Evesham iplayer - the Freeview PVR you've dreamt about!

[damianw]

Update: now got networking going, but I'm using wireless and my connection isn't up to streaming video. That said I can now add the following:
1. The export to PC setup is appalling. Nowhere does it tell you which service its expecting the destination PC to provide - is it ftp? smb? Well its an smb share as it happens. So this device is very much tied to a Windows PC, or one that can mimic it.
2. Once the setup is done exporting worked fine, albeit very slowly (probably my wireless connection)
3. Media centre photo gallery worked quite nicely, and the quality of the display knocks seven bells out of what my SLR manages when plugged directly to the TV.
4. Media centre does specifically mention Windows Media Connect, so my hopes of using a media server NAS are fading. It also pains me that WMC (now part of Windows Media Player) can't act as a hub, pulling data off network shares - I could have lived with having to flick my PC on once in a while, but it looks like the data has to reside on the PC's hard disk. Unless anyone else knows different?
5. Spelling is atrocious throughout the product - some of the help screens on TvMax are unbelievable. If I'm paying 300 quid I expect Evesham to employ some decent interpreters.
6. Documentation is virtually non existant. The manual is a pathetic PDF with no useful information in it. Good job I'm a programmer by trade so know my way around a PC and network.
7. Why in God's name doesn't the device just run its own ftp server, or smb server, so I can browse it from my PC and just pull the videos, instead of having to push them from the device? It feels so clunky.
8. I would now agree with sentiment elsewhere in this thread that at 300 quid the lack of twin tuner, decent hard disk, and if nothing else decent documentation is taking the mick. Its 200 quids worth at a push.

[lindien954]

Hello ,
first, sorry but y don't speak english!
y have a netboxhd ( the same of Evesham) but the hard drive is not present, and y want install this. have you a pic (in mode zoom ) of the connector ide for see the composants present .

[Bob Crabtree]

Hello ,
first, sorry but y don't speak english!
y have a netboxhd ( the same of Evesham) but the hard drive is not present, and y want install this. have you a pic (in mode zoom ) of the connector ide for see the composants present .

agentdav0 did you take any shots such as this?

[damianw]

Another whinge - the web browser doesn't seem to handle framesets (or at least it doesn't work with webmail.ntlworld.com)

Bob - did you discover any tricks with the timeshift data? My iplayer is busying itself filling my hard disk up with this, what happens when the space runs out? Does it give it up for recordings or start complaining? Its now occupying over 40% of the disk!

[Bob Crabtree]

Another whinge - the web browser doesn't seem to handle framesets (or at least it doesn't work with webmail.ntlworld.com)

Bob - did you discover any tricks with the timeshift data? My iplayer is busying itself filling my hard disk up with this, what happens when the space runs out? Does it give it up for recordings or start complaining? Its now occupying over 40% of the disk!

damianw,

No, sadly not.

That means what I've got into the habit of doing - VERY regularly - to avoid the disk filling up is dive over in the diagnostics menu and zap the timeshift data.

[damianw]

Bob - ok, well thats a pretty serious issue they need to sort out. There's no way I need 30Gb worth of rewinding live TV!!

Something of interest though, going back to my original question re: would it work with a UPnP NAS server. Well, I think it will! I've just installed the trial version of twonkymedia (www.twonkyvision.de) on a my Linux server. Guess what? The iplayer found it no problem, and happily displayed the photos that were on there, so I'm guessing it'll stream video too (haven't checked yet). This is great news for me, means I made the right choice for what I was after.

Just to add - streamed some music using twonkyvision too. So either twonkyvision mimics Media Connect (doubt it) or the iplayer is just using UPnP and standard protocols and they've just made MS a requirement to keep the support headache minimised (can't blame them).

[t_aitch]

Hows the review going with this btw?

[Bob Crabtree]

I'll get onto it again once I've finished the review of Samsung's 18x external DVD recorder (hopefully this pm).

But, if you've got any particular queries, then fire away, cos I've done virtually all the tests I plan to do on the iplayer.

One thing I would emphasise, though, is that the USB drive I've been using with the iplayer is formatted as ext2,

This does allow me to export humungous great big files from the iplayer to the drive over USB - in contrast to the situation that prevails if the drive is, as recommended by Evesham, formatted as FAT32 with its file-size limitations.

I am able to access the files on the drive over USB directly for playback on the iplayer, so the small size of the iplayer's own built-in hard disk is far less of an issue than it would otherwise be.

[daniel_owen_uk]

Bob - ok, well thats a pretty serious issue they need to sort out. There's no way I need 30Gb worth of rewinding live TV!!

Something of interest though, going back to my original question re: would it work with a UPnP NAS server. Well, I think it will! I've just installed the trial version of twonkymedia (www.twonkyvision.de) on a my Linux server. Guess what? The iplayer found it no problem, and happily displayed the photos that were on there, so I'm guessing it'll stream video too (haven't checked yet). This is great news for me, means I made the right choice for what I was after.

