Fetch TV HD-PVR at Tesco from 04/06/2010 - [Part Five]

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psp888: Can you update your ticket with the fix you have found? You never know it might help Fetch sort the issue. As you have said its OK for the box to check but it should go back to the power mode it was in.
 
I'm just installing the firmware update to my "fresh from the box" 8230.

It's updating via the home WiF network, but despite the screen saying it should take "about 5 to 10 minutes" it's still going (I assume) after 40 minutes. Since there's no progress bar I can't tell what, if anything, is happening.

Should it take this long? and what would happen if I turned the box off and on while it's halfway through?!

Thanks for any help.

It certainly shouldn't take this long, every time I've updated firmware it's taken about 2 mins, much quicker than the 5 to 10 mins they put in their disclaimer.

Wired networking is far more reliable IMHO.
 
psp888: Can you update your ticket with the fix you have found? You never know it might help Fetch sort the issue. As you have said its OK for the box to check but it should go back to the power mode it was in.

I have updated my ticket with them, they said they have passed my comments to their developers and will look into it.
 
Is there a way to disable the timeshift? It just seems unnecessary that the Hard drive has to be constantly at work when I am just watching TV and have no intention in recording it or planning to rewind. I think Fetch should add an option to disable it as having the HDD constantly record will shorten its life span.
 
Is there a way to disable the timeshift?
Not that I know of (I've had it up in my 8320HD blog for a while in the Feature Wishlist section, but it seems linking to that page will get me told off) and finally got another open ticket freed up today, so it's been logged as a missing feature with Fetch TV.

The two issues to watch out for are:

1. You lose the ability to rewind (<< key) a live TV feed if there's no timeshifting. Not the end of the world, but you have to warn the end-user that they'll lose this feature if they disable timeshifting.

2. Perhaps more critical, it would affect "pause live TV", but I've suggested to Fetch TV that they actually wake up from no-timeshifting mode, pause the live feed, record into the timeshifting buffer, allow user to press play once to playback from the buffer as normal but - and I think this should happen regardless of timeshifting mode being enabled or disabled - a *second* press of play should rejoin live TV (if timeshifting mode is disabled, then clear the buffer and spin down the hard drive). How do you rejoin live TV after a pause and play at the moment? I retype the channel number in, but there must be a better way (FF'ing to the live point is obvious, but I want one button to go immediately back to live TV).

No response from the ticket yet, but we'll see if they comment on it.
 
How do you rejoin live TV after a pause and play at the moment? I retype the channel number in, but there must be a better way (FF'ing to the live point is obvious, but I want one button to go immediately back to live TV).
How about the TV key?
 
It certainly shouldn't take this long, every time I've updated firmware it's taken about 2 mins, much quicker than the 5 to 10 mins they put in their disclaimer.

Wired networking is far more reliable IMHO.

I saw this reply first and spent an hour messing around with ethernet cables (long ones from the loft - not quite long enough - I had to mess around unplugging the router and re-locating it nearer the front room so that everything would stretch and link up on the floor in the middle of the hall!). Exactly the same result except that I managed to really annoy my wife with all the disconnecting/reconnecting of the internet.

I then saw...

I found its better to update the firmware through USB and did this when I first got my Smartbox.

...and at first I thought the "USB" bit was a misprint. But after scanning the Fetch help pages I found out how to do it that way. Soooo much easier!

So thank you to Natterjak for replying (my wife is talking to me again!) and a big thank you to Kargo for pointing me towards what will be the solution of choice for all future updates.
 
How about the TV key?
<Slaps head that he didn't think of it> Yep, that does indeed do the trick. A shame it's not actually documented anywhere in the Sep 2010 full user guide PDF though (and I think a second press of play should also jump to the live TV point, but maybe that's just me...).

