The Freeviewer Diaries (2)

10:06 Sep 28, 2009 15

by Freeviewers 1

So far the single best thing I've found about my freeview decoder? Burglars don't recognise its value so they leave it behind when they cart off my other geek necessities (goodbye laptop, eeePC, ipod, camera, flatmate's playstation...). Needless to say now that I no longer have a hard drive bulging with totally legitimate television downloads, I will be relying much more on the shiny Zinwell ZMT-640PVR.

I have discovered that occasionally when the news tapes, it shows up as TV3 Plus 1 in the playlist, but I'm unsure if that's maybe something my flatmates have done. Likewise, occasionally programmes that I expect to have taped aren't there. I am blaming my flatmates and thinking that this may be the week to figure out password protection. The idea of having a whole channel dedicated to carrying TV3 shows just a couple of hours after they've already run is pretty clever though. I occasionally refer to myself as being on Perth time due to my sleeping habits, and it is nice that Freeview is catering to someone on Sydney time.

Comments on PA system about my last Freeview diary went over my head very very quickly, with extensive talk of HDMI encoding and all kinds of hacks and talks of different coloured cables. I want to stress that the Zinwell is redonkulously easy to use, and you don't have to be able to follow any of the things that the resident PA technocrats were going on about. Four coloured buttons, the info key and the electronic programme guide will keep you satisfied. The one thing that I really must remember to do is start recording Shortland Street from the beginnning which screens at 8pm weeknights on TVNZ6. Marge is still manning the reception desk! Gina is pushing her trolley! Steve Mills is still alive (um, spoiler alert...). And I hear that some guys called Russell and Damian also have shows on the extra channels. I really should check those out pretty soon...

Joanna McLeod, Zinwell ZMT-640PVR

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Well the excitement of having a new gadget has died down a bit and now we are learning to live the DVR.

For me the single button recording from the EPG is simply the best feature. Of course I have been recording madly and not having the time to watch very much. For example I hardly ever get to watch the news because of children’s activities around that time, so I have it on automatic record every night. I am sad to report I have only sat down later and watched the recorded news once. For this reason I have found a really helpful feature when viewing recorded programs. If you have to exit that recording for whatever reason, when you go back to it, resumes playing in the same spot.

A feature mentioned from one of the commentors after our posts last week made me have a look to see if I can find functionality only to keep the last x number of recorded episodes in a series. Say keep 3 nights of the news before deleting them. It doesn’t look like this model does that though. I am not sure how long it will take to run out of memory on the hard drive (this demo model has 320GB although is meant to have 500GB) but I am being conscientious about deleting unwanted stuff right now. Still we’ve managed to use 100GB already.

We did run into a little issue with the dual recording on Wednesday night. I had set up recording for TV3 and Prime and then tried to watch a third channel. The Freeview website notes that for this model “some channel combinations may not be available” but I wasn’t expecting TV1 and TV2 to be missing. I ended up watching TV7 and “The Backbencher”. Not being a very political animal that didn’t last very long, but quite funny when switching to parliament TV in the middle and seeing the chamber almost empty (but then realising it was delayed coverage).

The improvement to reception and picture quality is so much that for now we are sticking with our old 21’’ CRT TV for now. Freeview has added a lot of value to it and I don’t have to worry about the kids accidentally wrecking a flash new flat screen. I am a curious to see what I can do with the USB ports on the DVR too, but that’s on the agenda for the weekend. So far it doesn’t look like you can hook up the computer to it though.

Pauline Dawson: Homecast HT9200DTR

15 responses to this post

Gary Hutchings, 10:35 Sep 28, 2009

Re: some channels not being available
Pauline: Are you saying you had 3 and Prime recording, but you could not watch 1 or 2, but TVNZ 7 was OK?
This seems wierd.
Freeview broadcasts its channels via 3 transmission streams known as MUXes,
TVNZ have one with 1,2,6,7,sports extra on it,
While TV3 have one with 3,4 and 3+1, while the other channels Maori, Prime, Stratos, Chinese etc, all reside on the Kordia MUX,
Recording off 3 and Prime, would mean tapping 2 of the MUXes, I would expect that you should not be able to get anything off the TVNZ one, but are you saying you could get 7, but not 1 or 2?
Sounds spooky...

wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 108 posts Report
Pauline Dawson, 10:54 Sep 28, 2009

This is EXACTLY what happened. I was recording Prime and TV3 and and TV1 and TV2 were unavailable and yet I was watching the Back Benches on TV7

Mosgiel • Since Feb 2008 • 26 posts Report
Gary Hutchings, 11:16 Sep 28, 2009

Hmm, the only thing I could see as a conflict could be the HD decoding capacity, both TV3 and TV1/2 are HD, 1080i and 720 respectively, while all the others are plain SD.
As an aside have you been able to record/watch TV1 while recording TV3 and TV2 or vice-versa?

wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 108 posts Report
Graeme Edgeler, 11:26 Sep 28, 2009

I have discovered that occasionally when the news tapes, it shows up as TV3 Plus 1 in the playlist, but I'm unsure if that's maybe something my flatmates have done. Likewise, occasionally programmes that I expect to have taped aren't there.
Yeah - this is one odd thing. I switch over to 3 - find myself half-way through some programme I decide I'd like to see, so go to the EPG and tell it to start recording it on 3+1 when it starts there in half-an-hour. Instead, it starts taping on 3, and I get half the show. If I want it, I have to manually start recording 3+1 at the appointed time.
Similar problems arise with TVNZ7 - see some doco I'm interested in watching, so tell it to tape the repeat the following morning. It starts recording the current showing instead.
Also, that thing where it doesn't record shows you really want it to (and told it to, and expect it to) bugs the hell out of me. Expedition Guyana episode two, where are you? I got episodes one and three, but what happened in the middle?

Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report
Russell Brown, 12:06 Sep 28, 2009

Also, that thing where it doesn't record shows you really want it to (and told it to, and expect it to) bugs the hell out of me. Expedition Guyana episode two, where are you? I got episodes one and three, but what happened in the middle?
Clearly, this PVR thing isn't quite sorted out yet. MySky's favourite trick is unexpectedly losing its series linking, so you find out that you don't have this week's episode of that programme you'd told it you wanted every episode of.

Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report
Stuff n Things, 13:02 Sep 28, 2009

Burglars don't recognise its value so they leave it behind when they cart off my other geek necessities
Seriously? Bugger. I know it doesn't make it better, but I hope the insurance train pays a helpful visit.
A friend recently told me an unsual story about a burglary where the theives knicked the digital camera and computer, but actually took the time to leave the memory card and backup hard drive. Ethical burglary perhaps?
My workmate would have appreciated that approach last year when his computer got pinched, along with all the childhood photos of his kids...

Wellywood • Since Apr 2007 • 50 posts Report
Robyn Gallagher, 13:04 Sep 28, 2009

Steve Mills is still alive (um, spoiler alert...)
Wait, WTF, Steve died? Why did I not know this already? Ok, I'm going to have to take a moment here.
RIP Nurse Steve Mills - 196? - 199?
You will never be forgotten.

Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report
Pauline Dawson, 13:20 Sep 28, 2009

Gary - I can't recall but I think I have watched TV1 while recording 2 & 3. I'll give it a go tonight though to confirm

Mosgiel • Since Feb 2008 • 26 posts Report
Danielle, 13:41 Sep 28, 2009

RIP Nurse Steve Mills - 196? - 199?
The worst was when Carmen dropped dead. I cried. And I haven't watched it since, actually...
MySky's favourite trick is unexpectedly losing its series linking
I've tried to work out why it does this, and I think it *might* cancel the series link if you watch the episode and delete it before it's had time to scan ahead to the next week. Which means you have to leave the watched episode sitting there for a while. But we never have enough room to do that. (Also, why does it not understand that series links can be daily rather than weekly? I want *every episode of The Daily Show*, Tuesday to Friday. I do not want to series link it separately on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
On the other hand, it's up there with the top five purchases of my entire life, so I can't bitch too much.

Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report
Kyle Matthews, 13:58 Sep 28, 2009

Also, why does it not understand that series links can be daily rather than weekly?
Umm, bad programming.
It sounds like mysky might be best run through google calendar, which does all of these things fine.

Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report
Joanna, 14:15 Sep 28, 2009

(Also, why does it not understand that series links can be daily rather than weekly? I want *every episode of The Daily Show*, Tuesday to Friday. I do not want to series link it separately on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
I'll have to doublecheck but I'm pretty sure that my Freeview is doing very well at getting the Daily Show each day with just one touch recording, AND I think it's doing okay when it sometimes starts a bit later after the Wednesday '80s movie, which a manually programmed thing wouldn't do.

Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 746 posts Report
Bill Jones, 17:03 Sep 28, 2009

Re all the muxes and things, I have just found i can now get prime on my zinwell which is great, its on the EPG and all but it wont let me record any of it?????????
The zinwell is great, we are in a crap analogue coverage area (hillsborough) but get brilliant pictures on freeview over the old analogue (yup that was the excuse for the 42" flat screen),
I do miss the timeslip and 30sec jump facilities on the old panasonic HD recorder. Also the HD recorder had a system where you could set it to overwrite a program when the next one was recorded which I still use for getting the news daily without filling up the Hard drive.

Since Sep 2009 • 3 posts Report
Andrew C, 09:22 Sep 29, 2009

Noob question.
With these freeview PVRs are you able to take downloaded movies/shows etc from your computer/friend and load them into the PVR and play them? Even just plugging in a usb and playing it from that would be fine.
Currently we have to lug our PC out to the TV to play them.
Thanks

Auckland • Since May 2008 • 169 posts Report
Paul Campbell, 11:27 Sep 29, 2009

Hmm, the only thing I could see as a conflict could be the HD decoding capacity, both TV3 and TV1/2 are HD, 1080i and 720 respectively, while all the others are plain SD.
It's not doing decoding when it's recording - more likely it's a disk bandwidth issue - it's tough to stream 2 HD streams to cheap disks and be able to guarantee that the user can still play back a third (it gets worse if you plug in a random USB disk and try and use that).
When I designed PVRs for a living explaining physical limitations to users was hard - what you can and can't do me be limited by disk bandwidth, number of tuners, what else has been scheduled, who else is doing what (we built multi-headed PVRs that serviced more than one room).
Explaining in simple enough terms to a user why they can't do something is really really hard in some circumstances - often the reason is some combination of 4 different things - for example a dialog box: "this show is starting to record just as it ends, but this other thing is recording now and Joe in the other room is doing this other thing and for 30 seconds the disk will be maxed out - I could let you look at it live but you can't push the pause button in the last 30 seconds of the show you want to watch" wont fit on the screen .... but "scheduling conflict" will and saying you have to cancel some other show to make it work is more acceptable than the marketing dept worried about how people will accept that 30 second if we don't warn them about it.
I did once build a 4 tuner satellite box just for the hell of it (SD only in those days) - the first time we got a 5-way scheduling conflict the UI crashed trying to present something that could never have a hope of fitting on the screen. On the other hand the family wasn't happy when we went back to a 2 tuner box (what do you mean we can't record The Simpsons, Sex in the City, and the Sopranos on a Sat night?
Finaly a note about "Series Link" that functionality is hard to get right - allowing someone to just record "The Simpsons" can be disastrous - as we discovered when my kids did that the weekend of a channel's Simsons Marathon - you try and delete 200 shows manually (we added a series delete to the UI as a result) - alternately you can just record it if it plays at a particular time each week then you miss it if the time changes for a while.
Often series link sort of functionality is filtered by episode title - that's probably why when I last tried to record Media7 I got 5 copies each week - shows that don't have a title all get recorded

Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report
Graeme Edgeler, 15:49 Oct 5, 2009

Another complaint :-)
Prime TV and Daylight savings ... programmes that were series-linked on Prime TV prior to daylight savings commencing were recording an hour late after the change-over. They had to be cancelled an re-linked before they taped right.
I missed like three episodes of Letterman before I worked out what was going on. And more importantly, I missed most of the second episode of Apparitions. That's like 15% of all the episodes, ever :-)

Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report