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Old 29-09-2010, 15:41
grahamlthompson
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Off the top of my head:-

1) Monitoring user input;

2) Controlling first recording;

3) Controlling second recording;

4) Controlling playback of a current or third recording;

5) Downloading new EPG info;

6) Timer activity controlling when a new recording is due to fire - though this one is closely coupled to the timer chip of course.
7) resolution of conflicts arising in real time

8) Allowing viewing of available 3rd channels while dual recording is ongoing

9) Display of the schedule list and buffered epg and scheduling of new programming whatever the tuners are doing

10) Accessing and replaying archived material (from USB or the internal hdd) including decryption of encrypted material on the fly

11) Conforming to the broadcasters drm requirements (broadly enforcing hdcp and post recording copy restrictions).

The list is endless, frankly anyone who thinks it's easy has a very simplistic view of what's involved.

To suggest that a device that has to respond to calls for service from hardware on a random basis is only linear programming is just plain wrong. It requires interrupt processing routines based on the priority of whatever the cpu is currently doing as against the call for servicing the interrupt
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Old 29-09-2010, 15:44
gomezz
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Many of those can be conflated into a smaller number of single-threading processes. I was sticking to tasks for which it is not really a good idea to combine. Judgement of what can and can't be done in the same process without losing performance or causing problems is a fine art.
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Old 29-09-2010, 15:51
Badvok
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7) resolution of conflicts arising in real time
Oh so very complex. Could probably expand it to a dozen lines of code if done badly.

8) Allowing viewing of available 3rd channels while dual recording is ongoing
Done in silicon - not software.

9) Display of the schedule list and buffered epg and scheduling of new programming whatever the tuners are doing
Oooh, display a table or two, maybe update another one, and maybe every second check it - WOW that IS hard to do.

10) Accessing and replaying archived material (from USB or the internal hdd) including decryption of encrypted material on the fly
Done in silicon - not software.

11) Conforming to the broadcasters drm requirements (broadly enforcing hdcp and post recording copy restrictions).
Done in silicon - not software.

The list is endless, frankly anyone who thinks it's easy has a very simplistic view of what's involved.
Nope, just used to working on things that are considerably more complex.
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Old 29-09-2010, 15:54
gomezz
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7) resolution of conflicts arising in real time
Oh so very complex. Could probably expand it to a dozen lines of code if done badly.
How many lines does it take Humax then as it seems to be done *really* badly from my experience of the Foxsat HDR?

The user-written functionality on my Topfields are a benchmark showing how well it *can* be done.
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Old 29-09-2010, 16:07
Badvok
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The user-written functionality on my Topfields are a benchmark showing how well it *can* be done.
Now if only Topfield would do a Freesat HDR with the TAPs capability - then I'd be happy
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Old 29-09-2010, 16:17
gomezz
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So would a lot of us. But I guess we would need someone with the knowledge and enthusiasm to patch the firmware into a usable state.
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Old 29-09-2010, 18:41
REPASSAC
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And you don't think a 300MHz MIPS32 processor can handle all that? I think even an 8080 or 6502 could do it.
You would of course have to fit the code and RAM into the memory map of 64KB which might well be a challenge (My first processor - the 5502 in the BBC Micro, which I wrote several ROM based programs for it as a sideline, all with ISRs).

Also you dismiss rather of lot of functionality as in silicon - which a lot of it may be but you omit to mention that you need to monitor the silicon to show differences in the UI (channels greyed out, non selectable), what to do about it, user message, timer for no reply, default action.

I would suspect that 'bugs' such as the power cut issue are a spec issue - It's frequent that what to some people is obvious get omitted from specs. I suspect the guys in Korea had the pad of change requests ready.
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Old 30-09-2010, 00:15
tgabber
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The disappointing thing is that, given that it's a Linux system, we can't get root access to write our own addons or mods.

Humax ought to understand the benefits of open source and not be afraid of giving us access. You only have to look at what the user community has managed with the Humax iCord (due to someone cracking the encryption on an update to get access) to see the benefits.

Sure, user mods need to come with a big warning that they are unofficial, unsupported and that if you brick your machine you've only yourself to blame, but ultimately they keep users happy and reduce the manufacturer's support costs. Plus the manufacturer can incorporate the best changes into their next update/model provided they respect the open source licence.

Sadly, unless Humax have left a hidden backdoor into the machine such that all they would need to do is tell us about it, I can't see root access to the Foxsat being provided legitimately.
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Old 30-09-2010, 00:21
hillel
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But I guess we would need someone with the knowledge and enthusiasm to patch the firmware into a usable state.
Ah cmon, that's over the top, the firmware is in a perfectably usable state.

@Badvok All this talk of 8080's and 6502's really brings me back. (I learn't assembler on an 8085.) I wouldn't mind a look under the hood myself, though my programming skills are pretty rusty at this stage
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Old 30-09-2010, 09:35
Badvok
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You would of course have to fit the code and RAM into the memory map of 64KB
LOL, I doubt you could fit even the EPG into 64K without some serious compression. My comparison was just to highlight how powerful this processor is compared to those some of us fondly? remember, I didn't intend it to be 100% realistic

I wrote my first code on a Commodore PET (6502 @ 1MHz with a massive 4KB of static RAM) in BASIC and Machine Code (Note: Not assembly - I didn't have access to an assembler so it was all hand coded - ahhh nostalgia ).

P.S. The BBC Micro used the 6502 I mentioned earlier - I assume your 5502 was a typo.
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Old 30-09-2010, 14:50
fedman
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Coo, What a blast from the past, thank you Hillel & Badvok. That got the old grey cells working agaion.
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Old 30-09-2010, 15:43
REPASSAC
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LOL, I doubt you could fit even the EPG into 64K without some serious compression. My comparison was just to highlight how powerful this processor is compared to those some of us fondly? remember, I didn't intend it to be 100% realistic .
I did realise that

I wrote my first code on a Commodore PET (6502 @ 1MHz with a massive 4KB of static RAM) in BASIC and Machine Code (Note: Not assembly - I didn't have access to an assembler so it was all hand coded - ahhh nostalgia ).
It was nice that the BBC micro had a built in assember.

P.S. The BBC Micro used the 6502 I mentioned earlier - I assume your 5502 was a typo
Yes indeed - but you could also get a second processor for it - there were two versions another 6502 [where you could use much more ram than in the IO processor] and an 8080 running CPM.

I did hope that the BBC or Acorn would follow it up with a nice 68000 but no.
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Old 04-10-2010, 14:02
Badvok
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Turns out I was wrong about the processor speed, see this post. It is 33% faster than I thought
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Old 09-05-2011, 12:39
Badvok
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Resurrected to remind the Humax fan club members that all these issues still exist in the current firmware and we have no news of when/if any of them are going to be fixed.
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Old 09-05-2011, 13:31
Jepson
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Resurrected to remind the Humax fan club members that all these issues still exist in the current firmware and we have no news of when/if any of them are going to be fixed.
I think you're missing something here.

There are two aspects to the Humax PVR.

One is that it has worked very reliably as a PVR from the day it was introduced (provided you didn't suffer from power cuts). A lot of people have had almost entirely trouble free use of the device for two and a half years. That is something we appreciate.

The other aspect is that Humax have been extremely poor at providing updates and even worse at correcting some of the ridiculous UI niggles.

They had the opportunity to provide a box that was really first class in every way and they simply haven't bothered.

And their communication is worse than useless. One employee that seemed to be posting off his own bat and spent more time telling us that he couldn't tell us anything than providing useful information (but who was, nonetheless fawned over nauseatingly by the HFC ).

Definitely a curate's egg situation.
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