I bought one of these last year after getting fed up of spending 6-12 hours every night getting Myth to display a picture and having to reserve a weekend to rescan. Now I'm not so sure I like it.

Can it really not automatically record a program, particularly series linked programmes, on any channel from a later time. If I happen to set a 'record entire series' on a channel then it only records on that channel, even if there's a conflict. Is this something I'm stuck with? Most of my conflicts wouldn't be conflicts if it could sort itself out, I struggle to think quick enough to select an option, it took me several Months to work out what the conflict screen was asking me to do as it's so counter-intuitive.

If it can't do the above then I might just get rid and put up with Myth again, or stop watching TV. Coupled with the below it is of really limited use, no matter how good the picture is.

Pros:
Press on button and it does actually turn on
Reasonably reliable
Good picture, decent upscaling

Cons:
IR reception absolutely dreadful
Can't play common media files
Can't access networked files (not that I can be bothered to re-encode my entire movie collection just to play it on this box, much easier to just play the output from the PC or a cheap media player)
Remote control buttons are a nightmare to use without looking at what you're pressing in good light. Absolutely useless in the dark, just a slab of same buttons.
Plenty of other minor niggles, mostly silly things that shouldn't be an issue.

The ability of the box to record across different channels is down to the way the broadcaster uses the crid codes. Any Freesat+ box will be the same.

Channel 5 use the same series crids across channels. It's a pain in the bum, if you try and record the lunchtime soaps it switches to recording the evening ones where it creates recording conflicts with other recordings.

Usual advice for the remote control

Make sure you remove the protective film from under the flap. If you have one with a black lacquer covering over the IR window carefully scrape it off.

Better still install the modified firmware and Web Interface. This gives you a on screen remote in a webpage and a myriad of other goodies.

So I assume Myth did something in software using more than raw CRID's and wotnot? I think this is the main disappointment with this box, I could put up with all the other annoyances if it could just record stuff but there's too many failed recordings that you don't see until a week later when it's too late to manually reschedule a repeat showing, which these days everything is repeated 20 times in the following 3 days which makes it even more annoying. Pretty much useless, no better then just using the old VCR.


Yeah, I'm not totally inept. If I don't get rid of the box I'm going to have to change the IR components, or move them at least.


Yeah, I've already got that but due to the shortcomings of the box, it doesn't do much other than give me a more usable EPG on the PC rather than on the box itself. The only other useful thing that does is give me FTP access to bulk delete recordings. I was looking forward to being able to just drop movies on the device via FTP but this turned out to be useless. Also can't even move existing recordings without it throwing a wobbly, not the boxes fault I know but all in all, Raydons FW only really of any use for the EPG and watching recordings on other devices without the rigmarole of USB file copying, assuming the other device is happy with .ts files.

My HDR seems to resolve conflicts with no issues at all - series links set up on ch4 will quite happily jump to a ch4+1 showing or (on the rare occassions this still clashes) has been known to jump to an E4 repeat showing.

I have a BBC 3 series link for Lip Service which was setup for the 9:00 showing on friday nights but has also jumped to a later repeat due to a clash. It seems odd that your HDR is not doing this.

If you could post exmaples of series links and dates and times etc may be this would shed some light on what is happening.

Edit: I only use the HDR to record SD stuff (because HD recordings are permanently encrypted) so my HDR does have a variety of rescheduling choices when it detects a clash. Maybe if you have HD series links setup then it struggles to find HD repeats to reschedule and fails?

Mixture of SD & HD. Maybe it does reschedule clashes then, perhaps I've just been unlucky (likely).

What has just crossed my mind is that some of the recordings could be set from the last showing of the week, as some of these are on +1's, that would explain the lack of rescheduling in some cases maybe.

Pretty poor though even if the above is true, if it is clever enough to reschedule from later showings it should do the opposite and schedule itself to record the earliest showing.

So it's sort of halfway there then, maybe. I might try some experiments later and see if it does actually reschedule properly.

Would also be handy if this was explained in the book, and also if it gave you these options on the screen rather then throwing up a mad panic last second garbled clash resolution screen that you have no chance of deciphering or understanding even though there is very little information on it.

There's only so much you can do with a pair of crid codes.

There's enough information to see what's happening, it's not rocket science. You can only record two programmes at once, if one overuns and the same tuner is needed to make a second there is bound to be a clash. There's no way the box can tell until it actually happens.

Generally it's caused by an existing recording overrunning the AR start of a second recording using the same tuner. ITV are the worst offenders as they send the change of running status at the end of the ads after a programme has finished. It's usually safe to stop an itv recording that is about to finish. If you do nothing generally you lose a tiny amount of the beginning of the follow on recordings. The box preserves the end of a recording at the expense of chopping a bit off the beginning of the next. Sounds very sensible to me
Try looking at the recording schedule display to see what's happenning.

