Not sure how easy thery are to find as they are discontimnued. That is why I gort a couple of them while I could. These were not exactly cheap at $6 to $9 hundred. Nice part is with a C band sat with 4dtv+HDD200 and 169time upgrades (these are not cheap either) you can record from your HD sat movie channels, keep the movies on hard drive or transfer them to a Digital HD tape deck.

Hi, that's crazy, I hope that when 2008 rolls around more manufacturers will jump on this.
I have read what you say about recording and playing at the same time, but don't understand how that's possible. I have also read that it can pause and rewind live recording, so by definition, it is playing from and recording to a hard drive buffer simultaneously. What I think you may mean is that it can't record and playback two different shows simultaneously? Or does it really stop recording live TV when you rewind the live feed a small amount?

In the tivo mode it can play the current recording, pause rewind etc while it is making THAT recording. It enters this mode with pause for 1 hour maximum possible.
It does save the tivo recorded material when you hit stop.

My panasonic NON Hd unit can play a previously recorded item while making a new recording of something else. In the record mode (establihed by a time or selection from the on screen TV guide, the 3410A cannot move around in the recording taking place, only in the tivo mode.

I see, thanks for clarifying. it sounds like this is a programmed limitation, not a hardware limitation, which is pretty shocking. Why they would program the DVR this way I have no idea. I have a replayTV, so I know how it 'could' work.

Not sure it is a program limitation. MAybe it srtores up to an hour in memory so it can look within the current recording but has only one head unlike tha panasonic. The panasonic does not do hd and cannot take different(larger) size hard drives but can transfer to dvd internally.

I see, thanks for clarifying. it sounds like this is a programmed limitation, not a hardware limitation, which is pretty shocking. Why they would program the DVR this way I have no idea. I have a replayTV, so I know how it 'could' work.
The fact that the 3410A can timeshift should not be confused with the ability to record one stream while watching another. Timeshifting deals with only 1 stream. This was discussed in depth on another forum about a year before the 3410A unit came out. Samsung were asked why, if Tivo/ReplayTV can record one show and watch a previous recording, that the 3410A cannot. One of the Samsung engineers explained that it was in fact a hardware limitation and that the hardware could not support dealing with two different HD streams at once. I forget the exact reason - but I seem to recall that it had to do with the amount of data. The 3410A is a Unix box, I've been told, and it may not have the horse-power to deal with two streams in real time.

I see, thanks for clarifying. it sounds like this is a programmed limitation, not a hardware limitation, which is pretty shocking. Why they would program the DVR this way I have no idea. I have a replayTV, so I know how it 'could' work.The 3410A has many shocking limitations. I've never seen ANY kind of recording device that will allow itself to be turned off while recording. My very first Sony Betamax VCR (circa 1980 AD) wouldn't even allow that.

I agree. I have to be very careful since I operate 2 units in the same room.

The 3410A has many shocking limitations. I've never seen ANY kind of recording device that will allow itself to be turned off while recording. My very first Sony Betamax VCR (circa 1980 AD) wouldn't even allow that.

I will admit that the 3410A does have more then its share of quirks, but it is interesting that what you find as a 'shocking limitation' is something that I find as welcome relief. I've always thought 'the electronic device knows best' attitude irritating and find the 3410A's ability to be turned off when you want to turn if off refreshing. Obviously, I've never screwed up a recording session by turning off the 3410A (if I had I'd probably be agreeing with you :))


UncD2000
A long time ago someone posted that there are discrete on/off codes, by the way. That should make your situation a bit easier.

I've never seen ANY kind of recording device that will allow itself to be turned off while recording.?

My Sony DHG-HDD500 can be turned off (and on) when timer or guide recording.

So can my 480i Sony RDR-HX900. (I'm not sure, but I think my Panny E85 can, too.)

?

My Sony DHG-HDD500 can be turned off (and on) when timer or guide recording.

So can my 480i Sony RDR-HX900. (I'm not sure, but I think my Panny E85 can, too.)My Panny can be turned off too. The MAJOR difference is that the recording in progress will continue. Not so the 3410A. Kill the power....kill the recording.

Hi all,

A new year & wouldn't you know it but TVGOS is behaving itself. No freezes, complete listings including HD, no Reserved light blocking downloads, at least in my area or my machine anyway. Anyone else having good luck as well? :D

Both working fine here!! (Knock on wood!)
Yesterday afternoon I did have to do some rf preamp moving in the basement, so I turned both units on, so that the TV Guide software would not panic and start scanning for new channels when they lost their RF feeds...
10 minutes later, all was back to normal, and both units were turned back off again.

I have to give credit to John for his suggestion about using a UPS on the 3410a. I appear to have fewer box resets in the few months since powering the 3410a's and SVHS decks from a UPS..


Both units recorded last PM (while wife was watching 3rd HD feed, and recording a SD feed on VHS....... And since I wasn't informed of a problem...... I think I got away with the swap out I did in basement!

At this point in time (15 or so years with multiple Tape recorders, 3 years after HDTV Display, 2+ years after the first 3410a, 3/4 year after the 2nd) It is quite interesting watching the wife (AKA: "Video Junky") go through her "Evening Video Procedure":
Scan the evening's Printed guide, checking off the shows she wants to watch, determining what pre-recorded shows gets viewed, what current show gets recorded based upon HD or SD mode, and which device records what, based upon the recordings that already exist on the devices; Scan the TV Guides in the 3410's, adding scheduled HD recordings, Adding SD Recordings to SVHS decks; Scheduling "Playbacks" on 3410's, SVHS decks, occasional Program viewings as they air...

It's kind of like watching an efficency expert....

All I can tell you is she's "Big" into time shifting.

She's developed a procedure where she bounces back & forth between 3410a's.... Recording on DVR1 while playing back on DVR2, or visa versa.. She gives precidence to DVR2 for playbacks, as it has the smaller hard drive, and DVR1 therefore does her daily Soaps and Exercise Shows. Or, like last night, Watching one HD program while two others gets recorded in HD, while a SVHS deck records HBO (downconverted from HD to SD and re-modulated to CH4 -- which looks better than the HBO SD feed through the 'box')....

Watching one HD program while two others gets recorded in HD, while a SVHS deck records HBO (downconverted from HD to SD and re-modulated to CH4 -- which looks better than the HBO SD feed through the 'box')....I'm sure it does, but . . . HD to SVHS? I guess I've become something of an HD snob, but it would rankle me to receive a show in HD and downconvert to SVHS to watch it. And what's with the CH4 modulation? Your display must have S-Video or at least composite inputs; wouldn't they look better?

I realize you may not be able to record HBO in HD, since both cable and satellite usually make it difficult except with their own DVRs. After exhausting all methods I could think of (and was willing to pay for) I'd probably settle for watching it live.

You can hard drive record HD from Satellite with some mods and a computer bought thru 169time (read that 16:9 time). Cost a lot, not real straightforward, but you can do it. Then if you want you can transfer the recording to a digital HD tape or keep it on a hard drive for archiving. The 3410A can and will accept a larger drive or can be set with a split ribbon from a computer to allow you to put one drive outside the 3410 and with a little switch on the ground power cable switch to either drive and swap out the external drive. Costs barely more than HD tapes to just keep them on drives but drives crash easier than tapes.

I went the HD (Channel 186); to downconverted SD video; to local modulate to CH4; and re-insert it back into cable RF to get around the VERY POOR picture quality of SD HBO (Channel 550). They are obviously suffering from going through multiple devices, and at least one of the is clipping in RGB colorspace, clipping both blacks and whites, and the picture quality is absolute Horse-crap!
If I switch between looking at my (Local Ch4) of HBO to looking at YUV out of the Cable Box looking at HBO SD (Ch 550) the Local CH4 that I create RUNS RINGS around the crappy signal passed of as HBO SD on my cable supplier! (End of Vent!)

Yes! we do occasionally watch HBO on the YUV cablebox feeds, and it looks pretty good.

But if given the choice of viewing HBO off my locally re-inserted channel 4, or off cable box set to channel 550, I'll chose the downconverted/Re-inserted CH4 feed over the Cablebox on channel 550 any day of the week!!

If I've figured out how to improve the picture, I'm really surprised that Comcast hasn't figured out how to do it yet!

Ok, NOW End of Vent!!! :)!

I put my machine back up on some low cones for better cooling. So far so good. As an added measure, when I can, I'll buy a UPS device, probably the battery backup unit with sinewave correction from APC which is specially built for A/V applications.

I put the case back on my 3410a about two weeks ago.
Comp had a sale on laptop coolers.(about $10)
I bought one and am using it on my receiver/amp and it worked great, temp down from 135 to 100 or so
Bought a second and have it on the 3410...so far so good!
Now looking to buy another 3410a or a sony dhg hdd250!(If anyone has a spare or can point me in a good direction)
saw a phd 200 today on epvision.com but no recording capabilities!

Now looking to buy another 3410a or a sony dhg hdd250!(If anyone has a spare or can point me in a good direction)
saw a phd 200 today on epvision.com but no recording capabilities!

I just bought a TS3, might be willing to part w/my 3410a. PM me and we can talk.

I just bought a TS3, might be willing to part w/my 3410a. PM me and we can talk.
I am very intrested and have PM'd you a reply
Thanks

Tawtone -

You've got PM.

CarlP

You've got PM.

Kaetamer
You have a pm

Tawtone -

PM for you. :)

Kaetamer
You have a pm

I just bought a TS3, might be willing to part w/my 3410a. PM me and we can talk.
Please, tell us what you think of the TS3 when you have a chance. I'm on the verge of buying one myself.

Question for you all.

Has anyone recorded something in HD, and then changed the 3410a to output 480i and outputted SVideo and looked at it critically for YC timing issues?

Also, does the SVideo (480i) output of an HD playback play back in Letterbox or Center Cut?

Reason why I ask: Wife wants me to create a DVD out of recordings made on the 3410a. I'm just trying to determine up front what the unit will do to the HD Video in SD playback Prior to tearing everything apart and moving gear around to do this for her... So I have a plan of attack for the capture, edit, and DVD creation!


(I'm a football widower -- and because I did it once before.... I've been given 'orders')

(I know SD reception has a YC timing error, but I've never done a HD record, then switch the machine over to SD playback, and those cables are not presently on the system (and all available inputs are already used).

Thanks up front....

Jan-
I've not looked very carefully at YC timing issues, but I have been pleased with the results. You have many options on how to format the 480i output. I forget the name of the button <Ratio?>, but it lets you cycles through a number of aspect ratios.

I used to frequently create S-VHS tapes from the 3410A. As a test, the first few times I also recorded the show in SD directly from the SD cable channel. I thought the quality of the 'down rez-ed' recording from the 3410A was significantly better than the recording from the SD cable channel. However, the fly in your ointment is your DVD recorder. I've always thought that S-VHS recordings look significantly better than Tivo's highest quality recordings. If your DVD recorder cannot do a much better job that what I saw from Tivo, you may not be happy with the final results.

BTW, I stopped using S-VHS tapes when the Toshiba HD DVD player entered the scene. If I know I want to timeshift a show, I record shows in HD on my computer and then burn the show (in HD) to a DVD. You can fit about 40 minutes of HD material on a SL DVD, and well over an hour on a DL DVD. I've gotten good at the process and it is pretty quick. For example I wanted to record both 24 and Heroes last night, but only have one 3140A. I recorded Heroes on my computer and this morning it took about 20 minute to process the file and create the folders to burn to disk. I used to cut commercials using VideoReDo, but got tired of that - now that DL DVDs can be got for about 1$, I just blast the whole hour to a disk.

Are you a Bears Fan? Exciting times for them.

Wife is... I'm a Football Widower.....

It was nuts last Sunday at our house!!!

Thanks for info... Once all is recorded, then I'll start in...

Jan J,

While I'm not knowledgeable about exactly what YC timing issues are, I also have recorded HD programming & made DVD+Rs of that HD material "downrezzed." My images look sharper downrezzed vs. SD recordings (no brainer there I'd say). There are of course jaggies & significant loss of picture detail but at least it's not grainy and dark like lots of SD programming (maybe I should have my TV calibrated). I suppose that the 16:9 images have been 16:9'd again so that's how the image comes out on the TV and DVD recorder, flattened. If I watch the DVD recording on a monitor with a 4:3 aspect I get gray bars on top & bottom of the image. Like Hyrax said you could try out the different aspect ratios on the 3410.

jeneral,

you have a PM

Tim

Has anyone here had any luck finding a remote code to work for a Panasonic DVD player or Motorola cable STB using the LST-3410A "universal" remote control? The manual doesn't list any at all which seems odd since Panasonic is a very common DVD player and Motorola is perhaps the primary STB for cable companies.

Update on my prior questions on Downconverted Images and aspect ratios on the LD3410a.

Converted output to 480i, and changed 'ratio' to anamorphic (Squeezed?). Played the HD program in SD & Converted video to DV with a Transverter (Note: Transverter uses RGB colorspace, I used Japanese NTSC setting (so-as not to clip blacks & whites)).
Left the edit system in 4x3 and created DVD in 4x3 (Edit: This was an error on my part, but since I did not add text or wipeshapes, it wasn't evident as a problem). DVD played it full screen, changing the anamorphic video back to correct aspect ratio. Yes, I know this will only appear correct on a 16x9 display (or monitor with a 16x9 sweep setting)....

Overall I'm pretty darned impressed with the pix quality!!!
Maybe next year this time I can do it again, and stay in HD!!!! :)!

Edited the program to suit me, and created SD DVD out of it.

Is there anyone out there that can tell me exactly what I could use as a hard drive in the LG LST 3410A to be able to record more hidef on it and thanks?

Is there anyone out there that can tell me exactly what I could use as a hard drive in the LG LST 3410A to be able to record more hidef on it and thanks?

Below is a link to one of the archived threads discussing 300GB hard drives used in the LST 3410A.

-James

http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=370472

a few months ago, I tried this with my THREE different HD recording systems, downloading to DVD using a Panasonic ES20 DVD recorder. They all gave me what I considered unusable results.

To summarize:

Both the3410a and the Sony dhg-250 gave me DVDs that replayed "full screen", i.e., 4x3 on my Sony 4x3 HD monitor, with the HD program having either black or gray bars top and bottom...this was of course what I expected, but it was evident that a good deal of the nominal resolution from the sources was devoted to the area of the top and bottom bars, which were black from one unit and (ugh!) gray from the other. So when played back, what I got was effectively an inferior image as compared with commercial widescreen DVDs as my TV "upconverts" them.

In contrast, my Samsung/JVC30000K combination (the latter digitial VCR being the storage unit) gave me a DVD that devoted the entire DVD image to the original HD widescreen program. BUT, when played back, the image was stretched vertically to fill the 4x3 screen - on a 34XBR belonging to a friend, it played back properly, but I don't now have a widescreen monitor. I gathered from other forums here that I COULD have burned a DVD that I processed in a computer to produce a DVD with the proper setting to play back like a commercial DVD on my 4x3 monitor....2 steps too many for me.

So NOW when I anticipate programming that I will want to save, I record it on the 3410a and then download it via the JVC30000K to DVHS tape, an option that the 3410 a has (but not the Sony). This has only happened a couple of times...both PBS productions of an opera or ballet...the equivalent of a $50 ticket to the live performance...

Someday I imagine I'll have a 16x9 monitor, when the flat panels give an image closer in quality to CRT, but it looks like it's still only the DVHS tape that will store things for me, because neither of my units has any other HD output capability...of course, HD DVD recorders may solve that problem, but I don't anticipate such a recorder at a sensible price in the next few years.

anvstf: I agree, Letterbox (top and bottom blanked) looses too much vertical resolution.
Anamorphic (widescreen, 16x9) improved the resolution, though limits 'proper' playback to 16x9 displays...

Maybe later this year I can attempt the same thing in HD, but that will involve more $$ than I have available at this point in time...

http://www.provantage.com/maxtor-3h500r0~7MXTA01Y.htm

Searching the Maxtor website looking for power considerations.. Haven't found any yet. I think the problem we will run into is we won't find any more 5400RPM drives....
If anyone can find startup, idle and write power specs for the new 400 & 500 drives, I'd like to compare it with the Maxtor 5400RPM 330GB Quickview drive's specs that I have at home...

