Messages

1

General Discussions / Re: Moving from beyonwiz to kaiser baas with IceTV....

« on: February 16, 2013, 11:28:37 AM »

Hi alect,

Both integrate equally as well with Windows and IceTV as long as you use Windows Media Center to record with.

All I can tell you about quality is my own experience. I've found the Elgato works better than the Kaiser in low signal areas. So if you are in that situation, the price difference would be worth it. However, if you have a strong signal, there are no extra reasons to switch to the Elgato.

David.

2

General Discussions / Re: Moving from beyonwiz to kaiser baas with IceTV....

« on: February 15, 2013, 03:05:48 PM »

Hi Alect,

The Kaiser Baas stick works great with IceTV as long as you use Windows Media Center for your recordings. Ice is not compatible with their own Total Media recorder, but works really well with Media Center (which comes free with Win7, or a small cost on Win8).

I have used the Kaiser Baas stick and it works well with Windows. In my personal experience, however, it isn't as good at picking up low signal strength channels than other devices (like the Elgato DTT or Elgato Diversity). If you know you are in a low signal area, I recommend you look at the Elagato tuners instead.

David.
IceTV Tech Support

3

Smart Recording website and General questions / Re: Daylight saving for TMS Toppies

« on: October 03, 2011, 03:18:33 PM »

JPP,

Deleting the timers on the Topfield and doing a factory reset are not the same thing. If you manually delete the timers on the Topfield, it will give a 'delete' signal to our IceTV servers for those episodes after about 1/2 hour. And if that delete signal is sent, we'll never schedule that episode again - even if you ask us to resend timers. A factory reset will remove the timers without the signal being sent.

That's why we recommend you factory reset. While it's a pain to have to do, it's the safest way to update your Topfield. We'd love to have an easier way to do it - particularly those of us in support who need to talk customers through the factory reset steps twice a year.

Believe me, the last thing we want to do is put our customers through more hassles than necessary, and have already tried the other, less time consuming, methods for dealing with daylight savings changes. They all have their own set of problems. If an easier method existed, that's what we would be telling our customers to do. Hopefully with the new firmware due soon it will be fixed (or at least a lot easier to handle).

Finally, we can't change the time of programs we sent to our customers' boxes as you suggested because it all depends on the timezone setting on the box. Lots of users have manual timezones set and we have no way of knowing when that setting is changed by the customer. We need that exact timing to know when to start sending the different timed programs.

4

Smart Recording website and General questions / Re: Daylight saving for TMS Toppies

« on: October 02, 2011, 01:13:09 PM »

JPP,

Glad to hear you got it working. However, as a cautionary note to other readers, we do NOT recommend you use this method to fix the wrong timers on the Topfield. Don't delete them from your Topfield and click on 'resend all recordings' from our website. The reason why is if you delete the timers on the Topfield, it sometimes sends a message to our website that you don't want to record those programs at all, and once that message is sent, those episodes will never be resent.

Our recommended way of fixing the wrong IceTV timers after the daylight savings change is to factory reset your Topfield using the below instructions:

http://support.icetv.com.au/entries/20177028-how-do-i-clear-out-the-cached-guide-and-force-an-update

David
IceTV Technical Support

5

Topfield / Re: 2460 misses IceTV guide

« on: September 11, 2011, 03:22:23 PM »

Hi Wally and Davo,

Unfortunately, this is a Topfield firmware issue, and not a problem with the Ice guide data.

There are known issues with the later Topfield models (7100 plus, 2400 and 2460) not correctly updating their local EPG when we send guide updates. For example, if a channel changes the start time for a program from 11:15 to 11:05, Ice sends the update to the Topfield, but it fails to properly change it's guide. That can cause the duplicate programs that Wally sees, and the differences between our Web and the Topfield EPG; as well as missed recordings (because the Topfield needs a correct guide to update it's timers).

