[Vader]

Just got a letter from MTS in regards to the network upgrades/enhancements for Ultimate TV.

MTS will be implementing a software upgrade on MTS Ultimate TV which will enhance your TV viewing experience. This upgrade will occur one time between 2:00am and 5:00am between September 14 – September 28. During this upgrade, your TV service, and PVR functionality will be interrupted for approximately 20 minutes.

Functions added:
- Easily add a channel to your favourite channel list using the Enter Aspect button / Enter Zoom on your remote control.
- Delete all recorded episodes of a series at one time on your PVR
- View a channel specific guide such as HD TV, Movies, Sports, Kids, and French
- Set a maximum number of episodes within a series that your PVR will record and store
- Decide which series recordings will have a priority in case of recording conflict

Complete list of details available at www.mts.ca/ultimatetvupgrades, although there is even less detail than the letter there right now.

 

[timmaywpg]

More info in the service bulletins:

Link

 

[Dr.Dave]

Here is a clip from a May 20 AT&T Press Release:

Customize More U-verse Total Home DVR Settings. ... with Series Priority, you can also prioritize all of your household’s scheduled recordings. The new Keep at Most feature lets you select how many episodes of a recorded series are stored on your DVR, and allows you to store a recording until the date you select. With Series Delete, you can delete all recordings of a series with one click of the remote control.

Since these are changes to the core functionality of Mediaroom, we will likely get them here with the next Mediaroom update. Here are some notes I made on Mediaroom Release 1.6.25331 from some AT&T forums at the time:

Series Priority - The Series Priority screen allows you to highlight a series recording and move it up, down or to the top of the priority list.

Keep at Most - Options of 1,2,3,5,7, or 14 episodes.

Recent Panel - When you press the LAST button, the channel changes to the last channel viewed and a "Recent" panel pops up showing the last 5 channels viewed. You can arrow through the recent channels and see a PIP.

I guess MTS will also introduce the My Picks feature at the same time. This will be similar to the special Olympics Picks channel which allowed you to view 1 main channel and 3 thumbnail channels on one screen. My Picks can be customized on each STB.

I wonder if MTS has any plans to implement remote access to allow users to change their recording schedules from the internet or a smartphone.

 

[CoryB]

Web based (via the Internet) access to set or change by PVR schedule is the feature I most want to see MTS add next to Ultimate TV. It feels like we are living in the dark ages when other areas have had access to this feature for a relatively long time compared to us through optitions such as Tivo and their provider PVR.

 

[Dr.Dave]

Thanks for the link timmaywpg. Here is the relevant content.

MTS is implementing a software upgrade on MTS Ultimate TV which will enhance your TV viewing experience. This upgrade will occur one time between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. between September 14 and September 28. During this upgrade, your TV service, and PVR functionality will be interrupted for approximately 20 minutes.

To complete this upgrade, one of three scenarios below will appear:

1. If you are watching TV at the time of the upgrade, you will receive a notification that the upgrade is about to start. At this point you will have two options:
   A. Select "OK." The upgrade will start immediately and will last about 20 minutes. If no action is taken (ex. “OK” is not selected), the upgrade will automatically start within two minutes.
   B. Select "Remind me in 3 hours." This will delay the upgrade for three hours. At that time, the upgrade notification will appear again.
2. If your set top box is powered off, the next time you turn on your TV and Set Top Box, you will receive the same notification as above that the upgrade is about to start.
3. If your TV is not being watched at the time of the upgrade but the Set Top Box is powered on, then no action is required. The upgrade will start automatically.

I numbered the bullet points, so that I can say that I'm picking option number 3. Starting Monday night, I'll be leaving my PVR (which is my main TV) on so that I won't have to wait 20 minutes for the upgrade.

 

[Mav]

- View a channel specific guide such as HD TV, Movies, Sports, Kids, and French

This is already in my guide menu. Sure would be nice if it remembered the setting every time you went into the guide. Same for favourite channels.

 

[Dr.Dave]

@Mav, thanks for the info - they must have squeezed that in somewhere along the line.

To view the guide by Genre, press Guide, then the Enter/Zoom button, press the left/right arrows to choose "Display Channels" if necessary, then select Genre. On the silver remotes, the Enter/Zoom is labelled Enter/Aspect.

 

[tobe]

I still haven't received my update. Just wondering what the status is of other members on here......

 

[CoryB]

I still have not seen an update either.

 

[Dr.Dave]

I was wondering the same thing. If someone has gotten the update, please let us know and post your "TV2 client version".

On the PVR, press:
Menu, Settings, General, System Information, System Info.

The current info is:
TV2 client version: 1.6.25075.49 (RELEASE)
Platform OS/Version: WinCE/5.0.1400

 

[Dr.Dave]

Dates changed to October 5 -15

I just checked the link in post 1 and found the following:

We recently sent you a letter informing you of Ultimate TV software upgrades which will enhance your viewing experience. These upgrades were supposed to occur September 14 - 28 but have now been changed to October 5 -15 and will occur one time between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. During this upgrade, your TV service and PVR functionality will be interrupted for approximately 20 minutes.

The link also has full documentation complete with screenshots for the new features.

In summary the features work as described in post 3, except there is no mention of the "recent panel" feature.

Access to favourites is a little easier. Pressing the Enter/Zoom button on the remote will allow you to view, add or change favourites.

I'm looking forward to the option on the series recording that allows "Keep all episodes until I erase".

 

[wpgjets2004]

Has anyone had the update yet? i
I haven't in Fort Garry.

 

[crunchermcnut]

According to the link in post 1 the updates will now happen between October 13 - 23.

 

[Dr.Dave]

Thanks for the info - I've updated the title (again).

Since this is the second delay, this must mean they are having some sort of problems with the update. AT&T is already running a version with new features (although not necessarily the same version), so the issues may be related to MTS-specific add-ons.

I'm disappointed they haven't done the update yet, but I'm glad they're making sure it works properly.

 

[CoryB]

I noticed the "categories" section on the live tv menu but could not find the PVR function changes. I forgot to grab a version number though.

I also got notice of the planned upgrade a couple of days ago by e-mail so it looks like it is a go this time.

 

[Dr.Dave]

I checked my version this morning and it hadn't changed, so the core software hasn't changed. I think they can change the menus without changing the software.

 

[Dr.Dave]

Reboot your Set Top Boxes

You have to reboot the STBs for the change to take effect. It takes about 5 minutes to update.

To reboot, you can use the menus or hold the power button in for about 10 seconds until all the lights come on.

 

[Dr.Dave]

I checked Menu, Settings, General, System Information, System Info.

OLD: TV2 client version: 1.6.25075.49 (RELEASE)

NEW:TV2 client version: 1.6.25314.10 (RELEASE)

I took a look through the changes and everything seems to work. I changed all my series to "Keep All episodes until I erase" and each episode is now marked as "Keep". I'll check tomorrow when the next day of guide info loads to see if the setting propagates automatically.

I noticed that the "recent panel" that I mentioned in post 3 re: AT&T is not in this software release (but then MTS never mentioned it).

 

[CoryB]

The current info is:
TV2 client version: 1.6.25075.49 (RELEASE)
Platform OS/Version: WinCE/5.0.1400

Just noticed the PVR changes are now live for me.

TV2 client version: 1.6.25314.10 (RELEASE)
Platform OS/Version: WinCE/5.0.1400

 

[Macman]

Dr.Dave, do you mean everybody has to reboot? I was pretty sure that they were just going to roll it out in the middle of the night, without needing a reboot.