While playing back Wednesday nights recording of Air Crash Investigations, at least 4 or 5 times during the show the Wintal would stop playback and switch to live TV.

Thats annoying enough but what's worse is the Wintal forgets where it was up to when it prematurely aborted.

So selecting Continue Playback doesn't work and it starts playing back from the beginning.

I'm pretty sure I've read one or two others report this problem happening to them.

Is there anybody here from Wintal/RPG who can comment on this bug?

I have had this but usually only once for any one show not too often.

I called them today and they are guessing its a HDD problem... hmmm but suggest a reset to factory defaults should be tried first otherwise Return-to-sender.
I'd be interested if anyone has had this issue and has had a replacement HDD.

I have add this only on the very odd occasion, though have read of others having it too.
Given the relaibility of hard disks these days, I find it hard to believe so high a percentage would thave a problem and that it would only manifest itself like this.

I've had this a couple of times, but from reading here I was lead to believe it was more related to poor reception and glitches in transmission/recording. Its only happened a couple of times to me and while a little annoying, I know its far better than anything I previously had, i.e. vcr and analogue recording.

i have had this a few times but not recently.

i find that its the same spot each time so I take note of the timecode on the OSD and then FF to that point and go like 1 second after and continue playback and its fine from there on in.

I think it may be from a glitch in the signal and stuff like that

I had it happen a couple of times last night during "Lost", which was part of a long recording which had My Restaurant Rules before it. Quite a pain to say the least, trying to get back to JUST AFTER the point I was up to before it stopped.

This happens way, way too often for my liking, and from what I've seen on these forums it happens to pretty much everyone. It's not a HD problem, unless there's a very large bad batch of HDs out there (and I doubt that VERY much). I use the exact same model of Western Digital 80GB hard disk in my computer, and it's never had a problem or developed one single read/write error.

This is a firmware issue.

A *hardware* issue is the overlay of horizontal lines I get behind the picture in 4:3 letterbox mode. However, Wintal don't seem especially interested in fixing that one, or even responding to my queries about it.

I've encountered this problem occassionaly as well but I believe it is due to interference from my bad electrical lines. I tested switching on and off my lights during recording and it causes the interference on my recording.. I suspect if the inteference is bad enough it could cause the drop out.

I have a similar problem in my apartment. When the Oven is switched on I get a glitch on the screen (also the fridge can do this). I will have to look at this more closely because it may only be happening on my weaker channels and might not always cause the stopping of the playback.

I have read many posts in the past that people use UPS to prevent spikes/brown outs that can affect recordings.

This behavior doesn't happen with ANY other PVR.

It's a firmware bug.

I would tend to agree, earlier Digicrystal PVR's had this issue but it was addressed in the latest firmware which the boxes currently ship with.

I also have this same problem. It doesn't happen a lot but obviously very annoying when watching a show and it just cuts out. Hopefully it is just the firmware that is causing the problem. Is there any word on when new firmware will be available?

Nothing as yet.

Wintal are not responding to enquiries from their customers.

I'm getting this all the time now. Sounds like I need to return it.

Good luck with it.

Please let us know how you get on with this.

I actually got a response from the supplier. Looks like they're trying to get a firmware update. There's a limit to how long I'm willing to wait however. Not sure if I've got a serial cable hanging around either.

I think they are about $7 from radio parts?

http://www.radioparts.com.au/ProdView.aspx...725085&direct=1

not sure if these are the ones mentioned in the download section of Wintal

The description is correct "All pins wired straight through". This cable should work ok. These cables can also be called a serial mouse extention cable.

The same length cable is only $5 around the corner at CPL in Dudley Street, West Melbourne (www.cpl.net.au).

$8 gets you a 5 metre cable, very handy for those who don't want to lug the PVR over to the computer

Regarding Wintal PVR-X10 playback stoppages:
Fortunately I bought two wintals. The playback stopping problem always happens when you least expect it. My cure is to record the most important programs (startrek) in parallel. See I knew two wintals are better than one! In that , if there is a glitch on one wintal, the other is usually ok. This has never failed me in getting a complete record of a show, even if it means changing av cables to select the better recorded content for the final burn to disc.
The way to get around disappointment is that I perform a preview of all the recorded content. Nothing is predictable, you simply go searching for the glitches before the final downloading to disc. A perfect preview at 6x might appear ok, but a stoppage is still possible to occur during the normal speed playback.
I have found by trail and error that a preview at 4x, both in fwd and bkwd will always detect any glitch hiding in the data stream of the recorded program. Doing this check (takes some patience) has saved me from creating drink coasters out of a stack of disks.
Oh another thing - if youre not concurrently recording something new whilst playing back something already recorded I have found it useful to select CH12 for the duration of your play back. Doing this will at least give you a black screen when the playback falters.

And that, right there, completely eliminates the theories about this problem being caused by either RF interference or broadcast glitches.

Yep, I've been sure of that all along but good to see confirmation like this.

Happened last night in the middle of Mythbusters making me panic I'd stuffed up the timer recording and missed the end of the show

Ive had my unit for about 2 months and have never had any issues like this,. In fact this unit is ore stable that my opentel, just minus the features. Only prob i have is some horizontal line interference in the background, more noticeable depending on the images im looking at. Other than that its a great unit for the price.

HaZ

2 months? That might be why you aren't having problems. What version is your firmware?

An interesting update:

Last night I was watching the recording of Eurovision (hey, it's fun! ) that I did the other weekend off SBS. About 40 minutes in, the dreaded playback-stop bug hit and the Wintal reverted to live TV, and of course I had to restart the program and search throgh it for the bit where I was shut out. Not surprisingly, the playback-stop bug cropped up every time I went past that moment in the program at anything less than 5x search speed, and I was back to live TV and had to start again. As always, many colourful words were thrown around

But here's the thing.

Last weekend, I made a VHS copy of this exact same recording of Eurovision for a family member. The entire four hours of the recording played right through without stopping. Yet last night, suddenly the dreaded bug crops up in this same recording.

The only thing that's changed on my Wintal since I made the VHS copy is, of course, that I've recorded, watched and deleted other programs while leaving the Eurovision file on the disc. The Eurovision file itself is in the exact same place on the HD that it was since recording, of course.

Conclusions we can reach from this?

1. This is now definitely NOT a hard disc issue.

2. This is now definitely NOT a broadcast glitch issue.

3. This is now definitely NOT an RF interference issue.

4. It is likely being caused by corruption of the Wintal's record list as new recordings are added and/or deleted.

This all points to one thing. FIRMWARE.

I'll try and get in touch with Digenius and bring this thread to their attention. They might be able to shed some light on things. I've given up on Wintal.

The Digicrystal had the exact same issue prior to the latest firmware version, I don't know why Wintal can't get this firmware for their customers, seems illogical.

Oh, I'm sure they CAN get it. It's more a case of whether they WILL get it.

Come on Wintal, get your ass into gear !