New Firmware / (HD) IPG for 8642, 4642 Discussions - Read Post 1 and Links There

[ks1298]

I'm in the greater Toronto area and I have an 8642HD, a 4642HD, an 8300HD and a standard SD box. None of those four have the interactive programming guide update yet... When is the new IPG going to hit Southern Ontario?

[ks1298]

Also, how would I go about updating the box? Does it happen automatically when the box is off? Do I need to cycle the power?

[viking5000]

The update is pushed automatically. I am in down town Toronto - no update here.

[ryandude_12345]

This is ridiculous! Rogers clearly stated and informed its customers that the new IPG will be released today... So why are many people still looking at their dull, ugly, old, IPG... Thanks Rogers for letting us down once again...

[alebowgm]

I never got anything saying today was the day...

[ryandude_12345]

I emailed and talked on the phone with many people from Rogers who told me that today is the day...... Clearly some people are getting it, but some aren't...

[alebowgm]

They roll it out in batches by area, so in some areas maybe it was today, just not your area... hang tight.

[ryandude_12345]

I hope so! I was really looking forward to viewing it today, hopefully tomorrow i see the update.

Has anyone got the update yet who have the Cisco 4642 HD box?

[kibosh]

I would have been very surprised if they had rolled it out in one big bang . . . That would be unadvised from a support stand-point. Out here in Whitby we usually get things a couple days after Toronto.

[icemankent]

For those of you who were involved in the pre-release "pilot" phase - are you still being consulted by Rogers for feedback on bugs and improvement requests ?

If not, I'd like to know the best way to provide feedback to Rogers on the new guide, as perhaps simply calling them to complain is not the most efficient way to get things fixed.

Observations thus far:

VERY slow response time.
-Pressing the * button takes between 4 and 10 seconds for the search window to come up.
-Pressing the Guide or Settings button takes between 3 and 7 seconds to come up.
-Scrolling up/down in any list - when it needs to change to the next "page" can take anywhere from 3 to 5 seconds to actually change to the next page.
-I must admit the sheer TIME it takes to do simple tasks now with all the lag time makes it extremely frustrating to use.
-Is the 8642 underpowered with a cheap cpu ?
-Is there not enough memory in the box to handle the task ?
-Is the new guide simply very poorly written code that is bringing the 8642 to its knees ?

Wasted screen space.
-Well, we finally have a 16:9 aspect ratio guide, but there is a TON of wasted space horizontally and vertically that could be used better, to display more information at a time.
-Horizontally, you can only see 1.5 hours (3 slots) of programming in the guide, and vertically, only 5 channels.
-They could easily fit 2 hours (4 slots) in that space and with a better font choice, I am sure they could fit 2.5 hours (5 slots) in that space.
-The same goes for the channel letters on the left - lots of room there to use up - which is wasted screen real estate.
-Vertically they could re-arrange things a bit and display at least 7 or 8 rows of channels to display at any given time.

Features we lost.
-You can no longer tell which channels you are not subscribed to (before they were greyed-out on the previous IPG).
-Scrolling in the guide is only done in "pages" now rather than line-by-line.
-Before, you could scroll down one-by-one and the new lines listed at the bottom would push one away at the top.
-This allowed you to see certain channels on the guide while you scrolled to the right to advance to a different time - very helpful to save time if you were scanning a week's worth of content to record on a grouping of channels.
-Unfortunately now, you can ONLY see the 5 channels that "happen to be" on that "page" - as if you try to scroll one down, you'll get the next page of 5 channels instead of just the next line.
-So unfortunately for me, I end up having to scroll through a week's programming for 1 channel, then doing it yet again for the next 4 channels (on the next page) - whereas I used to be able to keep all those channels on one screen and only scroll through a week's worth of programming only once.


BUGS
-When doing a search - for example - Seinfeld - using the * key and finding an episode to record - selecting to record the episode brings up a screen that is "cut off" and too big to fit on the screen !!!
-It is like the setup window was moved up-and-left, plus zoomed 2x - where all you can see is the lower right hand corner of the record episode screen.
-Very strange bug - I have no idea how this escaped the beta testing !
-Also, same example above - there is NO way to set up a recording of a show in a "series" if you find the show via the search feature.
-You can only record "one" episode.
-If you want to record the series (every episode in that timeslot, etc...) - then you have to find that episode you set up - in a different list (my scheduled recordings) - and then edit it to record a series of episodes instead of just the one.
-It would have been simpler to have been given the option to do it from the search utility.
-The space remaining message on the guide screen is being superimposed by other text on the screen.
-They need to move it over a bit. Cosmetic, yes - but come on - is this product ready for prime time or was it rushed out the door before it was truly ready ?

