MagicTV 3600.. my quick impression report (updated)

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134 posts

Master Geek

#329149 11-May-2010 21:46

shouston: Its the the title of the programme.
Ie "All New 2 and half men"
And 2 and half men

"All New big Bang..." and "Big Bang..."

I assume they are thekeywords Magic Tv is looking for.

hm i think it's not the title.
for example "friends" are almost always just "friends" (apart from a few exceptions like "celebrity friends")

and some of the kid shows i record for my daughter like "hi-5" always have the same name but everytime a new season (maybe should just call it a new series) starts i need to re-add it.

When recording TV programmes showing on some of the smaller TV station, series link almost never work. So I have a feeling it all come downs to how the TV station setup the "series" info.

ZollyMonsta

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#329154 11-May-2010 21:55

Chis:

4. Enable the Jump Forward and Jump Back buttons time period to be configurable in settings and specified in units of seconds (with value range s at least

This is a freeview certified product isn't it? If so I'm sure there is stipulation somewhere that this is not allowed (much like 30 second skip was removed from the NZ tivo).

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As per the usual std disclaimer.. "All thoughts typed here are my own."

wiredr

203 posts

Master Geek

#329155 11-May-2010 21:55

as you know top gear on prime was on a sunday at 7:30pm
in the to do list it shows as " no episodes " and yet we have " best of top gear " recording tonite . the epg doesnt have an [s] after it and next weeks listing is the same .
so how is it recording . ? diferent title , different day, different time . different series .

trevor

15 posts

Geek

#329184 11-May-2010 23:11

It's clearly broken as I said about the Big Bang Theory.

The whole idea of saying I want to record proramme X is that regardless of what the broadcaster does to the time slot of the show programme X gets recorded.

We have the stupid sitiuation of "Eggheads" (a UK quiz showw on Prime) being shown on the the ToDo List to be recorded and also as "No Episodes" further down the list. How does that happen?

As I've only one Freeview PVR I've no idea whoes falut this is but it's BLOODY FRUSTRATING!!!

safboy

62 posts

Master Geek

#330471 15-May-2010 18:44

Can you turn off the 'auto record' feature? ie when watching live tv, if i miss something, i can rewind and rewatch it - can i turn this feature off?

terryr

33 posts

Geek

#330498 15-May-2010 20:23

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this issue. I can't be certain but it appears to have occurred since I upgraded my Magic Box to 3.12 firmware.

Each recording I've made recently seems to have an issue at approx 1hr mark. So when playing it back I get to about 55 mins in and it suddenly jumps playing to approx 1:05. I can't fast forward to the section it misses, nor can I backtrack to it either. My initial reaction is a possible hard drive fault, but that doesn't make sense with each recording having the same issue at nearly the same location. So far it has occurred on both 1hr and 3min recordings. I use a 2minute advance and 5 minute overrun for each recording.

Also like others have mentioned in recent posts, I'm unimpressed with the volume difference between other broadcasts and the output from the Magic Box. Lets hope that gets fixed pronto.

tomgeeknz

923 posts

Ultimate Geek

#330501 15-May-2010 20:31

I have had issues with recordigs over 2 hours stopping at 2 hours and skipping to a completely different program.

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ilovemusic

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#330502 15-May-2010 20:38

Don't think so.

It is annoying because I can hear the HDD whirring away almost constantly.

mail2mm

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#330526 15-May-2010 22:29

My Magic unit was flashed to 3.12 firmware. I do not have any problem between 50 - 60 minutes in recorded programs. No jumping ahead that is. I do not think I have the problem at 2 hours but I am not absolutely sure.

If my unit had that problem I would be tempted to try re-flashing the 3.12 firmware. Good luck and keep us posted if you find a cure.

trevor

15 posts

Geek

#330598 16-May-2010 12:28

You may need to check the hard drive. Just like you would do with any computer that got HDD read/write errors.

