briteView BV-980H / Zinwell ZAT-980H thread - Page 4

That's a shame, and a surprise, after the CECB version had both strength and quality indicators, ugly but functional. And my favorite meters, of all the CECB brands.

The 24 hour clock is another surprise, given they changed to a 12 hour clock in later production runs of the CECB.

And it sounds like setting timers is neither intuitive nor fast, if you have many channels to scroll through. Are you saying that from that 'file management' menu, you can't type the first part of the channel number to have it jump ahead to that area of the scrollbar?

Yup, no typing & jumping ahead( scroll thru channel list or select your program to record from the EPG ).

Another downside I overlooked before I purchased, is that this DVR doesn't have forward or backward skip functions( you have to hold fast-forward to skip the commercials ).

It's already sounding very over-priced at $200.

Yup, should be half that price. Next week I'm going to look into returning this & putting my refund towards another CM-7000PAL or something else.

Must have missed my post #35. No worries. That's a minor problem for me but everything else I use has a skip button, most being programable. My #1 b*, it enables all my scrambled channels. That wasn't fair. This unit won't last long unless they spend some time reading and acting on the feedback. "They" is obvious when you see dates in the YYYYMMDD format. Great for programming sorts, bad for U.S. since people here still call a 24 hour clock "Military" time. Most of the world uses a 24 hour clock. Next you know we'll have to go metric! Right product, wrong country.

Setting the channel to record defaults to your current channel. So just tune it, then set the recording. I can't enter "84-1401". The "-" is invalid in the record menu. I'm used to it since my old Sony has the same problem with my channel numbers. It also has a similar work around. No problem with my Mag 515H. It will accept "84.1".

It really make you wonder who tests these products. If anyone.

Yes, they have one. Single member. Me.

If your the only member, doesn't that also make you Moderator In Charge?

Oh right. NFW. You can't dump that on me. I haven't even turned it on today. I just found it strange that there wasn't a support forum. The dead link for "release notes" also deserved a comment. I mean, if the company that built the thing doesn't talk about it, what does that say? I think the expression "buzz kill" might fit here.

New email:
>>>
Dear Customer,

Thank you for choosing brite-View. The problem you mentioned is a firmware bug. I have forward this issue to the product manager. As soon as I receive the response (about 3-5 business days), I will email you immediately. Please let us know if you have further questions.*

Sincerely,
brite-View Customer Service

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Joe Kustra wrote:
When trying to schedule a recording, the "-" key is not accepted for a
channel number. Is there another key that will permit me enter 84-1 as a
channel number. My BV-980H has the latest firmware installed.

Thank you.

Follow us on Twitter : @briteview
www.facebook.com/briteview
Official Website:*http://brite-view.com/
Official Forum:*http://www.brite-viewforum.com/
<<<<

Interesting.

How long is your return window for the unit.

30 days, I shipped mine back today.

opted for a PC with Windows Media Center rather than one of these recorders? It seems that your $300 would be better spent by investing in a PC that has the ability to record, pause live tv, etc. I'm considering this option so that I can cancel cable. I would be interested to hear from some of you regarding your ideas and/or experiences.

BG Eagle1

I have no plans to return the unit at this time. It will be more satisfying to see what I can make them change. Nothing I love more than a buggy piece of CE to improve. Not that the 980H has bugs. I'm really wondering if the brite-View people are serious about this product. Stop by for updates.

Knowing there's a "bug" in the firmware, but still offering the unit for sale, does not speak well for this companies integrity. TiVo's patents on this technology and briteView's workaround(s) probably play a major part in those problems. To be fair, however, one must at least give them credit for having/responding to email support enquiries. I guess the bottom line is, the BV-980H's not ready for "Prime-Time".


Have you checked out the Magnavox MDR513 and MDR515 series of HDD/DVD recorders? While not HD, they offer an excellent "no-fee" alternative to the TiVo type DVR's supplied by the cable and satellite providers. They're available online from Amazon, WalMart and a number of other retailers. If interested, check the following AVS thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=940657

There are several threads on this forum that address HTPC and WMC better. I just disabled it on my Win7 laptop. I don't need it for the laptop to be a DNLA server. I should mention that I have a very small cable company and have no problems with my other devices.

