236 replies to this topic

[Stuart Walker]

diesel, on Mar 25 2009, 07:28 PM, said:

Is the glass half full or half empty?

There are a couple of LG TV screens with built-in PVRs already on the market

Got one..... wouldn't buy one again.  Not very flexible, no option to record from EPG, can't get anything OFF it (had to use a video camera for crikeys sake!), limited storage.

We're seriously considering a BeyonWiz P1, but the local CLive Anthony only has the 160GB model....... Should be good for bargaining him down though, as we have our own NAS to store stuff on.  Easier to increase capacity   I like the media player capability too.

Stu

[NoRelationToNed]

pgdownload, on Apr 14 2009, 11:06 AM, said:

Basically the same great pitch that sells high end Monster HDMI cables - They claim to provide (and do deliver) a certain excellent functionality, they just don't tell you that you can get the exact same functionality for much much less elsewhere if you care look.

The "Freeview" brand really only offers reassurance (ironically misplaced given the two phase roll in of functionality ) and as we know is in some ways a poorer product (No ad skip) than non-branded equipment can be. But its re-assurance that they will be selling, not a feature set IMO.

Peter Gillespie

That's the best summation of "Freeview" I've seen, brilliant analogy Peter!

Ron.

[diesel]

Stuart Walker, on Apr 14 2009, 09:21 PM, said:

We're seriously considering a BeyonWiz P1, but the local CLive Anthony only has the 160GB model....... Should be good for bargaining him down though, as we have our own NAS to store stuff on.  Easier to increase capacity   I like the media player capability too.

Welcome Stu. The Beyonwiz P1 will provide a lot more functionality that what you previously experienced.

BTW, the P1 originally shipped with 200GB HDD, and now has a 250GB HDD. The P2 has a 320GB HDD. Either way you can easily upgrade to 500GB internally (some are using 1TB though not officially supported) or use your NAS

[Timmy Downawell]

pgdownload, on Apr 14 2009, 11:06 AM, said:

(No ad skip)

Much as I hate to promote Freeview, but "no ad skip" comes across as a media beat-up. Freeview's CEO has said that their Fast Forward spec allows up to 60x, so while you can't truly "skip" ads, you will be able to FF at "up to" a speed so fast that it may in fact be unusable. Presumably, manufacturers will offer a range of FF speeds, and IMHO 15x is plenty fast. Tivo users seem happy with its functionality (not sure what speed its FF is) as it has a smart drop-out-of-warp feature that skips back slightly to allow for the natural human response delay.

[pgdownload]

Timmy Downawell, on Apr 14 2009, 10:40 PM, said:

you will be able to FF at "up to" a speed so fast that it may in fact be unusable.

As someone else pointed out, this is based on thinking like a VCR user. There's no physical need for components to accelerate in a PVR. Why not have a button that 'fastforwards' at x60 for .166 of a second. this equates to a 10 second 'jump' that would fit within the Freeview requirements. Likewise a button dedicated to a defined 3 seconds FF would bring you past almost all ads without a thought. Ad in a Tivo like 'REW back a touch' if you hit the play button and you've got something very usable IMO.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

Edited by pgdownload, 15 April 2009 - 10:07 AM.

[ozlooper]

Timmy Downawell, on Apr 14 2009, 10:40 PM, said:

Much as I hate to promote Freeview, but "no ad skip" comes across as a media beat-up. Freeview's CEO has said that their Fast Forward spec allows up to 60x, so while you can't truly "skip" ads, you will be able to FF at "up to" a speed so fast that it may in fact be unusable. Presumably, manufacturers will offer a range of FF speeds, and IMHO 15x is plenty fast. Tivo users seem happy with its functionality (not sure what speed its FF is) as it has a smart drop-out-of-warp feature that skips back slightly to allow for the natural human response delay.

But no matter how fast/slow the FF is, you still need to watch the ad(s) in order to go back to normal play. Unless, as was suggested on the Beyonwiz forums, we can have a button for something like "fast forward at 60x for 1 minute".

edit: beaten by Peter

Edited by ozlooper, 15 April 2009 - 10:04 AM.

