What a refreshing attitude...

[k_kirk]

Just saw this annoucement.... http://www.meedio.com/forum/about24662.html .

All the best to Meedio. Personally I am too committed to BTV since I can't afford to go through the learning curve for another frontend with my kids & wife but I must admit if feels refreshing to see some open communication from a competitor of SS. Lets face it, SS does not even bother to announce a new version being released let alone publish a roadmap of anticipated releases and targeted feature sets / bugs etc. Lately there are positive changes such as the blog & more frequent posts from admind / PR folks but still nowhere near what would make me feel I made the right choice going forward. Oh well... enough ranting. Take care.

[merrypig]

My money is that the roadmap is not sustainable.

Too many 'features' of non trivial nature, being released with only a few days 'public' testing periods between them.

That said, some nice features in there, but also many missing that we have with BTV.

I agree on the learning curve. Meedio Essentials was so tiresome to work with that I'm not likely to go use MTV at this stage because of the expectation of... well pain.

But I would like to regain some 'trust' in BTV that I lost with the 0mb bug. I hoped that had gone after someone posted saying it seemed fixed; but then I see they followed up saying it still existed. So until that's fully identified, I still can't say BTV is a 'must have' to any friends. I'll just end up on the phone supporting and explaining "no it's a bug, no they haven't a fix, yeah.. it's annoying'.

[balticgreen]

Originally Posted by merrypig

But I would like to regain some 'trust' in BTV that I lost with the 0mb bug. I hoped that had gone after someone posted saying it seemed fixed; but then I see they followed up saying it still existed. So until that's fully identified, I still can't say BTV is a 'must have' to any friends. I'll just end up on the phone supporting and explaining "no it's a bug, no they haven't a fix, yeah.. it's annoying'.

I stopped recommending BTV to friends when I got hit by the 0MB issue. Additionally, I had been thinking about purchasing BTV Link for myself, but quickly canned that idea because Snapstream really needed to fix existing bugs before I bought anything else from them.

I'm happy to report that I have not had the 0MB issue appear since I upgraded to 3.7.2, but I hesitate to say that it is completely fixed. Just when I say it, it will probably come back.

[merrypig]

If I had captions on my 500mce I'd have it installed and trying to replicate the 0mb bug today

[jeffreyd_tx]

I have never had any problems (showstoppers, pardon the pun) with a released version of BTV or releases before it was called BTV. I have respect for the SS team. They work very hard to bring us great software and they aren't making hordes of cash in the process. I think they are competitively priced and look forward to more great releases. Keep up the great work.

[Rich A]

Although I'm probably one of SS's biggest supporters I do agree with the original poster. I've been a registered user for some time now and don't ever recall being informed of a new version. In another thread the discussion was similar to this one and most agreed it would be nice to have a "roadmap" of sorts about upcoming enhancements, but some also said making a commitment to something might only result in a lot of queries that SS couldn't really answer .. thus causing more ill will.

If it weren't for my long time use of the "beta" program I believe it would be up to me to keep informed and might have missed a lot. However I think in the BTV tray icon, one of the context menu selections is to check for an update.

There is a very detailed list of new features added and bugs fixed available to anyone, but trying to find it is difficult. The Knowledge Base however is very good.

Version history / bug /newfeature list is here:

http://www.snapstream.com/Products/b...ease_notes.asp

I wonder how many of us ever referred to that just to check if OUR problem was listed or fixed ?? I'll bet not many. It's not easy to find.

[merrypig]

Yeah, I'm still here despite my issues; I want to see BTV succeed too. They do have the best potential out of all the other options I've tried. And by and large it does the job very well. I have over 200 movies I've recorded using SS and am more than happy with.

[jsereda]

RichA
Good call on posting the change log. I found that when I heard about 3.7 being released so I could check if any of the "BUGS" i'm experiencing were fixed.
I would like to point out 3.5.3 states
fixed "0 MB Recordings" issue

I don't see it as fixed, just worked around. It would even be better if the programmers thought about having BTV delete the 0 meg recording for me when it detected it so when I opened the directory my computer wouldnt go out of wack because of the 0 meg corrupted recording. That would be a little closer to being a fix. Not a complete fix, but closer.

