My system suffered through the slodown, no Guide sicness today. unplugged it, replugged, eliminated the scheduled recordings, reset the time and then the timers and it is working again. sure wish i knew what causes this. 4th time for me since 4 of '04.

Originally posted by wookatok
Is it possible to connect two LS-3410As via firewire and copy material from one hard drive to the other?

-James

I've tried this with no success. I have three 3410's and would love the ability to do this. I'm hoping you can, maybe my firewire cable is bad. However, I doubt it. Something like unsupported 1394 device pops up when you try, I forget the exact message. It doesn't make much sense that a 3410 is not recognized by another 3410.

-Derek

Originally posted by Bill Shenefelt
Go to
http://www.etech4sale.com/storage/partinfo-id-117479.html
The drive is the same as the QV. I got one of these and a QV from buy.com and they are both marked QV. MAxitor rep also confirmed theyare the same drive. Just set it up as a master and you are in business.

I discussed this alternative with Maxtor's technical support today. I was informed that the only difference between this and the QuickView 300GB drive is that "rewrite" function is turned off on the QV drive so as not to interfere with the ability of the drive to "keep up" as it were with the bit stream as it comes in real time, rather than trying to rewrite any errors in the data as it is acquired.

So, I reluctantly decided not to bite on this or the 320GB similar model and to hold out for another week or two waiting for my PC Connection backorder to arrive.

Does anyone know if the stock hdd has a "re-write" function and know if it is on or off?

The 3410a can only do one thing at a time with it's hdd: record or playback.

My 6412 w/maxtor 120( can't tell if it's QV or not) can record 2 HD programs while playing back a 3rd HD program.

It would seem to me (I'm not a doctor or an engineer) the QV's were not designed particularily for the 3410a and handling only one function re-writing errors with a non-QV should be simple.

I re-state, I'm not an EE only a casual observer and probably wrong.

The QV line was designed for PVR's. I believe tmitchmd hit on the reason why we should all buy QV's. When trying to capture a long, continuous stream it is probably better to have a few errors get through than stop, cache, replace and continue. They must have done some tests to determine a need for this so I'm going to wait until i find one. My 3410A has been acting up lately. It lis having trouble locking and the hard drive delivers glitches when playing back. These are not unlike the problems I saw in earlier units due to heating. Mine is in the same place it has always been. It really is sad that these bugs were not worked out before bringing this thing to market. My RCA DTC100 requires a reboot about 3 to 4 times a year but otherwise delivers perfect HD from the same antenna system.

Lewlew, what is a 6412?

Originally posted by tmitchmd
So, I reluctantly decided not to bite on this or the 320GB similar model and to hold out for another week or two waiting for my PC Connection backorder to arrive.

tmitchmd,

I checked with the customer service rep at PC Connection yesterday and she said they are expecting their shipment "Friday or early next week," and for my area they have to turn around and ship them out. For most other areas they apparently are dropshipped from their supplier, so if you are in one of those areas there is a chance you will get yours earlier.

Does the "md" at the end of your handle denote a degree?

Originally posted by lewlew
The 3410a can only do one thing at a time with it's hdd: record or playback.


The 3410 can record a show to disk while you watch it from the start or somewhere in the middle. I think it is more of a programming issue with the 3410, that we cannot watch a different show while it records a new show. I think the hard drive can handle it but it was not programmed to work that way.

I also have the 300Gb maxtor QV installed and it works great.

Mike

Originally posted by MrHifi
My system suffered through the slodown, no Guide sicness today. unplugged it, replugged, eliminated the scheduled recordings, reset the time and then the timers and it is working again. sure wish i knew what causes this. 4th time for me since 4 of '04. Mine too. Must have been something in the Gemstar download that spawned this.

BTW, 6412 is a Motorola 6412 DVR used by most cable companies (including mine, Mediacom). Mine does not have the Dual tuner update, but you can indeed watch programs from the hard drive during recordings.

Originally posted by wilsonsoohoo


Does the "md" at the end of your handle denote a degree?

As in a "degree of insanity?":confused:

I guess what I was trying to get across was with the relatively small amount of work the hdd has to do on the 3410a compared to the 6412 the "rewrite on'" or "rewrite off" shouldn't be a big deal.

There is no question that the operation of the 6412 playback controls are slowed while recording 2 other shows at the same time.

I'm using the non-QV version of the Maxtor 300GB drive in my 3410a. I hear some seek noise from the drive, but it performs fine otherwise.

Maxtor released a program called "AMSET" which was used to quiet some of its HDD's, (consequently increasing the seek time as well). The program has been withdrawn, but seems to be available here (http://www.hcyz.cn/DownLoad/maxtor/quiet/).

Does anyone have any experience with this program on a Maxtor drive with the 3410a? Alternatively, is there a utility that can be used to turn off the re-write function on Maxtor drives?

OK Everyone,

I just spoke to Maxtor and an executive at PC Connection. The Maxtor Technical guy claimed that they were in stock at several places. I called these places. All said they had not seen any of these since their last shipment in December. One had posted Discontinued signs at their Web page.

The PC connection folks called several suppliers, and Maxtor. The drive is an "end of life" product " because Maxtor is unable to get parts from their suppliers and apparently are discontinuing the 300GB drive. I am not sure about any of the other QV drives. PC connection does not expect any more of these to arrive. Their last delivery was in December also. They told me that they are discontinuing sales.

They also offered to look for a substitute drive but at this time could not recommend one. That is it AFAIC. Belive me about what I just wrote. I spent over 2 hours talking to various people and received the same answer from all. End of Life Product, None available now or in the future.

Art,

FWIW, here's the latest datasheet on the Maxtor Web site:

http://maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/data_sheets/quickview_data_sheet.pdf

The model numbers are different now. The 300 GB is 6L300S0. Also note the absence of the QV at the end.

With such a huge market, I can't believe Maxtor will just quit making CE drives. Perhaps a new model is in the works. But the datsheet seems very preliminary and has almost no real info or specs.

Also note the wild claim of 54 hours of HD on the 300 GB drive. ?!?!?!? The earlier datasheet for my drive claimed 40 hours, which matches real world experience..

An Internet search comes up with only a few foreign sites listing this drive. They seem to show this as a D.MAX 7200 RPM drive.

All this seems to confuse more than clarify.

Philly,

like you, I find it incredible that Maxtor would stop shipping a hard drive that is still in great demand. The folks i taked to had waiting orders for between 4 and 32 customers. That is a lot of units. Perhaps the answer to why they are changing models and apparently reconfiguring the drive lies in the last line of the highlights at the URL you suggested. The line reads that the new drive is R0HS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliant. Perhaps the original QV drive was built with some bad **** in it like mercury. i know it isn't mercury but there must have been something that prevented distribution into this country. I wonder if it will swap out without any problem? Anyway, the saga goes on. I'm pretty pissed with mine. It gas been going down regularly and reception is very touchy. 2 other tuners on the same TV line work perfectly. There must be a reason we have not seen more of these products from LG and other manufacturers. there appears to exist a pent up demand that is not being met. Guess they're gun shy after this experience. Can you imagine buying the LG Plasma set with the PVR built in. What a nightmare that must be.

Originally posted by MrHifi
My system suffered through the slodown, no Guide sicness today. unplugged it, replugged, eliminated the scheduled recordings, reset the time and then the timers and it is working again. sure wish i knew what causes this. 4th time for me since 4 of '04.

This has been a regular occurance for me for the last month or so. I can't the thing to download guide consistently and NOT lockup (no guide, etc.). I'm still convinced it's the EPG data, I just wish someone understood the problem better. I'm resorting to the VCR+ "manual record" method without guide data.

This problem has struck my 3410A only twice, but both times it was because my electrical power went out for 5 to 20 minutes -- I live in a rural area that is prone to occasional power outtages, particularly during wind storms. When the power comes back on, the clock time is behind by the amount that the unit was without power and will not reset itself, so I had to go though the same routine you described to reset the clock and get the unit back in operation. It takes a full week of refreshing for the guide to be complete again. I now have the unit plugged into an inexpensive computer UPS and it has worked just fine ever since.

This is worth exploring. These partial lockups could be caused by very brief power interruptions that go unnoticed in our households because they don't affect other equipment.

FWIW,

I received a call from a dealer that Maxtor suggested calling. He offered it to me for $279.00+S&H. No way!!!!!!!!!! I may not like the indequate storage space on the LG, but not enough to get ripped off. I'm not mentioning the name here because I do not want anyone purchasing the HD at that price and therefore encouraging others to increase the price. Maxtor said andd these people reiterated the fact that they enjoy a "specially close relationship" with each other. Wonder when another company will have one available?

Originally posted by UncD2000
This is worth exploring. These partial lockups could be caused by very brief power interruptions that go unnoticed in our households because they don't affect other equipment. I have my unit on a UPS...hasn't helped.

Okay, so is there any reason we can't used 7200 rpm drives if we install fans like earlier in the thread?

I'm not sure why but the fact that all of these STB/PVR boxes use the Maxtor QV drive, makes me want to install the same thing. This thing has enough bugs.

Originally posted by Stanton
This has been a regular occurance for me for the last month or so. I can't the thing to download guide consistently and NOT lockup (no guide, etc.). I'm still convinced it's the EPG data, I just wish someone understood the problem better. I'm resorting to the VCR+ "manual record" method without guide data.

For me the problem seems to occur when I've got something I want to record in a few days and then the Guide changes. It sometimes seems to be related to Sweeps. For example, if you're going to record Arrested Development and Fox replaces it with a 24 re-run. You look at the Guide and it looks fine, but somehow some internal data has become corrupted.

i gave up trying to plan ahead and now schedule recordings the day of recording. The exception has been Sunay Morning on CBS. It records perfectly every week.

As of this morning I have both my units plugged into an outlet strip which I can reach without getting up. I've found that a very brief unplug will undo these lockups without changing the clock setting or losing any guide data. This will be easy now.

Originally posted by wilsonsoohoo
Okay, so is there any reason we can't used 7200 rpm drives if we install fans like earlier in the thread? A friend of mine has a 7200 RPM 400 GB (Seagate I believe) working fine almost 2 months now (no fan). YMMV

Does anyone know what the asterisk button (or the star looking button) do on the LG remote??

Which LG remote has this button? Can't find it on mine.

I've a 250GB Maxtor 7200 RPM drive in my computer and I am rather surprised at how much hotter it gets than my 160GB Seagate drive. I've no idea if this is just how this individual drive behaves, is because it is Maxtor instead of Seagate, or even if there is better air flow around the cooler drive. I don't like it getting so hot, so I'm ordering a HDD cooler. I would be rather concerned about heat build up if this drive were in my 3410A.

Originally posted by UncD2000
Which LG remote has this button? Can't find it on mine.

My Zenith HD-420

My LG LST-4200

Just looked at the 3410 remote and it does not have it...
assumed it did sorry....

So this morning, after a move to a new house, I unpack my 3410a and hook it up. I turn the unit on with the remote and start the EZ Scan. About a third of the way through, my unit goes dead. I tried turning it on with the remote and with the power button on the unit and nothing happens. Tried unplugging it and then plugging it in and still nothing. My 3410 is plugged into the same surge suppressor that my TV is plugged into and the TV works so I know lack of electricity isn't the problem. Any ideas on what happened? I hate to see what LG is going to charge me to fix it, the warranty ended a long time ago.

Do you see any lights at all inside it when it is plugged in? If not, then you're power supply is probably dead. A wire may have come loose during moving it, and it could be an easy fix. However, I'd probably bite the bullet and send it in for repairs. Or look for a used unit somewhere.

Nope, no lights at all. You're probably right about the power supply. I was just hoping it might be problem I could fix myself.

It might have a loose fuse. I would open it up and check.

I would try a different outlet if this is a new house.

It would indeed seem that the 5400rpm QV drives have been discontinued and are being replaced by a 7200rpm model.

As Art has pointed out, virtually every Internet seller is out of stock on the 5400s and more will not be forthcoming.

Although the 7200rpm drive may be just fine in the 3410a, I really don't want to be the first guinea pig as it were.

So I have decided to bite the bullet and pay the inflated price from the last known stocker of this drive.

Others may wish to pay less for the new 7200rpm QV model and then inform the rest of us here how it works out...

I have been paitently waiting for the Sony units to come out, but don't know if that will ever happen. One thing I am unclear on about the LG, and I don't have time to wade through all of the posts. I know this unit will not allow play of one channel while recording another. As my TV has a built in HD tuner this is not an issue. What I want to know is: can you start watching a program that has already been recording for a while and play catch up to the live recording. This would seem essential, but I haven't been able to confirm that this unit does this. Lew

Originally posted by tmitchmd
I really don't want to be the first guinea pig as it were.

Many people including myself have upgraded with 7200 RPM drives, so you wouldn't be the first.

My 3410a has been running w/o any problems on a 300 Gig, 7200 RPM, 16 Meg cache Maxtor.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=316141&pfp=BROWSE

Lew,
I too have been waiting and waiting for the Sony HD DVRs to come out. I'm interested to see if they can build upon many of the shortcomings of the LG, especially since it will have dual tuners and also use TV Guide On Screen. As far as your question goes, no, the LG will not allow you to start watching a program that has been recording and play catch up. It's another one of the perplexing features missing from the LG. You're right in it not allowing simultaneous viewing of one channel and recording of another, and it also will not playback a previously recorded program while you record something new. All features I sorely miss.

