UPC DVR Reviews / Questions / Help

belmulletman · 07-09-2007 12:48pm

SWEET!! any time frame of when the first and second versions of this will be implemented?

Guy:Incognito · 09-09-2007 12:27am

Woo hoo, ordered mine today. Down for installation monday week. Hopefully no hitches and I can start recording season 4 of Prison break on the 20th.

Eamo71 · 12-09-2007 11:44pm

http://www.teleclick.ca/2007/09/upc-to-launch-slingbox-dvr-product-in-the-netherlands/

Wonder will this be considered for here? Be pretty good.

DingDong · 12-09-2007 11:59pm

Eamo71 wrote:

http://www.teleclick.ca/2007/09/upc-to-launch-slingbox-dvr-product-in-the-netherlands/

Wonder will this be considered for here? Be pretty good.

That would be very cool. There is another box on the way from what I've heard to replace the dinky boxes (DC221kn). It will be another pace box but will do interactive stuff too.
At a guess it would be the model in the link below. It will also be using the new EPG.

http://www.pacemicro.com/corporate/products/productDetails.asp?nav=products&productID=DCABLE-DC621KU

whitelightrider · 13-09-2007 2:18pm

Folks, is the DVR available to MMDS customers or is it just cable viewers?

Eamo71 · 19-09-2007 2:13am

murpho999 wrote:

It definitely works with DVD players and not just DVD recorders.

Have you tried doing the search funnction where the box looks up the code for you?

Yeah I figured it out. I have a model that upscales so it uses a HDMI cable. The other day I decided to plug in the SCART between tv and DVD player and try it again and sure enough the remote can now control most of the functions of the DVD player -- the key was connecting the two machines with the scart. obviously the HDMI doesn't make the connection the remote needs.Good feature though...

nilhg · 19-09-2007 10:58am

whitelightrider wrote:

Folks, is the DVR available to MMDS customers or is it just cable viewers?

If anyone knows I'd be interested in the answer to this question.

gpjordanf1 · 19-09-2007 2:35pm

nilhg wrote:

If anyone knows I'd be interested in the answer to this question.

Hi
I'm in an MMDS area and have the DVR ordered for 3 weeks now, it was scheduled to be installed a week ago roughly but no-one showed up, rang them during the day and was told the appointment was still open, but by 6pm I knew I was waiting pointlessly. Anyway, rang them again and this time they told me that there was a problem with the MMDS areas, so would need a few days to sort it out, and were suspending MMDS DVR orders & installations until it was sorted.But they were not notifying poor saps like me sat at home waiting for no-one. I couldn't believe the differences in the story's in the space of half an hour.
Anyway I'm scheduled in again for next Wednesday but I'm not holding my breath and in fact if it isn't installed by then, I will be canceling NTL and ordering Sky+ instead. I don't like dealing with liars.

Hope this helps

ethernet · 19-09-2007 2:35pm

nilhg wrote:

If anyone knows I'd be interested in the answer to this question.

I recall reading earlier in the thread that it's not available to MMDS customers just yet. I'm too lazy to find it

I do recall someone ordering the DVR as an MMDS customer and it nearly went through until someone realised the mistake that had been made near install time.

I'm sure they just want to iron any major bugs on cable first before putting their energies into MMDS as well. Here's hoping anyway.

guv999 · 22-09-2007 10:24pm

Received my DVR yesterday - it is broken already! The box froze whilst I was changing channels. I re-booted, but since then all the recording and any of the DVR functionality is not working. Called Tech Support and they advised an engineer will be out for a box swap Tuesday. :mad:
That said, for the short time it was working it was really good

As long there are no prbs with the replacement box I reckon this is going to be very good, and as long as series link is inroduced should be compariable to Sky+

bigi · 24-09-2007 12:35pm

anyone else getting a problem with the display on the front of the unit.
Mine is completely gone. Everything else works perfectly but i have to say i liked the feature where it displayed what you were watching on the box.

I'm reluctant to get a replacement (worried it might have more critical problems), and don't fancy waiting around for a technician to arrive..

rogue-entity · 25-09-2007 6:40pm

I was wondering if anyone else noticed the display thing. I thought there was something wrong with my box, the display on the front no longer shows the time on standby.. or the name of the programme/channel when watching it. But the software is still the same.

I've had a few odd issues today with the mini-guide not clearing off the screen when watching a channel.. but so far, its been a joy to use.

Alun · 25-09-2007 6:56pm

I've noticed one small, but irritating, bug ...

When you first switch it on and press the OK button immediately to get the Now/Next display it displays "No Information", and hesitates for a few seconds before it shows it. Press left or right-arrow to display Now/Next for another channel and the same thing happens, even if you return to a channel you've had the information up for previously.

Only if you change the channel to a different one to the channel it was on when you switched it on does it start working properly, and buffer all the Now/Next information.

Anyone else noticed this behaviour?

DingDong · 25-09-2007 7:20pm

Alun wrote:

I've noticed one small, but irritating, bug ...

