Yet another TV Drive Review

[HDFootyMan]

Well, I'm impressed.

Yesterday I was worried about the engineers turning up. Well, they woke me up , they turned up at 8.20 (my place is nearby the NTL Headend for Coventry) and they even phoned me to get my lazy **** outta bed.

I made the engineers the hot cups of tea they both deserved . Both of them are looking forward to the Virgin rebranding, one of them had a Virgin Wooly Hat on.

I was a bit worried when the picture from the TV Drive kept dropping out (I thought I had been given a box with a faulty HDMI connection) but a reboot fixed that.

As for the TVDrive itself, its a LOT faster then my Pace Box (which now has a new home in the bedroom). Browsing through the 8 day guide is great - program data appears instantly, I've yet to see the dreaded 'Searching....'. I've set up a few series records so I'll see how it copes with those.

I've had a few lockups, where the TV Drive appears to have a snooze before deciding to process commands from the remote control. This should be first priority for a code fix IMO.

The favorites system is different - you can select your most loved channels but you CAN'T select what order they appear in. This is no big deal however, since you now get a LOT more program data, a LOT faster then before. Of course, being able to record a program is the icing on the cake.

On Demand of course, is totally shagged for TV Drive users in Coventry (only 5 other people have Tv Drive in this area), so all VOD content and most of the help videos are MIA. VOD still works however, on the good old Pace box.

HD content is limited of course to BBC HD. It looks good, bloody good at times, but I'm convinced that my Toshiba can do better so I'll be messing around with the picture settings later.

All in all, a nice piece of hardware to own. Frankly, its worth having just for the extended, turbo-charged EPG. Now all we need are a few code fixes, VOD switched on and of course, those Sky HD Channels.

[bayonet]

Hello Chris

Sounds promising from your comments

Due for my TVD install on 12th January I'm have a Toshiba 27" HD TV any tips for settings it up or is it all done from the STB?

One other thing did the engineers do the HD setup for you as I've booked it for them to do it for me

Cheers

Bayonet

[HDFootyMan]

Originally Posted by bayonet

Hello Chris

Sounds promising from your comments

Due for my TVD install on 12th January I'm have a Toshiba 27" HD TV any tips for settings it up or is it all done from the STB?

One other thing did the engineers do the HD setup for you as I've booked it for them to do it for me

Cheers

Bayonet

Hi Bayonet,

I have a Toshiba 32" WLT 66 HD TV. I'm still messing around with picture settings on the telly to be honest, but once you have the TV Drive, you'll get a few display options for HDMI, including: 720, 1080, 720 wide and 1080 wide. I find 720 to be best for most telly (including football), and the TV Drive/Tosh will automatically switch between 4x3 and 16x9 pictures when you change channels (I have the 'Wide' picture format set on the Tosh).

The Engineers should bring a HDMI lead for you and they did most of the setup for me: they set up the 720 HDMI mode; Gave me a quick demo of the recording features, and showed me the wonders of BBC HD.

At the moment, I've turned off the 'MPEG NR' picture option on the Tosh since, IMO, the picture is a little better and the TV Drive goes a fair job of upscaling content to 720.

One thing to be aware of is that, according to the enginners, when the TV Drive displays error messages, it only displays it via the SCART output, so if the TV Drive starts to get seriously wacky, make sure you have the SCART and HDMI connected leads connected (I've been brave at the moment and have disconnected the scart so I can use it for my DVD player).

^^^ Hope that helps.


Following on from my review:

>>> I've encountered the 'dropped frames after watching recorded content' bug (there's a thread about this at Digital Spy). NTL need to fix this.

>>> The 'delayed response from remote control' bug is annoying and happens at random times during the day. NTL need to fix this too.

>>> There's a nice 'record by category' feature which allows you to select a list of programme types - for example, you can get a list of all football-related programs that are on today. You can then set up a reminder or set a program to record. Its a nice feature but it takes a good while for the TV Drive to get the list.

