V+ Your Views

[Jacquesb]

Originally Posted by gadge

Okay so some of us have the v+ for a few days or weeks,so what do you think of it,did it match your expectations or not what features do you like and not like.

I have had the TV Drive for a couple of weeks now and am delighted with it, in particular

1. TV guide is much better and faster than the old STB.

2. Browsing favourite channels is very good especially with the Pgup and Pgdown keys.

3. Excellent picture - I watched the Wales Ireland rugby on Sunday in HD on BBC it was fabulous; I liked being able to see the expressions on the faces in the crowd.

4. The multi-tuning facility is brilliant - on Sunday, starting from about 14:00 I watched the Scottish football which kicked off at 13:00, the rugby KO 15:00 and the Tottenham ManU game KO 16:00. Saves a lot of time when you can FF through the boring bits.

5. I have also been able to copy films to DVD while recording another programme and at the same time watching something else, either live or from a recording.

6. The series recording is excellent - my wife has this setup for most of the soaps and is getting quite keen to watch them later in the evening with the FF key for the adverts!

7. Video on demand and Catch up TV look very good - we watched an HD film on this at the weekend. The picture was superb but the film was pretty average.

On the downside, I have only 2 comments,

8. I would like to see more HD content (for sport, of course) and hope that Sky & Virgin & Setanta etc can come to a sensible arrangement over this without our having to invoke an ombudsman or whatever.

9. My box is sometimes slow to respond, but usually gets the idea quite quickly. The STB used to do this as well so I am not too bothered.

10. Finally, my wife likes this so much she would like her own box (sports free of course) but NTL are currently "rationing" to one per household.

The last comment should also be on the PLUS side. Overall, I am delighted.

Cheers
JB

[grabbi]

Superb.

Can't see how she would want her own, though...

One is enough for me and mine, simply because of the 3 tuners and recording functions.

[grabbi]

Had my first Recording error today.

Trisha Goddard this morning didn't record.

Failed straight away.

Hope it doesn't happen regularly, or a diagnostic is figured out for it...

[phatsion2]

Hi, i m due to get a v+ box soon.
Just woundering if any one knows what you can do via the ethernet port?

can you copy recorded porgrams off it onto a pc?

can you play downloaded video from a pc through the v+ box?

also does it have an optical audio output??

ahhhh so many questions..

cheers.

sion.

[damoedge]

Originally Posted by phatsion2

Hi, i m due to get a v+ box soon.
Just woundering if any one knows what you can do via the ethernet port?

can you copy recorded porgrams off it onto a pc?

can you play downloaded video from a pc through the v+ box?

also does it have an optical audio output??

ahhhh so many questions..

cheers.

sion.

can you copy recorded porgrams off it onto a pc?

The V+ outputs via Scart2 so if you can link your P.C to the TV drive via some wonderful scart/vga method then don't see why not. However i'd say the answer is no

can you play downloaded video from a pc through the v+ box?

No

also does it have an optical audio output??

Yes

ahhhh so many questions..

Obviously I could be wrong and anyone feel free to confirm

[jamiefrost]

Originally Posted by phatsion2

Hi, i m due to get a v+ box soon.
Just woundering if any one knows what you can do via the ethernet port?

can you copy recorded porgrams off it onto a pc?

can you play downloaded video from a pc through the v+ box?

also does it have an optical audio output??

ahhhh so many questions..

cheers.

sion.

You could record to PC have to use a Tv capture card and a SCART to S-Video/composite connection.

I do this currently with my PC and standard STB

Don't see how you watch anything through the V+ box

JJ

[phatsion2]

so as far as you know, its not possible to acces the actual files on the hard drive, and pull these off to a pc for storage or burning etc..

as far as i knew it was possible to do this with a sky+ box.

[grabbi]

It might be possible as the V+ has XSata connection and stuff, but without really knowing what you are doing, plus not voiding the warranty, I wouldn't bother.

Just record onto your PC using a TV Card as suggested.

Plus, there is no gurantee that the recordings are in a format recognised by many programs.

They won't be in AVI or stuff like that.

I heard something about MPEG2 or MPEG4, but they might be HD recordings.

I know what your saying, though.

Saving them that way would be so much easier.

Just fiddle around and see what you can find out... if you cock it up, its under warranty as long as you don't open it.

its got USB 1.1 also, I believe. whether that's any use to anyone?

the old STBs have them too, but its a case of whether they are enabled.

ethernet ports are disabled. 100% confirmed.

[clayts]

So far so good - had it for about 12 hours now and, uninitialised PIN problem (cleared by a quick phone call to Faults - fixed in about an hour) and dodgy HDMI picture (fixed by a reboot) aside, I like the cut of the machine's jib. After being spoilt by Tivo for 6 years, it's nice to have a new toy to play with. Setting up recordings is a doozie, esp season links (have already set up a load), and playback quality is fine (aside from a few audio drop outs, about 0.5 sec - maybe only applies to Living TV ?).

Programmed with Harmony 525 remote and this is now flawlessly operating the box, the guide and the home feature (used Scientific Atlanta 8300DVB and made a few changes, including adding the colour buttons).

Picture quality and sound quality excellent - the BBC HD preview was just incredible : really good picture and 5.1 audio (my subwoofer was giving out the relevant thwumps) - can't wait to see some live sport and other stuff. Even upscaled SD looks superb through HDMI, miles better than the old Pace box connected via SCART RGB (not much difference, if any, in SCART RGB between old Pace box and V+HD, incidentally).

So far, thumbs up - a couple of remote lock ups (but heeded advice about waiting for box to catch up ). We'll see how it fares after a fortnight.

Incidentally, I got a silver TV Drive, but has new Virgin EPG.