Just to add - streamed some music using twonkyvision too. So either twonkyvision mimics Media Connect (doubt it) or the iplayer is just using UPnP and standard protocols and they've just made MS a requirement to keep the support headache minimised (can't blame them).

There are lots of these server type applications going around, I run swisscenter on my server for my parents showcenter.

[Bob Crabtree]

Bob - ok, well thats a pretty serious issue they need to sort out. There's no way I need 30Gb worth of rewinding live TV!!

Something of interest though, going back to my original question re: would it work with a UPnP NAS server. Well, I think it will! I've just installed the trial version of twonkymedia (www.twonkyvision.de) on a my Linux server. Guess what? The iplayer found it no problem, and happily displayed the photos that were on there, so I'm guessing it'll stream video too (haven't checked yet). This is great news for me, means I made the right choice for what I was after.

Just to add - streamed some music using twonkyvision too. So either twonkyvision mimics Media Connect (doubt it) or the iplayer is just using UPnP and standard protocols and they've just made MS a requirement to keep the support headache minimised (can't blame them).

Damian - any news to report about streaming video using twonkyvision?

[daniel_owen_uk]

http://wizd.sourceforge.net/

Was the other one* I couldn't remember.


==========
* Media server app, that is. Bob C

[damianw]

Damian - any news to report about streaming video using twonkyvision?

Not tried it yet, I have problems streaming video because my wireless network is a bit pants. If I get chance I'll have a quick go tonight moving my wireless bridge around to see if I can play something. As I said before it played MP3 with no issues at all, so I bet video will be ok too.

[damianw]

Good job I checked - it doesn't work. In fact its proved to be a frustrating evening with the iplayer, finding more and more problems.

First off I tried playing various videos streamed through TwonkyMedia. None of them worked, every single one reporting "this format is not yet supported". So I tried using Windows Media Player 11 sharing. Interesting, it appears WMP doesn't like co-existing with TwonkyMedia, I had to disable it before it WMP would let me start the relevant service. Seems a little naughty that.

Ok, so using WMP I could play *some* movies. My camcorder movies, which are AVI files, would not play. Some movies attempted to play but the video was corrupt (sound ok). All in all it proved a less than satisfactory experience. The one video that did play showed that this could be neat, if only it worked.

Next test I tried was to see if I could play back any movies from a USB stick. Answer:no. No idea why and I couldn't find another stick to try. The iplayer recognised that a storage device had been added, but wouldn't show anything in media centre.

I had to reboot the iplayer a few times tonight.

Bob - couple of questions for you. Email via TVmax, how? I have no user/password. Were these supplied to you? Internet bookmarks, how? I can add a bookmark, but then how do you recall them? None of this stuff is mentioned in the manual so far as I can see! Did you get USB stick working or have you only tried a hard disk? Wonder if it doesn't have enough juice for the stick.

[Bob Crabtree]

Ok, so using WMP I could play *some* movies. My camcorder movies, which are AVI files, would not play. Some movies attempted to play but the video was corrupt (sound ok). All in all it proved a less than satisfactory experience. The one video that did play showed that this could be neat, if only it worked.

Well, AVIs are NOT on the supported list. All that's said to be supported are:
— MPEG-4 part10 (H.264) BP@L3, MP@L4.1, HP@4.1
— WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL and VC-1 AP@L3
— MPEG-4 part2 ASP@L5
— MPEG-2 MP@HL, MPEG-1

Next test I tried was to see if I could play back any movies from a USB stick. Answer:no. No idea why and I couldn't find another stick to try. The iplayer recognised that a storage device had been added, but wouldn't show anything in media centre.

I had to reboot the iplayer a few times tonight.

Was the USB stick drive formatted as FAT32?

If it's not, then the iplayer can't access it.

(well, it probably would be able to access it if it were formatted as ext2 but it's not very likely you'll have a stick drive formatted that way just by chance - but you may well have it formatted as basic FAT and that's no good)

Bob - couple of questions for you. Email via TVmax, how? I have no user/password. Were these supplied to you? Internet bookmarks, how? I can add a bookmark, but then how do you recall them? None of this stuff is mentioned in the manual so far as I can see! Did you get USB stick working or have you only tried a hard disk? Wonder if it doesn't have enough juice for the stick.

As for tvMaX, yes, I asked the tvMaX people to let me have a trial email account and they obliged.

End users, though, will have to sign up for a paid-for account here.

Cheapest is about £15 per year.

Have you tried using a free online account, such as gmail?

As for the USB stick drive - I have used one, I think but can't double-check that right now cos a whole of files are being exported via USB to hard disk right now.

I suspect, as I said a moment ago, that it's a formatting issue with your stick drive. Apologies if I'm wrong but the need for FAT32 formatting is easy to overlook.