Sorry about that rant. I'm just a little upset with BTV right now.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by jsereda

RichA
Good call on posting the change log. I found that when I heard about 3.7 being released so I could check if any of the "BUGS" i'm experiencing were fixed.
I would like to point out 3.5.3 states
fixed "0 MB Recordings" issue

I don't see it as fixed, just worked around. It would even be better if the programmers thought about having BTV delete the 0 meg recording for me when it detected it so when I opened the directory my computer wouldnt go out of wack because of the 0 meg corrupted recording. That would be a little closer to being a fix. Not a complete fix, but closer.

Sorry about that rant. I'm just a little upset with BTV right now.

Rant ? That's pretty mild compared to others I've seen Perfectly understandable though. I've been fortunate / blessed / lucky .. I dunno take your pick. I have had some minor problems but the ones I've had have eventually been fixed and for the most part were not anything that affected the functionality of the product.

As I think back I do believe I've seen that zero byte problem .. a few months ago .. and it only happened once. Never again. I'm beta testing a lot and live dangerously because I do all the testing with my only HTPC which has been plugging away for a couple years now. I would have thought that since I was always using a beta version, that I should see more problems. But this hasn't been so.

If I were experiencing that zero-size recording problem on a regular basis, my rant surely would have eclipsed yours. Well hang in there ... I'm sure they are burning the midnight oil on some of those problems. Or at least we hope so.

[jkoon]

Just a suggestion, and mind you I have not been following the 0mb recording issue much, but I noticed some time ago when there was a lot of talk about this problem that a large number of the users actually solved their problem by getting a more powerful power supply.

I see this problem more and more as systems get more powerful, and it can cause a very wide range of problems (and is a real pain to troubleshoot). But anyways, I just wanted to throw that out there for those with this problem to think about.

[guyc]

That roadmap would indeed be refreshing if Meedio hadn't published a similar one also with agressive dates a year ago!

[TV Scheduler]

Yup, that roadmap is what it looks like in my rear view mirror.

I'm sorry, but I'm still so pleased with myself.

I must confess that after about ten days one of my computers had a problem with its HDTV recorder. I'm not sure what happened but the firewire port went dead and I had to reboot.


Bob

[jsereda]

Originally Posted by jkoon

Just a suggestion, and mind you I have not been following the 0mb recording issue much, but I noticed some time ago when there was a lot of talk about this problem that a large number of the users actually solved their problem by getting a more powerful power supply.

I see this problem more and more as systems get more powerful, and it can cause a very wide range of problems (and is a real pain to troubleshoot). But anyways, I just wanted to throw that out there for those with this problem to think about.

I shoulda had my system config in my sig.
I actually never had a problem until I installed a PVR150 into the system. Besides, 500 Watt should be plenty. I see in another thread some people that upgraded to BTV 3.72 say the problems are fixed for them since upgrading. Boy that woulda been nice to see in the release notes. Anyway, I'm gonna upgrade this weekend and if it holds true, I will make sure I post my experience.

[k_kirk]

Hi. Thanks for the lively debate. I did not mean to start yet another xyz is better than abc discussion. All I am saying here is that companies that have a good link to their consumer base, make their consumers feel well cared for and listened to seem to be going further in the global economy. I think SS is realizing this and gradually changing as well but question I have is whether its fast & deep enough... Take care and keep hanging in there. I am sure good things will happen to all who can wait.

[balticgreen]

Originally Posted by jsereda

I would like to point out 3.5.3 states
fixed "0 MB Recordings" issue

I don't see it as fixed, just worked around.

Yeah, it wasn't fixed in 3.5.3. The work around restarted the recording up to three times, but more often than not I just ended up with 4 0MB attempts instead of one. Not much of a fix.

Regarding the power supply suggestion, my system is not very demanding and trying a larger power supply (borrowed from another system) did not help. Additionally, my 0MB problem seems to be fixed in 3.7.2. If it was a hardware problem, wouldn't I still be experiencing that issue?