Catch up services

[alfons]

Hope this is the right forum to post my question.

Does anyone know if it is possible to latch onto FreeView Plus to access "Catch Up" without having to go through the Web Browser Via my T4?

[Gully]

Not only was it the wrong forum as it was IceTV, it was also in the DP series part of the forum, not the T series.

It is also poor form to add to topic which clearly has a different focus from what you are asking about and you will get more help by starting a new topic.

Anyway, I have split your post off and moved it to a more appropriate section.

I'll leave it for others to add some more detailed answers but your 3 options are

HbbTV
web browser
plugins

[MrQuade]

Hope this is the right forum to post my question.

Does anyone know if it is possible to latch onto FreeView Plus to access "Catch Up" without having to go through the Web Browser Via my T4?

ABC and SBS catchup services work, but commercial stations do not. Their catchup services are encrypted and the T4 lacks the keys.

[alfons]

My apologies Gully..... my bad..... I will humbly accept the reprimand and be more careful with my posts in the future. Thanks for the criticism and advise!

Thanks MrQuade!

[Gully]

My apologies Gully..... my bad..... I will humbly accept the reprimand and be more careful with my posts in the future. Thanks for the criticism and advise!

Apologies accepted and my "reprimand" was as much about keeping some order as helping you getting the most out this place. Anyway, public service announcements done and normal service will resume.

[prl]

Has anyone recently tried playing anything on the SBS HbbTV OnDemand service?

I tried to play something yesterday (I wanted to watch eps 1 & 2 of season 2 of The Fall), but all I could manage was that some things I tried played an ad at the start, and when the ad finished, just showed a spinner instead of going on to the main program, and some didn't show an ad and went straight to the spinner.

The spinner wasn't due to it buffering, because the network switch that it's attached to wasn't showing any network activity.

[prl]

Continuing with oddities on the SBS HbbTV OnDemand, some of the buttons with screen button hints don't seem to do anything.

In the main OnDemand screen (from live TV, BLUE>HbbTV Applications>MainNetworkApp, none of RED Exit, Green FreeviewPlus or YELLOW All Programs appear to do anything.

In the information screen for an OnDemand show (select a show in the main screen and press OK) Green FreeviewPlus and YELLOW All Programs do nothing. BLUE Search works, and RED exit exits the screen, but doesn't go to the OnDemand Home, it seems to exit from the OnDemand part of the app, and shows live TV, but HbbTV is still in control, another EXIT is required to go back to normal live TV.

[prl]

I've grumbled in the past that only a small part of the SBS's online OnDemand content is available through the SBS HbbTV app. That turns out not to be the case, though getting to it doesn't seem to be as easy as it might be.

Presumably the SBS HbbTV OnDemand home page YELLOW All Programs is supposed to be the way to access this content, but as noted in the previous post, this doesn't seem to work on the T series.

You can bypass that, though, by going to the information page for any home page program (navigate to any program thumbnail and press OK), and then press BLUE Search.

You're then in a strong contender for the Guinness Book of World Records Worst Text Entry Widget of All Time. But it does allow you to search for and go to the information pages of all the SBS OnDemand content.

It's just that, as I mentioned two posts above, they won't play

[prl]

Trying to enter the SBS HbbTV normal entry point (BLUE>HbbTV Applications>SBS HBBTV) enters the HbbTV screen, but the application doesn't seem to run correctly. There's no on-screen indication that the HbbTV app is loading, and there are these error messages in the debug log:

Code: Select all

07/12/15 11:03:21  WARN [      Window] Attempt to start application with unsupported platform profile.
07/12/15 11:03:21  WARN [      Window] AUTOSTART application failed to start.

[prl]

Trying to enter the SBS HbbTV NewApp (BLUE>HbbTV Applications>New App) shows an error screen on the TV, but no error messages in the log.

The on-screen error message is:

Code: Select all

AccessDeniedAccess Denied5e64BFF1...[very long hexadecimal string]

I have no idea whether this is supposed to work.

[tonymy01]

I spent a great deal of time trying to find a hbbtv plugin or where it might hide in the gui, is hitting blue during normal TV really the place it hides? No wonder I couldn't find it!

[MrQuade]

I spent a great deal of time trying to find a hbbtv plugin or where it might hide in the gui, is hitting blue during normal TV really the place it hides? No wonder I couldn't find it!

Yep, the same place all of the other active plugins "hide".

On a slightly more serious note, because HbbTV is only relevant for the currently viewed service, then it makes sense to only be accessible while at the LiveTV interface. The remote probably could have included a HbbTV button, but given its current (lack of) utility, it might have been viewed as wasted space.

[tonymy01]

But, I was expecting it to show up in the media menu, or one of the other menus in the main menu page (such as the plugin one). I expect it to be a feature you would call up much like watching a file from the media player, or bringing up the web browser. Anyway, no biggy, now I know (and of course hitting the help button while watching live TV would have probably told me).
The fact that while in the main menu, a service is still showing in the background (with audio and under the semi-transparent menu) I was thinking this was enough to effectively show the plugin I was looking for the catch-up for that service showing under the menu (if only I could work out how to find the plugin and/or install it lol).

[prl]

But, I was expecting it to show up in the media menu, or one of the other menus in the main menu page (such as the plugin one). ...

It's the plugin author's choice over which menus plugins ask to be inserted into, and the number of locations is limited.

[tonymy01]

p.s now I know it is the blue button, I was playing with this last night, and had to resort to telnetting into the Wiz to restart on multiple occasions, even when playing with a couple of the ABC options? The front panel display shows hbbtv plugin but there seems no way of getting control back again after going to iview or whatever?

[IanSav]

Hi Tony,

The EXIT button is your friend. Sometimes it needs to be pressed more than once.

Regards,
Ian.

[prl]

+1

Especially if you run HbbTV and then end up in a screen showing live TV, but not responding to remote button presses like OK.

[MrQuade]

There was a similar discussion around teletext locking out controls in a less than visible manner recently as well.

I definitely think it is worth considering some solution to the issue of limited user feedback. Lots of new users seem to get stuck this way.

[tonymy01]

I can assure you I pressed exit many times. It didn't help. I pressed every button on the remote multiple times in case I was stuck in a hidden/undrawn menu that didn't let you press exit to get out. Yes, the remote was on STB mode. The blue LED was responding on the unit to the remote presses. The remote worked fine immediately after a reboot.