Freeview HD PVR - Digital Stream DHR8205U

[professorhat]

donros:Another point you may help me with I dont seem to be able to get he Dolby sound.

Two things - is the Digital Stream connected to your AV amp using an optical cable? The unit can't pass 5.1 over the HDMI cable unfortunately. And if it is, are you definitely watching a broadcast whish is in 5.1? Currently ITV HD doesn't do anything in 5.1, quite a few (but not all) of the BBC HD shows are, and I think only a few Channel 4 HD shows and films are in 5.1

donros:I have checked when Hd is available and it does say 2011(tosser me) is there a vast differece between SKY HD and Freeview HD, because I can get the new HD channels ,launched recently on Sky HD.

There's far more HD channels on Sky HD, but then it costs a heck a lot more when you take into account the monthly payments!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi.

Thanks for the reply,I am connectrd by hdmi, guess ill carry on as it is then.

thanks Donros

 

[professorhat]

Do you not have any spare optical inputs then? It's a pain as it would be good if everything could go down HDMI and it was hoped this might be enabled at some point. Given it's not listed as being included in the next update though, I'm suspecting it could be a hardware limitation on the box unfortunately.

At least it's an option though - most of the other Freeview HD boxes still don't even have any option for it at all!

 

[bob.g]

Prof, just found out that Sutton Coldfield has had engineering works and a temporary transmitter for last week or so. I did a complete retune on the DHR8205U tonight and the channel count went up from 16 to 98, including ITV3 so all is not lost !!

 

[professorhat]

Excellent news!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Prof,

I have just taken delivery of a DHR8206U and want to upgrade the firmware. The file on the MIT site is corrupt and I cannot

locate any other copy of it. If you have it please could you email me a copy, thanks. (

Also I note that you have the same television as me. I was wondering what settings you had to get the best out of the Digital Stream unit paired with the Pioneer. I am unhappy with the SD picture, pretty soft at the moment.

Any assistance greatly recevied.

PS I have emiled MIT to tell them about the corrupt file but no response yet.

Paul,

 

[professorhat]

Hi Paul,

Apologies, been a busy weekend!

I'm happy to send you the update files I have if Mr E can email me your email address - I think you just need to reply to say this is okay.

 

[bay24]

Just been Wandering round John Lewis and spotted that they have the 500gb version for £199, seems like a good price! Think I have convinced the misses to get me one for Christmas!

 

[bob.g]

Bay24, go fo it. I just bought one from JL for £199, and very very pleased with it.

 

[Anonymous]

What i'd like to know is whether it's ethernet port works yet, I can't find anything on streaming apart from in the manual it says it will be with firmware at some point

 

[professorhat]

explodingzebras:What i'd like to know is whether it's ethernet port works yet, I can't find anything on streaming apart from in the manual it says it will be with firmware at some point

Not yet - I've heard the Korean team are working on getting this enabled for the End of December update, but there's nothing concrete as yet.

 

[bob.g]

Prof:

re your: "I use this as I have a button on my Harmony remote dedicated to the extremely useful white Func+ button"

1) Which button on the Harmony did you select to represent the Digistream White Button ?

2) Is there a more direct way to 'Delete' than 'white button, scroll down 4, delete' ?

 

[professorhat]

bob.g:Prof:

re your: "I use this as I have a button on my Harmony remote dedicated to the extremely useful white Func+ button"

1) Which button on the Harmony did you select to represent the Digistream White Button ?

Have assigned the * button as the white Func+ button on my Harmony, but you could equally use the # button (I've assigned this as Media as a quick way to get to recordings), or a dedicated button on the screen - depends on how you use your Harmony really and what you find easiest.

bob.g:2) Is there a more direct way to 'Delete' than 'white button, scroll down 4, delete' ?

Unfortunately not. It has been requested that the Delete option be added to the list of options available when you press OK on a recording i.e. along with Play from last viewed and Play from start, but no confirmation as yet as to when it will be implemented I don't think. I tend to just let recordings build up for a while, then do a mass delete using the green button to select lots. What is clear is, the EoN update (due very soon now) has had a major re-working of the underlying file structure which should mean recordings don't take as long to delete any more, which will be nice.