BTW, I stopped using S-VHS tapes when the Toshiba HD DVD player entered the scene. If I know I want to timeshift a show, I record shows in HD on my computer and then burn the show (in HD) to a DVD. You can fit about 40 minutes of HD material on a SL DVD, and well over an hour on a DL DVD.

Hi Hyrax,
Your note indicates your recording HD content via your computer. What computer and which HDTV tuner card?

What is the importance of the Toshiba HD DVD player and this?

Thanks,
Martin

Martin -
I'm using a Fusion 5 Gold card and BeyondTV 4 (SnapStream). The Fusion 5 card is a bit CPU intensive, so you may want to use another card if you have a slow computer. I've a Core 2 Duo computer and can easily play computer games and record a show.

What I do works well for timeshifting OTA stuff. What I do is much like using a VCR. I even use RW disks so that I can reuse the disks after I watch a show. I put half an hour on a disk. I once thought about cutting commercials from the shows, but it takes too long and is much effort. Also, editing a MPEG stream can cause lip synch issues. I hate out of synch audio.

The Toshiba HD DVD player makes it so I do not need to use a computer to view the recording. This eliminates all of the extra effort required by a HTPC. It is pretty nifty except for the fact that the HD DVD drives take soooooo long to load a disk. You can also use the XBox 360's $200 HD DVD drive.

I believe you can create Blu-Ray formatted disks and use a Blu-Ray player or the PS3 instead. But I've never explored this.

The nice thing about burning these files to disk is that you get them off your hard drive, and lets you watch them at your pace. My 3410A seems to be always full. This results in our often recording prime time shows on our VCR. Now we get to catch everything in HD.

Lost my guide info (stations) for the first time in a while...Dreaded "AV1 ....." message. Other 2 units perfect. Wish I knew why they screw up. Going hrough the 3 day reboot process. 1. Reset to factory condition 2. Overnight download of cable SD stations 3. Download of digital stations.

Sure wish they weren't so sensitive.

I am using mine with an OPTOMA HD81. 1080P is amazing. I use 1080i/60 out of the 3410 and the VXD part of the HD81 upconverts to 1080P. Best picture available from any source.

Art,

Sorry you're having the problems, but not sorry you're posting them. We hadn't heard from you in so long, I was starting to worry.

Hey wilson,

Every so often I get an email regarding the 3410 and whether it is worth it. I normally end my response by referring the person to this thread aand mentioning the great bunch of guys on here who like me struggled the 3410 and LG into submission.

Re. current problem. One of the three is acting up. It reloaded all the cable and OTA channels and the OTA digital ones. I then changed the digital OTA to cable digital numbers and normally that does it. Did all that but it will not download the program info. Like I said, the other 2 are fine so I know it is this one. I see that the Guide light is not on and the other2 have it on. Thoughts? I know...start again. Can you imagine having this happen without our accumulated expertise?

Can you imagine having this happen without our accumulated expertise? While shopping for plasma TVs I found a 50" LG model with a built in DVR. I wonder if it uses the same technology as the 3410A and, if so, how many TVs LG had to buy back from frustrated consumers?

My power went out for an hour and a half on Sunday and reminded me why I hate this thing! Why would anyone design a box that you had to wipe out your whole recording schedule just to set the clock? :mad:

I'm in the LA DMA and recently lost all of my guide info too. Pulled the plug (for a minute or two), changed the zip code, re scanned (using EZ Scan), but no luck so far. Any other suggestions?

I'm in the Detroit market, receiving only OTA, and PBS (channel 56) is the source for our TVGOS data. I have been having two problems:
*Rather frequently, the unit won't respond to the TVGuide or VCR+ button at all. A brief (10 s) power unplug/replug rectifies this. Frequency: maybe every 2-3 days.
*Empty guide data for the past week. Last week, I noticed only the current day had data, the next six were empty. None ever filled in.

I've been recording OK in VCR+ mode. I tried the diagnostic mode today. It still gives my correct zip code and host channel (56 is 38 hex). I can't read most of the diagnostic fields, but the next download time seems to make sense.

The guide light comes on only briefly, not staying on for hours like it used to. If unplugged briefly, it quickly regains the time (30 s or less) and the Guide light comes on for a little while, but no program data loads.

Could my host channel have changed to the latest version 8 format? How would I tell?

JohnS - I am also in the Detroit area, OTA only also. I checked last night, and my EPG seemed to be all filled in for the next week.

I did notice maybe about two weeks ago that there was alot of data missing, but now it looks okay. Although I rarely look far ahead in the guide to schedule recordings, typically it's the same day - cause I don't plan ahead very well.

While shopping for plasma TVs I found a 50" LG model with a built in DVR. I wonder if it uses the same technology as the 3410A and, if so, how many TVs LG had to buy back from frustrated consumers?

My power went out for an hour and a half on Sunday and reminded me why I hate this thing! Why would anyone design a box that you had to wipe out your whole recording schedule just to set the clock? :mad:

I have the LG 42' LCD HDTV with the built in DVR. It works hella a lot better than the 3410A I have. I brought the LG LCD HDTV with the build in DVR first and loved its recording abilities that the other TV makers don't offer. The draw back is that it only has one digital tuner. I couldn't record one HD show and watch other at the same time. That is why I brought the 3410A so I could record two at the same time or watch one HDTV show and record on the other. The LG HDTV doesn't wipe out the schedule after power goes out but if I record something when the power went off, it causes the hard drive to crash and lose all the recorded shows in the hard drive. Good thing that recording while power goes out rarely happens for me!

The TV guide for the LG LCD HDTV with built in DVR works great and never stops working. I sometimes can't get in the TV guide in the 3410a DVR. I have to do a reset. It never happens with the LG LCD HDTV. LG must have done something to fix that.



Recently, LG did come up with 42' LCD HDTV with two built in DVR's.

JohnS - I am also in the Detroit area, OTA only also. I checked last night, and my EPG seemed to be all filled in for the next week.

I did notice maybe about two weeks ago that there was alot of data missing, but now it looks okay. Although I rarely look far ahead in the guide to schedule recordings, typically it's the same day - cause I don't plan ahead very well.

Thanks for that info. Time for a reboot, I guess.

I've been using my 3410A for awhile now but have recently encountered a strange problem and hope someone may have a solution or advice.

I previously used the LG with my 720p PJ without issue. I now have it connected to a Sharp 1080p tv and am having issues. I can't get a 1080i signal from the LG to display properly on the sharp. The Sharp is showing the 1080i signal from the LG with horizontal aliasing. It's like the full horizontal resolution is not being displayed. For example, overlays of sports scores or ticker tape scrolling along the bottom is somewhat blocky and looks low rez. The onscreen GUI of the LG is blocky also when it's set to display 1080i. 720p looks like it is supposed to.


Now, if I'm watching a 1080i program coming from the LG and suddenly switch to the same program via the tuner inside the Sharp, the 1080i signal is shown like it should be. I don't have any problem with the TV displaying 1080i from component either, only from the LG via hdmi-dvi. I have a pc connected via hdmi at 1080p and don't have any problem with that connection (but 1080i doesn't look right from pc via hdmi-dvi either).

At this point I'm trying to figure out if the problem is in the HDMI-DVI cable (should it be HDMI-HDMI connection only), or maybe the HDMI ports on the TV, or maybe something is wrong with the LG at 1080i and I didn't notice it before since I had it hooked to a 720p device.

Any input is appreciated.

Regards

Since OTA 1080i upconverts to 1080P without an issue, is your LG set for 1080i or Native?
Way back when I was configuring the system here (on 720P display) I noticed a subtle difference between 720P and Native when watching a 720P transmission.

And Yes, I'm using a DVI-HDMI cable on one of the 3410a's we have, and it was on that system that I noted a subtle difference between 720P and Native on the LG.

P.P.S: Native was cleaner

I am using Native mode on the LG but have tried the 1080i setting as well with the same results. I am starting to think it has something to do with the HDMI-DVI conversion, I have tried two separate HDMI-DVI cables with the same result. Unfortunately I don't have any HDMI sources to test (good excuse to get a PS3 :D)

Thanks for the input Jan J.

Jan,

I'm using Native with my Optoma HD81. Frankly though, I can not tell the difference between this etting and using 1080i. Setting the 3410 at 1080i makes the picture come up faster on the screen.

Now to my real problem. Like others recently, I have one machine that is keeping me out of the guide completely occassionally. I can't get the program info to download. I know how to get into the dignostic meny, select and left, but Where and how do I check the station that has the program info. I'm seeing that it wants to look at Ch. 19 for ATSC and Cable. I'm connected to digital cable and OTA. My other machine reads the same and everything comes down perfectly. Guess I would like to know where and how to set it. Problem is that I need it every night and I do not wnt to lose all the recorded programs on my 300 GB HD.

Art, I know the hd81 has a separate scaler, how are you connecting that to the LG, (straight DVI connection or DVI-HDMI cable or converter)?

First off, I realize that the remaining-time indication is not going to be very accurate, since it has to be a worst-case estimate, based on program content with varying bit-rates. When it gets towards the low-end, it's off by almost a factor of 2, but I expect that.

What I don't expect is that when it tells me I have a 50-minute program segment to dump to tape, that the actual length is really 58 minutes! Or I think I have enough time to dump a 53-minute segment before a new program starts, but it takes a full hour.

These temporal errors are there whether a recorded segment has been edited or not. Since the LST recorded the d@mn thing, how can it possibly NOT know how long it runs? This is some of the worst software-engineering (and I use the term loosely) I have ever seen in a CE product, for such a basic function. I guess I shouldn't expect much from a company that can't even spell the word "edit", aka "Eidt".

- Tim

I use the fixed 1080i output to my Sony XBR2 40" LCD because that setting alone can
enable full pixel display and eliminate overscan. It looks just as good as Native, and changes stations faster. BTW, I have found that component yields slightly better PQ than a DVI-HDMI cable.

Better in what way?

It appears slightly sharper and yields a better result with some of the Sony advanced adjustments.

I am finding the opposite: DVI to HDMI looks slightly sharper than YUV analog!!

(As visable on my Mits 720P display)

I am using the Expanded DVI Level settings.

I'll have to check to see if I have the expanded settings selected.

The TV guide for the LG LCD HDTV with built in DVR works great and never stops working. I sometimes can't get in the TV guide in the 3410a DVR. I have to do a reset. It never happens with the LG LCD HDTV. LG must have done something to fix that. Yeah, the TVGOS version in the LCD is a couple of generations newer, so they've had time to work out some of the bugs.

JohnS - I am also in the Detroit area, OTA only also. I checked last night, and my EPG seemed to be all filled in for the next week.



Thanks, again. Given that yours was working, I went through my notes to see how to reboot. That worked, and I have several days of guide data, with the rest filling in.

At the risk of invoking Murphys Law, I'll report a technique that seems to improve (maybe fix??) the problem of TV Guide data not being refreshed reliably. Just before I turn off my 3410A for the night, I manually set it to my host channel (in my case, in the LA area, channel 28-0). I also check periodically to make sure the fetch listing block is illuminated. For several days, I have gotten listings refreshed. Not sure how long it will continue to work, but I plan to set a dummy recording from 28-0 for every evening, to make sure the 3410 stays set to that while it is turned off..

Was at Sam's club and picked up a WD 250Gb EIDE drive today for not much money.

I decided to try it in our backup 3410a, and if that doesn't work nicely, then upgrade a USB hard drive we have....

There was no 'specs' on the box (LabeledWD 250GB|Go WD Caviar SE 8Mb Cache 7200 RPM other than to say it is a fast, low power drive.
Low & Behold, when I opened the box there was no specs in that, either!!!

So I went to the WD Site and got ehe specs for a WD2500JB drive....
Then compared the Read/Write specs to the Seagate drive that was the stock drive in our 3410a's....

Seagate STE1200ACE Read/Write specs: 12W
Specs on the WD2500JB Read/Write specs: 5VDC: 450ma 12VDC :530ma == 8.61W :)!

It is faster, but I can't do a comparison of Acoustics as the WD is measured in 29dBA, and the Seagate is measured in Sound Power/Bels=2.8

So, when the wife free's up the backup 3410a, I'm going to swap drives...

It would appear that this drive should work with less load on the supply, therefore less heat will be generated, with twice the space!

The WD Drive is in... Un-eventful install

Can't really hear it...
Definately quieter than the 330 GB Maxtor drive in 'main' DVR.

250Gb=26:28 hours of HD storage.

As I was editing down the 3-hour airing of Cast Away, I encountered the following error message on my LST-3410A:

Reached maximum number of clip editings.

At first I wasn't too concerned, because I assumed I could just go back and tweak one of the previously marked segments, extending the final one out to the end of the movie. This option is normally available, and I've used it before (because of their ass-backwards method of tagging what you want to keep, and deleting everything else). But nope, not possible here.

LG needs to get some new people on their translation team, because the correct translation of this error condition is:

You are fvcked.

Once you click the edit button to mark the 10th segment, everything is locked in place. NO further adjustments are possible. So after spending almost half an hour to manually and laboriously mark commercial in and out points for trimming from the first 2.5 hours, I have 2 options:

1) tell it to go ahead and save, and lose the last half hour completely.
2) cancel the edits, and start over again from scratch.

Whoever LG has "engineeering" these things really does need to remove their heads from their a$$es.

- Tim

That is way too funny, Tim! I had the exact same thing happen to me when i had a 3410. That editing feature makes it so easy to zap the commercials. Its too bad i had to return mine to CC because of frequent lockups.

That is way too funny, Tim! I had the exact same thing happen to me when i had a 3410. That editing feature makes it so easy to zap the commercials. Its too bad i had to return mine to CC because of frequent lockups.

just out of curiosity, how long did you have your unit, and when did you return it to CC?

I ask because I got mine from them, with a 5-year warranty...and I wonder what they do if the unit goes bad, since they are no longer available...

At least you guys are able to do SOME editing with the 3410a. Us Sony DVR owners are not so lucky :(.

Jan J and any others in the Chicagoland area -

Have you checked into your TVGOS channel listing lately? As of 2 days ago, with my Sony, I'm now receiving channel labels for ALL of the digital channels! No more having to reassign any of them to the analog versions anymore! I'm also getting tons of channels from within at least a hundred-mile radius, and I'm getting complete info for those, too!

Mind you, this is with the 8th gen. version of TVGOS. I don't have either of my L7 units currently hooked up to an antenna, so I don't know if they're also getting these or not. You might wanna check yours.

Maybe the outfit that transmits your TVGOS cranked up the power . . .

As I was editing down the 3-hour airing of Cast Away, I encountered the following error message on my LST-3410A:

Reached maximum number of clip editings.

At first I wasn't too concerned, because I assumed I could just go back and tweak one of the previously marked segments, extending the final one out to the end of the movie. This option is normally available, and I've used it before (because of their ass-backwards method of tagging what you want to keep, and deleting everything else). But nope, not possible here.

LG needs to get some new people on their translation team, because the correct translation of this error condition is:

You are fvcked.

Once you click the edit button to mark the 10th segment, everything is locked in place. NO further adjustments are possible. So after spending almost half an hour to manually and laboriously mark commercial in and out points for trimming from the first 2.5 hours, I have 2 options:

1) tell it to go ahead and save, and lose the last half hour completely.
2) cancel the edits, and start over again from scratch.

Whoever LG has "engineeering" these things really does need to remove their heads from their a$$es.

- Tim
Well after 9 edits: use the 10th to save the rest of it. Then go back and do it again from the 9th spot and go from there You should be able to do the editing over and over again, hence it's ten edits in a session not forever.

POWERFUL,

well, that's correct, of course. With the key point being, after 9 edits. If you're watching carefully and counting, then you can use the 10th edit exactly as you describe. If you're not, once you click edit-out on that 10th marker, you're done. You can't extend it, or revise any segment in any way. You have to Undo and start over again from scratch. That's what I found astonishing, and why I posted the warning here.

This is what I call, "user friendly design". :rolleyes:

- Tim

Art, I know the hd81 has a separate scaler, how are you connecting that to the LG, (straight DVI connection or DVI-HDMI cable or converter)?

I use a DVI to HDMI cable. Gorgeous!!!!!! I run both units that way. I set at 1080i for convenience. (VXD does not have to search.)

I am finding the opposite: DVI to HDMI looks slightly sharper than YUV analog!!

(As visable on my Mits 720P display)

I find the DVI/HDMI path is sharper but it may just be artifacts that I do not see on YPrPb. Kind of like high sharpness settings. I like it though on my 96" wide screen.

