New Firmware on Foretec Star site

[icarusi]

Seems like the usual Fortec mashup of good bits and bad bits. It doesn't like my 2.5" IDE into a usb universal adapter but seems ok-in-parts with my 3.5" SATA into a SATA>USB dock.

The epg now puts the programme title into the recorded list and increments the title with '-1' if you record two parts of the same programme, on the SATA kit, but on the IDE kit it just gets confused and presumably overwrites the original, which is more like I was expecting.

Manual recordings on the IDE kit seem ok but zilch so far for timer recordings, although the VFD and OSD display perform as if all's well.

I tried the 'Freesat' (no Luxe HD!) and 'Fortecstar HD' settings but ultimately prefer the 'multisat' setting with my old list, which I'd saved to the P+ 'backup', USB stick and my PC, as it's easy to inadvertantly overwrite the backup and stick. I use the 'alphabet' filter for station sorting but it's only on the multisat setting.

The fast EPG on the Freesat and Fortec HD settings seems to work with your local BBC1 station as No1 on the station list, but for multisat only BBC1 London seems to work.

The old 'bookmark' system isn't recognised by the new firmware. The 8x FF can ultimately lockup the P+ needing a hard reset, which is new to me. 4x seems ok though.

I'll try some timed recordings on the SATA kit to see how it compares to my IDE kit. I suspect Fortec have sharpened up some timings to work with faster newer drives, so legacy kit like my IDE, which worked ok with the previous firmware, is left wanting, or it could be just the usual Fortec lack of comprehensive testing.

The 'now and next' display will extend to all items on the EPG for that channel. You can use the back arrow if you haven't passed the last item, otherwise you need to go forward again. It's useful for setting up time recordings without exiting the current programme (if it works).

 

[AKING]

Like Trevsat, I loaded the two new latest updates (in order of release and one at a time), now all my channels are set to 0000 and I don't mean just my favourites.

The EPG is worse than ever and I have to go to the station, then press EPG repeatedly until I get any sort of a result ..... not a chance of anything other than an hour either way and then repeat the act on the next channel. Totally annoying as there is no preview and the old EPG was actually much better.

I have mailed Fortec but they will reply within 24 hours ..... that was a week ago!!!

Am I missing something obvious or am I just stuck with this till the next update.

 

[AKING]

Like Trevsat, I loaded the two new latest updates (in order of release and one at a time), now all my channels are set to 0000 and I don't mean just my favourites.

The EPG is worse than ever and I have to go to the station, then press EPG repeatedly until I get any sort of a result ..... not a chance of anything other than an hour either way and then repeat the act on the next channel. Totally annoying as there is no preview and the old EPG was actually much better.

I have mailed Fortec but they will reply within 24 hours ..... that was a week ago!!!

Am I missing something obvious or am I just stuck with this till the next update.

 

[icarusi]

Like Trevsat, I loaded the two new latest updates (in order of release and one at a time), now all my channels are set to 0000 and I don't mean just my favourites.

The EPG is worse than ever and I have to go to the station, then press EPG repeatedly until I get any sort of a result ..... not a chance of anything other than an hour either way and then repeat the act on the next channel. Totally annoying as there is no preview and the old EPG was actually much better.

I have mailed Fortec but they will reply within 24 hours ..... that was a week ago!!!

Am I missing something obvious or am I just stuck with this till the next update.

You need to have your local BBC1 station (or BBC1 London) at No1 on your channel list and you need to leave the display on the the EPG for a couple of minutes for it to fully populate (or at least BBC HD and ITV HD to populate). AFAIK it won't populate when tuned to say BBC HD on power on, you only get 'now+next'.

If you go into menu, 'other settings' and turn off (or on) 'logical numbering' your 0000 will change to 0001 etc. but not the Freesat channel numbers, which are fixed. If you choose the fixed Freesat channel numbers you can still rearrange the order but you still have to enter the Freesat number to direct-select them, or select from the channel display.

At full power off the P+ remembers the last selected station, so even with BBC1 at 1 and BBC HD at 2 it will power up to BBC HD if that's what you watched last before power off.

 

[icarusi]

Like Trevsat, I loaded the two new latest updates (in order of release and one at a time), now all my channels are set to 0000 and I don't mean just my favourites.

The EPG is worse than ever and I have to go to the station, then press EPG repeatedly until I get any sort of a result ..... not a chance of anything other than an hour either way and then repeat the act on the next channel. Totally annoying as there is no preview and the old EPG was actually much better.

I have mailed Fortec but they will reply within 24 hours ..... that was a week ago!!!

Am I missing something obvious or am I just stuck with this till the next update.

You need to have your local BBC1 station (or BBC1 London) at No1 on your channel list and you need to leave the display on the the EPG for a couple of minutes for it to fully populate (or at least BBC HD and ITV HD to populate). AFAIK it won't populate when tuned to say BBC HD on power on, you only get 'now+next'.

If you go into menu, 'other settings' and turn off (or on) 'logical numbering' your 0000 will change to 0001 etc. but not the Freesat channel numbers, which are fixed. If you choose the fixed Freesat channel numbers you can still rearrange the order but you still have to enter the Freesat number to direct-select them, or select from the channel display.

At full power off the P+ remembers the last selected station, so even with BBC1 at 1 and BBC HD at 2 it will power up to BBC HD if that's what you watched last before power off.

