The DVICO TVIX PVR R-2210 & 2230 Series Discussion

VERY intersted in the rcording capability of this unit. FAQ says it supports 9+ MBPS mpeg2 recording. I hope you are doing a record test for quality. please post a sample if you can.

Does the unit take 20 seconds to start?

I hear it does not come with a hard drive and you have to add one.

I would buy one right now for testing but it's not out yet and i'm sure supplies wil lbe limited when it does come out.

dish man dish!

~DVC

I bought the predecessor 2 years ago and have loved the machine for everything that it did (well .. i would have loved a small battery in it, so I don't have to bring along the power brick each time I am transferring data) ...

Anyways .. slowly we are planning on going HD here and so I was idly looking if TVIX has come up with a new model .. and indeed they have ...

But I am surprised that they clearly say that they do not support .mkv nor h264 (the only test files I have so far fall into that exact category) ... I see that the big tvix units at least seem to be able to do h264 .. so .. maybe a processor issue?

But I will keep my eyes peeled on this thread and hope to read some first hand experiences soon. Thanks a lot!

Yes, definitely. The Rxxxx units have Realtek chips instead of the Mxxxx units' Sigma Designs chips. I too am awaiting a test unit and hoping that the Realtek firmware finally brings us decent trick play of HD MPEG2 transport streams!

it would be awsome if a unit came out with the same features as the R-2210, but also had the ability to record from component HD inputs as well. The Hauppauge HD-PVR can do this but does not have a tuner for recording over the air HDTV.

This thread is pretty old but it appears to be the only discussion for this unit online.

Does anybody own it? If so what's your thoughts on the unit generally and specifically build quality and how respectable DVico is for warranty service and generally?

I had one of these for testing some time ago and was favorably impressed by it. DViCo's hardware quality is very good. Their international warranty servicing is handled via their authorized dealers and is therefore dependent on which one you pick. There are many reports in this Forum of the good service at our friend Kei Clark's place, Digital Connection.

Thanks for the review! Since it's a solid unit my interest is certainly piqued. I checked out Digital Connection but I'm in Canada and with iincreased shipping costs, brokerage fees, and since they use UPS I was steered off. I did go through a dummy order but I suspect it'd add a large amount to the price compared to getting it from newegg.ca and I am on a budget for this.

However if Newegg themselves are the distributor that'd be alright since aside from having to pay to send RMA's to them (but that seems to be becoming the standard everywhere...) they seem to have a decent rep online.

It's my first Media Player/PVR so I am not a pro, but so far the machine is fantastic. I bought it through Digital Connection because one of the people from there posts on here, (Kai or Kei), and this is the site that I found had the most useful information.

I've read a lot of horror stories about media players so I held back for awhile. Then it came to the point where I wanted to back up my data, I would eventually need a tuner for an HD projector, and I wanted to archive all my kids tapes and DVD. This unit does all those things well though may not be the most awesome for any of them. But, as a bonus it is portable and I can easily take it camping.

In the past few days I have recorded three older tapes and copied the vob files over from some of my personal DVDs. It is really cool for that.

Right now I only have three of questions with the unit. A) Can you setup cover art for it? I have Linux so can't use TVIXie and the manual way I've done it doesn't seem to work. B) Can you change the clock setting to be twelve hour instead of 24. The TV shows show up as a 12 hour clock but the clock up in the corner is on 24. I don't like doing the math when I'm tired. C) On my small LCD monitor the menus are clear but on my older CRT TV the text for the menus are fuzzy and hard to read. Is there a way to fix this?

The unit is very impressive especially for it's size. I only use it for OTA, (not cable), and I love that you can see the programing schedule several hours in advance. I wish it would keep that information so you don't have to go to each channel every time you turn it on but that's not a biggie. I'm sure it'll take me quite awhile to figure out all the features but just the ones so far are a huge upgrade.

^
Thanks for the detailed review Byron (my home net is my phone and quoting large msg's lock my browser).

I'd be using this as an OTA PVR as well. How have you found it for timer recordings? I've read some dvd recorder units occassionally forget timer recordings thus my concern.

Also does anybody know if you can use the usb host feature for an external HDD for recording or just playback? I've got a 1tb external I'd prefer to use with it for awhile and wait for a deal on an internal plus I wouldn't mind using my external one to expand memory after that. I checked the Q&A section on the 2210's page but under the host question it just mentions playback with no answer on recording either way.

I posted a reply but it didn't go through.