 

[bob.g]

Superb advice, as usual, thanks.

One more: My OH is now starting to use this more but continually complains of the 'conflicts' she receives when trying to record or watch programmes, as she is used to a multiple VCR setup where conflicts are not possible. I've sent an email to MIT asking about installation of a second Digital Stream DHR8205U and concerns about conflicts between the remote controls. The response I received was that they acknowleded that two units would conflict but that they couldn't see a problem and why did I need a second unit. Is this something that could be addressed via the Harmony, or do I need to press for a software upgrade that allows a second remote to be used ?

 

[professorhat]

Yeah, you will have an issue there as all the Harmony does is replicate the same IR commands, so it will still conflict I'm afraid. So yes, you'd need to ask MIT if they can get onto DS-K to create remote commands using a different frequency. I'm not sure when they'd do this though, as clearly it would be low priority for most owners of the box. Your other half must record a lot - I struggle to find one thing I want to record most of the time, let alone more than two at a time! A workaround is to just cover the IR port on one of the boxes while you're working with the other, but that's not a brilliant solution I'll grant you.

The other solution might be to get a cheaper other brand Freeview+ box rather than a Freeview+ HD box - it seems unlikely you'll want to record more than two of the HD channels at the same time, and therefore the other box can be used just to record the SD channels when you need to record 3 or more programmes?

 

[bob.g]

I've just spoken to the guys at MIT London and they advise that the 'end of November' update is slightly delayed for bug fixes, and should now be available mid December.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I just bought one of these PVRs and am a little disappointed to discover that the USB stick function won't allow me to play movies (avi, mpg, etc.) as other machines claim to be able to - only pictures and mp3s.

Any ideas out there as to whether this might be something a software upgrade or work-around could fix?

Thanks in advance...

 

[professorhat]

Don't think this has ever been mentioned as available on the Digital Stream I'm afraid - currently the only purpose for the USB slot is, as you say, playing MP3s and JPGs, but also for upgrading firmware and archiving SD recordings to a USB hard disk (offloading HD programmes is coming in the next update, due any day). It's possible it may come in a future upgrade, but certainly nothing has been mentioned on it as yet.

 

[Anonymous]

thanks for that - shame, really, as this would be a very handy function!

 

[professorhat]

Just so you know, there is an unconfirmed (but reliable) date for release of new firmware of this Friday. I'll be keeping an eye out and will update as soon as I see it.

EDIT - update has now been delayed until Monday - doh!

 

[tom_mk]

Hi professorhat,

Having read through this thread it appears that the ethernet connection is not currently enabled. Is this still the case?

I'm looking at either this or the Humax. With regard to the Ethernet connectivity, I assume that this means it is not able to play media from other devices, which I believe the Humax can do.

Also, the technical spec says "Fully interactive services available", what does this actually mean, is it 'Red button' services or is it like the Humax which has the ability to run iPlayer and other online playback services? (I'm guessing that as the Ethernet connection may not be enabled that this is a no.)

I see from your extra post that you can archive/move recordings onto a USB drive. Do you know if it's possible to manage the recordings, i.e. move them into folders?

Thanks for any info provided.

 

[professorhat]

Hi Tom
tom_mk:Having read through this thread it appears that the ethernet connection is not currently enabled. Is this still the case?

It is at the moment, though an update is due today which should enable iPlayer for the device once the BBC begin transmitting the FreeviewHD MHEG iPlayer broadcast (apparently due early 2011, but no firm commitments on date as yet). My understanding on how this will work is you initiate the iPlayer service through the red button (and thus it needs this to begin broadcasting), but the actual content is provided via broadband and thus would require the ethernet connection. So with that, I'm guessing the ethernet will need to have been enabled with this update to allow this to happen when the BBC begin their broadcast stream.tom_mk:I'm looking at either this or the Humax. With regard to the Ethernet connectivity, I assume that this means it is not able to play media from other devices, which I believe the Humax can do.

