ive just updated the firmware, but noticed channel 7 doesnt seem to work properly..i re-tuned the stations, but 7 still remains interrupted.

any ideas/solutions?

I've had no problem with Channel 7, so I suspect it's your reception.

In anycase I've also updated the firmware again - this time to 060120A
(thanks George - Dazed&Confused).

I've noticed a couple of nice changes this time, from the previous
version 051221A (see my list of changes on page 5). Now, instead
of filing/naming the video files 000001, 0000002 etc when you initially
record them it has this fomat: 002-27FEB06-1535 which corresponds
to Channel-Date-Starttime. This is a good improvement. And you
can still rename it to whatever you like afterwards. The other welcome
change I've noticed is that if you are watching something "live" and
the timer comes on to start a recording the channel/tuner does not
change to the recording channel like it used to. This eliminates the
annoying necessity of having your "live" show interupted and needing
to change the tuner again.

I know a lot of people give DGTEC a hard time about the quality of
their product, but I'm happy so far with the continued improvement
in their firmware. If they keep this up I'll stay a satisfied customer.
I haven't approached them with some suggections I have for more
changes, but I have a few in mind. Such as a one-touch record type
system which increments a recording time, say by 30 minutes, after
each press of the record button. I hope this could be implemented in
firmware.

If anyone wants the latest firmware I'm happy to pass it on.
Just drop me an email: kiwigene AT gmail DOT com

its not reception...

i have a sd card in my tv...picks up channel 7 perfect..

i have no idea wats wrong...

I also update to new firmware on weekend and have had no problems to date but haven't really played too much since updating. No problems with any of the channels but did have to re-instal all the channels once the firmware was upgraded.

Sorry can't help any further but suggest you contact the DGtec help desk. From my experience they have been excellent to date.

Hey Guys,
As reported earlier in the post, I bought a SD80PVR in August and so far haven't had a major problem. As reported in other posts the picture does goe black and white for a few seconds only when switching between 3 other inputs. The picture changes back quickly. I had a problem with interference but I found this was due to a booster I had on the aerial, once the gain was turned down - no problems.
Overall very happy, currently running it through a BenQ projector onto a 90 inch screen - quality excellent.
Would appreciate if someone could email me the lastest firmware update as DGTEC still haven't upgraded their site.
Many Thanks.

psrleddy@optusnet.com.au

Just upgraded my SD80PVR, many thanks to Gene & George for their follow up.
Working perfectly, well worth the effort.

Would someone please e-mail me the latest firmware as well? I'm sick of the unit freezing (and missing Judge Judy!)

website@derwan.com

Thanks.

Thanks to George.

Hi Guys,

Thanks MuzG for the 05221a firmware (sorry about the slow reply been away). I see that a new firmware has been around for a while. Could some please send it to me at schonks9999@yahoo.com.au it might stop the preview window from freezing all the time. Apart from that and the sound dropping out occasionly, the player seem to be going alright.


Thanks for all the good advice,
Schonks

Hi guys just wondering if someone could email me the latest firmware for the dgtec sd200pvr to scag@spin.net.au.

Also how do u put a book mark in

eg. start watching a show get half way thru and for what ever reason need to stop watching it. I would like to be able to bookmark my posistion so when I come back to watch the recording again I can press a button and jump to the bookmark and cont. watching from were I left off instead of having to fast forward to were I left off.

regards
scag

Yes I have not had any luck in the limited attempts at making the bookmarks work... BUT I found it really easy using the "Go To" function, you just need to remember how far along you are, then type in the timecode hh:mm:ss and it zooms you straight there... I even use this to skip ads on recorded shows, most ad breaks are 2 min 30s long, so just add that time to your current time (when you press "Go To" the current elapsed time is displayed so it's not too hard to add 2.5 mins on) and you skip the ad in about 5 seconds total, makes the once-impressive 32x or 16x FF function seem kinda 80's....

ope this helps, it's converted me and my flatmate is even having a go at it.... Mr "I hate technology, curse you early adopters"....

MuzG
murray_green@exemail.com.au

Hi spoke to dgtec and that is the method they suggested to use.

I think thats a pretty poor way of doing things Dgtec said they are looking at this for future fw realses so maybe they will get a proper book mark happening in the no to distant future.

and thanks to george for the latest firmware

Hi all,

I've made the 060120A Firmware available for download at the following link until DGTEC get their act together and start making their firmware available on their website:

www.derwan.com/download/060120A.zip

If anyone has any problems downloading, please let me know.

NOTE: Download at your own risk!

So far so good with this firmware. It's fixed the problem of the channel switching for timer recording when you're already watching something - and gives recordings decent names instead of 0000001, etc. No freezes yet.

