RESERVED RECORD FEATURE USING MAZEDIT 3.0

[AcWxRadar]

There are two current methods to setup a future recording event. One method is to use the remote and the other is to use MaZEdit 3.0.

There are some definite advantages to using MaZEdit to set up a reserved record event.

1] You can name the title of the program in advance.

2] You can set the duration of the recorded program in any increment down to the minute level (via the remote this is limited to 10 minute increments).

3] Your AZBox does NOT have to be tuned to the specific satellite and the specific channel to set up the event.

4] You can edit your reserved record event quite easily.

In the next few posts, I invite you to walk through the procedure to set up a reserved record event using MaZEdit. I think you will find it very informative, simple to conduct, beneficial and fun!

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

OPEN THE MAZ EDIT APPLICATION

First, you must have an operational application file for MaZEdit and your dish (and motor if used) must be aligned and channels scanned in. Your WiFi or wired internet/network connection must also be configured prior to this adventure.

The first picture attached is of the main configuration page for MaZEdit.

The second picture is of the configuration page after connecting to the AZBox.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

DOWNLOADING CHANNEL LIST FROM AZBOX

The next step is to download your channel list from the AZBox to the MaZEdit application.

PLEASE NOTE: The upload of the pictures I attached are not in order. I tried many times to upload them in sequence and the new changes to the "manage attachments" won't allow me to put them in order. I have named the files properly in their order (from 1 to 7) so look at the title of the picture and NOT the order that they are presented below.

1] Select the CHANNELS LISTS menu in MaZEdit.
Refer to "ch list page 1" in the attachments.

2] Click on the DOWNLOAD button.
Refer to "ch list page 2" in the attachments.

3] The entire list of channels (for all satellites) will be displayed.
Refer to "ch list page 3" in the attachments.

4] Select the satellite you desire to to record from. In this case, AMC 21 @ 125.0°W.
Refer to "ch list page 4" in the attachments".

5] The list of channels on AMC 21 will be displayed.
Refer to "ch list page 5" in the attachments.

6] Select the channel to record from. In this example, OETA HD.
Refer to "ch list page 6" in the attachments.

7] The submenu option page will be displayed.
Refer to "ch list page 7" in the attachments.

8] Note the SCHEDULE RECORDING option with the square, red icon. Highlight this option and LEFT click on it.

We will proceed to the next post from this point.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

FILLING OUT THE RECORD EVENT FORM

After you have clicked on the square, red ICON to SCHEDULE RECORDING, a new submenu will appear. This is the "RECORD EVENT" menu. Refer to "RECORD EVENT MENU page 1"

You can enter the program title here (NAME)
Select where to record the program to, (DEVICE)
Start date and time
Duration (TIME) and user selectable day or days of week recording (REPEAT)
Days of week for customizing
Option to RECORD or just PLAY and CANCEL or ACCEPT

Lets peek at the virgin menu as it would appear before you filled anything in. Refer to RESERVED RECORD DEFAULT MENU. in the attachments.

Then, look at how it appears after we have entered our own customized data for the record event. Refer to RESERVED RECORD FORM COMPLETED in the attachments.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

SAVING YOUR RECORD EVENT IN MAZEDIT

The next step is simply to save or ACCEPT the record event that you just created.

Make sure you use 24 hour clock time format for your record event as there is no am / pm option. When you are satified that all lines of the timer schedule are completed accurately, click on ACCEPT.

RADAR

 

[stanleyjohn]

Very informative Radar! Thanks

 

[AcWxRadar]

UPLOAD YOUR EVENT TIMER TO THE AZBOX

When you click on the ACCEPT button, that only stores the event in MaZEdit and does not upload it to the AZBox. You are still allowed to adjust the parameters through one last step.

After you have clicked on the ACCEPT button, look over to the right panel and you will observe three TABS. FAVORITES - ANTENNA/SAT - RECORDING.

Click on RECORDING. This will then display the record timers already approved (ACCEPTED) but may or may not have been uploaded to the AZBox, yet.

You have the option to EDIT, DELETE or UPLOAD the RECORD SCHEDULES that you created earlier here.

Refer to the attached pictures below. Once you have selected to UPLOAD TO THE AZBOX, your information regarding the scheduled event will be transmitted to the AZBox and you will be prompted to agree to reboot the receiver to install the record event.

You can then use the remote to view the event timer in the ZBox directly if you desire.
You can edit or add or omit the timer feature using MaZEdit anytime before the program begins.

That is all there is to it. Enjoy!

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

MOTORIZED DISH USERS DILEMNA

Anyone with a motorized dish always struggles with record timers.

