UPC DVR Reviews / Questions / Help

Alun

belmulletman wrote:

There is a noticeable bug that i've found. if you're in the "Guide" and go to "My TV Agenda" it'll just drop you back to the channel you were viewing.

That's a known bug and is mentioned on the A4 Sheet that came with the box, and it says they're working on it.

For those that didn't get it(and there seem to have been a few) here's a scan ...

belmulletman

Alun wrote:

That's a known bug and is mentioned on the A4 Sheet that came with the box, and it says they're working on it.

For those that didn't get it(and there seem to have been a few) here's a scan ...

Ah, cheers for the scan... I didn't get that sheet with my unit! it's good to know that they are working on it.
I thought there was an update last night, but alas there wasn't. i turned the unit off about 3am, but shortly after i turned it off, it started making noises, i looked at the display, and it was off, and the red standby light was off. it then suddenly turned it self back on to stand-by, with the incorrect time... i checked to see if the software version had changed, but not yet... hopefully they'll send an update out this week.

Actually, has anyone seen any sort of marketing for the DVR? I've not seen anything anywhere... not even on their own site (which is a bit mad really!)

Alun

belmulletman wrote:

Ah, cheers for the scan... I didn't get that sheet with my unit! it's good to know that they are working on it.
I thought there was an update last night, but alas there wasn't. i turned the unit off about 3am, but shortly after i turned it off, it started making noises, i looked at the display, and it was off, and the red standby light was off. it then suddenly turned it self back on to stand-by, with the incorrect time... i checked to see if the software version had changed, but not yet... hopefully they'll send an update out this week.

Mine always makes a little noise shortly after switching it off, and also just after switching it on. Probably the hard disk spinning up/down.

As for the display, it seems to do that when the signal goes down for whatever reason. Strangely enough the minutes display is always correct, but the hours display is one or two hours behind.

belmulletman

Alun wrote:

Mine always makes a little noise shortly after switching it off, and also just after switching it on. Probably the hard disk spinning up/down.

As for the display, it seems to do that when the signal goes down for whatever reason. Strangely enough the minutes display is always correct, but the hours display is one or two hours behind.

Same here, but what happened last night, was like the unit actually rebooted it's self! cause it had spinned down and was off... and it was like 20min's later when it started... anywho, it's not broken or anything so it's all good...
as for the time, I find once it's been turned on, the time on the front sets properly...

patrickmooney

Thanks for that scan too. Didn't get it. They do have marketing material on their site, went up on Friday I think http://www.ntl.ie/television/digitaltv/extras/dvr/

Solair

Who makes the box?
Is it the Scientific Atlanta or a Philips product?
UPC seem fond of both on the continent.

Alun

Solair wrote:

Who makes the box? Is it the Scientific Atlanta or a Philips product? UPC seem fond of both on the continent.

Neither .. it's a Thompson box

paulm17781

paulm17781 wrote:

I got mine installed this morning but apparently there is a problem with the provisioning system and I can't watch anything. :mad:

If there are problems there are problems but it is still quite irritating.

Despite several different excuses from NTL resulting in the need for an engineer call on Wednesday, it was working when I got home.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled it works now but the various stories and untruth's give by NTL are really, really annoying. What really gets me is that I was never called back to be old it was working. Someone did something to get it to work but NTL chose not to share this info. :mad:

The tax man

If the provisioning system is down during the day your stb and smart card number will be entered into the system and join the queue along with all the others. When the system is up and running again they'll get processed. Call centre people won't have a clue what you're on about:rolleyes: :rolleyes: I used to get the person doing the provision to give the customer a quick buzz to confirm it went through ok cause any(provisioning) faults won't show up till the provision attempt was made. If it failed I'd call back to sort things out.

Good to see it went through in the end.:)

Eamo71

Solair wrote:

Who makes the box?
Is it the Scientific Atlanta or a Philips product?
UPC seem fond of both on the continent.

Philips will be making UPC's HD box - 250GB with 3 tuners.

murpho999

Well I had my UPC DVR installed today and as an ex Sky Plus user here are my comments.

Firstly, regarding size, it is bigger than the old crappy Pace box but is not too big as one poster complained of earlier. It's slightly larger in height than a DVD player, but looks nice and slick and comes in a modern looking silver casing and black display. Display is also nice as it displays channel and program info. Not really necessary but it looks good.

First big improvement over the Pace box is the remote signal strength. The unit picks up the signal much quicker and easier than before. With the old Pace box I found that I really had to point it in a straight line to the box but the new DVR remote signal is much stronger and the unit responds to remote no matter what direction you point the remote. Small point but for me it makes use less frustrating.

