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The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 478

post #14311 of 16909
6/22/12 at 1:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dattier View Post

Something new (at least to me) occurred last night.  I was fast-forwarding through an event that was still recording, and at what might have been the moment the event completed and recording stopped (including one minute of post-show padding), the fast-forward -- which was about 2/3 of the way through -- froze.  The unit didn't respond to any keypresses, except for holding down the Power key to do a soft reboot.

I have learned to avoid all of the trick modes around the time when a recording is starting or ending. Fast/slow forward/reverse will reliably hang it up and require a reset. It is not just a problem with ignoring the remote as new recordings do not start.
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post #14312 of 16909
6/22/12 at 2:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by P Smith View Post

It could be inflicted by OTA signal conditions, perhaps some crows occupied your OTA antenna. smile.gif
No crows. Indoor antenna. smile.gif
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post #14313 of 16909
6/22/12 at 2:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by golinux View Post

No crows. Indoor antenna. smile.gif
Invisible crows. [grin]
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post #14314 of 16909
6/22/12 at 9:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by schultdw View Post

I have learned to avoid all of the trick modes around the time when a recording is starting or ending. Fast/slow forward/reverse will reliably hang it up and require a reset. It is not just a problem with ignoring the remote as new recordings do not start.
Thanks for the additional information.  Luckily I had no new recording starting nor other recording going on the other tuner at the time, so the reboot didn't interrupt anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phildaant View Post

Invisible crows. [grin]
Perhaps, if invisible crows emit inaudible caws and leave unsmellable droppings.
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post #14315 of 16909
6/23/12 at 5:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

Timers Fixed! Checked last night and the guide is no longer off by 5 minutes! So ROVI responded and fixed the problem in the NY City area.

Thank you very much for your concern and help with resolving this issue!

This was actually the first time (for me.....at least) that the time was off.
It's been very accurate (for approx. two years).
As I mentioned previously.....the TV guide logo dissapeared for approx. one month some time back (and the channel guide was adversely affected as well). I was concerned that this was going to be another long wait. The clock was unaffected last time.
I did have a channel guide during that long period of time but it was missing information (on certain channels) and didn't extend as far out (in terms of days) as the TVGOS.
The TVGOS appears to be better overall.

Where exactly is the other (non-TVGOS) channel guide derived from?

I'm confused as to what role "ROVI" plays (since this is actually the first time I've even heard of them).
.....sorry if this has been covered before.....I haven't had too many issues with these units, so I rarely come to this forum.

Thank you again for your time and effort!!
Edited by slprp1 - 6/23/12 at 5:34pm
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post #14316 of 16909
6/24/12 at 4:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by slprp1 View Post

Where exactly is the other (non-TVGOS) channel guide derived from?
I'm confused as to what role "ROVI" plays (since this is actually the first time I've even heard of them).
.....sorry if this has been covered before.....I haven't had too many issues with these units, so I rarely come to this forum.
Thank you again for your time and effort!!
The shorter guide data is derived from each station's PSIP stream (Program and System Information Protocol) which arrives digitally as packets of ancillary information (as opposed to the video and audio itself) from a station. ROVI is the current company that sends out the TV-Guide data (and owns TV-Guide). Originally TVGOS was the product of Gemstar, but Macrovision (now renamed ROVI) bought them up several years ago.
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post #14317 of 16909
6/25/12 at 8:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

I contacted ROVI today regarding the 5 minute time issue via email and if they respond (they have in the past to my emails unlike CBS) I will pass along what they say.

You are at the mercy of your local station. ROVI says the solution is to physically relocate the box in the station. I assume that means where it is in the signal chain but what they say is :
"Our broadcast engineer has expressed the desire to relocate our equipment within the station at WHIO. We are completely reliant on the station's schedule of when and if they decide to make this physical move of our hardware.

The issue this will likely resolve is the clock issue within your DTVPal Guide. The missing of some stations from the DTVPal Echostar guide is a bug that have have observed to affect that software at times.

We will inquire as to the status and try to get you an update of the situation at the station."

I have been waiting close to half a year for the local station to do that and like most posters here the station won't even return my emails and ROVI says they can't get them to respond.
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post #14318 of 16909
6/25/12 at 11:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by schultdw View Post

I have learned to avoid all of the trick modes around the time when a recording is starting or ending. Fast/slow forward/reverse will reliably hang it up and require a reset. It is not just a problem with ignoring the remote as new recordings do not start.