Got a reply about disabling the timeshift capability from Fetch TV and it wasn't really satisfactory:

"The timeshifting does automatically stop after 4 hours of no interaction with the remote control. You will see a popup that informs you that the timeshifting will be disabled, unless you press any key to prevent that. Once the timeshift is paused, it will resume if you press any timeshifting key (eg, PAUSE)."

I replied in the ticket:

"So the Smartbox still has 4 hours of hard disk activity if I leave it on *and* I don't press the remote control - still not good enough sadly. I don't want the hard disk spinning at all when the Smartbox is in on mode, unless I press "pause" for live TV, have a remote recording schedule check (it may need the disk to download new schedules set remotely) or am doing an instant/scheduled recording. It could mean the difference between <1 minute of disk activity (outside of recordings) and 4 hours (or a lot more if I use the remote control)."

They also suggested I put the box into standby overnight (either manually or set a low idle standby timeout), which is no good either - I want *scheduled* standby periods, not timeouts or having to remember to toggle standby mode manually twice a day. Yet again, I can't file the scheduled standby idea because I have 2 open tickets for the umpteenth time....arrgh!
 
Does anyone know if the box automatically scans and adds new channels or do new channels have to be scanned in manually?
I've absolutely no idea on this one, but it's easy enough to wait until 7.00pm GMT on Wednesday 3rd November and tune into channel 50 (the new home of BBC One HD) of course :) Now if only the 8320HD could move/renumber channels, because it surely should be on Freeview channel 1 for anyone with a Freeview HD box?

You will definitely see the BBC One HD picture on launch because it takes over from the current channel 50 holder, BBC HD. However, the channel name in the UI might remain BBC HD until a manual or auto re-tune. Post-launch, BBC HD moves to channel 54 (minus any BBC One HD content) and will probably need some sort of re-tune to even get the picture.
It would be very neat if the 8320HD detected new channels and prompted to add them - we'll have to wait and see I guess.

BTW, I threw in a timezone there because it's the first ever timezone change for the 8320HD on Sunday morning (2.00am BST becomes 1.00am GMT). Hallowe'en fun to be had by all - any bets on the time zone change hitting a bug in the 8320HD?
I'd recommend against recording programmes that go through the time zone change (and if you really must, push the end time back more than an hour to play it safe), but that's just the paranoia setting in...
 
Regarding the hard drive spinning all the time, I recently raised a ticket to Fetch support asking if the drive (and external USB drives plugged in for archiving) could be set to power down after a set period of inactivity in normal standby. I was hoping they could stop after say 5-10 minutes, am concerned about energy use, the life of the drive and also the noise is irritating.

Their response said that the internal drive should stop after 20 minutes on standby. Mine doesn't - does anyone else's? Fetch have promised to look into this for me, but it has been a few days so am not hopeful of a response.

They also said it is up to the external USB drive to power itself down after a period of inactivity, and not up to the smartbox to tell it to. This doesn't seem right, I know on a PC (which all such drives are usually designed to be used with) there is a setting for this under drive properties, so it is PC controlled. On this basis you would expect the smartbox to be able to do it as well.
 
Regarding the hard drive spinning all the time, I recently raised a ticket to Fetch support asking if the drive (and external USB drives plugged in for archiving) could be set to power down after a set period of inactivity in normal standby. I was hoping they could stop after say 5-10 minutes, am concerned about energy use, the life of the drive and also the noise is irritating.

Their response said that the internal drive should stop after 20 minutes on standby. Mine doesn't - does anyone else's? Fetch have promised to look into this for me, but it has been a few days so am not hopeful of a response.

They also said it is up to the external USB drive to power itself down after a period of inactivity, and not up to the smartbox to tell it to. This doesn't seem right, I know on a PC (which all such drives are usually designed to be used with) there is a setting for this under drive properties, so it is PC controlled. On this basis you would expect the smartbox to be able to do it as well.

You should get the hard drive to power down if you hold down the power button and then press blue. This will put the box into low power standby immediately.

Try going into Preferences > Display and changing the Energy Savings delay to something like 2 minutes or as I have it set to, 10 minutes.
 