 

[icarusi]

I'll try some timed recordings on the SATA kit to see how it compares to my IDE kit. I suspect Fortec have sharpened up some timings to work with faster newer drives, so legacy kit like my IDE, which worked ok with the previous firmware, is left wanting, or it could be just the usual Fortec lack of comprehensive testing.

I did a 'normal' epg recording of both parts of 'Starwars ep6' and all was ok. I did manually program 2 mins extra prestart and end.

I tried the auto time-margins on two 5 min consecutive recordings on the same channel. The first recording duly started 2 minutes before the actual programed time and continued 2 mins after, when the second recording started. That recording finished 2 mins after the programmed end.

Although the recording seemed to go properly the first recording wouldn't play back. When I looked at the recorded list both recordings showed 9 minutes, when the second should have been 7 minutes. I assume the first recording isn't being written correctly. The auto-time margins probably works for non-consecutive recordings, but otherwise I'll use manual entered time-margins.

 

[icarusi]

I'll try some timed recordings on the SATA kit to see how it compares to my IDE kit. I suspect Fortec have sharpened up some timings to work with faster newer drives, so legacy kit like my IDE, which worked ok with the previous firmware, is left wanting, or it could be just the usual Fortec lack of comprehensive testing.

I did a 'normal' epg recording of both parts of 'Starwars ep6' and all was ok. I did manually program 2 mins extra prestart and end.

I tried the auto time-margins on two 5 min consecutive recordings on the same channel. The first recording duly started 2 minutes before the actual programed time and continued 2 mins after, when the second recording started. That recording finished 2 mins after the programmed end.

Although the recording seemed to go properly the first recording wouldn't play back. When I looked at the recorded list both recordings showed 9 minutes, when the second should have been 7 minutes. I assume the first recording isn't being written correctly. The auto-time margins probably works for non-consecutive recordings, but otherwise I'll use manual entered time-margins.

 

[AKING]

You need to have your local BBC1 station (or BBC1 London) at No1 on your channel list and you need to leave the display on the the EPG for a couple of minutes for it to fully populate (or at least BBC HD and ITV HD to populate). AFAIK it won't populate when tuned to say BBC HD on power on, you only get 'now+next'.

If you go into menu, 'other settings' and turn off (or on) 'logical numbering' your 0000 will change to 0001 etc. but not the Freesat channel numbers, which are fixed. If you choose the fixed Freesat channel numbers you can still rearrange the order but you still have to enter the Freesat number to direct-select them, or select from the channel display.

At full power off the P+ remembers the last selected station, so even with BBC1 at 1 and BBC HD at 2 it will power up to BBC HD if that's what you watched last before power off.

Result !

Many thanks icarusi, :-worship

 

[AKING]

You need to have your local BBC1 station (or BBC1 London) at No1 on your channel list and you need to leave the display on the the EPG for a couple of minutes for it to fully populate (or at least BBC HD and ITV HD to populate). AFAIK it won't populate when tuned to say BBC HD on power on, you only get 'now+next'.

If you go into menu, 'other settings' and turn off (or on) 'logical numbering' your 0000 will change to 0001 etc. but not the Freesat channel numbers, which are fixed. If you choose the fixed Freesat channel numbers you can still rearrange the order but you still have to enter the Freesat number to direct-select them, or select from the channel display.

At full power off the P+ remembers the last selected station, so even with BBC1 at 1 and BBC HD at 2 it will power up to BBC HD if that's what you watched last before power off.

Result !

Many thanks icarusi, :-worship

 

[icarusi]

I got a 1TB drive today. I wasn't sure if the P+ could use 1TB directly and at first it seemed not to, but I think it just needs time to 'sense' the whole drive. The 'Swissknife' partitioning/formatting software I used previously no longer works with 1TB drives, 500Gb seems to be the limit, so I tried Easeus Home Edition (free) and formatted to four 250Gb NTFS partitions. I then reformatted the first partition to FAT32 and tried it on the P+.

Previously the P+ wouldn't accept any additional partitions (or at least with the partition/format software I tried previously), but it seems ok with the Easeus and/or this current P+ firmware.

I intend to use the 1TB drive as a general backup/archive drive for a couple of PCs as well as the P+, so when I've backed-up the P+ 500Gb drive (which I only formatted to 125Gb FAT32) I'll try reformatting that to 250 FAT32 and 250 NTFS with Easeus. AFAIK FAT32 with theoretically work up to 2TB but I wouldn't fancy losing that amount of data in one partition.

 

[icarusi]

I got a 1TB drive today. I wasn't sure if the P+ could use 1TB directly and at first it seemed not to, but I think it just needs time to 'sense' the whole drive. The 'Swissknife' partitioning/formatting software I used previously no longer works with 1TB drives, 500Gb seems to be the limit, so I tried Easeus Home Edition (free) and formatted to four 250Gb NTFS partitions. I then reformatted the first partition to FAT32 and tried it on the P+.

Previously the P+ wouldn't accept any additional partitions (or at least with the partition/format software I tried previously), but it seems ok with the Easeus and/or this current P+ firmware.

I intend to use the 1TB drive as a general backup/archive drive for a couple of PCs as well as the P+, so when I've backed-up the P+ 500Gb drive (which I only formatted to 125Gb FAT32) I'll try reformatting that to 250 FAT32 and 250 NTFS with Easeus. AFAIK FAT32 with theoretically work up to 2TB but I wouldn't fancy losing that amount of data in one partition.