Good candidate to add under "Known Issues" in post #1.
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post #14319 of 16909
6/26/12 at 5:43pm
For those in the Austin area that have noticed TVGOS is out as of Saturday morning, I just heard from KVUE that they expect to have the ROVI encoder back up sometime tomorrow.
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post #14320 of 16909
6/26/12 at 7:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jrpastore View Post

For those in the Austin area that have noticed TVGOS is out as of Saturday morning, I just heard from KVUE that they expect to have the ROVI encoder back up sometime tomorrow.
Yes. I noticed but forgot to post about it. I think that happened once before and they had it back up and running on time. I have been very happy since KVUE took over providing TVGOS. Keeping fingers crossed that the reliability continues . . .
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post #14321 of 16909
6/27/12 at 1:00pm
Annual maintenance reminder

Now that we have lots of reruns on TV I recommend all of you unplug your PALDVRS, remove the cover and clean up the insides.

Today I did that to my 2 units. Even though I removed the cover once before I still had to drag out the instructions (see first thread on this forum) and learn all over again how to do it. The hardest part is to find the right tool. You can go with the cotter pins recommended in the instructions or if you have a nice flat piece of metal that is at least 4 or more inches long and no more than 1/2 or less wide to fit in the slots you will make short work of it in no time.

I also decided that this time I would remove all the screws and leave them out. There are 3 screws to remove and the cover will stay on nicely without them

I also decided to take pliers and break the 4 clips on the cover (top) that is just a cover. No need for the clips as the 2 clips in the back of the unit where the connections are actually hold the cover on quite nicely.

By removing all this nonsense it will be much easier to clean the unit in the future or replace hard drives and fans. Just pry open the 2 clips in the back and off goes the cover. No need to worry about voiding your warranty any more as you probably could not find anyone that has parts, will service the unit and or even has coverage. In fact if you want to keep your unit running as long as possible you pretty much better open her up and clean up the insides before your unit fails from lack of maintenance!

As for cleaning I used a toothbrush and q-Tips to remove all the loose dust and not so loose dust on the fan blades and the fan box. There was a ton of dust. Also I vacuumed the fan and all over the insides where I saw lots of dust and dust bunnies. I don' t care how clean you keep your house, your unit will be full of dust that will stress the fan and components! Make the unit run hotter.

Now that I can access the insides so much easier I might actually clean more often!

By the way, the fans run much quieter now! I bet she runs even cooler too!
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post #14322 of 16909
6/27/12 at 1:09pm
Heh, I wonder how dusty mine is inside. My fans are still quiet. I am planning to unplug it for the summer since nothing is on. I might use it to record Olympics summer game's ceremonies.
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post #14323 of 16909
6/27/12 at 4:23pm
Using vacuum is not right method to cleanup DVR or a computer, etc - you must open the device, bring it outside and using compressed air (or real compressor) blow the dust out.
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post #14324 of 16909
6/28/12 at 5:37am
P Smith,

I respect your opinion but I know from first hand experience that using a vacuum will not harm the device as long as it is unplugged. I have been building, repairing and cleaning the insides of computers for the past 15 years using brushes, q-tips, and vacuums. Just blowing dust around with an air can is not the best way to do it. Would you clean your house that way?

However, you give people another option and the point is to open the case and get the dust out of it! Once people open the case they will see why it is important maintenance!
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post #14325 of 16909
6/28/12 at 5:41am
Phildaant,

There is only one fan in each unit. I guess you used the plural as you have 2 units? Anyway fan noise is not the best indicator of dust inside. However it should only take 30 minutes or less to open the case up and clean the unit. Just be sure to have the right tools to open the case. That is key.
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post #14326 of 16909
6/28/12 at 5:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

Phildaant,
There is only one fan in each unit. I guess you used the plural as you have 2 units? Anyway fan noise is not the best indicator of dust inside. However it should only take 30 minutes or less to open the case up and clean the unit. Just be sure to have the right tools to open the case. That is key.
Oh, I thought there were two fans inside.
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post #14327 of 16909
6/28/12 at 10:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

