Sagemcom BT/EE TV Box Pro

What's that old saying "Horses for courses"? I think every box has good points and bad points depending on the requirements of the particular user?

Personally I liked the HDR T2 but was not particularly keen on the text based folders for series recordings etc - the EE/BT box does very similar, by placing them in a pseudo folder but it shows in the MyTV list as thumbnail and title instead which I quite like.

@Steppy If you happen to come across one of the old DTR-T1000 "chunky" remotes (picture on previous page) then it does have proper separate "skip" buttons which do the 60s forward and 15s back 100% reliably :X3:
 
Owen Smith said:
I don't personalise my HDR Fox T2 much. The main thing is running Fan at 50% for thermal stability. The other huge benefit is when it throws a disc error due to a bad block (which it does every couple of years) I can fix it with custom firmware. I'm not aware of any other PVR with that capability. What do you do? Replace the hard disc every time there is a bad block?
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Fortunately I didn't have an issues with my HDD in the time I had it. I changed it for the FVP-4000 when it came out as I wanted the extra functionality of having the On Demand services in one unit. It wasn't long before I was cursing the extremely slow interface, but I did get used to it. When the Aura was released I went for that and was pleased at how snappy the interface was compared to the 4000, pretty much as quick as the HDR. I am one of the lucky ones with a well behaved Aura, but it still does have its odd 'quirks' very now and then, but nothing that a Freeview reset won't fix :D

Owen Smith said:
YouView didn't even have that when I was using it as part of the original trial.
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I think YouView has changed quite a lot to what it was in the early days. I remember seeing when it came out and at the time it seem extremely locked down and not customisable at all. I think it has come a long way since the early days if the EE box is anything to go by. Don't get me wrong the EE box is still very limited in what you can change, but it does work very well and suits our needs. I like it so much in fact that I am considering selling the Aura and getting one for downstairs and adding a 4K FireStick so its the same set up as in the bedroom.
 
woodbar said:
@Steppy If you happen to come across one of the old DTR-T1000 "chunky" remotes (picture on previous page) then it does have proper separate "skip" buttons which do the 60s forward and 15s back 100% reliably :X3:
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Thank you I will keep an eye out, but I am getting quite good at the 'fastest finger' game now, I seem to have more success using the round shuttle dial than the FWD/REW button :D
 
Steppy said:
Thank you I will keep an eye out, but I am getting quite good at the 'fastest finger' game now, I seem to have more success using the round shuttle dial than the FWD/REW button :D
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You've obviously spent too much time playing games I reckon and yes, the cursor controls seem a little bit better than the FWD/REW buttons, strange really.
 
Owen Smith said:
All recordings in one huge list is unacceptable, myself and my parents need them in folders per series.
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Steppy said:
When there are multiple recordings they are stacked together into a kind of virtual folder like the Aura does, but in thumbnail view
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Owen Smith said:
YouView didn't even have that when I was using it as part of the original trial.
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The original trial would have been using what could be called youview old-gen!
Even youview new-gen has changed a lot since it was first rolled out.

The main recordings' screen groups by SCRID.
If you start recording from the middle of a series, then record the episodes you missed from a repeat broadcast then, depending on the broadcasters SCRID use, you can end up with 2 stacks of tiles.

For those who like a linear approach, the home screen has a row of the 10 latest existing recordings. As with a ot of the youview lists, tapping the fast forward button once will take you to the last of those 10, and tapping the rewind button once will take you to the most recent.

I'm not sure when the change to series grouping occurred, but it was somewhere between November 2016 and April 2018.
I'm not sure it was there from day 1 of what was most commonly called youview next-gen, (roll out of which started in November 2016).

Steppy said:
Definitely, simple but reliable.
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I can rely on it not to be able to record all programmes I can with my HDR-FOX T2, without obvious pixelation.
There is still no manual tuning. For my location this results in a channels being tuned from different transmitters. That in itself is not so much an issue as it would be with the HDR-FOX T2, but the issue is that some of the channels are from the weakest transmission, and those are unwatchable.

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Luke said:
There is still no manual tuning. For my location this results in a channels being tuned from different transmitters. That in itself is not so much an issue as it would be with the HDR-FOX T2, but the issue is that some of the channels are from the weakest transmission, and those are unwatchable.
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Manual tuning is essential at my parents since they see both Emley Moor and the Holmfirth repeater. They want Emley Moor obviously. Sometimes the HDR Fox T2 sorts it out on automatic tuning but sometimes it picks the repeater and sometimes a mix, and the repeater muxes are weak and pixelate in bad weather. It's much more reliable to just use manual tuning at my parents and only tune the Emley muxes.
 
As I said earlier "Horses for courses" - the EE/BT box may not suit some people or locations. Luckily I have line of site to the Mendip transmitter about 12 miles away so anything else does not get much of a look in! I seem to remember it asks for a Postcode when you set it up anyway?

