FAQ:
Q: Can I record shows of the past?
A: No, only Shows of the future are allowed to record. OTR is not a public videothek, its your personal web video recorder. Maybe you find a buddy, who has recorded your desired show. Than you may receive a private copy from him.
Q: Do I have to be logged in, during recording?
A: No, record your shows, wait for Ready-Email or check your recording list 10-50 minutes after air-time. If you see a READY-Flag, download the show and decoded it with decoder.exe. The recording is timeshifted. So your videorecorders do never record in realtime, but time delayed.
Q: I have 600 GB recording space. Do I stress the OTR-System, when I record 100 shows and more than I will watch ever?
A: No, recording space and disk space is not a problem for OTR. What really hurts, is your download traffic. That`s why OTR does not provide download. This is provided by some other external companies (e.g. OTRDL), as far as they sponsor it.
Q: EPG has sometimes problems. I record other shows than expected.
A: Please leave your expected show (station + airtime) and the recorded show information, in the special EPG-forum to give us a chance to fix those EPG errors.
Q: What programs do you record?
A: OTR records the most popular tv stations of austria and switzerland, via Astra satellite. Even BBC and some other UK stuff will be recorded.
After 4 weeks of inactive account (no login, no visit of website), you receive a mail like this:
"Your account will be deleted soon".
You now have 2 weeks again to use your account. If you use the account, nothing happend.
If not, your account will be set to "INACTIVE" (not deleted).
Only data, which will be deleted are your Recordings.
If your account was deleted and you want to use it again, no problem, you are welcome!
Login with your old username/email and your old password. System will recognize you again and your contingent and userdata will be used as before. Nobody was hurt ;-)
Sorry, we need that account deletion rule to keep database-frontend fresh and quick.
Download-Methods
If you want it easy:
use direct download and wait for a slot (queue can be long, if you are in startposition 500 it can last an hour, until downloads starts)
if you want it quick:
- if a torrent-download is available: use it ! ->Tracker.
- if a mirror is available: use it!
no mirror? no torrent? you should choose a payed download (25ct). Those downloads start with priority (queuepos. 1)
Tips:
Download within Happy-Hour, your daily download limits stay untouched.
Use Download-Managers to avoid broken Downloads:
25 days Storage
We delete/remove all your recordings older than 15-25 days to save storage capacity.
If your file has status "removed", it was deleted under this rule from our download-servers.
What to do, if you still need that file?
You might find those files very long in emule or at download alternatives, like torrents or mirrors. Or simply ask other users to transfer the needed file. As long as your recording entry is in our database (do not delete it!), you can decode the files. You also can use the buddy-system.
Note: OTR now has a more intelligent purge system. We keep blockbusters and often downloaded files longer than 25 days, but it depends on free storage capacity of our download servers. This is not predictable and depends on the tv-station. So try to download your files as soon as possible.
Q: I downloaded a .OTRKEY File from Emule. How can I decode it into a WMV/AVI File?
A: You can only decode, what you recorded before via the website/login. Maybe you find a friend in the buddy-system, than you can get a private copy from him.
Q: When i decode the otrkey-file i get the same size file with wmv extension but windows media player does say: extension not matches file type
A: that happens, when you decode on network-drives. decoding on physical partitions (C:\..) of the computers harddrive works just fine with win xp
Q: I am Linux/Mac-User. How to use decoder.
A: Visit our Linuxforum, or just download linux/Mac-decoder.
Q: Can I delete my show on the website before decoding?
A: No! Your file must be in recording list marked with "Ready". If deleted, you cannot decode your local OTRKEY file.
Q: Do i have to be online during decoding?
A: Sure. Decoder checks with a database request, if you have recorded the file and only than decoding is legally allowed.
Q: Why do you not allow download of WMV-Files without decoding stuff?
A: legal issue. We parallel support peer to peer systems like Bittorrent and emule to lower the server traffic. Here we need the .OTRKEY transport format for legal reasons. Its not allowed to publish content, we only provide YOUR personal files.
Q: My recording is marked with "decoded" and I cannot decode it again.
A: Number of decoding is limited. Do not cancel the decoding process or file is lost. A posting in the internal shoutbox sometimes may help.
Q: I changed .OTRKEY extension into WMV, but my player cannot play.
A: You need to decode the file !!!
Q: I have problems to play the wmv files after decoding. What player shall I use?
A: Files are made for WMP (windows media player 10.0) with latest codecs (->DOWNLOAD).
Linux User reported mplayer works well. Other use VLC or BSplayer.
Unable to fastforward or use the slider
This happens with resumed downloaded files. The file can be decoded and watched, but is corrupted in a way. You cannot use the slider to fastforward or skip a commercial. The filesize is abnormal high (more than 500 MB/h).
We are not sure about the reason. This may happen, when a mirror server downloads with a misconfigured wget command via ftp.
Those corrupted but playable files will show more problems when it comes to conversion into mpeg or playout in other players like VLC.
OVERLAP
We found, that a lot of shows start earlier or end too late. OTR starts the recording 3 minutes before EPG-Time and end recording 5 Minutes after EPG-Time. You should never have a movie without the end. (To make sure, you still can record the following show additionally). This overlap recordings works even with subsequent recordings of one channel! This feature is unseen, even in 1000€ DVD Recorders. Click drawing below:
