfortunately, they don't run the industry - idiots in suits do.

Nicely put Dude! It would make sense as Pace overtook Motorola in May to become the world's number 1 STB maker; clearly nothing to do with the 8520.

At least there's a chance they'll get their act together, but I think this may prove too costly for them, better to write it off and start again.

Be nice to hear from them in here though?

What HiFi rate this as their joint top PVR in the roundup today. 4 out of 5 stars. So i guess it's a well done to Pace for producing a good PVR

Just goes to show what a joke What HiFi are, the Pace product is certainly no better than 2 stars. Now using the Digital Stream which outclasses the Pace in everyway.

Hi


It is when their reviewers say things with PVRs like, "Recordings are almost indistinguishable from watching live" then you know they haven't really a clue what they are on about. Of course a PVR recording is identical to live as they just record the data stream, so have imagined a slight difference in quality as their expectations are a recording can never be quite as good as live and they haven't a clue about the technology. If they imagine things like that, then they imagine differences on everything, like a cheap Blu-ray player isn't as sharp or engaging as one costing £500 more.

A reason why I don't waste my money on these types of magazines, they sell snake oil.

Regards

Phil

Not that I want to defend a lot of the rubbish that is published in magazines, but in this case I think you need to read the "are almost indistinguishable" as "are indistinguishable but I need to cover my butt legally" rather than any misunderstanding of the technology.
The reviewer does not know with absolute 100% certainty that the box is playing back exactly the same stream.