Dep, I work in the industry and have had a Sony on order for myself for quite a while. My buyer told me this week that our rep suggested purging our order until further notice as he wasn't sure if or when it would arrive. In the meantime it has appeared on Sonystyle with a release date of 5-21-05. I have a call in to our Sony rep, but he is currently on vacation.

If I get any solid news I will try to remember to let you know. If you want to email me:lblack@listenup.com I can put you in my address book.

I cannot understand the stupidity of the LG design. At the very least most of us need to be able to start watching a show that is already recording. That is a huge appeal to me. We have a ReplayTV that lets us do that and I never have to worry about being there for kickoff of a Bronco game or the start of one of our favorite shows. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Lew Black

Originally posted by Lew Black
What I want to know is: can you start watching a program that has already been recording for a while and play catch up to the live recording. This would seem essential, but I haven't been able to confirm that this unit does this. Lew
The answer is YES if you use the "Timeshift" button. You didn't specify if you wanted "unattended" recording, so the previous answer may not have been complete.

With the timeshift you can not only pause and go forward or back up (to any earlier time) but you can SAVE the time shifted recording if you want. A lot better than the Toshiba Symbio whickh is a real pain in the A**.
WONDRERFUL machine!

AFAIK, the timeshift button only allows you to save the last half hour of timeshifted programs. Is there a way to save the timeshifted programs for a longer period?

dep3523,

The Sony does NOT have dual tuners. It also lacks firewire.

It can, however, play back a previously recorded program while recording a current program. And I'd bet that the FF, REW, etc. will be much smoother than the LG. Heck, even the Comcast HD box is smoother. 500 GB is also a huge plus.

The manual is on the sonystyle.com Web site.

Thank goodness for my LG, but it was a forced choice since it was the only box available that could do what I needed.

Originally posted by stjr
AFAIK, the timeshift button only allows you to save the last half hour of timeshifted programs. Is there a way to save the timeshifted programs for a longer period?


Yes, I do it all the time. Hit the timeshift button and then hit the rec button and it will save all or just the parts you want to disk. It will fill your HD if you want. I have a 300GB HD in my unit and I have saved many hours to disk that way.

Mike

Well, my 300GB QV drive arrived today. Has anyone attempted to copy the data from the old drive to the new drive? I do remember about a 100 pages back someone put the 3410A drive in their computer and it recognized the drive and file system but couldn't do anything with the file(s). I was thinking about sticking the drives in a PC and seeing if the Ghost (http://www.binaryresearch.net/symantecghost.html) software package could clone the old drive image onto the new drive. Anyone try this or some other technique?

Well, my account rep at PC Connection finally acknowledged what Art posted earlier, that there are no more Maxtor QV drives available through them, and cancelled my order.

I'm gonna try the 400 gb 7200 Seagate. I might put a $12 HDD cooler on it, but I might try it without one, too.

It's so dangerous to have a CompUSA one block from where I work and right on the way home . . .

Originally posted by mdputnam
Well, my 300GB QV drive arrived today. Has anyone attempted to copy the data from the old drive to the new drive? I do remember about a 100 pages back someone put the 3410A drive in their computer and it recognized the drive and file system but couldn't do anything with the file(s). I was thinking about sticking the drives in a PC and seeing if the Ghost (http://www.binaryresearch.net/symantecghost.html) software package could clone the old drive image onto the new drive. Anyone try this or some other technique?

My drive still hasn't arrived.:(

You can of course archive any content you wish to save off your old drive simply by offloading it to D-VHS...

Originally posted by umr
...I tried a larger high speed drive and had tons of problems....
umr,

Which 7200 rpm drive did you try that did not work?

It has been a while but I think it was a maxtor.

Originally posted by wilsonsoohoo
Well, my account rep at PC Connection finally acknowledged what Art posted earlier, that there are no more Maxtor QV drives available through them, and cancelled my order.

I'm gonna try the 400 gb 7200 Seagate. I might put a $12 HDD cooler on it, but I might try it without one, too.

It's so dangerous to have a CompUSA one block from where I work and right on the way home . . .

Well, the wierdest thing happened. I was researching for the best place to get a 400 gb Seagate drive and I went to a web site that days ago had recommended the 400 GB Seagate because they were out of the 300 GB QV. Well, they now list the 300 GB QV as in stock at $279, so I suspect it may be the same outfit Art had talked to earlier. So I called them to make sure they REALLY were in stock and ordered a couple. I think I'm still going to put a HDD cooler on it, though. The going rate for a Seagate was $317, so I don't think I was getting ripped off too much.

Is there any reason the 120 GB drives currently in my 3410a's can't be put in a computer?

The outfit that quoted me the $279.00 price is Weaknees.com. At $279.00 the drive is a rip off unless you do not care to be made a fool of. I'd rather go without frankly. I did not post the place because if we allow them to charge outrageous prices, they will get away with it. Yo realize these Internet sites are home businesses that have the equipment drop shipped from a distributor. Try to get any service out of any of these guys.

You can hang a hard drive outside the LG with a switch either hanging outside with it or mounted on the chassis (which I did not do to avoid drilling the cover). This allows you to access either an inside or an outside hard drive just by turning off the LG and throwing the switch and then turning it back on. This lets you swap out the outside drive by just swapping a different drive to the ribbon and power plug and throwing the switch to select either inside or any outside drive you have connected. If you want only to swap out the inside drive and have to change it again removing cover etc just to do that you can, but why waste the drive that came with the LG? If you do have movies you want to keep it is a great convenience to have changeable drives. A single stored drive can store 15 to 20 movies. Not a whole lot more than the cost of 20 tapes, not counting the tape deck price! Figure with a deck price of $400 ish and tape cost at about $7 a movie, for $9 to $10 a movie for hard drive storage, you can store 200 movies before you start saving money. That’s a lot of movies and a lot of time to transfer the movies from hard drive to tape! Here is how to duplicate my setup which does work. I have three 300 gig drives and the initial 160 gig drive.

Run down to Radio Shack and buy a miniature "double pole, double throw” toggle switch. I think they have both 1 amp or 3 amps in capacity in the miniature switches. Either is fine. You are going to hang this switch outside the LG with the center pole of the switch connected to the mother board power and the end poles (selectable by the switch) supplying power to either the inside drive or the outside drive. Only the colored wires will be connected to the switch. The black wires (grounds) will remain connected to the mother board thru a power supply splitter to both drives all the time. For the all the wiring and connectors needed, buy three computer power supply extenders and one power supply splitter. If you don't have a spare, buy a computer drive ribbon that has a plug at each end and one center plug near one end. You will be plugging the CENTER of the ribbon to the motherboard and the short end to the inside drive. The long end goes under the cover and hangs outside of the chassis to connect the outside drive.

Now take one extender and plug one end into the new drive. At the other end close to the other plastic connector (you won't be using the plug to connect these colored wire stubs so the shorter the better), cut the colored wires. Do not cut either of the two black wires. At this point you will have two black wires going from the drive to a connector and two long loose ended color wires. Solder these two cut end color wires to terminals at one end of the switch. At this point you have black wires both going to the splitter and colored wires both going to the switch. Do the same with the second extender soldering the cut ends of the colored wires to the other end terminals on the switch. KEEP THE SAME COLORS ON THE SAME SIDE OF THE SWITCH. Cut the colored wires from the third extender and throw away the connectors and black wires. Plug the first two extenders into the two sides of the splitter. This connects ground to both drives. Cut the colored wires at the “output” end of the splitter where it is connected to the extenders you just made. . Solder these to the wires you salvaged from the third extender. Solder the same color to the same color. the Solder the other end of these colored wires to the center terminals of the switch again maintaining like colors on the same side of the switch. This connects only the two colored wires supplying power to the center pole of the switch. Now what you should have is each hard drive colored wire going to the switch and the hard drive black wires going to the splitter. The colored wires from the splitter are cut and soldered to the wires you salvaged form the third splitter going only to the switch. This sounds complicated but is not. Once you see what you are doing it will make sense. You are using the splitter to supply ground to both drives via the connectors and power to the center of the switch with the soldered wires. The switch is supplying power to only one drive at a time, getting the power at the center and switching it to either end(drive). The splitter output plugs are supplying ground to both drives without going thru the switch. Plug the center of the ribbon to the board and the short end to the inside drive. Hang the long end of the ribbon (and the switch) thru the cover near the front to connect the outside drive. Be sure the jumper on the new drive is in the master(end on a MAXTOR) position or the LG will say you do not have a drive connected. You are in business.

Originally posted by tmitchmd
My drive still hasn't arrived.:(
You can of course archive any content you wish to save off your old drive simply by offloading it to D-VHS...

Ah Ha, just the excuse I need to buy another piece of hardware!

Just to muddy the waters a little more my new 300GB QV drive which arrived today (April 20th) has a build date of April 2nd 2005 (yes I doubled checked, it says "Build Date 02APR2005"). So, if Maxtor has stopped making the drive it was only in the last 2 weeks.

Originally posted by MrHifi
The outfit that quoted me the $279.00 price is Weaknees.com. At $279.00 the drive is a rip off unless you do not care to be made a fool of. I'd rather go without frankly. I did not post the place because if we allow them to charge outrageous prices, they will get away with it. Yo realize these Internet sites are home businesses that have the equipment drop shipped from a distributor. Try to get any service out of any of these guys.

Well it wouldn't be the first time I've played the fool. :D However, Weaknees.com has the drives in stock, they are not drop shipped from a distributor. I ordered a drive at 2:30pm Tuesday afternoon, at 3:30 I got an order confirmation from Weaknees, around 4:30 I got an email from Weaknees with a tracking number, at 5:00pm FEDEX entered it into their tracking system. It arrived via FEDEX ground at 10:30am Wednesday morning (I live about 100 miles from where Weaknees.com is located). That's about eight hours from order to arrival. The FEDEX tracking showed that the package did originate from Culver City in LA where Weaknees is located. The box that it arrived in was not a Maxtor box but had a ton of Weaknees logos and information printed on it. Inside was some more Weaknees advertising cards. I agree $279 is fairly steep considering I got the 3410a for $549, but I certainly can't fault their service.

I checked my tracking info and I expect next day delivery, too. I think the free next day shipping mitigates the price a bit. The money comes out of my entertainment budget (as if I budget - yeah, right), so I guess I'll have to buy less porn. :-)

Shouldn't all the HDD upgrade, swap, mod talk be put on another thread? I thought there was one already?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=370472&perpage=20&highlight=3410a&pagenumber=1

I feel sorry for the people who just want to know the positive/negative reviews of the unit, only to find people talking about where to get cheap 7200rpm hard drives.... No need to make this thread longer than it already is, also makes things harder to search for.

Sorry for the swap dissertation Audball. I did not realize this was a review only thread based on the discussions I had seen. One would think after a couple hundred posts on the merits of the drive people would either buy one or not. Considering none of the other hard drive recorders I have seen will support bigger drives than stock I thought it was a good place for this discussion. Again, my error.

Bill,

No error. Some of us appreciated the information. This is the place to post this stuff. Just because someone hasn't the ability to understand or implement a HD change, is no reason to ban its discussion here.

I agree with Art, but thanks for pointing out the other thread, though.

Originally posted by Audball
[B]Shouldn't all the HDD upgrade, swap, mod talk be put on another thread? I thought there was one already?

The very first post of this thread has HDD swap info in it, I think the precedent was set right there.....:)

Just to prolong the hard drive agony for some. It's a slow day at work so I did some poking around about the fate of the 300GB QV. From what I could gather from an acquaintance who's company uses the QV in their products it looks like everyone in the previous posts had a little bit of the story.

1. First demand for the 300GB QV is probably outstripping supply. This is just speculation because for competitive reasons anyone inside Maxtor who knows for sure, certainly wouldn't release that kind of information which could be used by a competitor to target Maxtor's customers.

2 Maxtor is currently not shipping the single package hard drive (part number 5A300J0-QV) They are shipping the 20 package drive (part number 5A300J0-QV-20PK). If number 1 is true this is one way to keep their main customers, OEMs, supplied while reducing the the demand from the discount PC part retailers. Judging from what arrived at my house Weaknees buys the 20 packs and re-boxes them in their own individual boxes.

3. Maxtor has told OEMs that supplies of the current QV drives will continue past the introduction of the new consumer electronic drives. But, having dealt with manufactures before my guess is you really can't take that to the bank.

So, there you have it, the 300GB QV drives are still shipping in bulk quantities, and for the time being at least single packs are not being shipped. Keep in mind this is all based on one guy at one OEM company.

Thank you mstanl for the tips and thanks to everyone for providing information on the status of the QV drives.

As I and others have stated, the non-QV 300GB drive (5A300J0), also works fine with the 3410a, although it may be a bit noisier than the QV version. This drive as well as the QV version, have a 30 event limitation before the timed recording function fails, due to slow initialization of the drive on boot up. I was wondering if large (300-400GB) 7200rpm drives can record more timed events than the 5400rpm models (without having to keep the 3410a powered up). Does anyone have any experience with this?

the 300GB QV drives

I received mine from 'www.pcnation.com' for $230.00, I just checked
and they list the maxtor 300bg QV, 5A300J0-QV , It does say 'Usually Ships: 2+ Weeks ' Did not take that long to me 2 months ago.

Mike

Originally posted by wilsonsoohoo
Okay, so is there any reason we can't used 7200 rpm drives if we install fans like earlier in the thread?