When you first switch it on and press the OK button immediately to get the Now/Next display it displays "No Information", and hesitates for a few seconds before it shows it. Press left or right-arrow to display Now/Next for another channel and the same thing happens, even if you return to a channel you've had the information up for previously.

Only if you change the channel to a different one to the channel it was on when you switched it on does it start working properly, and buffer all the Now/Next information.

Anyone else noticed this behaviour?

Yeah happens to me too

Alun · 25-09-2007 7:29pm

DingDong wrote:

Yeah happens to me too

To the UPC/ntl: people on here ... is there any chance that this, and some of the other bugs and annoyances that people have found could somehow be passed on to UPC and from there to those responsible for the development of these boxes in the hope that they can be fixed some time in a new release? There's no point whatsoever ringing UPC about it

DingDong · 25-09-2007 8:52pm

Alun wrote:

To the UPC/ntl: people on here ... is there any chance that this, and some of the other bugs and annoyances that people have found could somehow be passed on to UPC and from there to those responsible for the development of these boxes in the hope that they can be fixed some time in a new release? There's no point whatsoever ringing UPC about it

They have already been passed on Alun

Alun · 25-09-2007 9:04pm

DingDong wrote:

They have already been passed on Alun

Cheers!

murpho999 · 25-09-2007 11:09pm

Alun wrote:

I've noticed one small, but irritating, bug ...

When you first switch it on and press the OK button immediately to get the Now/Next display it displays "No Information", and hesitates for a few seconds before it shows it. Press left or right-arrow to display Now/Next for another channel and the same thing happens, even if you return to a channel you've had the information up for previously.

Only if you change the channel to a different one to the channel it was on when you switched it on does it start working properly, and buffer all the Now/Next information.

Anyone else noticed this behaviour?

I have that too but I do wonder if it's really a bug. I think that maybe the system is still starting up and all the program info has to load.

I discovered another issue last night.

Had a progam on pause last night for about 5 minutes and then continued watching. When a commercial break came, I brought box back to live broadcast thinking I could rewind to the point where commercial ended and carry on watching. (Thought it would be quicker rewinding 1 min instead of going forward 4) But no, I could only rewind to the point where the live broadcast restarted and everything that was in the buffer was gone. On Sky+ this was never a problem.

It appears that you can do nothing to save programs when paused except rewind/forward & play. This causes a problem. Imagine you have a program on pause due to a phone call and it turns out you have to leave. With Sky you could press record and it will save the whole program from the time you where watching it, thus everything before and after you paused it. With NTL it will only record from the live broadcast at the moment that you press record and everything that preceeds or comes after your pause point will be lost. Hope I am not confusing people with this but I find it a very annoying drawback and I hope UPC can do something about it.

Also I find that if you are rewinding/going forward in the 3rd or 4th speed and press play that it will jump forward about 15 secs and not play at the point that you press play thus making it very awkward to get to an exact point.

Anyone else have this?

Alun · 26-09-2007 9:10am

murpho999 wrote:

I have that too but I do wonder if it's really a bug. I think that maybe the system is still starting up and all the program info has to load.

I don't think so, you can sit there for several minutes with it behaving like that .. far longer than it takes for the entire EPG to load, plus changing the channel using the +/- keys or from the Now/Next screen immediately changes that behaviour. I haven't tried waiting for much longer than that though.

One note though, it doesn't do it if the box has only been off for a short period (just tried it!). It certainly does do it when first switched on in the morning, but I can't remember if it does it when switched off for several hours during the day ... further investigation required!

Alun · 26-09-2007 9:18am

murpho999 wrote:

Had a progam on pause last night for about 5 minutes and then continued watching. When a commercial break came, I brought box back to live broadcast thinking I could rewind to the point where commercial ended and carry on watching. (Thought it would be quicker rewinding 1 min instead of going forward 4) But no, I could only rewind to the point where the live broadcast restarted and everything that was in the buffer was gone. On Sky+ this was never a problem.

Yep, that's the way it seems to work. As soon as you hit the UPC button, the buffer is reset and everything starts all over again. Annoying.

It appears that you can do nothing to save programs when paused except rewind/forward & play. This causes a problem. Imagine you have a program on pause due to a phone call and it turns out you have to leave. With Sky you could press record and it will save the whole program from the time you where watching it, thus everything before and after you paused it. With NTL it will only record from the live broadcast at the moment that you press record and everything that preceeds or comes after your pause point will be lost. Hope I am not confusing people with this but I find it a very annoying drawback and I hope UPC can do something about it.

Yes, that IS very annoying, especially as when you press Record in such a situation, the message that pops up lulls you into a false sense of security by asking if you want to record the program from <start time> to <end time> and then only records from that moment up to <end time> instead, and you only discover this when you go to view afterwards!

Also I find that if you are rewinding/going forward in the 3rd or 4th speed and press play that it will jump forward about 15 secs and not play at the point that you press play thus making it very awkward to get to an exact point.