I remember the HDR T2 used to get its whatsits in a twist and include some Welsh stations but that was cured with later firmware I think. My LG TV, after a retune, asks you to chose a region and seems to get it right when I choose South West.
 
woodbar said:
I remember the HDR T2 used to get its whatsits in a twist and include some Welsh stations but that was cured with later firmware I think. My LG TV, after a retune, asks you to chose a region and seems to get it right when I choose South West.
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Later HDR Fox T2 firmware handles this better than earlier versions, basically Humax found things out while working on YouView. It asks for the region when tuning in an overlap area (older firmware did not), but given both Emley Moor and the Holmfirth repeater of Emley are in the same region that may be why it does not always work ideally.
 
woodbar said:
Luckily I have line of site to the Mendip transmitter about 12 miles away...

My LG TV, after a retune, asks you to chose a region and seems to get it right when I choose South West.
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But Mendip is the West region. Unless it really is picking up Stockland Hill.
 
Just noticed that a new Freesat recorder is coming out shortly from Manhattan - the S4-R which might be promising?

I know that FreeSat and Freeviews days are numbered but it might just be another shorter term option for people who refuse to watch adverts (ME), so record programs on channels that have them, or may not have wonderful Broadband or terrestrial signals.

The sort of people who are being ignored by the wholesale introduction of, what will be, a compulsory or only mode of reception at some point in the future - Freely 👿 I am pretty sure that one way or another this will involve higher overall costs to the viewer and of course a cost saving to the broadcasters - they can then spend the money on even more "New: Celebrities Tie Their Shoelaces" type of programs!
 
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woodbar said:
The sort of people who are being ignored by the wholesale introduction of, what will be, a compulsory or only mode of reception at some point in the future - Freely 👿 I am pretty sure that one way or another this will involve higher overall costs to the viewer and of course a cost saving to the broadcasters - they can then spend the money on even more "New: Celebrities Tie Their Shoelaces" type of programs!
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My parents have just had no broadband for four days because some numpty pulled the wrong wire in the cabinet. If Freely were my parents only way to watch TV they'd have been unable to watch anything for 4 days, not even things they had recorded but not watched since Freely doesn't let you record anything. There's no robustness or fallbacks in this new scheme the powers that be are trying to force everyone to use. As it happened the main issue was I couldn't set up some recordings for their HDR Fox T2 using RS, luckily the engineer fixed their broadband in time. They do set their own recordings sometimes, but they often ask me to do it because it's quicker.

Don't anyone say the fallback is to use mobile broadband. My dad was using a hotspot on my mum's phone, but even upstairs they only get 1 or 2 bars on 4G and the data rate is awful. Mobile coverage at my parents is very poor, I have mum's phone set for wifi calling as a result.
 
woodbar said:
Just noticed that a new Freesat recorder is coming out shortly from Manhattan - the S4-R which might be promising?

I know that FreeSat and Freeviews days are numbered but it might just be another shorter term option for people who refuse to watch adverts (ME), so record programs on channels that have them, or may not have wonderful Broadband or terrestrial signals.

The sort of people who are being ignored by the wholesale introduction of, what will be, a compulsory or only mode of reception at some point in the future - Freely 👿 I am pretty sure that one way or another this will involve higher overall costs to the viewer and of course a cost saving to the broadcasters - they can then spend the money on even more "New: Celebrities Tie Their Shoelaces" type of programs!
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Old News already posted in the appropriate forum.

T

Thread '"If you’ve been trying to track down a Freesat recording box lately"'

This may be of interest to the Freesat users here.

www.cordbusters.co.uk

Freesat Recorder Axed - But the Manhattan S4-R Is Coming | Cord Busters

The Freesat 4K recording boxes have been discontinued - but Manhattan is stepping in with the new S4-R recorder, due at the end of April
www.cordbusters.co.uk www.cordbusters.co.uk
 
Owen Smith said:
Don't anyone say the fallback is to use mobile broadband. My dad was using a hotspot on my mum's phone, but even upstairs they only get 1 or 2 bars on 4G and the data rate is awful. Mobile coverage at my parents is very poor, I have mum's phone set for wifi calling as a result.
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Cost of data notwithstanding.

With the digital phone line roll-out, they would have been disconnected from phone as well.
 
Black Hole said:
Cost of data notwithstanding.
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Fair point, one hour of TV would have consumed mum's phone contract monthly data allowance.
Black Hole said:
With the digital phone line roll-out, they would have been disconnected from phone as well.
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They're already on VOIP phones, Plusnet forced them off analogue phone line in December. So yes they also lost their landline. But given it was a wiring mishap in the cabinet that could have taken out even a traditional analogue landline depending where the error occured.
 
trog said:
Old News already posted in the appropriate forum.

T

Thread '"If you’ve been trying to track down a Freesat recording box lately"'

This may be of interest to the Freesat users here.

www.cordbusters.co.uk

Freesat Recorder Axed - But the Manhattan S4-R Is Coming | Cord Busters

The Freesat 4K recording boxes have been discontinued - but Manhattan is stepping in with the new S4-R recorder, due at the end of April
www.cordbusters.co.uk www.cordbusters.co.uk
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Well, pardon me for quoting old news - I thought it might be helpful information to other people who were not aware of it and hitherto had not even thought of Freesat, especially for recording, so would not necessarily have gone looking for info on it - a bit like me actually!
 
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