Regards,
Andrew.

Hi,

I just purchased the 80Gb DGTEC pvr and have a question. I set up a timed recording that started at 22:45 and finished at 01:30. But when I woke up in the morning it was still recording (6am).

Has anyone successfully time recorded past midnight? If so then any suggestions as to why it may have happened?

Thanks,

S

It's probably this problem I've had:

When switiching on the PVR the "time and date" on the info bar says
it's 23/04 13:00 Fri (I don't know what year - but it's not 2005 or 2006).
This seems to be the case everytime I turn the damn thing on.
At some point (usually after channel surfing i.e pushing buttons on the
remote which makes the screen change) the time and date changes to
(if I'm lucky) the correct time and date OR 11 hours in the future.

Now this isn't a problem if I just want to turn it on and record, but
is a major problem when setting the timer. I've managed to miss
a few shows recently due to this. I've made sure the correct time
and date are showing. Set the PVR timer and then turn it off.
Strangely enough the PVR then "turns on" at the right time, but
since it then has the wrong time and date it doesn't record. I can
then turn the damn thing off and it'll then turn back on and it'll start
recording 11 hours later...

I suggest you update the firmware to the latest release. I haven't
had this problem since doing the updates.

Interesting thread this. Commiserations on problems many have had.

The Humax Smart will do those 3 things at once and if you are not wishing to process files on a PC (where the Toppy is the obvious choice) then IMO it is an excellent unit. Lack of chase play bugs a lot of people and why the Hummy will not do it is a weird omission although it has only ever bothered me once.

So far my personal experience has only been with 3 PVRs:

Strong 5390 - superb picture, clunky but reliable operating system and excellent support

Humax Smart - excellent picture, great ergonomics and functionality and excellent support. Reliable. One odd problem with s-video out of SCART still not solved.

Wintal - very, very good picture, some odd ergonomics I'm still coming to terms with, restricted timer but looks terrfic value for its price. No idea about support yet and not owned long enough to test reliability.

John

Just registered to say a HUGE thank you to derwan for posting the firmware update--really above and beyond.

AFAICT, the "incorrect clock" problem comes from the DGTEC getting its time information from the broadcast channels themselves each time it powers up--this is why it takes a few seconds to work out what time it is, and why if you power up and start recording straight away, the file will be tagged as being from 2038. Seems like keeping the front clock might have been nice...

I'm coming up on the month, and unless things go violently awry, I'll be keeping my 80gig model. I have had intermittent problems, including timer settings vanishing off the schedule for no apparent reason, but am overall pretty happy. Since I transfer files to my Mac and then to DVD to watch the week's TV at my partner's place, I'd be very sorry to downgrade to anything that used USB1, Topfield or no.

And on the offchance that I'm not the only Mac user out there (small odds, I know), the java ProjectX runs beautifully under OSX, and can demux the files straight off the DGTEC hard-drive, after which Toast can remux them direct to a DVD. MPEG Streamclip is also excellent, but requires the purchase of the Quicktime MPEG2 playback component. One Mac problem: sometimes renaming folders with the remote introduces characters that the Mac/Unix file system won't recognise, and so the folders become inaccessible. (Although they can be read in OS9.)

So about being so multiply off topic, and thank you all for a lively and useful forum.

Danny

derwan/Andrew,

Thankyou very much for hosting the new software. I'd been beginning to dispair of the ol DGTec, but this will keep me happy for a while.

Thanks again - You're a champ!

Cam

No worries guys. Glad to help.

G'day All,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I'd also like to echo my thanks to all for posting their thoughts, problems, firmware updates etc..
It was based on this info that I made a decision to purchase the 200gb unit, and for the price, I'm very happy with it thus far. I have installed the latest 06 firmware. The few minor niggles I have are:
- Picture from component input is sometimes can be too saturated (No adjustments)
- Noisy fan
- Cannot work out how to tune an analog channel (ie channel 31)
- Must be in USB mode to transfer files. Cannot use box effectively while in this mode
- Cannot work out how to stop a recording automatically once you've started it manually
- Cannot timeshift and watch another channel simultaneously
- Average manual

Haven't had any lockups with the new firmware. Digital Radio works fine, and like other versions, you can actually record hi-def channels. You obviously can't play em back, but they'll play fine on your puder.

Anyone had any success with addressing any of the above issues??
I'm sure some of em are box related, whereas others are operator related...

Till next time...

Never had a problem with this. Can you adjust your television?

"- Noisy fan"
Yep - damn nuisance - especially during those silent suspense scenes.

