LiveTV User Comments

[Jx1999]

LiveTv hooked up and installed. I've been excited about this for a long time. I am hooked up through cable, not antennae. I was really hoping for an out-of-the-box ability to replace the hated CableTV Company Guide .... but BoxeeTv is not there yet. A few issues/comments to put out there if anyone has a response:

1) LiveTV does not seem to work if boxee is logged out. (internet connection "disrupted") I need to split the incoming cable between Tv and Boxee to avoid disruptions due to network hogging by bittorrent.

2) Common TV channels not receiving a schedule, or receiving the wrong schedule (i.e. TBS, some PBS stations, etc). I cannot find any way to force a schedule into a channel. It seems this should be a critical feature that Boxee should work on. Having 1/3 - to - 1/2 of channels with "no data" or wrong data in the schedule kind of defeats the main draw of BoxeeTV.

3) Not having a way to control the volume is highly annoying, as others have noted.

4) The picture on some channels is "over scanning" (or something), pushing the edges off the TV. even the boxee GUI is pushed off the edge.

5) Cannot figure out how to manually input a channel number. i.e. channel "02." Boxee also gives the channels non-standard numbers like "2.1," "5.1," "83.5," etc.

6) It would be nice for the controlled to be able to do basic, standard TV functions like "go to last channel"

7) No apparent way to label or categorize favorite channels. create favorite channel lists, etc. Pretty standard features with TVs and Cable Company Guides.

8) No "search" feature in liveTv mode.

9) No reminder or watch later feature in LiveTV.

10) Miscellaneous issues with duplicate channels being picked up, some with schedule data, some with not ... but this is not really a boxee issue and requires some work to straighten out. I had hoped that boxee would recognize duplicate channels based upon duplicate schedules ... and be able to alert the user to ease in sorting it all out ... the fact that it is not acquiring all channel schedule data is a big barrier to this functionality.

I general I was kind of expecting the boxee LiveTv to at the least replicate a cable tv company's guide features .... but it is far, far from being able to replace the functionality of a cable tv's guide.

My biggest issue is this the channel schedule data ... there should be some way to force it (rather than just give the user an option to copy tje schedule from a duplicate channel).

Of course .. the release is a few days old and i have faith that boxee will catch up, replace, and surpass the cable tv guide.

[daniel74z]

I'm glad you mentioned the lack of visual schedule. All my channels say "no data" and I thought I must have missed a setting somewhere.

Would love for the volume control to work, too.

[jt45]

Point #5 about non standard channel numbers is common to over the air HD channels through most TVs built in tuners.

I would think that menu or scheduling would be part of the Encrypted Data
that Cable Companies send to their boxes, It was my understanding that the Live TV function would not have that, at least to the same degree.

Im still waiting on my Tuner, so Im curious what issues folks are having. The overscan issue does concern me, I hope my AVR deals with that one correctly until a fix is found.

A return shortcut is something I totally agree with you on, that will be a big issue if there isn't a way back to last channel.

I think I read on here somewhere where there was a way to edit out channels so maybe that will take care of duplicate listings, Im pretty sure I get those through one of my TVs without a cable box also.

Since I use many sources my main hope for this was to eliminate switching inputs on the AVR between cable and the BB for most of the channels I use.

[darcilicious]

I would think that menu or scheduling would be part of the Encrypted Data
that Cable Companies send to their boxes,

If you're talking about PSIP data, then that data is included with the channel, regardless if it's encrypted or not. That is, clear QAM tuners are capable of picking up PSIP data if it's provided correctly (not all cable companies do this or do it correctly, unfortunately).

[AminB]

Thanks for the detailed feedback, very helpful !

[coppertone007]

I'm glad you mentioned the lack of visual schedule. All my channels say "no data" and I thought I must have missed a setting somewhere.

Would love for the volume control to work, too.

Just installed my device today. It is connected to a ClearStream4 HDTV Antenna that is inside the attic. I pick up 60+ channels, but showing "NO DATA" next to all the channels as posted above. Wondering if I need to do something else.

[jt45]

Ok, just got my tuner hooked up and after a lengthy scan Im picking up a dozen or so channels with only a couple of No Data entries. So far ive been able to fix the overscan issue mentioned above via the BB settings using a custom setting in the display settings under advanced. Once dialed in it seems fine now. I noticed the slight overscan immediately after going to the first station in Live TV.

Left click past the guide to Edit out and or rename channels for those needing to do so.

This should cover issues #4 and #7 in the OPs post.

[henchman]

Just installed my device today. It is connected to a ClearStream4 HDTV Antenna that is inside the attic. I pick up 60+ channels, but showing "NO DATA" next to all the channels as posted above. Wondering if I need to do something else.

Yes, very annoying.
If this isn't fixable, I mighty s well just get a digital antenna and hook it directly to my tv.

[Jx1999]

Yes, it is easy enough to edit channels with regards to deleting them from the list, or renaming them. What I was referring to is the ability to label channels or groups of channels to allow one to apply a filter of some sort .. i.e. "sports," "networks," "movie channels," "Jonny's favorite channels," etc. Simple software, really.

With regards to the non-standard "numbering," (74.2, 71.2, 75.3, etc) .... I have seen TV tuners of various sorts with this kind of strange numbering .. but, that being said - again we are talking about software which can simplify such things. But, regardless ... I still cannot figure out how to input an actual channel to jump to it ... i.e. input 74.2 on the boxee remote ... the remote does not allow one to enter numbers in LiveTV mode. So one has to scroll through X-number of channels in the guide to get to the channel in question ... kinda annoying if you have 250 channels.

As of now I am cancelling plans to send back my cable company box until the LiveTV guide gets up to par ... they should have called this a Beta test or something, instead of the whole "cut the cord" advertising blitz. While us first-users and techies may be ok ... can you imagine dumping this kind of thing onto the family, who have lived with the cable company guides (such as they are)?

[eridanx]

no analog channels ?

is this just a setting issue ?

just to be clear the boxee dongle is a Hauppauge HVR-950Q right ?

this are hardware specification and the tunner should be able to catch analog and digital channels

hxxp://www.hauppauge.com/site/support/support_hvr950q.html#channels

please let me know if Im wrong thanks.

more info read step 7 and 8

hxxp://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1634328