Most significant and biggest improvement is the EPG. Some people find it slow but I don't. It's light years quicker than the PACE box. It takes about 4-6 seconds to load but when loaded it is complete. Sometimes with Sky you get into the guide quicker but often had to wait 30 secs or more for full listings to fill in. Also the guide is for a full 7 days which is great. Overall the EPG is a huge improvement over the old one regarding functionality and looks. Also, when you select guide the channel you are watching remains in right hand corner with sound, no crappy City Channel like you have with the Pace box.
With Sky you lose the channel you were watching and forced to listen to crappy music.

Mini guide also works well but I do find it a pity that you can only see what's on now and next on each channel. In order to browse programs later you have to go to the full guide. This is different to Sky+ where you can browse all the days listings. Hopefully this might change in a future upgrade. You can view program info on UPC box better than Sky plus as with Sky you can only view info in Guide, not while you are surfing.

Whilst in the guide you can view all channels or view by category. Also, you can switch view to full day listing per channel which is handy. You can't do that on Sky.

Find it a pity that there is no A-Z listing which is useful when looking for a program.

As for recording functions I have found some pros and cons.

Firstly, I do not like it that you can only record one program at a time. Yes you can record one channel and watch another at the same time, but on Sky+ you can record 2 programs at one time which is handy.

Secondly, the lack of series link is a great pity and is a great feature on Sky.
You can manually set up recurring recordings for daily, weekly or Mon-Fri but this is not the same as a series link that tracks programs if they are broadcast at different times.

Recording programs is easy to do, you can do this by pressing record in TV Guide/Mini Guide or whilst watching a channel. Large red LED lights up on front of unit whilst it's recording.

Pause/rewind live TV works very well and is easy to use. Only thing I find is that if you rewind a few minutes and then want to return to LiveTV you have to fast forward through everything to get back to 'real time' . Bit of a nuisance as on Sky you just pressed 'Stop' and you were back to live broadcast.

One drawback I have found also is that if you are watching a program and half way through you decide to record it, it only records from the moment that you press record, and does not save the part you have already watched. You can do this on Sky and is handy, especially if you think that a program you are watching may be interesting to someone else in your house. With the UPC box you will miss the start.

Access to your recordings straightforward enough. Simply go to Menu and select DVR and then My Programs. Layout is very straightforward and you simply highlight the program you want to watch and select it.
Only things missing here compared to Sky is that with Sky you can specify what minute you want it start playback and you can't do that with UPC (not that I can find anyway). Also, I don't think you can hook the unit up to another device (DVD recorder, VCR) to copy, which is also a handy feature on Sky.

Overall, I am happy as it is so much better than the old Pace box. More responsive remote and better EPG are the major improvements for me.

If they can just get the recording issues sorted then UPC would have a killer product. I hope this can happen with future software upgrades.

So, my final recomendation for those in doubt would be to go for it.
The benefits of a proper EPG and also being able to record, pause/rewind live TV really are fantastic and you couldn't live without once you are used to it.

murpho999

Eamo71 wrote:

Philips will be making UPC's HD box - 250GB with 3 tuners.

Where are you getting this info from and when will HD be available?
3 Tuners would be great!!

MHP

Can the DVR be connected to a DVD recorder? Can a DVR recording be copied to the DVD recorder?

paulm17781

The tax man wrote:

If the provisioning system is down during the day your stb and smart card number will be entered into the system and join the queue along with all the others. When the system is up and running again they'll get processed. Call centre people won't have a clue what you're on about:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

This is probably true, one person blatantly lied to me though, that is what gets me.

belmulletman

murpho999 wrote:

Pause/rewind live TV works very well and is easy to use. Only thing I find is that if you rewind a few minutes and then want to return to LiveTV you have to fast forward through everything to get back to 'real time' . Bit of a nuisance as on Sky you just pressed 'Stop' and you were back to live broadcast.

If you want to jump back to real time, just press the UPC button and it will drop you back in to the real time broadcast.

Hope this helps, as the fast forwarding things was doing my nut until i found this out!

Alun

murpho999 wrote:

One drawback I have found also is that if you are watching a program and half way through you decide to record it, it only records from the moment that you press record, and does not save the part you have already watched. You can do this on Sky and is handy, especially if you think that a program you are watching may be interesting to someone else in your house. With the UPC box you will miss the start.

Yes, I found that a little disappointing too, especially seeing as the message that pops up when you hit Record in the middle of the program seems to suggest that it will do just that! Only when you go to the list of recordings can you see from the length of the recording that it hasn't

Also, I don't think you can hook the unit up to another device (DVD recorder, VCR) to copy, which is also a handy feature on Sky.

There's a SCART on the back labelled DVD/VCR, just hook your VCR up to that, set it up to record from whichever EXTernal source the box is attached to and bobs-yer-uncle.

