Why is this worse for a PVR than for a Freeview equipped DVDR?

Apparently Sony are working on a dual tuner PVR to be released in spring source.

Thanks Cliff, I have missed your expertise recently, you haven't been posting as much! You are probably right in what you say as always, but if Sony, Philip's et al already have set top boxes out, which they have, how much more work is needed Cliff, to then put the 'set top box', eg MHEG, EPG,MENU's etc, and attach a hard drive? Surely you answered the question when you said that for any manufacturer, once they have the foundations right, then they can just build on that. Doesn't that apply to Sony, Philip's et al, who already have set top boxes with the MHEG on board? And surely, as Freeview grows and now that manufacturers have a fixed date to work to for when the analogue signal will be switched off, they will all have to bring out DVD recorders, etc containing digital tuners, MHEG, etc?

GG

GG,

I have a feeling we might well see more DVDR+HDD+DTT boxes from the big corporations but the likelihood of them being DTTx2 is much smaller - which is a shame. I think part of the problem with PVRs is "how do you sell them?". Spotty Urk in Dixons can point at a DVDR and say - "remember your old VHS tape recorder? Same thing - but with disks". But only those of us "in the know" about PVRs (and especially twins) recognise their true benefit whereas most shoppers in Dixons see it as an "anonymous box in the corner with a few lights on it". I think the difficulty is a marketing one of getting the message across to the masses as to just how revolutionary PVRs can be for your viewing. It's stuck in a chicken and egg loop at the moment. There's not enough sales to justify large scale marketing and without large scale marketing there's not enough sales. Only as the "word of mouth" thing works its way through the population will PVRs ever really hit the mainstream. I wonder what the relative sales figures of DVD players to DVD recorder to PVRs are? I'd guess at 20 to 10 to 1 or something like that. So a manufacturer will continue to put their effort into making the things that sell 20 or 10 times PVRs cos that's where they make the moolah for their shareholders.

Cliff

Well, I know that you understand these things better than 'woman in the street (me) however, I am keeping my fingers crossed that once Freeview is afforded a decent EPG (metadata) then we might see an explosion!! But seriously Cliff, I would rather have a PVR anyday than a DVD recorder, and I don't think that there is anyone who once they have owned one, would be without it.

GG P.S ask on here Cliff where to buy, Richer sounds had them but don't know if they still have it.

I think I will. Is it best to use the Contact Us enquiry page at www.panasonic.co.uk, do you think?


For my latest attempts I had both tuners tuned to BBC1, which has a decent signal and has shown a minimum of weird behaviour in the past. Live TV buffer is 30 minutes. I could try changing these.


Many of the programmes have had the ends trimmed with partial deletes. No skip areas. But recently I've been recording stuff just for the purpose of testing, and that has been completely "clean", and it still loses sync.


It currently has nine hours free, although it was down to two recently. There could be some fragmentation. Unfortunately many of the things that are filling it up are things that I'd like to dub.

And remember, the box does seem to be capable of properly synced playback, on the AV1 output. It's just AV2 that it seems to have a problem with.

Perhaps I'll spend the weekend swapping cables and copying stuff off via AV1. Is there a way to clear the hard disk and reset it to shipping condition? I wouldn't want to lose the software updates though, as they seem to have improved things in most other respects.

Steve.

Steve, I usually ring the number at the back of the instruction booklet, and ask if you can speak to a technician. It does sound as if you have some sort of fault on the AV2 scart, I dubb to disc and do allsorts at the same time!!

GG

I'll do that. Thanks.

Steve.

I was told that early last year by my long time friend who works for them in Weybridge... and nothing much happend (citing concerns on the impact of DVD media sales), but why now? Cliff, of all people, will have more insight, however, if Sony are to produce (and I would look forward to it, just for the sake of neatness and less remotes, eventhough I have a Harmony 885!), then somehow I expect it to be rather good (on the basis of my bother-in-law's HXD710 - not one complaint uttered, other than he could see the benefit of 2 tuners) and rather expensive... so that's where the Germans went GG

PS I'm a Sony addict, my sister's a Panny addict and she now wants my TUCTH! There was mad rush (seriously!) at my local Richer Sounds... they sold the only one they had! Tough luck sissy, ILMP (I Love My Panny!)

Hi Everyone

I bought the CTH100 today and noticed that i have firmware V0.47

I understand that this firmware has some bugs so i will be looking forward to the new V0.57 when it gets rebroadcast to fix these problems

I hope that you can help me with something

When i connect the digital optical lead from my dvd (and there is a dvd playing) to my amp the red digital light displays on my amp to show that its receiving a digital signal

When i connect the digital optical lead from my CTH100 to my amp there is sound but the red digital light does not display on my amp to show that it is receiving a digital signal is this normal

I assumed their would be an option for swithching digital sound on at Menu-->Setup-->Picture And Sound but i cant find anyway of getting to the Sound menu only the Picture so is their a Sound menu at all

As far as I know Freeview does not broadcast digital sound at this point in time. The TU-CTH has this digital output in case Freeview does begin broadcasting 5.1 (I think that I am right in this, other posters will correct me if I am wrong.

Hi everyone,GG here with slight apology to make to you all regarding a mix up about the time that the TU-CTH searches for a new software update. The last swap out that I had included a re-written instruction book, with all the typos etc corrected, and on page 15, it stated that the automatic software download search will occur at 12.00 (GMT) every day. (Which is when we all know that the Panny certainly does something.) This is why I posted saying your units would pick it up whilst you were at work if in standby. It now looks as if this has been changed (could have been changed in this update actually) as I have downloaded the new instruction book, and it has been modified to now read that the search now takes place at 4.00 a.m in the morning.
My apologies.

