Announcing the general release of ReplayTV software 5.1 for RTV5000s and 5500s - Page 3  

FWIW, despite what Richard said about the software rollout, I decided to go ahead and do a few forced connects just to see... the first one didn't get the new software - the second one (5 seconds later) did.

"SceneNav" does look basically like manual CA. I think that "SegmentNav" might be a more appropriate name, as I assumed (like others) that SceneNav would jump from scene to scene.

At least from the limited testing I've done, it appears to work where CA works and fails where CA fails, which makes sense.

Here's something to watch for though - say you are watching a show, and come to a commercial break, and hit -> for SN. Say that this time SN doesn't skip all the commercials, but instead jumps to a point midway during the commercial break, because that's where the algorithm told it to go (just like what happens with CA sometimes). If you hit -> a second time, it skips the *next whole segment of the show*, and goes to the start of the next commercial break. Now, if you're J6P, you think that you are still in the same commercial break, so you hit -> a third time. Finally you're back to the show, but you've missed an entire segment.

To remedy this, it looks like the HUD automatically comes on whenever you use SN so that you have a clue this is happening. I think that the real answer may be that you can only use SN once per commercial break - if it doesn't get you all the way through the commercials, then you have to use the normal skip-ahead-30-seconds button (forgot what we call this one).

Anyway, pretty cool for 55xx owners. Can't think of a case where I would use it personally (as the owner of a 5xxx). If I were really going to skip the first half of the Superbowl to get to halftime, would I hit -> 20 times, or would I just jump ahead 90 minutes and start looking from there? :) Perhaps SN would be useful from that point...

It seems like a lot of you are missing the most important change that was made here: THEY ACTUALLY TOLD US WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!!! :D :D


This update may not be the 2nd coming of Jesus as some of you had hoped, but it is only a .1 release so what did you expect? Fixing all the known lockups is about the best thing they could have done even though many will argue that it never should have been such an issue. The rest is just gravy. Yummy rich creamy gravy that I can rub all over my ... um ... nevermind. :eek:

Hmm. OK -- thanks for the update! BTW, i guess i'll assume there's a chipset difference between the 4xxx and 5xxx units, which explains why 4xxx is more stable CC-wise? In any case, hopefully i won't need to reboot my machine any longer when CC disappears!

RATS! Didn't get it when my box connected automatically about two hours ago.

Thanks for the answer on this one. I was just getting ready to ask this question as it had not been answered. My wife is hearing impaired and the replay is useless to her as CC is so bad or non existant and I am wondering if I should take it back.

When you mention microcode in the chipset, do you mean upgradeable with an update, or it would have to be a physical replacement with a new chip?

If that software is upgradeable, then I may hold out a while longer.

Thanks for answering my above question,

Scott

Yep, that's what I feared earlier in this thread. Glad to see that the HUD is automatically displayed, which seems to be the only way to not miss content.

carlson - anything worth mentioning re: channel changing speeds?

Not finished yet, had my hands full the last few weeks with things I can't mention. The video part is basically architectured. What's left to do is duplicate "commercial breaks" many times while varying the in/out black bookends. Then add the audio track and vary the audio stream, including levels. Still not sure of exact methodology for that to make results meaningful. But it's on slow simmer and hopefully will be done to a turn by Q1 '04

The HUD is automatically displayed after it advances but not before, so you don't really know how far it has skipped. You can rememdy that by setting up a macro on your remote that sends the 'display' command', then pauses for a brief moment so that you have enough time to see the HUD, then hits SA. So instead of pressing the right arrow button, you would press the button for this macro.

Of course, the better solution would be for replay's software to automatically bring up the HUD first (or even better, tell you how many minutes it has skipped)...maybe in 5.2?

Alan - good point. I'll probably set the macro up like you said. I certainly agree that putting the number of minutes skipped into the lower right hand blue "bubble" would help, but wouldn't be foolproof because not all breaks are the standard 3 mins long. But, it's certainly better than guessing.

Hmmm... I'm probably the worst person to ask for a comparison here, as I don't channel surf anymore (ever since getting my first pvr).

However, I just timed a few changes with a stopwatch, so perhaps you can compare these times with the ones you're getting.

My setup is a 5080 connected by ir to an el cheapo rca directv satellite box.

Here are the speeds I get (number of seconds from when I press the channel up button to when I've got video and audio on the new channel):

7.1
6.7
7.6
7.7
7.2

Hope this helps...

I have now seen three or more questions about the channel changing speed and I didn't see any reply's. This to me is the MOST important fix they could have made in the new software. I want my channels faster. so how is the speed. Is there still a HUGE delay when I want to go from channel x to channel y, or is it quicker?


great!! someone answered the question while i was typing this post

Well, I'm not sure that this is such a bad deal. At least in the situation I described, it's not until the second time you hit SN that the problem occurs, and in that case you *would* know how far it skipped.

