I know this isn’t the first time that it’s been mentioned, but has anyone got anywhere with Humax re their rather crude timer operation? A week later, I haven’t heard a peep.

I had got used to my old VCRs with PDC, which worked very nicely on BBC1&2 and Channels 4 & 5. Starting just on time, running on for at most a few minutes afterwards, and coping wonderfully with unscheduled delays (e.g. over-run of preceding sport programs), I’ve been rather caught out by Humax’s apparent step backwards.

The 9200T seems to just allocate the exact nominal time block, no PDC or other variants, no auto-padding (VCRs have offered this for at least a decade) so missing the start or end of a program is rather too common.

As others have noted, manually editing of the scheduled recording slot (to add a few minutes before/after) has two severe side-effects. The schedule loses the program’s name, and after recording, the list will show the name of the preceding program if I started the recording early.

These are two enormous failings, ones which I’m astonished got out of Humax’s development phase as I found them in just two days. Has anyone heard anything positive from Humax on this front? And does anyone know if the likes of PDC (or its variants) are possible/likely to be added via software updates?

On a separate note, the file transfer to my PC worked fine (1hr program transferred in 34 mins) using a 6 metre USB cable, but I’m unimpressed at having to seek out obscure/little known media players or else codecs to be able to even view the program (or burn it to DVD?).

A nice PVR, but Humax need to sort these problems out!

The codecs aren't obscure - they're MPEG2 for DVB. That's what Freeview uses; it's just that PCs don't normally have a suitable codec installed to play those streams.

You may find the Apple QuickTime MPEG2 component will also work on the PC; there's certainly a version of it available, for under £20. It's what I use on the Mac to handle all the MPEG2 data from the Toppy.

Nigel.

At this point in time, PDC is not available on Freeview. the PDC feature that you have used in the past on analogue is supplied by the broadcasters, not the manufacturers, and as yet has not been implemented on the digital platform. Don't worry, I am sure that as soon as the broadcasters begin implementing PDC, it will be taken advantage of by the manufacturers of Freeview equipment.

And I am sure that as soon as the manufacturers start supporting it the broadcasters will start using it.

Appreciate your info re codecs - I happily admit my ignorance on the subject, but I do suspect that most of Jo Public probably know little more, and perhaps don't visit specialist forums after popping down to Comet for a "new VCR"... Perhaps there's a need for a bit more printed info from Humax here? And what's the cheapest option for recording programs to DVD R/RW? Some of the packages online have frightening price tags.

On PDC, I know it's lacking from Freeview, but thought it was still available via the analogue signal which I thought the 9200T gets? Surely the whole world wants to just record their chosen program, with as little fiddling or padding as possible? Recording two sides at once whilst watching a third is damn clever stuff, but not so smart when you lose the last few moments of your program?

there is little point in a manufacturer including PDC if the signal to start/stop is never sent is there?? When PDC became available on analogue, can anyone remember if VCR manufacturers included it in their products first or did the broadcasters begin sending the start/stop signal first???

If you have a DVD Rewite drive it will have come bundled with software to write to it. You copy your video files to the DVD just like any other files.

Begs the question: Is it cheaper for the manufacturers to update their firmware to support PDC or for the broadcasters to update their's to transmit the PDC signal?

Not if you want them to play as a standard DVD you don't. To do this you need a dvd authoring program.

There are simple versions of these bundled with some software (such as nero vision express in nero 6, or neo dvd.

How is the analogue PDC signal transmitted? Is it buried in the teletext data stream? I presume that would require extra circuitry which freeview boxes don't have and there's no real point in including as the analogue switch-off is imminent? (You can tell I'm guessing ... )

An OT aside - I'd been following the 9200T threads for ages but lost the will to go on a wee while back when the threads lost the plot. Today, I steeled myself to jump in and discover the state of play prior to purchase and was delighted to see the dedicated PVR brand forums. Someone somewhere deserves a medal ...

Has anyone posted a comprehensive review yet?

Absolutely correct on every point.

For a digital tuner only PVR to leech onto analogue PDC it'd need both an analogue tuner and an analogue teletext decoder.

The best hope is the BBC(/others) initiative to extend DVB SI-EIT data in the MEPG stream to richer "metadata". That should allow for PDC like functionality as well as Tivo-like "series link" etc. However this won't happen for a few years and will probably never be supported by the boxes we have now.

