Submariner,

Dick Smith Gosford has one left today at 4.45PM. It has the Seagate drive in it.

He, he, I am now a proud owner. I double checked at DSE Ballina. Seems that the young guy I first talked to, only checked the display shelf and told me they had no stock. I talked to Gary from DSE Ballina today and at first he thought they were sold out, but then he checked the stock on the computer and found he had two of these PVRs, out the back I got to choose between a repaired unit and what looked like a brand new untouched PVR, so picked brand new. The repaired one did not have the manual, but looks to be in good condition and has all other parts. Hopefully I picked the right one, I will not know until I get home tonight. Any easy way to check the hard drive used, or do you have to pull it apart?

Thanks for the info everyone, made me check twice. Anyone who wants the other PVR at DSE Ballina, should ask for Gary.

Menu > PVR Info > HDD Info

Ok, looks like I have a Western Digital HD. Everything works except PIP. As soon as I press the PIP button, the PVR crashes (screen goes black, does not respond to remote) and I have to turn it off at the back of the unit. Firmware is version 1.04.0A, so would updating the firmware fix the PIP or should I take it back?

Good news, and slightly bad.

I was having the 30s lockup on playback problem (I have the WD hd), but since installing the latest firmware (1042A), that seems to have resolved.

I am however still having some minor issues with the sound disappearing and some jitters when you initially start playing a recording. Not a big deal, I just press the skip backwards key about 3 times and it sorts it out, but would be nice if I could get that fixed.

My next step is to try and disable the acoustic thingamagig on the HDD, I've downloaded the Hitachi Feature Tool, is that the one to use? Does it work on WD drives?

If that fails to get things working 100%, I'll probably look into a new HD, even if it's just to get a bit more space. Seems that these 2 might be ok:

Samsung SP2514N http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/15998/
Seagate ST3250820AV http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/22570/

I think I read that other peeps have used these ones effectively...any updates on whether they are still ok, or are there better, easily obtained options?

Cheers,
Jas.

/edit/ Submariner, I'm in the middle of taping Prison Break and The Unit atm, but when they're done, I'll test the PIP out on the new firmware and advise.

/edit/ PIP is working ok now I think.

You still have to press the Exit button to clear the info/playback console though.

Weird, I didn't have that problem with 0A, but did with 1A ( which was a known fault ).

Load 2A , PIP seems to work fine so far and no lockups/stutter ........................

I installed a CE version of Samsung SP2514N from my Aldi PVR. Reformatted the HDD, reset factory settings but still only have 160G of 250G HDD accessable. Recorded 60 hours before it stated HDD full - same as 160G. Thought it would be quieter, but could tell no difference.

Anyone have success going beyond 160G limit (in firmware?) with a larger HDD? Does a later firmware help this?
Using S/W Version 1.03.2A with Seagate HDD and no problems.

Plenty of these units still around Brisbane, but most stores only have display or repaired models (new HDD!). All I saw last week when I bought my unused one were Seagate HDD.

Is $29 for the extra 2 year warranty worth it? May return mine and buy it back with the warranty??

Thanks for a great forum!

ahhh....That could be a problem...I have an older 200GB samsung in my older wintal PVR; I'll give that a try and see how it comes up.

I'm thinking of putting the Seagate as per above in too.

Did you just put it in and use the PVR to reformat or did you have to put into a PC first to partition etc ????

Updated to firmware 2A and that fixed the PIP.

If I turn off Time Shift, will that fix some of the problems with having a Western Digital Hard drive? I am not worried about Time Shift and can live without it. Only thing I am worried about, are problems with timer recorded shows or any other problems with hard drive use, other than Time Shift.

Just transferred from other PVR and used DS6200 to format from its menu, then reset unit.

Crikey, Aldi has a $179 PVR special: twin tuner, 250GB, etc. What next...

More on topic, I've now been using the DSE PVR (WD drive) for a week or so with the latest 2A firmware and it has behaved flawlessly -- no audio stuttering and most importantly, no picture freezing.

