Digibox features (your choice)

kbell

What new features would you want on a digi box if you could design your own?
From an installers point of view i'd add a front panel display on which you could check signal strenght and change the rf settings.
Maybe add an rf 3 output, handy when trying to set up a magic eye with a customers existing distribution system.

mjsmyth

I think all D Sat boxes should come with a minimum 3 of an RJ45 network point. This would allow easy editing of Favourites, updating of transponders and so on. When setting up your receiver, you could tell it (thru your pc), what type of channels you are looking for and it would automatically supply you with a list of channels that matches your interests for you to select from.

Also, an EPG could also be downloaded from the net instead of the now and next that is normally only available. This would obviously be a user selection as not everyone has access to the internet.

Since the receiver is already capable of decoding mpeg2 and in some cases mpeg4, why not go the whole hog and allow it to stream music / video from a home network.

I think that all Dsat receivers should come with a port that allows you to install an external CI module at a later date. Obviously this module should be an industry standard design and be plug and play.


Finally, it should all be easy to use and easy to setup.

I believe that the dreambox allows some of the functionality above, but having never used one, I can't say how easy it is to do.

MJ

digiking

Sky HD box has rj45 lan port for connection to network at a later date - sky intends to provide some sort of tv on demand through the network port also the intend to turn it into a media reciever

The have implemented usb ports into the latest hd box also so an external cam reader could be accomated if sky wished to provide this service - its unlikely but who knows....

==========================================================

Finally the features i wan't to see

Sky plus subscription thingy dropped - i paid for the hardware so why should i have to pay sky to use my hardware.

Function to record other channels - also integration with other platforms woud be handy too.

Facility to transfer recorded programs to my network storage.

Digiking

L1011

If we're revamping the "Digibox", e.g. the Sky one; adding in features the rest of the world has had by default for years would be a start:

1. Proper channel list control
2. SP/DIF
3. Motorisation support
4. Switching support
5. 14-day EPG for TV -and- radio

All of these are in most 40 quid German boxes...

LFCFan

Built in wireless support so the box could connect to your router and do all the stuff the internet can do which could also include using the interactive features and online ordering etc of SBO etc.

Sparky

Remote admin functions of viewing your planner and setting recordings.

Facility to view the info of shows on other channels via the i buttion rather than it sticking to the current program info.

Function to do tivo style voting
Facility to change epg skins.
PIP planner sidebar.

"If you watch this, you will like this" sidebar.

L1011

Sparky-s wrote:

Function to do tivo style voting
"If you watch this, you will like this" sidebar.

You want Amazon to do a satellite decoder, then

Sparky

MYOB wrote:

You want Amazon to do a satellite decoder, then

Oh yeah, jesus sky rob me enough, god I should have some extras

byte

MYOB wrote:

If we're revamping the "Digibox", e.g. the Sky one; adding in features the rest of the world has had by default for years would be a start:

1. Proper channel list control
2. SP/DIF
3. Motorisation support
4. Switching support
5. 14-day EPG for TV -and- radio

All of these are in most 40 quid German boxes...

Yup, I'd like all of the above.

Also, an LED display to tell you the EPG number of the channel you're watching at a glance.

Heck, even some of the older analogue boxes had a dot-matrix display that showed the name of the channel also!

Facility to change the colour scheme of the EPG would be nice, as well as the facility to delete channels I'll never want to watch.

Oh, and a proper Add Channels feature, that works like it should!

L1011

...as do some digital ones. Kathrein 702 for basic FTA; as well as a large number of PVRs. I think all the Premiere HD boxes do too.

Ulsterman 1690

"other channels" appear at the top of the EPG (i.e get rid of the 22 versions of BBC1 and have 901-995 reserved for "other channels"

Support for symbol rates other than 22 and 27.5MB/sec

Option to add an all format DVD drive and/or HDD with full $ky Plus facilities without having to pay a subscription for something youve already paid for.

EPG and Sky+ adapts to programme overruns/schedule changes etc

extra CAM slots

ability to delete unwanted channels from the EPG (To stop kids watching porn or simply to remove unwanted shopping channels and channels one doesnt subscribe to from cluttering up the epg)

A EPG clock that actually keeps proper time

transponder scan

ability to view PID details for each channel

"If you watch this, you will like this" sidebar.

