Official DVICO TViX M6620N HD (ATSC/QAM) Tuner Topic - Page 63

Working USB I scavenged from pci hub for the test http://www.avsforum.com/g/i/144886/a/2178874/tvix-6620/sort/display_order/ the plugged worked for 64 g thumb drive not on portable wd hdd

I have also run into this second shut down problem, to temporarily fix, you turn the box on goto tv, then immediately change the channle and turn the box off, when you see the message "saving " and it powers off then turn it back on and the problem goes away for awhile :-) hope that helps any 1 that has this problem and sorry if it has been explained allready ( when I say awhile I mean a week to a month)Also to note, that if you suffer this shut down everything you recorded and any schedual you have made from the time the box was turned on to the time of the crash will disapeare so double check your schedual afterwords
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/8/13 at 9:35am

Sorry if I am ussing the wrong thread? IT seams to got real quiet in here, but I just wanted to mention a guy is coming over to chech out some of my "art" tomarow , this guy works for intel and is the most advanced tech modding/programming guy I have ever personally met, I am going to crack the box tomarow and have him point out what each and very thing on the mb :-) , this could get really fun =p
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/8/13 at 12:48pm

So it didn't work on a portable WD HDD... Does it have external power?

Did you try plugging in the wifi dongle/antenna that came with the TVIX?

None on the portable but I've got a powered dock I will try :-) I also have a powered USB Hub that I cant find the power supply for, I am going to ask my friend if there is anyplace Inside that it could be easily powered from? I didnt even think to try the dongle there , will try that to . Will also note the USB extension cable I used was the cheapest dollar tree store you can get, I'll try a better one of those to, lol and I might as well fess up now ,it was a 320g seagate free agent I tried (forgot I still owned a seagate :-( all my other drives are internal drives I use with a powered dock
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/8/13 at 3:36pm

Mods I would like(list may grow?)
1. Front USB port , easiest
2. Esata for main drive,easy
3.usb hub in top of box, depends if I can draw power off tvix
4. Option for USB thumb main drive, ? I have no idea if this is possable due to transfer rates and drive format?
5 . Remove most of internall drive bay for increased airflow
6. Reworking of RCA plugs for internal a/v transmitter for tv's in other parts of house,should be easy if I can draw more power off tvix(antenna to flip out of top of box. There is a good transmitter that I have experience with on eBay for about $30, tiny and it send a good signal, and it passes through remote signles :-) something has to go into the drive bay right? And I don't thing my gf will let me shove the roku in there! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/9/13 at 10:24am

Some of those will add considerable to the cost and might also be a hardware issue requiring substantial changes in the circuity.

I will be doing it all myself , it will will cost about $ 40-50 max most of the cost will be from the av transmiter witch will take up less then 1/3 the drive bay ,wost case case scenario it I have to draw power right before the tvix power board, the RCA plugs should be easily reworked with a dab of solder this will never be done at factory level, just home modders that love to tinker and get more from there devices :-) the 6620 is great, I love it but I want it all!lol

I was referring to your 'wish list'.

More of a todo list, I'll post as I do each mod, it will take a month or two as this is apart time hobby with a lot to do , all but the external thumb drive for main tvix drive is very easily done! It took me around 2 years to open my tvix, I tore apart and put my iPad back together after 1 year, I do love my tvix and I am VERY confident this can be done, I understand skeptisim ,but it really is prety simple :-) some one on the ball might consider paying attention and sell mod kits for one low low price that would include all the bits and pieces neaded for the final setup the first bit being that little USB plug I scavenged from a pci board I got at recycle center , with over 1,000 hits on the pictures I posted a couple of days ago someone alittle faster than me will probably post instructions before me :-)
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/9/13 at 11:44am

Regarding #4, I've found that at least under XP, USB flash drives have a maximum write speed of 10 Mbps, which isn't even fast enough to record one HD channel (~15 Mbps with no sub-channels), let alone two. Even if you did increase the speed somehow, flash memory isn't designed for writing large files, and you would render your drive inoperable in a short period of time by performing the extensive write operations demanded by a DVR.

