Mystar vs series 1 tivo
Only a few months ago I was lucky enough to be the recipient of a series 1 TiVo (hacked with oztivo) after my sister upgraded to foxtel iq. All was working well, I had subscribed to shows, had keywords automatically recording shows etc, and then my austar box died.
After contacting austar they offered to provide me with a 3 month trial of their new dvr, called mystar. After 3 months I would then begin paying an access fee of $15 a month.
Having had the TiVo for a few months I knew what features I loved, and not-so-much loved. So when they set up the mystar box I dived headfirst into the features I knew I wanted to set up immediately. Subscription to shows was one of them.
I grabbed the remote (identical to the normal one but with the addition of the play, pause and record buttons) and loaded up the tv guide. Using the “quick start manual” I was provided I started setting up recordings for that day. It was straight forward, and I was impressed.
I should note by the way that the mystar box is relatively good looking. It’s silver (therefore matching the rest of our equipment) with a display that will show either the channel or the program that you are watching. A few LCD lights indicate various functions; power or if a recording is in progress etc. Its curvaceous design is much more appealing than it’s square black predecessor.
But back to the features. After setting up a few recordings I decided to tackle the issue if subscribing to some shows. The quick start guide we had been given stated that in the paper tv guide little green icons indicated whether a “series link” (their term for subscribing to a show) was available. I looked at the guide and was shocked. It looked like less than half of the guide was applicable! I continued reading and found that you could subscribe to anything if you went into the recording options, so it seemed like the green icons were pointless. (After almost 2 weeks with the box I can confirm that shows have recorded automatically that didn’t have an icon, but there was also a lot of “failed” recordings).
The actual playback isn’t too bad. The remote is fairly responsive and there is no lag from fast forwarding to pressing play. However I have had some issues where it takes a few minutes for the sound to return, or the audio is out of sync altogether. Each time simply pausing it and pressing play seems to resolve the issue.
One major issue that has bugged me and has happened a few times is the unit keeps fast forwarding even after I have pressed play several times. The only way I have managed to fix this was by turning the unit off and on. Painful when you are comfy on the couch – it means you have to actually get up and press the reset button on the unit. Physical movement omg! But a pain to find your place in the show if you didn’t know how far in you were.
Oh – sidenote. The mystar box let’s you manually type in a number (minutes) to resume the playing from, superior to the tivo in this aspect.
I have also had to reset the unit a few times. Within the first four days of using the box I had to reset it twice. For me, that is something you wouldn’t expect for a new unit. After almost 2 weeks the total reset count would be either 4 or 5 times. Fairly high given the reset rate of the TiVo or the previous austar box. Is there a software update or something I am missing?
The TiVo also had some amazing features that I sorely miss. The ability to find shows based on keywords. This has resulted in Mat not having as many poker shows as he would have liked. The other was being able to connect to my home network and use tivoweb to set up recordings remotely. That was an EXCELLENT feature. And lastly, the rating system implemented by the TiVo used to recommend other shows you might enjoy.
But I guess I have gotten used to it now and it has it’s small perks I guess. So here it is, the pros and cons list in comparison to the TiVo.
Pros:
Design is visually appealing (but then again it was a series 1 TiVo – a grandpa in today’s standards)
Response time between remote and playback is good (except in cases requiring a reset)
Less equipment to muddle with – only have a pay tv box instead ofnpay tv AND a TiVo.
Ability to manually enter the number of minutes into the program from which you would like to resume playing the show.
Cons:
High number of resets required
High number of failed recordings
Lack of ability to connect remotely to set up recordings
Lack of ability to enter keywords to automatically find tv shows
No recommended shows
I guess a bonus that as a result of the tech installing the box we got a new cable to the aerial that fixed our issue with free to air. For 2 years we had ignored the fact we couldn’t get FTA but it wasn’t really that big a loss. Now I can watch quality shows like Australian idol *cough*
When the 3 months is up I really dont know if we will continue with mystar. Hopefully by then the stability issues will have been sorted out. If so, then I think I would be happy with it. Given it’s their first release though, I would say it’s a good starting point and it has a lot of potential. I just hope they listen to the customers and implement the changes we want, not just dictate what we can have. Have they finally realized there is such a technology called high definition? Last I heard they had no plans to implement it. Are they nuts??