P Smith,
I respect your opinion but I know from first hand experience that using a vacuum will not harm the device as long as it is unplugged. I have been building, repairing and cleaning the insides of computers for the past 15 years using brushes, q-tips, and vacuums. Just blowing dust around with an air can is not the best way to do it. Would you clean your house that way?
However, you give people another option and the point is to open the case and get the dust out of it! Once people open the case they will see why it is important maintenance!
Well, let me add my $0.02: after 30+ years having build , maintain, repair, etc of many different devices - servers, workstations, desktops, notebooks, monitors, TV, VCR, DVD, DVR,receivers (OK, I would add heavy arguments smile.gif - dishwashers, compactors, oven, ranges ..) at business and homes, I would stay with my note - blow OUT the dust. Using q-tips and brushes while you blowing. Else you'll keep it inside, 50% at least.
If you really read my post above, I did mention specifically - BRING the device OUTSIDE before start cleaning.

If you can't move the DUC [device under cleaning] - use liquids; isopropanol, hot water with soap/light detergent works pretty good for PCB from TV, computers, etc. Just be careful, after cleaning using HOT water, give the board enough time to dry out.
Edited by P Smith - 6/28/12 at 10:17am
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post #14328 of 16909
6/28/12 at 10:55am
P Smith,

Your way is one option. It's good that people have more than one. I think most people would rather vacuum their house than take a leaf blower to it. I think everyone owns a vacuum and they don't need to go out and buy a can of air. Plus who wants to take the unit outside. Not necessary.

As an aside, your credentials don't mean much to the people who have to clean their PALDVR seeing as you are NOT there to do it for them.

The main point of my post is to clean the PALDVR and I don't really care how people do it. Just do it. That goes for you too!
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post #14329 of 16909
6/28/12 at 12:39pm
Would anyone in the Austin area who has opened and cleaned their unit be willing to give me a hands-on lesson?
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post #14330 of 16909
6/28/12 at 12:40pm
My 2 cents smile.gif

If you can walk across a carpeted room and get a shock from a touching a door knob...Don't use either method (vacuum or air compressor) The air flowing through a plastic tube can generate a very high voltage. (the dryer the air the higher the voltage) ....enough to fry 'silicon-based life forms' eek.gif
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post #14331 of 16909
6/28/12 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

P Smith,
Your way is one option. It's good that people have more than one. I think most people would rather vacuum their house than take a leaf blower to it. I think everyone owns a vacuum and they don't need to go out and buy a can of air. Plus who wants to take the unit outside. Not necessary.

As an aside, your credentials don't mean much to the people who have to clean their PALDVR seeing as you are NOT there to do it for them.
The main point of my post is to clean the PALDVR and I don't really care how people do it. Just do it. That goes for you too!
You just misleading ppl:
1) I didn't say anything about cleaning a house;
2) I didn't mention the blower as a tool to cleaning a house.

Your 'method' of cleaning DVR is 1/2 efficient as normal: blow out the dust or wash it in hot water.

[You don't obliged to respond to my posts, BTW].
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post #14332 of 16909
6/28/12 at 2:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ccrider2 View Post

My 2 cents smile.gif
If you can walk across a carpeted room and get a shock from a touching a door knob...Don't use either method (vacuum or air compressor) The air flowing through a plastic tube can generate a very high voltage. (the dryer the air the higher the voltage) ....enough to fry 'silicon-based life forms' eek.gif

Totally agree. In my own experience when I'd set up an R&D or Engineering workstation bench a lot of thought went into the anti-static component, i.e. bench and floor mats, wrist and heel straps etc. Any compressed air use without an ionizing feature was considered a capital offense. The problem with most ESD events is not sudden failure of the device but damage to pin inputs and outputs that would degrade over time. This is also well known in the woodworking industry with centralized dust collection systems. The tubing is always either metal, and grounded, or in the case of PVC, includes a ground wire throughout to dissipate charge and avoid potential explosive fires.
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post #14333 of 16909
6/28/12 at 5:15pm
We getting too far with the simple task ...

I know the precautions and worked on such benches, I knew from specs how many kV each chip/component withstand ...

We are taking about working PCB or whole DVR to cleaning !
Not separate components. Not sensitive to volts what COULD buildup during air flow from the air canister.
Lets be real.
Keep the PCB in your hands or hold your fingers to metal cans/ground spots and your DVR will be OK.
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post #14334 of 16909
6/28/12 at 8:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Morris View Post



...Good Luck with your HDD upgrade!