Here (http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/white_papers_technical/hdd_considerations_white_paper.pdf) is a white paper from Maxtor that discusses the pros and cons on using 5400 versus 7200 rpm drives in PVRs

Thanks very much for posting this useful information.

Great information that ties many discussions in this thread together.

That chart was very informative. If a 5400rpm drive can only manage a little over 40Mbps of stream data, that translates into two 19.3Mbps HD streams. It's no wonder that the 3410a is lacking in "Tivo-like" capabilities, which would require a 7200rpm drive.

Originally posted by stjr
That chart was very informative. If a 5400rpm drive can only manage a little over 40Mbps of stream data, that translates into two 19.3Mbps HD streams. It's no wonder that the 3410a is lacking in "Tivo-like" capabilities, which would require a 7200rpm drive.

Actually, both the stock 120 GB Seagate and the 300 GB Maxtor are 5400 RPM drives and the specs for both show that they can handle 4 simultaneous HDTV streams.

I don't pretend to fully understand the bit rate ramifications or the different ways manufacturers list the specs. For instance, for HDTV, Seagate shows ~30 hours of storage (we know that can't be right) at "4Gbytes/hour", and 4 streams at "average 5Mbytes/sec"; Maxtor shows for HDTV: ~40 hours of storage at "19Mb/s", and 4 streams at "6Mb/s".

I can only go by real world experience: My Comcast 6412 has the SAME Seagate CE 5400 RPM drive and can record 2 HDTV programs while playing back a third previously recorded HDTV program. So it appears that the 3410A's features were not limited by the Seagate drive's capabilities, but by LG's design choices.

If the Comcast 6412 can manage three 19.3Mbps steams with a 5400rpm drive, then the Maxtor chart does not make sense to me. At this point, I would just be happy to find a drive for the 3410a that can store more than 30 programs without messing up the scheduled recording function.

FYI...

Newegg.com is selling "refurbished" maxtor maxline II 5A300J0 for 199 plus 4.99 shipping. This is the non QV drive. I bought the non refurbished version of this drive a couple of months ago for my 3410 and it is problem free so far. Mine came with a 3yr warranty and this "refurbished" model comes with a 5yr warranty...

Originally posted by stjr
If the Comcast 6412 can manage three 19.3Mbps steams with a 5400rpm drive, then the Maxtor chart does not make sense to me. At this point, I would just be happy to find a drive for the 3410a that can store more than 30 programs without messing up the scheduled recording function.

Something tells me that you are not taking Compression into consideration... If you have identical source video, and one unit compresses 30:1 and the other compresses 10:1, the unit that compresses 30:1 doesn't need as fast a hard drive as the 10:1 unit does, or, it has more bandwidth remaining to do other things.

By the way, I sent another email to the folks who confirmed the Lum/Chroma mistiming of SD Signals in the IF area of the tuner, asking about the QV Drive issue, an update on the Lum/Chroma mistiming issue, and another issue I never brought up here, and he replied regarding the question about QV Drives, that: "As for the drive questions, LG will fully support the LST-3410 product warrantee as it was designed, with a 120G drive should it require service. If the owner has made changes here, I'm not sure what will happen. They probably have stash in service or some agreement with a drive manufacturer."

And when I pressed about a LG official response to the Lum/Chroma timing issue again, my contact replied with a rumour: "That the 3410a is very close, if not already at, end of life."

I have been asking if I could test a beta of whatever unit replaces the 3410a, and the response I heard was: "In addition, I also hear it is LGs intent to get out of the set top box (STB) business all together. It has been very unprofitable (Customer complaints) and they feel leaving STBs to the new cut throat guys is a better decision."

I know that there has been some posts here regarding much doubt that I actually got to the LG Lab who confirmed the SD Lum/Chroma mistiming issue.... But yes, I've been in conversation with multiple people at LG. Most of them have been middle management, but one is a bench technician at the HD Research Lab they have in Illinois, and they did confirm the Lum/Chroma mis-timing on received SD signals on the 3410a.

With tuners being built into TV's now, I can see the STB market drying up. What we will end up with though is downrez boxes for the older TV sets for the transition to all digital TV.

Dave

Jan J,

I'm not sure what the polite way to say this is so I'll just say it....No one cares about recording analog channels. This machine is used to record Digital material by the vast majority of people who own it. The real issues like droputs, RGBHV outputs that create a brightness level shift on certain monitors, and a guide system that can disable operation are just a few of the truly important problems associated with this STB. I can understand why LGB wants out of the STB business. This unit could have been a Star among STB's. It has fallen well short of that for a number of well documented reasons discussed in this thread. It speaks well of LG that they exchanged so many units and have tried to help many of us who near the beginning ran into dealers who stonewalled and refused to acknowledge the problems by exchanging units or returning our money. When I read your comments re. luminance delay on SD/analog feeds, I want to scream. I find them the equivalent of an EMS technician worrying about a broken toe when the patient is dying from a heart attack. Each time you harass LG about such trivialities you pound another nail into the LG3410A's replacement. No wonder they are getting out of the business. Please stop discussing this, I'm sick of it.

Don't know who made you important here, but though I agree with some of the things you have said at this forum, your steadfastly refusing to believe that SD exists (for a couple of years, via terristrial, and how knows how long for cable) is very short sided on your part.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again...... A $50.00 Sam's club VCR tuner decodes a better SD picture than does the 3410a.

The fact that you only use the HD Tuner has nothing to do with it.

Since TV Guide allows for the recording of SD material, and the tuner decodes SD material (Though out of Luminance Chromanance timing), Why should we (as users) stick our heads in the sand, and pretend SD doesn't exist?

If this was 2007, I agree, you would have a very valid point, Art.
But it is not 2007, it was 2004 when this problem was discovered, and 2005 when it became painfully obvious to me that the problem existed, and 2005 when the Lab prooved it existed and answererd me that.

So, Why are you getting bent out of shape because I'm asking a $700 + item to work as good as a Sam's club $50.00 VHS recorder?

By the way, did you try the suggestion I posted on fixing missing recordings? Wife tells me it hasn't missed any since we erased all scheduled recordings, power cycled unit, and re-entered the scheduled recordings again.

The only time I miss scheduled recordings is when the unit has too much multipath to deal with. An example of such an ocurrence is when it rains. The timers may have been set eary in the day. When the recording time occurs, the rain causes mutipath to an extent this tuner is unable to handle. A "No signal" scrolls accross the screen. If i am there to see it, I may be able to reorient the antenna slightly to lock the signal. Most of the time I am not present and the unit stops recording in the absence of a stream. otherwise, if i schedule a recording, it records it.

Originally posted by Jan J
Don't know who made you important here... No one. Please feel free to discuss what ever aspect of the unit you wish.

Funny you should mention multipath questions.
For grins, have you ever determined what signal strength the station in question (to be recorded) has when it doesn't record?

Reason why I ask. I'm apporox 20 miles NNW of Sears Tower & John Hancock Center, with my (2 months old, antenna & coax) U/V antenna up 35' sidemounted on a tower. From tower top (50') I have direct line of sight to the towers.

My problem with multipath (suspicions, not enough info to be certain) is O'Hara Field. The E>W flight patters disects this reception path. I've been suspicious of either transmissions or multipath during these landings. At times I get a fairly rapid fluctuating in the signal strength, and one evening, I called a friend who works at a transmitter who verified transmitter power at that time, so the rapid fluctuations I'm seeing are NOT coming from the transmitter, or MPEG artifacts.

I have tried: Drake High Pass filter on incoming line (in hamshack). Not LF related. I forgot where airlines transmit (130-140Mc?)
I've tried a calibrated attenuator, and that does NOT help, so I'm not overloading the receiver. Also tried a preamp on line, with varying amplitude levels, without 100% success.
I'm waiting for a friend to let me borrow a business band filter to try and trap out 140Mc hamband & 150--160Mc.
I've seen the rapid fluctuations on CH 3 (CBS DTV Hancock) Ch 19 (WB Sears) Ch 47 (PBS DTV I think Hancock) Channel 31 (Fox Sears) Channel 51 (UPN Sears) and Channel 57-58 (ABC Sears). With this wide a range of frequencies showing rapid signal strength changes, I figured it might be multipath -- aircraft.

The Mits display only shows sig strength in diagnostic mode, which is a pain to get into easily, so I'm looking at the 3410a only, for signal strength readings.
EDIT. I have an old tube type VHF Band signal strength meter, but I've never attempted looking at a digital signal on it. I might, however monitor an analog SD transmission, and see if it fluctuates as does the digital one, which might give some crediance to the multipath idea... Dunno.

Any info you could report from your end?.

As an addendum to the above, the Gemstar TV Guide data is transmitted in Chicago via two stations that I know of: WLS (Ch 7 Analog) and WFLD (Ch 32 Analog).

Correct me if I'm wrong but multipath is caused by a reflected signal which creates multiple paths (hence multipath) that arrive slightly later in time to your antenna.. Your assumption might be correct that airline traffic is causing your multipath problem because of reflected signal but not because of the transmission frequencies the airlines use which is anywhere between 108Mhz to 137Mhz in the AM band.. Multipath is almost impossible to remedy when the reflecting target is dynamic (ie a flying jumbo jet) and only marginally better when the reflector is static. LG seems to have developed a fifth generation 8VSB chipset that helps cure multipath problems but it's not currently available in any STB. The LG LST-4200 is the closest thing there is to a multipath fixer. It has a forth generation chipset in it.

Originally posted by stjr
If the Comcast 6412 can manage three 19.3Mbps steams with a 5400rpm drive, then the Maxtor chart does not make sense to me.

This should clear up the confusion. Here (http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/white_papers/av_white_papers.pdf) is another Maxtor white paper, on page three you can see that the 5400 rpm drives have a sustained data rate of 284.8 Mb/sec on the outer diameter of the disk and 142.4 Mb/sec on the inner diameter.

Originally posted by pretzelkid
Correct me if I'm wrong but multipath is caused by a reflected signal which creates multiple paths (hence multipath) that arrive slightly later in time to your antenna.. Your assumption might be correct that airline traffic is causing your multipath problem because of reflected signal but not because of the transmission frequencies the airlines use which is anywhere between 108Mhz to 137Mhz in the AM band.. Multipath is almost impossible to remedy when the reflecting target is dynamic (ie a flying jumbo jet) and only marginally better when the reflector is static. LG seems to have developed a fifth generation 8VSB chipset that helps cure multipath problems but it's not currently available in any STB. The LG LST-4200 is the closest thing there is to a multipath fixer. It has a forth generation chipset in it.

Reference to transmissions was in case it was overload from those transmissions. This is also why I first filtered out LF transmissions with the Drake HP filter, and why I'm going to borrow a bandpass filter to filter out 130-160Mc, in case it is that...

Seeing that I don't know WHAT is causing the problem, I have to try lots of things to rule out what it ISN'T... After ruling out what it ISN'T, I'll have a better success determining what it may be (or if I'm lucky, IS)

I agree with your 4th & 5th generation information, I'm just verifying that it isn't something else, that is Fix-Able! :)

Wife & I discussed that I may have to spend the evening up on the roof with a walkie-talkie, with her informing me when problems exist, and I document locations of planes at that time, to try and come to a logical conclusing regarding this... Sounds nuts-o, I'll admidt, but how else would you determine that?

Originally posted by mdputnam
This should clear up the confusion. Here is another Maxtor white paper, on page three you can see that the 5400 rpm drives have a sustained data rate of 284.8 Mb/sec on the outer diameter of the disk and 142.4 Mb/sec on the inner diameter.There's quite a bit of difference between 284.8, 142.4 and 40Mbps. Maybe the chart on the first white paper was mistakenly referring to megabytes per second rather than megabits, but the math doesn't quite work out when you convert from Mbps to MBps.

Originally posted by Jan J

Seeing that I don't know WHAT is causing the problem, I have to try lots of things to rule out what it ISN'T... After ruling out what it ISN'T, I'll have a better success determining what it may be (or if I'm lucky, IS)

I was talking to a guy in the Chicago thread who also lived in Skokie and he mentioned there was a well known swath of multipath through that area...here's the post he mentioned it in and maybe you can PM him some questions...good luck...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5406767#post5406767

Originally posted by mdputnam
Here (http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/white_papers_technical/hdd_considerations_white_paper.pdf) is a white paper from Maxtor that discusses the pros and cons on using 5400 versus 7200 rpm drives in PVRs

Wow. I learned a lot!

Since I'm sure the same questions have arisen in other DVR threads, I wonder if the article should be tacked at the top of the recorder forum.

Thank you very much for that link... Gonna be interesting...

I was wondering if anyone else has any problems receiving audio on any of their digital channels. I have Time Warner cable and can receive their basic (unscrambled) HD channels on the 3410. All of them have audio except for TNT HD. With the NBA playoffs now going on I really wish I could watch it. The picture comes in fine and the signal level is fine. This is the only channel that doesn't have audio. I have three 3410's and it's the same thing with all of them. I assume it's something to do with TW's transmission. TNT HD comes in on channel 102-68 and DiscoveryHD is on 102-73, these are the only ones I get on 102, and DiscoveryHD has no problems. I asked TW about it a while back and they said TNT works fine, but of course that's with their own HDTV boxes. I didn't really want to say I was using my own box to pick up the channels, although it is perfectly legit since I pay for regular analog cable. Has anyone had any success with any cable company as far as getting their transmissions to play nice with the LG? There's been other problems with their HDTV channels too. ABC and FOX both come up on channel 104 with NBC and CBS on 105. NBC and CBS work fine but ABC and FOX both have problems staying locked in even though the signal level is fine. And this has nothing to do with the rest of this post, but why doesn't Time Warner carry the WB HD channel? Does that make any sense?