I was afraid of something like that, thank you for the input, I'm afraid I know almost nothing about such things

Getting my friend to even look at it was like pulling teeth ,lol , he seamed surprised it had a Realtek in it, and he definatly reinforced my concerns over the hdd being stacked on top of the power supply ,sata out the side will be the very next thing to do
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/9/13 at 6:21pm

my buddie saw no problem with what I was planning except for the USB main drive I did not even ask , that part is nixed. He did refer to it as " hillbillie modding" though , lol It's so easy even a caveman can something or some such ;-) the drive bay comes out surprisingly easy , there are 2 screws holding the sata plug in ,removing now! I will now cut out part of drive bay for increased air flow and drill through the side to run sata plug( there plug will work perfect as it is one solid plug with data and power) I am using a small diamond wheel on a dremal type tool for a cleen cut , will also note strangely enough there is No heat discoloration on the inside of the drive bay, I have used a small pear bit to drill through the side, round hole would work but a little more controll this way, care neads to be taken putting the drive bay back in as it does not go in as easy as it comes out, I ground out where there wiring goes through to make it a tad bit easier , ground down part of bottom cover of tvix also to accommodate new rout of sata, back together ,looks good ,could use longer cables ,should be easily attainable since they are standerd pc plugs :-) pics to follow
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/10/13 at 12:42pm

Working external main drive for tvix 6620 http://www.avsforum.com/g/i/146977/a/2178874/tvix-6620/sort/display_order/ probably won't do anymore for a couple weeks! After being on for 2 hours the air blowing out of it is still cooler than room tempature :-) or atleast it feels that way to the hand, suggestions ? Questions ? Obviously at some point I will make or wire it into a dock? Sata to esata plug? Should be able to just plug it into the esata in a dock right? And still no crashing of the box since kei announced the fixing of the ion problem!! Right on
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/10/13 at 4:37pm

@ Kei and others experimenting with the ION fix

I just did another channel scan to add ION back into the channel list. KKPX isn't causing the TViX to crash, but its PSIP is still not 100% correct. The TViX receives guide data from ION, but it will only show that data when 65-1 isn't tuned. If I tune to 65-1 and press the guide button, the guide says "No Channel" and acts as though I have no channels in my lineup; I can't even use the left and right arrows to look at guide data for other networks, because they are all missing from the guide.

If I tune to 65-2 (qubo) or 65-3 (ION Life) and press the guide button, not only do those channels display guide data, but 65-1 has guide data, too, and all of the other channels appear in the guide again. When I press the info button while I'm tuned to 65-1, it does show the name of the current and upcoming programs, but viewing the full guide doesn't work. I guess ION still has a few kinks to work out of the system.

*edit*

I checked again this evening, and the problem seems intermittent. I tuned to ION, pressed the guide button, and the guide behaved normally. I tuned to qubo, pressed the guide button, and the guide behaved normally. When I tuned back to ION and tried to open the guide again, I had to press the button at least three times to get a response, and when I did, I was back to "No Channel" in the guide again. I then turned back to qubo, got the guide back, went back to ION, and still had the guide. After that, I wasn't able to replicate the "No Channel" problem again. Perhaps it has something to do with the number of programs displayed in today's grid, as there are only two left in the guide for today. Has anyone else (near KKPX or elsewhere) experienced this?
Edited by Aleron Ives - 2/16/13 at 10:36pm

Yes, but that was so much less of a problem than the crashing that I just ignored it!

At least it isn't just me, and it hasn't caused any other adverse effects for you. I should try making a guide recording on ION to see if the timer will still activate when the guide is missing. I expect it probably will.

I have only deleated ion once in the past two years, that happens frequently on ion, change the channle then goto guide and it's back, I two pretty much ignore that problem, all my ion timers seem to work prety good! Like you said intermittent problem
Edited by northernlight11 - 2/17/13 at 12:15pm

Had two problems today. First, while FF'ing/REW'ing through a recorded program (should probably say "whilst" since it was Downton Abbey) it locked up on me with picture frozen. After trying to stop playback, I got a message saying "unable to connect [find?] media," or something like that. I had to power it off and then back on to get it going.

