Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Roller coaster with ZAAPTV !!!
One of the things that really get to me is the "Roller Coaster" feeling you get when you turn on your ZAAPTV Pod. You never know whether the channels you were watching 5 minutes ago will be available or not. I am not sure how many times this has happened but I would be watching a channel, turn over to another and then go back to the one I was watching previously (all within 5 minutes) and I get the Satellite video telling me the channel is temporarily unavailable. What's worse is when entire channels just disappear for no apparent reason and then they just show up also for no apparent reason !!!
Don't get me wrong I enjoy my POD very much, but when small things like these start creeping up on you, it starts to make your experience with the product lets say...unsatisfying.
Tell me what you think.
New update to your ZAAPTV Box
I turned on my ZAAPTV to find out that a new update is available for my Pod. Currently I have version # 5.6.0.17.2.4.23. So I bit the bullet and started updating, currently it's downloading package 2 from 7...and its flashing, now it's downloading 3 out of 7..... 4 out of 7.... 5 out of 7...6 out of 7...7 out of 7 packages. Done. It's restarting now and the whole process took about 7 minutes.
The new version number is 5.8.0.31.2.4.23
Ok..so what's new?
This is a quick list of the most notable changes that I recognized, I am not going into any details since I am still discovering what new functionality has been added. Most notably are the app support that has been added, I am not sure yet what is it or what apps I can get
Starting with TV Live, they added a couple more categories, I think Afghan is a new one.
They also added a new category called "Subscriptions", which could only mean that sooner or later they will allow users to subscribe to pay channels such as ART, Orbit...etc (These are Arabic channels you have to pay for in order to watch them for those of you who do not know what I am talking about). Very nice and clever move. This is something I personally will consider subscribing to if the rates are good for such additional channels.
Under My Collection they added "My Apps".
Under Internet Media they added "Web Apps", if you open that up you will find an App for Picasa ( a photo sharing service from Google). I opened it up and selected the featured shows, clicked on one and a simple slideshow of photos just played. You can search by Username, so if you have an account with them you can stream your photos to your pod and watch them on your TV.
Under Newspaper, if you open up a newspaper now using your remote control you can control the cursor (finally). So now you go to the right side to scroll up and down, and at the bottom to scroll left and right.
Finally, under Settings they added "Third Party Applications".
Note: I just noticed that I lost all my MBC's ( I am very unhappy about that) and my Hayat Tv (Red) approximately 9 channels are gone, hopefully its a minor glitch during the migration they are performing.
This was a quick overview of some of the changes that have occurred and I noticed.
Monday, August 6, 2012
ZAAPTV's categorizing projeect ....Myth or Reality
For a while now we all have seen the different categories ZAAPTV have under Arabic channels. All channels, News, Cartoons, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen...etc.
It was a nice touch from ZAAPTV to be able to categorize these channels like that, they started off well but they just lost the wind or the will to continue with it. Maybe has to do with the number of channels they keep on changing. Or someone who is supposed to categorize these channels immediately after they are activated is not doing so.
Anyways whatever the reason is, we would like to see the continuation of this endeavor.
If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions please let us know. Maybe someone form ZAAPTV will come by, read your suggestion and implement it ;)
Happy Zaapin'
Salam
It was a nice touch from ZAAPTV to be able to categorize these channels like that, they started off well but they just lost the wind or the will to continue with it. Maybe has to do with the number of channels they keep on changing. Or someone who is supposed to categorize these channels immediately after they are activated is not doing so.
Anyways whatever the reason is, we would like to see the continuation of this endeavor.
If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions please let us know. Maybe someone form ZAAPTV will come by, read your suggestion and implement it ;)
Happy Zaapin'
Salam
Basic ttroubleshooting technique
First, run a speed test. Even though I don't think this is connected to ZAAPTV's servers but it will give you an indication if your wireless is working or not. Also try using Video on Demand or YouTube. These are clear indicators of your wireless card working or not.
A simple diagnosis, if you are connected wireless, try connecting your POD using a wired connection and see if it connects or not. Wireless connections are very finicky, they depend on how strong your signal is how far you are from the base station....etc. Give it a shot and try a wired connection. Maybe that could have been the problem.
Another thing to do is unplug your device for a couple of minutes and reconnect and see what happens. If you have a wireless connection try this with a wired one and see what happens.
Try a soft reset.
Last try a hard reset "you will loose all your favorites.." so before doing this email support and see what they say. If you do not get a response from ZAAPTV support contact your reseller and see what they say.
I have here a few posts on common issues, such as buffering problems and device turning on and off, read them and see if they help you out.
Salam
A simple diagnosis, if you are connected wireless, try connecting your POD using a wired connection and see if it connects or not. Wireless connections are very finicky, they depend on how strong your signal is how far you are from the base station....etc. Give it a shot and try a wired connection. Maybe that could have been the problem.
Another thing to do is unplug your device for a couple of minutes and reconnect and see what happens. If you have a wireless connection try this with a wired one and see what happens.
