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Now that the Skippa has officially been launched should it be given its own IceForum under the "IceTV Guide for IceTV enabled PVRs" section?

This topic is getting a little long making it hard to find which questions have been answered.

Done.

Skippa's own sub-forum can be found in the PVRs section, or here:
http://forum.icetv.com.au/iceforum/skippa/44/

So am I reading the specs right when comparing the Skippa to the WizT3?  Half the Flash memory, but twice the RAM. 
Will this make it more responsive or less?  I'm considering getting one of these as a sister box to my WizT3, but I'd like to see more of a response on these specs.

Flash is used to store the bootloader, firmware and settings. RAM is used to do day to day stuff like decoding the video, audio and subtitles, responding to remote control or front panel button presses, processing auto skip, playing from and recording to the hard drive, and displaying menus etc. More RAM would make a more responsive PVR, when compared to a PVR with not enough RAM. But if 2 PVRs have different amounts or RAM but neither of them uses all of their RAM then they'd seem the same to the user.

The T3 Beyonwiz does pause a lot while doing day to day stuff (for me at least).

Also, I know that 10/100 ethernet is adequate, but why not use the newer specced system, surely it's not that more expensive. Even my laptop is capable of faster speeds than this,
and the WiFi card is 5Ghz capable and the size of a postage stamp.. Just a thought.

It's all down to the Chipset. A chipset that has a faster 1Gb Ethernet could increase the cost dramatically... for no real benefit... and could delay the release if the new chipset is more complicated or untested. If the skippa could copy recordings via the network then maybe a 1Gb Ethernet port would be desirable. But for streaming network and Internet media and downloading from IceTV the 100Mb Ethernet is plenty fast enough.

cheers

I can't afford a PVR,

Hi Chopper,

I can't help with your web scheduler tuner issues (which sounds like the antenna signal getting to the tuners is not perfect or the USB cable used to connect the tuners to the computer is dodgy) but there are good PVRs available cheap.

IceTV has the 2 tuner Humax HDR-7500T 500GB for just $249
https://www.icetv.com.au/store/PVRs/Humax_HDR7500T_500GB_PVR

And for the bargain price of $195 2nds World currently have the excellent 3 tuner Altech UEC (which will have IceTV added via a firmware update in a couple of weeks).

I would rather that IceTV release a finished and working product than a buggy one that takes 12 months of firmware updates to become usable.

Forums are full of posts about new PVRs that were so full of bugs when released that early purchasers either regret buying them or keep using their old PVR until enough firmware updates have been released to make the no longer new PVR stable enough to use.

The cause of Twenty/20 cricket (and the 20/20 US news and current affairs show) not recording is a different issue than the one Ian mentioned. The problem is that the Topfield PVR cannot record any show with a / slash in the name of the show.

When IceTV asks a Topfield PVR to schedule a recording for "20/20" or "Cricket: Twenty/20" the PVR schedules it okay but is then unable to record it. It starts the recording but because it cannot create a file with a / in it's name it fails to record anything. It just sits there pretending to record but never finishes. If you came back 3 days later and pressed the info button the PVR would still display that it was recording 20/20 with a 00:00 duration recorded.

IceTV have confirmed that they have not changed the names of the affected shows and that they have always included a / when it is part of the show's title. So it would seem to be a bug recently introduce in the Topfield's firmware (April 2013?). I came here hoping to find out which firmware versions do not have this issue.

Theoretically it could easily be fixed if IceTV didn't use a / in show's names. For example:

ABC USA actually call their current affairs news show, 20²º and not 20/20
On the Internet Twenty/20 cricket is often called Twenty20, T20 and 20-20 though Twenty/20 is it it's official name.

But if IceTV changes the names of all shows with a / in their name what is to stop someone at IceTV in future entering a new show with a / in it's title. A better solution would be to have IceTV's server change any / to a - in the data sent to Topfield PVRs.

