I don't think yoiu can go so far as to call it Series Link in the Tivo/Sky+ sense of the word. If you entered "Eastenders" you'd presumably get all the weekly episodes and the omnibus episode on Sunday as it's just searching for "Eastenders". In Series Link you just get one copy of each episode as there is more intelligence involved "back at the ranch"

Cliff

Agreed but by setting the parameters correctly in a 'Control Timer', in MyStuff, you can pretty much 100% eliminate repeats and omnibuses(?).

I'm not arguing it's as good as Sky+ or Tivo but with just a little effort you can achieve great results

I am arguing its as good as the Sky+ series link, given the number of gripes I hear at work concerning Sky+ series link data being quite dodgy at times. I've had no such issues with MyStuff control timers - works fine as a series link for me. They have differences sure but are roughly equivalent.

Comparing the dosh people spend to get Sky+ with the price of a Toppy this functionality is a major reason to buy a Toppy rather than a.n.other dual tuner machine.

I don't have any direct experience with Sky+ myself so I couldn't really argue that Control Timers were as good as. However I'm yet to miss an episode of anything I've 'CT'ed' or indeed pick up a repeat or omnibus.

I totally agree, the MyStuff TAP lifts the Toppy way,way above it's competition

Are you using a slug or an asus, young hodg?

Neither at present although I'm considering it. Just hooking up the laptop on a daily basis. I've also half a mind to mod the old XBox..

I'm still experimenting to decide between the Freeview and Radio Times data. If you set MyStuff to use the Freeview data and background scan frequently it will adjust CT's to take last minute schedule changes in to account provided the broadcasters bother to update the info of course. OTH I absolutely the Radio Times EPG; 14 day and packed full of info etc.

Whatever I stick with, s'all good

I'm the bloke who decided to start looking for an Asus about six months after everybody sold their last one. I have a slug though, so I suppose I really ought to try that first.

Hi Emsee

Can't see that anyone else has reported these updates for inclusion in your tables, but the latest Version of software for Humax 9220T (1.00.06) has added chase play, seems to have got rid of the lost all recordings problem (which I think only affected a minority of users) and has added an auto padding feature to recordings. There was a spate of lock ups initially on BBC then ITV mux channels on previous versions of software, but version 1.00.06 seems to have eliminated these (incidence of reported lockups is neglicable)

There was a "thinks it is still recording bug" which Humax fixed in Version 1.00.04 but have re-introduced with version 1.00.06. The autopadding can also get confused if there are 3 or more consecutive recordings. Humax are aware of these problems and working on fixes and are in general releasing updates at around one every 3 months at present.

If we're talking s/w versions you may want to also correct the Fusion 100/145 - table currently says 1.7.4 but version now is actually 1.7.8. For Fusion 200 the table says 0.0.9 but current version is 0.1.1

Cliff

See 519 & 520.


[quote=roycymru]

Can't see that anyone else has reported these updates QUOTE]

Just to narrow down the autopadding thing, the error occurs when you select two consecutive recordings on the same channel: but the last programme was selected before the first programme. Its a continuation of a known bug but will not be fixed until the next update.

Someone asking about editing on the Thomson dhd4000 reminded me that your site is still listing it capable of start/end trimming.

You cannot edit recordings in any way.

TU-CTH100 = Help - according to the comparison table I should be able to watch a recording from the beginning while it is still being made - i.e. time slip and play catch-up - but the machine won't let me and the manual doesn't say this is possible either - yet I could do this on my two year old DMR-E85H - am I doing something wrong here. Incidently the SONY SRV-S500 did allow this (even though it was pretty rubbish at everything else!

For some reason all of the programmes in the navigator appeared still to be recording. Don't quite know what I did but now they are not and NOW I CAN watch a programme from the begiining while it is still being recorded - I suspect a little bug in the software croppped up there for a minute or three!

Does anyone have a view on the merits (or otherwise) of compression? How much worse does a compressed Digifusion (say) recording look compared with a ‘normal’ one? I’m considering the Maplin/Yamada/Umax/Amstrad 160G machine (offer ends today) but the capacity isn’t such an advantage if the same results can be obtained with a bit of extra compression…
I do know that DVB is already compressed, and there must be a limit!

The 4TV compression system (apart from being "dangerous" and often being implicated in complete library losses so should be avoided at ALL costs) is utter, utter crap. Back when the 4TV boxes first appeared the defacto drive size was 40GB. As digital TV recording typically takes 2GB/hour this meant that the machines offered 20 hours recording. Clearly some marketing "suit" decided "hey, we can't put just "20 hours recording" on the box - that looks crap - I know, why don't you software guys do something that takes the Freeview encoded MPEG data which already on the limit of "too compressed" and do something with it to compress it even further- that way we can put "40 hours recording" on the box - sure the results will be unmitigated crap but, hey, it sells a few more boxes". And thus SCT=Super Compression Technology was born. Sadly there is NOTHING Super about it at all. For one thing it takes an age to actually do. A recording may take 1 hour to record but many hours to be compressed. This has lead some users to record something in LP or EP mode then immediatel look at hte result and say "hey, that doesn't look too bad" - no, of course it doesn't because at record time it ALWAYS records in SP mode and because the after recording compression is not complete yet, what you are looking at there is still SP. Once the compression gnomes inside the box have actually finished LP looks blocky and "about as crap as VHS on LP mode" while EP looks "I can just about make out something moving on screen - what is that supposed to be anyway??"