When I talked to someone (Months ago) who had intimate knowledge of V7 TV Guide, he said there are a finite number of Icons that TV Guide V7 can support, and that was one of the limits of that system. (Which was one reason why Oxygen had not been listed, until someone requested it, and it's icon got placed in place of one of the "GAME" icons.)

Last time I looked (I will check again when wife is done with system later tonight), the problems I'm seeing is Not Enough Icons. For example, I'm only getting one UPN Logo and that defaults to Channel 50 on Cable. I re-direct it to OTA 50-1. WYCC also has only one icon, and I direct it from 20 Cable to 20-1 OTA.

Ram.... I checked both TV Guide V7's and I didn't find any further Local channel logo's....
Still only one UPN, only one WYCC.

Jan

Ram.... I checked both TV Guide V7's and I didn't find any further Local channel logo's....
Still only one UPN, only one WYCC.

JanSorry to hear that...they would have had to have deleted some channels in order to add them anyway like you say, so I guess it's for the better, as long as you still have most of the analogs to map them to.

On another note: my newer, 9th version on my recently purchased TV will not load - at least as far as the channel listings are concerned - but what's strange is, I'm getting just the ads. The only thing I can think might be the problem is that they're updating that also, and the channel info transmission has been purposely or accidently left off. I'd maybe call someone, but I'm not sure who to call. But I know it gets the info from the same channel as the Sony, and that still seems to be getting it fine. It could be the TV, but the only way to reset the TVGOS that I know of is to enter all O's for the zip code. Maybe if I also unplugged the TV for awhile.....thing is, it actually filled in right away after I first got it and set it up, but I eventually wiped it clean, since I use the one in the Sony anyway.

Oh, well - no matter, since I'll be getting it swapped out for another one on Tuesday, because it's been having some audio problems. I'll have a brand new one to start from scratch with then.

[QUOTE=MrHifi]Lost my guide info (stations) for the first time in a while...Dreaded "AV1 ....." message. Other 2 units perfect. Wish I knew why they screw up. Going through the 3 day reboot process. 1. Reset to factory condition 2. Overnight download of cable SD stations 3. Download of digital stations.

Sure wish they weren't so sensitive.

Try this solution.
Menu, Lock, Aux. Block, AV1 Off and AV2 Off

The unit has been rock steady for over a month since I set up this menu choice. It even seemed to cure the problem where the hard drive used to lock up after fast forwarding a prerecorded program to the end.

Could you be more specific... History of this fix, etc?

If so, this is a first for this fix!

A few months ago my brother found a 3410A buried on a back shelf at his Circuit City store. He bought it but only just got around to hooking it up. He is connected to both cable and OTA antenna. When he selects "Guide" he sees the grid with stations and times but he sees "no data" in all of the cells. What is he doing wrong?

It could be that the 3410a is looking for data for settting from the previous user.

I'm doing this from memory, if I point you in wrong direction, someone should catch my error.

Go to TV Guide.
Hit Setup or menu (To highlight the top area)
arrow left or right until you see Setup. Select that.
You should now be seeing 3 different option lines.
The top one, when selected should start asking you questions about antenna's cable systems, with or without a box, and Most importantly, your Zip Code.

Enter the answers to the questions, and when you are done, it should ask you to power off the 3410a and wait overnight. It might take a couple nights, but on next power up, instead of seeing TV Guide or TV, you should be prompted with various channel lists, from which you then select one.
Be careful with this, as this will determine Which channel list and icons you will receive.

Once you get this far, you should then be seeing data.

Organizing the channel lineup is another issue, and a question for another day.....

Hope this is clear.... Like I said, it was typed from memory with no documentation nearby.

Watch for other's comments in case I made a mistake....

Welcome!!!

Try this solution.
Menu, Lock, Aux. Block, AV1 Off and AV2 Off

The unit has been rock steady for over a month since I set up this menu choice. It even seemed to cure the problem where the hard drive used to lock up after fast forwarding a prerecorded program to the end.

I lucked onto this forum thread since my 3410a had what I thought was a problem with the power supply after the power went out one afternoon. The unit would not come on and no one local would touch it. I was about ready to send it back to LG when I just happened to plug it in one final time and then it booted up. I guess having it unplugged for a period of time reset it. These sure are touchy machines.

I too was having the AV1... messages and the lock up when fast forwarding. If this corrects those problems, you are my new best friend!

I too was having the AV1... messages and the lock up when fast forwarding. If this corrects those problems, you are my new best friend!
If you ever do see the 'AV1... messages' again, try just unplugging the 3410A for 2 seconds (or less). This seems to correct the problem without destroying the guide data.

Does anyone know if the 3410 has any kind of button battery in the circuitry supporting its clock like TiVo's do?

Any kind of power outage appears to kick in the 3410's Catch 22 "Reserved" bug which requires a clock reset in order to access TVGOS and reset the clock.

Resetting to factory defaults and sometimes switching the input coax from cable to OTA and back and/or rebooting is a continual drag!

Unfortunately you will find yourself unplugging the unit every other day once the AV1 bug rears its ugly head. Try the Menu, Lock, Aux. Block, AV1 Off and AV2 Off solution and let us know if it works for you.

I love this machine when it behaves. I have the Sony and am not impressed....no archiving and slow response to infrared commands.

sr, I'm a little confused. Could you please provide a little more detail?
1) What is the AV1 bug? How does it exhibit itself.
2) What is the fix doing? Turning off aux. inputs in the menu?
3) Is it safe to do even if I'm not having an AV1 problem?

sr, I'm a little confused. Could you please provide a little more detail?
1) What is the AV1 bug? How does it exhibit itself.
2) What is the fix doing? Turning off aux. inputs in the menu?
3) Is it safe to do even if I'm not having an AV1 problem?Ditto that for me. I have a lot of power flops where I have to delete my schedule and reset the clock. Haven't noticed any special bugs though. What should I be looking for?

Try this solution.
Menu, Lock, Aux. Block, AV1 Off and AV2 Off

I've never been able to keep a TV guide for more than a few days without rebooting.
When I accessed the Menu, my AV1 & AV2 were already turned OFF, but since resetting it to "ON/OFF", I haven't had a problem for a week!
Thank you

Now if I can just figure out why my unit can receive QAM "in the clear"in the 53.1 range, but not in the 81.3 (where the other local stations are broadcast) I'll be completely satisfied with my 3410-A.
Any suggestions will be most appreciated.
Ben
New Orleans

Unfortunately you will find yourself unplugging the unit every other day once the AV1 bug rears its ugly head. Try the Menu, Lock, Aux. Block, AV1 Off and AV2 Off solution and let us know if it works for you.

I love this machine when it behaves. I have the Sony and am not impressed....no archiving and slow response to infrared commands.

Never had the AV1 bug; just the "Reserved" nonsense. But much of the appeal of the 3410 is that it's the only hi-def DVR which offers line inputs on the side.

That being said it's amazing that so many people are willing to put up with this machine's goofy performance. Basically I use it as a hi-def tuner. But without a mapable TVGOS why bother?

Apparently no one knows whether there's a clock battery which if dead would explain the "Reserved" bug.

I put up with this machine because I don't know of anything else (except a PC) that will allow you to record and watch OTA HDTV for free. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong. I guess I am one of the few people who doesn't have cable and/or satellite, just OTA. About the only complaint I have is that you can't watch something and record something else at the same time which is ridiculous because the timeshift does exactly that.

Apparently no one knows whether there's a clock battery which if dead would explain the "Reserved" bug.

I think there is no clock battery. Mine loses clock if unplugged even a few seconds. If we have power interruptions, clock usually recovers quickly on its own, but I may have lingering guide problems: won't display guide at all, quits downloading and guide empties out, won't start a scheduled recording, etc.

A quick unplug/replug solves many of these, but not the guide emptying out. I have to reset the TVGOS for that.

But I can't trust it to record unattended. Unless I've seen the GUIDE icon be on most of the day, I don't know whether it is really ready to do its job or not.

I put up with this machine because I don't know of anything else (except a PC) that will allow you to record and watch OTA HDTV for free. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong. I guess I am one of the few people who doesn't have cable and/or satellite, just OTA. About the only complaint I have is that you can't watch something and record something else at the same time which is ridiculous because the timeshift does exactly that.There's also the Sony DHG-HDD500 and 250 HD DVR's. But there's no option of archiving in HD off of them. They also include a cablecard slot, and other than the aforementioned shortcoming, are probably a bit better all-around than the LG (my opinion, of course :p), and are probably less buggy - well, definitely actually, from what I've read here - at least when you're just using it just for OTA, and/or extended basic analog, and/or limited basic analog & unencrypted digital cable. It's when people go with the cablecard that they sometimes run into problems, depending on if whether their provider is passing along an analog host channel or the TVGOS data stream or not. It does come with a much larger hard drive than the LG (500 & 250 GB), although people here have sucessfully upgraded the one in the LG, and, as far as I know, no one has been able to do that with the Sony. But then again, there's really not all that much of a need to.

I do not have to 'put up' with the 3410A. I use it constantly and enjoy it. I record something almost every night and watch it when I can. I do lose the guide occasionally, but it is not really a big deal to get it back. Thanks to Ben Hardy's tip I may even be getting rid of the AV1 errors. Maybe I'm lucky because I have one of the original machines with the original firmware, but this has been one of the better purchases I've made.

I was getting ready to buy a Tivo S3, but have been reading about problems with missed recordings and recordings cut short. For all of its quirks, I've never had the 3410A miss a recording or stop before the end of a scheduled recording.

I do not have to 'put up' with the 3410A. I use it constantly and enjoy it. I record something almost every night and watch it when I can. I do lose the guide occasionally, but it is not really a big deal to get it back. Thanks to Ben Hardy's tip I may even be getting rid of the AV1 errors. Maybe I'm lucky because I have one of the original machines with the original firmware, but this has been one of the better purchases I've made.

I was getting ready to buy a Tivo S3, but have been reading about problems with missed recordings and recordings cut short. For all of its quirks, I've never had the 3410A miss a recording or stop before the end of a scheduled recording.

Thanks, but SR (2/25) posted the "fix". I merely used it to fix my unit.
Ben hardy

You're right! A tip of my hat in thanks to SR for the 'fix'.

I purchased the LG when first available (about 2 years ago) and the guide problem only started recently. Immediately after turning on the unit, the dreaded "invalid AV1, AV2 message would appear and the guide would no longer be available. I also had a problem after fast forwarding a prerecorded program to the end. The unit would lock up and go to a black screen. You could press every key on the remote (except power) and the unit would not respond to any command. With the first problem (AV1 error) the solution was to reboot by unplugging the power cord. The cure for the second problem was to power down with the remote.

I opened the cover and looked for dust accumulation or some other evidence of damage and could not find any visual problems.

Then one evening while staring at the error message I recalled seeing an option in the Menu to lock out the AV1 and AV2 inputs. I turned them off and ever since, I have my LG working perfectly again. Both problems are gone!!!!

i bought one of these a few years ago and would not swap it for anything....until now. It has stopped showing the guide altogether and pauses for 10 or so seconds when changing channels. I have unplugged it to reset it and it still does it. does anyone know why it is doing this? Also is there anywhere to buy one more of these units? thanks.

Have any of you guys with recent problems just started getting ads in your guide?

The reason I ask is that it is happening now with our Sony's all over the country. They also added a hundred or more channels to our guides in many areas (yep - you heard me right - 100 - mostly OTA - some over 100 miles away!) A lot of us are having all kinds of kinks and problems with our scheduled recordings and our guide and tuner performance right now because of it (extremely slow channel changing is one of the problems - I have that one myself). The TVGOS update has caused all these problems and supposedly, they are working on it.

If this is the case for you guys (the ads just starting, that is - I know the LG's don't have the ability to have a hundred or more channels added because it's TVGOS is a generation older), maybe checking out our Sony thread might help with some insight.

I put up with this machine because I don't know of anything else (except a PC) that will allow you to record and watch OTA HDTV for free. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong. I guess I am one of the few people who doesn't have cable and/or satellite, just OTA. About the only complaint I have is that you can't watch something and record something else at the same time which is ridiculous because the timeshift does exactly that.
I'm like you enjoying free h.d. t.v. on my babied 3410's. You next project should be to try and get free WiFi. Isn't technology wonderful!

Have any of you guys with recent problems just started getting ads in your guide?

The reason I ask is that it is happening now with our Sony's all over the country. They also added a hundred or more channels to our guides in many areas (yep - you heard me right - 100 - mostly OTA - some over 100 miles away!) A lot of us are having all kinds of kinks and problems with our scheduled recordings and our guide and tuner performance right now because of it (extremely slow channel changing is one of the problems - I have that one myself).
I'm not having any problems ATM, and I'm not getting any ads. However, I wonder why you do not just delete unwanted channels in your guide? I get more than a hundred channels every time I start from scratch (mostly cable). I delete the unwanted channels and get the list to less than 30. If I thought about it a bit I could get the list down to 10 or so.

I'm not having any problems ATM, and I'm not getting any ads. However, I wonder why you do not just delete unwanted channels in your guide? I get more than a hundred channels every time I start from scratch (mostly cable). I delete the unwanted channels and get the list to less than 30. If I thought about it a bit I could get the list down to 10 or so.Oh, no - I probably should've been clearer - these channels did not actually show up in our guides - just in the "inner", channel editor listings.

(Actually, I did end up turning a few of them on, since I receive them regularly, or at least, semi-regularly.)

I do think "put up with" is the right phrase. If yours works flawlessly, you're lucky. I got the dreaded AV1 message again yesterday even after the fix. I'll try it again. I powered the unit off/on at 10:15pm for 2 seconds and the clock reset to 8:24pm. At least that corrected the AV1 message though. The guide data was OK.

When this baby works, I LOVE it. I use it every day.

I do think "put up with" is the right phrase. If yours works flawlessly, you're lucky.
I've never thought the of 3410A as flawless, just that it does pretty well for an old machine. It was a vast improvement over anything else available when it came out in 2003. I accept it for what it is - a HD variation on a VCR.

I suspect that your problems may be based on the fact that you're 100% OTA. I don't know much about your atmospheric conditions in Cincinnati, but I'll assume they're not that different than here. I've noticed that during the cold and dry days of Winter that I get more drop-outs than I do during the hot and humid days of Summer. My assumption is that the winter atmosphere is thinner and cannot always transmit a high quality signal the 35-40 miles I'm from the transmission towers. This may be all in my mind, but it just seems that way.

I happen to get my guide data from Comcast and it rarely gives me trouble. If you're getting the guide OTA, perhaps the signal from your analog carrier station isn't strong enough all the time and it gets dropped occasionally. The 3410A might then look for another carrier station or just get weird on you.

I don't know if boosting your signal would help, but you might want to check it out. Also you may want to consider getting basic cable service - mine costs me less than $12 a month.

Windy days also cause drop outs. I suspect it is because the antenna is swaying.

I have a feeling that a basic cable subscription will be quite beneficial to the operation of the 3410A after OTA analog shutoff in 2009.

I have a feeling that a basic cable subscription will be quite beneficial to the operation of the 3410A after OTA analog shutoff in 2009.

LOL, by which you mean that it will be the only way to get the guide?

You know, I'm going to miss analog TV. OTA and even the local HD channels on cable TV have just enough drop outs to be a PITA.

Windy days also cause drop outs. I suspect it is because the antenna is swaying.

Or the trees swaying.

I have an indoor antenna, so the wind doesn't affect it directly. My neighbor (in the direction of the stations) has huge trees; even from a roof mount, I couldn't get over them. Windy days suck.

Hi guys. I am getting really sick of how these things are requiring an unplug/replug almost every day. The white guide light stays off and that is normally an indication that it is going to have a major screw up or is in the middle of a screw up. Both of my units, I gave a thirf to my 92 year old father, are 1.17 units. The AV1 message comes up way too often requiring a replug. Today while one unit worke fine the other was asking me to select between 7 different lineups again. Even when you do that it takes 2 days to getthe cable and OTA diugital down. What I wind up with id cable analog and OTA digital on the second night. What a pain then to change the OTA digital to the cable digital. What the hell has happened to these things. They used to work perfectly. Can't trust them if I am away.

Anyway , hi to all. The scaling is gorgeous and I am now feeding an Optom HD81 via the DVI connections. Amazing picture. So clear.

You watch, this post will break my luck!!!