[diesel]

I find the skipping button on my Beyonwiz remote gets the most use. I miss it when occassionally I have to watch a DVD via my DVD player.
If I can, I'll burn the DVD into an ISO file so I can watch it through the wiz and skip backwards/forwards to my hearts content. Add in resume play and you never have to use FFwd/RRwd again

[pietro]

Freeview is becoming more and more amusing. I see the federal government has now started ads about getting digital TV. If that doesn't confuse things even further........

[John G]

MickB......, on Mar 25 2009, 02:30 PM, said:

What do you actually get with Freeview that you don't already get?  Bugger all really.  Another EPG that may or may not work.  Its just marketing hype.  Its not 15 new channels...

The FTA channels are bleeding viewers because of ... shoddy scheduling and the late changes and time overruns, etc. Freeview won't change any of that.

My (limited*) understanding is that the Freeview EPG (via MHEG-5) will be transmitted in parallel to the existing EPG. A condition of the FV license is that the PVR must have restricted ad skipping and recording transfer functionality.

What will be intertesting (and disgusting) is if the Freeview EPG is kept up-to-date with program time overruns, whilst the existing one is not.
Therefore, what you will get with Freeview PVRs is accurate program recording, whilst with existing PVRs you will need to continue the practice of padding recordings.

Also, if the EPG supports series links, then it will solve the problem of scheduling changes and episodes going missing. Therefore, all the complaints about programs continually being shuffled can be answered with "it wouldn't be a problem if you had a Freeview PVR".

* Limited, because there is a vacuum of information being provided, and non-disclosure agreements, which is never a good sign.

[fredofrog]

ozlooper, on Apr 15 2009, 10:03 AM, said:

But no matter how fast/slow the FF is, you still need to watch the ad(s) in order to go back to normal play. Unless, as was suggested on the Beyonwiz forums, we can have a button for something like "fast forward at 60x for 1 minute".

edit: beaten by Peter

FV limit FF to 32x normal speed

As much as I like the skip on my BW STB, a feature of hold and release can be added to the FW which gives a similar effect.

Skipping is a little bit overrated but in saying that I understand why not wanting to give it up is important to some. If the EPG ends up being good, then I would go for it otherwise no dice

[pgdownload]

Freeview have stated that the FTA EPG and Freeview EPG will be sourced from the same data.

There have been some suggestions that the current FTA EPG already updates on the fly in some cases on some channels, but I've seen no strong evidence that this is anything more than coincidence. Regardless no recording devices can currently adjust timers to reflect such 'updates' with the possible exception of the Tivo which only gets an EPG update every few hours anyway.

Shows will still be stated as starteing at 7:30 and finishing at 8:30 regardless of real world conditions.

Its possible Freeview devices will start offering series recording, but again this is likely IMO to simply use a fairly static EPG as its source and add padding etc to cover descrepancies.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

[diesel]

fredofrog, on Apr 15 2009, 01:25 PM, said:

If the EPG ends up being good, then I would go for it otherwise no dice

Current FTA EPG is pretty usuable IMO and for me at least I wouldn't give up skipping for a slightly more functional and prettier 3D style MHEG5 EPG.

[GregA]

pgdownload, on Apr 15 2009, 01:57 PM, said:

There have been some suggestions that the current FTA EPG already updates on the fly in some cases on some channels, but I've seen no strong evidence that this is anything more than coincidence.

My Toppy adjusts the recording times of channel Ten recordings on the day of the show. It usually moves the late shows back 3 to 10 minutes. It ends up missing the first 30 seconds of the show often.

[Timmy Downawell]

diesel, on Apr 15 2009, 04:49 PM, said:

I wouldn't give up skipping for a slightly more functional and prettier 3D style MHEG5 EPG.

I agree, but I am waiting to see what iinet offers on its forthcoming IPTV service (they have promised a Freeview compliant twin tuner PVR). Assuming they offer a pay TV product that gives me the opportunity to give Foxtel the boot I'll go with it.