You should get the hard drive to power down if you hold down the power button and then press blue. This will put the box into low power standby immediately.

Try going into Preferences > Display and changing the Energy Savings delay to something like 2 minutes or as I have it set to, 10 minutes.

Sorry, should have said... I don't want to have to put it in low power standby as you then have issues with remote recordings not comng through, and the EPG takes ages to repopulate when you restart.

I know you can set the box to check for remote recordings (ie wake up) every hour/two hours etc, but then you have to set it to power down again after a further period to go back into standby, and it is all a bit clumsy in my opinion...

I was just hoping they could power the drives down in normal standby, as I don't really know why they should be spinning unless it is recording something.

Thanks for your reply though, much appreciated.
 
I raised aTicket with Fetch at 22:30 last night just to enquire about 5.1 Audio out on the HD channels (if it would ever happen )
I had a reply within 20 Minutes.
They sent a configuration to my box today, I was told to restart box.
I have tested it and now have 5.1 on BBC HD :smashin:
Also switches to 5.1 when I was watching Desperate Housewives on 4HD, :blush: although it dropped to Pro Logic during the Ads

It is also at a decent level with no distortion....:D
Interesting, are you using HDMI or optical output to connect to your surround sound? Have tried optical output previously but sound is out of sync. I am now using HDMI into Sony Bravia TV and optical output from that into surround sound. This gives sound in sync but not sure if it would give 5.1 surround using this method?
 
Welcome to the forum Ian... but can I persuade you to use some line breaks and paragraphs please? :) It makes it much easier for members to read. :smashin:

That's a lot of information packed into a tight space.

Thanks.
Sorry, it was just the excitement of figuring out a workaround to this annoying problem. It really does work, or at least did this time, can't wait for next Monday to see if problem happens again.

Bigger concern of course is why recording stops short in the first place, and the fact that box does not go back into low power mode. Not a real problem if you are around next day to perform a restart, but if you are on holiday then I guess box would stay on until you got home and all of you subsequent program timers would not work?

Can't really be bothered to raise a ticket to Fetch, life is too short. Apart from this box seems to work reasonably ok, just occasional issues with it performing a restart during remote key presses and the odd ff/rewind, can live with that hopefully will be resolved during future firmware updates??
 
I'd recommend against recording programmes that go through the time zone change (and if you really must, push the end time back more than an hour to play it safe), but that's just the paranoia setting in...
Why not try either way and see what happens? set up a recording from 2.00 to 3.00 and see how long it records.
 
Why not try either way and see what happens?
Actually, I set up a recording of the repeat of the Elton John Electric Proms on BBC HD, which if you highlight on the EPG (Sunday morning, 1.15am GMT) says it airs 1.15-1.15!

If you then press the red button to mark it as a recording, the red blob doesn't appear next to the Elton John show, but it *is* added to the recording schedule. I kept pressing the red button 7-8 or times and couldn't get the red blob to appear next to the programme on the EPG, but when I checked the recording schedule, I had 8 copies of the Elton John programme listed :) I've removed 7 of them and will see whether it actually records one of them. So that's 3 bugs already without even the recording taking place yet!
 
My box has a thing for recording Coach Trip. I set it to record one episode on Tuesday and ever since its been recording every single episode that airs on Channel 4 even though I haven't set a series link.
 
I set it to record one episode on Tuesday and ever since its been recording every single episode that airs on Channel 4 even though I haven't set a series link.
It's a known issue - here's what I say in my 8320HD blog about it:

"Random programmes may appear in the recordings schedule and ultimately be recorded despite not being put in the schedule by the user. These often seem to be "related" shows (like recommendations given to you sometimes when choosing a programme to record from the EPG)."

The other week, I chose the Saturday night Match Of the Day BBC 1 airing to record, only to get the Sunday morning repeat added and the live match (Doncaster I think?) added too! I deleted the extra 2 programmes and within a couple of hours, they were back in the recordings schedule again. I'd not done Series Link and had no recommendations dialogue appear at all.

I say "random" on my blog because literally on day 2 of box use, I had no recordings scheduled at all and nothing in my recordings list and yet "magically" an S4C programme for 11.05am that morning was scheduled and recorded without me doing anything! No harm done that time, but what if happened in a timeslot I already had 2 recordings scheduled for?
 
Interesting, are you using HDMI or optical output to connect to your surround sound? Have tried optical output previously but sound is out of sync. I am now using HDMI into Sony Bravia TV and optical output from that into surround sound. This gives sound in sync but not sure if it would give 5.1 surround using this method?

Fetch said the current firmware does not support 5.1 from the optical, my box runs to my Amp via HDMI then to my screen via HDMI...All works ok with no distortion or clipping etc
 
I set up a recording of the repeat of the Elton John Electric Proms on BBC HD, which if you highlight on the EPG (Sunday morning, 1.15am GMT) says it airs 1.15-1.15!
isn't that true, though? the programme will start at 1.15 summer time and end at 1.15 winter time. This looks pretty intelligent to me.
 
First, I had to wait 6 days for a (different) ticket to be answered and now my suggestion of scheduled standby (which isn't a whole lot different from auto-standby timeouts - it's just that the exact days of the week/times of the day that box comes in and out of standby could be programmed by the user) went down like a lead balloon with this response from Fetch TV support:

"I would suggest that you purchase a power plug timer which allows you to control electrical devices throughout the day.
We're sorry, but what you seem to need is not within the scope of what we consider a Freeview PVR."

Apart from the suggestion being ridiculous (the timer can't tell if I've made any scheduled recordings overnight for example), it does smack of "I'm bored with the idea of adding what would a unique selling point for the 8320HD, please go away."

So I think you can forget about the idea of scheduled standby then. Apparently, I'm the only one who leaves the box on 24x7 and the only one who doesn't touch the remote control until the evening and the only one who would like the box to go in and out of standby automatically overnight (at user-specified times). Fair enough, I guess...
 
isn't that true, though? the programme will start at 1.15 summer time and end at 1.15 winter time. This looks pretty intelligent to me.
Except that when you put it in the scheduled recordings list, it does display the time correctly (1.15-2.15) [or "wrongly" if you prefer]. One of the two is wrong, therefore this is a bug.

BTW, next week's TV Times (which incredibly doesn't mention the launch of BBC 1 HD on Wednesday, even though it's got the new channel numbers for BBC 1 HD and BBC HD in their Wed-Fri listings, so they certainly know about it) says the Elton show is "1.15-2.15am (BST)", which is also wrong since BST stops at 2.00am.
 
Except that when you put it in the scheduled recordings list, it does display the time correctly (1.15-2.15) [or "wrongly" if you prefer]. One of the two is wrong, therefore this is a bug.
... says the Elton show is "1.15-2.15am (BST)", which is also wrong since BST stops at 2.00am.
There's a good reason why BST stops at 2am when it's all quiet, rather than at let's say noon. Who cares about a TV schedule, but imagine the cahos for trains and planes.
What happens if you purchase the Playboy 24h pass, will you get 24 or 25 hours of viewing?
 
Just to wade in here.

I've been (suffering) with a windows media centre PC for the last year in the living room. We had a DVB-S tuner / Freesat. And apart from various tuner problems when you wanted to watch live tv, it wasn't bad.

I noticed the Smartbox in Tesco yonks ago - was put off by this thread.. Then, round about thread part 4 people started saying it wasnt too bad.

So I to the plunge on Wednesday.

I upgraded (over USB) to the latest firmware and so far everything has worked as advertised.

Having a working iplayer on there is IMMENSE. Just need to get SeeSaw on there now.

No weird wake/sleep problems I've noticed yet.

All in all very happy - aside from the noise.
 
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