Has anyone else noticed that with this firmware the recordings list now displays slower? It ripples down the screen rather than just appearing. It's not a problem, but it leads me to the theory that this firmware reads the HDD contents information (as opposed to its raw data) slower - it's just like a delay loop has been inserted in the firmware, or an existing one has been wound up.

Backing this up is that when it used to freeze with the recordings list on screen, that list would completely disappear until the freeze ended. Just like the firmware has tied itself in a knot by not being able to read the HDD table of contents. My theory is that the firmware interrogated the HDD interface too quickly and would sometimes not get an answer back fast enough - and presumably the Seagate HDD interface was a tad faster, so that was OK.

Another clue (to me) is that turning off the WD drive's Acoustic Management improved things to a degree. This could be because it made the drive access a bit quicker, which meant the firmware 'beat it' less often. The Samsung drive also helped I seem to recall, but again was not a complete cure - the old firmware was presumably a bit fast for that one too.
I'd now speculate that any brand drive should work when the latest 2A firmware is loaded.

Anyway, sorry for boring everyone with theories, but this chase for the freezing problem has been a protracted 'who-dunnit' mystery. It's satisfying when things appear to click into place.

Can anybody let me know.

If I chuck in a brand spanky new HDD straight out of it's wrapper will I have to partition the drive ( in a PC ) before I can actually reformat it or will the PVR do all the partition and format for me ????

Just that I don't actually have a desktop at home and if I have to partition and format will have to do at work !!!

Anyone put a HDD larger than 160G and got the PVR to store to greater than 160G?
I couldn't. Would love more storage.

You've already fixed all the problems related to having a WD HDD by using version 1042A, so you can turn timeshift back on.

What format does the PVR format the HDD in?

Try this: Format the HDD to the full size in a PC, create any required directories, and then put the HDD into the PVR.

I think I have found a first bug in the new 1042 firmware (bought the 6200PVR a month ago at Tandy and being my first PVR love the versatility that it gives (however staying the Inlaws at the moment and already need a third or forth tuner ,500Gb hard disk etc ...).
I have the Seagate version and loaded the latest firmware a few nights ago. I have found that when you simultaneously have
two recordings happening and you watch a third off the hard disk this happens. Pressing the large right arrow to bring up the info/status bar then pressing again to jump forward over ads ,then using the fast forward button (info bar still there) to get to the program when you "exit" out of the status bar an onscreen "This service unavailable" (from memory- it was last night)
in the middle of the screen and it stays there... Only by pressing pause twice can I eliminate it. Those with the WD drive have
you seen this too???

Is this 100% repeatable?

BTW is there is no reason for anyone with the seagate HDD to be using this firmware.

A mate of mine has installed a 400Gb ide in his no problems.The pvr reformats the new hdd .

Does the 1042 firmware fix the problem with the unit not going back into standby after a timer recording?

Many Thanks for the headsup on the 1042A firmware. The 30s freezes were really starting to annoy me

I have been using daily and weekly timers and so far it always goes back into standby with the new firmware.

When you consider I payed more for a Strong single tuner PVR, a couple of years ago, I am very happy with this purchase. I would like to see more than 10 timers, though, is it possible to get more timers with a future firmware update?

Not according to support.. I had an email from them a while ago after I requested it.



On another topic: Has anyone had problems with audio dropping out? I've got a seagate drive in mine (dunno whether that's relevant) and really old firmware (1.03.2A) and every now and again the audio from ABC just stops..

As far as I can tell (My Home theatre shows what the audio is), ABC is the only station to transmit in Dolby Digital, the others transmit PCM. When it drops out, the home theatre switches from Dolby Digital to PCM. rewinding via timeshift usually fixes it.

I have found that if I turn the pvr off at the switch and let it cool down for a bit the output seems more reliable for a while.

Apart from that, this firmware & hard-drive combination seems to be just about the best of the lot! If there was a way of extracting the firmware I would upgrade to the latest to see if that fixes it. I'm not game to upgrade without a back-up of my almost pain free firmware!

For anyone still after firmware version 1042A I have put at my page. Or use this for a direct download. I have been away for a few weeks so I haven’t even tested it yet.

