Hi all
What method have you found to be the best for skipping the advertisments when watching a recording?? (I am justing using the fast forward x8)
Also, is it correct you cannot delete part of a recording? Thank you

IMO some suitable available drives might be Seagates SV35 series eg. ST3160812AV and Western Digitals AV series eg. WD1600AVJB with WD probably the best.

The seagte SV35 series drives are not readily available in Australia yet...
(sorry my mistake the SV35 series drives are available.. but no the right drive for the job..)

The Seagate drive you want is the DB35 series drive (not available yet)

The WD ones are but no-one has them in stock..

The samsung while much better than the supplied WD drives still has the odd freeze during playback

I use the arrow buttons (i.e. left and right) to skip - a couple of presses of those (four on average I think, first one brings up the position indicator thing, then the next three to skip) then fast forward the last bit. the trick is knowing how many times to skip before the program starts again. Most of the time I skip one too far, then back one then fast forward. I should probably go one over, then rewind a bit..

If anyone wants to pursue the Seagate HDD path, try this search link:
http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search...?q=seagate+sv35
Quite a few of the stores seem to have them in stock.

EDIT:
But as Motoman points out the SV35 aren't ideal (intended for surveillance storage) and the DB35 ones (intended for DVR use) theoretically are.
Nevertheless, the StaticIce search engine is worth trying whenever have to chase a computer gadget/part.

According to techo a desirable drive should have a low power consumption (<10W). The Samsung one fills the bill, but there's still some playback freezing?
I then wonder what else is required of a drive. The AV/CE drive variants seem to offer high reliability (time btw failures), quiet operation, low power modes (spin-down, etc) and reasonably low power consumption. The only thing that seems significant here is the power/current consumption, but the Samsung is OK in this regard....

I got one of these a couple of weeks ago and think its great. Only problem is with SBS as the tuners don't seem as sensitive as my old Digicrystal single tuner PVR or Hotchip HD box - both of these get SBS when swapped onto the lead going into the DSE but the DSE can't lock onto the channel.

Just a heads up there is still 2 Seagate equiped units at the Winston Hills DSE in the shopping centre.

Tomorrow is my last (14th) day in which I can take the unit back and get my money without hassles.
Mine has a WD drive in it and although I haven't seen any glitches so far I'm scared it will start doing it one of these days and I will be stuck with it.

Question:
Does the stuttering happen only at play time or does it stuff up at recording time too? In other words, if I'm recording a show, is there a possibilty that I will miss out on up to 30 seconds due to the stuttering.

I have turned off the Timeshift feature since I have no need for it and I will try to keep the free space at over 50%. Will that be enough?

My wife is happy so far with it, but if it started chopping bits of her shows, then I will certainly have a problem in my hands.

Any suggestions welcome and appreciated.

Whilst their are no absolutes in digital processing, for the most part I believe the freezing and stuttering issue can be cured with a more suitable HDD, having said that it occurs during (longish) playback from the HDD. I have already given my opinion of the best available replacements, of those, I favor the WD AV series, power requirements are a little better than the Seagate SV35 series (still not as good as Seagates DV series). But what really makes it better is the WD AV series have AV error correcting algorithms. I loath advertising in this forum but ScorpionTechnology have assure me they can supply both these, with notice. The DS6200PVR uses an efficient file system called HCFS (homecast fat) and with drives from 160gig @$85 to 400gig@$149, if it becomes a problem I’d just whip out the old WD 1600BB, stick it in a PC or sell it, and replace it with an SV35 or WD AV.

Happy to say the recordings are fine. They're completely intact when you download them to a PC, which implies it's a machine playback-only problem. You'll always get a very short bit of audio stuttering when the PVR goes back to normal play speed, which I don't find a problem. The freezing on the other hand can be annoying.

Has anyone tried the Seagate SV35 drive? Be great if we had a solid confirmation that it sorts out the freezing.

On the occasions when I have been recording at the same time as playing something, the recordings HAVE been affected by the 30-second freezing events. The recorded show has a corresponding 30-second frozen period, which leaves 30-seconds of your program missing. To me, this is a big problem.

My 14-day no-questions return period ends Saturday, and at this stage I will be taking mine back. Probably will invest in a Topfield instead.

BTW, I think the "stuttering" problem people have mentioned is something different again from the 30-second freezing problem (?).

I haven't noticed that in the recordings I have transferred to PCs, none have recorded, glitches, frozen periods, stuttering or have missing frames.

Whilst I like my TF5000PVRT, its not perfect ether and in some ways these are better IMO.

I don't agree both phenomena disappeared when I installed the CE drives in my DS6200PVR. I have kept the Seagate ST3120025ACE in the unit and continue to record and playback almost 24/7. I have not seen any problems yet. When I get the opportunity I will check the current flow with my cro, but I doubt if it really matters now because, as one of my favorite shows say, Its Busted.