GG (that'll teach me to be a know all!!!!)
Last edited by Grannygrunt : 15-02-2006 at 21:30

Hi GG

Downloaded instuction book from where?

Afraid since this update mine has locked up 3 times now for no apparent reason. Also had a black screen displayed on BBC 2 a couple of times, and had to switch off to get picture back.

Hi Barry, sorry to here you are having some problems since the update, is it anything to do with the Winter Olympics? Just asking, as the BBCi feed is causing the Humax to lock up according to the Humax thread. Anyway, as I don't know how this quick link business works, go to the Dual Tuner Freeview PVR Comparison thread, post #447 where Vallarica has posted the relevant info.

GG

... but the TUCTH "semi-crashed" at approx 21:00 today. Just so you know, I switched on (to BBC1) to watch a recorded event and could not access the hard disc let alone change channels. Thankfully, could switch it off normally, however, it took an age (3 minutes) to switch off, and it in fact brought up the Panasonic legend, so clearly doing a reboot. Nevertheless, it did recover, without pulling the plug, and it appears to be recording DH on C4... after a week of pure bliss, hopefully it was just a hiccup

GG

You may well have a later edtion of the manual then the one linked to, and therefore were correct in your advice re 12:00 check for software update.

The manual now on the Panasonic site is dated 2004 and is the same one I offered to send out to people in the original Panny thread #124

As for the lock up...it could be BBCi, the funny thing is I do not have problems with the Humax which is now my No1 PVR (even cancelled Sky+ because of it)

There's an option in Menu\Disk Manager to clear all HD contents in one fell swoop. The manual doesn't imply that it does a reset to shipping condition, or rollback the sofware updates.

I really would try making yourself some space - thinking back, I seem to recall that my HD was pretty full when I dubbed down the programme that I've observed problems with. Most of the time my disk is around half full.

As far as the fact that dubbing via AV1 is OK, could this be because when an archived programme is being output to AV1, the machine is no longer having to decode an incoming live transmission, I wonder?

I'd check what the light on your amp actually means. You're clearly getting digital output from teh TUCTH100, or there'd be no sound (assuming you don't have any other connection between the PVR and your amp), but as GG says, there's no 5.1 encoding on Freeview. So I think what you're feeding into your amp is a digitally encoded stereo signal.

... not to worry, however, just an observation, have we noticed the date on the mock screen captures (p21), and do we really think Panasonic were developing the software, let alone the unit since before 03 April 2004

Nope no extra insight here except to say (as a dedicated Sony fan myself) that the general difference between Sony and most other brands always seems to be: you pay a bit more, you get a few less features but EVERYTHING just works! I can well believe that Sony are working on one and have been for some time but I think the difference will be that they're the one company who won't actually release it until they are happy that it really IS ready! So while we all do the beta testing for Fusion/Panasonic/Thomson/Humax/Topfield there's probably a room full of Sony engineers somewhere doing the same thing for their product which may well have been "ready" in the same time frame as all these others.

Cliff

Barry, have checked this manual that came with the last unit, and it too has a 2004 date on the back page, so looks like the date is a bit meaningless. As this one now available to download has only just been made available, probably now that Panasonic know the unit is now functioning okay,(apart from the odd rogue units) I would assume that this is the latest version, they just haven't updated the publishing date.

GG

When my recently departed mico dvd recorder played anything back which had been recorded from freeview it would output AC3 sound through my amp from the optical lead

So when i saw the optical on the CTH100 i assumed it would do the same on playback of recorded programmes


Yep that seems to be the situation

When i play the dvd the red light indicates that the source is AC3 digital sound which is what the mico would output on playback of freeview recordings

The amp does say digital source then switches to pro logic obviously the red light does not appear as like you say its not outputting AC3 sound

So does that mean that the CTH100 cant encode/decode AC3 sound it can only pass through the sound when/if freeview ever broadcast 5.1

Also regarding the Picture And Sound Menu where is the Sound Menu

... unfortunately I seem to have a bout of the winter lergy... so am feeling sorry for myself and playing catch-up on some of the recordings between naps :yawn:, however, when I tried to Pause the Action not possible! banner flagged up, yet I could Stop and do everything else! Tried to Pause on other recordings, no change, so switched to Standby... and guess what, it did another reboot (Panasonic legend), and yes it corrected itself! Only commonality with last night was that it was tuned to BBC1 - are the BBC messing with their MHEG during the Winter Olympics, if so, how irritating?

Not sure what you mean here, and I'm not very familiar with sound encoding protocols anyway. But even if the TUCTH100 were to encode the audio in a different way from the way it does currently, it couldn't include channel information that isn't present on the broadcast in the first place. So all you'd get is a stereo audio signal on two of the 5.1 channels. Unless the box were to add "effects" which personally I think would be highly undesirable, and best left to your AV amp anyway.



There isn't one - the Picture & Sound menu just brings up Picture options. I've no idea whether its just an error in the text on the main menu, or whether there may be Sound options in a future software release.

Yes I am afraid they are Nirm!! Go have a look on the Humax 9200T thread, which as I own one of these as well I often visit. Most posters on there have had lock ups when accessing the BBCi channels that are showing the Olympics, mostly it seems when they are on 301,2 or 3 (can't remember which, honestly my memory is shot!) Only began with the Humax when the extra feeds began, and as I am always saying, you can guarantee that any lock ups are caused by the MHEG services!!! Our 9200T hasn't locked up, but then we aren't watching the Olympics on it.

GG Hey, Nirm, perhaps this software update has introduced a signals wrong/encounted a problem/will not crash, will re-boot instead!!