Topfield have been notified of the problem, and working on a firmware upgrade to fix it. Please contact Ice Tech support and we'll put you on our list of customers to notify when the new firmware that fixes this issue is released.

Note: There are other causes of failed programs, so it's always worthwhile to contact Ice support directly if you are having problems with recording errors.

David Peterson
Ice Technical Support

6

Smart Recording website and General questions / Re: Not happy Jan!

« on: December 29, 2010, 05:09:44 PM »

Hi,

I'm one of the Ice support team.

First off, my apologies for the delays in replying to your email and not getting back to you on the phone. The support tech who said he would 'make sure someone called you back' is currently away on holidays but we will speak to him about it when he gets back to find out why the message didn't get passed up the chain.

Regarding the delays with email unfortunately we've been snowed under with the buggy release of our new iPhone app and have been slower than we would like in recent weeks in replying to email. As you probably know, we're only a small team and are all working as hard as we can to make sure you once again receive the great support you know us for.

I was the person you spoke to early in December about your issue with with NCIS. What I said at the time was the timer event was coming FROM your Windows box. The NCIS program wasn't being scheduled by us, but was being scheduled by your Windows Media center. So the only way to clear it would be to clear the schedule on Windows directly.

I've just checked your account again and it seems the same thing is still happening. I see NCIS is scheduled (from your box) next Tuesday.

The way to fix this is to remove the series recording on Media Center itself. I don't know exactly how to do it on XP (I only have Vista Media Center), but on Vista, you:

- Go to TV+Movies
- Go to Recorded TV
- Click on "View Scheduled". This will show a list of scheduled recordings on the box
- Locate NCIS for Tuesday night. Click on it
- Click on "Series Info" menu, then click "Cancel Series".

That will cancel the series on your Windows box and it won't record anymore.

If your options are vastly different from what I have explained above, look for a page that shows you the upcoming recordings on Media Center, locate NCIS on Tue Night and delete the schedule. Make sure you delete the series and not just the one episode. Let me know if you still can't find it, and I'll get one of our other team with XP to give you exact instructions.

Also, looking at your account, I can see that your scheduled recordings are all set to record. Can you confirm that the upcoming recordings are still there? If not, please call our support line on 1300 564 803 and we'll work out what's happening.

In closing, yes it unfortunately took a lot longer than we would have wished to release guide data for the community channels like Ch31. We were trying to work with the channels to get a common guide data format that we could both use to allow the guide to be automatically downloaded to our servers. It was taking way too long so in the end we hired someone to manually enter the data into our system.

We are aware of 7HD and 9HD not being renamed on the widget. That requires an update to our widget software which was delayed because of the iPhone app and other issues. It's on our list and we should get to it in January.

David.

7

Topfield TF7100HDPVRt / Re: Channel Mapping Problems

« on: November 21, 2010, 12:53:43 PM »

Hi All,

I'm from Ice Support. Here's the methods we normally use to resolve this issue that is happening with some Topfield 7100's.

- First press the OK button to show a channel list, and write down the channel numbers and names for all your channels. This will be used in the next steps.

- From Live TV Press Menu
- Select System Settings, EPG Setting
- Select Channel Mapping
- Make sure each of the channels listed there have the LCN of the channel number you wrote down above. Note you won't see all channels on this list, and that's normal.

If all the channel numbers were already correct, you can stop here. Your box has not been affected by this issue and you do not need to do anything else.

If some LCN numbers were wrong, but you were able to correct all the numbers in the above step, please SKIP the next step and move to the RESEND STEP

RESCAN STEP

Only if you CANNOT change the LCN column of some of the channels in the Channel Mapping page, AND those channel numbers are still incorrect, you will need to delete all your channels and rescan. To do this:

- From Live TV
- Press the OK button on the remote
- Press the RED button on each channel and choose the Delete option

Once all channels have been deleted, do a channel rescan. Then continue to the next step.

