android Ice Tv client fails for Humax on standby

Started by swamprat96, October 07, 2012, 06:43:42 PM

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swamprat96

Set the Rugby to record today. Had driven out of home and remembered I forgot to send it so used the android Icetv client to set it. cam home and nothing. I suspect as my Humax is set to power off so that the EPG works- the recording failed. :'(

Its time the humax was fixed. Three updates and it still doesn't work fully. Workarounds are fine but not if we can't use the unit as designed

prl

This is a problem with all of Beyonwiz, Humax and Topfield. If they are in a powered-off (power saving) standby, they can't update IceTV. The further problem on the Humax is that currently it appears that power saving standby must be used for IceTV to work properly.

However, that is the only standby mode on Topfield and Beyonwiz. So at least Humax owners have the prospect of being able to avoid this sort of problem (at the cost of some extra power consumption).

In (power saving) standby, all that is running in the PVR is the front panel - enough to respond to the remote's POWER function, and run a countdown timer to start up the PVR just before when he next recording is due. Comparing it to a PC, (power saving) standby is more like a PC's Shutdown state, while the Humax's quick start (or whatever it's called) standby is more like a PC running but with its audio and video cards shut down.

A common workaround for this problem on Beyonwiz PVRs is to set up a regular View timer to bring the PVR out of standby for a short time to update its EPG and timers. We have two BWs, and on the less-used one we have a daily View timer to ensure that it wakes up at 05:00 and so updates its EPG and recordings at least daily. I believe it's possible to do something similar on Topfields. I don't know about Humax.

The problem with the View timer workaround is that it occupies a tuner and can conflict with recordings, and that it will force a switch to the programmed service in the timer, even if someone is watching something else on live TV. So you really only want to set them for times when on-one will want to watch live TV. However, that's less of a problem if you're one of the "only watch recordings, never live TV" school of PVR owners.

There's a long-standing request on the member-compiled wish list on the Beyonwiz forum for a third type of timer, one that just turns the unit on for a period of time without forcing a change of the service being viewed, designed for just this purpose.

This is just how IceTV works, and is just another reason why I think the IceTV slogan "Never miss your favourite show again" occasionally just isn't quite fulfilled. But I guess "Hardly ever miss your favourite TV show" doesn't have quite the same ring, even if, perhaps, it would be more accurate.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

Dave at IceTV

The Humax has both 'power on' and 'power off' settings in the menu.

You can enable the 'Power On Timer' option to wake up the Humax at the same time each day. If you set this to say 5pm it will pick any new schedules that were set remotely during the day.  See page 50 or 51 in the Humax manual.
http://support.icetv.com.au/attachments/token/3cw9xxvlsxxbbvw/?name=HDR7500T_Manual.pdf

cheers

Dave
Customer Service

swamprat96

OK- so once Humax fixes the EPG once and for all this problem will go away?

prl

Quote from: swamprat96 on October 10, 2012, 01:15:50 PM
OK- so once Humax fixes the EPG once and for all this problem will go away?
No, the underlying problem (that the PVR must request its EPG and recording data from IceTV; changes aren't "pushed" to the PVR) is inherent in the way IceTV works. If you leave the Humax in "fast start" standby (when it becomes stable to do that), then it will update its IceTV data periodically. But you can still miss out on recording parts of stuff if you make changes on the web page just before the program is due to start: the timer update may not happen before the program starts.

I'm not sure what the update frequency for Humax is. For Beyonwiz it's 15 min.

So the likelihood that you'll miss out on a recording being made is greatly reduced, but there are is usually some delay between a Web page update and the timer changes arriving on the PVR, and you could miss out on at least part of a program.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing