My box has had close to no problems, in 1.5 months before I did a firmware upgrade, ABC dropped twice which had low signal low sig (~ 80% quality, dropping to 0). I did however have problems with weak signals needing box power cycling after about 18 hours, even while off strange...

In relation to comments about power I would not be suprised if the power supply were under-rated for this box, the box drains 1.4A even while off and it also spikes to higher levels while on, this means IMHO that the poor little 1.5A power pack is not going to do the job well. I am not going to recomend to anyone to use a non teac approved power supply, but, if you want to give it a go.... (don't blame me if you break it). I'm also guessing that the 11.5W rating is related to the power supply, but if the box is getting that high during those spikes, this may be part of the problem.

Is this poor little box trying to receive signals while in an off state?

Anyway, I decided to have a peek at the bin file (2.6.71) to see what was in it. There I found info related to the Service Menu and an Advanced Mode.

So, to the net I went, and found out about how the '4725' code works to activate the service menu on some TEAC devices, but doesn't appear to work on the STB, so I decided to have a look through the bin file for 4 digit codes, and out of the few candidates, 4725 is one.

So my question: is it possible to activate the service menu, if so, how? I mainly want to be able to find out more about how digital tv works on the inside, as in service codes, fec, etc, etc...

Some of the other candidate codes include 9788 and 7277, both of which are fun (I take no responsibility if you break your box), they seem like test modes, 9788 will slowly change chanels, while 7277 seems to flick through the menus (not menu screens, just the popup main menu) and chanels quickly.

PS. The codes need to be typed in while the "Main Menu" is up. 7277 I find needs power disconnection to be stopped.

Mabs,

Good stuff! Thats what I like to see! Be sure to document what else you find on your adventures in service-land!

Cheers,
Bitey (also owner of a 350)

I would kill to find out how to get the service menu for the DV-B420. There may be a setting which sets how much sound blanking to use, if I could adjust that myself the STB would be perfect. Teac are supposed to be fixing this in their next upgrade but I'm afraid they might change some other things that will ruin something else

I've tried entering 4725 in lots of places, nothing found as yet..

Might have a look at the software upgrade .bin file...

Seems like zlib 1.0.4 was used to compress the .bin file.

Anyone know how to inflate it?


Also this from the 350 upgrade file:

Entered Service Menu .......Upload default Sat&Xpdrs....Download default Sat&Xpdrs..Rs232 Test..Scarts..Reboot..Send SW.Pal G...Pal I...Pal K...LG / Samsung....Sharp...Samsung.Alps....ToggleBox Changed...........Selected item index is [%dRemote Commander / Front Panel Test ... [%d] is pressed ........LEFT....RIGHT...UP..DOWN....0...8...2...3...4...5...6...7...1...9...MUTE
....STANDBY.GUIDE...LANGUAGE....MENU....OK..YELLOW..BLUE....GREEN...RED.HELP....
T
V/Radio....Exiting Service Menu.....`.



Try to crack that

Well, interesting thing I just found out, I'm not taking it as a complete loss yet, but it (4725) is the forgot my pin code pin, I'm going to continue to look around, but interesting none the less.

This still says to me that it is a universal unlock of types, but how universal, I don't know.

PS. I did a search through the bin file and my version at least, does not have any zlib headers (gzip is the application that uses zlib compression).

I emailed Fabian at Teac and he says there is no service menu for Teac STB's

I sent another email to pester him about it some more though

The zlib headers were only on the DV-B420 upgrade.