TV recorder

[The Natural Philosopher]

your pick.

I plug the laptop into a telly via HDMI...

[Tim Lamb]

We have a convenient gable end and this isn't a protected area.

I'll see how I get on with the re-furbed Humax first. I suspect more TV choice is not always beneficial:-)

[SteveW]

I don't know, but I do have an possible idea. I remember seeing a circuit for cutting out the ads during recording, for back in the days of VCRs. The channels have DOGs (Digital On-screen Graphics) in one corner. When you set the VCR to record, you set the circuit to the appropriate corner (usually top left) and it looked for a static part of the picture. When that disappeared, it paused the VCR and un-paused when it re-appeared - as all the channels remove the DOGs during the adverts.

[Tim Lamb]

Not very reassuring:-(

We sold the farmhouse to a Microsoft expert so I might sound him out on a free standing tuner set up.

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[Tim Lamb]

Brian. My TV viewing is meant to be relaxing. The above reads like serious work:-)

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[John Rumm]

That is probably the 4 tuner version - there is a 2 tuner one that I find adequate.

[John Rumm]

That used to work with .rec files moved from toppy. On many TVs though they files are encypted so that they only playback on the device that made the recording.

[alan_m]

The .rec file was just the transport stream with a very small added header.

VLC could play a .rec file but there was also a small software utility to remove the .rec header.

[John Rumm]

I did not bother since VLC would play them as is. I had mine setup with a linksys NSLU2 USB network storage box (basically a thing designed to mount a HDD on a network), with custom firmware to connect to toppy and look like the PC app they supplied to copy files from it. It acted as a network gateway to toppy. That let me FTP files over ethernet directly from it. FTP extraction was slow - but still about 2x real time - so you could start a transfer - wait ten secs and then start watching. The playback would then not catchup with the FTP transfer.

[Dave Plowman (News]

I used the CH4 app the other day, and it had ads. And you can't skip through them like you can with a PVR.

[Chris J Dixon]

OTOH, some of the programmes I watch on UKTV, like "The Architecture the Railways Built" can, on a good day, sail right through without any ads at all.

Chris

[Tim Lamb]

As the new owner of a Manhatten T2-R box can I ask the resident users for advice on getting it to *talk* to the TV?

HDMI connection to my LG TV.

On screen complaint about lack of signal but the TV works happily on the feed through connection.

On line help mentions *master pin number* but nothing in any of the supplied documentation.

Thoughts?

[alan_m]

Manhatten trying to tune into the wrong transmitter?

Entering a post code possibly doesn't correspond to which transmitter your aerial is actually pointing.

For instance in my location most (all) the Freeview sites suggest my local transmitter is Crystal Palace but close by where I live there are tall building in the way. I instead use the Bluebell Hill transmitter for Freeview. Along the road where I live TV aerials point in 3 different directions depending on which transmitter has been selected by the householder or aerial erector. A box that selects a transmitter based on a postcode is likely, in my area, to be wrong 2 times out of three and for 66% of the time be selecting a transmitter to which the arial is not pointing and resulting in a very weak, or no, signal.

[alan_m]

Parental control pin number. Block little eyes from viewing certain tV channels etc. 0000 until you change it.

Quote How do I reset my Manhattan PIN? Your PIN can be reset using the master PIN. In order to protect minors, we don't publish the master PIN, so please contact us and we will give it to you. Once you have the master PIN, go to the PIN section of the Settings menu and choose the 'Change PIN' option. /quote

[Tim Lamb]

Ok. I think the transmitter setting is relevant as we are nominally Anglia but in a river valley with Crystal Palace giving the best signal.

I have yet to get a settings menu displayed:-(

Putting my post code into their channel search gives CP and includes HD channels.

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[Paul]

Is it the Menu button below the Power button at the top ?

Paul

[alan_m]

With some boxes without the ability to limit the channel search to the frequencies used by an individual transmitter a problem can arise where the aerial can pick up signals from more than one transmitter - the one you want and the and a much weaker signal from a more distant or different transmitter.

Say, BBC1 was on transmitter channel 21 from the transmitter with the very weak signal and on transmitter channel 31 from the desired transmitter with a nice strong signal. The box starts scanning from transmitter channel 21 and immediately finds a signal, albeit weak, and populates the BBC 1 slot in your TV channel list - the box keeps scanning and when it gets to transmitter channel 31 finds another BBC1 but because its already populated that slot perhaps puts the duplicate much further down the list of TV channels. You now have two instances of BBC 1 in your channel list.

Is this the case you are seeing? Scroll through the complete list of channels to see if there are duplicates much further towards the end of the list of TV channels that don't give you the weak signal message.

I don't know the Manhatten box and how it scans for channels but in the past with various boxes I've owned since digital TV started I've had to resort to manually tuning for each Freeview MUX and/or putting an in-line attenuator in the aerial line during scanning to make the weak signal from the "wrong" transmitter even weaker so it's not detected by the box. The attenuator is then removed after scanning.

[Davey]

Makes me glad I live out in the country!

[alan_m]

I'm sure that in many places "out in the country" similar potential reception or tuning/scan problems can occur.

[Davey]

I'm sure, but thankfully not here!