Four Settings

When watching a video, the EVA700 has 4 settings for fast forward ("FF") and rewind ("FR", which stands for "fast rewind") - creatively named 1, 2, 3, and 4. So that you're not suprised, the first time you press either FF or FR, the AVI (or whatever video file you're watching) has to be indexed. So, the vid will pause and you'll see a "indexing" indicator in the upper left of the screen. DON'T KEEP CLICKING! It's working, it just takes a second. The first few times it did this, I was impatient and kept clicking, so it ultimately came out of indexing "guns blazing" at FF3 or something, and I jumped right over where I would have liked to stop.

So, the higher the number, the faster the digital index in the file moves. FF4 will get you through an hour of TV in like a minute, so you're blazing pretty fast. Skipping commercials, etc should probably not be done at any higher than FF1. But read on, I have more to say on that.

Skipping Short Intervals

When I watch Stargate SG-1 from my treadmill each morning, I typically skip over the intro (you know the order - scenes from last time, then teaser plot line just to get the episode started, then the intro music and credits, then the episode) because I don't want to be on the treadmill any longer than I have to. This isn't tremendously different than the "skip the commercials" scenario. Problem I've had so far is that it's just not that easy.

With my DVD collection of SG-1, it was very easy to skip the episode intro. All I had to do is remember to press the button instead of the one, and I was set. The former speeds up playback (fast forward), the latter jumps to the next "chapter" in a DVD or the next video file with EVA (both bad for this scenario). But I digress... The DVD speed up and slow down were as expected. When I pressed the play button, the FF stopped and the video resumed pretty much where I was. I remember how it was an adjustment when I first got a TiVo that when you click play to resume play from a fast forward mode, it actually skips back a couple seconds and resumes from there. With EVA, I think because of the way it's indexing into the video file, it actually seems to skip forward when I pressed play. So, for the 3rd day in a row I have skipped right over the beginning of the episode (after fast forwarding through the intro), and had to rewind so I didn't miss anything.

I guess the bottom line is fast forward with care. Maybe for really short skips, it might not be worth messing with it.