Name Based Recording Discussion (L232 Software)

[Scott Greczkowski]

It will be rolling out nightly, a batch each day.

Good to see people starting to get the software!

 

[Ned Dorsey]

To anyone that has the new software... When you set a NBR, does it automatically add the few minute padding on both sides of the timer, is it set to "0", or is there a default setting you can set to "0"? I very rarely require the padding and always had to manually adjust the padding to "0" making creating a timer a lengthier process.

BTW they updated the Software Version Page with L2.31 on 12/16/2004 http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/customerCare/technical/software_versions/index.asp I wonder what happened to 2.09-2.30 ?

 

[speedyox]

I got it last night. And I only got my 522 on Dec 11th.

 

[rhollinger]

I didn't see this option. I saw the "All channels" or "specify channel" but not "All shows or New shows" . Where is it?

I could be wrong, but I interpretted his use of the word Pass to mean any of the new timers. When I specifically select a show from the guide I get the option to select All shows and New shows (or episodes or whatever the text reads)

I didn't try the Dish Pass feature yet as the one thing I wanted to use it for when I searched on it came back with way too many hits that weren't relevant so until I find something with a better keyword list, (or they add an exclusion list) I can't use it for this one. Actually, I just realized, if it allows you to specify the channel that might work. I've been trying to catch some of the behind the scenes stuff on Travel for Disney. Searching "Disney" in the info but isolated to TRAV may work. Otherwize there's some actress with the last name Disney on some show and Disney's Teacher's Pet and a few others that will suck my HD dry...

 

[bcshields]

I have recieved word through my channels that 50,000 522's were released with the new software, as we already know, and that all newly activated 522's will get the latest update. I also found out that only 250,000 will be targeted for 12/20 release.

 

[ocaddict]

Anyone know if the 721's will be receiving name based recording updates as well?

 

[BFG]

Yes, but probably next year. The 721 is dead last on the list to receiver NBR

The next boxes are the 510,508,501
Then the 921
Then the 721

 

[Shadowtester]

Currently I think the Name based software is only for the 522 do not know when the rest of dish network PVR will receive Name based software

 

[mallu2u]

Talked to Dish folks about upgrade for 510. They said maybe 2 months. Takes over a month to get all receivers upgraded and initial set of customer Qs/issues resolved.

 

[ocaddict]

Yes, but probably next year. The 721 is dead last on the list to receiver NBR

The next boxes are the 510,508,501
Then the 921
Then the 721

Well that sucks. Ahh well, thanks for the info B.

 

[Shadowtester]

Ned I know what you are talking about but I have not seen any default setting to change the 1 and 3 I also manually change them all the time and with previous versions of the software occasionally on recurring timers the unit would mess up and either add the 1 min early or 3 min long by its self which would screw up other timers and cause problems. With the new name based software the defaults are still 1 and 3 but we will have to see how well it handles the recurring timers to see if I still get the occasional timer with the extra 1 or 3 minutes added. I had emailed the 522 software support team about that problem and asked them if it would be possible to add a user definded preset for those setting which would allow us to change them however I have not heard anything back about that request.

 

[bpasker8]

What is the cost to upgrade from a 510 to a 522? I've like the option of two tuners and this name based recording may be the kick in the pants I needed to get going on it.

 

[speedyox]

^^^^^
Maybe you could threaten to cancel if they dont upgrade you.
New customers get it free without a contract.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Actually the 921, 721, 501, 508 & 510 will NOT be getting name based recording.

Check out this thread for more details

 

[haertig]

NBR. Cool. I've been gone for a while and was just able to get back to this forum this morning to see the reports of NBR.

After playing around figuring out how it works this evening I think I've gotten it pretty much. My thoughts: This will be no problem for all us technically inclined people that hang out around here to figure out, but I don't see a snowball's chance in hell that I could explain it to my mom over the phone. I don't think she would even be able to pick it up with a personal two week long demo. But in all fairness, I've only played with NBR starting from the timer screen. Maybe there's a simpler way into it from Guide, but I haven't gotten the chance to look yet.

I've noticed a few minor glitches. I had an old weekly timer set for a show. I created a Pass entry to handle it from now on. The Daily Schedule showed it in queue for this Sunday (the next time it's broadcast). So far so good. Then I deleted the old manual timer. The new NBR timer was still listed (you would obviously expect this), but the Daily Schedule no longer listed the Sunday broadcast that had previously been in queue. There was not way I could find to get it back. I finally had to delete the new NBR timer and recreate it from scratch. After that the Sunday broadcast showed back up in queue.

I have yet to find that New vs. Repeat setting that some have eluded to here. Maybe you only see that if you approach NBR from Guide. I'll work more this evening to see if I can locate this.