The upgrade software has both upload and download buttons. Note: These are labelled from the PVR's perspective, so you use the download button to 'Download TO the PVR' (or to 'Upload FROM the PC'). Got that?

- To upgrade the firmware on the PVR press download.

- To back up the firmware to a PC press upload.

Beej, do you have it hooked up via optical? I, and I think others on this forum, had the similar issues with the optical out. Mine was connected via optical to yamaha receiver. Changing over to the rca connections pretty much fixed this (although still get occassional drop outs and short stuttering after ff or rew through a recorded show).

Ahh. good-oh, I haven't actually bothered setting up the software as yet.



Yes, I am using optical, the sound quality is much better IMHO than using RCA. To me it is worth the occasional drop-out as it only happens with Dolby Digital, which is only transmitted from ABC (as far as my home theatre is concerned anyway).

I am hoping that the new firmware may fix this problem, now that I know I can extract my old firmware out of the upgrade software, I'll be upgrading it soon.

Thanks for the help/advice.

I have no problems with the unit - but I tried two HDD using pvr to format but both still show 160G under 'Total Size' in HDD Info (Model Number shown matches new HDD installed). They record the same as a 160G = 60Hrs, not the larger capacity. Any suggestions?
Anyone got larger capacity to work (showing correct capacity & recording more than 60hrs)?
Which S/W version are you using if larger capacity is showing?
Thanks.

"Signal In" on the rear panel is the antenna conection.
"Aerial In" is of little use unless you want to combine the RF output of the PVR with the analogue antenna signal (eg if old TV has no AV-in) (S-video/RCA cables to AV-in is better):
If you install a splitter on the antenna cable, connect both antenna cables from the splitter to the PVR ("Signal In" as well as "Aerial In"). Feeding the antenna into the "Aerial In", the RF modulation of the PVR's output is added to the antenna signal. So, it produces an analogue signal from both the TV antenna and the PVR's output, but with lower quality than other PVR connections. Just tune the analogue TV to the UHF frequency of the PVR to watch the PVR as well as analogue TV.
A late reply, but I'm new to this unit and saw no reply.

kooze, did you accidentally stop playback of a program off the HDD whilst 2 recordings were going and weren't on either of the recording channels? That's the only way i can reproduce teh "service unavailable" error...

Hello

I wanted to drop in and say thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread, as it's helped me enormously in deciding to buy, then fiddling with, this DSE PVR (my first).

OK, now to share my experiences.

After checking out this thread I decided to get one at the $199 runout price. When I got to the store I was told they were sold out (not what the DSE website had said twenty minutes earlier), so I got the guy to look it up and lo - four in stock that just had to be found.

I was offered one ex-repair/return for $150. I took a punt that it would be because of the playback issues and bought it. When I connected it up I gave it a good workout of various recording/playback combinations and everything seemed to work as expected. I noted the firmware was the 1A version, the then most recent, so my suspicions about the playback issue being the cause for return were pretty much confirmed. There were a couple of recordings on the machine already, dating from early July, dating this one to just after the new hardware rev came out. Yes, it was a WD drive.

After a couple of days I found the playback pause issue, and a few stutters in the picture. So, I ordered a AV-type HDD (a 250GB WD model) as per the earlier advice. After it was ordered the latest firmware came out. Could have saved myself some money waiting I suppose, but it's a larger capacity...if it gets recognised.

HDD arrived today, so this evening I've set about upgrading the firmware and the HDD.

First up, the only PC I have with a serial port on it is an old (7yrs or so) Win98SE box. The upgrade tool linked on page 30 of this thread said it is suitable for Win98, but it would not install - it would note that certain "system files" needed upgrading, but when given the go-ahead and rebooting it would throw (non-stated) errors. The OS was borked with a few missing DLLs when it came up. (olepro32.dll; nvcpl.dll (dunno why - this one is related to the graphics driver I think?!?); and oleaut32.dll)

Looked like the DLLs were from the VB6 runtime (which I didn't have installed on this machine), so I grabbed a generic VB6 runtime installer from the Microsoft website, ran that, and rebooted and my system was back up. If anyone els is having trouble with this, grab the standard VB6 runtime here to get yourself out of trouble (run the exe to extract another exe, then run the resulting exe, then reboot): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyo...;displayLang=en

I examined the setup files in a text editor and did a bit of googling and saw it was trying to update a bundle of dlls, but the installation script was full of file version errors. So, I corrected it, only to get the same results.