"- Cannot work out how to tune an analog channel (ie channel 31)"
Thought you just had to use your TV for this... don't think the unit has an analogue tuner.

"- Must be in USB mode to transfer files. Cannot use box effectively while in this mode"
Yes - very annoying. I keep forgetting that I have to turn USB on when I connect the STB to the computer - and I think there's something wrong with the USB connection!

"- Cannot work out how to stop a recording automatically once you've started it manually"
This is a feature that is sadly lacking from the unit. I couldn't believe it didn't have this ability. If you start recording and then want to got bed (for example), you have 2 choices:

1. Leave the unit recording all night
2. create a timer entry that starts before the current time - with the appropriate end time. It will start a new recording as soon as you exit the timer screen (on the other tuner). Stop the current one. Then you just need to switch to the other file when you're watching them. (Rather annoying!)

"- Cannot timeshift and watch another channel simultaneously"
You can't use the AV or PIP to switch? I haven't tried this. If I pause live TV, it would be because of a phone call or something.

"- Average manual"
Very average! I think their favourite line is something like, "Follow the screen prompts."

Yeah, noisy fan is a bit of pain. Anyone game enough to open the box
(voiding the warranty I suppose...) and disconnecting the fan and see
what happens?

There's no analogue tuner - you'll just have to use you std video or tv.

The manual recording is very poor. I mentioned this in an earlier
post. I'm hoping for a "one-touch-record" type feature to be added
in furture firmware upgrades (Pretty Please!!!). Something like adding
30 minutes to the record time for every push of the record button
would be adequate. I can't see this being difficult to implement in
firmware.

This is something that is sadly lacking. In the "olden days", a VCR without a "one touch record" feature wasn't a huge issue. You just let the tape run to the end and used one of the many others you had for the next show you wanted to record.

But on a system such as this, where leaving it recording means filling up the Hard Disk and you cannot free space until you delete the program, it is hard to believe that DGTEC would leave out such an important feature.

[/rant]

G'day all, another lurker.
Couple of things:

- the RF Modulator is output only, I suspect for those TV's that only have RF. You set the "channel" that you want the STB to "broadcast" on the TV. Pretty much like the older VCRs. (Manual is rather confusing on this)

- Digital radio not too bad, other than not enough content...

- Still a few audio dropouts - channel 7 Adelaide seems to be the worst - however a collegue at work mentions a similar problem with his Topfield PVR/STB

- Occasional video "dropout", mainly a "pause" in the middle of the screen and typically channel 7

- Not as many freezes that required "reboot" (turn off at wall)

- "END" appearing after playback/watching first 45min or so of a timed recording - was ok if I went back to "My Video" and reselected the recording, jumped (goto) the time when "end " appeared, able to watch and "catch up" to the recording. NB: play back started about 30min after recording started. Would appear that the current file being written to the HDD is "locked" by the firmware. Not too sure why as I would've thought the same approach to timeshift would've been adopted...

- No clock when in standby, got a nice red light instead

- The timer record doesn't turn itself off

- Output volume increased a little when digital audio turned on (SPDIF)

- Manual and firmware update content lacking content (non existant)

- Support pretty good when used, took a few days to send firmware update when I emailed


On the whole though, the STB is a lot better with current firmware, a lot of my other issues have been resolved. (Come on DGTECH update website...). For $300 odd not a bad buy - not bad when local Retravision store has a closing down sale...

[/rant]

30min skip, OTR and channel nine sticking to schedule would be really good. Missed the Saturday night movies for the last couple of weeks now because of the Commonwealth Games going over time. At least it didn't take too long for the wife and I to find out that we didn't have the ending for "Dead Calm" and "Eyes Wide Shut". Can't wait for the usual stuff-around if/when "Enterprise" comes back... (Suppose that's a discussion best left for another thread...)

just with htese noisy fans..

im either deaf, or it aint working.

Is this something I should get checked out...i have noticed after the PVR has been on for hours, the top does get a little warm..

what you think?

I think just about ALL PVRs need extra height underneath to improve circulation. Wintel is a bad example of just how low they go to achieve a sexy slimline appearance. Go to Tandy, Jaycar or someone & get some extra feet to stick on (use dual sided sticky tape if necessary). There is a choice of simple rubber feet or more attractive metal appearance ones.

You can see some illustrated at
http://www1.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=HP0834&CATID

John

Wouldn't worry pies. ALL PVRs run hot - some almost too hot to keep your hand on. Just make sure you have some reasonable space around the unit (best to put it at the top of a AV stack - not the middle!)

Regards

Peter Gillespie

Just bought the DGTEC200PVR on special today for $449. Digital tuner DVD-Rs must be coming if they slash the price in half. Auto tune picks up all channels except WIN 9 Bowral. I cant tune in WIN 9 Bowral 613.50mz manually either. Rang DGTEC and they said must be firmware problem. Im a MAC person so cannot instal firmware. Think I might take it back under their 1-2-3 warranty. 1 mth return no questions asked.

Im a MAC person so cannot instal firmware. [/quote]

One of the prices Mac users have to pay. It gets worse with the 232 port not being installed in most current pc laptops. How do you ever run an upgrade? Mac users remain a minority much discriminated against.

what's a 232 port? probably a stupid question from a mac person.

a serial port

It is a 9 pin (row of 5, row of 4 below) communications link commonly used between a PC and other items like STBs, PVRs and any gear that can be upgraded with software fed from the PC. It usually requires a null modem cable for this link.

John

RS232 is so 1990's.

USB is the standard interface and IMO is all that is needed.

Do Macs have USB? Surely they could be interfaced with a starndard USB drive and hence have access to a PVR. Perhaps it's not Macs that are discriminated against - but more Apple's lack of providing compatibility with products on the market?

The mac is a month old and has 2 USB ports. When i plug it in nothing happens. When i go to connect PC nothing happens maybe it's a firmware issue. If it is just mac people being discriminated against, this goes back to the shop. There's no way i going to the dark side after 20 yrs with a mac.

Hey ted583--

I've just finished composing a long screed on how you _can_ connect a Mac to a DGTEC, so I'm a little puzzled it hasn't worked for you. Are you pressing the ENTER button again after you've highlighted "Connect to PC"? Your TV should say something like "Connected to PC. Press enter to disconnect." At that point the DGTEC80 that I bought turns up happily on my iMac's desktop. (Make sure you eject the PVR from the Mac desktop before you do hit enter again.)

If the USB cable/s total over five metres then the my Mac claims not to have enough "power" to operate the device. If that's the problem, try a shorter cable or a USB repeater ($30 at Dick Smith, but you can't daisy-chain them--one is the limit).

Now, having said all that, it seems more likely to me--with my admittedly limited experience-- that your original problem is with your antenna rather than the firmware. My DGTEC wouldn't find SBS until I typed in the frequency manually. My previous set-top box had no such trouble on the same antenna, so the DGTEC is finicky. I know you've already tried the manual frequency thing, but if you are in a position to adjust your aerial, that might be worth a shot as well.

Finally, if you are going to flash the firmware, there's one last thing you should know. (Sorry!) The DGTEC80 I bought (at Harvey Norman, about five weeks ago) already had more recent firmware than the file available at DGTEC's website. The name of the file is a date; it's worth checking you won't actually be downgrading. For the most up-to-date version, you can use the link that derwan so helpfully posted on page six of this very thread.

Good luck!

Thanks for your help Mactor!
The cable is less than a metre long and the transmitter is 1 km away line of sight - I can see it! I think it must be a firmware issue. The DGTEC fellow sent the most recent update ( 060120ABRIAN.zip(1MB) DGSD200PVR - Upgrade instructions (1).doc(20KB) ) to me this afternoon 10 min after talking to him. I'll borrow a mate's Windows PC tomorrow night and try to update the software on the PVR. I'll let you know how i go.

Just looking back over this, it might be worth mentioning that you'll need to plug the USB cable into one of the main USB ports on (the back of) your Mac; the keyboard ports don't pass enough power through to run much more than a mouse or a flash-drive.

Unless you've got a laptop, in which case all your USB ports are created equal.

Again, good luck. Let me know if you're still having trouble--there are sure to be other things we can try.

Resist the dark side!

Never go there!!

(Unless you're stuck for a firmware update)

Yeah i have a 1 month old iBook G4 and an 18mth old iMac G5. It will not read the laptop. I don't want to drag the G5 to the telly. I even tried a different cable. Will try the update tomorrow night. Will keep you posted.

Thanks again

Okay, I really am going to stop bothering you in a minute...

Did you check whether the DGTEC shows up under System Profiler? (Apple Menu/About This Mac/More Info, and then highlight USB in the leftmost column.) Can't fathom why it's not just appearing on the iBook's desktop, or in a Finder window somewhere. Weirdness.

I put up with lugging my iMac into the living room for about a fortnight, then picked up the Dick Smith cable, so I know where you're coming from.

And if it's at all encouraging, you might like to know that you paid less for your 200 gig model than I did for my 80. (Not much help if it doesn't work, of course.) :>

Cheers,

Dan

Yeah, i tried exactly that. That's why i think it must be a software (PVR) issue. Which makes me wonder if it will read the Windoze machine, or viceversa.

To quote The Princess Bride, "I am dry of notions."

In terms of "reading" each other, the DGTEC--as far as I can tell--never responds to the computer at all. When you press Enter on "Connect to PC" and it says "Connected to PC...", all it's actually saying is that the hard-drive is now mountable through the USB port. Essentially the DGTEC tells its own drive to act like any external USB drive and then gets out of your way until you press Enter again to disconnect. So don't expect any response from the PVR when you actually plug it into a computer.

As a corollary, it might be worth checking whether other USB drives (flash drives, cameras that mount their memory card, iPod shuffles or nanos, etc) show up when plugged into the iBook.

Looking forward to hearing how it all goes tomorrow.

Hey Mactor.
Fixed! New firmware did the trick. Takes 30secs to show up on the desktop. Maybe i was being too impatient. With regard to fan noise; what fan noise? I am a bit deaf though. And clocks!!! I've got a clock on the telly. A clock on the VCR and a clock on the wall which is more accurate than my watch. Who needs another clock! It gets all the channels. Records one while i watch another. In all the years i've had a VCR i've never wanted to record 2 television programs at the same time. There is so much garbage on tv anyway. The quality of the recording- picture and sound, is what matters. Anyway got to brush up on all this TS demux burning stuff. Got your info on ProjectX. Thanks for your help.

Excellent news--congrats!

Dan

I must say a thankyou to ted, and to these forums.... as i got a chance to take advantage of this absolute bargain/incorrectly advertised price aswell...

Hey all--a firmware question for the gurus.

I'm running the Jan06 firmware, and while things have been a little flakey--the famous rewind freezes--I haven't run into any insurmountable problems. But...

I read somewhere in these forums--and then couldn't for the life of me find the reference again--that SD PVRs like the DGTEC can record an HD stream even though they can't decode/display it. The theory was that you could record the HD stream, copy it to your computer and play it there... but I"m pretty sure the post wasn't about a DGTEC.

So tonight I tried to re-scan for the HD channels I'd cleared from the channel manager: nothing. I found the frequencies from my old STB, inputted them manually for the scan: nothing.

Does anyone know if the latest firmware stops the DGTEC from tuning HD channels? Or am I mistaken in thinking I had them and lost them?

And on a similar note, does anyone have contact with DGTEC about the _next_ firmware revision?

Thanks!

Hi Portaz. You got one at that price too. I wonder how many they sold before they realised. But of course we should do the honest thing and take them back and tell them they made a mistake....... I thought it was just a drop in price. The funny thing is though, in 2 or 3 years time they will be on special a Coles or Woolworths for $49. Having this thing for 6 days, I'm still trying to get my head around the record shift and recording. Why does it stop recording one file and start another after an hour? My guess is the powers that they are attempting to make it just that much more difficult for anyone who might be tempted to burn movies to DVD. Also, when you start recording a program and then start watching it 10 mins later, while it's still recording, (thanks to inconsiderate television channels overlapping programs). Why can't you catch up to where you were when you fast forward? It stops or drops out. You can only catch up so far. Although i still have my trainig wheels on, its seems to work well. colour saturation is still too bright. Very noticeable when going to a DVD after adjusting the TV. Does anyone know if this could be corrected with a future firmware upgrade. By the the way Mactor MPEG Streamclip works a treat in osX. Could be a bit time consuming though.

No Standard Definition tuner (and that is what is in your DGTEC) will display High Definition channels. The first thing to do after tuning in is to delete them. It looks like your unit is a step ahead by not tuning them in in the first place - saves you the deletion chore. Not sure why you are concerned about this.

John

Thanks for getting back, John. I know that an SD box can't _play_ HD content, but I did read somewhere on these very forums that an SD PVR can _record_ HD transmissions, just streaming them to the hard-disk. Apparently after that you can play them on your computer.

So while it's not something I'm worried about, I was planning to play around and see what HD looks like. Not something I need, just curiosity and tinkering, to see if this is true of the DGTEC

Fairly sure that when I first bought the DGTEC it tuned in HD channels--now it doesn't. I'm guessing it was indeed a 'helpful' firmware upgrade. So unless anyone can put me right, at some point I'll reflash the firmware and give this a go. Spirit of adventure!

And while I've got you all, has anyone swapped out a DGTEC hard drive? Thoughts? Warnings?

Dan

Hi Dan

With respect, I feel you are wasting effort. To successfully receive HD broadcasts you need a HD tuner designed for this purpose. HD signals are much more complex than SD (look at the problems people have had with HD PVRs) so require sophisticated hardware. So, my advice is to leave your upgraded software in place.

John