Update - can confirm that a FAT32-formatted stick drive works fine here for direct movie playback via USB.

[damianw]

Well, AVIs are NOT on the supported list. All that's said to be supported are:
— MPEG-4 part10 (H.264) BP@L3, MP@L4.1, HP@4.1
— WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL and VC-1 AP@L3
— MPEG-4 part2 ASP@L5
— MPEG-2 MP@HL, MPEG-1

OK, well I tried the same video on WMP11 sharing and Twonkyvision and on the former it worked where the latter said "format not supported". So sadly it looks like it won't work with generic UPnP media servers, at least for video (photos/music works fine).

Was the USB stick drive formatted as FAT32?

If it's not, then the iplayer can't access it.

(well, it probably would be able to access it if it were formatted as ext2 but it's not very likely you'll have a stick drive formatted that way just by chance - but you may well have it formatted as basic FAT and that's no good)

Aha, it wasn't. This USB stick is annoying in that it appears as two drives, one large and one tiny with some bundled software. Can't seem to get rid of the tiny drive. Anyway, I formatted the big drive as FAT32, copied some movies to it, shoved it in the iplayer and .... nothing. Mediacentre still says it can't find anything worth playing.

As for tvMaX, yes, I asked the tvMaX people to let me have a trial email account and they obliged.

End users, though, will have to sign up for a paid-for account here.

Cheapest is about £15 per year.

Have you tried using a free online account, such as gmail?

Nowhere does it tell you this! Where's the documentation telling me to go and sign up for that? Anyway, thanks, I suspected as much.

I have my ntlworld account, but webmail.ntlworld.com uses framesets and I can't work out how to navigate between frames (and it appears the browser just doesn't like framesets and you end up with screen repainting issues).

Update - simple USB stick with single drive/FAT 32 does indeed work.

Further update - my iplayer has just erased ALL my recorded programmes for no reason that I can determine. It is now on borrowed time before I send it straight back with a demand for a full refund.

[Bob Crabtree]

Damian,

Concerning UPnP, your experience is much like mine, though results are, I think, subtly different with two different UPnP front-ends I've tried, Roxio Media Manager and Nero MediaHome.

Bottom line, though, is that Windows Media Connect plays a wide range of video files that were either not seen by the UPnP apps or brought up the dreaded message, "This format is not yet supported".

Among the files that Windows Media Connect does play are some - but not all - files with .avi tails.

I think that the issue you are now having with your USB stick drive is because of that small, indestructible partition.

That will the thing that iplayer sees and, since there is nothing on there to play, it plays nothing.

You need to find a way to zap that partition and have a single FAT32 partition which iplayer will see.

Have you tried accessing the drive in Windows XP's Disc Management?

Connect the stick drive to the PC, right-click on My Computer and choose Manage.

Once that new window appears, if you click on Disc Management at the left, you'll see something like this:



Here, hopefully, you should be able to zap that pesky partition that should, I think, be visible in the right-hand pane.

If, though, you think you might want to use the software that's in that partition in future, it might make sense to copy it off somewhere safe.

As for tvMaX - I know what you mean but I haven't really got around to seriously testing iplayer's web capabilities, for a whole lot of reasons, including the fact that, in my view, you need to have a keyboard and a mouse connected for this and I haven't yet sorted that out.

Bum! I've just seen your update about USB sticks. Never mind, I'll leave the above info there for anyone else who comes along.

As for iplayer zapping all your recordings, perversely, I'm rather glad you said that!

How come? Well, the one I've got did EXACTLY the same to me some time during last Saturday evening or Sunday morning!

I did have most of the stuff there exported off to a USB hard disk (which was formatted as ext2) but it just so happens that Saturday was a VERY good day for films and every single one I recorded (four or five of them, as I recall) was vapourised before I got a chance to export it, along with every other recording done beforehand.

I'm still not 100% sure that it wasn't something that I did**(only 99.99%).

That's because of the way it is so easy to format the hard disk instead of deleting the "System files (for timeshift)" - the stuff shown in green.

The confirmation routine between the two is the same and if, like me, you regularly erase the "System files (for timeshift)" stuff, you could possibly press the wrong button and just blindly confirm that what you want to do is erase the entire disk.

** I initially wrote, "was my fault" instead of "that I did" but, on reflection, thought better of it. After all, this disaster is almost bound to happen some time as a result of a double-handed design error - the need to zap those files regularly and the ease of confusion between erasing the disk and those files. So, if I did actually erase the disk, I don't think it was really my fault at all.

But, all that said, I don't think I did erase the disk, I think the iplayer did it itself.

With "luck" (well, you know what I mean), it may do the same between now and when I finish the review and so I'll know for sure.

Naturally, I'd ask that you keep me posted if this happens again at your end.