Has anyone got the Enterprise episode from last night? i would be happy to send a disk and return postage in return for a copy of either the .rec file or a demuxed file.

My timer is playing up something awful - about 1 in 10 or so timers fail to kick in. The date advances a week (it is usually on a weekly recording - not all of them mind you - and totally intermittent - random even as far as i can tell) but zip gets recorded - not even a tiny file of a couple of KB, which i have had happen on two very rare occasions.

No - i am not using automatic timing. These are manually set timer recordings. Yes - i am using the Dec 2004 Firmware. No - i did not reset the factory settings when i upgraded the firmware (perhaps i should have?). I have the TimerExtend TAP installed as well. Anyway, tonight i am going to load the March software update, which i only just saw on the Korean site today. Hopefully that may fix my glitch. It is very frustrating not being able to be assured that timers will kick in every time they should!

I guess you're using a Toppy... Sorry, can't help with the episode in question, but maybe can help in fixing the problem?



First, yes, you should do a factory reset - if not you can get some problems, including the one you mention - BUT you can also get it anyway if you aren't careful.

You say only some timers fail to kick in - so I suspect that Automatic/Manual time is not the issue, but in fact some of your timers, manually entered, are defaulting to the wrong tuner in the December firmware (this is why it remained as a Beta frmware, not a release one). If this is the case, the March firmware will fix this issue - BUT you should follow the full upgrade proceedure (see one of Andy's posts on the Toppy forum for full details). If the manual/auto time is the issue then the March firmware won't help - but from your symptoms it sounds unlikely.

My reasoning is as follows.....

*Time* can be set on the Toppy either automatically (ie it gets the time from the broadcast stream - which can be wrong on occasion),, or manually - ie you have to enter the time when the power fails, and adjust the time every week or so to fix the fact that it runs slow. On manual Time, your timers should not be jumping forward, on Auto time more than one can jump ahead if the time is wrong.

*Timers*, on the other hand, can be entered manually (eg by selecting rec on a program from the EPG, or from a menu selction to enter a new timer), or can be set automatically using TAPs, for example the TEDS/EPG upload program. With TEDS/EPG, they should default to the correct tuner, but manually entered they can default to the wrong tuner.

Now it gets technical. With the December beta firmware, timers can, on occasion, fail to start because they are set on "Tuner 1" instead of "Tuner 4". "Tuner 4" is code for "automatically select a free tuner". "Tuner 1" means "use Tuner 1 only, unless its already in use, in which case don't do anything". So timers set to Tuner 1 can fail. "Tuner 1" selection will happen if you manully enter a timer for the channel you are currently watching.

Basically - either be careful when manually entering timers (eg select a TV guide chanel before entering a timer), or upgrade to the March firmware which fixes this bug, but be careful follow the full upgrade proceedure. Either one should get you out of trouble.

Good luck on getting the Enterprise episode.

Cheers

Zed

I believe I have a copy of last nights Enterprise. (Not quite sure as I haven't had a chance today to have a look, however I haven't had a failed timer for a long while).

I'm in Sydney, and would be happy to send a copy to you.
The file is about 3600 Mb (before I've trimmed the excess 'top' and 'tail').

I've switched to the March05 firmware and think its great (not as large a step as the Dec04 was though).
I'm using, amongst others, PBK and Timer Extend TAPs, both with "Tuner 4" options set ON, and using TED(S) to upload almost all of my timers - and haven't missed a single timer.

PM me to arrange for the rec file if you like.

Thanks very much Zed - finally i undesrtand what has been going on. i have seen stuff about Tuner 4 but had no idea how it could be selected as the system was automatically assigning them for me. I also had heard about the thing about being on a different channel to the one the timer was being set for - but that didn't make much sense either. now i get it.

i will install the march update asw ell - and i will check Andy's site for the instructions on making sure i do that properly.

Thanks for the help.

I did, but I watched it and deleted it only last night! It actaully started 10 minutes early!!! Lucky I was watching and managed to quickly hit record on the Toppy (to overide the timer set for 11:55). Was does 9 keep treating Star Trek like this??

Mine started recording just after of theme song, so I goit it just, but you are right, it is hit and miss when trying to record shows like this late in the night

To those that missed it, you did not miss much, INO a crap episode that had no bearing on the story line at all.

Z