Actually, the past 3-4 months have been very smooth on my two units....

Oh My, WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!!!

Jan J (or anyone else who happens upon this post first that knows the answer for sure) -

I went into my Panny plasma's service menu to get the hours the set was used, and it said "0095" in hex, which I then converted on my Windows calculator to be 149. in decimal. (I also got 150. from "00096" for the amount of times the set was powered on.)

Are those results correct (I know you are knowledgable about this from your previous posts), and if so, should I take that to mean 149 hours on? (This is on a replacement set they gave me, and I just want to be sure that it's not a well-worn display model.)

I figure so, but I'm just double checking (as you can tell, math was never one of my fortes :).)

Jan J (or anyone else who happens upon this post first that knows the answer for sure) -

I went into my Panny plasma's service menu to get the hours the set was used, and it said "0095" in hex, which I then converted on my Windows calculator to be 149. in decimal. (I also got 150. from "00096" for the amount of times the set was powered on.)

Are those results correct (I know you are knowledgable about this from your previous posts), and if so, should I take that to mean 149 hours on? (This is on a replacement set they gave me, and I just want to be sure that it's not a well-worn display model.)

I figure so, but I'm just double checking (as you can tell, math was never one of my fortes :).)

I'm not him, but I'll vouch for your conversion from hex to decimal, 95h is 9*16+5 = 149. As to what the 149 means, I don't know.

Thank Goodness for Window's Calculator with the Hex to Decimal converter!!!

I'm believe that more than my math on paper!! :D!

What the hell has happened to these things. They used to work perfectly. Can't trust them if I am away.Art, I believe most problems of the type you describe can be traced back to corrupted data from the host channel.
The 3410A should have been designed with better tolerance of bad data.

I'm not him, but I'll vouch for your conversion from hex to decimal, 95h is 9*16+5 = 149. As to what the 149 means, I don't know.But the 149. should definitely be taken to just mean 149, straight out, right?

I mean, I know it normally is (149.0), but I just want to double-check that it wouldn't be interpreted differently in this case for any reason (hex conversion).

And Jan - we can't all be Einsteins like you, ya' know :p :)!

Yeah, I'm batting 3 for 4 on mathematical Hex to Decimal conversions!!! :D!

Again, I love that Calculator!!

But the 149. should definitely be taken to just mean 149, straight out, right?

I mean, I know it normally is (149.0), but I just want to double-check that it wouldn't be interpreted differently in this case for any reason (hex conversion).

And Jan - we can't all be Einsteins like you, ya' know :p :)!

Well, it is 149 counted units. But I don't know anything about your set, so I don't know the units are hours. What if the units were quarter hours or tenth hours, or days? If the set is turned on for less than hour, how is the fractional hour counted, where is it stored? I'm not saying any of these things are the case, only that they could be, so you need more info to know what the meaning of 149 decimal is; we can only resolve the hex representation to decimal with the info given.

I'm pretty sure it's 149 hours. I'll re-check on "Bruzzi"s Faq's" for Panny plasmas, but I'm almost postive it's just interpreted straightforward once it's been converted. Thanks, guys.

Both our 3410a's updated themselves automatically to this year's "Changed" DST changes.

That seems to indicate that they are getting clock data from a location other than the motherboard!

Mine also got the time change, and the guide light has been on all morning, so I think it is OK. I was worried the time change would be too traumatic, and it would "deer in headlights" and freeze up.

FYI...
The "service manual" web page is back...check this post if you missed it the first time like I did...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9132722&&#post9132722

enjoy... :D

Or the trees swaying.

I have an indoor antenna, so the wind doesn't affect it directly. My neighbor (in the direction of the stations) has huge trees; even from a roof mount, I couldn't get over them. Windy days suck.

Perhaps wind is my problem. I have a big outdoor Radio Shack antenna. It would certainly sway in the wind.

Or the trees swaying.

I have an indoor antenna, so the wind doesn't affect it directly. My neighbor (in the direction of the stations) has huge trees; even from a roof mount, I couldn't get over them. Windy days suck.

John,

I have the same problem here in the 9 Mile/Beech area. I'm practically living among the broadcast towers, but surrounded by tall trees. CM4221 in the attic is hardly better than Silver Sensor atop TV, and both suck big time on windy days. Neither improves when placed outside at ground level. If you find a solution (other than cable), I'd be so very happy to hear about it.

Hi all from out here on the West Coast. My machine seems to have survived the new DST & automatically changed it's clock. For a while the Guide light wasn't on but I see that it has come on. Knocking on that wood.... To paraphrase former President Clinton: MrHiFi, we all feel your pain.

Perhaps wind is my problem. I have a big outdoor Radio Shack antenna. It would certainly sway in the wind.
If I remember, your problem was the loss of the guide fairly frequently. I'd be surprised if the wind would do more than degrade the signal for brief periods. That might be enough to lose the guide channel on a very stormy night if it happened at the wrong time. However, it seems more likely that something else is degrading your signal for longer periods of time. That was why I suggested thin atmosphere could be the culprit.

If you can figure out what channel delivers the guide, try watching that station and see if it looks good. Also try recording that station and see if everything records well or not. For some reason the recording needs a better signal than just watching. This may help you figure out if the problem is a weak signal or not.

I am completely guessing here so do not necessarily believe me. It might be worth your time talking to a guy who installs antenna. They usually know a lot about what could help improve your signal. Remember to tell him that you need a good strong signal for your analog stations, that is where you get the guide downloads.

FYI...
The "service manual" web page is back...check this post if you missed it the first time like I did...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9132722&&#post9132722

enjoy... :D

Hi All,
I just started reading some of the stuff on that server (noted above). The Training Manual and Service Manual offer alot of insight into those areas that were missing, translated poorly or were difficult to find in the supplied literature (Quick Guide, Operating Manual). Good Read!

Sincerely,
Martin

Perhaps wind is my problem. I have a big outdoor Radio Shack antenna. It would certainly sway in the wind.

Hi sgoertemiller,
From the beginning of my history with the 3410A, I have treated the ATSC signal the same as an NTSC signal. I have lived in Chicago my whole life always using OTA (brief stint with Direct TV too). Reception has always been great for me.

My personal experience with the 3410a is in Chicago. I have always been at least 60 miles out, for 10 years 75 miles. I have had a minimum of a 75 mile antenna and up to a 125 mile on a rotator on the roof(s). I always use a booster (one in four out) feeding separate lines throughout the house of highest quality 75 ohm cable.

I realize mutipathing ATSC is bad and an amplifier can make it worse. Currently only channel 2 gives me problems during the sunniest weather (nothing to reflect the signal off of?).

Reception wise, this box works better than any other I have had (four). I am waiting for a 6th generation tuner. The picture quality in HD is my reference standard. The 3410a provided a better picture than two home theater computers.

My machine made the DST change on its own. I manually set the time several weeks ago after electrical modifications. I am running this on a line stabilizer, power conditioner (whole home theater system).

I only have OTA, have deleted all unwanted channels except ATSC (in english), NTSC WYCC 20 and METV 23. It never misses a recording, I never have to reset it, zero problems.

If the broadcasters delete or move a program to a different night, the unit does lock-up. I have found to get through this you must delete the scheduled recording.

Sincerely,
Martin

According to antennaweb, here are my channels:

yellow - uhf WLWT-DT 5.1 NBC CINCINNATI OH 260° 5.0 35
yellow - uhf WCET-DT 48.1 PBS CINCINNATI OH 260° 5.0 34
yellow - uhf WKRC-DT 12.1 CBS CINCINNATI OH 250° 4.1 31
yellow - uhf WXIX-DT 19.1 FOX NEWPORT KY 262° 6.3 29
yellow - vhf WCPO-DT 9.1 ABC CINCINNATI OH 257° 3.7 10
red - uhf WSTR-DT 64.1 MNT CINCINNATI OH 315° 6.3 33

I bought a medium directional antenna. I don't have an amplifier - I tried one and it seemed to degrade the picture. I do have a 4 way splitter but the 3410a is connected on the shortest run.

I had my unit for about a year before I noticed a problem. I originally had all the available channels in the guide download and then removed them to only download the ATSC programming.

I first noticed the trouble when the local CBS station changed its station number briefly then it changed back. They've done that twice. Not sure why this happens and this is the only station I get sketchy reception on. Everything else is reference quality.

Fingers crossed but I've gone 4 days now without a problem.

Scott G

According to antennaweb, here are my channels:
I bought a medium directional antenna. I don't have an amplifier - I tried one and it seemed to degrade the picture. I do have a 4 way splitter but the 3410a is connected on the shortest run.
Scott G

Hi Scott,
So you are splitting your unamplified signal four (4) times? What kind of signal strength do you get on the 3410a? What is the level as measured by the grey bar (average) yellow bar steady or fluctuating?

I'll look at my signals and compare. Typically only channel 2 multipaths here but it is on VHF so...

Sincerely,
Martin

I'm asking again whether anyone can tell me whether the meter on the 3410 displays signal strength only or whether signal quality is part of the determination.

Dan-
I thought with digital TV strength == quality.

Scott G-
I believe that some amps do make the signal worse, but good ones should not. Also they need to be placed on the antenna end of the cable. The ones that you use inside amplify all of the problems caused by your wires and almost definitely will degrade your signal. At least that is what my antenna guy tells me.

Most meters on digital receivers measure amount of errors, not signal strength.
That is, the highest signal strength is showing lowest errors, and visa versa.

I can't tell from schemo's if it that, or not...

Thanks, Jan! Then does it make sense that I can get pixellation and dropout without much apparent change in the meter reading? Does this mean that The meter reading isn't directly correlatable with antenna aiming?

Thanks, Jan! Then does it make sense that I can get pixellation and dropout without much apparent change in the meter reading? Does this mean that The meter reading isn't directly correlatable with antenna aiming?

Hi Dan,
I have a Motorola ATSC box camped on the same antenna as the LG. This box incorporates signal strength and quality meters (stepped bars %). Although the 3410a does not have numbers or note that it's %, I see a direct correlation between the yellow bar and "quality" and the gray background bar and "strength". "Quality" I equate to multipathing. Quality if effected by atmospherics, trees, planes and antenna sway.

Perfect reception results when both meters are pegged out. Poor picture results when both meters drop below 60 percent with the quality meter bouncing up and down. If its bad enough the ATSC tuner looses lock. Other wise, picture sound or both are compromised (pixelated, dropouts).

Sincerely,
Martin

Scott G-
I believe that some amps do make the signal worse, but good ones should not. Also they need to be placed on the antenna end of the cable. The ones that you use inside amplify all of the problems caused by your wires and almost definitely will degrade your signal. At least that is what my antenna guy tells me.

I'll look into an amp near at the antenna. Unfortunately, the antenna is mounted on the chimney 2 stories up on a steep roof. It was a bitch to get up there.

How do I find out what challenge the guide is on? Still working fine as of this morning though.

TVGOS has a diagnostic mode. Most of us don't know what most of the codes mean, however, the host channel is pretty clear, except it is expressed in hexidecimal.

To activate TVGOS diagnostic,
*call up TVGGOS and get to very top line menu (listings, messages, schedule, etc)
*go messages and scroll down one line, an id# is displayed
*on remote, enter 753 159 852 (I can't remember whether or not you must hit "select" afterward.
*diag mode appears, host channel is on first page. Ours in Detroit is 56, but in hex, that is 3*16 + 8 = 38h
Some things are readable like time the next guide transmission starts. I have no clue what most of it means.
(There's a ton of useful tips if you go through all the old pages)

Unfortunately, the antenna is mounted on the chimney 2 stories up on a steep roof. It was a bitch to get up there.
Yikes. I bet it was! Mine is on a chimney 3 stories up, but the roof isn't that steep. I hate working on roofs so much that I actually pay people to do it.

Scott G-
I believe that some amps do make the signal worse, but good ones should not. Also they need to be placed on the antenna end of the cable. The ones that you use inside amplify all of the problems caused by your wires and almost definitely will degrade your signal. At least that is what my antenna guy tells me.

I have a cheap combo amp/1-to-4 splitter near all my boxes...got it from Best Buy a couple of years ago (or was it Radio Shack?) Everything works fine on everything the cables go to, including my TV, the 3410a, a Sony 250, etc..., despite having the unit with all my stuff and not up at the antenna...

Of course, my antenna is only 10 miles line-of-sight (except for a big tree of mine) from the broadcast tower in San Francisco...and the cable from the antenna is new from when I first got my HDTV 4 years ago...

Scott G-
I believe that some amps do make the signal worse, but good ones should not. Also they need to be placed on the antenna end of the cable. The ones that you use inside amplify all of the problems caused by your wires and almost definitely will degrade your signal. At least that is what my antenna guy tells me.That is probably true if you have a very long co-ax run or live in a high RFI environment. I just got a new TV and tried to split my downlead into it and the 3410A. No dice. Either one would work but not both. I picked up a Channel Master two port distribution amp for about $35 and everything works fine now. No ladders, no climbing.

That is probably true if you have a very long co-ax run or live in a high RFI environment. I just got a new TV and tried to split my downlead into it and the 3410A. No dice. Either one would work but not both. I picked up a Channel Master two port distribution amp for about $35 and everything works fine now. No ladders, no climbing.

Hi Digitude,
I have my amplifier/distribution box ~34 feet from the antenna (chimney installation 27 feet up). During installation I might have been able to move the amplifier 6 feet closer but that would have made future access difficult. The amp is buried between the floor joists in the basement as close to the exterior wall penitration as possible. I gave the amp its own hardwired outlet up there too.

At the AV system co-ax feed the signal splits twice, 3410a, AV receiver FM tuner.

I have a Radio Shack 120 mile UHF/VHF antenna with a VHF antenna stacked on top. This combines to a single downlead through a balum box on the VHF antenna. The whole thing was aimed at Chicago based upon channel 2 (CBS) strength and quality. I could/should optimize this for the weakest VHF/ UHF channels. That would be channel 2 (CBS) and 5 (NBC) by rotating the antennas seperately.
I really don't enjoy walking on the roof either.

Sincerely,
Martin

FYI...
The "service manual" web page is back...check this post if you missed it the first time like I did...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9132722&&#post9132722

enjoy... :D

Hi All,
I was reading some of the documents available from the link above. The document labeled as the "Set Top Training Manual.pdf" has something of interest.

The "Signal Path Diagram" (page 103) shows the "1394 -1 and 2 connections". These are managed from the "1394 Controller [TSB43CA43]" switched by the "Peripheral Buss". If the "1394 Controller" is bypassed can't the 1394 signal(s) pass in and out of the 3410a directly from the "MUX CPLD [EPM7256]".

Connection ahead of the "1394 Controller [TSB43CA43]" would eliminate handshaking limited to "compatible devices" opening IEEE-1394 access to any Firewire device?

Sincerely,
Martin

...

My power went out for an hour and a half on Sunday and reminded me why I hate this thing! Why would anyone design a box that you had to wipe out your whole recording schedule just to set the clock? :mad:

Not sure if anyone posted this but you do not have to wipe out the recording schedule to set the clock, believe it or not.

What the 3410a is trying to tell you (and it took me over a year to figure this out) is that you shouldn't try to set the clock. Instead, after a power outage, all you have to do is to turn the unit on, wait for the the hard drive to initialize and then turn the 3410a off. If you then have a "Guide" light you *should* then just wait. After about an hour, the clock will be set to the correct time without deleting any programming info.

If the "Guide" light was not showing initally after the power was restored, unplug the 3410a for about a minute. When you plug it back in, wait for the "Guide" light to appear and then immediately follow the above steps. Works every time with my setup (OTA only, no cable).

Hope that helps.

Not sure if anyone posted this but you do not have to wipe out the recording schedule to set the clock, believe it or not.

Hope that helps.

Wow! That sounds great. It also expains why the unit corrected DST on its own. The one or two times I caught the unit with the wrong time must have been shortly after a power failure or glitch.

Sincerely,
Martin

Wow! That sounds great. It also expains why the unit corrected DST on its own. The one or two times I caught the unit with the wrong time must have been shortly after a power failure or glitch.

Sincerely,
Martin

Yes, the key seems to be start the 3410a and then turn it off (after the hdd initializes). After that, the time updates.