Well I've worked it out now, to some extent, but while it's not rocket science it is far from a good candidate for the clear english award.

I must just be unlucky as I've tried various padding settings and can't seem to get programs to reliably start and stop without chopping bits off here and there, even when they are on the same channel after each other. Auto, none, manual, all useless to some extent.

I'll just have too have more of a play with it, but it's almost making me want to go back to Myth, and that's bad!

The dialogue simply tells you what channels are currently recording and which recording can't proceed as a result. Not sure what other information it can tell you. Basically you have to curtail one or the other current recordings for the next recording to proceed. If you ignore it the box usually resolves it in a very short time. This gives a failed recording flag on the recording that has a bit missing at the beginning (Not really the best message I admit )

There should be no problem at all with consecutive recordings on the same channel. AR switches from one to the other when the broadcaster transmits the change of running status. (Basically when info changes from the last programme to the next). If you use auto padding changeover happens at the epg scheduled time (padding is dropped), this can result in changover happening to early or too late. In this case you don't lose any content depending on which it's appended to the end of the first recording or the start of the second.

If the broadcaster screws up there's no way the box can tell.

Hmm, maybe it's not entirely the boxes fault then, the broadcasters have obviously got no better in the last few years for sending the correct information out. Pretty poor service, especially as it seems to be the same on Freeview and Freesat. I think the conflict resolution sort of works, it will record a failed recording at a later date, but this should also work the other way and record it at an earlier time if possible, less likely to be a conflict in the first place then.

I did notice one issue last night that was a bit useless and shouldn't have happened, whilst watching something time shifted (following me pausing it earlier on) the following programme was scheduled to be recorded. Rather than silently doing this on the second tuner the box decided I'd had enough of watching the previous programme and just ended my time shift recording skipping the last few minutes of the programme and used the first tuner to record the scheduled recording. This shouldn't happen surely?

I just don't understand why Humax seem to be so resistant to actually making this box work properly, it's close and a little work could make it a brilliant box, bizarre that they seem to be so deaf. Great shame.

Were you also recording the programme you were watching in time-shift mode ?

No.

No. (superfluous)

OK, so it seems conflict resolution does sort of work once you work out what is going on. It's fine saying it's all straight forward but it's clearly not, it's easy if you know the answer, but when you don't understand the question then not so much.

Scheduling recordings is the main issue though which is where some of the conflicts may have come from. If I schedule a series record from a second\third\fourth\final weekly showing then it sets all the following recordings to the same showing. It doesn't try and record the earliest showings for some reason. It doesn;t just quietly sort itself out in the background, it waits until the last minute and basically says 'you have 30 seconds to make a decision on this, oh and btw you can;t record an earlier showing even though that would have made more sense as I couldn;t be bothered, too late now, anyway you've taken too long looking at these options so i'm just going to do what I want now'.

I clearly just don;t get on with this box, considering it seems to be the best one about it is a long way short of not having loads of annoying faults. 5\10 overall.

You just don't understand how Freesat+/Freeview+ series recording works.

There are two basic codes the broadcaster provides.

1 A series crid that ties all the episodes that the broadcaster considers part of the series together

2 A programme crid that identifies a specific episode (prevents multiple recordings of the same episode).

When you set a series recording the box finds the earliest occurence of that series crid and schedules that. If the broadcaster chooses to use a different series crid for the same show broadcast at different times the box won't know the earlier showing is part of the same series.

After a recording is complete the box looks for a epg entry with the same series crid and a different programme crid and continues to look for up to 13 weeks. Once found it adds this to the recording schedule.

Try setting a series recording on the 8th day of the epg it should pick up the earlier occurence the following day.

I would hate it if the box kept re-scheduling recordings from the repeat pattern I ask it to do so. It's a recipe for producing unwanted clashes.

Strikes me you won't be happy with any Freesat+ or Freeview+ pvr. Your complaints are down to the limitations of the system.

I tried that earlier. Last night I set the Walker Texas Ranger to series record from last nights omnibus. It ignored all this weeks showings and just scheduled itself to record next Sunday nights ominbus editions. I manually rescheduled it to record the 7pm showings and it only scheduled the 7pm showings for the whole week, ignoring the 2pm showings.

This appears to be completely at odds with how you say it should work. Either my box is randomly doing what it wants or yours doesn't do what you think it does, or every single show I try and record has dodgy series CRID's. (Unlikely)


Well I am beginning to wonder if anyone actually makes a decent PVR that works properly. Wouldn't be so bad if these problems weren't so minor and silly. I just like things to work, if it doesn;t work let me be able to fix\improve it or at least acknowledge your users when they give you feedback.

