If like me you are new to the open box V8s you will have found how little the manual tells you about recording and controlling it with the remote.
So here a few things I have discovered by trial and error.
Recording programs
You can use a usb External Hard Drive formatted to Fat 32 (recommended) although I originally tried recorded on it in its original state formatted to NTS and it worked ok.
I would use a type that has its own power supply as the one I used drew its power from the usb plug and after about 2 hours of playback it switched off with a message about overloading the usb power supply on the openbox, fortunately it reset after being switched off for an hour.
Since then I did not want to risk burning out the usb socket so I tried a standard usb flash drive formatted to fat 32 this worked fine with great playback quality and no chance of overloading the socket.
The only drawback was that it didn’t last long as it was only 4 Gb so I purchased a 64 Gb stick from a well known auction site for only £18, this works well and will record at least 6 to 8 hours in SD (never tried it in in HD as the picture quality is great in SD).
The Time Shift feature works well with either hard drive or usb stick plugged in and is a real bonus for skipping the adverts.
The time shift works from when you select a channel but only stays functional whilst you stay on that channel changing channel or pressing the menu button or using the EPG cancels it.
You can use Time shift by pressing pause on the remote then after a while continue watching by pressing the ‘play arrow’ (not the ‘ok’ button) or you can use the two buttons with double vertical arrows (about half way up on the left side labelled PG ) to move backwards or forwards at 2x , 4x etc. up to 24x speed within the amount of time the channel has been on for, to return to normal playback speed press play arrow (not OK button).
This fast forward action is great to speed up playback through the adverts and pressing ‘Exit’ button after the play button will remove the playback menu from the screen faster than waiting for it to go away itself.
Also if you want to move through a time shifted or recorded program quickly press the pause button then use the left or right arrow keys either side of the OK button, you will see each press skips along the record bar then pressing OK button re-starts playback from that point.
So here a few things I have discovered by trial and error.
Recording programs
You can use a usb External Hard Drive formatted to Fat 32 (recommended) although I originally tried recorded on it in its original state formatted to NTS and it worked ok.
I would use a type that has its own power supply as the one I used drew its power from the usb plug and after about 2 hours of playback it switched off with a message about overloading the usb power supply on the openbox, fortunately it reset after being switched off for an hour.
Since then I did not want to risk burning out the usb socket so I tried a standard usb flash drive formatted to fat 32 this worked fine with great playback quality and no chance of overloading the socket.
The only drawback was that it didn’t last long as it was only 4 Gb so I purchased a 64 Gb stick from a well known auction site for only £18, this works well and will record at least 6 to 8 hours in SD (never tried it in in HD as the picture quality is great in SD).
The Time Shift feature works well with either hard drive or usb stick plugged in and is a real bonus for skipping the adverts.
The time shift works from when you select a channel but only stays functional whilst you stay on that channel changing channel or pressing the menu button or using the EPG cancels it.
You can use Time shift by pressing pause on the remote then after a while continue watching by pressing the ‘play arrow’ (not the ‘ok’ button) or you can use the two buttons with double vertical arrows (about half way up on the left side labelled PG ) to move backwards or forwards at 2x , 4x etc. up to 24x speed within the amount of time the channel has been on for, to return to normal playback speed press play arrow (not OK button).
This fast forward action is great to speed up playback through the adverts and pressing ‘Exit’ button after the play button will remove the playback menu from the screen faster than waiting for it to go away itself.
Also if you want to move through a time shifted or recorded program quickly press the pause button then use the left or right arrow keys either side of the OK button, you will see each press skips along the record bar then pressing OK button re-starts playback from that point.