My ol' PAL fried a couple of months ago and I would like to get opinions on whether replacing the hard drive will revive it. I know no one can say for sure since you can not troubleshoot it, but your educated guess is much better than my wishful thinking. I know Jack has experienced replacing the HDD and i am sure others have too. i'd appreciate your advice.

Here is how it died:

i believe heat played a role. the day it died was fairly hot. the DVR sits on top of my old VCR which for some reason was on and generating some heat as well. My whole setup sits inside an armware (sp?) which helps trap heat too. But I've been using my PAL in this setup for 2.5 years without issues. (perhaps i've been lucky) My PAL has been one of the buggy ones ever since i got it, even with the latest firmware upgrades. It crashed on an average every 2-4 hours of use. It acted strangely before it died all together. When attempting to display live TV, it would show the metadata about the station but act like the antenna signal was dead. I tested the signal directly to the TV and it was fine. Then minutes later, i lost all signal from the PAL to the TV and both the green light AND the red light came one and stayed on. That is how it exists now: red and green lights are on, no signal to the TV and no fan noise at all. Dead.

i tried soft and hard resets but nothing works. Is my HDD dead? Could it be something else? Is it worth the effort at replacing the HDD in speculation of that being the problem? Other suggestions beside getting a different unit?

I have been exploring other units as a replacement but there are no good options right now. the CM-7400 and TVIX models are discontinued, thus no future support. A risk given thier higher costs. the new EPVision VRX is very raw and needs some improvements before it is ready for primetime. i am willing to dig into my PAL and attempt some open heart surgery if there is a good chance it will fix it. I appreciate your expert advice and candor.
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post #14335 of 16909
6/29/12 at 7:35am
Your report is similar to mine - lose of fan driver allowed heat to kill the HDD. Replacement of HDD with 1GB and hard wiring of fan with a series resister to a convenient 12V eyelet solved the problem. I used a 100 ohm mini potentiometer and selected a faster fan speed for increased temp. reduction, yet just noticeable fan noise under room silence.

Donald1800
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post #14336 of 16909
6/29/12 at 12:28pm
shur0013,
You asked about your problem in the PHD-VRX forum but I will answer here since it is the correct forum. I am like you in that I am not an expert on electronics. Your questions about how to and what can be done with the HDD are very well answered in earlier post here by people that are much more knowledgeable than me. However what I did is to add an external HDD dock that is self powered. ( mine is a EZ-DOCK by Kingwin model EZD- 2535 though I imagine there are many different choices that will work just as well) The exact method entails opening the case and removing the internal HDD from your PAL. There are methods described here in this forum that will allow you to leave the HDD inside your PAL however I did choose this method because it made more sense to me. I then removed the entire HDD bracket from the internal as it is no longer needed and I wanted to open up the PAL insides for better ventilation. Then I diconnected the HDD cable and the power cable. You will need to get a longer connection cable. ( I think mine is 18 inches long) I opened the back of the case at one of the tabs as shown in a previous post to allow the conection cable to exit out the back. Then you can close the case back however you like. Connect the cable to the dock and you are ready to use the unit. I purchased another HDD, WD10EURS that is 1TB. My dock has a power switch on it and I plugged the PAL unit into a power strip with a switch (otherwise you will have to unplug the PAL when changing HDDs). This is important because you must turn this on and off in a specific order. You must turn the HDD dock on first and then the PAL unit. The reverse is used when turning off. Turn off the PAL first then the HDD dock second. If you don't use this order when turning on the PAL unit will not even go on. I suspect if you turn off incorrectly you might corrupt the HDD. I like this arrangement because it allows for easy changing HDDs if you want to archive some programs on one HDD and use another for one use time shifting of programs. I hope this helps,
Tom
Edited by tmn1 - 6/29/12 at 12:40pm
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post #14337 of 16909
6/29/12 at 12:44pm
Any boot up problems after a power failure?
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post #14338 of 16909
6/29/12 at 2:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete-N2 View Post

Any boot up problems after a power failure?

