My main concern is how the padding is handled. Discussions concluded not that well guaranteed as it is still a 3 tuner device although it is smart 3 tuner where more than one channel on the one frequency can be used but no going to get the same flexibility as 6 tuner setup in a Media Center
That is also a thing I worry about. I am using good old TED ATM, which allows me to change the padding manually, if need be, on individual programs. I am very used to, and love, the fact that I get a daily conflict report (only have two tuners on my ancient Toppy 5k) and I can then manually make adjustments to fix those conflicts. It sound to me that Skippa would decide for me and I'd have no (easy) way of fixing it - if at all.
Microsoft hasn't wanted to support Windows Media Center for some time and abandoned it and now killing it which is a pity so I don't think it will get a lot of love from IceTV either, it's a dead end without a clear replacement yet.
Hmmm... I wasn't aware of that. ATM, I record things I want to keep long term on the WMC, so that I can run it through VideoReDo and get rid of the ads, then move it to my NAS drive. Another reason is that it is a pain to transfer things off the Toppy. If WMC disappears, I'd have to find a replacement for that as well.
The Storage space can be fixed with NAS or even a PC with lots of storage.
Except (and admittedly, I am
very confused on this point) I believe the only way to transfer things off the Skippa is with a USB drive? (
michaelwho wrote in another thread, that he spoke to Dave, who said:
"You can copy skippa's recordings to a USB drive to archive or play on another device or computer.
You can also copy the file's url from a network media player app like Windows Media Player and then paste that url into the address bar of a web browser and download the recording (but it's a little fiddly to do).
It currently cannot see other devices' shared folders on the network, or be seen as a shared drive by other devices on the network (but that may be added by firmware update)"If that is true, that sounds like a real pain to me
One more tuner and guaranteed hard padding is the sticking point. I hate recording and missing the end of something and hard padding is necessary. Two Skippa's that could automatically spread the recording load would solve that problem but likely make so much complexity to take away the simplicity of Skippa that will suit 95%+ of users.
Well, again, from what I read in these threads, seems you can't spread anything between two Skippas as they aren't shareable. So, you would need to go searching on both to find what is on which.
It is a bit hard to make final judgement without having a look at it or even seeing a manual but that is what the $100/$200 discount for the early birds is for I suspect it will need a few software updates over the rest of the year but won't be worse than Foxtel's new IQ3 as that would take a lot of effort.
$200 is a lot of money for me, but I am still worried that, not having all the answers I need, I'd be disappointed and (as I already know that my needs are complicated) possibly not being able to set it up. I don't know anyone that could assist me here in Melbourne, so I'd have to be convinced that I could do it myself without too much stress, before I'd be willing to jump.
I also have to say that I am rather disappointed by the general lack of info. 90% of what we know (or think we know) was gained by people getting in touch with IceTV directly and asking questions, then publishing their answers here. Some of those answers seem contradictory to me, but that may very well be my lack of understanding. All the more reason why they should put something in writing, so that we can ponder (possibly Google) and make an informed decision.
Why can't they publish a detailed specs, not just the tiny bit that they did publish? After all, even $399 is not peanuts, aren't we entitled to know more details, without having to beg for it, before we spend that much money?