Yes, it is a bit jerky, and difficult to get right. I think it's possibly due to the way the FF function works, i.e. it displays a few frames then jumps forward and repeat. Possibly when you hit Play, it's already jumped forward in it's buffer but hasn't updated the display yet, or something like that.

I also have been experiencing some glitches with the Pause function that sometimes seems to jump back a couple of seconds when you hit the Pause key.

Mikey23 · 26-09-2007 7:15pm

Anyone in possession of this piece of kit outside of Dublin yet?

gpjordanf1 · 04-10-2007 2:29pm

Hi

Got my DVR yesterday (eventually) and am very happy with it, I'm in mayo MMDS area.
One small problem, i set up a few programmes to record over the following week, one also late last night, but when I checked it today, it had no programmes scheduled for recording?
How would this have happened? Anything that had finished recording was stored and there to view?
Would the box have re-booted over night? It was powered up all night also?

Anyone have any ideas?

murpho999 · 04-10-2007 11:22pm

gpjordanf1 wrote:

Hi

Got my DVR yesterday (eventually) and am very happy with it, I'm in mayo MMDS area.
One small problem, i set up a few programmes to record over the following week, one also late last night, but when I checked it today, it had no programmes scheduled for recording?
How would this have happened? Anything that had finished recording was stored and there to view?
Would the box have re-booted over night? It was powered up all night also?

Anyone have any ideas?

I could be wrong but maybe you're looking for them in the wrong place.
Your recorded programmes are stored in 'My Programmes' whilst your scheduled reminders/recordings are kept in 'My TV Agenda'.

Hope this helps, apologies if you knew this already.

gpjordanf1 · 05-10-2007 9:29am

murpho999 wrote:

I could be wrong but maybe you're looking for them in the wrong place.
Your recorded programmes are stored in 'My Programmes' whilst your scheduled reminders/recordings are kept in 'My TV Agenda'.

Hope this helps, apologies if you knew this already.

No problem, knew this,

But what I'm trying to say is everything it recorded was put in "My Programmes" and work fine,

But overnight everything in "My TV Agenda" for the coming week has been deleted, so I had to set it up again, but this morning it had cleared the "My TV Agenda".

Cant figure it out?

Alun · 05-10-2007 10:52am

Had a bit of an unexplained glitch the other day too. I was watching a recorded episode of Murphy's Law on BBC1 whilst simultaneously recording the one showing at the time with about a 20 minute 'gap'. Perfectly OK thing to do, I've done it many times before. This time though, when I'd finished watching the recorded version, I went into My Programmes to watch the one I was still recording (also possible, and done many times before) and it showed no program information, 0% disk used, and when I tried to select it it said (something like) "You are no longer subscribed to the channel this recording was made from. Please delete it".

Tried waiting until the recording was finished, same story, and I could do nothing but delete it. Weird.

Also, the pause function ... the very first time you use it on a channel, it always (on my box, at least) jumps back 2 seconds. If you then hit play and pause again, it pauses at exactly the right spot. Hit the UPC button to resynch, and the whole thing starts over again. Very annoying.

The tax man · 05-10-2007 1:58pm

Just on the topic of stuff stored on the hard drive,I had a load of poker programs recorded from FTN. I went to watch some of them but since FTN changed to Virgin1 I don't have access to view them anymore,just as if it was something recorded from a channel I no longer pay for.
So bottom line folks,if you wish to keep something,transfer it to DVD.

Mr Man · 14-03-2008 4:30pm

Got my UPC DVR a few days ago. Much nicer UI than the old NTL box. Can people confirm the following for me:

Yellow button feature 1: Switch back to the previous channel no longer works and there isn't really an equivalent replacement
Yellow button feature 2: When browsing, pressing this used to bring you to the start of the channels (i.e. generally RTE1)
There is no way to set it to record a series

Thanks

The tax man · 14-03-2008 9:06pm

Yellow button feature 1: Switch back to the previous channel no longer works and there isn't really an equivalent replacement

The button below the down arrow marked "p<p" will do the same function for you.

Yellow button feature 2: When browsing, pressing this used to bring you to the start of the channels (i.e. generally RTE1)

Not with this UI, although just input a wrong channel number ie 1 and the box automatically returns itself to RTE1 after a few seconds.

* There is no way to set it to record a series

Not yet.no confirmation of when we'll get it.

Rosser · 15-03-2008 8:24pm

Alun wrote: »

I've noticed one small, but irritating, bug ...

When you first switch it on and press the OK button immediately to get the Now/Next display it displays "No Information", and hesitates for a few seconds before it shows it. Press left or right-arrow to display Now/Next for another channel and the same thing happens, even if you return to a channel you've had the information up for previously.

Only if you change the channel to a different one to the channel it was on when you switched it on does it start working properly, and buffer all the Now/Next information.

Anyone else noticed this behaviour?

I have this problem too but now when I switch it on I hit the guide buton which seems to load the data in to the "now & next" display - shouldn't have to do it but it does solve the problem.

Mr Man · 18-03-2008 7:05pm

Cheers tax man

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