A larger skip back sounds like a good experiment to try. I'd vote for 20 seconds but anything in the 15-30 sec range sounds great.
I've noticed I'm using the 8 second skip back in place of the rewind just because the rewind is so inconsistent. And I'm using markers now too. Probably because the 8 second skip is so small. It will be interesting to see how a bigger skip will affect my behaviour.
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Just got to vote here for status quo fwd 1min back 8 sec is great for the ad skip purpose Ian developed this for. If you want a skip function for something else that is a different matter.
Honek: ..beside which it is also a DVD recorded so I can copy "keepers" on to a DVD
Presumably these will only be SD given the ts files for a movie are about 10-14Gb, what codec is the DVD rip and can it play on other machines DVD players?
I'm a bit slow sometimes and it can take me quite a few seconds to work out what is playing (the picture often barely begun to show by 5 seconds). I find I usually use at least two back-skips in order to actually go backwards. I'd vote for a 15 second back-skip and the status quo 1 minute forward-skip.
I've been quite happy with the 10 mins forward, 6 mins back for quite a while. Yes, ad breaks aren't always 4 mins but it's fairly easy to go forward or back depending. Most ad breaks seem to be 3.5, 4 or 4.5 mins.
So are there better options now? I still love my 30sec forward jump on my old S1 Tivo, mostly because it's just so darn responsive. You can press the button 8 times in a second and have the picture jump in sync. I haven't found the MTV remote buttons as responsive.
In the end I'd be happy with any forward/back combinations that got us to around 4 mins with the minimum of key presses.
And huge thanks to 2lostkiwis for the wonderful find on the jump area and making a hacked ROM for us.
Chis: I've been quite happy with the 10 mins forward, 6 mins back for quite a while. Yes, ad breaks aren't always 4 mins but it's fairly easy to go forward or back depending. Most ad breaks seem to be 3.5, 4 or 4.5 mins.
So are there better options now? I still love my 30sec forward jump on my old S1 Tivo, mostly because it's just so darn responsive. You can press the button 8 times in a second and have the picture jump in sync. I haven't found the MTV remote buttons as responsive.
In the end I'd be happy with any forward/back combinations that got us to around 4 mins with the minimum of key presses.
And huge thanks to 2lostkiwis for the wonderful find on the jump area and making a hacked ROM for us.
I think the present settings generally work very well for most prime time shows I watch. Very late night and less mainstream channels though often use shorter breaks, sometimes in 30" offsets and I find them harder to respond to. For that reason I'd find a reverse jump of 15-16" very useful - or certainly not more than 30". I also use jumps to navigate to the start of late running programmes and will often end up using a reverse jump after an overshoot. I mostly press reverse jump twice to get back as I'd sooner catch the last unwanted bit than miss the first words of what I'm about to view.
lorenzo: ... what codec is the DVD rip and can it play on other machines DVD players?
DVDs have to be "Standard Definition" to conform to PAL/NTSC/SECAM timings and has to use MPEG2 compression to be compatible with generic DVD players. Any other combo is not a DVD any longer.
lorenzo: ... what codec is the DVD rip and can it play on other machines DVD players?
DVDs have to be "Standard Definition" to conform to PAL/NTSC/SECAM timings and has to use MPEG2 compression to be compatible with generic DVD players. Any other combo is not a DVD any longer.
I bought an MTV3600TD in 2010. After lots of software problems that eventually got fixed by firmware updates, the unit started freezing in September 2011. I would get up in the morning and the unit would still show "REC" on the front, would only become responsive after recycling the power and a programme that had been scheduled for recording the previous evening would only be partly recorded.
Magic tech support suggested restoring the factory settings and reinstalling the latest firmware (then 3.17). I did that and a while later it froze again. (This time I was away on holiday and missed a lot of scheduled recordings.) A couple of weeks later it froze again.
Tech support suggested I reformat the HDD and reinstall the software, which I have now done. The latest theory is that the freezing was caused by problems on the HDD which a reformat would fix.
Has anyone else experienced their 3600 freezing up like this?
(I'm tempted to give up on the Magic box and buy a Panasonic. Anyone had any experience with the Panasonic DMR-XW390GZK?)
ages ago i had that issue , but a full restore / latest patch sorted it and all has been well ever since. I update via USB stick NEVER on air or internet updates. my box runs hot so it sits on its own at the top of the shelves with a solid 100mm in every direction except down ;)
Magic tech support suggested restoring the factory settings and reinstalling the latest firmware (then 3.17). ?I did that and a while later it froze again.
Not sure I understand the "physical issue" comment.
With a computer HDD, a format will identify bad sectors and mark them as bad so they don't get used. I was hoping that's what the Magic format would have done.
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