[Dusty]

I woke up early this morning and found both machines upgraded to 0xEF becausee of 4xFF. I eagerly checked the OTA but I wasn't too disappointed to find it wasn't enabled, yet. I watched MPEG2 SD and HD on both machines for a while. So far so good. I have not run into any problems I had with 0xEB in the last 2.5 hours. Trick play is way better than 0xEB. Video is much smoother in FF. 30 sec slip is completed within 2 seconds. I love the 4xFF, although I overshoot a lot more. I can't really use it to FF through commercials because it takes too many replays to correct a 4xFF overshoot, but pacing through a halftime show was nice.

 

[Dusty]

I assume that they (DirecTV) will wait to see the response and problems from the west coast before rolling it out to everyone as they appear to have done with 0xEB. At least I assume that is why they held off rolling out 0xEB to everyone. This might mean a wait for those of us on the east coast.

In my opinion, you are better off without 0xEB. I had more problems with it than most other versions. My wife never use the POS comment on HR20 until last weekend when our video froze during playback.

 

[Dusty]

Just how much faster is 30 sec slip now? Is it a noticeable difference?

I tried to measure it this morning but it's not that easy. A single slip probably is about 1-1.5 sec. If I queue up multiple slips, I believe there is a short pause between every one. In general, I believe it takes about 6-8 seconds to jump 2 minutes. I didn't measure the old ones, but the subjective difference for me is I was impatient with the previous slip, and I am happy with the current speed.

 

[Dusty]

Can someone PLEASE test closed captioning? Are words/letters cut off? Garbled? Is live CC scrolling too quickly? Does one line, then another, appear (staggering lines) when someone is talking?

I did test CC. It seems fine with MPEG2 SD and HD. Occasionally, some lines went by fast, but it's not so frequent or so bad that I'd label it as a problem. I went through about 8 recordings MPEG2 recordings. I watched MPEG4 local station for morning news before I came into work. It also seems fine. However, the news are not a real test. I need to wait until tonight when the prime time programs are on in HD. I will report back.

 

[Dusty]

My guess is that 30s is running the 4x FF procedure, for a set 30s of content.

Your guess sounds very logical. However, the 4xFF appears to advance faster than 30 sec slips. My estimation is 4xFF advances roughly 2 minutes for every second whereas 30 sec slip advances 2 minutes in roughly 6 seconds. This may due to short pauses inserted in between slips and it is indeed using 4x FF as you said.