Alun

Had a a minor glitch with mine this morning .. turned it on and went straight to "My Programmes" and the percentage used was all over the place .. 3600% used on one programme, 5000% on another, and the global usage was 7200% or something silly!. After I pressed the Information button for one programme and then hit the Back key it was all back to sensible values. Strange.

Eamo71

murpho999 wrote:

Where are you getting this info from and when will HD be available?
3 Tuners would be great!!

Hey Murpho,

A friend of mine works in the meija and gave me the press pack from the launch. I'm looking at it right now so yeah 3 tuners. He told me UPC will probably not upgrade the Thompson box to 3 tuners and expect most people to switch to the HD box. Can't wait.

Should be available at the end of 07. Though lot will depend on the content available (so there could be delays). The box is ready to go though....

Alun

Eamo71 wrote:

A friend of mine works in the meija and gave me the press pack from the launch. I'm looking at it right now so yeah 3 tuners. He told me UPC will probably not upgrade the Thompson box to 3 tuners and expect most people to switch to the HD box. Can't wait.

Seems like an odd strategy though .. why introduce the SD one when you're expecting "most people" to switch to the HD version literally a few months later? Doesn't make sense to me.

Eamo71

Alun wrote:

Seems like an odd strategy though .. why introduce the SD one when you're expecting "most people" to switch to the HD version literally a few months later? Doesn't make sense to me.

That's me paraphrasing waht my mate told me... maybe I picked it up wrong...

I don;t think they expect people to instantly switch ... but over time with the improved HD service a lot of the mediabox standard customers will probably jump to the HD one. So I guess if you want your 3 tuners the HD box will be the one for you...

Murt_

I presume that you can get 5.1 sound out of this DVR? I've one of those big old PACE boxes for the last few years and its a useless piece of kit.

My DVR is due to arrive next Thursday. Can someone post a picture of the box and its connectors?

Cheers

murpho999

belmulletman wrote:

If you want to jump back to real time, just press the UPC button and it will drop you back in to the real time broadcast.

Hope this helps, as the fast forwarding things was doing my nut until i found this out!

Thanks Belmulletman, that has worked a treat. Makes life a lot easier.

murpho999

Eamo71 wrote:

That's me paraphrasing waht my mate told me... maybe I picked it up wrong...

I don;t think they expect people to instantly switch ... but over time with the improved HD service a lot of the mediabox standard customers will probably jump to the HD one. So I guess if you want your 3 tuners the HD box will be the one for you...

Very interesting. No doubt you can switch to the HD box in the future but I am sure there will be a cost. Extra installation charge and monthly subscription!!

Is there any chance that the info in the press pack can be scanned and a link posted?

Thanks!

Alun

Murt_ wrote:

I presume that you can get 5.1 sound out of this DVR?

There is a coaxial (i.e. not optical) digital sound output, but it's stereo only. Nobody broadcasts anything with 5.1 sound anyway AFAIK.

elderlemon

Doe's anyone have the DVR and Nick Jr. Mine (Nick JR) is no longer working since the DVR was installed - Says I haven't subscribed to the channel. NTL office people say its the box, the engineer who came out says its not. Can someone confirm that they are getting Nick JR ok.

thanks.

DingDong

elderlemon wrote:

Doe's anyone have the DVR and Nick Jr. Mine (Nick JR) is no longer working since the DVR was installed - Says I haven't subscribed to the channel. NTL office people say its the box, the engineer who came out says its not. Can someone confirm that they are getting Nick JR ok.

thanks.

Very strange mine is the same. My other pace DTV box can get it no problem. I'll look into it for you.

Murt_

Alun wrote:

There is a coaxial (i.e. not optical) digital sound output, but it's stereo only. Nobody broadcasts anything with 5.1 sound anyway AFAIK.

Hmmm, thanks Alun. Sky+ & SkyHD allows 5.1 audio as far as I'm aware. Ok, I'll be upgrading to the UPC HD option as soon as its available. I can't imagine they won't have 5.1 with that... hopefully.

patrickmooney

Nick Jr. is missing for me too.

Alun

Murt_ wrote:

Hmmm, thanks Alun. Sky+ & SkyHD allows 5.1 audio as far as I'm aware. Ok, I'll be upgrading to the UPC HD option as soon as its available. I can't imagine they won't have 5.1 with that... hopefully.

That's got nothing to do with the physical connection which is quite capable of transmitting 5.1. You could send 5.1 down it, IF it was available from the program providers which it generally isn't AFAIK. The same would be true for HD broadcasts, i.e. you'll get whatever the program provider provides, and if that's 5.1, then presumably that's what you'll get otherwise it'll just be stereo.

belmulletman

Nick Jr. gone for me as well!!