Will Virgin ever fix the numerous Liberate bugs?

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Delay TV I think

I assume he means that the FF/RW functions acts etc aren't as responsive on HD than they are on SD

Ah Cool. I understand now.

I'm unaware of that being worked on as I've not seen it documented. It may well be. Spiderplant may know

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by Digital Fanatic

Ah Cool. I understand now.

I'm unaware of that being worked on as I've not seen it documented. It may well be. Spiderplant may know

It's not a problem I'm aware of at all. I've just tried it on an SA V+, and SD and HD trick play seem equally responsive to me.

The slowdown at midnight GMT is when the V+ is updating its EPG for the new day that's just started. DVB defines the days starting at midnight, so if it did it later, you'd either have an out of date EPG or not EPG at all for a few hours.

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

It's not a problem I'm aware of at all. I've just tried it on an SA V+, and SD and HD trick play seem equally responsive to me.
The slowdown at midnight GMT is when the V+ is updating its EPG for the new day that's just started. DVB defines the days starting at midnight, so if it did it later, you'd either have an out of date EPG or not EPG at all for a few hours.

Cheers SP. I've not seen it myself either.

I must admit the padding issue around multiple recordings is annoying, that why now if I have two scheduled recordings starting at the same time I use manual recording process.

Any chance of a bug fix in the foreseeable future?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

It's not a problem I'm aware of at all. I've just tried it on an SA V+, and SD and HD trick play seem equally responsive to me.

The slowdown at midnight GMT is when the V+ is updating its EPG for the new day that's just started. DVB defines the days starting at midnight, so if it did it later, you'd either have an out of date EPG or not EPG at all for a few hours.

I've never understood why the v+ slows down so much doing this. I thought I read somewhere than it has a 300MHz cpu. The Tivo Series 1 takes as long, with twice the amount of data (it carries around two weeks of guide data), but with a 50 MHz CPU. I am not counting the download time, as the stock Series 1 uses dial up, so it's not a fair comparison.

[Risco]

Originally Posted by Stuart

I've never understood why the v+ slows down so much doing this. I thought I read somewhere than it has a 300MHz cpu. The Tivo Series 1 takes as long, with twice the amount of data (it carries around two weeks of guide data), but with a 50 MHz CPU. I am not counting the download time, as the stock Series 1 uses dial up, so it's not a fair comparison.

Its the SA boxes that suck the big one. Move over to a Samsung and no more issues after midnight and it is much, much quieter. They won't be able to fix the SA as it is a hardware limitation issue, rather than software.

[pjo123]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

The slowdown at midnight GMT is when the V+ is updating its EPG for the new day that's just started. DVB defines the days starting at midnight, so if it did it later, you'd either have an out of date EPG or not EPG at all for a few hours.

Surely though, you have a 7 day EPG (or however long it is with Virgin). That being the case, why would you be without an EPG after midnight if it didn't update until later? You might only have 6 days instead of 7 but I don't understand why you wouldn't have one at all.

I recently went back to Sky from Virgin, while I own a Sky HD box, I went the VUDuo HD box route. This box is a Linux TV receiver, fully customisable and takes the Sky card (although you need an official Sky box to initially pair the card to).

One thing this box has shown me is how Sky and Virgin should have done things. Simple options to specify the time of day to get the EPG updates, options to say how many days I want to get/stored.

Options to say how long I want to add by default to the beginning or end, up to me, could add 2 hrs if I wanted.

One press to see the timers, can in seconds edit end times for any particular program I want.

Playing back a recorded program, press one button and it skips over the padding to when the program should have started which 99 times out of 100, is exactly at the start of the program.

Setup options to allow me to specify the speed of ff/rw up to 256x the speed.

Youtube streaming, podcasts, stream media from my PC

etc etc etc

If it takes a few years to get these 1TB boxes to us, they'll be old technology by the time we get them.

Both Virgin and Sky need a kick to get themselves into gear. For example there's no real reason either couldn't make the Harddrives customer upgradable (like the PS3 has done). People were unofficially sticking 1TB drives in their Sky HD boxes in early 2009. Sky customers own the boxes (or do after 12 months) hence if they want to risk adding a drive at their expense (which in reality means a massive saving), they can. With Virgin, we don't have this luxury. If I'm spending £200 on a VM box, I expect that box to be mine to throw what size HD in I want (so long as the software supports it of course). By the time everyone has these boxes 5TB drives will be the norm at under £50.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by pjo123

If I'm spending £200 on a VM box, I expect that box to be mine to throw what size HD in I want (so long as the software supports it of course). By the time everyone has these boxes 5TB drives will be the norm at under £50.

As the box at all times remains the property of Virginmedia that is not something that can be done with an Vboxes including the TiVo.

[Joedm45]

Originally Posted by pjo123

I recently went back to Sky from Virgin, while I own a Sky HD box, I went the VUDuo HD box route. This box is a Linux TV receiver, fully customisable and takes the Sky card (although you need an official Sky box to initially pair the card to).