I'd be willing to bet they have no integrity. Direct complaints to:

Zinwell Corporation
7F No. 512, Yuan San Road, Chung Ho City,
Taipei Hsien, Taiwan, R.O.C.

or /dev/null

I find it improbable that they knew of the issue until I told them. Perhaps their testing was done by a third party and that caused the problem to reach the consumer. We've seen that happen before.

I'm going to reserve judgement for now. I wonder how quickly they will fix it? There is a simple workaround anyhow.

I'm not sure who owns who, but there is this:

brite-View™ is a brand owned by Xpike Innovation, Inc.®

email at service@brite-view.com

Not ready for prime time is perhaps a little generous.

Again Chinese (Taiwan) owned and operated in SFO:

Robert Lo - CEO and Co-founder
Charlotte Han - Senior Marketing Manager
Ben Huang - Marketing Specialist

I won't repeat my rant about Chinese engineered CE, it's floating around in these forums somewhere.

As buggy as it is, I'm keeping mine..(see my post # 25) If anybody knows of a fee free non PC QAM HD DVR I'd love to hear about it.

Latest update on using the "-" key to set a scheduled recording:

>>
Dear Customer,

Thank you for taking time to contact us. Currently BV-980H needs to adjust channel by using up/down key at schedule recording, and our RD department is trying to enable using number key and "-" to adjust it. Once there is a new firmware for it, we will post it on our website. Thank you for your patience. Please let us know if you have further questions.

Sincerely,
brite-View Customer Service<<

Operative word is "trying". They don't like to make it specific I guess. And, surprise, it will shut off after a scheduled recording. I just haven't found out how long it takes.

If the RD department fixes bugs, who does the RD? Engineering?

With chinese junk electronics you may get, at most, 1 firmware upgrade. R&D (if you can call it that) stops when the device is deemed "ready" for manufacture. They make a production run and sell out -- typically what you buy is what you get, expect no more. Anything they fix in terms of bugs or usability is put in to the next model, and so on until the whole product concept dies. What I find notably different here is that this device is way over-priced for the genre.

You guys keep bashing Zinwell but with the CECB, I had a totally different experience. The person I dealt with not only responded but expressed sincere gratitude for the glitches I brought to their attention and changes the changes were actually made in subsequent versions.

Did they update the firmware in the the unit you had to fix the glitches? Or were the fixes only available to people who bought the newer units.

I don't know what version it actually is (other than the model #, which is a 970H), but I bought my Zinwell CECB later, on Amazon, and it does have at least one, known bug. Fortunately, it's not really one that affects me - it involves the "favorites" feature, which I never use.

It doesn't even look anything like this box here (it's very cheap and flimsy - PQ's not the best of all my CECB's, nor is it the worst - a bit too soft for my liking, though, especially after being used to my CM-7000. But better than the DTVPal). Compared to it, this box looks like more like a tank (closer to my CM-7000 CECB, which is what passes for a "tank" nowadays). I doubt if they're even manufactured by the same outfit.

Fix the bugs on this, though, and I'll definitely still consider buying one, just from the reviews I've read here so far. It appears to at least do everything I expected it to do. I didn't expect a TiVo for $200. Or even a Pal/CM DVR.

Did you have the sleep timer disabled?

Sleep timer was enabled. I guess that's why it went into standby mode after a timed recording finished.

Maybe ePVision will get a message and get theirs to market ;
http://epvision.com/HDTVSTB/phdez1pre.htm

Has anyone hooked a USB HDD to this thing yet? I'm curious how it handles a USB drive for recording and if it truly can be detached from the BV and plugged into a PC for playback.

Ok questions;

1. Does this have dual memories (OTA & CATV) or does one memory bank get dumped if you scan the other band?
2. Is there direct channel access with channels that are not in the memory? IOW's, can I punch in, say, 43.1 and will it recognize it and add it to the channel map if it wasn't seen in the sacn?,
3. This is only the lame, very limited PSIP data guide (if you call that a guide), correct?,
4. How about a closeup of the main board, namely the chips you can see,
5. And the one you can't. Anyone want to try to lift off that heatsink?,
6. Does the HDD spin 24/7?
7. Is the power consumption always 8 watts?