I have the same issues with audio on SF Giants and Oakland A's broadcasts here in the Bay Area, CA. They come in on INHD2, but with no audio. It must be something with the live broadcast??? I got a box from Comcast for $5 per month just so I can watch the games when I want to. Cheaper than parking at 1 game!! Well worth it. I just wish Comcast had TNT-HD!!!

Dave, is INHD one of your free basic HD channels there? Here I believe it's part of the premium HD package. As far as renting an HD box from TW, I would also have to pay for digital cable on top of that since I currently only have analog.

I think in general the cableco's let the network(ABC, NBC,CBS and PBS) stuff fly
un-encrypted becuse those stations aren't asking for money to broadcast them but stuff like Discovery HD and TNT HD and INHD are premium services that they want cash for so if anybodies getting those channels I'd lay low and get that AM radio out to go with those bball games (you can usually find some AM station that is carrying the game) and be happy you're getting something (nice PQ) for nothing....:o

I think it's only a matter of time till the cableco's figure out there's a bunch of clear QAM tuners popping out all over and they encrypt everything but the network stuff and maybe even that stuff too...

Originally posted by dep3523
All of them have audio except for TNT HD. . . . The picture comes in fine and the signal level is fine. This is the only channel that doesn't have audio. In this situation I would use a VCR to tune the analog channel that carries TNT, and listen to the audio from that source. Easy to do with any audio receiver. It might not be in perfect sync with the video from TNT-HD, but this wouldn't be a problem for the NBA playoffs.

Unc....I did a similar thing this weekend with the Kings game. I listened to the local TV broadcast, but watched the game in HD on ESPN. I used my Comcast Box for the local feed, and my 3410a for the ESPN feed...they were in perfect sync too!!!

My local system broadcasts all HDTV signals in the clear except for the PPV channels. But, the 3410a has trouble locking into INHD1 & 2 as well as DiscHD sometimes, so I just sprung for the box for $5 per month. The kicker is that I am an expanded basic customer (non digital package), and they didn't make me upgrade to the digital pacakage which would have added another $9.99 a month. They tried to get me to upgrade, but I passed and they still allowed me to have HDTV...gotta love that!

Dave

Originally posted by Audball
I wonder if this 1.17 FW fixes the QAM tuner pixelation problems. Anyone know exactly what this new firmware fixes?

Just got my "refirb" unit with FW 1.17, 451 hardware. It definately receives QAM channels better... I'm not sure if it's the firmware or the hardware that fixed the issue, since they sent a refirb.

On a side note: I requested that they fix my original unit and send it back but they ignored my request and sent a refirb.

It's "Refurb" for "refurbished"....... I wonder what 1.17 does? Anybody else seen it?

After poking around in the files extracted during the install of the firebus software I came across a section that specifys what versions the program has init sessions for. W98, ME, NT and 2K versions of windows are all there is. XP is missing from the list.
Some of the posters that claim to have been successful indicate they were using W2K.

Has anyone tried running the program in compatibility mode? I have to try this before I give up on this program.

Originally posted by Scott Miller
After poking around in the files extracted during the install of the firebus software I came across a section that specifys what versions the program has init sessions for. W98, ME, NT and 2K versions of windows are all there is. XP is missing from the list.
Some of the posters that claim to have been successful indicate they were using W2K.

Has anyone tried running the program in compatibility mode? I have to try this before I give up on this program.

I didn't have any problems downloading OTA content using FireBus and an IBM T21 running XP SP2. What is the problem your experiencing?

Originally posted by dep3523
I was wondering if anyone else has any problems receiving audio on any of their digital channels. I have Time Warner cable and can receive their basic (unscrambled) HD channels on the 3410. All of them have audio except for TNT HD.

I originally got several of the premium channels including DiscoveryHD, INDHD and a few others. They (TW) eventually caught on and have since scrambled them. One problem for me is NBC is so weak I can't lock a signal and I can't get it OTA. Even tried an amp w/o any success.

I have tried three computers form a laptop (Pentium 850) Dual Xeon 1700 with SCSI drives, and single Athlon XP 2700 with three different firewire cards or MB support of firewire (all TI chips).
On all three the firebus control starts when I push the 1394 key (on screen control shows on TV) , but when I push the record button (after using cursor keys to select it on screen, then pressing select key) the stream immediately starts falling behind the on screen video. The timer indicating elapsed recording time goes up, but not at the real time. If I wait till 20-30 seconds of supposed video has been recorded and press stop (on screen) the stream stops (screen says 1394 device disconnected) and the computer is locked up and won't even respond to Ctrl-alt delete.

On play back (after reboot) the stream is pixelated and broken up and obviously has lots of dropped frames. (the playback is also through the LST).

I have not tried to dump a recorded program yet. Perhaps that is the problem? Shouldn't the LST be able to output the stream to the firewire port REAL time?

Oh, by the way..selecting W2K compatibility mode had NO effect on the problems.

Scott

Originally posted by Scott Miller
I have tried three computers form a laptop (Pentium 850) Dual Xeon
On play back (after reboot) the stream is pixelated and broken up and obviously has lots of dropped frames. (the playback is also through the LST).

I have not tried to dump a recorded program yet. Perhaps that is the problem? Shouldn't the LST be able to output the stream to the firewire port REAL time?

Oh, by the way..selecting W2K compatibility mode had NO effect on the problems.

Scott

I also had a similar problem. There is a 1394 patch from microsoft that is supposed to improve performance (XP has a driver bug selecting the 1394 bus speed). I did notice less pixelation but it still is not acceptable.

I also could not capture regular NTSC recordings to the Firebus app at all... I think it's related to the data rate that firebus is expecting.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ca0f2007-18b5-4112-8bd6-8bf4bd3130b9&DisplayLang=en

Currently I'm working on a Linux AV/C solution but the DDR utility needs work - Linux AVC and 61883 drivers have been updated and DDR current doesn't work.

Originally posted by Scott Miller
II have not tried to dump a recorded program yet. Perhaps that is the problem? Shouldn't the LST be able to output the stream to the firewire port REAL time?
Scott
If I connect a D-VHS deck to the 3410A via firewire, I can view the stream, but cannot record it by just pressing record on the D-VHS deck. I can record in real time by pressing the 1394 button and then selecting the on screen 'Record' button. In other words, the 3410A has to be controlling the recording.

I can then connect the D-VHS deck to my computer and transfer the stream to it.

Originally posted by Scott Miller

I have not tried to dump a recorded program yet. Perhaps that is the problem? Shouldn't the LST be able to output the stream to the firewire port REAL time?
Scott

Scott,
I just want to encourage you to keep up the work on Firebus and keep reporting your progress! If you can get the PC and LG to transfer files, it would really open up the uses for the 3410a.

This firmware improves QAM audio reception.

Originally posted by JFerg
This firmware improves QAM audio reception.

Is that from LG or speculation on your part?

Good, I do not need to get it.

Here's a new one (for us, at least).
I think Gemstar downloaded some new Icon's in the past day...
TV Guide Channel order was scrambled with new, never seen before icons.
In paticular, I now have 2 WB icons, when before I only had one.

Thinking that a power cycle may fix things, I found instead that the box (from the TV Guide Standpoint) was starting as if new.

The recorded programs remained, but TV Guide was blank, and I had to add Zipcode and cable information again, then was prompted to shut box off overnight. I did a channel scan just to make certain, and after the scan I checked, and the Network Logo's I added to the channel list last time remained.
So, the only thing that remained was the Logo selection on the channel list, and what was on the hard drive.

This morning, TV Guide asked me which lineup I wanted, and the selection I choose was accurate with only 2 or 3 editing changes...

I'm seeing more logos in TV Guide that I had never seen before, so I know that it is Gemstar related, not LG.

Chicagoland area.

What you are seeing is quite normal. one usually gets several choices of the major networks.

I just called LG about the 1.17 firmware since QAM audio seems to be exactly what my problem is with TNT HD. And yes, I was told 1.17 deals with QAM audio problems. But, he told me this firmware was put out in August 2004. As to why I don't have this version in any of my 3 units which have all been exchanged this year, he couldn't answer. As far as any other issues the firmware may address the guy didn't know. I figure since I don't even use one of the boxes right now I'll go ahead and send it in to be upgraded. Of course the NBA playoffs will probably be over by the time I get it back! Does anyone with 1.17 still have any digital cable channels with video and no audio? I figure it's probably not gonna help, but it's worth a shot.

Dep,

I'll buy one from you if you are interested. Contact me off the board.

Originally posted by Jan J
I think Gemstar downloaded some new Icon's in the past day...
TV Guide Channel order was scrambled with new, never seen before icons.
In paticular, I now have 2 WB icons, when before I only had one.

I'm seeing more logos in TV Guide that I had never seen before, so I know that it is Gemstar related, not LG.

Chicagoland area. Jan, I don't seem to be receiving any new icons. In fact, I still have a TNN logo on Spike channel. Everything else is fine, however, and the whole Mt. Prospect/Comcast lineup, both digital & analog, seems to be displayed in the guide, with the exception of Comcast Sports Net (Ch. 37), and (as you noted previously) Oxygen (Ch. 67).

Do you have an actual Spike logo in your lineup? My Ch. 43 is labeled SPK, but the guide listing displays the TNN logo.

Originally posted by UncD2000
I don't seem to be receiving any new icons. In fact, I still have a TNN logo on Spike channel. Everything else is fine, however, and the whole Mt. Prospect/Comcast lineup seems to be displayed.

I don't have a Comcast SportstNet icon. It's one of the few analog channels I bother with on the 3410A (for non-HD baseball games).

Originally posted by UncD2000
Jan, I don't seem to be receiving any new icons. In fact, I still have a TNN logo on Spike channel. Everything else is fine, however, and the whole Mt. Prospect/Comcast lineup, both digital & analog, seems to be displayed in the guide, with the exception of Comcast Sports Net (Ch. 37), and (as you noted previously) Oxygen (Ch. 67).

Do you have an actual Spike logo in your lineup? My Ch. 43 is labeled SPK, but the guide listing displays the TNN logo.

I just checked, Yes, you are correct, Spike still has TNN logo, and I see no Comcast Sports Net.

I used to work at WGN (WB), and I complained to management that their own company (Gemstar) only had one Logo for them, not 2. Though I was insulated from gaining access to them (Gemstar) I heard that the 2nd WB logo was due to my bitching. I also bitched about the other networks having in-sufficent Logos, Oxygen, and asked for 2nd WYCC at the time I complained about the Missing WB Logo.
I saw that in December, when I received the 'replacement' 3410a (Lum/Ch mistiming -- that was no better than the unit I had). During that time that I had 2 3410a's, the replacement 3410a, when programmed for my zip code -- 60076, displayed 2 WB logo's (due to new install), though our origional (receiveing the same Gemstar data, but activated in October of 2004) only received 1 WB logo, so I knew that it our 3410a ever had to be re-learned, It would probably receive a 2nd WB Logo. Seeing that I had the 'ear' of WGN management, who had the 'ear' of Tribune Corp. (Who owns Gemstar)..... I am confident that that is how the 2nd WB logo came about... But no others, I'm sorry to say.....

Well, now---

As of this morning, my guide has lost all of the Chicago Comcast cable HD channels and most other channels above 100. I noticed this after seeing that all my scheduled HD recordings were grayed out.

Normally, when the box is reset, the HD channels are listed by Comcast numbers, i.e. NBC=188. Then I have to manually change to the number that the 3410A maps, NBC=116-5. But I can't even do that now because there are no guide icons for these channels. I have just 5 analog channels programmed to show in the listings, and those are still there.

I thought I had seen every possible glitch in this box and the guide, but no...

Did this happen to anyone else in Chicago or elsewhere?

It would seem to be a guide problem, not the box, since everything else is working. I can, of course, still tune to the mapped channels and set timer recordings manually. Or I can try the ol' unplug and reset to start over again.

This box just can't go for more than a few weeks without problems.

Phil... Earlier this week our TV Guide Logos were scrambled with 'new' ones, and after an un-plug/re-plug, we had to completely re-program TV Guide.

Originally posted by Jan J
Phil... Earlier this week our TV Guide Logos were scrambled with 'new' ones, and after an un-plug/re-plug, we had to completely re-program TV Guide.

You seem to have received new icons. I lost many. Very odd. I unplugged for a few minutes and everything came back the same way. I think I'll set the box for a nearby zip code to shake things up.

I know it's the only game in town, but this unit seems flakier than a good pie crust.

i must say that I have not had any Guide induced problems. Miy issues have been hardware related. Mine really works very well now but I sure wish i had not had to go through this hell. I use it mainly for HD OTA . Rearely, I will record a digital SD show.

Originally posted by Mike Emery
I know it's the only game in town, but this unit seems flakier than a good pie crust.

The problems with the 3410A are not really that bad. I use mine to record 10 hours of OTA HD material a week and it is usually painless. It is obviously not as slick as Tivo HD D*, and it obviously has a lot of 'quirks', but it does get the job done.

The Gemstar functions seem to be the major problem They (Gemstar) make the 3410A very easy to use when they work, and make it a nightmare to use when they screw up.