I noticed today that a recording had a missing segment that would likely have co-incided with 'the freeze'. It was seamless (no pixelation or sound problems) but a brief part of the program was definitely missing - it jumped from mid-conversation to one of the actors walking out a door.

With a 55% full HDD, I also have started to have freezing as rapidly as 2 minutes into a playback. Really annoying.

Anyway, this afternoon I was in the Tandy where I bought the pvr and had a look at the display unit on the shelf. It was a Seagate so I've since swapped my WD-equipped model for it. And like everyone else with the Seagate, no glitches so far.

With timed recordings has anybody noticed that more often than not the descriptions automatically assigned have nothing to do with the show ?

I think you can blame that on the TV stations rather than the PVR..

Does this PVR do slow motion playback ?

Just picked one of these up from Tandy, $175 ex-display, 12 month warranty, Seagate HDD. Great unit, having a play with it at the moment. It was nice to replay Buddy Franklins winning goal in the Hawks V Crows game, over & over... & over.

Zubrick,

Yes, it does half and quarter speed, of course there is no sound.

Dont think so.

Wintal and Digicrystal PVRs dont have the problem.

I see whats happening now. To allow for TV station stuff ups I always start my recordings one or two minute before the scheduled time, the DSE unit appears to take the name of the program it starts to record even if its just recorded a minute off the end of it.

The Wintal/Digicrystal uses the name of the program making up the majority of the program which makes much more sense.

On that note, quite often I end up with programs that have no program title at all, apart from the station name. I thought that was because the recording started during the ads between the end of the last program and the beginning of the program I want to record. I think it mostly happens with channel 10, but could be wrong ( I often am!).

Thanks for the replies to my previous post #429 asking about editing. Reason for query is I figured that if i could work over my previously recorded video to program DS6200 to skip ads, then i could just buy a cheap dvd recorder without hdd, and play the recordings via composite straight from PVR into DVD-Rec and ads would be "skipped" over. Brilliant. But alas. Not to be it seems. Most interesting were aidan's post #373 and subsequent attempts (scottv and alexMJ and wineds efforts - albeit unsuccessful) to get the Homecast german firmware installed and working.

If you look at the DS6200PVR User Manual (and compare it to aidan's post #373 above) it is clear that the DSE unit is indeed a hair's breadth from "Nirvana". To wit:

Page 31....
QUOTE
5.2.5 Set repeat
You can set the block to repeat, copy and cut * the recorded file on the PVR Banner. [*emphasis added]
1. Play a recorder file.
2. Select the control position at the favoured starting position using the </> button.
3. Press the A-B button to set the starting point and then move to the ending point using the </> button.
4. Press the A-B button again at the ending point.
5. Press the A-B button again to remove setting block.
UNQUOTE

Yet frustratingly, the DS6200 does not have the follow-on steps that would actually enable one to copy and cut (those extra steps were as quoted in aidan's post #373).

Any other ideas to tweak this unit to skip the ads? I guess the final answer is to get a DVD recorder with hard disk and basic editing capabilities, or just go from USB to PC and edit and burn there. BTW isn't that null-modem cable (for firmware transfer via RS-232) the same one that is gathering cobwebs in my spares box that got so much use in the early 1990s when we hooked our 486's up to play DOOM in tandem?

Thanks for that.
I have two other questions as well. Is it possible to "top and tail' recordings? It appears from the thread this is not possible.
And secondly is the manual availible on line, as then I could do my own research and stop relying on others for the info.
Cheers.

I bought one of these about two weeks after getting annoyed at missing the start of any show at 730 becuase it took me longer to get the kids to bed than I thought. I lucked in and got a Seagate HDD and it hasn't missed a beat (well that wasn't caused by this side of the remote). It is a great little unit and would recommend it to anyone (as long as you get the right drive) looking for a budget PVR.

Apart from renaming, no file editing as far as I know. I'm not aware of a DS6200PVR downloadable manual but the Homecast T8000PVR has similar functionality and same plugging.

I don't know whether anyone else has found this to happen or not but...

I recently connected the audio using the optical connection (was using RCA) and it seems that I no longer get any stuttering after full forwarding or skipping through the ads

I've only been running it like that the last day or so, but so far it seems to all be working spot on.

On the down side, the audio has dropped out a couple of times when using optical, which required me unplugging the optical cable and then plugging it back in. Kinda odd..

I found that when I had optical digital connected, I was forever losing sound on playback after timeslip. Haven't had a problem since going back to RCAs.