Try a soft reset.
Last try a hard reset "you will loose all your favorites.." so before doing this email support and see what they say. If you do not get a response from ZAAPTV support contact your reseller and see what they say.
I have here a few posts on common issues, such as buffering problems and device turning on and off, read them and see if they help you out.
Salam
Sunday, August 5, 2012
I am back ;)
Hello Everyone,
Before anything Ramadan Kareem to everyone on here.
I do apologize to everyone on here who needed help and I was not around to guide you (even though I do not know much), but I am finally here again. I finished school, and was looking for a job, so for those who think I work for ZAAPTV, guess what? I don't ;)
Anyways I am hearing many complaints and issues and problems. If your device does not work and you suspect a hardware failure please contact your reseller.
It is imperative you have a high speed connection to get good quality broadcast. Even though it says 1 or 2 Mbps, it will not work well. Like one commenter said, you might need at least 6Mbps, sucks but this is life.
The service in the beginning of Ramadan was very disappointing. Every time I tried to go through the menus or select a channel an error message "Unable to connect to server" pops up. I did find a quick way around that.
Lets say you are in the channel listing and want to go from one page to another. What used to happen was when I tried to go to the next page the spinner will show up and keep on spinning until the aforementioned error message pops up. So my workaround was when I try to go to the next page and the spinner shows up and I think it takes more than normal to process the request I press on back and try again, usually doing this a couple of times will work and go to the next page.
Anyways, in the last couple of days the service got better and the error message did not show up as often. Today though I don't think I saw that error message, which is a good thing.
I will do my best to go back and respond to all your comments, may take some time but hopefully I will be able to get it all done soon.
Take care everyone and happy Zaaping ;) <- Cool I am copyrighting this word
Keep all your questions coming and your thoughts, and this will help us all out.
One more thing, if you are having problems please be very specific, tell us what your Internet speed test results are. Your software version. Did you get the device new or used, how long you had it for..etc. I mean I don't think you just opened the box and it did not work!! If so take it back or contact your reseller and raise hell about it ;)
Salam
Before anything Ramadan Kareem to everyone on here.
I do apologize to everyone on here who needed help and I was not around to guide you (even though I do not know much), but I am finally here again. I finished school, and was looking for a job, so for those who think I work for ZAAPTV, guess what? I don't ;)
Anyways I am hearing many complaints and issues and problems. If your device does not work and you suspect a hardware failure please contact your reseller.
It is imperative you have a high speed connection to get good quality broadcast. Even though it says 1 or 2 Mbps, it will not work well. Like one commenter said, you might need at least 6Mbps, sucks but this is life.
The service in the beginning of Ramadan was very disappointing. Every time I tried to go through the menus or select a channel an error message "Unable to connect to server" pops up. I did find a quick way around that.
Lets say you are in the channel listing and want to go from one page to another. What used to happen was when I tried to go to the next page the spinner will show up and keep on spinning until the aforementioned error message pops up. So my workaround was when I try to go to the next page and the spinner shows up and I think it takes more than normal to process the request I press on back and try again, usually doing this a couple of times will work and go to the next page.
Anyways, in the last couple of days the service got better and the error message did not show up as often. Today though I don't think I saw that error message, which is a good thing.
I will do my best to go back and respond to all your comments, may take some time but hopefully I will be able to get it all done soon.
Take care everyone and happy Zaaping ;) <- Cool I am copyrighting this word
Keep all your questions coming and your thoughts, and this will help us all out.
One more thing, if you are having problems please be very specific, tell us what your Internet speed test results are. Your software version. Did you get the device new or used, how long you had it for..etc. I mean I don't think you just opened the box and it did not work!! If so take it back or contact your reseller and raise hell about it ;)
Salam
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Good News from ZAAPTV !!
As everyone by now knows, ZAAPTV has been acting up lately, dropped channels, channels disappearing and reappearing, ones that completely vanished, and many other problems, that made us all quite upset about the service.
But like they say good news awaits those who wait ;)
I received an email from ZAAPTV themselves, I was quite shocked to be honest with you, and in that communique they delivered to me some good and optimistic news. They did indeed run into problems with the increase in demand of their product, and they are very well aware of the problems people are facing, and working very diligently to restore these channels back. In the meantime they were able to add a few new channels ( I can vouch for that..) to compensate for those that disappeared, and inshallah they are hoping to get everything settled before Ramadan.
I know, I know.. Ramadan?! That's almost four months away !!
We have all been waiting too long for these fixes, and this was not the time frame everyone wanted to hear, but to be fair, it's quite overwhelming what they are working on, and finally we got an answer directly from ZAAPTV.
So if you are loosing channels or channels are acting up, please hold on emailing them and flooding their inbox's, unless you have a legitimate issue with your POD.
Let me know what you think, and if you have any problems let us know maybe I and other users on this blog might be able to help.
Salam.