Random check

Scheduled The Graham Norton Show BBC1-HD on Monday 7th May Series CRID KX8EF2 Prog Crid 1RKEJ8

My schedule now has following entries

Tonight

Prog CRID 1RKEJ7

3/13. Graham is joined by Hollywood superstar Zac Efron, everybody's favourite Friend Matt LeBlanc and funnyman Lee Mack. Plus Marina and the Diamonds performs her new single Primadonna. [HD] [S]


Monday 7th May

Prog CRID 1RKEJ8

4/13. The award-winning host continues his anarchic talk show. He is joined by The Voice UK star Jessie J, who chats and performs Laserlight; and comedian Simon Amstell. [HD] [S]

I can't find a ashow called Walker Texas Ranger anywhere in my epg. It's clear the omnibus whatever channel it's on has a different series crid to the daily shows (down to the broadcasters).

What do you expect Humax to do about dodgy codeing ?

EDIT Found it there's a comma in the name.

CBS Action haven't included a programme crid only a series one, suggest you point your comments at the broadcaster where they belong

Hmm, that works as above. It does seem I am just unlucky and select series recordings for programmes with shitty CRID's. I have had to manually alter some schedules due to them always recording on the +1 and then clashing when the earlier shopping would have been a better choice. Also there are several series linked schedulings that always record on +1 channels, these are obviously not the earliest showings and there are no clashes in most of these cases. Jeeves & Wooster is one OTTOMH, Eddie Stobart used to do the same, pretty sure there are\were others.


I'm not as upset with Humax about it now I know it's not entirely the boxes fault, but how can every broadcaster be useless at setting the correct CRID's, especially on +1 channels? Just annoying that people CBA to do things properly, if I do things half arsed I lose customers, I'm in the wrong trade.

So now my objections are aimed at pretty much every broadcaster it would seem.

Only BBC ITV and Channel 4 seem to properly support Series and Accurate Recording. Channel 5 are totally useless. Fortunately I rarely record anything else as I suspect most 100% satisfied users do as well.

The few Channel 5 programmes I record for the better half I use a manual recording with a suitable repeat pattern and build in some padding.

The problem is I don't really watch much Live TV as I can't stand adverts. This is why I tend to record lots of random crap so I actually have something to choose from when I do decide to properly watch something. As there's not really that much on mainstream channels I end up recording stuff on all the 'extra' channels.

I assume when you say BBC, ITV and C4 work with proper CRID's you mean as in ITV1, Channel 4 only and not ITV2, 3 etc... and E4 etc... as I seem to have problems with some series linked recordings on these as well.

I need to set Myth back up again and see how that used to manage to record stuff happily enough without any major conflicts, and that used to record loads more crap than the Humax does even with a single tuner. (In fact it never got any better with 8 twin tuners which was the final nail in the coffin for it)

I mean't the family of channels eg BBC1, BBC1-HD, BBC2 and BBC-HD. Boxes like the Topfield could be made to record anything with a similar name for instance (which of course resulted in lots of crap you don't want). Virgins TIVO can record anything on a theme. I have a friend who likes Housey programmes and antiques, She has hundreds of recordings most of them repeats she can't possibly watch

You can tell your Foxsat to show the crids in the info banner.

When I first set Myth up many years ago I made the mistake of setting it to record Top Gear at any time on any channel. I had hundred's of them within the first week from Dave, Dave +1, BBC3, BBC2, all the repeats as well from the olden days. I seem to have the opposite problem nowadays!


So you can, and it appears that they don't all follow as they should. Programme CRID's seem to match but they are in different series CRID's, which is odd. I suppose fixing this is unlikely as a user modification.

Humax, reliable but limited.
Myth, unreliable but customisable.

I might just try reading. I'm in no way a technophobe but technology does wind me up, I have less of it now that I used to, and I'd be quite happy if it all disappeared tomorrow.

I think they do follow as they should. If I set a series recording I wan't it to record from the same predictable slot not jump about picking up the next available.

I doubt that you can customise the crids, epg updates will just overwrite them anyway.

Your best hope is the Web Interface which in theory could do similar to the Myth box. IE A customisable search using wildcards and reserve option. You need to ask Adrian on AV forums as to how practical this might be.

Maybe this should be selectable. Myth has this option, record from any channel any time, record from specific channel any time, record from single channel in same timeslot etc... I'd rather it actually recorded it ASAP without conflict than me having to wait 4 days after a programme is aired for the Humax to record it, assuming it doesn;t decide there is a conflict and then not bother. I'd easily give it another 2 points for this feature, and I've given it another 1 since I found out it was the broadcasters doing some of the cocking up of recordings not the box.


Yeah, that would sort of work. I was thinking more of a complete rewrite of the firmware in the device! Last time I looked at doing this on something I gave up pretty soon after seeing how horribly written and bodged together the whole thing was.