Another vote for HD over SD as a general rule, its like having free blueray movies :) Depends where you live though... Jbhifi seem to have the cheapest magic boxes currently.
Jimmy22: ...i still hold hope one day either the NZ price will respond to the Aus one ....
Hi Jimmy22, I think you will find that the price difference is because of volume. Manufacturers always work in volume discounts. NZ can not compete with Aus when we have as many people in the whole country as they do in one city. And so it is unlikely that an importer can match Aus prices.?
The Australia model pricing is really strange. It's even significantly cheaper than the equivalent model for Hong Kong (as we know the manufacturer is based in Hong Kong), so this is not something that can be explained by volume.
I've googled for some time and come to this: - The original Australia model was also called MTV3700TD and was meant to be a Freeview Australia model and it had about the same price as NZ. - Freeview Australia EPG turned out to be not successful. It might take 3 minutes to get into the EPG for all brands of set top boxes, in some cases. - There is a forum report saying they saw a warehouse full of MTV3700TD. - A firmware change was made and it became the MTV4000 without Freeview EPG and restrictions. The packaging and manual still say MTV3700TD and have Freeview logo, but there is a sticker saying the packaging is for "transportation only" and does not represent the contents inside. - The original Australia distributor Digital Products Group went into some sort of liquidation. - There is a forum report saying e-mails to that distributor was bounced back. - The distributor is changed, and we get very cheap MTV4000 in Australia.
The nzsale website listed the MTV4000 for NZ$339.95 this morning.
I did have a 3600 model, which I sold recently to upgrade to the 3700 model. I was just about to buy one from JBHiFi ($562), when I saw this ad for the 4000. So I called Magic to see how the 4000 differs from the 3700. After not being able to get through to Magic by phone, I sent them an email and this was their surprsing reply!:
"Hi That unit (the 4000) will not tune in in NZ as it is not for NZ frequencies. Regards
Technical Support Desk Dish TV Technologies Ltd "
Have I missed something or is it outrageous that they're selling this unit in NZ on a NZ website when according to them, it doesn't work in NZ!
I'm going to go back to them and see what they say. Will post their reply.
its like the line from dire straights song... "two men say they are Jesus , one of them must be wrong"
from my findings dish TV are not being 100% straight AND the mtv4000 buyers will not be getting what they expected either. Quite a poor situation for all concearned . ill look for them to pop up on trade me in a couple of weeks ;)
Just got Dish TV's reply - I compliment them on their speed but not their clarity:
"Hi Thanks for that The MTV4000 units are on Australian frequencies and most likely now work here. You will also have no warranty support in New Zealand for that product. Regards Technical Support Desk" Don't really know what they mean but buyer beware! I'm heading down to JB's to get that 3700!
muzzal: Just got Dish TV's reply - I compliment them on their speed but not their clarity:
"Hi Thanks for that The MTV4000 units are on Australian frequencies and most likely now work here. You will also have no warranty support in New Zealand for that product. Regards Technical Support Desk" Don't really know what they mean but buyer beware!? I'm heading down to JB's to get that 3700!
Cheers
??????
Please read GraemeD's findings on Page 7. In short, with the Australia MTV4000 here you won't have the correct timezone, and you lose the Freeview EPG and therefore series recordings. Also no warranty of course.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Aus terrestrial uses different channel spacing from NZ and that may cause a compatibility issue. I haven't verified that though.
From my experience PVRs use UTC time for their clock and for EPG information. It's only translated to local time for display purposes. In some units (Zinwell) it's necessary to specify local time offset (and then change it for daylight saving) when required. Other units made for the Australasian market only require specification as Aus/NZ for local setup (eg TiVo) and then auto adjust display for DLS time. I assume the magic boxes have the offset contained within the local country firmware.
I've observed the file time stamping in the 3600 is expressed in UTC so I guess Magic boxes work this way. That means that Record times from the EPG used in NZ should work OK, just display incorrect record times, while the programmes remain correct. Do Aussie boxes use EIT EPG data or Mheg5. I've read that a "series" record flag is only available with the latter. I consider a Series record function highly useful to combat the way NZ Broadcasters move schedules around and play back to back and extended episodes at will. It's nice to have the EPG do the chasing for you.
My understanding of descriptions of the Magic firmware mods is that quite a lot of checksum and cross checking goes on to validify the authenticity of the firmware. This could well make flashing an Aussie machine with NZ firmware quite a complex task. I hope that makes anyone think twice before racing out to purchase an Aussie 4000 box, only to be disappointed.
Yes - same question as me! Actually, what I'd like to know is... what did the firmware fix?
The real improvement that I'm interested in the most is much smoother fast-forward and rewind motion. At the moment I find rewinding back just a couple of seconds of video (in case I missed some dialog etc) practically impossible due to the severe jumping between frames and/or sticking on a frame without any rewind motion at all! I've emailed MagicTV about this, but no response yet. I somehow think the firmware hasn't addressed that issue?
I suspect that'a quite a major as I assume it has to find key-frames - probably particularly tricky while walking backwards. I don't know what algorithms other units use.
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