But like they say good news awaits those who wait ;)
I received an email from ZAAPTV themselves, I was quite shocked to be honest with you, and in that communique they delivered to me some good and optimistic news. They did indeed run into problems with the increase in demand of their product, and they are very well aware of the problems people are facing, and working very diligently to restore these channels back. In the meantime they were able to add a few new channels ( I can vouch for that..) to compensate for those that disappeared, and inshallah they are hoping to get everything settled before Ramadan.
I know, I know.. Ramadan?! That's almost four months away !!
We have all been waiting too long for these fixes, and this was not the time frame everyone wanted to hear, but to be fair, it's quite overwhelming what they are working on, and finally we got an answer directly from ZAAPTV.
So if you are loosing channels or channels are acting up, please hold on emailing them and flooding their inbox's, unless you have a legitimate issue with your POD.
Let me know what you think, and if you have any problems let us know maybe I and other users on this blog might be able to help.
Salam.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
A working example of how to add channels.
Ok, so many posts are asking how do you add channels, many people are not able to do that. So I decided to walk you through adding a real life working channel and access it through your POD.
The channel we will work with is from NASA Tv. As you will notice it's format is *.asx. As most of you know or will find out is that ZAAPTV POD requires a *.wmv file. The *.asx file is a pointer file (metadata) that points to the actual media file. I don't want to get into much details about that, but the bottom line is that this file points to a windows media file, therefore will suffice the requirement of ZAAPTV of being a *.wmv.
First of all you must register your POD, if you have not yet go to : https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/member/register.php and register your POD.
Now sign in to MyZaaptv at: https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/ .
Once in, you will see four orange buttons on the right. Click on "Add New Channel". The Add Channel page will open up. So far so good.
Now input the following information:
Add in Category: Select "Demo" from the pull down menu.
Channel URL: copy and paste the following URL:
http://www.nasa.gov/145590main_Digital_Media.asx
Channel Name: "NASA TV"
Country: Select "United States" from the drop menu.
Description: Type in "This is a working demo of a live tv, compliments of Masrawy ;)" (It will not work without this description…lol).
Who can see this? Select "Only Me".
Click on Save, a new page should open up titled "NASA TV", and informing you that you have successfully added a new channel, and will even show you a preview of the channel under Channel Video.
That's it you are done. Now we want to see the fruits of our labor.
Go to your POD's Main Menu, select MyTv, select My Channels, Select Demo and you should see your new channel called NASA TV in the lineup. Select it and enjoy it.
You can change any of the information I just gave aforementioned, so experiment and see what happens. If you create new links, let us know so we can add them and enjoy them too.
Salam
P.S: One question I am sure I will get is where I got that URL for the video from? Simply I googled it and found it in a forum for NASA. To actually go through a web page and find the URL of a stream is a very technical issue, and I will not go into actually explaining how it's done on this blog. There are many resources online for doing that. I just don't want to deviate away from the goal of this blog.
Another thing is the format of the files, I have not experimented with anything else yet. I just used what they asked for, just for the sake of getting this post ready. If someone has experimented with other formats and are sure they work please let us know.
The channel we will work with is from NASA Tv. As you will notice it's format is *.asx. As most of you know or will find out is that ZAAPTV POD requires a *.wmv file. The *.asx file is a pointer file (metadata) that points to the actual media file. I don't want to get into much details about that, but the bottom line is that this file points to a windows media file, therefore will suffice the requirement of ZAAPTV of being a *.wmv.
First of all you must register your POD, if you have not yet go to : https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/member/register.php and register your POD.
Now sign in to MyZaaptv at: https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/ .
Once in, you will see four orange buttons on the right. Click on "Add New Channel". The Add Channel page will open up. So far so good.
Now input the following information:
Add in Category: Select "Demo" from the pull down menu.
Channel URL: copy and paste the following URL:
http://www.nasa.gov/145590main_Digital_Media.asx
Channel Name: "NASA TV"
Country: Select "United States" from the drop menu.
Description: Type in "This is a working demo of a live tv, compliments of Masrawy ;)" (It will not work without this description…lol).
Who can see this? Select "Only Me".
Click on Save, a new page should open up titled "NASA TV", and informing you that you have successfully added a new channel, and will even show you a preview of the channel under Channel Video.
That's it you are done. Now we want to see the fruits of our labor.
Go to your POD's Main Menu, select MyTv, select My Channels, Select Demo and you should see your new channel called NASA TV in the lineup. Select it and enjoy it.
You can change any of the information I just gave aforementioned, so experiment and see what happens. If you create new links, let us know so we can add them and enjoy them too.
Salam
P.S: One question I am sure I will get is where I got that URL for the video from? Simply I googled it and found it in a forum for NASA. To actually go through a web page and find the URL of a stream is a very technical issue, and I will not go into actually explaining how it's done on this blog. There are many resources online for doing that. I just don't want to deviate away from the goal of this blog.
Another thing is the format of the files, I have not experimented with anything else yet. I just used what they asked for, just for the sake of getting this post ready. If someone has experimented with other formats and are sure they work please let us know.
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