Andy

I posed this question before but got no responses so I'll ask again. Does anyone receive channels not normally received OTA or through cable? Do additional channels miraculously just appear? I ask this because NBA TV, an SD DTV channel, is not offered or listed through Comcast in the SF North Bay Area but my 3410A will receive it just fine. Maybe others in the surrounding region receive it? Also the strange thing is last night I was browsing through channels & I noticed the 3410 could tune in HBO, both SD & HD, as well as HBO 2 & Signature, even though that wasn't a possibility, even after several previous channel scans.

I posed this question before but got no responses so I'll ask again. Does anyone receive channels not normally received OTA or through cable? Do additional channels miraculously just appear? I ask this because NBA TV, an SD DTV channel, is not offered or listed through Comcast in the SF North Bay Area but my 3410A will receive it just fine. Maybe others in the surrounding region receive it? Also the strange thing is last night I was browsing through channels & I noticed the 3410 could tune in HBO, both SD & HD, as well as HBO 2 & Signature, even though that wasn't a possibility, even after several previous channel scans.

Hi Juancmjr,
I have heard of this happening on other ATSC tuners, basic cable no box.
DD sound though is not available?

Sincerely,
Martin

It's based upon your zip code. For example, I get a TON of logos for stuff on cable that I don't subscribe to.... That's why I keep having to 'organize' the list, putting channels we watch on top of those we don't...

Hey Leg One,
When I was watching Empire Strikes Back on HBO2 Monday night my receiver said it was using DPLIIx to process the soundtrack and I could switch to the Spanish soundtrack, which was definitely mono. Switching to Entourage on HBO HD had DD sound. I checked last night again whether I could still receive HBO and all I get now is either "Scrambled" or "No Signal." 1 time thing perhaps? :mad:

Hey Leg One,
When I was watching Empire Strikes Back on HBO2 Monday night my receiver said it was using DPLIIx to process the soundtrack and I could switch to the Spanish soundtrack, which was definitely mono. Switching to Entourage on HBO HD had DD sound. I checked last night again whether I could still receive HBO and all I get now is either "Scrambled" or "No Signal." 1 time thing perhaps? :mad:


Hi juancmjr,
I can not confirm cable as I don't have it. My Boss noted that he receives Digital over analog, but I didn't ask about the sound. My father-in-law did not know about the HD Digital stuff on the standard cable line. We have not conversed since we discussed it.

Sincerely,
Martin

One day I was scanning our Comcast cable for QAM channels with the 3410a, and stumbled across a movie.... I thought I was on to something, when it suddenly started scanning backwards to replay a scene.... I knew a Comcast guy hung out at a certain forum, so I posted what I saw there, and he replied, saying I probably stumbled across a movie someone requested, and was sent (Via IP to their box).... Further proof of this was when I saw them scan backward across a scene or two.....

I have run into that as well. Someone posted that if a subscriber "downstream" from you requests a VOD feature, you can view it if you tune in the proper QAM channel.

I have run into that as well. Someone posted that if a subscriber "downstream" from you requests a VOD feature, you can view it if you tune in the proper QAM channel.


I've had this happen so many times with all of my QAM-capable devices that it's not even funny. Glad I don't have children...most of the time it's porn.

I've had this happen so many times with all of my QAM-capable devices that it's not even funny. Glad I don't have children...most of the time it's porn.
haha, agreed. I've also stumbled across this many times with my QAM enabled plasma and it usually movies or porn, but you can definately tell that it's VOD when they FF or RR.

Hi, lately I have been getting some lip synch issues when recording Late Night With David Letterman form KIRO in Seattle. Is this normally a problem with the broadcast station or the unit itself? Chas

Hi, lately I have been getting some lip synch issues when recording Late Night With David Letterman form KIRO in Seattle. Is this normally a problem with the broadcast station or the unit itself? ChasLetterman had the same issues last night here in Chicago.

Jan,
I was not able to download the service info. Would you email me privately on how to get it. I am having to unplug and replug my 3 units every day to keep the guide info flowing. PIA. Please, i need a coy of the sevice info. or how to get to the site mentioned earlier. I know i am being cryptic. You know why.

Recording of Letterman was even worse last night. During his interview with Patricia Arquette lip synch made it almost unwatchable. Chas

Recording of Letterman was even worse last night.Yeah, I noticed that. And I've just been watching it, not recording :).

Recording of Letterman was even worse last night. During his interview with Patricia Arquette lip synch made it almost unwatchable. Chas
This is not an issue with the 3410A. Lip sync issues are pretty common on HD programs. It seems to impact sports and talk shows. What may be happening is that you're getting the audio from the analog channel. The studio engineers may be feeding the them wrong. In one of the World Series games broadcast in HD, the audio was one pitch out of sync for the first inning. It was *almost* funny. The announcer would be talking about a pitch being a ball, but you'd see the guy hit a home run...about the time he was at 3rd base you'd hear the crack of the bat and the cheer of the crowd. I turned on another TV in the room and the HD audio was in sync with the SD broadcast. Someone must have spotted the error, because they fixed it after a commercial break.

chasieb & Rammitinski,
Was the audio slower or faster than the video image? My experience is that on some HD programs, whether through the 3410a or cable box, the audio will be slower than the video image. Trying to delay audio through one's receiver or preamp-processor is obviously useless. I've noticed this on concert programs like Soundstage or Austin City Limits or 1 of my favorites, The Desert Speaks on Discovery HD. Out of sync audio & video seems to be an ongoing problem from the early days of HD programming. I remember the first season of HD Monday Night Football where Harrison Ford's lips moved and about a second and a half later we hear the 'are you ready for some football?' tagline and this was from the analog simulcast.

Audio always slower. Chas

Depending on the equipment the video and audio goes through, and also if it is embedded audio or separate audio.......

Sometimes, audio is processed separately.

For example, say audio going through a digital audio mixer, or Dolby unit, while the video is going through a video switcher. If the propagation delay of the video switcher (usually at least one frame plus a few horizontal lines) and the audio processing is less than that of the video, then the audio can appear AHEAD of the video. Noise reducers, Frame Syncs, DVE's, and other processing equipment can create frames of delay, and if audio and video take separate paths, they can get out of sync.

Some equipment will embed the audio in the video. But, just to keep things interesting, some equipment Strips embedded audio and doesn't pass it, forcing audio to take a separate path than video. Depending on the path taken, audio and video can get out of sync.

Conversely, if a feed from a remote is coming via satellite and also landline processing, the satellite feed with be much later than the landline feed, even with framesync delay.

Depending on which feed is 'taken', and the local video & audio processing at the station, audio and video can get 'out of sync'. Tests are done to rectify that, but, in the heat of battle, say if a piece of equipment fails, audio and video can get out of sync in either direction, and be as much as a couple seconds out of sync.

Take into consideration that 1st and 2nd generation receiver's did not do a good job of delaying audio to compensate for the video processing (up, down, cross conversion) within the receiver, causes situations where a receiver will un-lock the audio to video sync when there isn't any sync problems...

You can tell if this is occurring is switch off suspect channel to another, and then back to original channel again. Do this 3 or 4 times, and if the audio/video sync is off by differing amounts with each 'try', it's the local receiver, not the station.

Ain't High Definition Technology fun????

P.S. Even on my non-linear video editing system at home can have issues.
I've a framesync to clean up video, but it's propagation delay is 1 colorframe (up to 4 video frames -- and I can see this easily) where the video is delay'd and audio isn't. I'm presently looking for a programable audio delay box that I can put with the framesync, to delay audio the same amount as video.

I'm confused.... But hopefully I won't be in a day or two...

You should have seen this post before I edited it!!! Some days I'm SO obtuse!


P.S. CD went in the mail Monday.

You know, at times I amaze myself as to how I can be sitting right beside the answer and not know where it is......... More later

I'm playing around with interfacing a cablebox with a 3410a.
Question for you... Let's say you have a channel on channel 21 of Analog cable and it is also on cable box as channel 21.

In order to prevent both DVR's (eventually I want to have both 3410a's be able to record cablebox output) But I also want to record from Analog Cable as well...

Let's take Channel 21 as an example. Prior to cable box interface, if I hit '21' it would go to analog cable channel 21. Fine, this kept the cable box available for viewing.
Now with cable box interface, any channel I ask for by channel number switches cable box... That's
Not exactly what I had in mind. SO....

Could I re-direct to cable via 21-0 ??? NO, That won't work, it will send 21 to the cablebox and the -0 the cablebox doesn't know what to do with, so it ignores it....

If you have a cable box interface hooked up, and you enter 21-0 does it go to 21 on cable box, or analog cable channel 21???? NO AGAIN.. you can re-direct to a -1 and it will go to OTA, but the 3410a system drops the -0 and loads 21, which is still changing the cablebox only, and not going to Analog Cable as hoped for.

Also, can the same re-direct I'm using to get OTA HD channels (editing channel from 189 to 7-1 for example....) Can that same approach be used to force to analog cable??? 21-0 to force to analog cable, as opposed to 21, which would switch the cable box. NO AGAIN... Same reasoning as just above.

I'm trying to preserve analog cable channels, as I hope to allow either 3410a to have access to the same cablebox...

Furthermore, It appears that once you adapt to the cablebox, you can't select analog cable any more, the cable box (AV1) over-rides this.

I see the approach being taken, but it wasn't what I wanted to do.... and 3 days later I'm still not getting any data for the digital cable Icons, though analog channel and OTA Icons still are being updated...

"One step foreward, One step back"

Thanks UNC,

For months now I have been having to unplug/replug each 310A DVR daily. This is necessary because I get the Invalid Channel AV1.... crap in the green box warning. Or, i lose all the Listing Info. or it decides to forget the lineup (rare). Most every day though at least a replug is required in order to access the guide and get the white Guide light to turn on. I credit it to the fact that Comcast has stopped broadcasting the original programming info for our units. Not sure but what else could it be. Both of the units do the same thing althugh not at he same time. Still love mine. I also use a 4200. The PQ from all thre is outstanding via DVI/HDMI to my Optoma HD81. I also bought a Toshiba XA2. The Toshiba and the 2 3410A's go into the HDMI inputs. The 4200 and my HDD200 satellite HD decoder use the component input of the HD81. The SVHS VCR's look terrible compared dto anything else. Technology has really improved these last 10 years. Still am disappointed how often the digital broadcast signal screws up. Somebody did not think that one through.

Question for those who have interfaced the 3410a with a Motorola HD cablebox from Comcast:

I've done the setup 4 times now. after going through the setup where 3410a recognises the Motorola cablebox (Code 083 I believe), I power down 3410a and it starts scanning for TVG data. During this time, it also changes the cablebox, starting a channel 2 and every 10 seconds or so, it increments to the next cablebox channel. This continues up to 97-98, and then it changes the channel to 94, where it remains.

A day or so later I check the 3410a, and it gives me a selection of lineups, and I select the correct one, and the logos appear, but... Only the OTA an Analog Cable channels have TVG Data, not the Cablebox -- received through AV1 channels. The 3410a does control the cablebox correctly, and I can select any channel I want, but after 4 restarts, I only get Analog cable channels and OTA (My Re-directed channels) and NO TVG data for the Cablebox digital (not available via analog channels).

I've got the correct lineup, I've got the correct Icons and cable channels, but after 4 separate attempts, I get data for analog cable channels, and OTA HD channels only....

Can anyone offer any suggestions?
?????

Has anyone successfully been getting data for Cablebox digital via the 3410a and Motorola cablebox?

Second question: When you did the channel scan, WHICH cable type did you select?

I called comcast and they didn't have a clue.

Comcast Skokie, Illlinois....

Jan,

i assume the CD shipped reference was for me. Thanks my friend.

I am interested in what you are doing with your MOT cablebox. I would love to be able to do the same with my MOT 922 C Band receiver.

Right now, I have a roof antenna and basic cable service from Comcast in Annapolis, MD.

Guide:

Like you, I get a selection of services to choose from, select the basic analog one and if I am lucky, 30-40% of the time, I will get the basic cable analog channels. A day later, the OTA digital channels come up. Alternatively, if I choose the cable service that lists all the cable channels, analog, digital, high band, mid band etc. EVERYTHING!!!!....I get a list whose channel numbers I edit to match with the channels I capture after a scan. If I do that, the 3410A will never provide local OTA digital channels no matter how long I wait. Somehow it knows.

Like i said, I prefer selecting the cable service lineup that has the analog channels and then let it add the OTA digitals the next night. I only watch and record the networks on this DVR anyway. I do record my C Band satellite receiver's analog and digital channels via a composite video and analog L&R audio. I get a gorgeous recording but because I have to be there to start it, I prefer to use a late model JVC SVHS recorder with a TBC in it. It provides a gorgeous analog recording but I would prefer to use my 3410's

Of greater concern is my daily need to unplug/replug t keep the unit operational. Often "No Listing" is all I get. At other times, it works. BTW, the two machines do not do the same thing in lock step. Each one carries out or fails to carry out updates independent of the other unit. The guide lights even come on at fdifferent times. They fail independently. The only time they appear to be in sync is just after an unplug/replug. I am hoping your info will provide some direction to my search for an answer to why these machines have gone awry. BTW, the third unit is at my father's home. It works but gets no guide info.

Jan J -

You should know better than anyone that the version of TVGOS that the LG uses (7th gen.) only has so many channel slots that can be filled, and that they already are all taken. You've always been the one who's told that to others in the past. It doesn't matter which level of service you're set up for.

You're gonna need an 8th or 9th generation guide to get all those extra channels listings. My Sony (8th gen.) has pretty near all of them. In contrast, my 2 DVR's with the 7th gen. guide have always only had only the extended basic channels, so you're already getting all you can possibly get. And, even though they never came up for you before now (for whatever reason - the way you were set up, maybe?), those local HD listings were actually added 2 or 3 years ago (to the 7th gen). They've were always at the bottom of the editor listings for me from day one. I had to go in there and actually turn them on first, though.

(You did go into the channel editor to see if any of those channels were by chance in there, and turned them on if so, right? And no - Comcast probably wouldn't have the slightest clue as to what you're talking about. You're asking way too much of them ;). TV Guide on Screen probably would, though.)

Of greater concern is my daily need to unplug/replug t keep the unit operational. Often "No Listing" is all I get.
Art-
I wonder if your problem is memory related. You could get problems like yours if there are memory related bugs in the 3410A software. How many stations are in your guide list? I keep approximately 15 and have very few problems. I also have the original firmware release.

I have a ritual I go through whenever I lose guide data (this has happened 6 times in 3 years). I tell the guide that I only have OTA input. I then scan for channels. I then delete all of the found stations. I then go into the guide again and tell it I have cable without a cable box. I then scan for channels. I then delete all of the cable channels except for the local networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS) and delete any OTA HD channels I don't want. At this point in time I only have 15 channels in the Guide. I then shut down the 3410A for the night and in the morning the guide is good. The whole thing takes me less than 10 minutes.

I think the key step is the one where I scan and then delete all found stations. If I do not do this I continue to need to unplug/plug almost every time I use the 3410A.

Well... I never got any data for the digital cable channels.... I tried 4 different times....

Does anyone have any success with hooking the 3410a up to a Motorola HD box? If you do, I've got some questions for you at the end of this post....

Things that went right:
I got control of the Motorola HD box via IR to work, (Code 83) and could change channels. Also, no trouble seeing or hearing the program from Cablebox.
When I'd force a system reset and scan for TVG data, with power off, 3410a would change channels on Motorola Cable box from 2 to 98, incrementing every 10-15 seconds or so, then go back to 94, where it stayed. Data for the analog channels continued to arrive, as in the 8-9 days I spent (4-5 TVG resets) trying to get it going in this mode, I never ran out of TVG data for the analog cable channels, so data was obviously still arriving.


I Tried rescan after trying each of the 3 cable band types, and never got TVG data on any of the 3 cable band settings, so that's not it....

Other issues: Once in "Cablebox mode" I could not access analog cable channels, via channel edit or directly from controller. Whereas when I was NOT in the cablebox mode, I could enter 21-0 and receive analog cable channel 21 via the remote or channel edit...... When in the Cablebox mode, all channels came in via the cablebox and AV1. I never did get access to the Cable RF, Analog Cable, or any channel with a -0 suffix.
The one exception to this was OTA channels that I had channel edited to OTA channels.... 7-1 would change me to OTA antenna and ABCHD OTA.
However 7-0 would not change to Analog cable..... The -0 was dropped, and 7 was sent to the cablebox.