MurrayM

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#331371 18-May-2010 14:10

I read in the May 2010 issue of Consumer Magazine that the Magic TV can save recorded programs to external devices, specifically they said:

If you want to keep your content, you'll need to copy it to a DVD or blu-ray recorder. But only the Magic TV will always make this copy in HD. The Homecast and the My Sky HDi can copy in HD - provided there's no HD copy-protection embedded in the broadcast. The TiVo, Zinwell and JC Matthew can't copy in HD.

From this I take it that the Magic TV can somehow record onto a DVD. Does anyone know how this is done? There doesn't seem to be any mention of it on the official Magic TV site.

terryr

33 posts

Geek

#331396 18-May-2010 14:38

Consumer mag has it wrong. The Magic Box is similar to one based out of Hong Kong (probably exactly same box and specs, just different firmware) and there they can do saves to external drives. The NZ brand can do it as well, except for the "Freeview license". That is, in order to be freeview certified the units here must comply with restrictive copyright issues and other stuff. This was mentioned a few pages back in this thread.

I myself was also unhappy that I couldn't just jump a set time period each time ads came on. My old analogue Panny HD recorder has a button which when I press, jumps 30 secs. So 8 pushes and I had jumped the ad break.

However there was a recent conversation in this thread suggesting that the copyright issues might be relaxed shortly in conjuntion with a copyright flag being sent with broadcasts. It would give the facility to deny copy, copy once or copy many I think. So at that time I would think a firmware upgrade for Magic Box would be available to give us that option via menus.

And as for my current issue of the recording jumping around 50-60 min mark, I've done more testing. I can confirm that it indeed happens, almost to the second on every recording that I've made recently at the 59:59 mark. It seems so accurate when the jump occurs that I must consider it to be a firmware issue rather than a HD issue. So I'm wondering if anyone has managed to fill their HD to roughly 3 bars (on the display). This would disregard deleted programmes (which still exist until space required). The fact that other's haven't complained on this forum suggests other environmental factors also come into play other than just the firmware, hence the HD filled level question above.

MurrayM

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#331399 18-May-2010 14:52

The Consumer Magazine also said:

Playback "skip" or "jump" feature: This lets you skip forward in percentage or time increments during playback - it's more controllable than ordinary fast-forwarding (Magic TV, Homecast, Zinwell, JC Matthew have this).

So from that I take it that it is possible to jump forward a certain period of time to skip ad breaks, and not have to fast forward through them as on the My Sky HDi?

Surely the Consumer Magazine didn't get this wrong too?

trevor

15 posts

Geek

#331404 18-May-2010 15:00

MurrayM: The Consumer Magazine also said:

Playback "skip" or "jump" feature: This lets you skip forward in percentage or time increments during playback - it's more controllable than ordinary fast-forwarding (Magic TV, Homecast, Zinwell, JC Matthew have this).

So from that I take it that it is possible to jump forward a certain period of time to skip ad breaks, and not have to fast forward through them as on the My Sky HDi?

Surely the Consumer Magazine didn't get this wrong too?

Afraid so.
You can jump forwards and backwards, but it's set at 10 minutes (read useless).

Sounds like a very poor review by consumer. I would contact them if I was you.

terryr

33 posts

Geek

#331408 18-May-2010 15:06

Most of these modern recorders are based on a customised linux operating system, so features can be enabled and disabled at will, merely by changing the firmware. So at first the system is restrictive and over time as freeview relax the restrictions the firmware can be upgraded and released to the general public for installing. Most Magic Boxes would have been purchased with 3.09NZ firmware on them. We are currently at 3.12NZ with most of the updates being bug fixes, although there have been a couple of features added I think. They weren't major though.

Go to http://www.magictv.co.nz/support.html and select downloads. You'll need a USB stick to put the new firmware on, and just follow the instructions in the manual to update your system. There is also a doc outlining the fixes in each firmware version.

Firmware can also be released OTA (over the air) but as yet I don't think that feature has been used much.

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