Monday 25 July 2011

Fetch TV pull latest stable firmware release and release another one...

Fetch TV have unsurprisingly pulled the buggy 4.8.04-11 so-called "stable" release that came out last Thursday and have now released an emergency fixed stable release, namely 4.8.05-02 - installation instructions are in the usual place. Yes, I'm keeping personal copies of all known firmware, so I still have a copy of the miscreant 4.8.04-11 release.

I've now had a chance to install the 4.8.05-02 release and it seems to simultaneously record OK (I tried SD+SD, SD+HD and HD+HD - all had the appropriate two red blobs and played back their recordings OK). I also checked out the resume playback capability from some older recordings and had no problem, but I've not had bugs in this area in previous firmware anyway, so I've no idea if 4.8.05-02 fixes this playback issue or not.

6 comments:

  1. update v4.8.05-2update v4.8.05-2

    "As of July 25, 2011, a new software update v4.8.05-2 for the Technika and FetchTV SmartBox8320HD is now available, to address some of the issues that have been identified in the software so far. In particular:

    •Overall stability fixes

    •Consistency of recording playback resume behaviour
    •New logos for new Freeview channels and for Sky Go
    •Improved adaptive bitrate video streaming for Sky-branded live Sky Go channels. To display the current bitrate on live Sky-branded channels, press BLUE (for quality), then TXT

    We're sorry for the trouble with the intermediate v4.8.04-11 release which caused compatibility issues with some hardware platforms. Thank you for your patience."

    Source:http://www.fetchtv.net/FAQs/

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  2. Not exactly sure why you needed to post that verbatim - it is linked to as the first link on the Latest Firmware page here after all!

    By the sounds of it, Sky Go's picture quality probably took yet another dive with this release - when I had my free month back in Nov/Dec 2010, I was appalled back then how bad the pic quality was...

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  3. anybody else have this issue? The vocal or dialogue track disappears but the music and effects remain. Very weird. Happened twice mid way through a film. Happened directly after an advert break on both occasions. Vocals there before ads gone after. In both cases I skipped through the ads as they were both recordings. Never happened on live TV.

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  4. "vocal or dialogue track disappears but the music and effects remain"

    Yes, I have had this a couple of times now. Last time was during a recording of The Event. It played fine up until the end of the second ad break. From then on I only got the dramatic music, no vocals or sounds of explosions, etc.

    Playback was using the latest firmware, but it was recorded a while ago, probably on the February firmware.

    I switched to watching an SD recording on a Topfield PVR and that was fine.

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  5. Playback and recording was with latest update. It was a film off channel four Hd. This is the second time in as many days I've got most of the way through a three hour film. I've had the box a couple of months but I'm seriously considering taking it back right now. I assume the vocal track hasn't been recorded and that no amount of rebooting or restarting would recover it?

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  6. Yes, I tried rebooting and resets but the vocals did not return.

    I do wonder whether this is an issue with HD recordings, as my duff recording of "The Event" was also in HD.

    If it is HD, then is there any chance it could be a transmission error? In other words, my SD recording was fine because it was SD, and Channel 4 HD were transmitting a duff sound track while Channel 4 SD was okay?

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