So I went back to my setting of: Cable service without a cable box, and I pulled the IR interface from the 3410a.. That worked..... (as before -- analog cable but no digital cable channels). :(

V1.17 firmware on 3410a


So. My questions for anyone who has successfully interfaced a 3410a to a Comcast Cablebox are:

When you first configured your 3410a and turned it off to get TVG data, did your 3410a start incrementing the channel selector on the cablebox?

If yes, where did it stop?

Was there any delay in getting Digital cable channel data compared to OTA or the regular analog cable channel data?

What firmware version on the 3410a are you running?

Thank you very much....
Jan

Thanks UNC,

For months now I have been having to unplug/replug each 310A DVR daily. This is necessary because I get the Invalid Channel AV1.... crap in the green box warning. Or, i lose all the Listing Info. or it decides to forget the lineup (rare). Most every day though at least a replug is required in order to access the guide and get the white Guide light to turn on. I credit it to the fact that Comcast has stopped broadcasting the original programming info for our units. Not sure but what else could it be. Both of the units do the same thing althugh not at he same time. Still love mine. I also use a 4200. The PQ from all thre is outstanding via DVI/HDMI to my Optoma HD81. I also bought a Toshiba XA2. The Toshiba and the 2 3410A's go into the HDMI inputs. The 4200 and my HDD200 satellite HD decoder use the component input of the HD81. The SVHS VCR's look terrible compared dto anything else. Technology has really improved these last 10 years. Still am disappointed how often the digital broadcast signal screws up. Somebody did not think that one through.


I have owned my 3410a since Feb. 2004. Got it in time for the Super Bowl. Anyways, I 've had no real issues until about mid-2006. I too, get the green error message from you know where..."invalid channel recording av1,blah blah, whatever!" At first I thought the HDD was going bad. But I can record with no problems. I am convinced it's due to heat buildup because the darn thing gets so freakin' hot (powered on for atleast 6 hours straight;sometimes longer) and when I hit the guide button or REC button all HECK breaks loose. I have to unplug the unit, wait 10 seconds and then plug it back in. WHAT A PAIN IN THE REAR!!! I am sooooooo close to putting it up on eBay. 850 bucks retail and now it's worth crap to me. I hate it!!!! Is there any solution to this problem?

Slugger -
If it is heat, try to see if there is a reason why did it work fine for 18 months before getting bad. Try opening the box an dusting it. I had a computer that started acting weird after a few years and I discovered that the heat sink was packed with dust. Another thing to try is putting it in a new spot with better air circulation.

Also, the problem may not be heat. Try resetting the guide to see if that helps (it always has for me ... see my posting a bit above).

It is interesting that your invalid channel error is green...mine is navy blue.

well, the on-screen error message is teal or close to that...the green "reserved" light on the front panel lights up as if I scheduled a recording. when the box is in it's messed up mode, nearly all remote control commands are delayed several seconds and if a channel is changed, the audio won't start until about 3-4 seconds after the channel changed....ANNOYING!!!

I used my box out in the living room for about 2 days to see if a larger room and more airflow help...nope! It must be the guide feature. I live in Fullerton, CA and the guide for my LG box used to say "no program information" for the HD channels...(OTA broadcast channels) The basic cable guide info was available. (non-digital) About a year ago, the guide finally received info for the HD channels...then it lost them...then it got them back. 90% certainty the TV Guide Onscreen is the culprit. I've opened up my unit and all is well. I think next time I'll remove the tvguide card...it's looks like a RAM module and shouldn't F* up my box if I remove it. I could care less if it f's up my box...to me, it's already jacked.

I think answers to my question lie in Page 15 of the Gemstar manual...
Going to try it again!!!

I have had my 3410 for 3 years now and the only problem I have these days is I loss of my scheduled recordings or sometimes if shown as scheduled they do not record, any answers for that?

also

I have my 3410 sitting on end and have had it this way since day one, hope it helps with heat dissipation!

here's my box's info:

S/W: MP1.15
H/W: 10.4
DB: 4.15
Guide: 7.1.20

Date:
2:51pm April 6, 2004

Without having to take it to a repair shop and pay money to fix (update) the box, where can I download the software to upgrade my HD box? I know should be able to do it myself.

I'm 99 percent convinced the guide is what is messing up my box. (recordings, guide, and overall functionality) P.O.S!!!

> the green "reserved" light on the front panel lights up as if I scheduled a recording. when the box is in it's messed up mode, nearly all remote control commands are delayed several seconds and if a channel is changed, the audio won't start until about 3-4 seconds after the channel changed <

I've been noticing this behavior myself recently on my unit. I don't know what triggers it. I have NOTHING scheduled to record, yet it claims I do. I have to yank the power (hard boot the unit) to get it back operational again. Very aggravating.

- Tim

After another week of attempting to use 3410a in conjunction with a Motorola 6200 CableBox on Comcast, I'm giving up again.
It goes through all the motions of scanning for data (always ends up on Channel 94) to search for TVG Data, but never finds anything.

Channel 94 is PBS (channel 11, WTTW) and that channel is transmitting V8 of TVG, not V7!!
I would have expected the cablebox to stop at 12, which is WFLD ch 32(OTA) on cable system, as they are the Primary TVG channel here in Chicago. But it blows right past 12 up to 98, then back to 94. Anytime the 3410a is powered off, it changes channel back to 94 (WTTW--V8 TVG) also.... I did a TVG Diagnostic dump (32 pages of data) and I looked for host channel, and it says "Cable Box" not channel ID Number.... so that was a dead end also.

In my repeated attempts to get this to work (Cablebox channel 94), sometimes it picks up just PBS data, sometimes it picks up PBS, the rest of Analog Cable channels. But it NEVER picks up
the digital cable box TVG Data, though it DOES pick up the Digital Cable Box Channel Icons and Premium channel icons... ?????

You name it, I've tried it. (Makes this post shorter! :) )

So, I'm trying a different approach. Went back to Cable without cable box settings, and when it gets the channel list, with all the Icons for cable box channels as it has always before, I'm going to TURN ON those digital cablebox channels for TVG Data, to see what data shows up.
If I get data THEN.... Then I will edit all the digital cable box and premium channels that gets TVG Program Data for Channel 4. Once before I inadvertantly had two channels set for same channel number, and system didn't complain... Will be interesting to see how 20 channel Icons set for channel 4 will react......

I'm taking the video & stereo audio out of the cablebox and modulating it on channel 4. I'm then taking the cable RF, (Feed that doesn't go to cablebox) notching out channel 4 and inserting MY Ch 4 into the cable feed, and then feeding that to the rest of the house.

IF I get TVG Data for the digital and premium channels THIS WAY... Wife can then record whatever she wants off cablebox, as long as she presets the cablebox to the proper channel....

All in all, this has been one of the most frustrating couple weeks in my 3410a 'experience'....

It's almost as if the "With cablebox" and "Without cablebox" TVG downloading software is flipped.


IF Anyone has been successful in getting a 3410a to access cablebox and successfully get TVG Data, would you kindly tell me these things:

Your City
Your Cable system
Firmware in 3410a
Channel you get TVG Data on (chanel cable box goes to when TVG Data light goes on on 3410a when powered down).
how many channels do you get from digital cable box, over the analog cable channels?


Thanks!

So, I'm trying a different approach. Went back to Cable without cable box settings, and when it gets the channel list, with all the Icons for cable box channels as it has always before, I'm going to TURN ON those digital cablebox channels for TVG Data, to see what data shows up.Usually with TVGOS if you don't set up for a digital cable box (or D* tuner with V9), you will not be able to enter in a more than 2-digit channel number for the extra channels that you turn on. All of the V7 and V8 units I have had would not allow me to do that.

You might have better luck splitting the coax between the cable box and the RF input on the LG (and still using the IR blaster to control the box and connecting the box to a line input) and trying to set up for "cable with box" (and I'm not even sure that will work, as I've never had cable w/a box myself).

Just before I started typing this, DVR2 turned on, went to ch4 and started recording.... It is a recording of the Science Channel off the digital cable.

It isn't working as it was designed to, but it's working!!!!

This morning I gave up trying to control the digital cable box, so I went back to where it was before, OTA and analog cable. By the time I got home from work, it had detected all the cable and digital cable icons and channel data I needed to do a test recording tonight...

The cable feed is amplified, then split into 3 paths: One to cablebox, one to a test point that is terminated, (for expansion) and one for a channel filter box. This box notches out CH 4 (Comcast's TVG channel), and a separate CH 4 feed generated locally is inserted there, and distributed around the house.
I've fed video and audio from cablebox to a CH 4 modulator, that then goes to the channel filter box. This way, any channel on the cablebox also appears on CH4.

(Ram -- I had no trouble changing channels on the cable box with the 3410a, I just never got an program information on the digital cable box channels in the TVG. NO LISTING)

When the multiple tries with the digital cable box didn't get any program data, I went back to cable service but no cablebox, and had no trouble getting TVG Data for the digital channels..... (that's the 'eversed nature'of the software I'm referring to.... I get digital channel data with I select no cablebox, and no digital channel data when I select cablebox!!!)

So I'm using the local channel 4 feed to put the cablebox digital feeds on CH 4 where the 3410a can record it. All I have to do is preset the correct channel on the cablebox.

Of course, then I have 20 some channels all re-directed to CH 4, and I was worried that the 3410a would detect something was fishy with so many channels re-directed to CH 4, but the first test recording started without a hitch....

On my other 3410a I 'turned on' 4 HBO channels (all set for CH 4) about 20 minutes before wife's scheduled recording (on OTA channel) was supposed to start... That recording went off without a hitch....

It would have been 'prettier' if it all worked together without our having multiple channel 4's, but this way I could record 4 cable shows simultaneously: One digital cable channel, and one analog cable channel. With the "Cablebox" method, I'd be able to record only one cable channel, digital or analog, per box, and with us having only one box, the RF method would seem to be a bit more flexible....

If the recordings do work out ok, then I'll enable digital cable box channels on other 3410a.....

All in all wife is chuckling at me, as I seem to be doing this as a challenge and a couple of times the past two weeks she has said to me: "I don't recall ever asking for this new feature ---- Why are you beating your head against this?"

I guess because it's there!!!!

(Heck, weather isn't good enough for a motorcycle ride yet!!!! :)! )

P.S. Ch 94 (where 3410a changed the digital box looks for TVG data) is Channel 11-2 in Chicago, and I haven't looked yet, but I believe TVG V8 data is transmitted only on 11-0, not 11-2....

Are you sure 94 is 11-2? It's most likely 11-0 (analog), because that's in the range where Comcast supposedly leaves the analog host channel (around 94-97) in the digital tier, specifically so all the TVGOS units can still get their info.

I'm pretty sure that your unit, with it's L7 guide, can only get it's info from an analog channel, and can't be eventually upgraded to get it from a digital one (whenever they get around to putting it in the digital cable and OTA signal - if they ever do). I think only the 9th gen. is able to do that.

Anyhow, I hope it keeps working for you (as convoluted as it all sounds :)). I finally got tired enough of setting timers manually with my SD recorder and my external E* 322 satellite tuner (because the TVGOS won't work with it), and finally got a Panasonic E75H HDD/DVD/VHS recorder, which has the 9th gen. TVGOS, and can record from the external tuner just by highlighting what I want on the E* guide, and the recorder just does all the rest without me ever having to set anything on it's end. It also picks up the titles, which is another huge reason I wanted it. And it'll work with D* and digital cable tuners, too, should I ever need it to. As far as HD, my Sony DHG-HDD500 handles that from OTA.

In case there is no post about the HD channels from Time Warner Cable in Southern California, here are were the FREE HD channels can be found with the LST-3410A (no need for OTA but you won't get any guide data)

CBS HD: 93-501
NBC HD: 93-502
ABC HD: 94-504
FOX HD: 94-505
KCET HD: 94-506
KCAL HD: 104-525 (just added!)

Free Preview of iN Demand Sports packages (currently NHL Playoffs and MLB):

Channels 108-417 through 108-430. Take advantage of these in case they disappear (which is 99.99% guaranteed)

Are you sure 94 is 11-2? It's most likely 11-0 (analog), because that's in the range where Comcast supposedly leaves the analog host channel (around 94-97) in the digital tier, specifically so all the TVGOS units can still get their info. .

If you are correct that 94-97 is all that is set aside for TVGOS, you've answered my question... V7 in Chicagoland is transmitted by WFLD Fox 32 and WLS ABC 7, neither of these are in the 94-97 cable channels here, and that would explain my strange results, because no V7 signals were sent.
Whereas when I posted that, I thought it was correct looking at a piece of paper, when I went to the 'box' output and hit info, WttW, came up, so I'm guessing you are right... Reason why I got intermittant data must have been V8 vs. V7 TVG data.

I'm truely amazed of the crazy results I've been getting these past two weeks. Up till then I never tried to interface it to a cablebox.

A friend who (Used) to have more info than I on this box (When it was a product) is at NAB, so it totally un-available right now, Offered to look into my strange results for me.... on the QT. I'll pass him this information, and this might explain why I had such bizzarre results... Thanks for that!!!

I don't know if this would mean anything at all to you in your situation, but I thought I'd at least mention it - my V7 recorders get their TVGOS data from WYCC, channel 20 OTA (I don't have cable).

The last time I had them hooked up to Comcast analog cable though, they used channel 11 (cable), but that was out here in Crystal Lake, and it was probably over 3 years ago.

As far as OTA, they seemed to change it over to 20 after the V8 came out (which then used 11 OTA).

If you are still getting the analogs (even just the locals) on your line, try doing the "splitting" method that I, and someone else mentioned to you in the Comcrap thread. That seems to work for some people. (Split the incoming line between the cable box and directly to the LG RF - you can try setting up each way for "with" or "without cable box" - but "with" will probably let you enter 3-digit channel numbers, where "without" may not.) It's worth a try, at least.

I didn't know WYCC was also transmitting TVG, and that tells me that the 'pecking' order for TVG must be Cable first, OTA, second, 'cause I have both OTA and Cable connected!

Ram... Every time I look, I look in TVG Diags, when on cable only, no box, I get the hex equivalent of decimal 12, which is WFLD. Once I followed instructions to force it to 7, which is WLS (The secondary V7 TVG channel, at the request of a fellow from Norpak/TVG who wanted me to verify the data could be received, which worked well until the next set of icons were sent).

These past 3 weeks, when attempting to use the cablebox, any TVG Diagnostics run would end up displaying 'cablebox' where I was used to seeing Host Channel, and that was a surprise.

4 times yesterday I tested various recordings, and all of them recorded, but only 3 of them shut off afterward, but we've seen that before....

I now have ~20 icons re-directed to CH 4 and 9-10 re-directed to OTA HD chanels, and so far (Big deal--~3 days!) it seems to be working OK.

The cable feed IS split between cablebox and LG's... but also Comcast ch4 is blocked out, and the ch4 from the local modulator I added is inserted in place.

My problem with With Cablebox centered on not receiving TVG Program data for Cablebox digital channels.... Had no trouble with controlling the cablebox for any channel number.
When set for Without cablebox, entering a 3 digit number caused the 3410a to look for that RF channel number on the analog cable feed, and didn't change via IR at all (I know, I'm set for without cablebox now, but left IR control in, to see what would happen..... and nothing happens.....

Ram...... Wait a Minute!!!

You say your TVG Channel is 20......

20 hex is 32 decimal.... You're getting it off WFLD

Ram...... Wait a Minute!!!

You say your TVG Channel is 20......

20 hex is 32 decimal.... You're getting it off WFLDWell then, what am I getting it from when it says 11, as my L8 and L9 versions always have shown? (Remember, my L7 units were once at 11, too - until they changed over to 20, after the L8 was first released.)

I always assumed WTTW was the "main" carrier, because it's always been said throughout the years that TVGOS more often than not gets it's info from a "PBS" channel. And, why do I NOT get info for the guides that use 11 when I just use a UHF antenna, or am just not receiving 11 well, even though I can still receive UHF? If it's truly a hex number, then shouldn't hex for 11 be up in the UHF range, and shouldn't I still be receiving the data?

Based on the "PBS" reasoning, wouldn't it be more likely that, if a version wasn't using the "main" PBS station anymore, it would switch over to another PBS station, if there's one available?

Also, why, when some people's guide said it used 2 for the data, and channel 2's engineer (right here on this thread, I believe) confirmed that they had stripped the TVGOS from the data stream, were they not receiving the data anymore? Wouldn't that confirm that the actual decimal number in the service menu was in fact the one being used, and not the hex equivelent?

