Having had LCR3 for almost a week now, I thought I'd post my experiences so far. If you don't have LCR3 yet, it will probably help to refer to the
Langley CR3 Screenshots on Digital Spy as you wade through the text.
Guide
This is a big improvement. The layout won't be particularly new to anyone that's seen Sky Digital, but it's definitely much better than the old Guide. You can see 7 channels (rows) with 3 half-hour slots (columns) for the programme listings per page. The mini-view in the top-right also means you can keep track of the current channel; it's a useful feature although you wouldn't want to watch the footy on it!
You can also change the mini-view channel using the red button or simply by pressing channel up/down. I've found the Guide especially useful for setting up reminders in advance, but even with the mini-view I still find it a little too intrusive for normal channel browsing. I would prefer a +/-12hr option instead of +/-24hr since I'm typically setting up reminders for my evening viewing, so I want to be able to go from the morning to the evening quickly. It would also be nice to have the full programme name displayed for the current selection, otherwise I have to click Browse just to double-check that "Park" is actually "Parkinson", etc. One final bit of nit-picking is that I would like the channel list to wrap, i.e. I'd like to be able to go up from the 100s to the 900s and down from the 900s to the 100s.
Favourites
This reminds me of the old guide (although it's been a while since I've used it) overlayed on the current channel rather than in its own screen. In this view you can see 10 channels but no programme listings. To view the programme listings for a channel you have to press right (>), at which point the channel list expands to show the programme listings for the selected channel (up to 5 programmes per page). To move back to the channel list you need to press left (<) to hide the programme listings. I don't really use this view as I find the switching between the channel list and the programme listings a little awkward and repetitive. Also, the view occupies most of the screen when the programme listings are shown. Having said that, I think the channel list should also wrap in this view as suggested for the Guide above.
Mini Guide
This is the replacement for the old Browse feature. The layout is subtley different in that all of the information is now at the bottom of the screen; the old Browse used to display the name of the channel and programme you were viewing, together with the time at the top. The Mini Guide is shown by pressing TV (permanent) or any of the navigation buttons (disappears after a delay). I was a big user of the old Browse since I found it to be the least intrusive method available, but I'm disappointed with the Mini Guide; the fact that everything is in one place is better but the lack of page up/down support is a real killer. The lack of a 1st Channel button is also unfortunate since this provided a quick way to navigate past masses of channels by using the 1st channel as a "pivot". On the few occassions that I've used Sky Digital, I couldn't help but notice how rubbish the channel browsing was compared to NTL, but those advantages appear to have disappeared in LCR3. It also seems a little odd that, if I display the Mini Guide by pressing TV, The Mini Guide remains visible when I change channel; to me changing channel implies that I've finished browsing, so the Mini Guide should disappear after a delay even though it was displayed via the TV button.
Reminders
AFAICT reminders are now always auto-tune, which is fine with me as I always used auto-tune reminders before the upgrade anyway. It is also possible to cancel reminders now without having to go to the diary; anyone who's accidentally setup reminders in the past (like me) will be grateful for this. It would be nice if I could reduce the reminder display time a little more; currently it goes from 1 minute to no prompt, but I think 10 seconds and 30 seconds would be useful. No series links yet.
Buttons
There seems to have been a concerted effort to make the buttons consistent insomuch as they perform the same actions across different views. For example, in most views blue is Diary, Browse is More Info, etc. There are some exceptions, primarily because the avaliable actions change across views, however I'm still struggling with the changes to the TV and Browse buttons although I think this is just a matter of getting used to the new system. This might explain why page up/down isn't in the Mini Guide, because this would behave differently to the other views, i.e. it means +/- 100 channels rather than literally page up/down. In this case I think the benefits of page up/down in the Mini Guide outweight any consistency issues. It also looks like Menu (I think this is Text/TXT on Bromley remotes) got missed out; AFAIK this doesn't do anything in LCR3 and I can't remember it doing anything before the upgrade. Personally I'd like to have seen Menu assigned to Favourites, then Guide, Favourites and Mini Guide would have their own dedicated buttons. This would mean that, if you prefer the Favourites view, you don't need to go into the Guide or the Mini Guide first. It would also means that we could have a 1st Channel button in the Mini Guide.
Out of curiosity, I wonder what the chances are of getting one of the new remotes free of charge if you complain that you're struggling to get to grips with the button changes on the old remote?
Performance
Many people have already noted that the new EPG can be a little slow. I'm not sure if this is just down to the initial roll-out or whether it is something more long-term, but it is something that I've become increasingly aware of the more I use it. The way that some of the red/green/yellow/blue buttons keep appearing and disappearing is particularly distracting. I think the old EPG left all the buttons visible and just didn't show a button label for buttons that served no function; using this approach would help with the new EPG (you could "dim" the button and label if you wanted to be flash, but given that performance is already an issue it's probably not a good idea). Skipping forward 10 or so hours in the Guide can also leave you waiting a while for the programme listings to update. A notification that programme listings are being updated would be useful, rather than displaying a bunch of "Programme information unavailable" messages (Favourites displays "Searching for programmes...").
Bugs- The Mini Guide disappears when it shouldn't; it seems as though the delay is only reset when the view changes (i.e. different channel or +/- 1hr) rather than just by pressing a button. Intuitively, I would expect that pressing a navigation button would reset the delay. For example, assuming a 5 second delay:
- Press a navigation button.
- Wait 2 seconds.
- Press down.
- Wait 2 seconds.
- Press up.
- The Mini Guide disappears.
- Pressing +24hr in the Guide causes the mini-view to switch to Front Row previews. I've also seen this happen when selecting something other than All Channels, but I can only consistently repro it using +24hr.
- Occassionally, using the red button to change the mini-view displays the Diary instead of changing the mini-view, although I've yet to pin down the precise steps (I think it's related to selecting programmes that have already finished).
- The Guide doesn't really resize all that well. For example, if viewing a 16:9 (full) transmission the Guide forces itself to 4:3. If viewing a 16:9 (zoom) transmission the Guide stays in 16:9 (zoom) and so parts of the Guide are obscurred. Therefore if you change the mini-view from a 4:3 transmission to a 16:9 (zoom) transmission, it gets a little confusing. Obviously the Guide should switch to a known format to remain completely visible, but it would be nice if it tailored itself to the format specified in my preferences. This means you could make the half-hour slots a little wider for 16:9 (full) or maybe even fit in an extra half-hour slot.
So what does all this mean? Well it's difficult to give an overall verdict because one of the biggest features of LCR3, better red button support, will not make an appearance until the roll-out is complete (ch 120 does have red button support if you want proof that LCR3 can handle it). So far I've seen good (Guide) and bad (Mini Guide), but on the whole I'm encouraged by the upgrade; just fix the Mini Guide and I'll be over the moon.
I haven't gone through any of the On Demand stuff yet, so there are probably some other improvements that I've missed. Assuming anyone makes it this far, I hope you found this feedback useful.
Incidentally, does anyone know if it we can expect additional red button support for Euro 2004 and Wimbledon this year?
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...can't wait! , well i was playin with my mates but his is slow, so hopefully my box can handle it better, and hopefully ill find out which games on Two Way TV are actually not Pay Per Play , lol
Re: CR3: Any Feedback or Questions?
