DStv operator MultiChoice will this week issue a significant software update to its high-definition personal video recorder (HD-PVR) decoder. This follows a stream of customer complaints about the number of bugs that have plagued the new set-top boxes.<\/p>\n
Richard Fyffe, GM of new media at MultiChoice, admits that there are more than 100 “known issues” with the HD-PVR.<\/p>\n
One of the most serious of the bugs, which will be fixed in this week’s update, causes the decoder to crash when it goes into automatic standby mode. The only way of getting around this bug has been for subscribers to switch off automatic standby, but MultiChoice warns that this reduces the decoder’s lifetime.<\/p>\n
Other critical problems include the occasional loss of programmes recorded to the machine’s hard drive and unresponsiveness when pausing, rewinding and fast-forwarding. The system update will be delivered over the air automatically. “This next release will be a step change in quality,” says MultiChoice new media GM Richard Fyffe.<\/p>\n
The HD-PVR was launched on August 8 to coincide with the start of the Olympic Games. MultiChoice now offers the M-Net HD channel in HD but has plans to introduce new hi-def channels over time. The company admits it rushed the product to market before all the bugs had been ironed out. But it has taken longer than expected to implement the first big bug fix.<\/p>\n
Other problems this week’s patch will fix include eliminating the display of duplicate services on the channel grid and resolving video break-up when playing back video from the memory buffer.<\/p>\n
Users have also complained about the sluggishness of the user interface. And it sometimes takes interminably long for the electronic programme guide to load the latest shows. These performance problems will be fixed in the next release, due out in about six weeks.<\/p>\n
SuperSport Zone, DStv’s information portal for sports fans, has recently been added to the HD-PVR, and other, similar interactive applications already available on other DStv decoders will be added as they become available.<\/p>\n
XtraView functionality, which will allow the HD-PVR to be coupled with another decoder so that DStv can be watched on another TV on the same premises, will be added by Christmas, Fyffe says, and could come as early as mid-November.<\/p>\n