Which Plugins invaluable?

[emmsee]

Until recently I did not have access to wireless network connection for my T2.
I do now and have been looking at plugins.

Which plugins do you find most useful?

Also, which are not worth downloading?
cheers
Mike

[IanSav]

Hi Mike,

I like EPGRefresh. It keeps my FTA EPG up to date.

Regards,
Ian.

[emmsee]

Hi Mike,

I like EPGRefresh. It keeps my FTA EPG up to date.

Regards,
Ian.

Thanks Ian,
Have the bugs been eradicated that I saw in August?
cheers
Mike

[MrQuade]

This gets asked a lot and the answer isn't straightforward.

Instead ask yourself what it is you want your T2 to do?

Lots of the plugins that can be downloaded are fine, but many do nothing sensible, or worse could crash your T2 (very few of them were written specifically with the Beyonwiz in mind). Just be careful if you choose to install a plugin that someone has not verified already. Feel free to experiment, but keep in mind that you may need to restore your firmware from USB if something goes wrong.

That being said, EPGRefresh is a popular plugin for letting your EPG up to date. Dreamplex also works pretty well, but you'd need a Plex server set up to take advantage of that, and that's probably something you don't have.
The Merlin music player is apparently not too bad for playing back your locally stored mucic. RemoteIPTVclient will let you stream Live TV to another T2 that may not have access to an antenna (again, probably not useful for you).

The are of course the series2folder plugin and the OverlayHD skins, which can be downloaded from this forum, not from the plugin repository.

Really, the best use you will get from a network connection will be the ability to stream TV to your PC or phone/tablet, and being able to copy your recordings easily. Also, being able to set timers over the network is very handy to some.

[MrQuade]

Have the bugs been eradicated that I saw in August?

It has some crashing issues ages ago that IanSav fixed.

It also misbehaved when Autoimers were set to automatically refresh after it ran. Not sure if that works better now, but it is trivial to avoid that anyway (kind of a pointless feature anyway).

EPGRefresh has some limitations with the T2 the T2 lacks the hardware to be able to run refreshes in the background. Brett to schedule the refresh to happen when you know the T2 will not be in use.

[dRdoS7]

Brett to schedule the refresh

That is a either a serious case of dyslexia or Auto-correct!

[Gully]

Brett to schedule the refresh

That is a either a serious case of dyslexia or Auto-correct!

Doesn't everyone have a Brett to do those trivial tasks?

And to post back OT, EPGRefresh for me too.

[MrQuade]

Doesn't everyone have a Brett to do those trivial tasks?

I wonder if he knows Trevor?

[tezza007]

The Merlin music player is apparently not too bad for playing back your locally stored mucic.

Thanks for that, still basic, but a lot better

[raymondjpg]

It also misbehaved when Autoimers were set to automatically refresh after it ran. Not sure if that works better now, but it is trivial to avoid that anyway (kind of a pointless feature anyway).

I'm not quite sure what you are saying here, or if my interpretation is based on some confusion arising from autocorrection.

Are you saying that it is easy to avoid the misbehaviour somehow? If so how?

Also, are you saying that setting autotimers to automatically refresh after running EPGRefresh is pointless? I would have thought it was rather more important than that unless you mean that autotimers automatically refresh on a set interval anyway. What if the PVR is returned to deep sleep before the autotimers refreshed after EPGRefresh was run?

I rather like the idea that they auto refresh after running EPGRefresh and I have never encountered any misbehaviour that I am aware of as a result of that operation.

[MrQuade]

Are you saying that it is easy to avoid the misbehaviour somehow? If so how?

Yes, I was referring to the misbehavior that was attributed to running an autotimer refresh after the EPGrefresh.

Also, are you saying that setting autotimers to automatically refresh after running EPGRefresh is pointless? I would have thought it was rather more important than that unless you mean that autotimers automatically refresh on a set interval anyway. What if the PVR is returned to deep sleep before the autotimers refreshed after EPGRefresh was run?

Yes, the fact that the autotimers refresh on a frequent interval automatically makes the post EPGRefresh mostly redundant. If your Wiz is being left unattended for long periods of time and not turned on, then it may not be getting that chance to refresh.

I rather like the idea that they auto refresh after running EPGRefresh and I have never encountered any misbehaviour that I am aware of as a result of that operation.

Turning on that option used to stall the EPGRefresh plugin, causing it to stop running and permanently tying up a tuner until the Wiz is rebooted. It is possibly a bug that was either fixed a while back, or the fact that you regularly put your Wiz into Deep Standby means that you never see the effect of the bug?

[raymondjpg]

Turning on that option used to stall the EPGRefresh plugin, causing it to stop running and permanently tying up a tuner until the Wiz is rebooted. It is possibly a bug that was either fixed a while back, or the fact that you regularly put your Wiz into Deep Standby means that you never see the effect of the bug?

I haven't seen that misbehaviour in about a year's operation of EPGRefresh with my T2. Perhaps it was fixed before I started to use it. In any case, fixed or not, it is not an issue with me and I think it is a mistake to dismiss the possibility that it may have been overlooked because a user might regularly put a T series into Deep Standby. In my case the T2 is left in standby about half of the time, usually if there are two or three occasions when recordings are scheduled through the week, or put into Deep Standby if it is anticipated that the PVR will not be in use for days on end.

Perhaps someone might like to chime in on whether this stall misbehaviour is still an issue with the T series. If it isn't I'd suggest that auto refreshing autotimers after a run of EPGRefresh is, on balance, more of a better idea than not.

[MrQuade]

Perhaps someone might like to chime in on whether this stall misbehaviour is still an issue with the T series. If it isn't I'd suggest that auto refreshing autotimers after a run of EPGRefresh is, on balance, more of a better idea than not.

I have given mine a manual refresh with the Autotimer refresh feature switched on, and there was no lockup, so it does indeed look like the bug was fixed. Possibly around the same time that IanSav sorted out the plugin's other GUI crash (I think it crashed when you pressed YELLOW or HELP).

I had a look back through the forums posts on EPGrefresh and found that the tuner hang would only occur with the background "Fake recording" method, so you wouldn't have seen the bug on a T2 in any case.

Fair enough, the feature has a point and is useful, especially as it actually works now .

[Trial_Master]

Hello

What is the best Refresh option to use and is there any benefits or disadvantages over one or the other?

I have a T4 and a T2. Currently the T4 is using PiP Hidden and T2 Fake Recording, although I see last year this was causing issues.

Thanks in advance.

[MrQuade]

Use fake recording. I'm not aware of any outstanding issues with that.

[Trial_Master]

Thanks for that. I’ll change the T4. My T2 isn’t locking up like described in this thread so I assume that was addressed in latest firmware?

[Grumpy_Geoff]

...My T2 isn’t locking up like described in this thread so I assume that was addressed in latest firmware?

No, it was addressed a long time ago.

[Trial_Master]

Good to hear. I have both devices on Fake Recording now.