I've found this doesn't like the remote for my XMS DVD player as some of the codes must overlap. When I powered the DVD player on with the remote last night I noticed that the LED on the front of the PVR blinked and sure enough the program that was recording stuffed up!

I had similar trouble with my old Toshiba TV and the MTV stb from Coles.....very annoying

Thankfully the DSE box doesn't interact with my Bravia LCD. I actually have a DSE HD box (DTR8000) which I thought may have reacted to the 6200 remote but no dramas.

At the risk of too much DSE promotion, I bought a DSE buffered/powered USB 5m extender thingo recently and it works fine. Doesn't actually look like this but it's the same thing.

Still the same plodding 1.95mbs PVR to PC download speed, but at least it didn't make it any slower - and no more carting the laptop around.

Or this one shipped free from Hong Kong...

USB Cable via RJ45 Extender Set (Power Boost Up to 150 feet)
$19.34 free shipping
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.6640

That is USD$19.34 and not AUD$ I have used these people and are very good. Had a faulty item sent or I should say it blew up due to it not being switched over to our voltage and they have sent a replacement and also mentioned not to bother sending the other one back.

I have had this happen a couple of times now, but only with ABC. Unfortunately for me, I watch a lot of ABC

I think it's time I got on the blower to 'Digital Product Group' (what a hopeless website they have..)

Ok, I've found another bug, hopefully its just a firmware issue.

While timeslipping, the green progress bar showing playback position in relation to the recording (red bar) never changes.

The green bar is always about 90% of the length of the red bar.

Just picke up one of these at the giveaway price of $199.00. I was lucky enogh to find a Seagate model which so far has preformed perfectly.
Does anyone know where the 1.04 firmware can be obtained from and if it is worthwhile upgrading? Or am I better off following the old motto of if its not broken etc etc.

Ooops .. pushed wrong button .. double post.

Zubrick,

Forum member Whatgift post#403 had the 104 firmware up on his web page but he the link is dead as he said he was changing ISP.

Rapidshare link here.

I have not upgraded as my unit is working well.

Other members may have and can comment.

I upgraded before I even used the unit so don't know what changes if any were included. 1.04 works fine for me.

This is my motto; I didn't bother trying to upgrade and have no problems to date.

Zubrick, which Tandy store did you get your pvr from? I'll be hunting for one of these pvrs at 2 or 3 stores locally as i can finally leave the wife at home for late nite shopping tonite. I'd especially like to grab one of these as the WAF* is extremely low at the moment with my current stb/dvd & vcr/tv setup. All the hassle of finding room on a tape, recording the right program, worrying about the stb freezing up, dodgy vcr quality playback, etc should be a thing of the past with this.


*WAF - Wife Acceptance Factor. My wife can't work out what buttons to press on the remote after playing a dvd to get back to the stb output even though i've tried explaining it 15,358 times D:

Thanks for all the replies. Think I may download software but wait until I have a problem before upgrading.

BigRed, I bought mine at Robina on the Gold Coast. It was the last one in the shop. Tandy at Elanora had 4 but they all appear to have WD drives. Ring up a Tandy near you and ask if they have one in stock (the code number is G2083). They can also look up the code and tell you which other Tandy stores have stock. Unfortunatly there is no way of knowing which ones have Seagate drives other than looking. Some Dick Smith stores have them at $299.00 . Someone said they would price match Tandy however the Dick Smith at Tweed Heads woudnt do it for me. You may be more persuasive than me. Good luck.

Dont worry about the wife. Remember you are the Prime Minister in the house and she is only the leader of the opposition.

Well, I finally got a USB cable and installed the German software (HC xDrive USB transfer software) and downloaded a few files from PVR to laptop. Used ProjectX (already compiled version) to demux into separate video and sound files, then used that MPEG2Schnitt for cutting the ads. Then into IfoEdit to remux (as I recall). Then I should have tried DVDShrink to burn, but just opted for Nero Recode (will try DVD Shrink later). Both movies came out great guns. Spouse is happy.

So now I have got over the silly remorse of not having editing on the PVR, and am more than happy with the USB downloading facility. Recently scabbed a Celeron 1.1 gig PC with DVD burner off the verge ("throw out your dead"). Hoping I can run a scaled down version of XP (lite?) with above freeware to download and burn. Keep it next to TV. Maybe that is too hopeful, but I'll give it a try.

Oh yeah, I also ran a movie through AutoGK (after the above frigmarole) to fit it onto a CD. Worked fine. Feeling really happy about this PVR purchase..

Could someone with more knowledge than moi please answer this question.....Would it be fair to say that if you sent a movie from the DS6200PVR to a standalone DVD recorder via composite cable (yellow, red and white), then burnt it to disk, that you are effectively going from DIGITAL to ANALOGUE then back to DIGITAL ? With ensuing quality loss?