I think that your solution is a good one if SN ever skips content the first time it is pressed. I guess we don't yet know how often this happens (if at all) - if it doesn't ever happen, I would probably prefer not to be bothered with the HUD. If it happens even occasionally, I agree that we need to know!

I can see a good use for this. Let's say that you watch a show that is infamous for failed CA (Alias for instance). When you watch a show that you KNOW is going to have CA failures you simply start the show with CA disabled. CA usually detects the end of commercials correctly, so when a commercial starts, hit the SN forward button and it takes you to the end of the commercial. It's not as nice as CA when it works, but it's better than CA when CA skips three minutes before the commercial break.

Your kidding right. I hope that is because you are using directv. I use cable and if it is still that long between channel changes, I think I'm going to go nuts.

Why can't they fix this. I recently saw the new denon in action and I don't remember it having ANY delay problems, and it wasn't even in production yet.

Thanks carlson, I'll have to compare myself (between cable boxes, systems, and set ups, it's probably an apples/oranges comparison between you and anyone else anyway).

In my experience/observation, much of the delay in my channel changing can be attributed to the digital cable box (which I notice even when not connected to the RTV). I frankly don't see how RTV could possibly get around that. However, hopefully what RTV did on its end will be noticeable.

Good point, richierich. For whatever reason, I seem to be one of the lucky ones for whom CA works 95% of the time (keeping my fingers crossed!). I would miss it sorely if it were gone.

Here's a novel idea:

Instead of having to gauge how much time SN had skipped, why not have the HUD display "Skipped XX minutes (or seconds, whichever applies)"... ?


CC

Actually, I usually skip most of the musical guests on Letterman (and Sat Night Live too). :)

Richard,

Thought I'd repost this in case you missed it before. If you can't make any comments on HDTV work, can you at least please let us know if you'll be at CES?

Thanks,

-phil


Richard,

Good news and thanks for the update. Now there's just one thing I'm looking for so I can upgrade my ReplayTV 2020 (now that the reliabilty is back) - HDTV support.

With the release of the 5500s and Alcatraz, I hope that means that resources are available to start working on HDTV support. If that's the case can you please confirm?

Also, is DNNA/ReplayTV going to be at CES this coming January? I didn't see the name on the exhibitor list, but I wasn't sure if you might be in the Denon or Marantz booths.

Thanks,

-phil

Great, I can't wait to try this out. I hope my software comes soon.

I have a question for ReplayRichard:

Will any of the future 5k software upgrades render Dvarchive unworkable?

It's doubtful that he'll answer this, so I will:

Probably.

DVArchive is an unsupported 3rd party application. ReplayTV will not hesitate to make a change that may break DVArchive - however, it is unlikely that they will intentionally break DVArchive, and the DVArchive developers will probably get it working again, just like they did when it didn't work with the 5000 hardware. Any changes made will be to improve the existing software.

Until recently, I ran this configuration. Two 5040's connected by a crossover cable...using phone for connections.

I had three RTVs (a 5060) all using the same phone line for connections....so once in a while there would be a message about failed connects on various machines.

Wonder if the modem could check if the line is in use before trying to dial out....

No problems with control....I bought remote from The Robman that can operate all my RTVs stacked on each other in my living room. Though if they came standard from DNNA...hmmm.

The Dreamer

Though the pause screen isn't a slide show anymore....it just picked on image at random and that image stays until the screensaver kicks in.

But, not having the machine hang because you pressed pause...is a good thing.

The Dreamer

Well, they did kind of break 3rdparty apps when 5.0 come out....the guide format changes.....that was part of the whole rewrite of space management and guarantee/unguaranteed, right? That was an improvement...because my RTV used to hang when it was around 75% full, though I had no easy way to tell that it was more than 75% full.....now I can use up all the space...and it doesn't hang.

Though I still have other 5.0 hanging issues. I'm told my 5.0 machine has hung, so I need to rush home to reboot it...well, just need to get to it before 8pm.... It is reported as hung because IVS connections are failing to it, but logged into my home network and can still ping it (but it doesn't show up on the ReplayGuide of my other machines.)

Anybody have an app to reboot an RTV over the Internet?

The Dreamer.

While the company wants satisfied customers I doubt they consider dvarchive THEIR problem. I don't consider it their problem. It's nice enough that they don't try to sue the maker of dvarchive for some reason (whether justified or not). lets leave the dvarchive to those who created it and let the replaytv people worry about their hardware. After all if their equiment doesn't work dvarchive is worthless.

I have two 4ks and a Dtivo.

I essentially just wanted to know if the DNNA attitiude toward this subject was more like Sonic Blue or more like Tivo before I made a switch from 4k to 5k.

I believe rherbert answered my question quite sufficiently, thank you very much!