Yes but the "you will like this" proggrammes would probably be on channels you dont subscribe to

L1011

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

A EPG clock that actually keeps proper time

Thats the fault of the satellite uplinkers, the time is taken from the multiplex on the given transponder you're watching. The BBC were over 5 minutes fast at one stage recently. Also, there was a transponder on 19E that was set to 1996 last October...

Ulsterman 1690

Yes but try setting your digibox to something other than 28E and watch the clock loose about four hours a day (and no its not because of channels being in different timezones)

bazzer

A channel-recall assigned to the backup button to quickly flick between two channels.

watty

My wish list:
* Diseqc support for 4-way switch
* Diseqc support for motor
* USB, Firewire, Wifi (108Mbps MIMO) & Ethernet
* Non-Sky viewing card/cam
* "Other channels" on Personal EPG
* Any SR and auto FEC for "Add Channels"/"Other Channels"
* View signal and Quality for CURRENT channel, not just default transponder
* RF channel menu not hidden
* Remote control via USB, WiFi or Ethernet, not just IR/RF2
* Radio & TV mode separate EPG/Favorites etc.
* Channel browser history back/forward like web browser.
* Station name and Channel number on Front panel
* Real on/off switch
* Real Standby (can wake at 2am to check for new SW instead of current always on)
* Option to use Wifi or Ethernet instead of phoneline for Interactive and Mirror sub.
* HDMI,SCART, S-Video, Composite, SPID, RCA video/audio all standard.
* Video record SCART to be RGB and RGB loop through, not just composite at present.
* C-Band L.O. support.
* Select 4:3 or 16:9 for menus/EPG/Interactive, not just the 16:9/crop/letterbox settings for program content
* Allow MPEG "as is" stream of Free To Air on Firewire/USB/Ethernet/WiFi
* Hard Disk / PVR as standard
* NO charge for PVR usage
* Slot in DVD Module (regular, Blu, HD or not invented yet)
* Slot in Cable or Terrestrial Digital tuner
* Line 23 WS/Normal info in video as well as SCART 12V/5V for automatic widescreen switching without SCART.
* T9/abc/123 switchable text input on remote to search for channel or when in EPG to search for program details. The existing search is useless. Or indeed for Interactive etc.



Of course a ReelBox by Reel Multimedia will do most of this, except use a Sky viewing card

bpmurray

Now that's an imaginative list. I particularly like the T9 idea.

watty

I confess it is actually part of my day job to think up lists like that!

Ronan|Raven

* 250 MHz IBM PowerPC Processor (350 Mips)
* Linux open source (most parts under the terms of GPL)
* 1 x DVB Common-Interface Slot
* 2 x Smartcard-Reader
* Integrated Compact Flash Interface Slot
* MPEG2 Hardware decoding (fully DVB compliant)
* Common NIM DVB-S
* 10/100 MBit compatible Ethernet Interface
* USB Port
* V.24/RS232 Interface
* Big-size LCD-Display
* 64 MByte of RAM
* integrated IDE UDMA66 Master/Slave Interface
* Support for internal HDD
Support for timeshift function
* unlimited channel lists for TV/Radio
* channel-change time < 1 second
* full automatic service scan
* supports directly bouquet-lists
* supports EPG (electronic program guide)
* supports videotext
* supports multiple LNB-Switching control (supports DiSEqC)
* fully adaptable OSD in many languages and skin-support
* S/PDIF Interface for digital bit stream out AC-3
* 2 x Scart-interfaces (fully controlled by software)
* MINI-DIN connector for extern IR (send)
* intern send/receive IR (Videorecorder)


OMG it is the dreambox 7000s!

byte

ROFL @ Ronan!

I think we should try and get watty or Ronan as Sky's chief receiver designer!

watty

We could always pool experience and resources and work as a team. I suspect I'm more likely to be in competition with Sky than one of their designers.

Ronan|Raven

byte wrote:

ROFL @ Ronan!

I think we should try and get watty or Ronan as Sky's chief receiver designer!

Oh I dont know about that, give me a budget and a pack of pencils and you coud end up with a situation similar to when Homer designed a car for his brothers company :eek:

byte

LOL, oddly, I watched that episode last night!

Coincidence?