I tried copying the DLLs manually (after safely renaming the originals so I had a backup), but came across a few file-in-use errors.

Much rebooting and re-running of said MS VB6 runtime later I booted into DOS, and renamed/copied the DLLs over to the WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder directly manually. System booted, install ran, bingo. About three hours wasted, but got there in the end.

Otherwise, the firmware upgrade went as per the instructions.

Upon relocating, reconnecting and firing up the PVR it seemed to have lost all the channel signals. They were all there, but noe showed a picture or sound, I just got a "Searching for Signal" message on a black screen. The green (quality?) bar was as normal (pretty good), but the red (signal strength?) bar showed zero. A channel scan came up with nothing either. Starting to panic now...

In the end I did a soft reboot and everything was back to normal. PiP test worked (no green screen lockup) and the machine reported the correct firmware version. Time for the HDD upgrade, so unplug everything again and bring it back over to the PC...

Opened up like a charm, once I'd worked out that I needed to undo all seven case screws (missed the little beggers on the back first up). Then the four HDD chassis screws. Then four more that secured the HDD to the chassis. New drive went in like a charm. Bolted it all back together, reconnected it, turned it on ... and got the same "Searching for Signal" message again. Another off/on and things are back to normal. One HDD format later and I'm looking at a screen that tells me I have 244GB or so of free space available.

With any luck, I've now got a box that'll do everything my old VCR used to do, only better, and I can't complain about the price - even if it goes pop! in a couple of years. WAF seems pretty good so far, although she's normally pretty tolerant of me playing with new things. So, thanks again everyone.

Points for persistence with all that, and along the way you seem to have answered the "does the unit recognise a larger HDD" question that has been lurking.
From your experience, and those who have had less success, it seems pretty clear that the latest firmware (1042A) is needed to support larger drives.

My only concern would be, that while it recognises it as a 244GB drive, will it allow you to record past the 160GB mark? Seem to recall someone having that issue at some point?

Excellent posting, especially from a first timer!

LOL, it would be interesting to see if a 1 Tb HDD (i'll buy only when they come down in price) would work. Me going to get a 500 Gb HDD for the pc at Xmas, so i might test it in my pvr first to see if it'll work properly and recognise the larger size drive with the old firmware...

Easy to test :ph34r: - just dual record for about 30 hours to exceed the 160Gb mark...

As an aside, it's interesting to note that this familiar-look gadget: http://www.homecast.co.kr/eng/product/digi_1_0.asp appears to support drives up to 250GB.

Good job jpb. For anyone else with this problem, I have an updated upgrade (v2.25) on my page now. It includes all the correct library files and, if desired, will run directly from its folder without setting up (no need to transfer those dlls etc. to the windows/system folder). And for those using USB-serial port converters it has added com ports 1-8.




Beej, Unfortunately the upload feature in all versions of upgrade will not backup the firmware its use is to back settings, and then, will only work on some, mostly satellite, boxes – sorry.

I've had a brand spanky Seagate 320MB drive sitting around that I haven't had time to put in yet. I still would love to know if I have to partition the drive on a PC first, but I'll get round to trying installation when I get a free moment..... ( that'll tell me )

Will let you know the outcome.

Cheers.

No need, just install the drive and the DS6200PVR will do the rest.

I had trouble with the installed 160 gb drive recently - the pvr would only show one file (an SBS recording which I believe was faulty) and even re-formatting did not help. The symptoms may have been same as the 30 second stuttering that others have reported - some buttons just operated slowly, and sometimes needed to use the rear power switch to turn it off.

Anyway, I had a new Seagate 250 Gb drive (ST3250820A) and I installed it - and now works just fine. Currently reporting 23.57 Gb used, 250Gb total, 226.42 Gb free. I've no reason yet to doubt that it will use the full 250 gigs. My hardware is 1.00, and software 1.03.2A.