My experience with the 3410A makes me believe that there are a lot of faults with digital OTA broadcasts. I shudder at what will happen when analog TV disappears and suddenly 40 million people have to use STBs to be able to watch anything. I believe many of the experiences we've had with the 3410A will be shared with millions of others and it will not be pretty.

It'll be interesting to see how Sony's new DVR's will handle TVGuide data. Maybe then we can tell if LG handles it as best they can or if they could have isolated the box a little better from corrupted data.

For the tvguide to work you must have a good continuous signal from the host station. I have had no problem after I discovered that it was on a vhf channel and added a high band vhf antenna. Also the 1034 must be off to down load the data. TVguide is certainly a mysterious entity but at least I have reliable service now. In general the 1034 has worked well for me. I recommend it. In fact I will be getting my 3rd set soon.

phitz,
Where are you buying your next set?

Originally posted by phitz
For the tvguide to work you must have a good continuous signal from the host station. .


FWIIW I have the 4200a c onnected to an OTA antenna, and the guide works perfectly. Compared to my old Sir-t351 (which took for ever and a day to download the guide) the LG 4200a is a dream. It organinzes by channel and across channels. Moreover... the infromation is there at a push of the button. it must be storing the guide data as a background task

Can someone comment on the the 3410a... does the guide come up instantly for OTA?

Philly,

Why not buy a Sony?

Yes, Instantly!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by georgepds
FWIIW I have the 4200a c onnected to an OTA antenna, and the guide works perfectly. Compared to my old Sir-t351 (which took for ever and a day to download the guide) the LG 4200a is a dream. It organinzes by channel and across channels. Moreover... the infromation is there at a push of the button. it must be storing the guide data as a background task

Can someone comment on the the 3410a... does the guide come up instantly for OTA?

The LST-4200A gets the guide data from each broadcaster's PSIP data. The LST-3410A gets the guide data from TV Guide Onscreen, which is available for download 4 times a day.

The LST-4200A is limited to whatever guide data a broadcaster does or does not send, usually only a few hours worth. While the TV Guide Onscreen guide supplies 8 days worth of data.

I also haven't had many problems with TVGuide Onscreen but it has hiccupped 3 or 4 times since I've owned the 3410 and a couple of those have just been minor with an un-plug/re-plug fixing it and just dealing with incorrect time but the other couple have been major...wiping all set recordings and re-stating zip code info and such. I just make sure my antenna is always pointed the right way before I turn out the lights at night. You would think there'd be some checksum calc or something to help the box deal with data that might be corrupt or incomplete.. It's always a couple of days ahead so if it found something amiss it could wait to re-capture data that was accurate.

The other thing I like about TVGOS is they include the cable channels which the 4200's
PSIP guide is strictly OTA.

Originally posted by MrHifi
Philly,

Why not buy a Sony?

The Sony does look good. The manual makes me think it will be a much more polished product than the LG. Only the lack of firewire irks me. Of course, you may recall I'm one of those who can't offload cable HD via the 3410A firewire. But I do need the firewire to play back D-VHS copied from my Comcast 6412.

It may be better to get my money's worth out of the 3410A by using it until a complete DVR solution is available. One would think in a year or so there would be DVR's that do it all. I hope the possible DVR manufacturers don't give up because of the competition from inexpensive cable DVR's.

I guess I'll let others test the Sony. The big question mark in my mind is whether the TV Guide will cause problems.

As to firewire, I'd like to have it to be "future proof", for instance to have the option to copy to one of the upcoming HD DVD formats. But those units may not even have firewire, or if they do it may not be compatible with today's DVR's.

Meanwhile, a change of zip code on the LG got my guide and cable HD channels back again. It may be smooth sailing now for weeks or just a couple of days. Who knows?

I was looking at some RPTV threads and found this one about Toshiba's TVGOS. Some of it sounds oddly familiar....
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=510125&highlight=62HMX94

Oddly familiar, indeed. Nyuk, nyuk.

The TV Guide folks must have quite the sales pitch to have convinced so many big name manufacturers that their product works. They must also have hypnotists on staff so the employees testing the TV's and DVR's think the guide works even though it doesn't. How else can so many products be released that have so many guide problems?!?

This is why I'll let others find out how the Sony and Mitsubishi DVR's act.

Does anybody have two 3410A's? I was wondering how well Firewire transfer is between two 3410As? Are there any limitations or bugs?

Originally posted by JFerg
The LST-4200A gets the guide data from each broadcaster's PSIP data. The LST-3410A gets the guide data from TV Guide Onscreen, which is available for download 4 times a day.

The LST-4200A is limited to whatever guide data a broadcaster does or does not send, usually only a few hours worth. While the TV Guide Onscreen guide supplies 8 days worth of data. Thanks very much for this helpful information. Could you tell us the exact times when the four daily downloads occur?

Originally posted by Hyrax
I was looking at some RPTV threads and found this one about Toshiba's TVGOS. Some of it sounds oddly familiar....
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=510125&highlight=62HMX94 Good catch. After reading JFerg's post (#2623) and browsing through this Toshiba thread, I am suddenly quite pleased with the guide function on my two 3410A units.

Last night my 3410 did not record the tv show 24. When I got home from work I found the problem, it was that the TV guide for Monday had "No Listings". So my question is did anyone record 24? I sure would like to
see it.

And also if I set the record with the VCR record method will this force it to record at 8:00 pm-9:00pm the show even if the TV Guide is No Listing? And second if there is a listing what will it name the record show on its disk?

Any tips with this method would be greatly appreciated
Mike

Manual timer programming is pretty reliable. If there are "no listings" for what you have recorded, "No Title" will appear in the index, but you can edit the title for ID purposes.

If there is guide info available for the time/channel you have recorded with the manual timer, the correct title will appear in the index.

I always use the VCR record type function. I have never had a problem doing this. When I used the guide, I lost one recording and the wife gave me a tongue lashing and that was the last time!

Since I haven't been able to get the Guide working (no matter how many times I re-boot), I've been using the "manual program" method as well. The problem is, after a few days, it will fail to record just as the previous poster mentioned. I can always tell when it's going to fail: the Guide won't come up, the unit turns on to record, but never changes the channel or intiates recording. What I can't figure is why I've had 2 months worth of failed download Guide Data after months of trouble-free operation; no, I haven't changed any of the channel lineup or configurations (other than re-booting to re-start the download function).

Originally posted by mstanl
Last night my 3410 did not record the tv show 24. When I got home from work I found the problem, it was that the TV guide for Monday had "No Listings". So my question is did anyone record 24? I sure would like to see it.
Mike

Mike -
I haven't looked, but a few weeks ago 24 was repeated several times during the week. Check your local Fox listings.

Ask any of your Tivo toting friends and neighbors if they recorded it and invite yourself over to watch it.

Check for a PM

Originally posted by Hyrax
Mike -
I haven't looked, but a few weeks ago 24 was repeated several times during the week. Check your local Fox listings.

Ask any of your Tivo toting friends and neighbors if they recorded it and invite yourself over to watch it.

Check for a PM

Ya, I looked and no 24 later this week. And I have been asking other friends if they have it. One guy just before I called had deleted it from his TIVO system.

Thanks for the help.
And still looking for 24, I'll pay...for the tape and shipping...

Mike

Originally posted by mstanl
Ya, I looked and no 24 later this week. And I have been asking other friends if they have it. One guy just before I called had deleted it from his TIVO system.

Thanks for the help.
And still looking for 24, I'll pay...for the tape and shipping...

Mike

Mike, I recorded 24 last night. I'm hooked and would feel the same way if I missed and episode. Where are you located? Send me a PM.

Originally posted by Stanton
... I can always tell when it's going to fail: the Guide won't come up, the unit turns on to record, but never changes the channel or intiates recording.Same thing happened to me last Sunday. That's why I called manual timer recording "pretty reliable."

Another 3410A quirk: unit gives every indication that it is recording a program (while I'm watching something else on another tuner), and it turns off properly at the correct time, but the program does not appear in the index, nor can it be found anywhere on the HDD.

Originally posted by Stanton
Since I haven't been able to get the Guide working (no matter how many times I re-boot), I've been using the "manual program" method as well. The problem is, after a few days, it will fail to record just as the previous poster mentioned. I can always tell when it's going to fail: the Guide won't come up, the unit turns on to record, but never changes the channel or intiates recording. What I can't figure is why I've had 2 months worth of failed download Guide Data after months of trouble-free operation; no, I haven't changed any of the channel lineup or configurations (other than re-booting to re-start the download function).

It sounds like you are in the same place I was, with TV Guide horribly confused....
An LG Support manager sent me an email with instructions on how to do a TV Guide Reset... I will share that with you if you want...

Contact me offline, and I will forward the email I got from LG support Manager on how to reset TV Guide...

From personal experiences, it will take two days... One day to reset your TV Guide, and another to download the data...
It will be as if you start all over....

You will also have access to 32 pages of nearly un-deciperable data...
What and who it makes any sense to.... I don't know...
BUT... It did fix my box....

Contact me off line and I will provide you with the emails that got this information to me....

I've been getting "No Listing" for several stations in the DC market. Are others seeing the same thing?

Art-
Every once in a while I get "No Listing" for Fox HD and when I try to view the station I get 'No Signal'. A channel scan brings it back. Actually, I believe that just editing the channel lineup for that one station brings it back, but I'd not swear that that works.

Originally posted by Hyrax
Art-
Every once in a while I get "No Listing" for Fox HD and when I try to view the station I get 'No Signal'. A channel scan brings it back. Actually, I believe that just editing the channel lineup for that one station brings it back, but I'd not swear that that works.

The edit of the channel lineup for that one station brings it for me the last 2 times. UPN and channel 13 here in Houston went out for a few days
until I found the edit trick.

Also I think that I have a copy of 24 comming to me, Thanks for all the help
before.

Mike

Originally posted by mstanl
The edit of the channel lineup for that one station brings it for me the last 2 times. UPN and channel 13 here in Houston went out for a few days
until I found the edit trick.

Also I think that I have a copy of 24 comming to me, Thanks for all the help
before.

Mike

I had the same issue in the Houston area with 13-1 and 20-1 unavailable on the 3410a. I solved it a different way.

Since it appeared to be a PSIP change, I selected the true channel for each of the stations on the 3410a. For 13-1 this was UHF 32 and for 20-1 it was UHF 19. A couple of seconds after each selection, the 3410a seemed to update and go right to the correct HD channel with no issues.

I suspect the edit trick does roughly the same thing. However, just entering the real channel number (or doing an EZ-Scan) seemed simpler.

Andy -
You explained what I did better than I explained it. That is exactly what I did ... and it worked for me too.

Hey folks... I don't at all mind that you are asking me for the TV Guide reset information email that I have.....

But when you send me a Private Message.... Would you please indicate what email address you want it to go to? TNX!

I point my antenna to Madison Wi. for most of my HD recording but for stuff like UPN and WGN I point to Chicago and I always punch in the RF channel to get those channels. I believe when you punch in a channel it always assumes it's an RF channel if it's not in your channel lineup.

Originally posted by Jan J
As an addendum to the above, the Gemstar TV Guide data is transmitted in Chicago via two stations that I know of: WLS (Ch 7 Analog) and WFLD (Ch 32 Analog).

When I go into diagnostic mode, I see two channels, 0xB and 0x20, which I interpret to be channel 11 and channel 32. I have never seen channel 7 listed as the station sending the download.

What happens when analog is turned off? will the guide stop working? or is that far enough away that I shouldnt be concerned about it. :-)

BTW, approx 3 weeks ago, my guide became horribly screwed up, remote control responses slowed down, timed recordings stopped working. It looks to me from reading the last few days of this thread that it isnt my unit, that everyone is having this problem.

dickm

That slowdown problem requires a reboot to fix.

I've tried to review these entire 133 pages but don't recall seeing this question.....

I just ordered a 3410a and should get it this coming week. I've been reading owners manual pdf file off manufacturer's web site. It keeps saying this DVR will work with a cable box, but nothing about a Satellite receiver. I have Dish network, but am sick of their BS and got the 3410a to just watch OTA HD. But until I turn of Dish can I use the 3410a with my Dish receiver and record off it? I believe I have the Dish 6100 HD reciever.

Thanks, I love reading AVSForum, nothing you can't find out or someone else will know!

The 3410A will record (in SD) from the composite A/V output of an external source. This must be done manually, because the AV1 & AV2 inputs are "Invalid channels for timer recording."

Is anyone else getting the "No Listing" messages? Mine is getting to be a real problem. I haven't received any guide info for a week.

Art,

The last time this happened to me, the unplug did not solve it as it usually does. I had even lost many cable channels from the guide. If you get "No Listing" one day, you can bet it will continue until you take action.

The solution was to change to a nearby zipcode to shake things up. The next day I switched back to the correct zipcode, although my neighbor zips have the same programming as I do. The guide then filled in properly over the next few days.

The trouble, of course, is that you never know when this will happen. You need to check the 3410A every day. If you want to set timer recordings when leaving for a vacation, you have to use the manual settings via VCR+ to get around a guide failure.

I wish I knew the true source of this error. Is it TV Guide? Is it bad data from a single channel? Is it the 3410A? If anyone knows, they are not talking.

I'm REALLY interested in seeing the early results from the upcoming Sony and Mits units.