Cliff

This is a major bug bear of mine and hvae hated it for over a year every since I got my first pvr Humax 8000t, I now have anew 9200t. I sugegsted to Humax and I bet I aint alone if they could have some tolernace either way of a program pending, they said they look into it, one year on nothings change. I still love the pvr's but its so annoying having to manually readjust the recordings.

the equivalent of PDC already exists - Now a& Next can be controlled by the broadcaster to give exact end times.

Personally, I'd rather use padding on the PVR as then it's under my control and if the broadcaster srews up (it happens) then it will still be OK.

MCE has pretty much the optimal set up - you set global "soft" padding - padding which never causes a following program not to be recorded. It also has the option to add "hard" padding automatically to programmes tagged as live sports. And of you can individually pad recordings manually.

The program naming thing is a silly bug, but one which presumably makes the recordings list a nightmare.

I think you're expectations of broadcasters are too high on this one. It took years for them to use PDC properly and even now it can be hit and miss - loads of people who did use it probably stopped because the broadcasters made such a pigs ear of transmitting the data correctly.
On Sky the broadcasters have direct control of the EPG but most fail to update when timings change - the BBC tend to be a notable exception.

It's fair enough to expect the manufacturers to build this type of functionality into their equipment but historically it is the broadcasters who consistently fail to deliver in harnessing this.

I accept that if news or live sporting events over-run that schedules are disrupted but watch most commercial channels (particularly ITV) and they now seem to manage to screw up the schedules from the start of the day onwards - their schedulers are obviously the same people who make hospital appointments .
Wouldn't it be really radical to expect that programmes actually run to time.

They run perfectly to time. But those times aren't the ones they publish!

The disappearance of the title from the list of scheduled recordings after adding padding is annoying, especially if you want to add padding to all recordings. I think it's usually more important to add padding to the end of a program. One possibility is to create a new 10 minute time slot at the end of each program, but that is tedious and effectively halves the number of available timers. I wonder what the likelihood is of this being corrected in an update?

Having missed the last 30 seconds of yet another programme I decided to manually pad all my scheduled recording by 5 minutes at the end.

But when you do this, the EPG no longer shows the programme as being scheduled for recording.

Seems that the EPG requires exact start and end times to match to display a programme as being scheduled for recording.

So you can't see the programme name in the scheduled recording list (because you've edited to pad it) and you can;t see the programme as being recorded in the EPG because it's been padded.

Great functionality! Automatic padding simply must be in a future software release - and the sooner the better!

The Pace Twin has been doing this for years with no problems.

The best work around, I think is to postpad by say 5 minutes but not prepad at all. (I deleted a recording called "eastenders" last week thinking it had been accidentally done and the actually realised that it was the first episode of Bleak House (thankfully it was repeated on Sunday). (Note to anyone in contact with Humax - they could do with putting in an "undelete/recover from trash can" option as well). I think usually you can put up with missing the first minute of a programme but to lose the ending can be catastrophic! By only postpadding, the schedule will lose the name of the recording but at least by not prepadding it will afterwards be given the correct name when the recording is stored. Obviously don't bother postpadding where losing the last couple of minutes makes little difference (eg serials, documantaries etc).

On my 9200 I have a programme set to repeat daily and have padded both the start and end times. Yesterdays recording was date stamped with today's date, and today's recording has tomorrow's date! The programme was titled with just the channel name, in this case, BBC TWO. Other programmes recorded yesterdy are correctly date stamped.

I also have that same programme scheduled on my 8000 in exactly the same way, and needless to say, no oddities with that. Clearly a case of fixing something that wasn't broken!

I have also noted that when splitting recordings, sometimes the name gets updated to show the EPG title of the actual prgramme (in effect dropping the name of the preceeding programme that was on when the recording commenced) and sometimes it keeps the same name but with a 1 added to it. Same process but not being handled consistently.

I'll e-mail this finding to Humax.

Same thing happened to me last week with Hill Street Blues on More 4. I had set pre and post padding and set it for daily. Each recording Wednesday - Friday lists the following days date. Seems to be a bug when you pad both start and end of programme and repeat daily.

Another point with setting timers - I had set More 4 for Hill Street Blues each day but the time varies, I set for daily to cover the days which its on at same time and the specific time for other days - DON'T do this - The earliest programme takes precedence - today the daily seting started first and recorded cancelling out the actual programe which started 10 mins later. Daily recording should only be used if the programme is always on at same time.