Timer setting conflict [1]

Frequency: Always

When checking for timer conflicts, Repeating Timers are checked against the following day as well, thus preventing the scheduling of a recording during those times on the next day.

e.g. set a Weekly Repeating Event on 24/10/2003 21:30 - 22:00. You now cannot set an event that overlaps those same times on the 25th either; the unit says there is a conflict with a repeating event when there is not.

Make the conflicting timer a Weekly Repeating timer as well with a repeat length of 2 or greater. Remember to delete the timer after the programme has finished recording.

REW/FF random skip [1]

Frequency: fairly frequent, but random in appearance

When using Rewind or Fast-Forward the position can suddenly skip several minutes, or even all the way to the start/end of the programme. You then have to manually find your place again within the recording to continue watching.

I see this much more when using REW, but this may be because I don't use FF much (I usually use 60-second skip, and then rewind if that has overshot)

This can happen when playing back any recording, but seems to be slightly more frequent if the unit is recording at the same time (this can be the same recording you're playing back, or a different one)

Use the 60-second skip facility (up/down buttons) instead and/or press Clip to set a user bookmark before using FF/REW (so that you can easily get back to your place in the programme if the bug does happen).

Recording sound drop-out [2]

Frequency: Infrequent, but some people are affected by this much more severely

Sometimes the sound drops out at some point during the recording and remains absent for the rest of the recording. On playback, if the recording is rewound to before the drop-out, the sound does NOT play on the earlier section either unless playback is stopped and restarted. Stopping and resuming to a bookmark past the drop-out does not restore sound either: there is no way to get it to play. Monitoring Tuner B output just after one of these recordings was made revealed no sound from that tuner until the channel was changed.

It was suggested on the forum that instances of this may be related to changing channel whilst the unit is recording (i.e. that the time of the drop-out would coincide with a channel change)

UPDATE: I have personally experienced this sound drop-out whilst watching a live broadcast. This may indicate that the fault is not restricted to the recording process itself (also see note about monitoring Tuner B output above)

None known.

(If this is related to channel changing, a possible workaround would be to minimise channel changes whilst recording is in progress)

Recordings corruption [1]

Frequency: Unknown

Recordings are sometimes corrupted rendering them partially or fully unplayable. Symptoms include:

• Playback stops with the time continuing but a frozen picture and no sound. The unit also requires a mains reset once it has reached this point.

• The picture freezes during playback but the sound continues for the rest of the recording.

• Recording entirely unplayable, just shows a blank square in the Library preview. Attempting to play simply shows a frozen picture of the current channel. You may also notice the time counter advancing too fast, even though not in FF mode.

• A variation of the above, where the symptom occurs part-way through a recording, rendering the rest unplayable with no audio/video and the time counter advancing too fast.

It appears that back-to-back recordings (especially on the same channel) significantly increases the risk that one of the set of recordings (usually not the first) will be corrupted.

None known.

On-screen display crash [1]

Frequency: Rare

Using the on-screen display (e.g. Info, Volume control etc) during playback can crash the unit. The display either becomes a changing random pattern (as-if something was overwriting video RAM) or the entire screen becomes a single colour. Occurs relatively rarely.

UPDATE: Pressing the following key sequence during playback appears to be a cause of this bug (although it may not be the only cause)

Vol+, Info, Info

None known.

Channel change sound drop-out [1]

Frequency: Infrequent

Sometimes when changing channel, the video appears with no audio or the audio keeps cutting in and out like a corrupted sound file.

Switching away from the channel and back restores the sound.

Picture or Sound Loss for entire mux [1]

Frequency: Infrequent

Sometimes the picture OR sound will be lost for all channels on an entire mux. This can only be fixed by switching the unit into standby and restarting it (this will not work if unit is recording at the time since it will only enter semi-standby.)

I think the picture loss symptom can be initiated by attempting to use BBCi Multiscreen service.

None known.

Sound Drop-Outs using Archive

Frequency: Unknown

Started recording and monitoring on headphones only to find that the sound was clicking and sometimes had drop outs. Sound was fine from the TV Output when doing normal playback.

Use the normal playback facility and record from the TV SCART.

BST to GMT switch bug

Frequency: Twice a year

The unit does not reset its clock until it is next switched on. A recording that happens before this is done will occur an hour early.

None known, but possibly: Leave the unit switched on, OR schedule a dummy recording before the recording that you want, so that the unit has had a chance to start up and switch off and hence correct its clock.

Start-up crash [1]

Frequency: Rare

Sometimes when pressing the On/Off button to bring the unit out of standby, it will crash. The clock display brightens to indicate that startup has commenced and then the unit crashes.

If this happens as an unattended recording is starting, then no further recordings of any events will happen until a mains reset is done.

None known.

Timer recordings whilst watching analogue [1]

[RGB only]

Frequency: Always

If you are watching analogue and the Twin starts up from standby for a recording, the analogue picture (though not sound or teletext) goes black. This remains even if you change channels.

Only happens if you are using RGB output; if you are using Composite it works correctly.

Press On/Off twice on the Twin remote. This puts the unit properly into semi-standby allowing analogue to be watched.

Blank screen after switching the unit out of manual semi-standby [1]

[RGB only]

Frequency: Always

During a recording, press On/Off to put the unit into semi-standby. If you press On/Off again later to watch digital you only get a black screen until you change channel, or press Info etc.

