Hi everyone,
I don't know why I haven't asked this before but has anyone ever put together a proper setup manual for the Beyonwiz Enigma2 PVRs, ideally with version control? None of our customers ever easily work out how to set them up, check networking, padding etc and the V2 doesn't even have instructions on the Beyonwiz site as to how to update its firmware. The Enigma2 Ui is not intuitive, albeit it offers much tweaking for technical users, so a step-by-step manual explaining what each section does, as found via the "Menu" button, would be gold dust.
What's available on the Beyonwiz downloads page and what's in the FAQ section of the Beyonwiz forum is pretty much all there is.
Any good technical writers in this forum because the info on the Beyonwiz site is hopeless!
You won't find me disagreeing.
Quote from: prl on August 13, 2021, 05:55:02 PM
You won't find me disagreeing.
I can only agree. I have done a bit of technical writing in my time ... buy I am now long retired.
Before I got my V2 I had ben lurking in the Beyonwiz forum for some months in anticipation of getting one.
In latter years Topfield PVR manuals were a bit sparse. But Toppy users are fortunate in having the oztoppy wiki which makes things a bit easier. (Not as up-to-date as it could be; not surprising as Topfield went out of business in 2016.)
Ian
Quote from: IanL-S on August 15, 2021, 04:01:10 PMI can only agree. I have done a bit of technical writing in my time ... buy I am now long retired.
Same here, and to add to that I'm not about to do BW's or IceTV's work for them. The issue is compounded by the T/U/V series being hugely complicated compared to other more mundane consumer PVRs, supported by what appears to be an army of well-meaning amateurs.
Let's face it the T and U series are effectively obsolete, and the V2 might be the last in the series. Who knows. I've progressively moved back to XMLTV based TV recording software that is PC based, and if it weren't for IceTV's repeat flags I would probably dispense with IceTV altogether.
On the bright side I can't really see any alternative to recording TV and post-editing to remove the increasingly obscene amount of non-program material that seems to be proliferating in Australian TV. There may be some hope yet for a new IceTV enabled PVR from BW, and maybe sales would be improved by BW coming to the party with some decent support materials in the form of user manuals.
I live in hope:)
There was a crowdsourced review of one of the online DP series manuals, but it mainly addressed language issues and accuracy. It didn't really expand the manual much.
Beyonwiz manuals have never been up to much IMO, either for the older series or the new one. The printed T3 manual is probably the worst: it doesn't venture beyond the startup wizard, though the online version fills it out a bit.
The challenges to the technical writer are: the complete lack of any technical specification - the specification is the code, and vice versa, and the code is an open source, fairly rapidly moving target.