I've found this to be so as well (using Winter Hill transmitter); even Five has surprised me though it doesn't have SL functionality.

I don't think it has AR either because the paperclip isn't shown on the schedule list. However, the last two CSI episodes and the Neighbours special have recorded in their entirety with stuff before and after the programmes too.

The test this week will be how Neighbours performs in its new time slot on Five, which I have had to set via a weekday timer.

Have you deleted the TUTV channels?

You shouldn't defend it ... if it doesn't work get rid of it ...

Mine works so I'm happy to keep it ...

No. What effect does that have?

Less data to transfer and the TUTV channels transfer really really slowly... my EPG loads in 5 mins on BBC1.

There are occasions rare when there holes but that seems down to the broadcasters.

I am sorry wgmorg, but I do not understand this. Are you saying that by deleting the TUTV channels from your Hummy you stop BBC1 transmitting the TUTV data from your local transmitter, thereby reducing the time it takes for BBC1 to transmit the EPG for the channels that you DO want to receive?

The figure often quoted on Digital Spy is that it takes around 8 minutes for one channel to transmit the entire 7-day EPG for all channels. It will take that time irrespective of which channels have been deleted on the Hummy.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

One thing I like on the Thomson and the Wii is the way you can enter search text with the numeric keypad - as if you are texting. A lot less fiddly than scrolling around the keyboard on the Humax.

So, I'd like that please.

I'm afraid I have no choice. It's the best of the bunch if I want modern technology (e.g. two tuners), but that doesn't stop my wife seeing its shortcomings compared to what she's used to, and frankly I find it difficult to defend. I still can't believe how primitive the software is on PVRs, compared with what was available nearly a decade ago.

Yes ... TIVO did a good job with their patenting...

Yes that is good observation and you are correct...

Settings on the 9200*** can not change what is being broadcast.

What you are doing is reducing the amount of data you need to receive before the EPG is fully displayed ... I'm just lucky that the data I don't want is at the end of the transmission so my EPG appears full at the end of 5mins.

After saying all that isn't interesting that when using BBC1 the BBC's part of the EPG is always filled in the first minute.

We've been here before. Are you telling me that Virgin Media pay a royalty to Tivo for their padding+Series Link functionality. I hardly think so.

The only functionality of Tivo that I think may be patented that I really miss is the automatic backup on a 64X fast forward, which gives you the chance to skip forward at very high speed and yet still stop it exactly where you want. This is actually why excess padding (rather than A/R) doesn't bother me on Tivo, it's no big deal to skip forward (takes literally a few seconds) to exactly the start of the program. As I say, I suspect this feature is patented which is why I've not been complaining that the 9200 doesn't have it.

TIVO hold a lot of good patents and they take action to protect them.

It think its someone else that is currently taking action against VM for patent infringements.

It's Gemstar:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitalt...g-patents.html

But doesn't it depend on where it is in the cycle when you switch on?

VM is afraid of paying someone certainly - they don't even have a name for their 'Season Pass' or 'Series Link' or 'Series Record'... the said facilities on the V+ has no name!

That's also a good comment ... and why it is interesting that when you are on BBC1 the BBC channels are always fully populated in the first minute.

That's because the schedule information is divided up into chunks for 'actual' and 'other'; the repetition rate for the sections of data for the 'actual' (ie current mux) information is higher than for the 'other' data, every 9 seconds for today, every 27 for the other days. For 'other' schedule information, repetition is every 54 seconds for day 1, every 270 for the others.

i've never had one single lock up, have you done default settings when you upgraded??

what situations do they occur in??

Had v20 for a couple of months - no lockups
Had v21 for two weeks - 5 lockups
Went back to v20 for the last two weeks - no lockups.

There didnt seem to be any pattern to why they happened although some people have said MHEG & certain broadcasts during adverts on Channel 4.

But that specific problem should affect version 1.00.20 and for that matter 1.00.15 in exactly the same way so if reverting to an earlier version fixes it then it is probably not an MHEG problem.

Thanks for your interesting explanation.

Yes - I dont have an explanation and I dont really understand MHEG. There must be something in 21 that is not in 20 but there could be other reasons because some people dont get lockups with v21.

I think its most people don't get lockups!

I agree with the sole exception that I think the situation is that many people do not get lockups; I suspect that those with serious lockup problems are a minority. Some of them will be MHEG related and I think there is a reasonable chance that Humax or the broadcasters will fix them. Some of them will be faulty hardware but that leaves some, such as yours, that are not yet understood (at least by me). The only way forward is for those suffering to post as much detail as possible each time it happens to see if a pattern emerges.

It's probably worth me weighing in again here.

I was one of those on v20 since it was released with no lockups. v21 gave me occasional lockups (at least 1 a day) which *could* have been coincidental with the new MHEG ads. Then I got it into a lockup loop on power up (after I enabled the auto-on feature). I downgraded to v20 and all the problems went away, no lockups at all for a couple of weeks.

Now, about 10 days ago I upgraded back to v21 by cable. I was careful to do a reset to defaults before upgrading and twice in succession after upgrading (no idea why this would help but I did hear it on here somewhere). I've had no lockups since upgrading but I haven't yet enabled the auto-on feature - I'll try to do this over the weekend.

Apart from the double reset the only difference between this and the original v21 is that I did this one by cable and the last one was over the air.

Either the (occasional) resets were purely MHEG related and just happened to go away the same day I downgraded or v21 triggered them somehow in a way v20 didn't and the MHEG has changed now so I can use v21 again. When diagnosing problems I don't believe in coincidences so I'm going with option 2.

As for the reset loop, I remain convinced this was a software problem, possibly the double reset has fixed it but when I re-enable the auto-on I'll know more. I guess it may have been MHEG triggered too so we may never know.