SPIDERBOX 9000 HD SOFTWARE UPDATE wishlist for the develpers attn

[slapper4]

This is a great box, thanks Korean team with the ethernet supprt, long may that continue!

please chip in, if you think they could update it's SOFTWARE inside to make it better without replacing it.

[slapper4]

Standby mode; it should not cut the terrestrial signal thru to your TV, i had to make up a aerial splitter and cable to overcome this, otherwise it was irritating trying to save the 40w energy in standby .

LED front Display; you should be able to dim or turn off the front LED display, as it says "rec" when you may be recording something dodgy and dont want attention drawn to it.

LED/ OSD; there should be indicators as to the status of ; ethernet connection AND service connection, so if one of those jams we can see without hours of confusion. in the info part of the OSD, where you have $ meaning encrypted channel, this could be replaced by £ meaning clearable with ethernet service???(that would be fantastic for choosing what channels in the list to watch. (since the list of ethernet channels clearing is otherwise only on an out of date web page)

LED/OSD; there need to be a position indicator somewhere if this is possible, to assist motor alignment. either knowing where it thinks its pointing, or how many degrees/part of s degree fine and course MOVE commands are requesting would save a lot of time and confusion
why not have the LED readout degrees W/E +/- while its moving, instead of us counting to ten or holding our breath..wed like to see progress

LED/OSD; important to know if a channel is providing 5.1 sound, so you can take advantage of it using your home cinema amp. indicator on OSD etc. TM6900 had this.

Channel selection; Should be more logical, at the moment you can change satellite from a daunting list of apparent duplicates, and still see no channels in your list, because you either previously activated a favourites list or a filter you then have to go back and undo - surely changing satellite should undo any filters or fav lists automatically?


MOTOR control; there doent seem to be any E or W limit you can set, which is worrying if like me, your LNB will hit an obstuction beyond a certain angle. TM6900 had it.

Parental Control; you should be able to lock recordings, so minors cant preview/view. you should be able to stop viewing a channel youre still recording it, until password entered to view again, this way you can watch a channel, and then when you go to bed, leave it recording knowing noone can see what your recording during or after, till you unlock the channel or recording with your password. The TM6900 did this in principle, though was unreliable with my laptop drive

Recording; there should be a preview window and much better details, like date/time/duration, my old TM6900HD was far better - the current list is amateurish

Recording; sometimes recording are NOT saved, no error message. sometimes an 8 hour recording is just 7.5, presumably a signal/ethernet/clearing interruption curtailed it?

Recording; if there was an interuption in picture somewhere in the middle of a recording, it should log that and indicate on playback list its got 'issues', or you would waste an evening missing the end or a film or key scene, perfect recordings can easily be indicated?

Recording; the PVR 'Timer' is hard to understand, the manual hopeless. The TM6900 was much better, like most decent PVRs

Playback; the FF and REV only go x8, which is no good, since on a long recording many hours, using its slider jumps about 20 minutes without imbetween possible

Playback; bookmarks, should be able to mark and jump to places in a recording, like TM6900.

Playback; 'delete current section' function when playing between bookmarks /ends would allow small sections within large recordings to be kept efficiently

Recording; record from scart input instead of tuner, then you could archive/edit you VHS tapes onto the HDD, fantastic! throw away the VHS forever...save space

Setup ethernet; hidden menus using 1111, why is that necessary?

Software Updates; these are using usb stick(like in November allowing dolly channels to be cleared), but why not from ethernet like 'software download'

remote control; VCR/DVD/VHS buttons redundant, since input selection on a HDMI TV will always select those and set the colour/sound appropriately, these just get in the way, so remove all 4 of them. its irritating if in the dark, you accidentaly press one of the latter 3, then you think your box has crashed no response till you figure out to press STB again - very disconcerting situation customers detest.

------Thats my list i might edit later, hope some good come of it, thanks for a great spiderbox 9000HD so far.

[echelon]

Standby mode; it should not cut the terrestrial signal thru to your TV, i had to make up a aerial splitter and cable to overcome this, otherwise it was irritating trying to save the 40w energy in standby .

YOU CAN CHANGE THIS BE ALTERING THE ENERGY SAVING AND TURNING IT OFF ON THOSE PARTICULAR MODELS
THIS ONLY AFFECTS THE ENERGY SAVING MODELS , NOT THE OTHERS , AND NOT ANY THAT DO NOT HAVE AN RF INPUT AND OUTPUT EITHER

LED front Display; you should be able to dim or turn off the front LED display, as it says "rec" when you may be recording something dodgy and dont want attention drawn to it.