The 2210 has the option to get it's time from the OTA channels. It looks like this will prevent time loss. I've only used it 3-4 times to record programs in advance and it's worked great for that. If your watching a program and hit the record button several times it will change record length. One of the options is time remaining for the program which is nice.

I don't have a reliable USB drive to test it with the 2210.

Thanks again for the fyi Byron. There isn't much info about this model however the EU/Aussie sister product the 2230 does have some discussion going for it on whirlpool.net and some other sites.

Here's some info I've found:

- The external HDD option can just playback - no recording. I sorta expected that with the omission of any info on the tvix site.

- The epg usually only displays 6hrs to 1 day

- There is a problem with losing audio however a reboot fixes that from what I've read.

- Weak atsc tuner. This is concerning...

- Some units brick during channel scan at 92%. Hopefully this is an old firmware/Eu firmware problem only.

I'm on the fence still but the lack of non pc solutions for atsc pvr'ing options are rare.

I just wish the weak atsc and bricking issues hadn't come up...

Has things been running smoothly with your unit? Anything that mimics the issues in the 2230 sister unit?

As far as NTSC tuners I have a small LCD TV with one and one of those converter boxes. The converter box pics up signals better than my small TV. The 2210 seems to pic up signals as good as my converter box, if not better. I'm in deep fringe, in a valley and, according to the web, I'm not supposed to get a TV signal. I haven't lost a signal yet with the 2210.

The program information is sporadic and I suppose it depends on the channels your getting and when you get them. I've seen 2hrs to 8 hours, I believe, in advance but not more than that. It's still an improvement though as the TV tuner I have only tells you what's on now and the converter box on whats on now and next.

I tried to break up my reply so I don't lock up your service.

I have had the lost sound issue and a reboot does fix it. I don't know, it's happened maybe three times but it's nice to know it's an issue and not my files.

I'm pretty cheap and didn't want to spend $400 on a 6610 before at least playing with a PVR first. With this unit if you add up the cost of a separate tuner, portable backup drive enclosure and cheap media player you can get pretty close to the $150 that this unit is with I'd bet lesser quality. You have to get the 2.5" SATA drive so that's a little more than the comparable 3.5" drive but that's really the extra expense if you need these things. Plus, past the average media player, you get the PVR capability for OTA.

My only disappointment is that I don't think it will display cover art.

Naked--

Could you post a link to the item about "bricking"? My understanding of that term is that it means that a unit cannot be recovered without a trip back to the factory. I have great trouble believing that such has resulted from a channel scan on any TViX, as I've had experience with about a half dozen different models and have not seen such a thing--crashing on a channel scan with early firmwares, yes--but "bricking", no.

All TViXes have a "safe upgrade" mode designed to recover them from severe firmware issues precisely to avoid this.

@TPeterson Sadly I can't copy and paste for hyperlinks but if you google:

2230 92% bricking

at about the 5th post down @whirlpool.net.au there's references to units bricking.

@Byron - No worries about typing long posts - it's only quoting them to reply that things lock up when "y phone shoots me from my browser to my phone's text editor to type where things lock up.

Also thanks again for confirming audio loss is fixed with a simple restart and about your experiences with the atsc tuner. I'm blocked by a mountain myself so it's good to hear that you're still getting good results in a similar situation.

Perhaps the 2210 hs a better tuner than the 2230 counterpart.

Naked--

Found it here, thanks. Evidently, some Ozzies use "brick" in a different sense than mine. If you read that post carefully, you'll understand that he/she wasn't scanning channels when the mishap occurred, but was performing a firmware upgrade and the "bricking" was temporary. He/she was able to recover the device (actually 2 units) by using the safe upgrade mode (mistakenly called "soft upgrade" in the post).

Thanks for clarifying T! I will certainly admit some of, I assume, aussie talk mixed with tech talk did confuse me up so I'm certainly happy to hear it was a combo of me being mistaken and different country slang.

With that and my atsc concerns out of the way an order has been placed .

I got it pretty much setup. I'm going to convert my VOB files to ISO eventually just to keep all those VOB files from showing up on the background screen.

I used TVIXI, on my wifes laptop, and got backgrounds setup. They looked great on my brothers HD TV but are so/so on my old CRT box. I suppose I could change the dpis on them to get them to look ok but it's too much work right now and they'll be fine until I upgrade. I used the 6600N settings.

The folders still don't show up with the cover art but once you click on them the background, fan art wall paper, description and cover art show up. It's acceptable for now but it'd be nice if the folders looked like DVD covers like I've seen for other machines.