Of course the best solution would be for Topfield to fix their firmware... before the next showings of Twenty/20 and 20/20 go to air.

There is now a review at :http://techau.com.au/hands-on-with-the-humax-4tune-a-freeview-dvr-media-server-and-slingbox-in-one/

Reads like a fluff piece written on behalf of Humax. References to 'Freeview' are concerning. IceTV and 'Freeview' are essentially incompatible and if the author doesn't understand the difference between 'Free To Air' and 'Freeview' he shouldn't be reviewing PVRs.

It does read like a paid product promo. The author seems to be referring to Freeview as in "Free To Air Digital TV Channels" and not the "Freeview EPG" certified PVRs, though he never makes that clear enough to prevent readers mistaking the 4tune for a "Freeview EPG" crippled PVR.

I was told by Humax via their Facebook feed that IceTV WOULD be supported.

Do you know what date Humax posted that? The latest IceTV reference from Humax on their facebook page that I can find only says: "Our management is talking to IceTV." June 10 at 4:03pm.

Is IceTV trying to... ? Or is business so... ?

Or was Beyonwiz clearing current model stock to make way for the new T3...

Going by the Humax Australia website, the 4tune seems to support the 3 Humax smart phone apps, and has samba support - though it reads like you need to copy the files to the Humax HDD before it can play them (assuming it has codecs to support said files).

Can you confirm this the case, i will not be buying unless it can stream directly from my NAS

Supported formats are
• Video: MP4, VOB, AVI, ASF, MKV, MPEG-2TS
• Photo: JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF
• Music: MP3

I no longer have access to the one I briefly played with so I also want to know the answer to this. I wasn't aware that it supported samba when I played with a 4tune so it wasn't something that I tested.

It would be strange to have samba support and not be able to stream media direct from a network SMB share (without DLNA). I hope it can as it would make an excellent replacement for aging DP series Beyonwizes. Humax are touting the 4tune as a media center so maybe the description of the samba capability lost something in the translation. 

I had a very short play with one of these and I was very impressed. Nice remote. Nice new features laid out logically in nice menus. The menus were similar to the current Humax style but still different enough to know you are using a different model.

Going by the Humax Australia website, the 4tune seems to support the 3 Humax smart phone apps, and has samba support - though it reads like you need to copy the files to the Humax HDD before it can play them (assuming it has codecs to support said files).

Humax PVRs have an unadvertised feature where you can set a different remote code for the remote control and PVR (with 6 codes to pick from) so you could have a 4tune, a 7500 and a 7510 all in the same room with each PVR's remote only controlling that PVR. Or setup a universal remote to operate all 3 PVRs independently.

One unconfirmed "feature" that I have heard about is that the 4tune cannot record more than 1 channel per tuner. So no recording ABC1 and ABC2 from 1 tuner, while recording 7, 9 and 10 from the other 3 tuners. I assume that you can record 4 channels and view a live sister channel of one of the 4 channels being recorded. This behaviour is the same as most PVRs, except the TMS toppies with recent firmware and the Beyonwiz T3 (which is still too new to comment on it's general reliability). I think Humax have done the right thing here as I would rather reliably record 4 channels at one time (as separate files each with padding) than unreliably try to record 5 or more shows (that are not all separate files) at one time.

If I was after a new family friendly PVR that can record any 4 channels at the same time I would jump on one of these... if IceTV support gets added. The other features, like well integrated VOD, Catchup TV, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc, plus the smart phone/tablet apps, just add to what should another solid PVR from Humax.

Edit: corrected some poor grammar

At those prices it is like paying for 5 years IceTV and getting a free Beyonwiz DP-P2.

The new 20 May 2013 1.08.05 version is working fine for me.

IceTV is working well. The Humax is coping well when IceTV updates the start time or duration of an existing schedule. Padding is also working properly. The old padding issue had returned with the "21 Oct 2012 1.08.05" version so it's good to see it fixed again in this "20 May 2013 1.08.05" version.

