TM Twin 1st Impressions

[CG121]

Well...

I think it needs to go back in it's box and go back to TM...

The HDMI output is some odd high brightness pink where black is pink and white is green...

Oh well, so much for their latest effort...

EDIT:
The component output has the same issue..

 

[CG121]

Right....Update time..

If you set the scart mode to RGB, the HDMI (my TV) and Component (slingbox) outputs are no longer 1080i..
[just like the TM800HD funnily enough, so TM learned absolutely fcuk all from their last debacle]

The pink appears to be an HDCP problem, Sky had the same issue and had to issue a fix as people were experiencing a problem with HDMI switches..

It seems this box may have an HDCP version too new for my switch

The TM800 didn't have this problem, so unless they plan to allow older HDCP handshaking, I'd need to buy a new HDMI switch..

Oddly enough, if I recycle the power on my TV while the switch is set to the Twin, the picture appears perfectly
[a nice work around while I await either a new f/w or new switch]

An open invitation for Richard to answer this simple question...

Why can't any of your HD boxes output RGB scart video and 1080i video simultaneously?

It's a simple question that I fear will be met with the usual nonsense about every other thing being at fault except the box, but it's worth a shot..

Now I just need to figure out why mgcamd doesn't work on it

 

[CG121]

mgcamd was a simple config adjustment
(The TM800 didn't work on auto mode and you had to set the box type. Not required on the twin)

Before I give any real opinion, the lengthy task of re-scanning all the channels/sats..
(yea I did upload all my old TM800 data, but I think a rescan is in order with a new sat.xml file if only to have 16E and not 15.8

 

[Rat]

I gave my honest opinion On This Thread and you have found diffrent things to me

I kinda stopped the feedback then I was told

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I was really shocked by this statement
but since I didnt own a Duo I didnt think it fair to comment any further

there are further Image releases mate but as like the TM800 its one step forward 2 steps back

in a weird way Im glad if anyone bought my Twin it was you, as you will put it to the test and be 100% honest

I cant say too much at this stage, BUT, hope could be around the corner

 

[Bally12345]

I gave my honest opinion On This Thread and you have found diffrent things to me

I kinda stopped the feedback then I was told

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I was really shocked by this statement
but since I didnt own a Duo I didnt think it fair to comment any further

there are further Image releases mate but as like the TM800 its one step forward 2 steps back

in a weird way Im glad if anyone bought my Twin it was you, as you will put it to the test and be 100% honest

I cant say too much at this stage, BUT, hope could be around the corner

Hey man I give honest feedback

 

[Rat]

I wasn't implying your feedback was dishonest Bally, not for 1 minute mate

I was just pointing out that my feedback and yours were completely different, and why my feedback stopped as you said it was on par with Duo, thats' I could not argue with as I didn't own 1

sorry if you thought I was saying your feedback was not honest as it was not intended that way

when I said CG121 will be honest again that wasn't aimed at you as in 1 person,

 

[Bally12345]

Nah nah mate wasnt saying like that, just posting in jest.

 

[CG121]

Hmmm

Is it normal (for example when watching BBC 1 HD which is FTA) for the audio to keep glitching?

I decided to press record during timeshift playback, thinking it would record the current program from the start until the end of the event only to find it records from the moment you hit record to the end of the event...That's the Sky+ in me lol..

I'm guessing that is what it's supposed to do, but it seems TM are missing out on a useful feature here..

Anyways, I tried to play the recording back and it wasn't exactly smooth playback started and then it jumps forward for some reason.
It seems stable once it's playing as long as that's all you do and the timeshift did work.

It took 15 hours to scan all 27 satellites manually and yes I did get a few hours sleep too and it hasn't crashed once. The TM800 would often crash scanning so many satellites.

If the Twin had better control of the video outputs, didn't have a problem with HDCP via HDMI, had more stable video controls and didn't have glitchy audio I would be the first to say it's better than the TM800. However, bear in mind that a used box of cornflakes could be classed as better than the TM800 lol.

Now I'm not bashing TM, far from it, but the more we kick off the more things might get fixed

If I were writing the code, the FIRST thing on my list would be to remove the password prompt from the setup and blue button menus..

When I loaded the latest f/w on my old TM800, it too has this new password request...
This I would say would be in my top 3 reasons to throw either box out the window at the moment

 

[Abu Baniaz]

Permanent time shift is not working properly yet. This is why it did not record anything before you pressed record. When it records, you can record in the following manners:
until event ends (will be continuous if no event details are present)
continuously
duration length
end time
or not at all

Personally I would like to record to USB drive.

Did you have a swap file on the 800. I'm certain the crashes you refer to are owing to lack of available memory. If they remover unnecessary code, then this would be less of an issue.