Do I add some extra time to the recording event to ensure that the motor moves the dish to the desired satellite in time to start recording when the program begins, or will my STB do this for me automatically? Will the STB start recording garbage while the motor is enroute to the selected satellite and will it lock onto the channel's signal in time? Is my STB that smart? Or do I have to be smart for it?

I am not sure of this just yet. I will have to test it and add that information to this thread as soon as I determine the answer. I intend to do that shortly.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

TEST OF AZBOX TIMER FEATURE FOR MOTOR USERS

I have logged a record timer using MaZEdit to record whatever comes up on OETA @ 125.0°W at 0800 (8 am). I purposely commanded my motor to go to AMC 9 @ 83.0°W so that it would be far away from 125.0° when the record event is supposed to begin.

Let's see what happens. Oooohhh! I have goose bumps all over just anticipating the results! LOL! Just kidding.

RADAR

 

[GreatFTA]

Radar, great tutorial on recording using the Maz 3.0!
I tried the motorized dish system and it seem to work with me. It would go to the other satellite and the channel picked and record.
The issue I have is this:
When I finish the settings on the Maz, and send it to my Ultra, the reboot seems to mess up my clock time. I have to reset my time at the Ultra setup after each reboot. I live in the Central time zone. Can you please help me step by step in the Language/Time set my Time? What confuse me is the Auto Synchronize and the Time Offset part. I normally use the AM/PM but with the Maz, I have to use the 24 hours. By sharing this, I hope the other users can correctly set the time so there would be no problems using the recording features in the AZBox receivers.
Another question is does the receiver have to be on or would it automatically cut it on when the time of recording come? I haven't tried this since I am working on my house today,

 

[AcWxRadar]

Radar, great tutorial on recording using the Maz 3.0!
I tried the motorized dish system and it seem to work with me. It would go to the other satellite and the channel picked and record.
The issue I have is this:
When I finish the settings on the Maz, and send it to my Ultra, the reboot seems to mess up my clock time. I have to reset my time at the Ultra setup after each reboot. I live in the Central time zone. Can you please help me step by step in the Language/Time set my Time? What confuse me is the Auto Synchronize and the Time Offset part. I normally use the AM/PM but with the Maz, I have to use the 24 hours. By sharing this, I hope the other users can correctly set the time so there would be no problems using the recording features in the AZBox receivers.
Another question is does the receiver have to be on or would it automatically cut it on when the time of recording come? I haven't tried this since I am working on my house today,

MrFTAMan,

I am currently working on a few of the "particulars" and special cases. I will add your question regarding the time synchronization and format to my investigation.

RADAR

 

[stargaze]

Can you please help me step by step in the Language/Time set my Time? What confuse me is the Auto Synchronize and the Time Offset part. I normally use the AM/PM but with the Maz, I have to use the 24 hours. By sharing this, I hope the other users can correctly set the time so there would be no problems using the recording features in the AZBox receivers.

On the azbox if you have it set to auto synchronize for "Internet" Date style is whatever your comfortable with, I have my receivers set to "ISO Style"; Time Style set to "AM/PM" again whatever your comfortable with, time offset set to "GMT -05:00" for Eastern; "GMT-0600" for Central time. Daylight Savings Time I have mine set to "NO".
I had one receiver that refused to give me the correct time using the time offset that I was supposed to use so I just found one that did even though I knew that offset was incorrect, (hey the receiver was not built by Americans right), I have never seen Maz change the time on me on any of my receivers like you mentioned. Now if you have it set for the azbox to synchronize to the internet did you change the url? It should read.... time.mit.edu
If it reads anything different you may have inadvertently changed it.

 

[AcWxRadar]

DOES THE AZBOX DRIVE THE MOTOR TO THE PROPER SAT WHEN RECORD EVENT BEGINS

If you have a motorized dish and you schedule a record event on one satellite, but happen to be parked on another satellite, what happens?

The AZBox record event timer WILL start precisely at the time you scheduled.

It will NOT prepare itself in advance to move to the satellite selected in the record event timer before the timer begins.

However, it does not actually begin recording to the HD until the dish arrives at the destination satellite position and locks in on the channel signal. Therefore, you are not recording any blank time and "NO SIGNAL" messages while the motor is slewing. You will however lose the very start of the program. The time lost will be equal to the time that it requires the motor to drive to the satellite and the tuner to lock on to the channel signal.

I timed the most extreme case for my personal setup. The motor drives the slowest when switching from a VERTICAL TP on one sat and going to a VERTICAL TP on another sat. For my personal system, the travel time between Cubavision on 30.0°W and Montana PBS on 125.0°W was 74 seconds (going to 30.0°W) and 90 seconds (going back to 125.0°W).
Please note that it required more time going to 125.0°W because it required more time for the tuner to lock onto the signal from Montana PBS.