Originally posted by PhillyC
The solution was to change to a nearby zipcode to shake things up. The next day I switched back to the correct zipcode. . .

I wish I knew the true source of this error. Is it TV Guide? Is it bad data from a single channel? Is it the 3410A? If anyone knows, they are not talking.

I'm REALLY interested in seeing the early results from the upcoming Sony and Mits units. I used this same solution recently when one of my 3410A units was afflicted with the "no listing" problem. I changed to a Zipcode (Carpentersville, IL) that has a simpler Comcast system with considerably fewer digital channels. These are scrambled anyway, so I don't need them cluttering up the guide. For several days now the guide is working fine.

This was only necessary on my refurb 451 with the 1.17 FW. My other unit, a 451 which came brand new with 1.15 FW, has never had any problem retaining the guide info. This unit receives the data from WLS-7 (ABC) according to the internal log. I have not checked the data on the unit that had the guide problem; I'll have to do this to see if it might be receiving from a channel other than WLS-7.

How does one check the internal log to determine which channel(s) have the guide data?

Originally posted by SheerLuck_Homes


I've been reading owners manual pdf file off manufacturer's web site. It keeps saying this DVR will work with a cable box, but nothing about a Satellite receiver. I have Dish network, but am sick of their BS and got the 3410a to just watch OTA HD. But until I turn of Dish can I use the 3410a with my Dish receiver and record off it? I believe I have the Dish 6100 HD reciever.



Would suggest having your DISH 6100 HD box modified by the good folk of 169time.com who will place firewire outputs and also send along an AVX-1.
Those two boxes then connect to the firewire ports of the LG LST-3410a to provide what is currently the absolute best recording, playback, and archiving solution for premium high definition content.

Now that DISH has added 10 more HD channels from VOOM, it is for now the undisputed HD leader amongst all content providers.

stjr: To enter the TV Guide Diagnostics Mode, go to the "messages" menu and enter 753159852 on your remote. On the first page, you should find Host Channel. The data will be in hexadecimal notation (base 16) - look back in this thread to Post #2204 on page 111 for an explanation.

UncD2000,

Thanks for the explanation. I get a Host Channel of 0x9 or Channel 9, which is a PBS station in the Bay Area.

Chicagoland now seems to be receiving the guide data from PBS as well. Both of my units are now indicating 0xB which would be WTTW Ch. 11. I have more confidence now in receiving consistent data than when Gemstar was being transmitted by WLS-7 ABC.

Originally posted by tmitchmd
Would suggest having your DISH 6100 HD box modified by the good folk of 169time.com who will place firewire outputs and also send along an AVX-1.
Those two boxes then connect to the firewire ports of the LG LST-3410a to provide what is currently the absolute best recording, playback, and archiving solution for premium high definition content.

Now that DISH has added 10 more HD channels from VOOM, it is for now the undisputed HD leader amongst all content providers. The 3410A manual only lists 11 IEEE-1394 compatible devices (8 DVHS units & 3 Sony camcorders). Is anyone having success with a 169time modded STB and the 3410A?

Originally posted by UncD2000
Chicagoland now seems to be receiving the guide data from PBS as well. Both of my units are now indicating 0xB which would be WTTW Ch. 11. I have more confidence now in receiving consistent data than when Gemstar was being transmitted by WLS-7 ABC.

So why does mine indicate 0x507 (channel 1287)??

Phil -
Interesting coincidence? But every once in a while my PSIP or whatever goes nuts and all of my HD OTA stations get weird numbers and one of the things I see is that 5-1 becomes 507. Is it possible that channel 5 is your ABC network? (and thus could be the source of your guide?)

Originally posted by PhillyC
So why does mine indicate 0x507 (channel 1287)?? The numbers 506 or 507 are "Host ID," whatever that means. Look one line below that to find Host Channel.

Originally posted by UncD2000
Is anyone having success with a 169time modded STB and the 3410A?

Absolutely!

Originally posted by Hyrax
Phil -
Interesting coincidence? But every once in a while my PSIP or whatever goes nuts and all of my HD OTA stations get weird numbers and one of the things I see is that 5-1 becomes 507. Is it possible that channel 5 is your ABC network? (and thus could be the source of your guide?)

Aha! As UncD2000 made me realize, my Host Channel is actually 0xC, which would be analog 12 --- Fox. I wonder why different channels seem to be used within the Chicago area. Maybe one is better via cable and another via OTA?

Originally posted by Jan J

Wife & I discussed that I may have to spend the evening up on the roof with a walkie-talkie, with her informing me when problems exist, and I document locations of planes at that time, to try and come to a logical conclusing regarding this... Sounds nuts-o, I'll admidt, but how else would you determine that?


Now... if it was your wife on the roof, then I'd really envy you your good fortune

--G

In talking with fellas at work, the decision has been made to pitch the RG59 and replace the new coax with RG6, to gain the benefits of the increased shielding. I may as well move it from sidemounted (35') to top (51') of tower too....

Jan J,

The problem with this tuner is overload. Unless your signal is weak, the RG6 will not help. RG6 has lower loss per foot not better shielding. I'm not clear why you would replace the RG59. if you are starting from scratch, i would use RG6.

Originally posted by PhillyC

The last time this happened to me, the unplug did not solve it as it usually does. I had even lost many cable channels from the guide. If you get "No Listing" one day, you can bet it will continue until you take action.

The solution was to change to a nearby zipcode to shake things up. The next day I switched back to the correct zipcode, although my neighbor zips have the same programming as I do. The guide then filled in properly over the next few days.

After two months of "No Listing" guide trouble, this technique did the trick. When the re-boot didn't work anymore, I used suggestions from this thread to:

1) Run diagnostics to check my "host" channel: sure enough it was 0 (no wonder the guide was blank).
2) Change the zip code to a completely different city/state (nearby zip didn't have any effect).
3) Next day change back to my home zip code, and guide data returned the following day.

I knew something was working when the Guide light went off (by itself) in the evening; previously it would stay on ALL THE TIME until it basically "crashed" the unit. Normal operation for me is: Guide light comes on in the middle of the night, stays on most of the day, and goes off in the early evening.

I switched to a nearby Zip and have stayed there. It is working perfectly.

Originally posted by Jan J
In talking with fellas at work, the decision has been made to pitch the RG59 and replace the new coax with RG6, to gain the benefits of the increased shielding. I may as well move it from sidemounted (35') to top (51') of tower too.... Jan, be sure to use high quality quad shield RG6 such as Belden 7916A. It might not be worth the trouble of replacing your RG59 with a lower grade of RG6.

Don't be surprised if you find no improvement at 51' vs 35'. Working with analog signals many years ago in Texas, I found insignificant improvement with additional height once I was above the "ground clutter," which was around 32' AGL as I recall. Of course YMMV; with digital signals the ground clutter level may be different, and multipath is a major consideration in digital reception at many locations.

OK - this host channel business is very interesting.

It's been a long time since I've had a problem with the guide. The host channels all seem to be on vhf.

I'm using a RS vhf/uhf combo antenna. Ghosting on vhf channels here west of Portland is pretty extreme, however reception of vhf channels on a uhf yagi only is practically nonexistant.

Is it possible that those of you who have frequent guide problems are using uhf only antennas and are unable to get a steady vhf guide signal?

Lew

I have a great Winegard VHF/UHF combo unit with a Channel Master mast mounted amp with highe UHF gain than VHF gain.

Since you asked, I have BOTH a (Silver Sensor) UHF and (custom tuned) VHF antenna on a combiner going into my unit. While there are multiple stations with guide data in my city (Dallas), Channel 13 is the first one it finds, and I seem to get good enough reception to make it work. This would probably make it too difficult for the common user, but I sometimes wonder if would be beneficial to be able to "force" the EPG channel; of course, that assumes you know this info (I just happend to have someone here I can ask).

Originally posted by MrHifi
Jan J,

The problem with this tuner is overload. Unless your signal is weak, the RG6 will not help. RG6 has lower loss per foot not better shielding. I'm not clear why you would replace the RG59. if you are starting from scratch, i would use RG6.

I've noticed this too. In Chicago, on WPWR which puts in a monster signal, I have to turn the antenna off to the side before the tuner will lock in. WMAQ often does the same thing too. They are my two strongest stations.

Dickm

Originally posted by tmitchmd
Absolutely!

Can you elaborate? How easy was it to record HD programming from the STB, such as ESPNHD, on the hard drive of the 3410a? What kind of STB box do you have? What specifics steps did you take to record an HD program off the STB onto the 3410's hard rive when you weren't going to be at home?

Thanks.

For those of you in Chicagoland.... Please tell me if you get wildly fluctuating Signal levels on channel 11-1
Thanks

Originally posted by newberrygator
Can you elaborate? How easy was it to record HD programming from the STB, such as ESPNHD, on the hard drive of the 3410a? What kind of STB box do you have? What specifics steps did you take to record an HD program off the STB onto the 3410's hard rive when you weren't going to be at home?

Thanks.


The following is from the 169time website: (http://www.169time.com)


"HDTV Recording with LG LST-3410A

The LG LST-3410A hard drive based stand alone OTA receiver / recorder is one of the most straight forward methods to record and playback from hard drive. When used with the 3410, the firewire connection from the HDVR (in the 169time equipped set top box or decoder) and AVX1 are each plugged into one of the ports on the 3410. There can be no other devices connected in the firewire daisy chain. The 3410 senses the AVX1 as being a DVHS device. To get the video flowing, it may be needed to press the 1394 button or play button and stop button several times on the 3410's remote.

The advantage of the 3410 over other hard drive methods is that there is no PC software or hardware to setup or install, and there is never a speed problem or interference from other applications running in the PC. The 3410 has component, RGB, and DVI HDTV outputs for playback and monitoring recording. Customer feedback is that the playback decoding and compatibility are excellent.

The 3410 makes provides a convenient method to record to hard drive, edit the video, and then dump to tape for long term storage. It is also possible to increase the size of the 3410's built in hard drive, and even install a removable tray to permit archiving directly to hard drive, and maintin a library of hard drives, each holding 25 hour or more s of HD material in a compact size. This usage is not supported directly by 169time or LG. Customer feedback is that there is considerable success with this. A 300GB Maxtor 5400 rpm hard drive is reported to work and run cool with LG, and provide over 30 hours of recording time before dumping to tape.

Customer feedback is that one easy way to implement timer control of the LG is to program the receiver to output the HD signal only when the desired program comes on, and leave the LG in the record mode. Even though it is in the record mode, the LG will not use hard drive space when there is no signal coming from the AVX1, such as the case where there is zero video and audio rate reported by the AVX1."

For D* subscribers, you might want to take a 2nd look at the HD Tivo.
There is an informative post in Tivo Community Forum "I got my HD Tivo for $399 (with 5-yr warranty)." This reflects the 5/17 $300 price cut.

I'm not a fan of the Tivo functionality overall, but if I didn't have a pair of 3410As I would have to give this some thought. Too bad this pricing wasn't available last September. After all, the rerun season is almost upon us now. It might be best at this point to be patient and see what the MPEG-4 equipment looks like a few months from now.

Darn!!!

Crawled up the tower, to remove a ham radio antenna, in preparation for moving the 2 month old TV antenna up 15 feet to antenna top.

DARN!!! I shooting directly into trees about 1/2 mile SSE of tower!

Cut down coax, but wind picked up before I could remove old antenna.

When antenna gets to top, will have almost a clear shot at Hancock, and Sears via another tree.

Quad shielded RG6 ordered...

Commscope F6SSVV-5740 RG6 Quad 2200Mhz E113333

Hey guys, new to discussion on the LST-3410A. Since the new Sony hd pvr's are looking less than thrilling, I'm looking into this LG box. Since I don't have time to read 2000+ posts, can someone give a quick overview about whether or not this box is worth buying? It's either this or the $1000 dvhs jvc box with built-in tuner. Thanks!

This works very well. i love mine. Going on 1.5 years.

Same for me.

You will be happiest if you live in a good guide area. This seems to be the same for the Sony.

Originally posted by nathan118
Hey guys, new to discussion on the LST-3410A. Since the new Sony hd pvr's are looking less than thrilling, I'm looking into this LG box. Since I don't have time to read 2000+ posts, can someone give a quick overview about whether or not this box is worth buying? It's either this or the $1000 dvhs jvc box with built-in tuner. Thanks!

Nathan, I would buy one of these again. In my area the box works unless the local stations mess up their PSIG and the worst that has happened is that the 3410a doesn't record *that* show. The 1394 interface works as it was specified.

You'll be happiest if you are willing to live with three items:

1) This is not a Tivo. It acts much more like a VCR with a Guide than a Tivo.
2) The box doesn't know how to "fix" bad Guide or PSIG data. It just takes what it is given.
3) The 1394 interface is limited but works within the owner's manual specifications (no daisy chaining, designed for DVHS, etc).

There are a number of workarounds for problems discussed in this thread. I'd use the search function on this thread if/when you were to hit a problem.

Andy

Hi Nathan;
I bought one(3410A) and since they are to go out of production, bought a second one Love it(them)!!! I can record HD movies off the movie channels via my 169time modification, can swap out hard drives for just a little more than the cost of HD tapes, and above all it WORKS! The lack of "TIVO" is not really true. I have a Symbio that jumps all over the place with its TIVO in operation, and usually use the LG since not only it will allow you to pause and do skips, fast plays and short skips , but will allow you to SAVE the recording if you wish(which most TIVOs will not support). Be sure if you get one to get the latest version though as earlier units had problems and "Refurb" of these do not fix all that was wrong. Don't buy an ebay or refurb unit. Check with someone like BHphoto and get the latest unit. Don't wait till they are gone or you will have missed something that is a truly great unit.