One thing this box has shown me is how Sky and Virgin should have done things. Simple options to specify the time of day to get the EPG updates, options to say how many days I want to get/stored.

Options to say how long I want to add by default to the beginning or end, up to me, could add 2 hrs if I wanted.

One press to see the timers, can in seconds edit end times for any particular program I want.

Playing back a recorded program, press one button and it skips over the padding to when the program should have started which 99 times out of 100, is exactly at the start of the program.

Setup options to allow me to specify the speed of ff/rw up to 256x the speed.

Youtube streaming, podcasts, stream media from my PC

etc etc etc

If it takes a few years to get these 1TB boxes to us, they'll be old technology by the time we get them.

Both Virgin and Sky need a kick to get themselves into gear. For example there's no real reason either couldn't make the Harddrives customer upgradable (like the PS3 has done). People were unofficially sticking 1TB drives in their Sky HD boxes in early 2009. Sky customers own the boxes (or do after 12 months) hence if they want to risk adding a drive at their expense (which in reality means a massive saving), they can. With Virgin, we don't have this luxury. If I'm spending £200 on a VM box, I expect that box to be mine to throw what size HD in I want (so long as the software supports it of course). By the time everyone has these boxes 5TB drives will be the norm at under £50.

That PVR does sound a very nice bit of kit, did a quick google and was impressed.

Unfortunately it all boils down to marketing. No company in their right mind would release such a high tech piece of kit that is so fully customisable.

If they were to release something like that then it would cannibalise all other products and the inferior products would gather dust in the warehouse.

[jamiec21]

Originally Posted by Risco

Its the SA boxes that suck the big one. Move over to a Samsung and no more issues after midnight and it is much, much quieter. They won't be able to fix the SA as it is a hardware limitation issue, rather than software.

It's an issue on the Samsung as well. I don't know how much difference there is between boxes, but on the Samsung it's certainly a PITA. Seeing as the SA box is a slower heap of junk I'd imagine the problem is worse.

---------- Post added at 15:56 ---------- Previous post was at 15:47 ----------

Here's another bug that I'd forgot about but has just cropped up. Another Delay TV bug on HD. Here's the example, watching the build up to Wigan/Newcastle on SSHD1, suddenly, it switches to last nights coverage of the darts on the same channel, which I was watching at the time. Neither programme has been recorded. This lasts for about 15 or so seconds, then reverts back to the correct program. Obviously a bug relating to content that's been saved in the buffer.

Anyone else had this?

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by jamiec21

It's an issue on the Samsung as well. I don't know how much difference there is between boxes, but on the Samsung it's certainly a PITA. Seeing as the SA box is a slower heap of junk I'd imagine the problem is worse.

---------- Post added at 15:56 ---------- Previous post was at 15:47 ----------

Here's another bug that I'd forgot about but has just cropped up. Another Delay TV bug on HD. Here's the example, watching the build up to Wigan/Newcastle on SSHD1, suddenly, it switches to last nights coverage of the darts on the same channel, which I was watching at the time. Neither programme has been recorded. This lasts for about 15 or so seconds, then reverts back to the correct program. Obviously a bug relating to content that's been saved in the buffer.

Anyone else had this?

I was very happy with my SA. To say it's a heap of junk is being a bit over the top IMO.


Never heard of that before. Maybe your box needs reformatting?

[jamiec21]

Originally Posted by Digital Fanatic

I was very happy with my SA. To say it's a heap of junk is being a bit over the top IMO.

Maybe, but every other box out there is miles ahead. Both Samsungs are better, as is the Cisco box and, obviously, the Tivo. I can't get over how slow the SA is. I've not used anything this slow since the old OnDigital boxes of the late 90s. As for the hardware issue where is makes a racket... I don't seem to have a good relationship with their products, I've got a 2100 Modem which is getting replaced later this week, apparently they don't react well to the recent upload upgrade.

Never heard of that before. Maybe your box needs reformatting?

It's happened a few times. Would love to get some video evidence, but it not a recurrent issue, just crops up every couple of weeks. Might be an idea to format, although getting through the backlog of recordings will take some time.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by jamiec21

Maybe, but every other box out there is miles ahead. Both Samsungs are better, as is the Cisco box and, obviously, the Tivo. I can't get over how slow the SA is. I've not used anything this slow since the old OnDigital boxes of the late 90s. As for the hardware issue where is makes a racket... I don't seem to have a good relationship with their products, I've got a 2100 Modem which is getting replaced later this week, apparently they don't react well to the recent upload upgrade.

I also have an SA and have no issues with it and nor is it particularly slow in performance.

I also get to use both the SA and the Samsung in work and find very little difference in performance between them and ours get worked a damn sight harder than any customers box ever will as they are used for diagnostics.