As reported in THIS thread, I've finally taken the plunge moved over to Freesat and purchased the HDR 1000s. I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised and delighted with this product - Sky could learn a thing or two from the Freesat EPG.

Now many of you will already know my views on HD - bought into when first released on Sky and was bitterly disappointed as I really couldn't tell much if any difference to the SD picture on my Panny Plasma PX60. So much so that I dropped the HD sub at the first opportunity and haven't bothered watching it since.

Last night I accidentally selected the BBC HD channel on the 1000s - wow! what a difference. For the first time ever I really can see a marked difference between the SD and HD feed. My Pace Sky+HD box never looked like this.

I do have a couple of questions though - pressing the rewind button whilst watching live TV only takes me back a couple of minutes. With Sky if I suddenly thought "I wish I had set this programme to record" providing I hadn't gone beyond 15 minutes then I could record the entire programme by pressing the record button. Similarly I could rewind up to 15 minutes - longer if I altered the settings. What's the story with the 1000s as I only appear to be able to go back 2 minutes?

Checking the signal - occasionally I get both feeds showing me the info (which by the way is around 90% for quality and strength) as per Sky service. However, most of the time feed two is showing nothing at all and if I'm watching a recording when I check then both feeds are blank. Is this some sort of bug?

Finally, there are two standby options - why, what is the difference with the one that uses more power as the boot up times are identical.

Oh, BTW, although not mentioned in the manual I can copy material from the 1000s to my Panny DVDR.

Like all pvrs, the time shift buffer starts recording content when you switch to watch the channel. Providing the channel was being viewed live when the programme started there is no need to rewind the buffer, simply pressing record will record from the programme start. If you are say 20 minutes into a programme if you press the record button and then look at the recordings list you should find a continuing recording already containing 20 minutes of recording. You can even do this if you were recording two other things as soon as one of the two recordings finishes.

The left and right buttons either side of OK move the playback point within the buffer (same for recording playback). The left and right skip keys under recordings and serach by default skip forward 2 min and back 15 seconds. Ideal for ad skipping.

Tuners not being used are powered down (believed to be for power saving). If you look at the signal when you are not recording then only the 1 tuner you are using is shown. This can be tuner 1 or 2 depending on what has happened before. If you start a recording then move to another channel then diagnostics will show signals for both tuners.

Low power sby reduces the sby power to less than 0.5W, turning it off uses a few more watts as it displays the clock permanently.

As long as the program you want to record is within the live buffer then when you press record it should record the whole program without the need to rewind.

With signal info, from what ive read elsewhere it only displays the current active tuner so if both are in use then it will show both. Though saying that mine did show both tuners active once and the 2nd tuner wasn't being used. (no recordings & no pre-15 mins before a recording)

Thaks to both Graham and Gonzo for the info. I don't appear to have come across many of the reported bugs yet, perhaps mine is faulty?

Going back to the rewind feature or lack of. Are you saying there is no live rewind feature as per Sky+ plus? I have a hearing problem so used this all the time on Sky as the wife is always chirping when I'm trying to watch a programme. The 15 minute live buffer was my most used feature.

It has a 2 hour live buffer so you should be able to rewind upto 2 hours depending on how long you've had it on that particular channel for.

Glad your happy with it, you should have a live buffer though. You should be able to rewind all the way back to when you first switched to the channel or the start of the current live programme.

I believe the buffer is reset when a new programme starts !

(There is a bug with recordings not rewinding unless you fast forward first, but this doesn't affect the live buffer)

Could be wrong but I think the buffer is sized for up to 3hrs of HD content.

Thanks Gonzo, will try it later. I'm puzzled though delighted as to why the HD PQ is so much better than it ever was with my Pace Sky+ HD box? Touch wood it's hard to fault this product. I have updated the software to cure the first recording of the day issue.

Although on unlimited BB I do think Freesat should try to do something about the amount of data the On Demand EPG uses for those that aren't. The Homeplug my box is connected to shows quite a bit of activity.

Until my unit gets replaced I cannot check myself, but on page 15 of the user guide booklet it says it automatically saves 2 hours of the channel your watching.

If you believe Freesat they are supposed to be investigating this.
Unfortunately I've lost any faith I had in Freesat long ago, and that's not just with the HDR1000S

Deleted, didn't read it was about Freetime! I should learn to read properly!!

What would be nice would be a favourites shortcut e.g. blue button.

One thing I have noticed that I do find annoying is that the 1000s keeps displaying older material in it's original broadcast format e.g Sherlock Holmes with huge black bars down each side. What' the solution here?

I only have the older model but with it you could set it to show 4:3 programs in 14:9 or 16:9 zoom while maintaining the correct aspect ratio of the picture.

It also has a Auto mode which leads to rounds being oval (bigger the TV, the worse they look).

Automan.

There is a setting to have it stretched to fill the screen and from memory, another setting which I guess will cut off the top and bottom.

Goto picture settings and change screen ratio from Auto to Anamorphic.
However if your TV has 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI then some 4:3 content on some channels will always show as 4:3.

It might not be helpful, but I think purists would tell you that things should be viewed in the aspect ratio they were made in.

You may find those black bars annoying (although I'm not sure why they're that objectionable) but tell yourself at least you are seeing the picture unsquashed, with nothing missing, and as the director intended.

Of course, it's a personal choice though and I see others here have already posted helpful advice if you are set on chopping off the top of Holmes' deerstalker

I know what you are saying but these aren't the usual letterbox bars, they really are quite obtrusive.

and the other settings - how do they suit?

I have noticed the Anamorphic setting. Do you leave it on that setting as default or just for 4.3 material.

Hopefully, finally I thing I have got everything sussed. I have mentioned this in an earlier post - Freetime EPG data useage. The amount used, is it a bug or normal operation, therefore just something that we have to accept as being part of the service? I ask because I am looking at buying a second box to replace our Sky multi-room. Now if what I have read in another thread about this is correct I believe it was worked out that the 1000s would use 6 gig a month simply populating and updating the Freetime part of the EPG. That then if correct would be a whopping 12 gig a month for 2 boxes. Although I'm on unlimited that's still a shocking waste of bandwidth.

Please someone tell me that I have dreamt this.

i have mine set to anamorphic and never change it, as has been said, some clips/adverts/progs still show in 4:3, some only on the HD channel but not on normal, and the coca cola ad is always in 4:3

You've not dreamt it. The data us is approx 41MB/hour while the box is out of standby.
Freesat said they were looking into it but no news yet.

Crikey, although my Sky+ box didn't have the backwards EPG for OD relying instead on iPlayer apps the usage was NIL. I never once saw my Homeplug LED's as much as flicker with Sky when I wasn't using OD content.

Can you imagine users with a 2 gig cap (according to stats I have seen that is quite a lot of folk). They will get hit for costs simply due to Freetime updating the EPG. I think Freesat should be looking at this as a matter of some urgency or at the very least put a "health warning" on the packaging.