It sounds really promising. I'm curious if it works so well and everyone likes it, why discontinue it? Or at the least, why not make a new model? I'm willing to give the new sony's a chance and wait for a verdict on those too.

I have no idea as to why they discontinued it. Seems stupid to me and that is why I have 2 of them. Nothing similar on or coming to the market. MAy be that the price is high comapared to some TIVO units? Certainly blows away tape(I also have a Mits Dvhs deck which I seldom use anymore as I favor the hard drive capabilities of the 3410A with 5400 RPM 300 gig drives being so low cost..

I have two 3410As as well, which have been behaving quite well since PBS took over as guide Host Channel. Also I had to change the Zipcode on one unit to a nearby area to get it to retain guide data.

It would be nice if the 3410A had Cable Card, which would give access to the scrambled channels for cable subscribers.

I hope to get a basic HD DVR from D* when the MPEG-4 models become available. If these have dual tuners, I could probably part with one of my 3410As at that point.

I would not dump a 3410A especially for an unknown. I don't knw if the signal from your cable will allow you to tape or hard drive record an HBO or other movie channel movie or not. I can thru my 169time setup. Not sure if you can do that or not. With a DVR, the seek and scan etc are painful to use, at least on my Mits. The hard drive of the LG though is just great for that as well as holding a lot of program material.IF you do decide to do away with it, give me a shot at it.

I've lost track of information on replacement drives... Now that the 300 GB drives were taken off the market, (Even the thread I'd saved on these drives has since be replaced with SATA drives) were there any substitutes determined to be "OK" as a larger replacement?

Antenna not changed yet, when it is calm, it is dark, or I'm working.

Jan, try
http://www.etech4sale.com/products/partinfo-id-117479.html
I got one and it works just fine for my 3410A A bigger one is at
http://www.etech4sale.com/products/partinfo-id-116906.html
I cannot say the second one works but the 300 does as it is hanging outside my 3410A right now.

Bill.... Thanks very much for the drive post.

I just got down from the tower.... Moved antenna from ~35' to ~51'.
I could see the Hancock building from the antenna location. Sears is blocked by trees about a mile or so SSE of me. Used the Quad shielded RG6 as documented in earlier post. Signal improved, and it is more solid, FAR LESS FLUCTUATING! Whereas channel 2-1 & 11-1 used to fluctuate between Normal and Good (Channel 11-1 especially so!) now all channels except 26-1 are at "G" of "Good" OR HIGHER! Most are between the two "O"'s of GOOD.
Time will tell, but it looks promising, very promising!!

(Damn well better, I'm getting too old for this tower CRAP!) :)

I forgot to mention, where the coax comes into the basement I have a Drake High Pass filter in the line. Antenuates <54Mc. I had removed this months ago in my "try to fix this without going up on the Tower" mode.

Another update.

The height got me an additional station... One that showed up on the Mitsubishi 62525 'Program list' before, but I never got a picture. 17-1 & 17-2
I receive it on the Mitsubishi, but not the 3410a, even in an edit station attempt. Tried swapping RF cables from Mits to 3410a. Same. I guess the Mits tuner is more sensitive ??? Not an issue, just information.

So far, so good with the new antenna... Ask me again in a few weeks if all is still well & good!! :)

I'm in Skokie... Anyone know where the transmitter for 17-1 is?

WYIN-DT17 (PBS for Gary/Merrillville) transmits from the Cedar Lake area in northern Indiana. Ground level elevation is 725' and tower height 956'. I think the exact location is 41:20:56N x 87:24:2W. They used to transmit on 17-4 as well.

I haven't been able to receive it on the 3410A either, but strangely my old RCA DCT-100 that is built into my F38310 HDTV receives it occasionally.

Thanks for that info on Channel 17. I played around with and without the preamp in the basement yesterday, and there is a slight improvement with less fluctuations with preamp, so I'm testing it with preamp in.

Did encounter one short unlock (long enought to get signal meter on screen) on 2-1 last night, but 11-1 (which was worst before antenna move) was solid.

Does anyone know if the older model of LG DVR (Origional one that only records 8 hours of HD)
can be upgraded with new hard drive?

Thanks

Ordered a second new unit from Cousins. There is just nothing in the pipeline with RGBHV and the other features. God, I love this thing. Decided to opt for a second unit so next fall, When there are 3 HDTV shows broadcast at the same time, I can record 2 and watch the third on my RCA DTC100 which works superbly. It's fan makes it the loudest piece of gear in my home.

It's just unfortunate that they didn't catch the YC timing issues on 480I tuner reception....

My NTSC 2-13 reception is so bad that it would not make any difference any way. My UHF reception is outstanding. Is your problem with all NTSC or all 480i?

All NTSC, which is 480I

When I tested the video inputs, they seemed OK to me, but the fella who I eventually got through to said there was a minimal about on video inputs, too (But again, I wasn't seeing that on prior or subsequent tests).
He confirmed the YC problem on received 480I (NTSC) inputs. He said the cause of it wasn't the tuner, or the input signals, or signal strength, but the IF between the tuners and the video/audio detector. The IF has to be very wide for HD Receptions needed bandwidth, and when the 480I signals go through that wide IF, they kind of 'bounce' from side to side, and when collected at the detector, they arrive at differing times. Since Chroma is based around one general frequency in the IF, depending on picture content's luminance & chromanance at that point in time, can cause differing amounts of delay, and I have seen this.. For example the QVC reference I used months ago... The White CG Windows compared to the background scene's color: Goes from High chromanance (Background color) to White CG (No color), with one consistant Luminance on the CG. Therefore, the problem looks very obvious there.
However, if I record say, "Deadwood" off SD cable, with it's perdominant dark earth tones, because the overall color & luminance is pretty uniform across the entire video frame, the perceived amount of error there is less obvious, or not seen at all.

It's a shame that they couldn't have added a second IF path for SD (480I) IF.... But they didn't.... Even their lab hadn't tested for that!!!

The first conversation I had with the fellow in the lab was kind of incredulous, he thought that it couldn't possibly happen that what I was describing would be there. But I was so insistant on what I had observed, that that's why he tested it for me on his unit there; Because he was so certain that the problem wasn't there, and that he'd show the fellow who called that he tried to re-create the problem, and couldn't.

You can imagine his change of attitude when I called him on the phone a week later. He had written up his test results, and forwarded them back to the design team (Overseas)
We discussed a potential repair senerio, too. Software programing would be out of the question, because the boxes were designed so they could not receive software upgrades once out of the factory. So... that leaves a Hardware solution, and that was why he forwarded the information from his test results.

I'm still waiting patiently....



I offered to beta test their next generation box, so that this wouldn't "sneak through" on next generation box.

Haven't heard anything on my offer.... and it still stands.....

Bill... Thanks again for the drive info... I'm going to try the 320Gb unit. $4 more than 300, and free shipping, too!

Does anyone know if the older model of LG DVR (Origional one that only records 8 hours of HD)
can be upgraded with new hard drive?

ThanksJan,

Do you mean the Zenith HDR230? If so, the answer is yes. But its hardware is limited to 137GB addressing, so anything larger is basically wasted. I have a 300GB drive in mine right now and it only shows that about 14 hours are available.

(I plan on putting that drive in my 3410a when the warranty on the 3410a expires.)

Jan J,

Two points...

If you are seeing your "chrominance delay" issue on only the analog stations, i believe you are looking at the fact that the analog input decoding path in this device is just cheap. I never watch any analog exept what I record on my SVHS recorders when there are more than 2 shows on at the same time. Even then, I often use my DTC100 to feed its digital source signal through the S connected feed to the VCR's. Analog only feeds have so many artifacts that using them for any type of quality recording is ridiculous. Often i use my FTA MPEG2 receiver to receive satellite feeds. These are OK but nowhere near as nice as analog delivered through my main delivery system, 4DTV. If you want to receive the best picture available be it digital or analog, try a Motorola 922 and HDDD200 digital/HD decoder. There is no perceivable delay through this system.

We have discussed this before and I'm afraid come to the same conclusion. Using an LST-3410A to record analog is not the best use for this box. The only thing it does well is receive, decode, record and make available through a variety of interconnects a mirro image of the input. Had the tuner been able to del with multipath and noise more effectively, it would be the "perfect" DVR.

Re. the 320Gb HD... Understand there is a limit of 30 programs one can store on these machines. Also, apparently one must leave the unit on in order to avoid the "booting" process. For those reasons and because I often want t record more than one HD show at a time for watching at a more convenient time, I just bought a second unit for $700.00. That price is low enough to warrant the expenditure in order to gain flexibility, something I would not have gained with one drive. You might wish to consider another unit instead of a replacement HD. Now, if I had the 169Time system and liked watching movis over and over, then I might buy a larger HD.

Good Luck with whatever you decide.

I came to the same conclusion when I bought my 2nd 3410A. They hold at least 30 hours of HD total, even more if any of it is 720P. I'll probably keep both of them, even if the MPEG-4 DVR from D* works well. To me the (probably 2-tuner) DVR that D* will offer will be a more cost effective approach than paying big bucks to have one of the new MPEG-4 receivers modded by 169time.

I've been monitoring the evolution of consumer video recording for 30 years, and there's always something new and interesting going on. I waited until Feb. 1979 to buy my 1st VCR. That RCA model was among the first to offer a timer that could change channels and hold four programs.

Unc,

I've been playing with this stuff since 1956. The RCA VCR's always offered more for the money in those early years. I bought a docking unit and a camera, the "small wonder". It was an outstanding system, portable and it docked. Later I swtched to JVC's and bought 5 or six of them and 1 Sony.

Re. MPEG-4... My daughter gave me a very small and cheap recorder that uses flash memory to record MPEG-4 video and 5 megapixel pictures. the pictures are OK but the video is terrible. I hope it is not an indication of what MPEG-4 will be like.

Seeing that the LG folks I've talked to about the 3410a SD recordings were always touting it as superb, it is unfortunate what happened. With a little work, it could have been the "perfect" DVR, I agree with you.

It is heartening, though, that you said they mentioned a "next generation" device. Despite it's shortcomings, which I consider more of an occasional nuisance rather than a major pain, the 3410a does so many things well that the next box would have to be close to ideal, assuming they leave in the two-way 1394 port.

FWIW, I am using a Seagate 7200.8 300GB drive externally on my 3410a. I have recorded 43 programs so far without a "booting" problem.

So far the only "next generation" DVRs from LG are being built into some of their high end TVs. I hope these are better able to cope with corrupted guide data from the Host Channel, because LG won't be able to ship these TVs back and forth like the 3410A.

Unc,

When I saw those TV's, I had the same reaction.

I wonder if the increased speed of the 7200rpm drive allows a greater number of shows(over 30) to be initialized on start-up before recording begins before it times out?

The 7200rpm speed seems to speed up the initialization process, as I expected. The downside of using a 7200rpm drive is that it runs hotter than the 5400rpm drives, which is why I am mounting it outside the 3410a box. I was thinking of buying another Maxtor 300GB/5400rpm drive, but with a 30 event recording limitation on bootup, I think I’ll stay with the 7200rpm drives.

I found out when I took the cover off to change out the hard drive that it is not very difficult to install a fan, even for a pansy like me. I'm working out the details, but I should have it down to something really simple and reproducable soon. It probably will be simpler than the fan solutions posted (much) earlier in this thread.

To me, it is not a big deal to use a computer ribbon and a double pole double throw switch to allow a second drive external to the chassis and swap out drives without opening the LG. No fan, no loimit on the number of drives you fill and stash.

Bill,

Your post on using the double pole double throw switch was very helpful, and I am following it in principal. I am manually switching the power between my 3410a's internal (5400rpm) and external (7200rpm) drives by alternating the connections with 4 prong power cable extensions threaded through the fan grill. I hope to get to the double pole double throw switch in the near future.

The black wires can stay connected to any number of drives. Just switch the two power leads.

Why not just put in a 300GB hard drive and when the time comes for near 30 events recorded, just edit and dump to D-VHS. I can't see price as a sticking point considering that the price for a good D-VHS deck is about the same as a 300GB hard drive. I use the LST-3410A stock configuration to record then edit & burn to D-VHS tape with my mits HD-HS2000U. It doesn't seem to hard for me even if I went out & brought a 300GB hard drive, not that there is much that I record that would even reach 30 hours, but maybe 24 (LOL) without edits. What am I missing here?

Its more conveninent to have all of your shows on one HD than a bunch of unlabled or poorly labled tapes scattered around the house, The 1034 auto indexes with a thumbnail image and changeable titles, it lists station, time and date of recording . Another issue is the time it takes to down load to tape and sometimes you get failed down loads and have to repete the process. Also some stations bit streams will not down load at all. Of course they are more expensive than a $3 svhs tape but hd prices are going down and you can find HD's on sale or with rebates. I try to find 120 or 160 HD's on sale.

With my 300GB 7200rpm PATA Seagate drive, I was able to successfully record 47 events on the 3410a before I had a boot up failure on the 48th recording. It sure beats the 30 event limitation of the Maxtor 5400rpm drives. Given my recording length preferences, I see no advantage to getting a larger drive than 300GB/7200rpm. Now, if there were such a thing as a 400GB or 500GB 10,000rpm drive, I might be willing to do more testing......

