Single Mode now working on L201 software
- Thread starter Joe236
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Mine updated when I turned it off just after midnight. I haven't even tried single mode yet (will do that tonight), but it's already a big improvement over L169:
--Channel changing, menus, etc. respond MUCH more quickly than before, more like the 311 I started out with.
--"Time Left" now appears in program banner; shows time remaining in program. Because of this, rating now appears on same line as program name (which occasionally causes long program names to end in ellipsis).
--Bouncing box on audio channels (Sirius or DishCD) now bounces over the whole screen, not just the upper-left 2/3.
--After entering a channel number via keypad, if it doesn't go there immediately, pressing Select will skip the wait. This works for channels 500-999 (PPV, DL, DishCD), as well as for locals if you don't key the leading zeroes (i.e., 7 instead of 007). The 311 had this "select feature"; not having it on the 522 annoyed me every time I wanted to go to a DishCD channel.
--When going up or down thru OpenTV channels (101, 9500), you now get a box to press Select to enter the application; you can go up or down instead to the next channel. Before, if you paused more than a fraction of a second (even before the banner disappeared), you had to wait for the "application loading" box, THEN press up or down, to go back to the last channel you watched--usually NOT the channel you wanted. This is better than the 311, which handled 101 like this version does, and 9500 like older 522 firmware.
--BAD CHANGE: If you have "second dish" locals in your market (Little Rock has two), don't have the second dish, and are changing channels up or down on either default favorites list, it now stops on those locals and gives you the "you must have a second dish" channel instead of skipping them. It did this before in the EPG per FCC mandate, but now it happens with old fashioned channel-surfing too--an annoyance NOT mandated by the FCC! (I don't think E* wants to give away second dishes THAT badly--or are they about to add a "call your congressman" message, which may well backfire and lead to Congress putting a quick end to the two-dish solution?)
--Channel changing, menus, etc. respond MUCH more quickly than before, more like the 311 I started out with.
--"Time Left" now appears in program banner; shows time remaining in program. Because of this, rating now appears on same line as program name (which occasionally causes long program names to end in ellipsis).
--Bouncing box on audio channels (Sirius or DishCD) now bounces over the whole screen, not just the upper-left 2/3.
--After entering a channel number via keypad, if it doesn't go there immediately, pressing Select will skip the wait. This works for channels 500-999 (PPV, DL, DishCD), as well as for locals if you don't key the leading zeroes (i.e., 7 instead of 007). The 311 had this "select feature"; not having it on the 522 annoyed me every time I wanted to go to a DishCD channel.
--When going up or down thru OpenTV channels (101, 9500), you now get a box to press Select to enter the application; you can go up or down instead to the next channel. Before, if you paused more than a fraction of a second (even before the banner disappeared), you had to wait for the "application loading" box, THEN press up or down, to go back to the last channel you watched--usually NOT the channel you wanted. This is better than the 311, which handled 101 like this version does, and 9500 like older 522 firmware.
--BAD CHANGE: If you have "second dish" locals in your market (Little Rock has two), don't have the second dish, and are changing channels up or down on either default favorites list, it now stops on those locals and gives you the "you must have a second dish" channel instead of skipping them. It did this before in the EPG per FCC mandate, but now it happens with old fashioned channel-surfing too--an annoyance NOT mandated by the FCC! (I don't think E* wants to give away second dishes THAT badly--or are they about to add a "call your congressman" message, which may well backfire and lead to Congress putting a quick end to the two-dish solution?)
So far, I must say I am a huge fan. We have left ours on single mode, and probably will. It is very rare that we watch to seperate programs. It is great to be able to record from anywhere and then change channel. No worry about which tuner is default in record plus. Also, both my IR and UHF remotes control the system in answer to some questions.
I don't see me ever using this. My wife and I watch a lot of seperate stuff and this seems to almost limit that. It almost seems like you lose features in order to have pip. Can someone tell me the big deal with pip? Why was a lot of folks championing for it. Doesn't seem like something that a lot of folks would ever use really. Oh you can watch two things at once and you can hear one of them. I used to do that with my cable back in the day when the tv's were made to do this. Seems like a dated technology, but i may be wrong.
Who ever designed this PIP must have been an idiot with 9 positions and 2 sizes most are unusable. What do you do with a pip in the middle of the screen, play hollywood squares?typerk said:
if u enble shared view you can hit pip to see what the other tuner is watching it doesnt cut off output 2 just sends the same signal to both setsToph said:
I got the update last night.... haven't done much with it other than turn PIP on once. Need to read the instructions in the other thread.
Really???
This is not how my 522 works in single shared mode. Does your 522 really work that way? On my 522, TV2 has no independent control of tuner 2. Both remotes control TV1 and TV2 with PIP mirrored on both sets.
It is my understanding that this is how it is supposed to work even though, as I stated in a different thread it would be sweet to have TV2 share tuner 2 when shared view is disabled...instead of just putting the dish banner on TV2! WHY? For what use?
kwajr said:
This is not how my 522 works in single shared mode. Does your 522 really work that way? On my 522, TV2 has no independent control of tuner 2. Both remotes control TV1 and TV2 with PIP mirrored on both sets.
It is my understanding that this is how it is supposed to work even though, as I stated in a different thread it would be sweet to have TV2 share tuner 2 when shared view is disabled...instead of just putting the dish banner on TV2! WHY? For what use?
Toph said:
Toph, you're right and kwajr is wrong. When you're in single mode, TV2 has the same exact output as TV1. For all practical purposes, there's no longer any "TV2." It's basically a mirror of TV1. The only thing you can control (as has been mentioned) is "shared view," which allows you to decide if the person sitting in front of "TV2" can see what's being displayed on TV1.
Toph said:as I stated in a different thread it would be sweet to have TV2 share tuner 2 when shared view is disabled...instead of just putting the dish banner on TV2! WHY? For what use?
Because when you're in single mode, tuner #2 is at TV1's disposal (to facilitate picture in picture). If TV2 could use tuner #2 as you suggest, what would happen when TV1 does a picture in picture and changes the channel? The person at TV2 would lose picture. See?