Jumping ads in 30 sec bursts on my Toppy is by no means perfect, so returning to a VCR-style FF function will not really phase me. 10-16x is fine. I have tried different TAPs but the 3 minute skip was next to useless as breaks are different durations all the time (and not by accident, I'm sure).

[diesel]

GregA, on Apr 15 2009, 08:53 PM, said:

My Toppy adjusts the recording times of channel Ten recordings on the day of the show. It usually moves the late shows back 3 to 10 minutes. It ends up missing the first 30 seconds of the show often.

Is that using any TAPs or non FTA EPG?
That's buggy operation IMV

Timmy Downawell, on Apr 15 2009, 09:37 PM, said:

I have tried different TAPs but the 3 minute skip was next to useless as breaks are different durations all the time (and not by accident, I'm sure).

The Beyonwiz allows customisable skips (% or secs) using the direction keys, so I have a +3min, -15secs, +15secs and +10%. You can also press and hold and watch the progress bar increase/decrease by the increments of the button you press eg press and hold of the +15secs for about 3 secs will skip about 3mins

[Timmy Downawell]

diesel, on Apr 15 2009, 09:58 PM, said:

The Beyonwiz allows customisable skips (% or secs) using the direction keys, so I have a +3min, -15secs, +15secs and +10%. You can also press and hold and watch the progress bar increase/decrease by the increments of the button you press eg press and hold of the +15secs for about 3 secs will skip about 3mins

I think I have +/- 30 secs and +/- 20 secs set up, but skipping ads isn't an exact science. By the time I've skippped 4-6 times, maybe I should just have been content to press FF once and FF'ed at 16x speed.

In an ideal world, the software settings would allow you to choose what speed FF goes at (in a Freeview box, a choice up to their max, of course). iinet if you're reading this, please take note!!!

[GregA]

diesel, on Apr 15 2009, 09:58 PM, said:

Is that using any TAPs or non FTA EPG?
That's buggy operation IMV

It's using the UKAS TAP, with the regular FTA EPG.

So the UKAS system automatically sets up recordings for any shows on my list, whenever they appear in the guide. Then on the day of transmission Channel Ten updates the time of their shows.

eg: 11:30pm moves to 11:38pm. The TAP had already been set to record 11:30pm-12:40am - so it changes that to 2 recordings.... first from 11:30 to 11:38. Second from 11:38 to 12:48am.

I'd prefer it to totally remove the first bit - but as I said the altered channel 10 EPG is still slightly wrong, but this time I lose 30 seconds of the beginning sometimes.... so if I want to I can find it on the previous part recording.

Edited by GregA, 15 April 2009 - 11:33 PM.

[John G]

pgdownload, on Apr 15 2009, 01:57 PM, said:

Freeview have stated that the FTA EPG and Freeview EPG will be sourced from the same data.
...
Shows will still be stated as starting at 7:30 and finishing at 8:30 regardless of real world conditions.

OK then, so what is the point of forcing FV PVRs to use MHEG-5? Is it purely for the nicer graphics? Or does it provide extra benefit non-FV-PVRs won't have?

To display a FV logo, a PVR must be M5 compatible. Does that mean only FV licensed manufacturers can use the M5, or can any PVR translate the EPG without requiring a FV licence? (if it is an open standard, but then the networks will probably use some sort of copyright argument).
Or is the licence fee purely for the "benefit" of displaying the FV logo?

What is the point of FV???? Or more importantly, is there anything a non-FV-PVR will not be able to do?
I don't know if that has been definitively answered yet - opinions range from "it is 100% marketing" to "EPG will be encrypted".

No wonder DTV is so f***ed in this country - so confusing!

[pgdownload]

John G, on Apr 16 2009, 09:47 AM, said:

What is the point of FV???? Or more importantly, is there anything a non-FV-PVR will not be able to do? I don't know if that has been definitively answered yet - opinions range from "it is 100% marketing" to "EPG will be encrypted".