That's correct I'm afraid - it may be introduced in the future as it is on the wishlist of some owners (which DS are taking a notice of as some wishlist items are being implemented in the update due today), but there's certainly nothing committed from them on this as yet. However see my next point.tom_mk:Also, the technical spec says "Fully interactive services available", what does this actually mean, is it 'Red button' services or is it like the Humax which has the ability to run iPlayer and other online playback services? (I'm guessing that as the Ethernet connection may not be enabled that this is a no.)

Yes, I'd imagine it's referring to the red button and the imminent iPlayer implementation. Given Digital Stream's DPS-1000 shares similar architecture and seeing the services this currently provides (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, BlinkBox and Media Playback over the network are just some), it's very possible other services available on this platform will also be implemented on the Digital Stream PVRs in the future. As always though, there are no firm committals on this at this point.tom_mk:I see from your extra post that you can archive/move recordings onto a USB drive. Do you know if it's possible to manage the recordings, i.e. move them into folders?

I'm pretty sure this is possible - have to say I've never tried it and rarely use this feature so it's not something I can test easily. If it's very important for your decision making though, let me know and I'll break out my USB hard disk at some point and give it a go!

 

[tom_mk]

Hi professorhat,

Thanks very much for the quick and detailed response.

professorhat:
tom_mk:I see from your extra post that you can archive/move recordings onto a USB drive. Do you know if it's possible to manage the recordings, i.e. move them into folders?
I'm pretty sure this is possible - have to say I've never tried it and rarely use this feature so it's not something I can test easily. If it's very important for your decision making though, let me know and I'll break out my USB hard disk at some point and give it a go!

With regard to the putting things in folders, it would just be really helpful. We have a two and a half year old daughter and the Topfield (which I am less than happy with, hence looking at replacements) is stacked full of "In the Night Garden" and more recently "Bookaboo", and it would be great to be able to just put everything in one place where the grandma's would then be able to find it when required. (So I'm hoping that either the Humax or Digital Stream would be better than the Topfield - I'll get shot if whichever I go for isn't.)

If you have a chance to test it out that'd be great, however I think I may take a punt on the Digital Stream, especially as it's £100 less than the Humax and potentially could have this functionality at some time in the future. Secondly I currently don't have anything to stream to the box, it's just my idea of future proofing and things 'd like to play with as and when I get a chance. Add to that that the new Blu-ray players seem to be adding this functionality, when I replace my old DVD player, I'll gain this functionality on that device. (Talking about price, I saw the 1TB edition on the JL site, and it's almost twice the price at £349.)

I did also consider looking at the Panasonic PVR Blu-ray Player / Recorder which was reviewed either last month or the month before or in the 2010 Awards. In theory it would have been great and cut down on the number of boxes under the TV but in all honesty I think that's just got too many elements that could potentially go wrong - it's probably more a jack of all trades rather than a master of anything special.

 

[professorhat]

No problem - just checking though, when you say move things into folders, do you mean on the actual box's internal disk or on the USB hard disk? On the box itself, you can definitely organise into folders and thus I assume you also can if you wanted to for archiving on the USB hard disk, but it's this I haven't tested.

 

[tom_mk]

Hi professorhat,

professorhat:
No problem - just checking though, when you say move things into folders, do you mean on the actual box's internal disk or on the USB hard disk? On the box itself, you can definitely organise into folders and thus I assume you also can if you wanted to for archiving on the USB hard disk, but it's this I haven't tested.

Yep, I was referring to moving recordings on the actual box's internal disk. I assume that once it's been 'archived' off onto an external USB device you can probably do pretty much whatever you like with it once the said external USB device is then attached to a computer (which I'd be more than happy to do) as opposed to the Digital Stream device. My guess is that the only potential issue of moving something using the PC is if the Digital Stream device somehow creates an archive library index of what's on the external device, and by moving stuff around you corrupt the index, but then that would answer the question of whether the archived recordings could be managed through the Digital Stream device itself.

Out of interest, will the Digital Stream device play recordings that have been archived off to the external device, or do they have to be re-instated onto the Digital Streams device's hard drive first. (Just thinking, you could increase capacity very easily and more than double the amount of storage far more cheaply than going for the 1TB DHR8205U device - you'd just have to archive stuff of to maintain the space on the device's internal hard drive.)

Thanks again for the help and talking it through.