Questions, questions. Probably the best way to find out for sure once and for all would be to contact TVGOS and ask them if the host channel is listed as hex in each particular version of their guide, and if any manufacturers of the units (as far as they know) might be listing it that way (although I would doubt that, as the TVGOS service menus are pretty standardized across all models and brands, and it appears to be part of the overall TVGOS firmware).

Actually the TVG generator is added to the program stream after the switcher, in the transmitter feed. Anything on Line 15 and 278 are replaced by the Norpak box.
I was told by TVG folks that WFLD is primary V7 TVG station, WLS is secondary V7 TVG station and WTTW is the V8 station in Chicago. This conversation occurred about March of 2006, when I was getting reports that Line 15 was fine, but data on line 278 was failing the TVG test where I was working. The problem was assigned to me. TVG found a bug in their software, and I a programming fault in the line selector, in that Line 278 was being replaced with Line 15 data, not Line 278 data. It was a moot point cause we are not the primary V7 TVG station, but once the software bug was found by TVG, the amount of resets I was getting on the 3410a dropped to about 1/10th of the resets compared to what I was receiving before. I haven't talked to Todd since, so their might be other stations transmitting that data now..... Dunno...

I just wonder then, why my 8th and 9th version guides actually say "11" for the host channel, and are getting it from WTTW as you say, but my two 7th version guides say "20".
That would mean that TVGOS changed over from listing it as "hex" to "decimal" when they came out with the 8th gen. units.

Right? Or no?

I wish there at least was a way to observe whether VBI data is coming in or not on the individual channels with the L7 units, the way you can do so on my Sony DHG500 (with it's 8th gen. guide). That might at least tell me something.

So when analog broadcasts are eventually shut off, does that mean the data for the TVGOS in the LST-3410A will no longer be delivered?

So when analog broadcasts are eventually shut off, does that mean the data for the TVGOS in the LST-3410A will no longer be delivered?Only OTA. Cable should have limited basic analog around for awhile, and will most likely still send the TVGOS data. But, even that's not certain.

I don't know if you saw the news in the Sony DVR thread, and in the DVD Recorder area, but TVGOS has just struck a deal with CBS for them to carry the data over their digital signal. Nobody knows for sure yet if any of the current or past generations of TVGOS will be upgradable, but the odds are that the 7th version in the LG, and probably the 8th in the Sony, will not be. There is a newer, 9th gen. out (in '06 Panasonic and Toshiba DVR/DVD recorders, and in some '06 Panny plasmas), and there is a better chance that that version can be upgraded. I have one of the Panny recorders, and it can receive guide info from Direct, and limited info from Dish, so we already know that version is designed to receive info from a digital signal.

I have a refurbished LG 3410A that I bought off Ebay about a year ago. It has worked flawlessly since I've had it. The TV Guide data has always updated every night with no problem. But I have always set my recordings manually as if I were recording on a VCR. My question is, if the TV Guide data no longer works in the future can I still use the 3410A the way I am now, setting the clock and recordings manually? Or does it turn into a door stop? Chasie

I haven't been able to get TV Guide data for some time now. The 3410A doesn't become a door stop.


I have a refurbished LG 3410A that I bought off Ebay about a year ago. It has worked flawlessly since I've had it. The TV Guide data has always updated every night with no problem. But I have always set my recordings manually as if I were recording on a VCR. My question is, if the TV Guide data no longer works in the future can I still use the 3410A the way I am now, setting the clock and recordings manually? Or does it turn into a door stop? Chasie

I have a refurbished LG 3410A that I bought off Ebay about a year ago. It has worked flawlessly since I've had it. The TV Guide data has always updated every night with no problem. But I have always set my recordings manually as if I were recording on a VCR. My question is, if the TV Guide data no longer works in the future can I still use the 3410A the way I am now, setting the clock and recordings manually? Or does it turn into a door stop? ChasieThat depends on whether or not you have the option of setting the time manually on it, independently of it's getting the time automatically from an analog carrier.

On the Sony DVR's you can't - and it's got some people on edge. But I'm not sure of the LG - someone else here who has one can probably answer that (your manual should tell you, if you have one - otherwise, go into the menu on the unit and check).

I haven't been able to get TV Guide data for some time now. The 3410A doesn't become a door stop.

Hey, neither have I! I thought it was because I moved it upstairs, but I tried redoing the setup, changing my zipcode, turning off cable and only have on antenna, lots of things like that - but NO guide data!!! I tried the code to force a download - nothing! Am I missing something? Do I need to do a full disk wipe in the setup menu and start over?

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!
Ron

One of my two 3410A's does not receive a host channel signal or guide data. It does work fine, however, setting recording times manually. I do get the "Invalid Channel" message quite often, and a brief unplug is required. It is easy to set the time manually, but you do have to remove any scheduled recordings first.

I recently had a guide problem . It would not receive any information for about a month. I tried unplugging it and then the guide light came on but no information was received. So I did all my recording manually . This week all of a sudden the guide is downloading on its own. I did not do anything to it. I wonder if the transmitting station was not working correctly. I have this unit for 3 years and this was the first trouble I had with the guide. My unit has been rock solid in all aspects since I got it.

It seems that for all of us here who have this unit, we go through a period of flawless performance :D , then problems arise with TVG :mad: . A possibility is, as DiCecco suggested, a problem with the station transmitting TVGOS data. Maybe someone could get stations that are transmitting problem free in touch with problematic stations. Any takers? For the SF Bay Area the primary data transmission (I think) is with channel 9 KQED, website kqed.org, with secondary channel being channel 5, KPIX, website kpix.com. It could be the other way around or I could be totally wrong. My 3410 has been working great since the beginning of the year, with constant Guide updates. :)

I think Juan is right about this. Mine works great the vast majority of the time and then there will be a short period where it doesn't work, despite everything I've tried that has been posted in this thread (there are a lot of really smart obscessed people in this thread). Then days or a week later, the guide will mysteriously start working fine again even though I had already given up and wasn't adjusting anything.

I think we have determined over the years that corrupted data from the Host Channel will cause various malfunctions. OTOH, The 3401A should have been designed to self-correct and not require the unplugging ritual. That being said, the biggest limitation of the unit is the inability to view a previously recorded program while a new recording is in progress. As thoroughly discussed in this forum at the time, that capability could easily have been designed into the 3410A before it went into production.

I agree with UncD2000. The bandwidth was available in the Seagate hard drive for 3 streams....
And a Maxtor 'White Paper' claimed 5 streams were possible for the drives they were making which were drop in replacements for the Seagate drive. 3 years ago.

Every 6 months or so, I hassle the LG distributor that I know, prodding them for info on another set top DVR box....

He keeps wanting me to test the new units built into their display..... I keep telling him I don't need (or want) a plasma.... Just a new DVR.

My.... I'd love to be able to suggest features for a new unit...

[QUOTE=MrHifi]Lost my guide info (stations) for the first time in a while...Dreaded "AV1 ....." message. Other 2 units perfect. Wish I knew why they screw up. Going through the 3 day reboot process. 1. Reset to factory condition 2. Overnight download of cable SD stations 3. Download of digital stations.

Sure wish they weren't so sensitive.

Try this solution.
Menu, Lock, Aux. Block, AV1 Off and AV2 Off

The unit has been rock steady for over a month since I set up this menu choice. It even seemed to cure the problem where the hard drive used to lock up after fast forwarding a prerecorded program to the end.
I've tried this recommended solution to no avail. I still receive the AV1 error and it's a major pain because my unit doesn't record any scheduled recordings unless I do a unplug/replug! :mad:

Is there another solution that has worked for people? I'm close to my wits end...

I wish I had found this thread when it began. I bought my LST-3410A (4 years ago?) when the olympics were going to be first broadcast in HD. I don't have cable or sat and only use OTA. I bought the LG and an arial antenna and have never looked back. it's been great. But, I was plagued by the lockups described in this thread and have twice sent it into LG for out of warranty repair. I think the 2nd time was due to a faulty hard drive. It seems I could have purchased a hard drive and installed it myself rather than sending it off to LG.

I have learned to turn off the unit every day. I've been able to run for a month now without any lockups or problems or missed recordings.

Every 6 months or so, I hassle the LG distributor that I know, prodding them for info on another set top DVR box....

He keeps wanting me to test the new units built into their display..... I keep telling him I don't need (or want) a plasma....Next time you see him, tell him you'd be more than glad to, if he'll supply you with a demo model :).

Next time you see him, tell him you'd be more than glad to, if he'll supply you with a demo model :).

And let you take it apart so you can see what's in the DVR!

Well I have bit the bullet and leased a dual tuner DVR from the cable company.
:o
You are a great group of people here and given the devotion to these units i am offering them here first.
:)
Thank you for all the help with my questions in the past and if anyone is intrested in these units please PM me.
I have two 3410 units.
One unit has a 500gig HDD
The other has the standard drive, but i have a 250gig HDD that came with the other unit that i will pair with this one.
Mike

Next time you see him, tell him you'd be more than glad to, if he'll supply you with a demo model :).


I've also suggested that they would be better off if someone here (Hint -- Hint!!)
participate in a beta test program!!! :)!

I've also suggested that they would be better off if someone here (Hint -- Hint!!)
participate in a beta test program!!! :)!

Heck! I think we'd all be great at helping them out with beta testing. I'll step up and volunteer! ;)

Tawtone-

Check your PM from me.

Thanks,

Brandon

i recently, November, bought a 18080p Optoma projector. The picture from the 3410A continues to be the best source. That includes a Toshiba XA2 DVD player. They may have blown it on the Guide but the picture qualit is the best available AFAIC. I run 3 of these constantly. I unplug/replug daily and hooked up to Comcast basic cable in MD am able to get the guide stuff perfectly. Every 3 months or so, I get an AV1 window but that just requires a service menu reset and 3 days of waiting. While I don't like the hastle, I love the PQ and the recorded streams. Using 3, I capture everything on the networks, PBS and stuff off my C Band dish. The 3410A's with all their quirks continue to be the most used sources in my system. Fo over 3 years they have operated a minimum of 3 hours every day. Somedays they will run 16 hours without a proble. I put in 300gB hard drives.

QUESTION:: SAP info. where is the switch to select it?

i recently, November, bought a 18080p Optoma projector. The picture from the 3410A continues to be the best source. That includes a Toshiba XA2 DVD player. They may have blown it on the Guide but the picture qualit is the best available AFAIC. I run 3 of these constantly. I unplug/replug daily and hooked up to Comcast basic cable in MD am able to get the guide stuff perfectly. Every 3 months or so, I get an AV1 window but that just requires a service menu reset and 3 days of waiting. While I don't like the hastle, I love the PQ and the recorded streams. Using 3, I capture everything on the networks, PBS and stuff off my C Band dish. The 3410A's with all their quirks continue to be the most used sources in my system. Fo over 3 years they have operated a minimum of 3 hours every day. Somedays they will run 16 hours without a proble. I put in 300gB hard drives.

QUESTION:: SAP info. where is the switch to select it?Can't you just use some sort of video switcher, rather than having to plug and unplug things in daily?

As for the SAP, doesn't the LG's menu have something like "Audio" or "Screen", which it can be under?

The picture from the 3410A continues to be the best source. That includes a Toshiba XA2 DVD player. They may have blown it on the Guide but the picture qualit is the best available AFAIC.Agreed, although I see no difference in PQ between the LG and the DVI output of a MyHD card on digital channels. But I'm impressed by the quality of the LG's A/D conversion of NTSC analog pictures. I have two MyHD cards and and OnAir GT USB tuner, and the LG is by far the easiest to use when it works.

I run 3 of these constantly. I unplug/replug daily and hooked up to Comcast basic cable in MD am able to get the guide stuff perfectly. Can't you just use some sort of video switcher, rather than having to plug and unplug things in daily?I'm sure MrHifi means unplugging the power to the LG, which temporarily fixes lots of problems.

QUESTION:: SAP info. where is the switch to select it?On digital channels the AUDIO button will select multiple audio services if available (usually different languages). On analog, which is what SAP refers to, the AUDIO button apparently just toggles between mono and stereo. I don't see any way to select true SAP, although I haven't scoured the manual.

Well I have bit the bullet and leased a dual tuner DVR from the cable company.
:o
You are a great group of people here and given the devotion to these units i am offering them here first.
:)
Thank you for all the help with my questions in the past and if anyone is intrested in these units please PM me.
I have two 3410 units.
One unit has a 500gig HDD
The other has the standard drive, but i have a 250gig HDD that came with the other unit that i will pair with this one.
Mike

Any left? I sent you a PM:)

If anybody else is thinking of selling, I'm interested.

Thanks!

Looking for a "parts" unit for a friend of mine....

So Jan,

Any idea why I have to unplug/replug every day to keep everything working? I receive from Comcast Annapolis and OTA locals. Tried lots of things I thought might be the cause and used the materials you gave me. THANKS AGAIN!!!!! I am the only one who can use these because they are symptomatic so often. Ideas are always welcome.

So Jan,

Any idea why I have to unplug/replug every day to keep everything working? I receive from Comcast Annapolis and OTA locals. Tried lots of things I thought might be the cause and used the materials you gave me. THANKS AGAIN!!!!! I am the only one who can use these because they are symptomatic so often. Ideas are always welcome.


I've got two of them, and one has decided to occasionally give wife fits, by starting recording, then stopping recording --- all by itself. When it stops recording, it doesn't leave a file of whatever it did record.... It is like it never happened.

I found that going through all menus will clear it (or it was just dumb luck, dunno) for a few days....



She saw a "HDD " message of some sort, but didn't remember it. HMMMM

About 4 months ago, she was getting images degrading to DCT Blocks, and I replaced the hard drive....... I may go to a 120Gb known good drive from my first unit to see if it is a drive or not....

Gee I wish this unit had an Error Log.... It would be so much easier to troubleshoot if their was an error log.....

Looking for a "parts" unit for a friend of mine....

Bad news and good news.

First, the bad news for Jan. I had a unit I was going to give up on, but then I fixed it.

Second, the good news. The unit was showing the dreaded perpetual "Initializing DVR" message. I fixed it by replacing the hard drive. I'm not saying it will work every time that error message comes up, but it worked in mine. I thnk someone else posted the same thing previously.

Good for you!!! I know the feeling.... I just wish I knew more about the failure that the wife had....
I can toss another drive in to "See what happens"............

Any chance that the 3410A will be able to receive the IPG data from from the digital CBS channels as described in the recent Gemstar/CBS agreement (http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6435477.html)?

Any chance that the 3410A will be able to receive the IPG data from from the digital CBS channels as described in the recent Gemstar/CBS agreement (http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6435477.html)?

I guess that brings up another related question. Are you guys sure that we have to have the analog TV station programmed in to the 3410a in order to receive the current program guide? The station I get my data out here is ABC (channel 10, if I did the binhex thing right). My guide has almost always worked fine even though I only have my machine set to receive the digital stations.

The reason I ask is that I've seen a lot of posts advocating having the analog channel programed in.

Are you guys sure that we have to have the analog TV station programmed in to the 3410a in order to receive the current program guide?I'm pretty sure, based on my own experience. When I first used the LG (both antenna and cable inputs) it chose analog channel 10, the local ABC affiliate. The guide had separate listings for the analog and digital versions of the station, so I assigned them as 10 and 10-1. That worked well until the station stopped carrying the data.

Did the setup thing again, and this time it liked ch. 6 (CBS). There was only one guide listing for the channel, and when I reassigned it to 6-1 I stopped receiving guide info. Set it back to 6-0, and all was good again, except that I kept forgetting that if I scheduled a CBS show for record in the usual way it would record the analog channel. There are many entries for channels I don't get (but none are for CBS stations), so I tried assigning 6-0 to one of them. No good.

Eventually the LG latched onto ch. 11 (PBS). There are several guide entries for PBS stations I don't get, so I assigned 11-0 to one of those. That works.

I'm leaving out a few details such as the time TWC stripped Gemstar data from the local stations and my unsuccessful attempts to insert an OTA channel into my cable feed.

My experience suggests that the guide channel(s) must be analog, must be enabled in Ch. Edit and must be assigned to one of the station listings in the guide. The listing may be for a different station, but it must be for the same network. I have no idea why that would be a requirement, but there it is. In fact, I hope someone here has an experience that will prove me wrong.