If you make a typo in entering a search string for a NBR timer, you can't go back and edit your mistake after you've created the timer. I suppose this is OK enough. Just be sure and watch that the characters you type come up accurately. The NBR screen seems to respond slowly to my keypresses and I think I got a little overanxious and missed my typos before it was too late.

I created a NBR search string, for Title only, that said "Med" (I was looking for "Medical Investigations"). It didn't locate any upcoming broadcasts (not unexpected this time of year), but it found lots of other stuff with "med" in it. Including a show named "Webmaster". If anyone can point out the "med" in "webmaster", please do so!

I wish they had some kind of functionality where you could do some tuner picking when creating a timer. Like a prompt for "Which Tuner?" and you could enter "1", "2", "1,2", "2,1" that would signify (respectively) "tuner 1 only", "tuner 2 only", "tuner 1 preferred, but 2 OK if 1 is busy at run time", etc. This would provide one more weapon in your arsenal to handle conflicts.

What I would REALLY like is to be able to plug my USB keyboard into the back of the 522, hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 to switch to a different virtual terminal (this thing IS based on Linux, you know?) and then do things much faster with a real keyboard for input. Hey DISH, how about:

# addtimer --search_string "The Simpsons" --search_channel "7,20" --search_days "1,2,3,4,5" --search_hours "1800-2300" --episode_type "new" --preferred_tuner "2,1" --protect_recording "no" --scheduled_priority "2" --delete_recording_after "30days" --timer_expires "12/31/2006"

Well, I can dream can't I? Stack these things up in a script file (like typical for iptables) and that would be sweet. Of course, explaining this new user interface to my mom might be even MORE challenging than what we have now!

 

[Sapient]

To follow up on a couple of your points, haertig,

While it is true it is confusing to work from the timer screen, working from the guide is very easy. I suspect that transitioning from the old timers to new ones will be the only thing that causes problems.

I suspect that if you had let your system set overnight, that Sunday timer would have been rescheduled. It is my understanding that the 522 will compare the search strings to the guide after every guide download. I'm not sure we want it doing a search everytime we delete a timer.

Could you have been looking in "info" with your "med" search?

 

[haertig]

Could you have been looking in "info" with your "med" search?

Never say never, so I can't say with 100% certainty. I know I was TRYING for Title, but with the sluggish response to my keystrokes I imagine I could have moved it over to Info accidently and not realized it.

I did try NBR via Guide after that last post of mine. From here I did see the "New" vs "All" episodes stuff. When you use that, you end up with a DVR event and not a Pass event. I'm not sure I know what the differences are. More experimentation is needed on my part.

 

[Sapient]

I agree about the sluggish behavior of the DVR. Really annoying. Typing is really hard.

I would say that a "ALL" timer from the guide is the same thing as a "Pass" that searches on the precise name of that program. Did that make sense? Even if it did, I think I am wrong. "PASS" could find more programs that just that one.

For example, an "ALL" timer on "CSI" would only record all the episodes it finds of CSI. But a "PASS" timer on "CSI" would also end up recording "CSI Miami" and "CSI New York"

My guess is that the "PASS" option will not be used by the average viewer. For the heck of it, I tried setting up a PASS for "Cox" and had the DVR search in "info". It found 46 shows that had that actress in it and one show that had the name in the title. I'm not sure, though, that the general viewer cares that much about a given subject or actor or whatever. I know I don't.

Maybe I will think of something tomorrow. I wonder how many shows there are about 522's.

 

[Ned Dorsey]

Ned I know what you are talking about but I have not seen any default setting to change the 1 and 3 I also manually change them all the time and with previous versions of the software occasionally on recurring timers the unit would mess up and either add the 1 min early or 3 min long by its self which would screw up other timers and cause problems. With the new name based software the defaults are still 1 and 3 but we will have to see how well it handles the recurring timers to see if I still get the occasional timer with the extra 1 or 3 minutes added. I had emailed the 522 software support team about that problem and asked them if it would be possible to add a user definded preset for those setting which would allow us to change them however I have not heard anything back about that request.

:up I'm glad someone else is annoyed by this too. Hopefully they will fix that "feature". Thanks.

 

[haertig]

One thing that it might be neat to use Pass for, is a "wish list" type of thing. Say I remember some old movie that's rarely broadcast but I'd like to see again sometime. Set up a Pass looking for that movie on all channels. Eventually you might snag it off some channel, and you don't have to go searching manually all the time trying to find if it's being broadcast during a given week. I think Pass might actually work like this. I'll have to try it. Icing on the cake would be if you could specify "capture once", because with satellite (and cable too) once that show finally gets broadcast you can count on it being broadcast 5 zillion times on various channels. It's like the networks do a "group buy" of the thing and EVERYBODY shows it. At least that's the way it seems at times. If you weren't careful your DVR would go from zero hours used to full in a matter of two days ... all copies of the same movie!