It rebooted a couple of times for me today and I figured I had a bad VOB file so I redid that disk and it seemed to help. I lost sound a couple of times today as well. I looked on the 3310 forum, which I think has the same firmware, and I believe TPeterson or someone said they'll have another firmware upgrade in the second quarter. The product has been around for awhile so I've also heard their done with it so who knows. I hope they keep supporting it and fix some of the lock up/sound issues and give me cover art folders. That'd be sweet. Still as is it's a solid unit and I'm happy with my purchase.

Glad to hear you're liking it.

I hear what you're saying about firmware updates but we're getting this at a deeply discounted price so I suspect they're dropping this unit and I doubt there'll be many, if any, fw updates in the pipeline.

I usually dabble in bleeding edge tech products after it's had it's day in the sun and it's hit the clearance rack and lack of firmware updates is usually how it goes.

A warning about getting a TViX at a "deeply discounted price": DViCo distributes domestic-only units in Korea that are intentionally limited to korean menus. These are sold at lower prices than the international models because they don't involve the overheads of global distribution and support. Some unscrupulous folks have purchased these, buggered them to show english menus, and sold them to unsuspecting international customers, e.g. via eBay. Those buyers have been dismayed to find that when they tried to upgrade their firmware they were left with a korean-menu unit. So, unless you're never going to seek a firmware update or warranty service, I'd stick with a known-authorized dealer.

Do you know why my menus are fuzzy on my old CRT TV but clear on my HDMI small computer monitor? When I first got it it flashed till I saw something then I was supposed to hit OK so I did. I wonder if the frequency is off or if I can change that? Right now only NTSC works on that older TV.

TV shows, Movies and the menu icons are clear it's just the text.

Thank you.

Most "old" CRT TVs don't do well with digital pictures, such as PC desktops and text menus, because they were designed to mask reception noise issues for analog OTA reception. That basically means that they are intentionally made "fuzzy".

@TPeterson. Sorry for the confusion. When I said deeply discounted I was referring to the $140 USD price compared to the MSRP price Digital Connection listed of $300.

Out of curosity I actually checked ebay.ca and, at least for the couple sellers who shipped to Canada, they were much more than $140.

@Byron

If your TV has viewing settings like "soft, cinema etc" in the menus then a switch *might* improve the text clarity somewhat.

Yeah, I'll check but I doubt it. It's kind of weird that it's just the text. The TV picture is fine.

Last night I watched Stargate on one of the OTA channels and flipped back and forth to a Star Wars Symphony thing on PBS which was neat. That made me want to watch part of Star Wars so after the shows I flicked over to that. It's too easy.

Just an FYI. The unit takes about 30 seconds, it seems, to start up. You'll see the TVX logo then it'll go blank then about 15-20 seconds later the menu comes up. I'm not sure on the delay. I formatted my hard drive in Linux and they said it doesn't work with Linux but it worked for me. I tried doing a check disk in the settings area but it locked up. I can't remember if I tried that before or after I formatted the drive. It has rebooted on me a couple of times and does loose it's sound. Still like it though.

B.

I've noticed that if you want to record two programs in a row off the same station it'll program the first one, (1 hour), then it'll do the second one 1 minute only. I tried doing Lost and V and then two stargates and it did the same thing.

Also last night it wouldn't pick up a couple of stations. I checked my tv and it was working fine. Shut the DVico off and it then received the stations. Happened twice. Not sure what is up with that.

Byron, I think that both of those (back-to-back recordings and losing channels sometimes) are known issues that should be fixed in the fabled next FW, whenever that shows up. All R-2210/3310 owners should post inquiries about the status of that bug-fix update to hasten it along in DViCo's priority.

I just received my unit today (wow...slow shipping Newegg) and although I'll be writing a full review later here's my initial thoughts;

- The unit does run hot like the one Newegg reviewer states. I may leave the side panel off the unit to give more airflow to the HDD.

- The tuner isn't strong nor weak. It gets in about the same number of channels as my Dynex HDTV but my Philips dvd recorder with digital tuner gets more an, oddly enough, my kworld usb tuner is the best.

- I canibalized the Seagate HDD from my notebook to test recording till my TravelStar 500 GB arrives from Best Buy. No formatting needed and it's recording now with success.

- No recording quality options for HDTV but there is for analog TV

- There's a red dot in the corner of the screen during recording that appears not to have an option to remove. Keep in mind if you watch while recording or have a plasma.

- Bringing up the osd during recording breaks up the signal for a moment. This was on a strong signal station.