The guys at Weaknees.com were recommending the Seagate 7200 400 GB drive for those who didn't want to use the (some say overpriced) Maxtor QV 300 GB drive.

I suppose another option for extending the recording event limit (on boot-up) is to extend the amount of time the 3410a will wait before starting the recording, so the hard drive has more time to initialize. Does anyone have any insight on how to make such a change in the firmware?

To me at $189 for a 300 gig drive vs $7 for an HD tape, the drive is worth the couple extra bucks.

Page 44 of the 1034 manual states that the total number of programs on the program list can be up to 128.

Page 44 of the 1034 manual states that the total number of programs on the program list can be up to 128.

Page 44 of the 1034 manual states that the total number of programs on the program list can be up to 128.

I recently reached 125 programs (with a 300GB drive) and the 3410a gave me a warning that 128 was the limit. HOWEVER, be aware that as you reach the 128 limit, some of the older programs you may have saved start becoming corrupted. I went back through the archive of programs I had saved and found a hand full of them I were corrupted and un-playable. These tended to be the older programs with many edits.

The boot up time with this many programs saved on a 300GB drive tends to be very long (approx. 1 minute or more).

Anybody else run into this problem?

I have the 300gb Maxtor QV drive and currently have remaing 6 hours available for HD, and 12 hours for SD. The unit will not do a timed recording either vcr+ or via the Guide if it needs to power on, so I make sure the unit is on for at least several minutes before any scheduled recordings. This behavior didn't start until I had about 12-14 hours remaining available for HD. Obviusly, the unit will stay on after the recording is finished until I manually shut it off which many times isn't until the following morning since I go bed before some of the recordings are finished. This unit is about 2 years old now and otherwise is working fine. So far the earlier recordings haven't been corrupted, but they aren't edited either.

Although, I am considering the SONY 500GB HDDVR, it can record one program while watching another recorded program and probably doesn't have the problem as the 3410 does when it starts to get filled, which even for HD, is a lot. I don't archive, only time shift , so ,no firewire ,isn't a big deal for me. Although it was necessary to use the firewire to dump a few recordings so far to the JVC 30K to make some room for more recording time but for me I doubt that with the larger drive I would need to do that.

joe

Why not just put in a 300GB hard drive and when the time comes for near 30 events recorded, just edit and dump to D-VHS. ?


In the case of only one DVR system, this causes a time bottleneck.

Laying off a show is like watching it. Goes down at 1:1 time. If you have 26 hours on the DVR, and want to lay off 12 hours, want to watch 10 hours, and have 2.5 hours to record tonight, you are in a time crunch!

I fully understand the comments "That's why we bought a 2nd one"...

I could see us doing the same, though the RF & Video/audio routing would get to be a nightmare...

If a 320 Gb drive will work up to 30 shows, that's fine. If, on a power up, it doesn't initialize in time for a timed recording, I've seen that already on the 120Gb drie.... and explains that 'feature'.

Let me throw out another question for the folks with larger hard drives.

If you leave it off, and do TV Guide scheduled recordings, can you get 30 programs on it before you have to leave it on???

<<I fully understand the comments "That's why we bought a 2nd one"...

I could see us doing the same, though the RF & Video/audio routing would get to be a nightmare..> Actually with OTA it is a blessing if you have two channels that are not at the same antenna direction. One LG on one antenna and the other and the Toshiba connected to the other antenna with the tosh abvle to get antenna A or B and one LG on A and the other on B. Nice thing about the LG is that as opposed to using a symbio with the TV, I can watch something ohter than the show I am recording. I can watch CBS on the Tosh while I record NBC on one LG and ABC on the other. Now for the time to be able towatch them all!!.

Here we've cable & an outside antenna.
Mits display has 2 antenna inputs, as does LG3410a. add to that the SVHS deck that gets the cable feed, not outside antenna, and all the Video/Audio connections going to the Mits, and Bose, and adding a 3rd device needing 2 antenna feeds to it, and video and analog audio going to Mits, and Digital audio going to Bose, and you get the idea......
Video & Audio I can deal with, it's the RF Feeds that I don't want to deal with!
The Single line here looks a bit intense!!!! :)

Why not just split the antenna feed? Sure if you are in a good media area like NY its easy because you never have to truly change direction of an antenna, and of course there is some db loss with the split but if your close enough it shouldn't matter. Then of course the LG could be your tuner in which case I agree completely that the cable connections get crazy and becomes something not worth bothering. To me I'm gonna be happily plugging away on the LG and the Mits D-VHS deck as I try to get all of the next season of 24 on D-VHS. (I got my setup really too late to do anything this season although I have the finale.)

Bill,

I received my 2nd 4.51 unit. I will use it with the RCA DTC100 to record 2 HD shows and watch a third. Here's the problem... How do you control 2 units with one remote? How did you resolve this? How have others resolved this? I have one more RF port on my 8 way amplified splitter so the antenna issue is OK and I have one input left on the Zektor RGBHV switcher so that's OK to handle video and DD audio. Only problem is the damn remote. Wish they would build something into these with multiple codes like my JVC VCR's.. I do not want to put it in another room.

The 3410A has been criticized for having such a narrow acceptance angle of the signal from the remote, so that you must point the remote directly at the unit. This turns out to be an advantage if you are controlling 2 units with the same remote. I have my pair separated by about 30 degrees horizontally, and if I am careful to aim the remote to the outside of the unit I want to control, it will affect only that unit. There have been a few mishaps when I got careless, but overall it works fine. The more you are able to separate the units, the less chance of errors. Occasionally I will want to hit both units, and aiming halfway between will do that.

I believe that the Home Theater Master MX-800 remote control with the MRF-200 base station will allow you to separately control two devices that use the same remote codes. I am not convinced that the cost and the time spent to set up the remote would interest me for my multiple devices, but if someone does try it, please post your experience.

It is unfortunate that LG did not allow for 2 codes. I use a home theater master MX600 which switches both units unfortunately. I also keep my LG remote on hand so I can turn on only one of the units at a time. I turn on only one unit with the LG remote, then use the HTM 600 to program it and then turn it off which turns the other on. Pain in the a** but it works.
Were you to go all out and get n HTM 800 with 2 stations, you would nave to set one station so it only had access to one of the LGs. The station sends out RF in a wide field and the remote is capable of control of either one or the other station. Not really what you are lookin g for. Another option I have not explored would be to set up the one LG so it could not "see" the mounted HTM station but could be reached by only directly pointing the HTM hand held remote. Then point the hand held toward somewhere else to operate the one LG with the station and directly point it to operate the LG out of range of the station.

I found out when I took the cover off to change out the hard drive that it is not very difficult to install a fan, even for a pansy like me. I'm working out the details, but I should have it down to something really simple and reproducable soon. It probably will be simpler than the fan solutions posted (much) earlier in this thread.

Being lazy, I took the easy way out. I put a 3" ball bearing fan (the largest that woul fit)to the right of the HDD, wedged between the front panel and the tuner enclosure. It blows across the top of the drive and probably under it some as well. That also keeps air moving over the front of the power supply. I can't put the lid on, but the unit is on a shelf with another shelf over it, so it doesn't really need the lid. I should probably add a filter to the input siede of the fan. The HDD is a Maxtor 250GB 7200 RPM, and never gets more than mildly warm.

How do you control 2 units with one remote? .

When I had two (the 2nd was the replacement sent for Y/C timing issues -- that replacement was no better than the one I had, so replacement got sent back). I found that if I put them about 10 feet apart I had no problems controlling them. I had one on shelf under Mits Display, and other on shelf above the the Mits Display. I'm guessing they were about 35 degrees apart, one from the other. During the week that we had the two of them we had maybe one error with the remote (not aimed properly).
Just don't put them side by side!

My build date on my new one is 4/6/04. I wonder if it is a refurb. It is updated to 4.51. I can't get this cable/OTa simultaneous feed worked out. I have both roof antenna and cable plugged in. Ran a scan and got lot's of stations, even HD movies. Let it sit over night. It says Guide and is lit but no Info. I'll give it another night. If you tell it you are hooked to cable, does it also scan Ant. input. Looks like locals through antenna in NTSC and ATSC SD and HD are there but they are also there in SD and HD and analog on the cable. Looks like all I need the Antenna input for is to get the guide. Or am I wrong?

Based on the two 451-series (2004 models) that I have, the new units will have 1.15 FW and the refurbs will have 1.17 FW. I can't detect any difference in operation between them.

When you enter that you have cable, it should run 3 scans: OTA (ATSC), analog cable, digital cable. It shouldn't scan for OTA (NTSC), and my understanding is that it will look for the guide Host Channel on analog cable. It will not seek the Host Channel OTA unless you have indicated that you don't have cable (IMO).

1.17 FW fixes QAM audio issue (most commonly seen with TNT-HD on comcast)

I have read a bunch of this thread but I'm sorry if this has been asked before

I really have my eye on the LG due to it's supposed wonderful mpeg2 decoder that has great error correction and RGBHV out for my CRT PRojector

I was wondering if anyone had tried r5000-hd or 169time recordings on this unit??

I would like to record my 169time movies to dvd-r's, install 4 dvd drives in my pc and set up a playlist in firebus(with pause/ff/rw controls) and play the content from the pc thru firewire to the LG to my CRT pj

This sounds like it would work just fine and dandy, Am I wrong??

-Gary

OK after 3 nights, I am unable to download [rogram info from the comcast cable. I get the lineup but no programming. Anyone else seen this? I get No Listings. I had to do almost 3 hours of correcting of the channel numbers. Also, many/most of the HD channels that are playing never make it on the list. Are yo sure I don't need an analog input? My other unit is pulling data off the analog NTSC perfectly every night. Is there something wrong?

Is there a going price for LST-3410A's? I can seem to find much on eBay. I'm thinking of selling mine.

Kelliot, what would you like for it?? I may be interested

-Gary

OK after 3 nights, I am unable to download [rogram info from the comcast cable. I get the lineup but no programming. Anyone else seen this? I get No Listings. I had to do almost 3 hours of correcting of the channel numbers. Also, many/most of the HD channels that are playing never make it on the list. Are yo sure I don't need an analog input? My other unit is pulling data off the analog NTSC perfectly every night. Is there something wrong?

Art,

This sounds like one that got me recently. Multiple problems usually show up together (no listings, lockups, failure to record, etc). So I was fooled when the ONLY problem was no listings while everything else worked perfectly. I fixed this with the ol' unplug routine. Just unplug for a few minutes. I think you'll have the guide begin to fill in overnight.

A new problem has occurred on my 3410A. The unit maps two of my Comcast HD locals like this:

FOX = 116.2
NBC = 116.5

When I tune to 116.5, NBC appears for a moment, but then the FOX picture and audio appears, even though the unit is still tuned to 116.5 and the Info button still shows NBC. Both channels are unstable with constant A/V breakups.

Both channels are fine on the Comcast DVR.

This actually happened once several months ago. I solved it by turning down the power of my 4-way distribution amplifier. But it's all the way down now with no further adjustment possible. I tried removing the amplifier and using just a 4-way 2GHz splitter, but that did not help and in fact adversely affected other channels. (I have the amplifier for a reason.)

So FOX bleeds over into NBC and neither channel is watchable. It seems as though something in the tuner must be failing. Can anyone else report similar behavior?

I would like to record my 169time movies to dvd-r's, install 4 dvd drives in my pc and set up a playlist in firebus(with pause/ff/rw controls) and play the content from the pc thru firewire to the LG to my CRT pj

This sounds like it would work just fine and dandy, Am I wrong??

-GaryI would be surprised is this works. Fearful of legal problems over copyright infringement, LG has programmed the 3410A to recognize just a small number of IEEE-1394 compatible devices. These are all DVHS units or Sony MV camcorders, so I don't think it would recognize your PC. Others have mentioned looking for an emulator that would trick the 3410A, but I don't know what might be available in this area.

On a related issue, when LG starts making HD DVD recorders, I hope they will think about us 3410A owners, and give these recorders firewire inputs that will be recognized as approved by the 3410A so that we can record from the HDD to HD DVD if the material is not copy protected. Maybe we should send LG some e-mails about this.

I would be surprised is this works. Fearful of legal problems over copyright infringement, LG has programmed the 3410A to recognize just a small number of IEEE-1394 compatible devices. These are all DVHS units or Sony MV camcorders, so I don't think it would recognize your PC. Others have mentioned looking for an emulator that would trick the 3410A, but I don't know what might be available in this area.

I'd like to achieve one step further....

I'd be willing to pay for software that would allow me to copy SD & HD .avi files from my computer INTO the 3410a.

And take SD & HD files FROM the 3410a and convert them to .avi files, for use in my computer!!

This way, I could edit video, and upload it to the 3410a, and then take the 3410a to a client's location for display on thier TV/Display.

In other words, make the 3410a a SALES TOOL!!!!

Not kidding...

Art,

I fixed this with the ol' unplug routine. Just unplug for a few minutes. I think you'll have the guide begin to fill in overnight.

Actually, I've found it's better to unplug it for only a few SECONDS: like 1 or 2. This resets everything (even fictitious reserved programs) without losing clock or CORRECT programs and restarts the download process.
Of course, none of this matters if you're EPG channel is wrong; see one of my earlier posts for a "checklist". I have been semi-regularly doing the quick unplug which seems to keep things going.