>>> The Parental Control is just....well, annoying (for me ), sometimes you're asked to enter your Parental Control PIN before you can watch recorded content which is rated 12, 15, 18 etc - there's no way to completely turn Parental Control off.

>>> There's a bug, well, 'feature' with the mini-guide - in settings, you can specify how long the mini-guide displays for, before it disappears. But the mini-guide will only remove itself from the screen when you DON'T press the left or right buttons to select mini-guide info for another channel.

>>> I recorded and watched 'The Unit' last night, it played back OK apart from the odd moment where the sound dropped out.

[bayonet]

Excellent

Thanks for the tips Chris I'll probably print this off and have it as a reference while I work my way through my new toy in a couple of weeks.

[RS100]

Just hope they turn up for your install ,

Originally Posted by bayonet

Excellent

Thanks for the tips Chris I'll probably print this off and have it as a reference while I work my way through my new toy in a couple of weeks.

[HDFootyMan]

Originally Posted by bayonet

Excellent

Thanks for the tips Chris I'll probably print this off and have it as a reference while I work my way through my new toy in a couple of weeks.

Hope your install goes well - with any luck, VOD will be working on your box when you get it.

[relegationmateri]

As usual 'in theory' NTL have a good product but 'in reality' we're beta testing it while paying them to do so. Hope Virgin are better than the shoddy way NTL run their company!

[d0pey]

Its still going to be run by the same people they arejust rebranding.

[bayonet]

VOD is working ok in Swansea anyone got any photos of the TV drive itself and sizes HxWxD

I read somewhere it's bigger than the old Samsung STB just wanted to make sure it fits in my video unit

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by bayonet

anyone got any photos of the TV drive itself and sizes HxWxD

Pictures and specs of TVDrive here: http://www.sciatl.com/customers/Source/7004921.pdf

It's 400mm x 285mm x 83mm. You'll also need to leave extra room round it for ventilation.

Originally Posted by bayonet

I read somewhere it's bigger than the old Samsung STB

That'll be understatement, then

[mrm1]

Benn using my TV drive for nearly a week now. The only real complaint I have is the remote control one. This happend once when I was fast forwarding a recorded program at 32x speed. By the time the remote commands were working again, I had fast forwarded all the way throgh the recording. I had to rewind again.

High def is great on my Samsung LCD, with all the films on BBC1 also showing on BBCHD at the same time.

If they fix the remote bug, I will be totally happy (unless something els goes wrong)

[bayonet]

Thanks chaps looking forward to the install now

[HDFootyMan]

Review update: Series links are working well (or maybe I'm just lucky). I have 6 series links and so far, its recorded everything I've asked it to. Sometimes I think its screwed up, before I realise that series link only records new episodes

Sometimes when re-ordering the priority list of series links it appears to lock up - its just says 'loading data, please wait' (or something like that), but pressing TV fixes it and it DOES actually save your priority settings.

I forgot to mention how quiet this thing is - I was worried when I read past reviews, but my TV Drive is around 5" away and its as quiet as a mouse. I wouldn't advise putting one in a closed cabinet - keep it well ventilated.

All recordings I've made since The Unit have been fine - no drop outs of sound.

IMO, the 'dropped frames' bug only appears after watching recorded content which was recorded when 2 tuners were in use. Other stuff I've recorded was only using the 1 tuner (AFAIK), and watching live content after watching those recordings has been fine, no dropped frames.

The only annoying thing really is the 'slow response to remote control bug' - as I type this, my TV Drive has been ignoring me for about 5 minutes now (maybe it knows I'm typing about it. .....bugger it - its locked up - time for a reset)

[semps]

Getting my TVDrive installed on Thursday in Coventry. So thanks for the heads up on it being available Chris

[bayonet]

My mate has had his installed and is impressed just sticks a bit sometimes between channels but so far he's pleased