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The Freeviewer Diaries (2) | Sep 28, 2009 10:06

PA readers lounge-test Freeview DVRs

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

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The Freeviewer Diaries (1) | Sep 21, 2009 11:18

PA readers lounge-test Freeview DVRs

Over the next four weeks, three Public Address readers will be lounge-testing three different Freeview digital video recorders. How easy are these new boxes to set up and use? What features are there? What's on Freeview anyway? And how is life with a DVR?

First impressions from Joanna McLeod (Wellington) and Pauline Dawson (Dunedin) are below. The third Freeviewer, Aucklander Mark Dansey, will be along shortly after his box is delivered this week.

But onwards …

Joanna McLeod (Zinwell ZMT-640PVR)

I like watching television. Well, I like a lot of shows on TV. I don't like having to watch things at a particular time. Like, networks, you are not the boss of me! Plus, I am very popular and cool and I go out a lot. For a couple of years I've had a dvr, which I thought would be great but is actually pretty dreadful. The remote control died on me, it requires constant rebooting and it forces you to watch the channel you're recording. Oh how I hate it. I learnt how to programme it, but I've never mastered the art of getting my flatmates to stop quitting the programmes that I wanted it to record.

Naturally then, the first thing I looked for when I ripped open the courier package from Freeview was whether or not my new Zinwell had two tuners in it. It did! Hurrah! There were a lot of pretty coloured cords in the freeview box, and I was initially a bit freaked out before I realised that oh yes, they're for people with fancy TVs, not old CRTs. All I needed was the simple red, white and yellow ones. The only mildly tricky bit was the crossover cable out from one tuner into another, which made me worry about Ghostbusters crossing their streams. I plugged in the aerial cable, and wonder of wonders, it said it was scanning and installing the channels itself. I didn't even need to put the time in!

Once it was set up, a quick flick through the instructions had me hitting the EPG button for the electronic programme guide, and from there it was a matter of using coloured buttons to navigate through the next eight days. When I went to record a show, it asked me if I wanted to record the whole season. None of this scrambling to type in times and numbers and days of the old system, and being distraught by overlapping times. Within five minutes, I'd programmed it to record all the shows I want to watch.

Which, if you're interested in knowing just how much television I really do watch, here's the list:

Shortland Street, 3 News (but oh how angry it makes me!), The Office, The Simpsons, Home & Away (for my flatmate, honest), America's Next Top Model, Harper's Island (I think this is actually going to suck, based on one episode, but Jeffery Bell was involved in Angel, so I'm willing to give it a go), The Riches, Battlestar Galactica (I'm new to this. Spoil it and I'll cut you), The Daily Show, Grand Designs (the perfect hangover show).

Watch this space…

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Pauline Dawson: Homecast HT9200DTR

There was quite a lot of excitement in our house this week with the arrival of our Freeview DVR.

Although many years ago I actually had a trade cert in radio engineering, I have let my techy skills lapse. These days I leave the setting up of such things to the man of the house, but I decided to give this ago – for review purposes. I have to say I've never set anything up so easily straight out of the box. I give bonus points for coming with all necessary cables (even an HDMI one!) – something I was concerned about as it would have been a bit of a drive to the city if I needed to buy some. Setting up channels was a breeze and incredibly quick. And presto we suddenly had awesome television reception on all our existing available channels plus much more. We had been struggling with awful VHF reception, which made TV1 unwatchable. Problem now solved (although I can't recall what I used to watch on TV1)

One thing I did have to compromise over was combining this new technology with our existing audio/visual stuff. Our TV is getting on to 15 years old with limited inputs. We have a VHS because we seem to have inordinate amount of kids Disney films on video, a DVD player and also we like to play things from the laptop through the television from time to time. With some jigging around it all fits together, but my partner is now itching for a new HD TV to make full use of the Freeview HD features. (Hey if anyone wants me to review an LCD set….). I did wonder if it would be really useful to have a DVD player/burner as part of the DVR unit – maybe that is a future option?

Again I have to emphasise how easy this thing is to use. I have only had the briefest skim through the manual but the on screen menus are so easy to follow. I set the unit up on a Tuesday and immediately was doing one touch series recording for Outrageous Fortune through the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). I have now set up the news and various other programs that I often forget about because I am busy with the kids' bedtimes etc. The twin tuner also let me record two programmes while watching a third on Wednesday night. So far, the only thing I am having difficulty with is the time slip functionality. Maybe I am doing something wrong but it resets when you change channel. Also only being able to put it on fast forward or jumping in 5 second units is a pain. However I've just this minute found out how to tweak it.

Apart from the unit itself, it's great to have Freeview. Kidzone has been a godsend this week when I've had children home sick. I'm looking for to exploring some more.

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