Your digital camcorder tapes have a lot less compression, the format is DV AVI and 20 mins uses roughly 4gB. SD tV uses mpeg2 (just like normal dvds) and this on a good quality high bitrate broadcast takes about 2gB for one hour. The data transfer speed requirement for mpeg2 is roughly 1/6 of that for DV AVI (mpeg2 2gB/hour DV AVI 12gB/hr). HD TV uses H264.Mpeg4 and as you say is even more efficient. DivX is simply a variation of mpeg4 and the compression is so efficient that you can get a whole SD movie to fit on a 700Mb CD.
Last edited by grahamlthompson : 29-11-2008 at 16:36

Don't think anyone has listed this yet (correct me if I am wrong)-

When you fast forward, you go faster the more times you press. But you can't go back to the slower speeds by pressing the rewind button like you can with Sky+. This is very handy if you are skipping adverts and start off really fast, but then want to slow down after a few adverts so you don't miss the start of the show.

I echo the points above now that I have the player myself, especially point number 1. I can't see the point in UP and DOWN being the same as CHANNEL UP and CHANNEL DOWN, when they could be used to immediately bring up the info bar and browse channels on that (as you can still watch the channel you are on in this way) without having to press the info button first.

Someone mentioned how awkward it is to delete something. I agree here also. On Sky+ you can delete items in the same menu that you use to browse them. Why can't this do the same? All you need is an option to delete and a confirmation box, and done. Instead we have to go into another menu called File Manager just to look at the same files we already looked at in the Media menu, just to be able to delete them. Silly.

Don't forget it also has the "Instant Replay" and "Skip Forward" functions which I find better to skip advert breaks.

I have "Instant Replay" set to the default of 15 seconds so you can reverse should you overchute the advert break end and "Skip Forward" set to 60 seconds so four taps skips the average advert break...

Automan.

Yes there is that Automan. I suppose I am still used to how I do things with Sky+ (which I have just phoned to cancel-YES!).

I really wish there is an easier way to delete more than anything, after a good play with this. It was so simple with Sky+

I think it's been mentioned but it would be nice to hit the right cursor to automatically bring up the information panel (iplate?) and then keep hitting right to scroll to the next progs.

This works if you press "i" prior to this. The best thing about this whe you do this on the Foxsat was that when you do scroll to future progs and press "i", it actually gives you a description of this prog and NOT the current prog as with Sky+

I can see the benefit of storing series recordings into seperate folders if you tend to keep whole series, but it is more of a pain than a benefit if you normally just have one or two recordings per series (ie you tend to watch an episode before the next ones on) - the folders stick around when there's nothing in there cluttering up the list, and even if that gets fixed you still have to navigate down a level to get to the actual recording.

I'd like it to work like Windows media centre : with that you can choose whether to display items by date or grouped by series. (It actually always stores them in a single directory but lets you switch between views).

As an alternative I'd like it to:
- not display folders that are empty
- display the contents of the folder, rather than the folder itself if there's only one recording in it.

wouldn't that cause more clutter? Okay you wouldn't see it but because you can't see it you would never do any housekeeping

I would like to see some way of displaying file sizes in File Manager (If there is a way I can't find it). Seems rather an odd omission

Should still see it in file manager, but the view of recordings should only show what's useful - ie it should work like Windows media centre which doesn't show a direct view of the file-system but simply shows what's recorded, either individually by date, or sorted into groups by series.

Fair point

1st request - make sure customers can buy a box if they want one

any other request will have to follow if and when I can get a box.

Yep- agree with that

Just as long as folk still use the file manager. not saying they won't but someone's likely not to and just assume alls well cos there are no folders in the recordings view..

if left cluttered would it slow things down in recording view with multiple folders to check and report negatively?

I agree whole-heartedly. Did yours "fall off the back of that lorry" near Northampton too? I can't get delivery for another 10-14 days now.

Keep track of when the EPG was last downloaded and not download it again if it was last downloaded within (say) 12 hours. The Guide should then display immediately as it does when Schedule followed by Red is selected.

