[TelstraClear] T-box - buffer question

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ChristineNZL

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#69472 8-Oct-2010 22:18

Hello. After waiting patiently/impatiently for what seemed like years we finally got our T-box installed a few days ago. Watching a recorded show I found we missed the end as it must have run over time so I Googled and came across a thread on here that mentioned a buffer time so have added that but it doesn't seem to work.  The manual said that it was set at 2 minutes as a default but ours was set at 0 so I changed it to 5 minutes. However it keeps stopping as if there is no buffer. I thought maybe I hadn't saved it so went back in but it said 5 minutes. So now I have watched 3 shows and missed the end of all 3 - so frustrating!

I am also wondering about deleting recordings. I deleted a viewed recording of a programme that had been series linked but it didn't ask if I wanted to just delete that viewed programme or the whole series link and it has disappeared off my planner. Will it reappear when next week's listings come up? Which brings me to another question - when do they update the listings on the guide?  It's Friday and I can only see up to Sunday - after that it says no information is available. If you were going on holiday how would you be able to set anything to record?

Other than the above and the odd stutter I do love the T-box lol!

Christine

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586 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 109

#389758 8-Oct-2010 23:09

Re the padding - I think ZollyMonsta said on another thread that if you have set the padding prior to setting series links, you'll need to delete the series link and recreate it (somehow - never done it myself :) )

Does that help?

Richard.

ChristineNZL

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#389760 8-Oct-2010 23:10

I think I have found the solution to my problem. I noticed tonight that of the two programmes I had set to record one programme ended without the 5 minute buffer and one added the 5 minute buffer. The difference - the one that added the buffer was a programme I had added to the planner AFTER I changed the buffer from 0 to 5 minutes. So I added another programme to the planner and that recorded with the 5 minute buffer. So now all I have to do is delete all my old series links and do them all over again........once the guide updates with next week's shows.

ChristineNZL

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#389761 8-Oct-2010 23:11

r2b2: Re the padding - I think ZollyMonsta said on another thread that if you have set the padding prior to setting series links, you'll need to delete the series link and recreate it (somehow - never done it myself :) )

Does that help?

Richard.

Thanks Richard. We posted at the same time and yes it appears that is the way to fix the problem. Thanks for your help.

Christine

LEJ

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#390495 11-Oct-2010 14:40

ChristineNZL: ... Which brings me to another question - when do they update the listings on the guide? It's Friday and I can only see up to Sunday - after that it says no information is available. If you were going on holiday how would you be able to set anything to record?

Other than the above and the odd stutter I do love the T-box lol!

Christine

We also got ours last week after the very long wait. I love being able to record/watch multiple shows but had expected it to operate more like our hard drive DVD player. Being tied to the online TV guide and its 7 day cycle sucks. As you say what about holidays? You can get around it by recording a series if applicable, but what about one offs, or where an advertised show starts in the future? For example, a show I really want to keep following has been taken off and the TV channel announced that it will continue in a new time slot in two week's time. But I am going away and can't set the T-Box for that far ahead. (In fact I think I will see if I can hook the DVD recorder back up so I can at least record one channel ahead.)

Last night we couldn't see any TV guide program information past midnight which was pretty frustrating. However, rebooting the T-box solved that.

I also miss having the current channel showing on the front of the box. I know you can press OK to see what you are on if ads are running and the channel watermark isn't showing, but the kids just know the numbers of the channels and we all like the visual cue.

r2b2

586 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 109

#390499 11-Oct-2010 14:47

To get round the 7-day "problem", I'm hoping that remote record won't be too far down the track.

The way I see it the T-Box has the advantage over MySkyHDi in this arena as presumably the website that controlled the remote recordings could query the T-Box's planner to work out what has already been set etc. I'm guessing MySkyHDi's version wouldn't be able to as it would have no real way of contacting the box...

OldFart

36 posts

Geek

#390514 11-Oct-2010 15:08

r2b2: To get round the 7-day "problem", I'm hoping that remote record won't be too far down the track.

"won't be too far down the track" - I love it!! It took them 3 years to get the box out after saying the release was "imminent". Given that remote record has not yet been mentioned I suspect it is years away.