I don't have my host channel enabled in my guide, and I'm getting all the data OK with my Sony DHG-HDD500. But it might be implemented differently. Plus, it has the 8th generation guide, where the LG has the 7th.

What is the largest hard drive (make and model please) that anyone here has successfully used in upgrading the LG LST3410A?

I have successfully used a 400GB Seagate IDE 7200-16MB cache.

Has anyone successfully used a 500GB or 750GB?

I've installed a 330Gb Quickview (Maxtor made for DVR) on one system, and 250Gb (made for computer, not DVR) on second system without any major issues.

There was someone who went so far as using a IDE to SATA converter but I can't remember who...

There were comments about a large amount of recorded files preventing the unit from reading them all on a power up before timing out. To my knowledge, I have not encountered that, though....

It's my opinion that all MFG's have stopped making IDE Quickview drives, leaving us with no options but to use a computer drive instead. From conversations I've had with people, the Quickview drives differ from regular computer drives in the "Retry" feature built into the drive. ("Retry" is locked out of Quickview drives). The drives check for errors by comparing calculated checksums, vs. embedded checksums.
On a normal computer drive, if the checksum of the read operation doesn't match the embedded checksum in the data that's being read, the drive "Retry's" the data again and again (I forget, I think it can be as much as 30 times) before it reports a data error....
On our DVR's, stopping and re-reading causes the picture to freeze, and so the Quickview drives don't re-try on a data error, but pass it on as a disturbance in the picture. (Less objectionable than a frozen picture)....

Needless to say, you wouldn't want to put a Quickview drive in your home computer!!!!
:)!

I've installed a 330Gb Quickview (Maxtor made for DVR) on one system, and 250Gb (made for computer, not DVR) on second system without any major issues.

There was someone who went so far as using a IDE to SATA converter but I can't remember who...

There were comments about a large amount of recorded files preventing the unit from reading them all on a power up before timing out. To my knowledge, I have not encountered that, though....

It's my opinion that all MFG's have stopped making IDE Quickview drives, leaving us with no options but to use a computer drive instead. From conversations I've had with people, the Quickview drives differ from regular computer drives in the "Retry" feature built into the drive. ("Retry" is locked out of Quickview drives). The drives check for errors by comparing calculated checksums, vs. embedded checksums.
On a normal computer drive, if the checksum of the read operation doesn't match the embedded checksum in the data that's being read, the drive "Retry's" the data again and again (I forget, I think it can be as much as 30 times) before it reports a data error....
On our DVR's, stopping and re-reading causes the picture to freeze, and so the Quickview drives don't re-try on a data error, but pass it on as a disturbance in the picture. (Less objectionable than a frozen picture)....

Needless to say, you wouldn't want to put a Quickview drive in your home computer!!!!
:)!


Was the user who installed an IDE to SATA converter successful?

SATA II drives are a preferable purchase at this time over any IDE.

I recall I have used a Maxtor 300GB Quickview drive bought off-the-shelf at Fry's and not labeled as DVR-Only in a PC without issues(?).

Although, I have had PC issues (%&^$$^&) so maybe the Quickview did cause me grief.

I want to know if it's worth my time and trouble to buy/install an IDE 750GB HDD.

I recall some people had a variety of issues of various hard drives when they upgraded.

I have only tried a 400GB Seagate Non-QuickView and had success.

What was the largest brand/make/model of QuickView hard drive ever made.

I haven't really participated much if any on this tread but I own 3 of these DVR's. My thoughts are that a lot of the problems with these machines are caused by the hard drives. The Western Digital Caviar EIDE drives that are being sold cheap (you can usually find them on sale at the big box retailers at least once a week) work quite well, but how they will stand us to long term usage, I don't know. I would also bring the drives out of the enclosure of the recorder to keep them cooler. I would also look for a small chip cooler and place it on the IBM chip. In doing so you will notice all the other chips run cooler. I would also get some rubber feet or anything that will elevate the unit and help airflow underneath. Lastly, I would start looking at using other DVR's for recording programs that your going to erase because unless things change these are never going to be any firewire enabled DVR'made again. People seem to have found a way to encode to blu-ray but, that is another subject and tread.

I second the comment about increasing the height of feet to cool the system better.
I didn't take a temperature reading, but, with my hand I could tell a difference in temperature of a 'stock' unit, and one that had 1/4-3/8" of foot extention...

Hi fellow long suffering 3410 owners. For a week now all three of my units are registering "No Listing". I am in Annapolis, MD and use the Comcast Annapols Cable and an OTA antenna. Picture is perfect but no guide. I have to replug them almost every day to keep them functional. Anybody know whether Comcast stopped providing version 7?

Hi fellow long suffering 3410 owners. For a week now all three of my units are registering "No Listing". I am in Annapolis, MD and use the Comcast Annapols Cable and an OTA antenna. Picture is perfect but no guide. I have to replug them almost every day to keep them functional. Anybody know whether Comcast stopped providing version 7?

Hi MrHifi, I'm in DC (Comcast and OTA antenna) and have the same problem, no guide data. My two units are registering "No Listing." I have tried changing the zip code and the quick reset but no luck.

-James

Hi All.

Just a quick note that I upgraded the original 120GB Seagate HDD to a Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB HDD (7200rpm, 8MB cache IIRC) -- got it at newegg for $80.

I chose the Caviar over a current Segate for a couple of reasons:

1) Supposed to be quieter
2) Supposed to be low power (9W) compared to Seagate (original and also the new ones -- 12W)
3) Good experience with WD HDDs


I had some worries re the speed of the drive until I realized that the original drive was 2004 vintage and had a 1MB cache IIRC, and I figure any modern 7200 PATA is likely to outperform it anyway.

Impressions:

1) This drive is much quieter than the original.
2) No issues so far in terms of HD recording and playback performance.
3) Unit seems cooler, though I need to test this more long-term.

I was also impressed by the overall contruction of the LST-3410A. Nice motherboard, discrete power supply, simple but good internal construction.

While it's not perfect and occasionally requires a power cycling (I think this happens if you choose any HDD-related action before the system has fully powered up) , I'm pretty happy with my LST-3410A. Picture quality is very, very good.

Anybody know whether Comcast stopped providing version 7?
I've got almost the same setup you do, and Comcast in Massachusetts is still providing guide data. For me the two second unplug only fixes the AV1 problem. When ever there is a problem with the guide I believe it is because there is corrupted data stored somewhere. You need to clear all of the guide data for the problem to go away.

When 'no listing' happens, I attempt to reset the box to delete all the guide data. The first step is to delete all of the channels via edit, unplugged the box for a day. When I plug the box back in, the guide comes up with no channels, so then I scan for channels, and let it sit over night. The guide data comes back the next day.

There is probably a simpler way, but this works for me time.

Hi All.

Just a quick note that I upgraded the original 120GB Seagate HDD to a Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB HDD (7200rpm, 8MB cache IIRC)

Has anyone figured out how to copy shows from an old drive? I've a few HD recordings that I don't want to give up.

Hyrax,

naive question: can't you just swap the old drive back into the unit, and dump from there?

- Tim

Dump them where? There's only one drive in the box!

Hyrax,

naive question: can't you just swap the old drive back into the unit, and dump from there?

- Tim
I was hoping to be able to replace the old drive and forget about it. It is not a trivial task to get my 3410A out of my equipment closet so I can replace the drive. It may take me 10 minutes to put the new drive into the 3410A, but it'll take over an hour to get the 3410a out of my rack and and back into it afterwards.

I was hoping someone had figured out how to clone the old drives data onto the new drive. There must be some Linux guru out there who knows how to do this. If they haven't I'll just kiss my archived snippets good-bye. There is nothing I need, just a few favorite clips I'd like to keep.

I was hoping to be able to replace the old drive and forget about it. It is not a trivial task to get my 3410A out of my equipment closet so I can replace the drive. It may take me 10 minutes to put the new drive into the 3410A, but it'll take over an hour to get the 3410a out of my rack and and back into it afterwards.Which is why you need shelves on glides and enough slack in the cables to pull the unit out while it's still connected. Of course it's really convenient if it can be designed with enough room to get behind the rack, but that's rarely possible in a home installation.

I was hoping someone had figured out how to clone the old drives data onto the new drive. There must be some Linux guru out there who knows how to do this. If they haven't I'll just kiss my archived snippets good-bye. There is nothing I need, just a few favorite clips I'd like to keep.
If you search back through this thread or perhaps a related one, there's a detailed account of someone's effort to analyze the LG's disk format. It's pretty crude and not recognizable by any of the popular OSs. The author was not able to extract recordings in any usable fashion.

Probably not worth it to you, but you could pick up a D-VHS recorder and dump to that. You could store the programs on tape or transfer to a computer. Unfortunately I haven't heard of anyone having much success going directly from the LG to a Windows-based PC, although I've read that it's fairly easy with a Mac. Don't know about Linux one way or the other.

Although I cringe to suggest it, you could go composite out to whatever you like and accept the considerable hit in quality.

Which is why you need shelves on glides and enough slack in the cables to pull the unit out while it's still connected.


Next time!
My system has grown organically (Hmmm, that looks interesting...I think I'll buy a DVD player ... a 3410A ... a D-VHS ... a HD DVD ... a PS3 ...) and I just added stuff. It has gotten way past the the point where I need to re-organize it.

Who makes a good rack with sliding shelves?

Although I cringe to suggest it, you could go composite out to whatever you like and accept the considerable hit in quality.

Actually, using the S-VIDEO out to a DVD Recorder or PC looks very, very good.

My 250Gb WD drive died last week. WD is honoring the warranty... It gets shipped back later this week.

Symptoms:

1. Unit powers up, and before disk initialization finishes, it reboots again. May repeat.
2. Unit powers up, and if it makes it into record, reboots in ~15 seconds.
3. Unit powers up, go into playback, picture degrades to DCT blocks, and stops or reboots.

Swapped with old stock Seagate drive.... Problem goes away.

This happened a week ago, and with different drive problem went away.

My 250Gb WD drive died last week. WD is honoring the warranty... It gets shipped back later this week.

Symptoms:

1. Unit powers up, and before disk initialization finishes, it reboots again. May repeat.
2. Unit powers up, and if it makes it into record, reboots in ~15 seconds.
3. Unit powers up, go into playback, picture degrades to DCT blocks, and stops or reboots.

Swapped with old stock Seagate drive.... Problem goes away.

This happened a week ago, and with different drive problem went away.

Well that stinks! Obviously that drive wasn't too old, was it Jan? Just curious whether or not the drive was rated for A/V use. I've seen some folks talk about using non-A/V-rated drives in their 3410 and I've got to wonder if they aren't going to see premature drive failues.

No, it wasn't A/V rated (Retry's locked out). Drive was MFG'd Nov, 11, 2006, and I installed it in February... It died early this month, and I didn't post (Or contact WD) until the replacement drive had worked successfully for a week.

WD is replacing the drive.

I've had a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 250 GB drive in mine since mid 2004 (mfg. May '04). Ordinary computer-type drive. Occasionally a playback will glitch, but not often enough to say if it's the drive or the original feed. Sure, I'd rather have a drive optimized for DVR use, but not enough to pay the extra cost. If it dies tomorrow I'll figure I've gotten my money's worth out of it, and replace it with whatever is available cheap.

I've got almost the same setup you do, and Comcast in Massachusetts is still providing guide data. For me the two second unplug only fixes the AV1 problem. When ever there is a problem with the guide I believe it is because there is corrupted data stored somewhere. You need to clear all of the guide data for the problem to go away.

When 'no listing' happens, I attempt to reset the box to delete all the guide data. The first step is to delete all of the channels via edit, unplugged the box for a day. When I plug the box back in, the guide comes up with no channels, so then I scan for channels, and let it sit over night. The guide data comes back the next day.

There is probably a simpler way, but this works for me time.

Hello Hyrax,

The procedure you describe is wht I have been using also but hate to do it for fear of losing at least the station listings. Last night, I factory reset the boxes in the service menu. After completing setup, I was surprised to see the time display with only straight lines. I set the unit up with Zip, etc. After an unplug replug, it still did not fix the time. Before going to bed, I manually set the clock. This morning It said that the search for DATA failed. Never have seen that before. I suspect Comcast just stopped carrying the stream. Both machines act the same. I scanned and found all the Cable, Digital OTA and CADTV stations without a problem but there are no guide listings ant more.

I was going to call Comcast and ask whether they stopped broadcasting the TV Guide info. but I doubt anyone would be able to provide a correct answer. Any thoughts? I would like to get some feedback. I have 3 of these boxes and they all run every night. I suspect I will begin setting the timer every night. Is there any way to turn the GUIDE light off?

ADDENDUM: Well, it is Saturday at Noon and My 3 units do not even load the channel numbers. I may go to just OTA for a couple days but I need the cable numbers in order to use the cable and the only way to get those is to input "cable without a box" in setup. Thoughts?

Hello Hyrax,

ADDENDUM: Well, it is Saturday at Noon and My 3 units do not even load the channel numbers. I may go to just OTA for a couple days but I need the cable numbers in order to use the cable and the only way to get those is to input "cable without a box" in setup. Thoughts?

Mr Hifi,

I received guide data on one of my units yesterday, and the screen to select the line up showed on the second unit last night but haven't received guide data yet. I did not reset the units, this happened on it's own.

It appears that the problem must have been corrected for Comcast in Washington DC for now. I'll report back when I check my second unit tonight.

-James

I will check mine in a few minutes. Thanks for the update. BTW, mine have the "guide" light on all the time. After a few on off cycles, 3 or 4, they lock up and require an unplug/replug. I will check and let you know.

6:00 PM 6/19/07

No luck One says It Can't find the Data. The other asks if my wires are properly connected. Net effect is that I have no Guide when using Comcast.

Qu.. You are connected to Comcast?

I will check mine in a few minutes. Thanks for the update. BTW, mine have the "guide" light on all the time. After a few on off cycles, 3 or 4, they lock up and require an unplug/replug. I will check and let you know.

6:00 PM 6/19/07

No luck One says It Can't find the Data. The other asks if my wires are properly connected. Net effect is that I have no Guide when using Comcast.

Qu.. You are connected to Comcast?

I am connected to Comcast and have a rooftop antenna. My second box has not received guide data yet. I just changed the zip code to match the box that received guide data (20036).

Edit 9:00AM 6/20/07

The second unit has still not received data. My home area code is 20024 but I was having problems receiving data several months ago and changed it to another local area code (20036) and it worked fine until recently.

-James

I've got the same problem as Mr HiFi, Guide light is on all the time, except only 1 power up/down cycle will kill the download. This happened after I had to unplug my entire system & move it away from the wall so I could paint behind it. No casters to simply move the rack. Before that it was working perfectly. Turning off AV1 & AV2 didn't help. Like you guys I'm hooked up to Comcast but waaayy on the other side of the country, so it's possible that version 7 of TVGOS has been completely eliminated countrywide! Although I'd think that some sort of legacy programming code would be inserted with newer versions of TVGOS to keep those of us with older versions of it have our machines still "function." :D

juan,

Today I found station information on my #2 machine. My # 1 machine also downloaded station information after I put in anothe zipcode 40 miles away. Neither machine downloaded Programming Info. The most intersting thing is that one of the machines downloaded the cablechannel numbers for the local digital and HD channels which is all I really want these for. I timeshift everything to avoid commercials and to get all 4 networks. I get 3 with (3) 3410's and watch the 4th with an LG 4200. I also have 2 JVC SVHS with TBC for the overflow and a MyHD 130 in a DELL Gen5. The latter is not connected to the main system. Everything works except the Guide in the 3410A's. Even my Sony 32" KDL032XBR950 reports program info correctly. It is hooked up to an outdoor antenna. This is the first sign of life from the 3410A's in over a month. But, this is where I was when I reset and lost everything including station listings. I find this all a breech of a promise. It has soured me against LG. I did not buy the HD DVD /BluRay playe because of this experience. Like the other old timers her who bought them 3-4 years ago, I love my units and adore the Picture quality that is the same whether in real tme or a recording. It continues to be the best source of RF programming. I wish the Guide issue would be taken seriously. I have 1 machine with a 300GB Quickview. The others are the OE drives. I pray for a working system that does not require daily and sometimes twice and three times daily unplug replug. When it goes bad, response to inputs is very slow, AV1 sign eventually comes up and it will not go to Guide at all. The machines just stop working.