CRC-2400 (a confused newbie)

AnnW · 22-12-2011, 09:37

Hi everyone, I'm very pleased to have found you.

We just got our CRC-2400 today and have been told by both Smallworld customer services and the chap who brought the box that I can record up to 4 channels at once and watch another. This evening, I set it to record both bbc1 & itv1 (from the epg). Both programmes were on between 7.30 & 8.30 and we were happily watching alibi when the channel suddenly changed to bbc1 when the recording was due to start. The only way we could get it back to alibi to finish watching the programme we were half way through, was to cancel the bbc1 recording. Does anyone have any idea why this happened? Did I do something daft when setting the recording up?

Thank you for any help you can give.

**Rob** · 22-12-2011, 10:11

to Cable Forum

We do tend to specialise here with Virgin Medias systems so I'm not sure how many of our members will be familiar with this Smallworld STB.

An ability to record 4 programmes at once is a lot. I googled a manual. Whilst 4 recordings seems to be true there was also a reference to transponders. In fact you would only acheive that 4 recordings if there were two programmes to a transponder. Whatever a transponder is.

But that may also be a clue to your programme switching issue as if somehow your recording setting was to only use one transponder and yet the recordings were not both from that transponder thing then the STB would give the switching message?

spiderplant · 22-12-2011, 11:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob

Whatever a transponder is.

It's actually a satellite term, but I know what they are getting at. Several channels are bundled together on the same frequency. I don't know the Smallworld channel line up, but as an example on Virgin Media, BBC News, BBC Parliament and the BBC radio channels are all on the same frequency. If you happen to want to record two channels from the same frequency, Topfield boxes can do it using a single tuner tuned to that frequency. However, they only have two tuners, so can't record say 3 channels from 3 different frequencies.

The problem is knowing which channels share a frequency. I'd be surprised if Smallworld publish that info, so it would be trial and error. Also channels can get moved between frequencies from time to time, so the info becomes out of date.

So in summary, only rely on being able to record two channels, and you can't watch a third at the same time.

AnnW · 22-12-2011, 18:22

Thank you both for getting back to me (and for the welcome

)

What you're saying makes sense to me - at least I know the situation now, thank you for your help.

Keithy · 22-12-2011, 19:02

When we first got our box we could actually record 4 channels at one time, however, after the firmware upgrade we can now only do 2

AnnW · 22-12-2011, 21:37

Showing my ignorance now - what is the firmware upgrade?

**Rob** · 22-12-2011, 21:59

firmware is the operating software that runs the Set Top Box. It's probably provided to your box and installed automatically by SmallWorld. From time to time there will be new versions of Firmware as and when the cable compnay wants to fix a bug or enhance a feature.

AnnW · 22-12-2011, 22:03

Ahhh! Thank you Rob.

Keithy · 23-12-2011, 18:14

If you have recently got your receiver the firmware update will probably already have been done. If it requires done again then there will be a message displayed on the screen, just follow the on screen instruction. It does not have to be done as soon as you see the message, the last update was available for several days before I did mine, so don't do it if you want to watch something as it takes quite a while. Hope this helps.

AnnW · 23-12-2011, 21:30

Thank you for that Keith, it's tips like this that can make all the difference to stress levels!