Skippa User Experience so far

[FMB]

My first impressions: This is coming from the perspective of a long term TiVo user.

The unboxing: I was a little surprised to find a lack of an antenna lead. There's a HDMI cable and the obligatory set of composite connection leads. The unit itself looks okay from the front, not so much from the back. This might sound pedantic, but the holes through which the connectors show through are too large and there are gaps around them. I'll probably never look at the back of it again, but when you compare it to products from major manufacturers like Sony, Samsung and LG, the Skippa shows a lack of attention to detail. The sort you'd find in a cheap, 'made-to-a-price' product. It doesn't mean the unit is dodgy, it just doesn't inspire confidence.

The remote: I've used a lot of remotes over the years and you can tell a cheap remote from a quality one just by look and feel. When you use an LG/Samsung/Sony remote, you know you can just point it in the general direction, press the button and it will work. With the Skippa remote, you actually have to take the time to aim, click forcefully and keep an eye on the unit to see the light flash. You also have to hope that it doesn't register twice. I don't think that's good enough. I have a Harmony remote which works properly with the Skippa, but the Skippa remote has so many buttons which don't match up. It's going to be a bit of a trial to get it working properly. To me, this is a major fail for the Skippa.

Installation: The process went smoothly (except for accidentally unplugging the HDMI from my AVR to the TV). Skippa booted up fine and found all the channels and did its initial firmware update without a problem. I tried to change the output resolution from the default 1080i to 1080p and it failed. It just froze on the dialog to accept the new output. I was able to hit the back button to exit out of it. My Skippa is connected to a 4K AVR and a 4K TV, so I was aiming for the highest possible output resolution. All of the other settings I was able to adjust, albeit with a dodgy remote which meant everything took twice as long as it should.

Recording: I was able to set up series recordings on the unit and on my iPad without any problems. That's all good. I decided to record something I was watching and I hit the record button and didn't really get any sort of feedback. on TiVo, you hit record and it brings up options. On Skippa, you get nothing. I even went into the guide and hit record and then I got feedback asking if I wanted to stop the recording.

The guide: I found this kind of annoying. I don't know about you, but when I bring up the guide, it's not because I want to keep watching TV in one quarter of the screen. Get rid of it and make the program info in the top left appear on a pop up window. That will leave a much larger area for more channels and larger text (for us old farts with failing eyesight). I'd like to see different guide options available like TiVo, so I can choose the guide layout which suits me best.

Playback and ad skip: I haven't tried that yet. I will do so on the weekend. Personally, I don't really care about ad skip. That's not the reason I bought a Skippa, so I'll reserve judgement on that until I see the result.

WAF: I haven't gone down that road yet. I'll leave it until the weekend. I plan on making a list of the pro's and con's of Skippa versus TiVo and doing a good news/bad news thing. I left the user manual on the coffee table when I left. I'll be curious to see if its been read. My wife is not a fan of new technology, so we'll see how that goes.

Summary: It's still early days (day in fact), so I can't say whether or not I like the Skippa. Only time will tell.

[EdQld]

Hmm I wonder if you are seeing a similar issue to me Ed?

I have setup a series recording for both Mythbusters and scorpion using my phone to record every episode regardless of time, channel etc Now all episodes have the series record mark on them, however it only seems to be the episodes that are on the same channel as where I setup the recording that show up in my week.. So all the scorpion episodes on one appear but 10 is ignored and all the Mythbusters on 7mate appear but not sbs..

Not sure if it is an issue with the windows phone app or some other combination of circumstances..
I will probably create a new thread later..

I am also curious to know how long it takes to sync between my phone and the skippa.. I would expect max 1-2 minutes but it seems to take a much longer period, which could be an issue for last minute recordings when out..

In my case I used my PC to set the Series Recording and it showed up on both the PC & Skippa (My Series & My Week) but just did Not record  :(

Another issue I found, 2 shows from the My Series that show on the PC (5 shows) don't show on the Skippa (3 shows) - that was from last night & still missing this morning  :-(

[stretch4x4]

Bummer, sounds like we might need a new thread for debugging recording syncing..

[IanL-S]

Bummer, sounds like we might need a new thread for debugging recording syncing..