I imagine you are asking me with my separate docking station. That is a good question and my answer is that I have had no problems that I know of. I have lost power a few times and never even thought about this unit with all the other electronics that have to be reset. I guess that means if you could turn off both units and on both units at precisely the same time nothing bad happens. Oh good, now I have something else to worry about!biggrin.gif
Tom
Edited by tmn1 - 7/3/12 at 5:32pm
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post #14339 of 16909
6/29/12 at 3:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tmn1 View Post

shur0013,
You asked about your problem in the PHD-VRX forum but I will answer here since it is the correct forum. I am like you in that I am not an expert on electronics. Your questions about how to and what can be done with the HDD are very well answered in earlier post here by people that are much more knowledgeable than me. However what I did is to add an external HDD dock that is self powered. ( mine is a EZ-DOCK by Kingwin model EZD- 2535 though I imagine there are many different choices that will work just as well) The exact method entails opening the case and removing the internal HDD from your PAL. There are methods described here in this forum that will allow you to leave the HDD inside your PAL however I did choose this method because it made more sense to me. I then removed the entire HDD bracket from the internal as it is no longer needed and I wanted to open up the PAL insides for better ventilation. Then I diconnected the HDD cable and the power cable. You will need to get a longer connection cable. ( I think mine is 18 inches long) I opened the back of the case at one of the tabs as shown in a previous post to allow the conection cable to exit out the back. Then you can close the case back however you like. Connect the cable to the dock and you are ready to use the unit. I purchased another HDD, WD10EURS that is 1TB. My dock has a power switch on it and I plugged the PAL unit into a power strip with a switch (otherwise you will have to unplug the PAL when changing HDDs). This is important because you must turn this on and off in a specific order. You must turn the HDD dock on first and then the PAL unit. The reverse is used when turning off. Turn off the PAL first then the HDD dock second. If you don't use this order when turning on the PAL unit will not even go on. I suspect if you turn off incorrectly you might corrupt the HDD. I like this arrangement because it allows for easy changing HDDs if you want to archive some programs on one HDD and use another for one use time shifting of programs. I hope this helps,
Tom
I would recommend other dock: see my thread at dbstalk http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=2645297&postcount=1. The setup will take care (actually not changing) the OFF/ON procedure.
Your OFF/ON sequence is in par with common rule: all peripheral devices should be powered before main box/PC/DVR/etc and powered off after the main.

I wouldn't worried too much about corruption of the DVR's files system, it has a provision for own recovery (while it's not that robust as EXT3 or NTFS).
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post #14340 of 16909
6/29/12 at 6:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tmn1 View Post

shur0013,
You asked about your problem in the PHD-VRX forum but I will answer here since it is the correct forum. I am like you in that I am not an expert on electronics. Your questions about how to and what can be done with the HDD are very well answered in earlier post here by people that are much more knowledgeable than me. However what I did is to add an external HDD dock that is self powered. ( mine is a EZ-DOCK by Kingwin model EZD- 2535 though I imagine there are many different choices that will work just as well) The exact method entails opening the case and removing the internal HDD from your PAL. There are methods described here in this forum that will allow you to leave the HDD inside your PAL however I did choose this method because it made more sense to me. I then removed the entire HDD bracket from the internal as it is no longer needed and I wanted to open up the PAL insides for better ventilation. Then I diconnected the HDD cable and the power cable. You will need to get a longer connection cable. ( I think mine is 18 inches long) I opened the back of the case at one of the tabs as shown in a previous post to allow the conection cable to exit out the back. Then you can close the case back however you like. Connect the cable to the dock and you are ready to use the unit. I purchased another HDD, WD10EURS that is 1TB. My dock has a power switch on it and I plugged the PAL unit into a power strip with a switch (otherwise you will have to unplug the PAL when changing HDDs). This is important because you must turn this on and off in a specific order. You must turn the HDD dock on first and then the PAL unit. The reverse is used when turning off. Turn off the PAL first then the HDD dock second. If you don't use this order when turning on the PAL unit will not even go on. I suspect if you turn off incorrectly you might corrupt the HDD. I like this arrangement because it allows for easy changing HDDs if you want to archive some programs on one HDD and use another for one use time shifting of programs. I hope this helps,
Tom
Tom,
Yes, this is very helpful. Though I am starting to question my abilities to dissect the unit and install a separate removable HDD with the extra wiring required. My main purpose is to get my dead PAL up and running again. The ability to have a portable HDD that can be removed and archived is not essential to me. Do you know is it easy to simply swap out the hard drive once I have the unit open. Is it as easy as a plug and play type of operation?
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