AGREED , IF YOU COULD CHOOSE THE DIMNESS OF IT OR TURN IT OFF COMPLETELY IT WOULD HELP , SAME WITH ANY OTHER BOX TOO

LED/ OSD; there should be indicators as to the status of ; ethernet connection AND service connection, so if one of those jams we can see without hours of confusion. in the info part of the OSD, where you have $ meaning encrypted channel, this could be replaced by £ meaning clearable with ethernet service???(that would be fantastic for choosing what channels in the list to watch. (since the list of ethernet channels clearing is otherwise only on an out of date web page)

CANT SEE THIS EVER HAPPENING , THE DOLLAR SIGN IS USED ON EVERY BOX I HAVE EVER SEEN
NOT ONLY THAT ITS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY METHOD OF OPENING CHANNELS , ITS THERE TO SHOW AN ENCRYPTION IDENT ONLY

LED/OSD; there need to be a position indicator somewhere if this is possible, to assist motor alignment. either knowing where it thinks its pointing, or how many degrees/part of s degree fine and course MOVE commands are requesting would save a lot of time and confusion
why not have the LED readout degrees W/E +/- while its moving, instead of us counting to ten or holding our breath..wed like to see progress

THE MOTOR DOES NOT TELL IT WHERE ITS POINTING AT ALL , NO FEEDBACK WHATSOEVER
IF YOU CHANGE FROM USALS TO DISEQC V1.2 YOU HAVE PROPER CONTROL OF IT , SAME AS ON ANY OTHER BOX

LED/OSD; important to know if a channel is providing 5.1 sound, so you can take advantage of it using your home cinema amp. indicator on OSD etc. TM6900 had this.

FAIR COMMENT

Channel selection; Should be more logical, at the moment you can change satellite from a daunting list of apparent duplicates, and still see no channels in your list, because you either previously activated a favourites list or a filter you then have to go back and undo - surely changing satellite should undo any filters or fav lists automatically?

I HAVE NO PROBLEMS WITH CHANNELS LISTS AT ALL , ESPECIALLY MY OWN. I HAVE ONE SAT POSITION FOR EACH SATELLITE
I THEN ORGANISE THE CHANNELS BY MOVING THE WORKING ONES NEAR TO THE TOP OF THE ALL LIST FOR EACH SATELLITE POSITION
I ALSO ADD THEM TO FAVOURITES IN SUCH A WAY THAT I CAN STEP THROUGH THE FAV LIST I NEED WHEN ON THE CHOSEN SATELLITE
THIS HAS ALSO BEEN THE CASE ON ALMOST EVERY NON-LINUX BOX I HAVE SEEN TOO

MOTOR control; there doent seem to be any E or W limit you can set, which is worrying if like me, your LNB will hit an obstuction beyond a certain angle. TM6900 had it.

THE SPIDERBOX HAS IT TOO , CHANGE TO DISEQC AND YOU HAVE A MOTOR CONTROL THAT ALLOWS YOU TO SET LIMITS , PERFORM A RESET
ITS ALL THERE IF YOU LOOK AND COMPASS HAS ALREADY GIVEN THAT REPLY TO ME SOME TIME AGO ON HERE AS I NEEDED TO RESET A MOTOR

Parental Control; you should be able to lock recordings, so minors cant preview/view. you should be able to stop viewing a channel youre still recording it, until password entered to view again, this way you can watch a channel, and then when you go to bed, leave it recording knowing noone can see what your recording during or after, till you unlock the channel or recording with your password. The TM6900 did this in principle, though was unreliable with my laptop drive

Recording; there should be a preview window and much better details, like date/time/duration, my old TM6900HD was far better - the current list is amateurish

Recording; sometimes recording are NOT saved, no error message. sometimes an 8 hour recording is just 7.5, presumably a signal/ethernet/clearing interruption curtailed it?

Recording; if there was an interruption in picture somewhere in the middle of a recording, it should log that and indicate on playback list its got 'issues', or you would waste an evening missing the end or a film or key scene, perfect recordings can easily be indicated?

Recording; the PVR 'Timer' is hard to understand, the manual hopeless. The TM6900 was much better, like most decent PVRs

Playback; the FF and REV only go x8, which is no good, since on a long recording many hours, using its slider jumps about 20 minutes without imbetween possible

Playback; bookmarks, should be able to mark and jump to places in a recording, like TM6900.