I think what we need is a separate Forum for the Skippa so that we can organise threads in a sensible way to assist users (I have suggested doing so to IceTV). I have also suggested establishing a wiki to consolidate the user knowledge of the Skippa world (like the oztoppy wiki for Topfield PVRs - I have also suggested this to IceTV.

Ian

You can check out the sorts of things that could be done with a wiki by looking at the oztoppy wiki: http://oztoppy.wikidot.com/

[stretch4x4]

The wiki sounds like a good idea.. Some of my posts I would like to add more info but forums are not very good with edits, makes it hard to see what people were replying to.. Would help us track issues and features and requests..

As for the forum, pretty sure this thread and all the others on skippas are in a skippa sub forum...???
That was done a couple of months ago I think, but maybe I missed your point..

[IanL-S]

As for the forum, pretty sure this thread and all the others on skippas are in a skippa sub forum...???
That was done a couple of months ago I think, but maybe I missed your point..

I obviously did not make myself sufficiently clear. In the Ice TV Forum, Skippa is a 'sub-forum'; to manage the content more easily we probably need sub-sub-forums. If the Forum platform used by IceTV supports sub-sub-forums all is OK, if not a separate forum will be needed.

Ian

[warkus]

I agree Ian,

Structure would be really good.

Hardware
Firmware
Bug Reports
Wish Lists
etc
etc
for example.

Great idea.

[IanL-S]

It took a bit of effort to set up the Skippa - it crashed twice during the process. I think it had something to do with a faulty Ethernet cable. Took a while to customise the unit (maybe I should have read the manual ... but why change the habits of lifetime).

There does not seem to be any way to set a static IP address ... you have to rely on reserved IP on the router.

I could not see much of interest on the Opera TV Store. Nothing that would be useful in managing the Skippa.

It found both my PlexServer and my iTunes server. The media player cannot play iTunes video (bit of a let down).

Ian

[FMB]

Further to my previous review where I mentioned the WAF. I just found the following post on Facebook from my wife:

"So in typical fashion HE adds a new piece of technology to the AV mix and it renders all the existing equipment dead. Did I anticipate this, yes, am I surprised, no, am I frustrated, you guess !"

Wish me luck. Anyone in Brisbane have a spare room for the night?  ::)

[IanL-S]

I had no problems with putting the video output to max setting (it was going though an HDMI switch).

It took me a while to work out how to set a static IP address ... should have checked the manual first.

Ian

[EdQld]

The manual p47 "General Settings",  states to set your Region, but no such option appears here?

[dooboy]

Hi All

Skippa all set up and working (no issues so far) and now learning how to drive it - 2 immediate questions

Changing from Tivo so questions are based on this:

1 - Skippa has a power button - on and standby - Tivo didn't and was always on - If I put Skippa into standby will it still record or is standby a mode you only use when you don't want anything to record? (this is what I assume but couldn't see any explanation in manual)

2 - Tivo had a button to switch between tuners - handy if you are recording on both and just want to jump back and forth - or as an easy way to flick between 2 shows - say footy and cricket with just one button press - does Skippa have this function (can't find a button to swap the tuner you are viewing)

Thanks!

Doo

[Leon K]

The manual p47 "General Settings",  states to set your Region, but no such option appears here?

Hey EdQld,

That was from an earlier version of the firmware, that section will be removed in the next update which is being updated right now. We will also expand on a few other section in the manual too..

[Leon K]

1 - Skippa has a power button - on and standby - Tivo didn't and was always on - If I put Skippa into standby will it still record or is standby a mode you only use when you don't want anything to record? (this is what I assume but couldn't see any explanation in manual)

2 - Tivo had a button to switch between tuners - handy if you are recording on both and just want to jump back and forth - or as an easy way to flick between 2 shows - say footy and cricket with just one button press - does Skippa have this function (can't find a button to swap the tuner you are viewing)

Hey Doo,

1 - Yes SKIPPA will record in stand-by and continue to update the guide and the timer list, it will automatically wake to record shows as they are broadcast.

2 - There is no direct way to swap the tuner you are viewing, SKIPPA handles all Tuner assignment automatically, at the moment there is no shortcut button to bounce between two shows at the same time.

[FMB]

As I understand it, if you want the TiVo style functionality of switching between tuners, you have to record the other program. Then, when you switch to that channel, you will have the buffer available to you. Not ideal and will require extra housekeeping duties. I haven't tried it myself yet.