RESEND STEP

Finally, you'll need to resend all recordings so your Topfield can link the correct channels to what we schedule:

- First make sure you have deleted all the timers (scheduled recordings) on your box, as if you try to resend with timers already existing, it can cause problems.
- Go to our website http://www.icetv.com.au/
- Click on "My Account" at the top (or "Log In" and login)
- Click on the "TV Recorders" tab
- Click on "Resend All Recordings"
- Wait an hour with the box on for the recordings to come through.

Then everything should be fine.

If not, please contact us directly and we'll help you with your specific circumstance.

David.

8

MythTV / Remove HD flag on SD channels

« on: September 06, 2010, 10:36:34 AM »

Hey Guys,

I recently upgraded my TV to a HD compatible box, and at the same time enabled the HD channels on MythTV. I wanted to record only in HD when the program supports it. This should be able to be done with the "Prioritize HD Quality" setting in MythTV. However, the XMLTV guide from IceTV shows the HD flag even on SD channels negating the usefulness of this script.

So I wrote the below Perl program. I run it just after the listings are downloaded from IceTV.

It removes the HD flag from all SD channels, so Myth will only record on the HD channels if actually broadcast in HD.

I hope it helps someone!

Download from here: http://www.opencraft.org/ice/removehdfromsdchannels_pl

Remember to rename _pl to .pl and make the file executable.

David.

9

Windows Vista Media Center / Re: TV Guide 1 hour out for Perth

« on: November 25, 2009, 09:07:56 PM »

If guide data is 1 hour out, it's probably because Daylight Savings is still enabled for your computer.

- Go into Date and Time, click on "Change time zone" and uncheck the "Automatically adjust clock for DST". Click OK.
- Your time will mow be wrong. Fix that, and the guide should be fine.

David.

10

MythTV / Re: MythTV 0.22 - ICE TV Support.

« on: November 22, 2009, 05:31:46 PM »

Hey Guys,

I had this problem to, so I've spent a few hours updating the Ice script to use the new perl XML libraries that allow the configuration to be run from within MythTVSetup. I have confirmed it works for MythBuntu 9.1

To use:
- Download and install the new Ice Grabber:
sudo wget -P /usr/bin http://www.opencraft.org/ice/tv_grab_au_ice
- Make sure the file has the correct permissions:
sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/tv_grab_au_ice
- Run mythtv-setup
- Choose Video Sources, New Video Source
- Give your new source a name (I use IceTV)
- Change the Listings Grabber to "Australia (IceTV)".  (The first time in, Myth will probably scan for new grabbers, so wait until that's finished
- Choose Configure
- Enter your IceTV User ID and Password.
- Make sure the routine shows you the channel list. Press Enter. (You might need to scroll down to see the end of the channel list)
- Make sure the routine says "Finished Configuration. Exited with status: 0".
- If there are any errors, you can re-run the configuration
- Exit MythTV Setup and say yes you want to run the mythfilldatabase

Let me know if you have any problems with the grabber. I'll see if I can get the Ice guys to make it the default one that is downloaded.

David.

11

IceTV EPG Content / Melbourne data doesn't show Vic Elections

« on: November 23, 2006, 02:47:56 PM »

Hi all,

I'm using the Melbourne ICE guide, and noticed today that it doesn't show the Victorian election programs on either the ABC or Channel 9.

Is this a glitch, or something you're still working on?

David.

12

General Discussions / Re: P.Vogel = P.Vogel from Fairlight CMI?

« on: July 23, 2006, 06:43:27 PM »

Hey, Wow! It is that Peter!

My uncle purchased one of the first Fairlights available I think. He still has it too. He's in TV music production, and has been creating commercials for over 20 years.

David.

13

General Discussions / Re: The IceMan Rocks!

« on: July 23, 2006, 06:42:12 PM »

Sorry guys, but I'm not a fan of these 'cheap shots'.

For me, the TV guide would be much better without these kinds of comments. Please return the guides to the non-political descriptions please.

David.