[Not that I've first hand experience of any of this. Still trying to get one ]

I have had experience, and yes, pressing Schedule, Red does load the EPG a lot more smoother with the channel picture showing behind it instantly, whereas pressing Guide brings up the EPG with sluggish control while it is loading and it can take a good 20 seconds or so to continue playing the channel behind the menu.

This would be a most welcome enhancement - imagine series recording the 10 o'clock news or Newsnight - you'd only want the last one or two at the most.

Taliska

Oh, another one...

On the remote control, the pressure needed to depress the wheel *seems* to be much greater than the buttons. Reading 'text' pages is very tiring on the thumb - I should imagine that for the elderly (like me in 20 years) it would be very hard work.

Small knobbles on the coloured buttons would help to locate them without looking at the control.

I always figure that if you can use the remote control for most of the normal functions, without needing to look at it - it is well designed (like the Sky remote control)...

Also suffer from the 9 year-old daughter who can use it, and the wife that can't.

Also... that volume control is bananas - having multiple TVs hanging off the box is trashed by the PVR volume control changing the PVR volume output - it should do either the TV, or the Audio Equipment. (Sky got that one right!)

Hope that's useful,

Taliska

Tonight I was watching a recording when I got a conflict resolution screen popup - had 3 recordings set so it was asking me to cancel one.

However - when I tried to select one by clicking the 'down' button on the four-way ring, the playback skipped back about 15 minutes and the popup dissapeared.

I don't like the large skips in playback using the up/down buttons at the best of times (too easy to push by mistake), but surely they ought to allow selection from the popup - not quite sure what buttons you can use in this case!

I then tried to go into the guide to cancel the 3rd reservation from there - but because the program had already started clicking OK switched to that channel - I'd rather it gave an option to delete the reservation or view the channel live. Same applies on the list of recordings (the only way to stop a recording in progress seems to be to hit the stop button when viewing a channel - which isn't quite as intuitive.

I have a timed recording setup 1800-1805 on BBC1 weekdays for the news headlines.
Normally the HDR "boots up" at 1758 (I think) and records OK.
Yesterday, I took the box out of standby manually at approx 1759 but did not have the TV on HDR input (was finishing watching a DVD).
Turned TV over to HDR input at 1801ish and the box was doing a channel scan to add the new channels (BET+1, etc), and didn't record the news.
Not an issue for the news, but could have been something important...

I assume there had been a "do you want to scan for updates" message, and this had timed out and defaulted to "yes".
Maybe this should default to "no" if a recording starts within the next 15 minutes.

Very odd. I know at the beginning of the week when the latest channels were added mine powered up from standby and started recording its scheduled program as normal. When it had finished recording I was watching something else but after that had finished I put it in standby and then switched it back on and the update message appeared.

To echo whats already been said, I would like to see:-


option to dim or turn off the front display backlight, it is V bright.

would like the ethernet port on both the HDD foxy & the non HDD foxy to be enabled so that the recorded stuff could be streamed from one to the other via a home network

also if a workaround could be put in place so this setup could act as a kind of multiroom using one of the dual tuners, handy for people with limited dish access.

The delete while recording.

Deleting watched programmes seems very convoluted compared to the 9200

When you press Media to display Video content some indication that "New" items exist in folders.

Also option to delete empty folders in this view or the unit does it automatically when folder is empty.


I also seem to have HDMI issues when box is powered up whilhe recording.
I have to switch my scaler off the Humax and back to get a picture and sound

The remote does seem a bit directional, to be more precise the box is a bit insensitive. I have just programmed my pronto to control the box and you still have to point it right at it. The pronto has a very powerful IR transmitter and all my other kit works just fine with it pointing randomly around the room.

When you press record on a channel you are watching, IMO the box should record from when you started watching the channel like Sky+ does, rather than recording from the current moment in time.

This to me is a no-brainer for addition. Without even owning an HDR yet I can see this would be quite an annoyance.

My first post on DS - hardly a high profile post but a post none the less!