The FV EPG will be 'encrypted'. Only STBs that qualify for the FV requirements (basically no ad skipping and MPEG4 capability) will be able to access the FV EPG. The FV EPG will appear as a standard EPG across ALL boxes (ie FV EPG on a Sony STB will look the same as the FV EPG on a Humax STB). It is likely that most STBs sporting the FV badge will offer a choice between the FV EPG and standard EPG (its looking like the FV EPG won't be broadcast for another 6 months or so despite FV boxes being on sale in another 2 months).

Technically the FV specification could be real time updating etc. but really no one knows how advanced Freeview will look to go. Its likely IMO that they will eventually offer something like a series link capability.

Note that its really up to the PVRto be able to utilise this information. Its all very well having the EPG update every few minutes but what happens to your timers? Obviously for the most part all EPG info will simply be as per you read in the paper guide. Its only the now and next shows that might conceivably be up dated 'real time'. But this can cause all sorts of headaches:

Its 8:25 and your PVR has used the Freview EPG to set a recording for 8:30, suddenly the guide says its on at 8:28 is a timer recreated? what happens if this new time now causes a clash with another timer? etc. All this involves an extensive interface (aka the Tivo thumbs up / down etc.) and a degree of loss of control. Its not necessarily a Nirvana.

So IMO Freeview is likely just to offer a basic guide same as in the paper with probably a series link option ultimately to allow some PVRs to recognise the link value rather than use the program name.

Regards

Peter Gillespie

[diesel]

pgdownload, on Apr 16 2009, 10:26 AM, said:

Its 8:25 and your PVR has used the Freview EPG to set a recording for 8:30, suddenly the guide says its on at 8:28 is a timer recreated? what happens if this new time now causes a clash with another timer? etc. All this involves an extensive interface (aka the Tivo thumbs up / down etc.) and a degree of loss of control. Its not necessarily a Nirvana.

So IMO Freeview is likely just to offer a basic guide same as in the paper with probably a series link option ultimately to allow some PVRs to recognise the link value rather than use the program name.

And that is a very good point with dynamic EPGs Peter. I can't see realistically how they can work without more user input (aka TiVo Thumbs style) so the box has some smarts about "what to do now?"
Co-operation from the broadcasters to run closer to advertised times would reduce some of the complications, but I haven't seen any flying pigs lately

As for the FV EPG, it'll be basic to begin with and then they may look to offer better interactive graphical EPG (like a 3D view where you can look into the future/past by using a zoom function) and probably imbed some advertising

[Vortical]

Diesel

Topfield has a Freeview compliant pvr coming too
http://www.topfield....a...=&mainmenu=

[tonymy01]

Vortical, on Apr 16 2009, 04:16 PM, said:

Diesel
Topfield has a Freeview compliant pvr coming too
http://www.topfield....a...=&mainmenu=

Ooh, nice!   You should have said "everyone, Topfield is working on a 7150 with freeview compliance"...    Although I don't think their generic (on all Topfield descriptions) "powerful trickmode" will please Freeview, given that the whole idea is to remove the "trick modes" and just give basic FF instead (well, I suppose backwards skip is ok, and slow mo...)
Regards

[tonymy01]

lcgyy, on Apr 16 2009, 05:46 PM, said:

Its not 24

Spam reported... and you think you are so clever to spam essentially (almost) on topic but sneak your 24 box set spam onto this thread, and similarly on the Beyonwiz thread.   Bugger off back to where you came from.

[Timmy Downawell]

Vortical, on Apr 16 2009, 04:16 PM, said:

Topfield has a Freeview compliant pvr coming too
http://www.topfield....a...=&mainmenu=

Wow, look how much bigger the Freeview logo is compared to the Topfield one   (I'm sure it's just a mockup tho).

[diesel]

tonymy01, on Apr 16 2009, 04:27 PM, said:

Although I don't think their generic (on all Topfield descriptions) "powerful trickmode" will please Freeview, given that the whole idea is to remove the "trick modes" and just give basic FF instead (well, I suppose backwards skip is ok, and slow mo...)

Well the Toppy has one of the smooooothest FFwd/RRwds in the business