Therefore, if you do not wish to lose any portion of the beginning of the program, you must add at least one minute and probably should add two minutes to the start time and extend the duration of the whole event by two minutes as well. Two minutes should prevent any loss of programming during timer recording.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

SETTING DATE AND TIME

The options here are somewhat discretionary. The optional settings should be set to the style and type that are friendly to you and that you feel comfortable in using.

In the SETTINGS menu > LANGUAGE/TIME your options are:

AUTO SYNCHRONIZE (I set mine to INTERNET)
TIME (this is just a display of the current clock time and date - but you may edit it if you select MANUAL for AUTO-SYNCHRONIZE).
DATE STYLE: The options are: ISO (YY/MM/DD). American (MM/DD/YY). European (DD/MM/YY)
TIME STYLE: AM/PM or 24 HOUR
TIME OFFSET: This is the offset from the time meridian or GMT (Greenwich Mean TIme)
DST: Basically set as NO in winter and YES in summer.

To synchronize your time perfectly, I recommed using "INTERNET" for the AUTO-SYNC selection. The URL for this feature should be set as time.mit.edu

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

UPLOADING TIMERS FROM MAZEDIT TO AZBOX

Here is a special instructional note:

When you create a new RESERVED RECORD event, before you upload it to the AZBox, ensure that the event is "HIGHLIGHTED" or that you have all the events highlighted if there are more than one.

It appears that if you do not highlight the events you created, they will not be uploaded so you must inform MaZEdit which timer events you want installed in the AZBox by clicking on them to highlight them.

I found this oddity through experimentation. Good thing I was checking. To check your results, after the AZBox reboots, use the remote and click on MENU and scroll down to RESERVED PROGRAM option and press OK. Verify that the event you created is listed here.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

TIMED RECORDING FROM STANDBY MODE

The RESERVED RECORD (or PLAY) feature using MaZEdit or the remote does function perfectly whether you leave the AZBox in the full ON state or if you put it into STANDBY mode. You cannot, however be in the totally "SHUT DOWN" mode, which should be obvious.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

OPTIONAL WORK AROUND FOR TIMER EVENTS

If you would like to ensure that the scheduled record event begins preceisely on cue without any missing program time or additional recorded information that is not part of the program, you can do this:

Set up a RESERVED PLAY event timer. Follow the same procedures for setting up a RESERVED RECORD event timer, but in MaZEdit, select PLAY instead of RECORD. Schedule this PLAY event at sometime before your desired RECORD event. Select the same sat and same channel that you are going to record from. Then proceed to set up your RECORD TIMER.

This will wake up the receiver and move the dish to the appropriate satellite and channel, but it will not record anything. When the RECORD EVENT begins, the system will already be at the appropriate sat and channel. In doing this, you will not be required to add additional time to the RECORD event start or duration time.

It may seem a bit cumbersome to do this, but it is just as cumbersome to add the extra time to the record event to obtain nearly the same result.

It would be nice if the AZBox could learn or if there were a way to tell it to wake up and move to a new satellite in advance of the recording schedule, but we simply do not have that luxury.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

Radar, great tutorial on recording using the Maz 3.0!
I tried the motorized dish system and it seem to work with me. It would go to the other satellite and the channel picked and record.
The issue I have is this:
When I finish the settings on the Maz, and send it to my Ultra, the reboot seems to mess up my clock time. I have to reset my time at the Ultra setup after each reboot. I live in the Central time zone. Can you please help me step by step in the Language/Time set my Time? What confuse me is the Auto Synchronize and the Time Offset part. I normally use the AM/PM but with the Maz, I have to use the 24 hours. By sharing this, I hope the other users can correctly set the time so there would be no problems using the recording features in the AZBox receivers.
Another question is does the receiver have to be on or would it automatically cut it on when the time of recording come? I haven't tried this since I am working on my house today,

MrFTAMan,

I have addressed some of your questions since your post here, but I do not know about the reboot changing your clock time. Did you mean your actual clock time or the start time of the record event?

There should (I say should) be no reason for a reboot to alter your actual clock time. I cannot duplicate anything similar to this, so I honestly cannot arrive at any conclusion or hypthesis on why this would occur. If you set up you system settings for time parameters as discussed in a couple of the posts here and it still is a problem, then you should start a new thread to resolve this issue. It may be a more extensive issue than what we can address here and I would like to keep this thread directed at the record event timer discussion.

I will continue to think on this and reply if a light bulb comes on.

RADAR

 

[GreatFTA]

The reboot is affecting the time settings. It didn't affect the timer time settings, just the clock itself.

 

[GreatFTA]

I always thought anytime a reboot is done it affect the time settings. Right?