Hidden menus in Freeview STBs
 

Do many Freeview STBs have hidden engineers / service menus that can
be accessed with a combination of remote keys ?

In particular, I'd be interested in switching off MHEG to get rid of
all that "press red" crap, and simply use 701, 702, 705, etc as
regular channels.

My box is a Pioneer DBR TF100.

TIA

yes, most boxes have a "hidden engineering menu" which will do various
things, but hidden for good reasons, so use at your risk!

But not applicable here! Most boxes have a "favourite channels" list,
which will hide those you don't want, and only way to get rid of red
dot is to switch off digital text (MHEG), possibly in hidden menu,
maybe a user option.

You need the details for your particular model, they're usually
somewhere on the Web, try Google search.

FVU wrote:
Do many Freeview STBs have hidden engineers / service menus that can
be accessed with a combination of remote keys ?

In particular, I'd be interested in switching off MHEG to get rid of
all that "press red" crap, and simply use 701, 702, 705, etc as
regular channels.

My box is a Pioneer DBR TF100.

I got the one and only Freeview VHS VCR, Daewoo SV900 - and my
impression is, recorded picture quality isn't best, and if you pause
then continue recording then it seems to erase two seconds backwards
and miss five seconds after you pressed go - but it does allow you to
play and record with or without interaction and subtitles, which is
nice. Unfortunately many channels still have a non-interactive DOG, or
worse. Actually I've got pretty good at not seeing those, but that's
not necessarily a good thing.

In article .com,
writes


FVU wrote:
Do many Freeview STBs have hidden engineers / service menus that can
be accessed with a combination of remote keys ?

In particular, I'd be interested in switching off MHEG to get rid of
all that "press red" crap, and simply use 701, 702, 705, etc as
regular channels.

My box is a Pioneer DBR TF100.

I got the one and only Freeview VHS VCR, Daewoo SV900 - and my
impression is, recorded picture quality isn't best,

It's Daewoo, what did you expect?

and if you pause
then continue recording then it seems to erase two seconds backwards
and miss five seconds after you pressed go -

Eh, well, ensuring sync with VHS (etc.) requires running back a bit and
takes time.

but it does allow you to
play and record with or without interaction and subtitles, which is
nice.

Well you don't have to record anything that is not part of the MPG
within the transport stream.

Unfortunately many channels still have a non-interactive DOG, or
worse. Actually I've got pretty good at not seeing those, but that's
not necessarily a good thing.

I know what you mean!

--
Ian G8ILZ

wrote:
FVU wrote:
Do many Freeview STBs have hidden engineers / service menus that can
be accessed with a combination of remote keys ?

In particular, I'd be interested in switching off MHEG to get rid of
all that "press red" crap, and simply use 701, 702, 705, etc as
regular channels.

My box is a Pioneer DBR TF100.

I got the one and only Freeview VHS VCR, Daewoo SV900 - it does allow you to
play and record with or without interaction and subtitles, which is
nice.

Oh, it's a member of the "Setpal" family - so maybe you could look at
others of those (Daewoo, Labgear, and friends) for the feature. The
received picture looks good, too, but I'm not a critic.

FVU wrote:

In particular, I'd be interested in switching off MHEG to get rid of
all that "press red" crap, and simply use 701, 702, 705, etc as
regular channels.

I do this anyway. Just select 701 or whatever from the channel menu list.

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 18:39:00 +0100, Mike O'Sullivan
wrote:

FVU wrote:

In particular, I'd be interested in switching off MHEG to get rid of
all that "press red" crap, and simply use 701, 702, 705, etc as
regular channels.

I do this anyway. Just select 701 or whatever from the channel menu list.

Not always true.
Sometimes 701 and/or 702 seems to have MHEG crap messages like "press
red" on it, sometimes it doesn't.
705 (Big Brother) wont even let you watch it and switches to a retune
screen when you complete the channel selection by pressing select.
This is exactly the kind of thing wish to stop by disabling MHEG.

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 09:16:04 GMT, FVU wrote:

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 18:39:00 +0100, Mike O'Sullivan
wrote:

FVU wrote:

In particular, I'd be interested in switching off MHEG to get rid of
all that "press red" crap, and simply use 701, 702, 705, etc as
regular channels.

I do this anyway. Just select 701 or whatever from the channel menu list.

Not always true.
Sometimes 701 and/or 702 seems to have MHEG crap messages like "press
red" on it, sometimes it doesn't.
705 (Big Brother) wont even let you watch it and switches to a retune
screen when you complete the channel selection by pressing select.
This is exactly the kind of thing wish to stop by disabling MHEG.

In the case of 705 selecting Subtitles replaces the visible MHEG crap with
invisible MHEG crap. There are no subtitles so the picture is crapfree.

But your general point is good.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 18:40:48 +0100, Peter Duncanson
wrote:

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 09:16:04 GMT, FVU wrote:

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 18:39:00 +0100, Mike O'Sullivan
wrote:

FVU wrote:

In particular, I'd be interested in switching off MHEG to get rid of
all that "press red" crap, and simply use 701, 702, 705, etc as
regular channels.

I do this anyway. Just select 701 or whatever from the channel menu list.

Not always true.
Sometimes 701 and/or 702 seems to have MHEG crap messages like "press
red" on it, sometimes it doesn't.
705 (Big Brother) wont even let you watch it and switches to a retune
screen when you complete the channel selection by pressing select.
This is exactly the kind of thing wish to stop by disabling MHEG.

In the case of 705 selecting Subtitles replaces the visible MHEG crap with
invisible MHEG crap. There are no subtitles so the picture is crapfree.

Thank you, sir - very useful.
Still no bites on my original question re hidden menus on STBs and
their capabilitiies.
Have a great weekend.

spiney wrote:
yes, most boxes have a "hidden engineering menu" which will do various
things, but hidden for good reasons, so use at your risk!

But not applicable here! Most boxes have a "favourite channels" list,
which will hide those you don't want, and only way to get rid of red
dot is to switch off digital text (MHEG), possibly in hidden menu,
maybe a user option.

You need the details for your particular model, they're usually
somewhere on the Web, try Google search.

I suggest that other models from the same manufacturer are likely,
though not certain, to have the same secret code for an engineering
menu. As a counter-example, I find a report that a software update
disabled the known code for the engineering menu on Setpal boxes.
(Which seems odd, as it would annoy many engineers.) In any case, I
think it's worth trying.

Google for name of model hidden-menu, or engineering-menu,
secret-menu, service-menu so far looks fruitful - any other keywords
offered, perhaps "services"? - "service" got me into the dark heart of
my Daewoo SV 900, the VCR, the secret code being "Status, Select, Text,
Text, Select", though what I saw scared me. ;-) Warnings that you can
turn your electronic hardware into a more or less effective doorstop
are sincere.

And as I said, I can turn off the Daewoo's interactives from a
non-hidden menu. The advertising in EPG, no - so I may go back in
again after all.

I'm still looking for the secret menu on my Echostar T-101, although I
don't really need it; someone refers to a " 'hidden' menu " showing
signal strength and quality which I can't find; they don't say how to
get it. I have this on other devices, and I have a plug-in amplifier
with an adjustable gain control knob and the knob seems not to vary the
signal reported by various devices, so it may be broken or fake. I'd
like to know... but I haven't gotten around to switching between its
outputs (it has two) to see whether the gain knob only affects the
other one.