Then a few hours later (it had been off in between, so not an overheating issue) when I went to the list of recorded programs, it locked up again. This time I waited a bit and it seemed to be working, but when I went into the folders of recorded programs, none were listed as if they had all been erased. I powered off, and this time when I powered back on, I got a message saying that it had detected an error and recovered.

If these are typical problems you've all experienced, I can live with them. I'm just worried that, if not, this could be a sign of trouble brewing.

I have only had one such error, when I got a popup during playback of a recorded file that said there was an error reading the file, or something like that. Playback stopped after that, but the file played fine the second time I loaded it. It is possible that such errors are the result of peculiar signal problems during transmission, but it seems more likely to be a HDD problem.

Have you used the disk check function from the setup menu? You may want to also check that the HDD is connected securely to the SATA port. If the problem persists, I would recommend removing the drive (or connecting a laptop to the TViX via the USB A/B cable) and running chkdsk on it. You might even want to do the in-depth surface scan to check for bad sectors, if you want to be sure that the HDD is good.

.[/quote] Never experienced that one, sounds to me like a hdd problem as well, although I have had it shut down on me in the past while ffw

All good suggestions. I just ran check disk from the set-up menu and it was fine. One thing that Kei mentioned somewhere in this thread is that the 6620 seems to like drives that run at a slower speed. I ignored that advice -- only because I got a good deal on 1 TB that runs at 7200. I'm wondering if that could be the issue.

For the first year I ran 1t wd black drive and never expirenced that, although I'm sure it wasn't the best choice

It's fairly common practice to use 5400 rpm drives in DVRs, because faster drives produce more heat while gaining no performance benefits in a DVR. I don't think a 7200 rpm drive would cause problems like this by virtue of its speed, but it's possible that your drive is using SATA 3, which the TViX reportedly doesn't support. You should switch the drive into SATA 2 mode (which can often be accomplished by applying a jumper) if it's currently using the newer standard. Still, since you got a 1 TB drive, I have to wonder if you're experiencing HDD failure. High capacity drives seem to have a 50% chance of being DOA or failing within a month or so of purchase based on the Newegg reviews I've seen, which is why I opted for a 500 GB drive.

I wonder if the features of the newer HDD's regarding this "Advanced Formatting" (AF) that WD came up with a couple of years ago is any issue here?
Also, how about all these "Green" drives (lower power consumption)?
Lastly, "IntelliPower" and AAM (Advanced Acoustic Management) that quiets and slows down the performance if use in a PC due to damping the actuator arm?

Any of that matter here?

I have found a problem that my mod hasn't fixed that I was hopping it would, after your tvix is on for a couple hours take holed of the base of the coax where it attaches to the tvix , the little metal conector that screws the coax into the box, it is still Very hot. I may wind up changing the box entirely unless I can cool it down. I'm sure that the tuner will be the first thing to go out, and unless they start selling the tuner cards separately I will try attatching some kind of heat sink

I also have 2 2t wd 64mb green drives, I bought these before the floods that drove up the hdd prices a couple years ago, formatted in xp and never jumpered, I have never expirenced a problem, I am just recently reading up on these and will probably reformat or jumper when I learn more and have enough room to back up. I have 7 tb and Nothing is backed up :-(

It is SATA III, and it's kind of a junky drive (my opinion) branded as a Toshiba but label says manufactured by Hitachi, so everything you said is possible. I searched the internet for a way to change it to SATA II like you can on WD, but it has only one pair of posts for a jumper and my research was that adding a jumper doesn't change it to SATA II. (I don't remember what jumpering it did -- but it wasn't SATA II.)

I have a Caviar green 1 TB I'm not using and I might swap it in if problems continue.

Kei recommended using a Caviar Green (I think). Yes, they come out of the box with "advanced format" but my understanding is that once you reformat as NTFS, that becomes meaningless.