I am sure many of you will find more issues.
What is the best (official) way to get this feedback to Rogers so they can fix this stuff ?

[viking5000]

Rogers disappoints....no surprises there.

[timberland29]

Originally Posted by alebowgm

They roll it out in batches by area, so in some areas maybe it was today, just not your area... hang tight.

Don't get why only one of my 8642s got the update. I rebooted it just in case.

[timberland29]

Originally Posted by icemankent

For those of you who were involved in the pre-release "pilot" phase - are you still being consulted by Rogers for feedback on bugs and improvement requests ?

If not, I'd like to know the best way to provide feedback to Rogers on the new guide, as perhaps simply calling them to complain is not the most efficient way to get things fixed.

Observations thus far:...

Totally agree with everything. How could Rogers push this update out in this state? To think after 8 years of no major guide update and they release this. I was on the fence about switching to bell. Now Im really inclined to do so.

[daveharr]

I had just found out last weekend that Fibe was now available in my neighbourhood but was holding off to see whether the Rogers guide would be enough to satisfy me and to avoid the headaches of switching. While I haven't gotten my update yet, from the above, I think I will be calling Bell within a few days.

[MowerX]

Some thoughts:

* The new features are nice, but LONG OVERDUE, so I'm going to concentrate on issues.

* It's Slow with a capital S. When I highlight a recorded program, it takes 3 seconds for any information on that recording to display. The guide's display speed makes the HD4200 look speedy in comparison. Channel surfing feels like I'm controlling a server in Australia.

* 5 lines and 1.5 hours in the program guide? that's NO BETTER THAN BEFORE! There is zero reason why they couldn't have fit 2 or even 2.5 hours in the same horizontal space with the font size they're using. And what's the point of having the top 1/3rd of a program showing versus a usable PIP? Why didn't they fill the screen with the guide, give us 9 or 10 lines of guide, and then put a full PIP window in the bottom left or right corner next to the program description information?

* Fast forward/rewind/pause is surprisingly responsive. However when I hit the FF button three times quickly to get to the third speed as I've always done... it only goes to the second speed. Indeed, the whole IR processing seems slower - I simply can't get 3 channel numbers entered in a row at my normal speed, it always misses one digit.

* NO OSD WHEN CHANNEL SURFING! How lame is that? So not only is channel surfing now painfully slow, but you have to specifically hit INFO to see what's showing. Great. And what's with the freaking super-gigantic channel numbers? Everything else is tiny!

* At the opposite end of the spectum, the progress bar stays on the screen way too long after hitting play.

* The channel 950 shortcut to access the PVR section is gone?

* Radio channels are just black. No OSD, no background, no nothing. Not exactly intuitive.

* Finally, grouping by show. But if there's more than one recording of a show, it doesn't display the last episode date - just the count of how many episodes there are.

* Seems to be some font issues. The description for the episode of Shark Tank on the 20th says "In the Season 3 prem#re", where the # is a box for a missing character. And I don't know if it'll improve on new recordings, but all previous recording descriptions are limited to one truncated line of text.

* While playing back a recording, hit stop. About 3 second later the record list comes up AND the unit changes back to live TV. Why does it do that? It just makes things slower. Speaking of slower, now delete a file. YES/NO prompt is fine - although this is totally different from the old A/B/C system - but once you've selected YES, do I *really* need another box that says "The file has been deleted" that requires me to hit OK to continue? What if it's not OK?

* This has always bugged me. When I have a recording selected... why can't I hit the PLAY button and - you know - play the recording. Instead I have to select the recording AND select play from another menu. Slow. Pointless.

* Remember when Rogers advertised the segmented progress bar (you know, the little tick marks) as a new feature? Well, that's gone again.

* The LIST menu doesn't remember where you were as soon as you stop playing. So if you play a recording, watch some TV, and go back to watch another show, it starts off all the way back at the top of the list again.

I'm sure there's going to be more problems, but it's only the first day! :-)