The only difficulty I had was that I could not update from via the TV Portal - I kept getting an error saying something like "Download cancelled due to network condition or scheduled recording". There were no scheduled recordings and my current Internet download speed was 102mbps and the Humax is using Cat6 to the router. So I updated via USB.

PS Cannot comment on freezing because I've only ever had the Humax freeze once, while browsing the media folders. Also cannot comment on rebooting either as I don't have Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 or Twonky Version 7 running on any networked devices so I've never experienced the rebooting.

[Update: Apparently the latest software version formats USB drives in NTFS (which does not have file size issues or need a special driver installed for Windows) and can now copy files to NTFS formatted USB drives.]

Hi Allan,

swamprat said "FTP can be used- see the manual." i.e. See the manual about FTP (not Filezilla)

While Filezilla is possibly the best FTP client (and free) there is one gotcha when transferring Humax recordings via FTP; If you transfer the recordings directly from the Humax's internal hard drive they are encrypted and can only be played back a Humax PVR. To be able to copy them unencrypted via FTP you need to copy them to a USB drive first (using the Humax media menu). After that you can leave the USB drive plugged in to the Humax and access it via FTP. The FTP client on the computer can see the files on the USB drive while it is connected to the Humax.

Now there are also some gotchas and things to be aware of for using a USB drive with a Humax:

• The Humax can not copy files to a USB drive formatted in NTFS. See update below
• The Humax can only copy files to USB drives formatted in FAT, FAT32, Ext2 or Ext3. See update below
• FAT32 has a 4GB size limit per file (no matter how large the USB stick or drive is).
• FAT has a 2GB size limit per file (no matter how large the USB stick or drive is).
• An hour recording can be 5GB for HD channels and 2GB for SD channels.
• The Humax does not split files at the 4GB FAT32 or 2GB FAT file size limits - it just stops copying the file. See update below
• USB sticks larger than 2GB and for use with the Humax should be formatted in Ext2. See update below
• USB drives for use with the Humax should be formatted in Ext3 (unless your recordings are all less than 4GB, where FAT32 will do). See update below
• The Humax can format USB hard drives for you and will format them in Ext3. See update below
• The Humax cannot format USB sticks.
• USB sticks formatted in Windows will normally be FAT or FAT32.
• USB hard drives formatted in Windows will normally be NTFS.
• Windows cannot natively access Ext formatted drives, but you can install drivers that add support for Ext2 and/or Ext3. See update below
• Mac OS and Linux can access Ext formatted drives. See update below
• The USB drive must either use less than 500mA or have it's own power supply.
• A USB drive left permanently attached to the Humax will take up one of the two USB ports.
• If you leave a USB drive left permanently attached to the Humax's rear USB port and you are using wireless the dongle will need to go in the front USB port.

If you are going to format a USB drive in Ext3 and copy recordings to the USB drive, you may as well install an Ext3 driver in Windows so you can just unplug the drive and take it to the PC, instead of using FTP.

Update: Apparently the latest software version formats USB drives in NTFS (which does not have file size issues or need a special driver installed for Windows) and can now copy files to NTFS formatted USB drives.  :)

Or you could forget the USB drive and FTP, and just copy the DLNA path of the Humax recording and paste that into a web browser's address bar and let the web browser download the whole recording for you. The only downsides here are that the downloaded files names will be a number instead of the show's name, and it's a little fiddly obtaining the DLNA path to the file that you want (but no harder than using FTP).

Exactly. If you already have a Win7 MCE compatible remote and a good TV signal then any of the available tuners will do.

For a Windows user the main thing to be aware of when choosing a USB tuner is does the included remote control work with Windows Media Center. Some only work with their own recording software, which does not support IceTV and is usually inferior to Windows Media Center.

The full size remote controls included with 'Hauppauge NOVA-TD HD Dual TV Tuner' and with the 'Hauppauge MiniStick HDTV Tuner' do work with Windows 7 Media Center, as do the remote controls included with the Elgato products.