Does anyone miss the clock display that was on the old box?
I liked that it always showed the correct time

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ChristineNZL

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#390564 11-Oct-2010 17:26

I definitely miss the current channel showing too. We still have 2 hard drive recorders so I guess if we went away I would programme those if I knew a programme was coming up that I could not set to record on the T-Box. I reset the unit and it updated the TV Guide for the next 7 days. Hopefully I won't have to do that every week!

Christine

LEJ

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#390571 11-Oct-2010 17:48

ChristineNZL: I definitely miss the current channel showing too. We still have 2 hard drive recorders so I guess if we went away I would programme those if I knew a programme was coming up that I could not set to record on the T-Box. I reset the unit and it updated the TV Guide for the next 7 days. Hopefully I won't have to do that every week!

Christine

We haven't done it yet because we think the Telstra guy took away the 'S' (?) cable we would need to connect the hard drive recorder back into the TV. However, the only means of recording other than the current channel was programming the old Telstra box so that the channels changed at the required times and then programming the recorder to record at the same times (which was a pain). With the T-box, there is no way of programming the channels to change at set times, so you are presumably restricted to recording only the current channel regardless of the number of recorders you could connect?

(Bring back the current channel number display campaign!)

ChristineNZL

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#390591 11-Oct-2010 18:56

LEJ:
ChristineNZL: I definitely miss the current channel showing too. We still have 2 hard drive recorders so I guess if we went away I would programme those if I knew a programme was coming up that I could not set to record on the T-Box. I reset the unit and it updated the TV Guide for the next 7 days. Hopefully I won't have to do that every week!

Christine

We haven't done it yet because we think the Telstra guy took away the 'S' (?) cable we would need to connect the hard drive recorder back into the TV. However, the only means of recording other than the current channel was programming the old Telstra box so that the channels changed at the required times and then programming the recorder to record at the same times (which was a pain). With the T-box, there is no way of programming the channels to change at set times, so you are presumably restricted to recording only the current channel regardless of the number of recorders you could connect?

(Bring back the current channel number display campaign!)

Good point as far as the pay TV channels go but I could programme TV1. TV2, etc just going straight through the TV rather than through the T-Box as ours is still hooked up.

LEJ

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#390592 11-Oct-2010 19:02

I see. We are not able to do that - one of the reasons we went to cable years ago was that we had terrible reception on all channels without it.

ChristineNZL

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#390599 11-Oct-2010 19:17

LEJ: I see. We are not able to do that - one of the reasons we went to cable years ago was that we had terrible reception on all channels without it.

Our newish TV has built in Freeview. We also switched to Saturn (as they were) 10+ years ago due to really bad TV2 reception.

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graemeh

2080 posts

Uber Geek
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#390751 12-Oct-2010 08:50

LEJ: I see. We are not able to do that - one of the reasons we went to cable years ago was that we had terrible reception on all channels without it.

We went to Saturn for that reason too. 10+ years later we find out our VHF aerial has pieces missing DOH!

Now we just use Freeview HD and save our money each month. :)

LEJ

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#390764 12-Oct-2010 09:24

graemeh:
LEJ: I see. We are not able to do that - one of the reasons we went to cable years ago was that we had terrible reception on all channels without it.

We went to Saturn for that reason too. 10+ years later we find out our VHF aerial has pieces missing DOH!

Now we just use Freeview HD and save our money each month. :)

Heh, we don't even have an aerial any longer - about a year ago it blew off the roof and we found it hanging like a cat burglar, outside one of the upstairs windows, banging on the glass.

ChristineNZL

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#394917 22-Oct-2010 22:56

Okay now I have another problem! I had changed the buffer/padding to 5 minutes but this week I missed the end of at least 3 shows so I changed it to 10 minutes tonight and then got my first failed recording. I was trying to record two channels at the same time and also two programmes in a row on both channels. So with the buffer was it trying to actually record 4 things at once? I don't quite get it. I was reading that people have less problems with the buffer set to 0 but I find that shows rarely seem to finish of time (especially on TV2). I'm not sure how/if I can get around this.

Also the continual pausing is really starting to bug me!

ChristineNZL

242 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#396152 27-Oct-2010 10:44

I've decided to re-set the buffer to 0 after two failed recordings last night. If the TV stations would just stick to their schedules it would help! Anyway as I said I have re-set the buffer to 0 and re-programmed all my series links and also series linked all the shows on after those shows so if the shows do run over I can catch the end of the programme on the next programme - if that makes sense. Seems a crazy way to go about it but that's the only solution I can think of.

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