 

[CG121]

Are they planning an 'instand rewind' feature?
If yes, will it just start once you start watching a channel until the channel is changed or will it have a set time limit to prevent filling up the HDD (like sky where it buffers the last x number of mins all the time)

I wonder if they can get it to save a programme...?
A little trickier as it would need to first sense what you're watching (as you may have rewound beyond the current program to a previous program or even beyond that) and then determine if the start/middle and end are available for it to save..

I think it's best to fix the broken things first though

 

[F1Mad]

Hmmm. Is it normal (for example when watching BBC 1 HD which is FTA) for the audio to keep glitching?

I'm glad you said that, because today I finally figured that out too! Before, I'd put that down to my CCcam issues, but obviously on FTA there should be no issues. It's like you have a "crackle" that can occur every few seconds or so.

I decided to press record during timeshift playback, thinking it would record the current program from the start until the end of the event only to find it records from the moment you hit record to the end of the event...That's the Sky+ in me lol..

Interesting... After coming from systems like Media Center and MythTV which DON'T have this functionality, it's something I would like to see - after all, if you've already buffered the content, then it's there to be recorded from at any point!

I'm guessing that is what it's supposed to do, but it seems TM are missing out on a useful feature here..

I agree, this would be a VERY handy feature! How many times have you started watching something that you didn't think would be that interesting, only to find it was actually quite good and you would have liked to record it? This would certainly solve this problem.

Anyways, I tried to play the recording back and it wasn't exactly smooth playback started and then it jumps forward for some reason.
It seems stable once it's playing as long as that's all you do and the timeshift did work.

I've not really used timeshift on the Twin at all, because it's not automatically there like on Media Center (ie with Media Center, you don't have timeshift or anything first - simply by tuning into a channel, you have started buffering the content, pause/rewind/etc are all available straight away), but I *have* noticed that the Rewind/FF/Pause/Play controls are a bit hit and miss on recordings. By that, I mean several times I've forwarded through some adverts, or rewound back to a certain point, but when I presss play (I think) it reverts back to where it was before. I need to conciously notice what I'm doing some time, and see if I can get to reproduce certain behaviour.

Talking of FF/Rewind, one cool feature I like about Media Center is that at 2x speed, you can actually hear the audio. So often, when I've started watching a programme a few minutes late (or when I've paused it, and have resumed) and I want to catch up quickly, I put it at 2x speed and can still here the audio - sometimes, it can even be quite entertaining! Anyway, this would be a cool feature for the Twin.

 

[F1Mad]

Are they planning an 'instand rewind' feature?
If yes, will it just start once you start watching a channel until the channel is changed or will it have a set time limit to prevent filling up the HDD (like sky where it buffers the last x number of mins all the time)

Even though I would love it to be like this, I seriously doubt it. I get the impression that TM are aiming for fast zap times, in which case the two are mutually exclusive. You can't have fast zap times if you want to start recording a stream as soon as you've tuned in to it. It's a common complaint with MythTV, where it can take 10secs to change channel! Mind you, my Media Center can take that long when going from a SD Freeview channel (using a network tuner, which is otherwise reasonably fast to change channel with) to an HD channel (using a USB tuner). In fact, it's the fact that my Media Center has become so slow in response times that I actually started loving the Twin so much in comparison. If only the Twin was less buggy in some other critical areas! :S

Oh, before I forget, the other problem they'll have with setting the default for the Twin to be "instant rewind" is that it needs a decent amount of storage to be available first. So, it needs to be able to tell that it has at least x Gb of storage available via USB or internal HDD before it defaults to this (and obviously needs to change without crashing, too, if the USB device is removed!)

I wonder if they can get it to save a programme...?
A little trickier as it would need to first sense what you're watching (as you may have rewound beyond the current program to a previous program or even beyond that) and then determine if the start/middle and end are available for it to save..

It could just use the start time from the EPG to decide where the start of the program is. If no EPG data, then just start from the beginning of the buffer. I suppose it could try to be a bit more clever by either using Ad-type markers (in the same way as software that detects Ad breaks), or it could use the live transmitted EPG data. I'm still relatively new to satellite viewing, so don't yet know about how EPG works, but with Freeview, programs are generally "marked" where they st

I think it's best to fix the broken things first though

Too true!

 

[CG121]

Main problem I have with the latest BETA is no RGB output at all now and many channels stutter and take a little while to stabilise (although some don't and just stay stuttering away...)

TM are aware of this and have acknowledged the latter problem and assured me of a resolution
[I should add this issue is not exclusive to the Twin as other receivers also seem to be struggling with this rate issue]