I've formatted the 160 gig drive in one of my PCs and then copied 80 Gb to it without any trouble, so I don't think it was a disk fault.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the DS6200 and the new transfer software, which now works for me at 1.96 Mb/sec is quite a bit smarter than the original 1Mb/sec version.

[quote name='Big Red' date='Nov 13 2007, 06:26 PM' post='839446']
kooze, did you accidentally stop playback of a program off the HDD whilst 2 recordings were going and weren't on either of the recording channels? That's the only way i can reproduce teh "service unavailable" error...

I haven't been able to replicate the problem with the "service unavailable" error since then though I did have the program list
double up (show two entries) of the same program the other night (pressing the sort list fixed this)- a bit odd but didn't seem to affect anything.

With people having sound issues ,it is mentioned on another forum that the ST5514 chip used in this PVR can overheat - the thumb on the chip test confirmed that it does indeed run very hot. To compensate for this I have placed a Jaycar HH8580 heatsink on top to cool it (a very common problem with some DVD players is that the manufacturer specs their IC's at ambient temperature (20-25C) plus core temp and here in AUS the temp goes that extra bit further at times...).

I get this any time that I disconnect the power, or have a blackout. It took a few occurances of this happening for me to realise that all I needed to do was reboot it.



Where did you find v2.25? I have downloaded it from somewhere, and v2.20, v2.21, and v2.24, but don't know where I downloaded it from.



But that makes sense, going by most satellite software I've seen.

MIRC

After a night of insomnia I am now the proud owner of a DSE PVR6200 with 320GB Hard Drive running 1.04.2A firmware

Just installed the drive , easy peasy.

Now showing Seagate ST3320620A as it's drive with 315.73GB free .

As Techo said, no partitioning needed, the system just took the "raw" drive and formatted.

Unit is quiet ( there's no other background noise at this time of night ).

Couldn't be bothered transfering what I had on the old drive across ( son's gonna be cross in the morning ), but the transfer software appears to work fine ( note: the PVR has to be in STANDBY mode to transfer via the utility ).

Will update on any issues that I have with the new drive, but to tell you the truth I'm not expecting any

Thank for assistance all !!!!!!

( Now if only they'd give us more than 10 timers and allow us to "prename" recordings ( I've just sent an email to the support line to ask them about these 2 "deficiencies ". Suggest everybody else do the same....power in numbers )

I've finally installed the latest 2A firmware. No audio stuttering or freezing - hip hip hoorah!!!! The recordings list displays in the same time as the old firmware.

That dosent sound quite right,if you put in a 250g the total should be about 246g as you lose a couple of gig with the formatting(happens with computers aswel)

Could be something to do with the old 1.03.2A firmware, a bug, or maybe it uses more space for timeshift in that version.

I have ordereded a Western Digital 2500AVJB 250GB, these are optimised for PVRs. Hopefully make a good replacement for the original WD 1600BB, which is just a standard hard drive that makes a noise that is noticable to me.
http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/23279/

I will also grab one of those heatsinks, kooze mentioned, might as well get it ready for the summer heat.

250 - 4.27 ( system ) - 23.57 ( used space ) = 222.16 free

Sounds about right to me ( allowing for Mb and MB and Gb and GBs and........ ).

Think you might be misinterpreting the figures ( then again maybe it's me that's doing that )

Well it saddens me to say that after the firmware update, the 2nd show I recorded, "House" froze 19 mins into the show when fast forwarding. It froze permanently. I can go back and play upto 19 mins but just remains frozen after that. I get "Service is not available now". If I go back into the recordings list and try to play it again, the picture that is currently showing on live tv appears as a still shot in the playing area. Also a show I recorded b4 the f/w upd. had the stuttering. So the problem probably happens during recording and not playback???

This sounds like something unrelated to the firmware. i.e. reception issues. Did you do a factory reset and rescan the channels after the firmware upgrade?


I wouldn't expect shows recorded with the old firmware to play ok. I'd be inclined to format the HDD and start fresh.