And if you bought a DVD Recorder with its own SD or HD receiver, (and hard drive of course), then (you would not need the DS6200 STB/PVR and) it would be digital to digital, right? Posible way to go for me in the future.

Thank you for this forum and thread. This is probably my final post.

Went to the Tandy at Carindale tonite which had one on display for $199, unlike the Brisbane city store and saw it had the Seagate drive. The kid behind the counter said they had a couple out back. I pulled the pvr out of the box before buying and it too had a Seagate drive. So i am now the proud owner of DS6200 pvr!

I've only tried it out on an old 51cm panasonic tv after the wife went to bed, but i'm gobsmacked about how simple this thing is to tune, use and record programs compared to the dodgy legend stb & dvd/vcr setup that's attached to my 76cm panasonic at present. LOL, the legend stb will be going to the M-I-L as her xmas present this year and good riddance i say...

You should be able to cut out the MPEG2Schnitt step as ProjectX can do the cuts for you.

The three tabs at the bottom are labelled "File Table", "Cut Control" and "Filter Control". File table is where you select files to input. Cut control lets you cut bits out of your stream.

It takes a little getting used to, but basically you put in cut points with the green "+" and remove them with the red "-". As far as I can tell it removes them in the same order it puts them in.

The bar under the preview picture shows which sections are "in" (green) and "out" (red). It will cut from the beginning to your first cut point, and then include the rest until your next cut point (or the end of the file) and then start cutting from the next cut point etc. So to remove an ad break you have to insert a cut point at the beginning and end of the break. It seems to remember cut points even if you load a new file, so you might need to remove the old ones before you start again.

If you do get confused with the cut points just remove them all and start again (that is what I do!).

I want to split one large file into a number of smaller files and at the moment I do it manually, cut out the section I want and do "quick start", the copy out the demuxed files, remove the cut points and start again on another section. This is slower than processing them all at once because but I don't know how to get it to make each cut bit a separate file.

I got mine two weeks ago and I am pretty happy with it except for subtitles which don't stay on during a recording...., most of the time I don't need it but when I am watching shows like "prisonbreak" or "24" where the actors whisper or mumble in dark most of the time I need it due to my hearing loss. I have tried a few different ways but can't get the subtitles to appear or stay on once it start recording a show. Has anyone found a way around this or is there some kind of software upgrade to fix this annoying problem?

Good question.

I'll give it a try on my unit and see if it does this to me.

If so I might bite the bullet and do the firmware upgrade which also hopefully fixes the progress bar problem.

Some weeks back I RA’d the WD drive from one of these units (don’t ask why).
The replacement drive arrived about 14 days ago. The drive had the same model number as the old drive but was all black, whilst the originals lid was polished metal. I didn’t think much of it at the time but also noticed slight differences in its physical structure.
I fitted it to the DS6200PVR in question and proceeded with an extensive testing program. The PVR has been 100% reliable, no freezing, stuttering or glitches of any kind. The RA cost postage to Singapore ($24), it seems to me it could be an acceptable fix for anyone that is being bothered by the WD version.

Isn't it only the supplier that has RA (Return Authority)? If I pull the Western Digital HDD out of my sister's unit and post it off to Singapore, even with explanation, won't they just refuse to deal with me and claim that I've voided any warrranty by opening up the pvr?

Since the WD 1600BB is a standard PC hdd, end users have standard PC hdd warranty claims, in this case 3yrs. My claim was based on hdd failure, not related to the issues specific to this PVR, WD is not concerned in what device the hdd is installed. Once your have a valid RA number WD will not refuse your claim so long as the drive is in the state you claim and they receive it packed as they stipulate.

How this affects your relationship with your retailer or DSE is not really my concern. Further since my claim had no administrative issues i.e. drive in correct region and well within the 3yr warranty period. Indicates these drive were fitted here, I suspect Topfield Australia’s contribution.


Using the serial number of your hdd you can check its warranty status HERE

Thanks for the update Techo.

It may be a stretch, but the fact that the replacement drive is physically different makes me wonder if WD has revised this model. The WD website now shows the 160GB drive as WD1600AABB rather than WD1600BB as it did when I last looked.

The other capacities in the range still have just the BB suffix, but the 160GB model has mysteriously changed to AABB.

I wonder if WD done an upgrade because it had strife with it? And extrapolating on that, the updated one could be problem-free in the DSE PVR as techo has found. Cheap fix, if it works…

I posed that question some time ago and the bad news is that it doesn't record subtitles. Latest firmware update won't help either I am afraid. We can only hope they fix this in a future release (but I am not confident!)

Has anyone found a way to copy DVDs to the hard disk? I would like to copy my wife's exercise DVD to the hard disk but havent been able to find a way as yet.