Playback; 'delete current section' function when playing between bookmarks /ends would allow small sections within large recordings to be kept efficiently

Recording; record from scart input instead of tuner, then you could archive/edit you VHS tapes onto the HDD, fantastic! throw away the VHS forever...save space

THIS IS USUALLY PREVENTED UNDER THE LAW , AS NO PVR IS CAPABLE OF ACCEPTING AN EXTERNAL SCART INPUT AND RECORDING INTERNALLY
ONE EXCEPTION TO THIS IS A DVD RECORDER THAT HAS A PVR CAPABILITY , BUT EVEN THAT IS RESTRICTED TO RECORD IN CERTAIN FORMATS ONLY
MY SONY HXD 870B CAN DO WHAT YOU ASK , AS IT IS A DVD RECORDER , DONT EXPECT A £1000 DREAMBOX FOR THE £200 SPIDER PRICE TAG
IT CAN ALSO BE ACHIEVED USING A CHEAP SCART TO USB PC VIDEO ADAPTER AND ANY LAPTOP OR PC , LIKE THE DAZZLE OR EASYCAP

Setup ethernet; hidden menus using 1111, why is that necessary?

TO COMPLY WITH THE LAW , ALL BOXES USE HIDDEN MENUS IN THE PATCHES TO ACHIEVE THIS
BASICALLY ITS DOWN TO THE OWNER TO PATCH AND MANIPULATE HIS BOX AFTER PURCHASE , INCLUDING TURNING ON THSE FEATURES
EACH BOX MAY HAVE A DIFFERENT METHOD AND DIFFERENT CODE , BUT ITS STILL THE ONUS BEING PUT ON THE OWNER AND TAKES SECONDS TO ACHIEVE
I AM STRUGGLING TO THINK OF ANY NON-LINUX BOX THAT DOESNT HAVE THIS METHOD OF PATCH ENABLING

Software Updates; these are using usb stick(like in November allowing dolly channels to be cleared), but why not from ethernet like 'software download'

GOOD POINT , SOME OTHER BOXES CAN DO THIS FROM YOUR PC BY A STREAM METHOD

remote control; VCR/DVD/VHS buttons redundant, since input selection on a HDMI TV will always select those and set the colour/sound appropriately, these just get in the way, so remove all 4 of them. its irritating if in the dark, you accidentaly press one of the latter 3, then you think your box has crashed no response till you figure out to press STB again - very disconcerting situation customers detest.

THOSE BUTTONS ARE ON A 9000 REMOTE AND ARE TO CONTROL YOUR OTHER BOXES , MAKING IT A MULTI-FUNCTION REMOTE
THEY ARE NOT THERE TO CONTROL THE AV INPUT ON YOUR TV
ALSO , NOT EVERYBODY OWNS A HD TV , MANY WILL STILL USE SCART OR ANALOGUE RF, SO EVERYONE IS CATERED FOR

------Thats my list i might edit later, hope some good come of it, thanks for a great spiderbox 9000HD so far.

see my answers in red

[johnhenry]

slapper4 with reference to :- LED front Display; you should be able to dim or turn off the front LED display, as it says "rec" when you may be recording something dodgy and dont want attention drawn to it. When i had my Manhattan Plaza XT CM it also had a very bright LED which was so bright it alway caught your eye whilst watching the TV, so looked around the menu as like yourself nothing to dim with so i got over the problem very simply. Black insulating tape just cut off a piece the size of you LED screen and stick it on i had mine like that for so long i forgot it was there, you cant see the tape once put in position and can be peeled off easily when selling the box later.

[captainglassback]

Normally I would have thought that 2 usb sockets was plenty, (9000), but now with external drive, usb stick with ECG stuff on it and a wireless usb stick 3 inputs would be good! I know that is not 'software' but just a thought for any next generation of box.

[echelon]

slapper4 with reference to :- LED front Display; you should be able to dim or turn off the front LED display, as it says "rec" when you may be recording something dodgy and dont want attention drawn to it. When i had my Manhattan Plaza XT CM it also had a very bright LED which was so bright it alway caught your eye whilst watching the TV, so looked around the menu as like yourself nothing to dim with so i got over the problem very simply. Black insulating tape just cut off a piece the size of you LED screen and stick it on i had mine like that for so long i forgot it was there, you cant see the tape once put in position and can be peeled off easily when selling the box later.

done that myself with most of my boxes , especially in the living room to stop "er indoors" moaning :D

[JMH]

slapper4 with reference to :- LED front Display; you should be able to dim or turn off the front LED display, as it says "rec" when you may be recording something dodgy and dont want attention drawn to it. When i had my Manhattan Plaza XT CM it also had a very bright LED which was so bright it alway caught your eye whilst watching the TV, so looked around the menu as like yourself nothing to dim with so i got over the problem very simply. Black insulating tape just cut off a piece the size of you LED screen and stick it on i had mine like that for so long i forgot it was there, you cant see the tape once put in position and can be peeled off easily when selling the box later.




I used a piece of tinted window tape (boy racer stuff) just to take in down on a old tv.