Only happens if you are using RGB output; if you are using Composite it works correctly.

Change Channel or press Info.

Always outputs RGB when switching on when doing timer recording [1]

[Composite only]

Frequency: Always

When the unit has started up from standby for a recording, if you switch it on from semi-standby the unit always outputs RGB even if configured to output Composite.

Use a SCART to Phono adapter to ensure only the composite signal -- which gets sent anyway -- reaches the TV.

It is also possible that you could modify a SCART cable to disconnect the line that does RGB switching – at your own risk!

Timeshare channel behaviour [1]

Frequency: Frequent, but inconsistent symptoms

The unit often fails to display timeshare channels correctly, and you may have to switch back and forth between the channel and another one several times before you get both the sound and video displaying correctly.

I understand that other manufacturer's boxes have also had difficulty tuning to timeshare channels.

Tune to a non-timeshare channel and then back again. You may have to do this several times.

BBCi News Multiscreens [1]

Frequency: Always

Do not work at all.

This is a new service and other manufacturer's boxes have also had difficulty with this service.

The BBC said that Pace have told them that this will be fixed in a new download.

Can sometimes be made to partially work by visiting BBC Parliament channel first, allowing it to load and play for a while, and then going to a BBC Channel and launching the BBCi News Multiscreen service.

Playback Momentary Picture Freeze [1]

Frequency: Varies

Some recordings show momentary freezing – or judder – of the picture (but never sound) whilst playing back. This is experienced by users who never have signal issues when watching live on the Twin. Playing back the affected section again often shows the freezing with slightly different symptoms.

What appears to be new to the 1.7.55 firmware is that these freezes can sometimes also be accompanied by “blockiness”. Again, I must emphasise that this is on setups that would never show this live.

Experiences vary according to the channel / programme in question, but as a rough guide Channel 5 seems to be least affected, with C4 moderately affected, and ITV & BBC2 most affected. It does not happen on every recording though. Recordings of Buffy the Vampire Slayer almost always show this problem.

This is an issue not related to signal quality: i.e. the same programme watched live would not show this issue.

This post on the forum contains some very interesting observations about this issue: some almost imperceptible symptoms may be present on the live transmission.

Note: it is important to note that similar symptoms can be caused by a poor signal and/or impulse interference, and this entry refers to the playback-only problem.

None known.

Loss of FF / REW / Play graphics [1]

Frequency: Infrequent

Sometimes the graphic in the top-right of the picture is absent when using FF / REW, so you cannot see the speed (the time is still available from the banner at the bottom of the screen, and on the front of the unit)

Press Info twice. This seems to reset the display.

Recording fails to stop

Frequency: Rare

Sometimes the recording fails to stop at the specified time, and instead continues until the disk is full.

None known.

RGB pass-thru lack of Red (Blue tint) [1]

Frequency: Always

When passing an RGB signal through the Twin, the Red component is reduced and the picture takes on a blue tint.

This is most obvious on pure white areas such as the menus to The Office Series 2 DVD, which turn blue, but the whole picture is affected.

This appears to have been introduced in the last two firmware revisions (1.7.50 onwards)

Depending on your setup, try to organise the cabling so that nothing needs to pass an RGB signal through the Twin (i.e. pass the Twin signal through the DVD player, rather than the other way around.)

Zero-length recording [1]

Frequency: Unknown

Sometimes a recording appears to work, but just puts a zero-length entry in the library. Some people report this exclusively on timeshare channels (not surprising given the unit's inability to reliably show the correct stream on such channels), whilst others have seen it on other channels too. Therefore there may be two problems, but both with the same symptom.

None known.

Picture Freeze on playback of very dark/bright pictures [1]

Frequency: Varies; most prevalent on C4

Sometimes when playing back a recording the picture will freeze with the sound continuing. This most often happens when a very dark or very bright picture is being displayed. e.g. a graphic of mostly one colour, or a fade to a colour.

This seems to be a variation on the “fade-to-black” issue affecting previous firmwares.

Stop and re-start playback.

Edit Programme Title does not work [1]

Frequency: Always

It is not possible to change the name of a programme displayed in the Library, either by altering the Name field or the Comments field. This feature used to work on previous versions of the firmware.

None known.

Random / one-off faults [1]

[This is a placeholder entry to list random / one-off faults that have been reported – symptoms that are most likely to be a result of the software corrupting its own memory. Faults will gain their own entry as/when reported again by the same user or someone else]

• Loss of all EPG with a black page appearing instead. A further fault then developed whereby the pressing the Menu button caused the screen brightness to drop as usual but no menu appeared.

Mains reset.

Start-up occurs twice

Frequency: Infrequent

Occasionally when switching the unit on from standby, the Init process occurs twice; at what would usually be the end of the start-up process, the hard drive spins down and the start-up process begins again.

This appears to be a feature common to all Twins – there don't appear to be any ill effects from it. Included here mainly to reassure users that this is not unique to their box.

None known.

Archive front-panel hours display

When archiving to VCR, the display on the front doesn't update the hours part. i.e. 1hr 13 into the archive is displayed as 00:13. The minutes update ok.

None known

Crash on Channel Change

Some users find that the unit can crash when changing channels. This was a bug that was present on previous firmware versions, but believed fixed on this version.

It appears that a significant subset of users still experience this problem, although many do not even with intensive usage.

Have not managed at establish what the difference might be between those two sets.

None known