You say you know that DVB is already compressed and you know there must be a limit - you are DEAD RIGHT. The Freeview broadcasters, to try and squeeze as many channels into a 27Mbps mux as possible, are already operating at that limit. This is especially true of the commercial broadcasters. There simply is NO ROOM for movement left so compressing this stuff further is bound to severely degrade it as far as the human eye/brain is concerned. The only content that might have a bit of headroom for some additional compression are the primetime BBC channels.

But at the end of the day, because of the compression bug potential, only a fool goes near the compression system in a 4TV box anyway. If you need more space just upgrade the HDD. (most 4TV boxes limited to 137GB = 128GiB max)

Cliff

Thanks, Cliff. So that's a no, then..?

BTW, are 4TV boxes a subset of PVR's in general? Excuse ignorance...

4TV were a design company who developed a reference design for a twin tuner Freeview PVR. They then sold this same design so it became the basis of the Fusion 100, Thomson DHD4000, Inverto 7000, Fusion 150, Fusion 200, Fusion 145 and, most recently, Sony <something or other>-500

To stifle competition (it is rumoured) most recently Thomson bought out 4TV

4TV continues to operate in one sense in that all their designs (unlike most other Freeview PVRs) do not get their EPG data from the continuously broadcast DVB-SI data that just caters for 7 days of EPG but, instead, the gnomes in "4TV Towers" type in 14 days worth of the Radio Times every day and package this up into a big chunk of data. This data is then downloaded (on channel 305 - MuxD) to all the 4TV boxes at about 03:20 every morning. The advantage is that they have 14 days, not just 7 days of EPG and that the entire calendar of data is held on the hard drive and is immediately available as soon as you switch the box on, the disadvantage (supposedly) is that if schedules change after the download the box has no way of knowing, experience shows that this is rarely actually a problem.

It's actually a great little system and the fact that Sony are now on board kind of gives some guarantee that it will continue to operate for a while yet as Sony are unlikely to let a situation develop where THEIR pvr can't get it's daily schedule download.

The one unknown is whether 4TV (the box developers) are going to go on and produce any new designs (presumably under the auspices of "Thomson") as all the existing boxes are now getting on for 2 years+ old (even the Sony is nothing much more than a rebadge). The advantage of 2yr+ boxes is that, on the whole, their softwares are nice and stable now after a few corrective downloads.

Beko-Digifusion for example have now moved on and there most recent boxes (90 / 95) are actually from a different box design company call Access Devices who are actually getting their more recent products badged under loads of different names.

Cliff
Last edited by CJL : 08-08-2006 at 18:10

Thanks again, Cliff. You are a mine of information!

One thing I would like to know (if it's a simple answer) is whether a DVD recorder with built-in HD is a better bet than a PVR with built-in Freeview? I found a Liteon 5045 (160Gig) in Currys for £180 which would presumably record from my STB as well as its built-in analogue tuner, but I guess it's not going to be quite as convenient for recording digital channels, as it will involve 2 remotes, and possibly some conversion losses if it's via the Scart?

I can live without DVD recording, but I could use a decent player!

I would guess that to be able to record from your STB, the STB will have to be tuned to the channel that is being recorded throughout the duration of the recording. That means if you want to watch something else, you have to watch analogue unless your TV is Freeview.

Once you can record dual tuner Freeview, you'll wonder how you managed without. I never watch live TV anymore except the news - everything I want to see is recorded to be viewed at my convenience.

Fair point, Ang, although I still watch analogue, too! I do quite like the idea of a one-box solution though (we've already got far too many remotes) and I hear what you say about a twin tuner PVR. I am also guessing that in practice there will be few programmes that I will want enough to go to the effort of putting them onto disc...

The problem with DVD recorders that have hard drives in is that they only ever offer (up to now) just one digital tuner. The reason most of us prefer Freeview PVRs is that they have two digital tuners allowing for record 1, watch 1 or even record 2. When you have a tuner+HDD in a box you can then also do pause/rewind on live stuff too. But again, in a DVDR+HDD this is only possible on the one channel (cos of the one tuner) but in a properly thought out twin tuner Freeview PVR you can happliy pause too things.

If there's an overlap of two programs, rather than actually setting recordings, I often pause the "next" channel while I watch the first. If someone phones up while I'm watching that first one I then pause that too - you couldn't do that on a DVDR+HDD as it would have run out of tuners.

I do have a DVDR as well as my (two!) twin PVRs so if I want to keep something I then archive it from the PVR to the DVDR. If I had my time again I'd make that DVDR a DVDR+HDD as well cos then it'd be much easier to remove the adverts when archiving.

Cliff

Sounds like PVR is the way to go. Will hang on to see what Access Devices come up with (although I quite like the look of the Sharp machine). Any release dates yet?

(Still tempted by Liteon 5045, though..)

Thanks for all the input.
Last edited by alterego : 09-08-2006 at 11:59

i'd write off the sharp iiwy.......
http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...=432086&page=1

What on earth is there to recommend the Sharp machine? (though admittedly all we've seen so far is a picture in the Argos catalogue and on their web site). If I had £200 to spend then it'd be the Humax 9200 or I might stretch the budget and get a Topfield 5800

(in fact what I think I'd actually do with £200 is buy TWO refurbished Fusion 200s from ebuyer.com - one for downstairs, one for the bedroom)

Cliff