Software update last night on Thomson silver DVR

Alun

As the title says, the upgrade that was initially rolled out to the Cisco HD boxes that was discussed elsewhere mad it onto my Thomson silver DVR last night.

To summarize ...

1) In the Now/Next display, the progress bar showing how far through the current program you are has changed slightly. A small white marker has been added to the end of the blue progress bar to show how far through the program you are. (This was what first caught my eye and made me look further!) The blue progress bar now starts where your live TV buffer starts. Nice.

2) You can now scroll through 24 hours of the EPG in the Now/Next display without having to launch the full EPG. One minor gripe though, if you've scrolled through to a certain time on one channel, and then hit left or right arrow, it goes back to the current time, and doesn't stay at the time you've scrolled to.

3) There's now a little 'eye' icon in 'My Recordings' to show what programs you've watched (or have started watching).

4) Best of all, you can now press the left or right arrow when watching live TV or a recording (bot not when fast forwarding or rewinding for some odd reason) to jump a programmable number of seconds forward or back (Settings, Preference settings), yay!

5) There are also some auto-standby options (Settings, Power Settings). You can set the inactivity period (default 210 minutes or 3.5 hours), and you can set the mode to on, off or "At night" whatever that may be.

6) Not sure about this, or whether I'm imagining it, but when you switch from live TV to the settings, not only does the mini display come up without a hiccup, but when you switch back to Live TV, it doesn't hiccup either. Now, if they can do that for the full EPG as well, I'd be a happy bunny.

EDIT: Forgot one, if you're watching time shifted and do something that would result in you losing your buffer, such as changing channels, it now warns you.

EDIT2: Note that for some reason when setting the auto standby timeout you have to enter the number of minutes by using the keypad, not scroll through a list of possible options. The arrow keys seem to have some indeterminate effect though, and you think it's hung, but it hasn't, just enter a figure on the keypad and then OK.

testarossa40

Cool stuff Alun - thanks for the information! What version numbers are you getting now?

Anyone happen to know/remember how to force an upgrade if one is pending?

Ironbar

The wife was p***ed off because the update happened when she wanted to record a program. Anyone knows how to tell the box when to download updates ?

Alun

testarossa40 wrote: »

Cool stuff Alun - thanks for the information! What version numbers are you getting now?

4.0.0.2E2

Anyone happen to know/remember how to force an upgrade if one is pending?

It'll usually do it of it's own accord, but there is a method for forcing an update ...

(i) Pull out the power cable from the back of the box (or power it off at the mains - whatever is easiest).
(ii) With power off, press the left and right arrow keys on the front of the box, and keep them held down.
(iii) Plug the power back in, keeping the arrows keys pressed until the box 'boots'.

If a software update is available, it will download and install it. If there's not, the box will just boot as normal. By the way, you can release the arrow keys once the update starts.

JoeyJJ

Have to say I like the updates the EPG was my main gripe when I got the silver box from the old purple one, glad I have that feature back. I agree on the minor gripe however glad its there.

Alun

Noticed last night that when you're recording while watching live TV, that there's a little flag that appears on the top left of the Now/Next display (or should I call it the mini EPG now!) indicating that you're recordinga nd from what channel. It's a different shade of blue to the colour of the rest of the display which is a little messy, but that's just nit picking.

One other thing I noticed is that on some of the DVR menus the word 'Delete' has been replace by 'Del.' for some reason. Maybe they're making room for some extra buttons for new functionality?