I know when Freeview Playback units first hit the streets there were a number of postings over quirks of the accurate record feature, primarily due to the broadcasters. Has that improved now?

My T810 still has the standard single record firmware on it (which works fine) but I was wondering whether it was time to consider the un-official dual record firmware again (which does accurate record).

Thanks.

I think Accurate Recording generally works very well on the channels that support it. Unfortunately ITV have messed things up by transmitting the timing data to include the trailing adverts which belong to the preceding programme at the beginning of most recordings. This effectively adds un-necessary padding at the beginning of all recordings. Otherwise particularly on BBC channels AR adds greatly to the convenience of TV viewing IMO.

Colin

Another naughty channel is More4 - it's gives me loads of ads at the start, and cuts off the last few seconds of The Closer every blooming time That's the only programme I record on More4, I only discovered it recently (The Closer, I mean).

That's on the twin-record T810 - I'm going to schedule it on the T816 from tomorrow and see if it happens there as well - I'll leave it to record on both PVRs, then we'll know for certain if it's the TV Co or the PVR.

Repeating info already given in DS umpteen times, in summary:

If you go for twin-record, advb69, you'll need to delete all channels you don't need (as many as possible), and you'll only get about 4 days EPG. The EPG will appear empty on some channels but will fill up gradually, it's better on the channel you're actually receiving at the time and scrolling to the right helps to nudge it. It's not too cumbersome if you're going to set up recordings for the day and then not need the EPG very much after that. The interactive on BBC and QVC is very slow when it does function, but with BBC you can always select channels 301/2 etc. The poor little T810 only has 32mb RAM so it stresses out, but if you don't demand too much it's great.

parthena

I hadn't noticed how the "4" channels behave. I'll check later. I would not be surprised if all the commercial channels follow this policy. Personally I don't see that it will give any commercial advantage to the broadcasters. Most PVR users will simply FF through the ads anyway. It will just antagonise users and make them more determined to ensure they don't watch ANY adverts. The annoying thing is that it is not possible to use Skip to zap these particular adverts as they are very variable in duration, on ITV anything between zero and 5 minutes.

Colin

No it isn't, More4 is one of the channels I deleted on T810.

I quite agree about variable ad-break lengths and consumer rage But I wonder what the heck the commercial channels are going to do for revenue...

parthena

I think the surest thing that can be said about Channel Four's AR is it's more reliable in daylight. Their machines must be solar powered.