Official DVICO TViX M6620N HD (ATSC/QAM) Tuner Topic - Page 64

Which is owned by WD.

I didn't know that. But I don't think that necessarily means it is WD quality.

I don't own a 6620 but I have experienced those symptoms on an older TVIX, another recorder, and an HTPC. So I wouldn't suspect your harddrive. The surefire fix, if the recording is important to you, is to remux it in VideoReDo. I always convert it to mpg as well. This has always salvaged any problem recordings for me.

Never saw that stated anywhere.

The "advanced format" used by the newest WD drives (and others) refers to the use of 4096-byte sectors at the hardware level (rather than the old 512-byte sectors). There's nothing anyone can do to reformat them later that would change that. I find it hard to believe that the industry didn't make the change to hardware blocking years ago, but I guess blocking and unblocking by the drives firmware can add enough overhead to cause performance issues, and that's why they waited so long.

So, re-formatting the drive has no effect, correct?

Not true, if you intend to use a AF drive in a legacy environment (Windows XP, etc.) then WD recommends Realigning the HDD. Info on the WD site. Vista, 7 & 8 knows what to do with AF drives. My Synology NAS recommends AF drives.

No reformatting by the user will cause the drive to use unblocked 512-byte sectors instead of blocked 4096-byte sectors. And if such low-level reformatting were allowed somehow by the drive's firmware, reverting to unblocked sectors would cause a dramatic decrease in drive capacity, since the whole reason for using larger blocks is storage efficiency (and maybe better error correction).

My mistake. I glossed over the part about realigning the drive thinking that meant that the "advanced format" went away. It looks like I was wrong and still don't totally understand, all I know is that Kei and Northern Light crazy modder dude have both talked about using a Caviar Green, so I'm thinking that advanced format is not an issue for the 6620N.

I think Ive commented on this before... If you have vista or 7, just format it and then you can use it in the tvix. If you have xp, use the realign utility (can't remember whether you format before or after).

It can be confusing. There is some fairly good explanations, charts, tables, etc. in the following:

UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFI

GUID Partition Table
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

Master Boot Record (MBR)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

Advanced Format
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format


ext4 file system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4

My Synology NAS uses ext4, I can use several devices to access the same HD .TS file on this NAS, playing at different times, etc. and none of them stutters.

My TViX had no problem formatting the drive all by itself.

How did you get it to do that? Mine acted as though there was no drive connected until I booted it with the A/B USB cable, formatted it with my laptop, and restarted it. I didn't see any option to format the drive with the TViX itself.

The instructions do say that an unformatted drive will be formatted the first time you power on and to be sure not to power off. This is from page 19, and it says it somewhere else in there, too:

Check Disk : TVX-HD provides HDD check utility. If you have any problem with recording or file
playback, we recommend running this utility before proceeding.
TVX-HD automatically formats when you connect an unformatted hard disk to the TVX-HD. Do not
shut down the power while the hard disk is being formatted.

By accident I pulled the plug on mine right after I turned it on the first time, so I don't know. I ended up having to format by connecting a laptop.

Yes, the manual says that, but it doesn't happen (at least, it didn't happen with mine).

I suspect that current HDD all come from the factory with what the TViX recognizes as a "format" (albeit not necessarily one that TViX can use) so that the automatic formatting gets short circuited.

Admittedly, my drive was pulled from a Linux desktop so I wiped it prior to inserting it in the TViX. Although I will say the last 10 drives or so I've purchased had no partitioning or filesystems (formatting) on them.

...and you determined that how...? (Windows, e.g., is not at all shy about overwriting foreign formats)

I really enjoy having my 6620. However, I'm happy to see some alternatives emerging if my 6620 ever dies. The following is not suitable for the US market but it's existence inspires hope.

"************************************
Watch all the latest High Definition digital channels and record your favourite shows with the Kogan Twin Tuner HD Digital Set-top Box with PVR.

With two built-in HD Digital TV Tuners you can now record two channels at once, never missing another show again. The Kogan Twin Tuner HD Digital Set-top Box is Australia’s best value twin tuner personal video recorder.

If you are responding to a PayPal special offer, click here for full terms and conditions.

Features:


Electronic Programme Guide

The Electronic Programme Guide tells you when shows start and finish across multiple channels.


x1 HDMI

Connect a host of peripheral devices to your display using HDMI. Capable of transmitting both video and audio in Full HD and 7.1 surround sound, never worry about AV cables running everywhere behind your television or computer.


USB Recording

Record any free-to-air show straight to USB to watch again later. Up to 1TB of storage can be connected allowing you to record 500 hours of TV.


Timeshift

How many times have you turned away from the TV for a moment and missed a goal while watching the footy or a crucial moment in your favourite show? With the Timeshift feature, this becomes a thing of the past. With internal or external storage available, you can pause and rewind live TV.


Dolby Digital

Supports Dolby Digital audio for rich enhanced sound.

Other Features:


Watch one channel while recording another!



http://www.kogan.com/au/buy/twin-tuner-hd-digital-set-top-box-pvr/?gclid=CNCEpIjR1bUCFfBDMgodxnoADw

Australia has many OTA DVR options; the DVR market there is far more lively than the stagnant one in the US.

They don't have greedy TiVo to content with.

I'm not sure what you mean. I buy a drive, I plug it in, I examine the drive with fdisk, it shows no partition table, I create one.

I don't use any version of windows unless I'm forced (like at work) so I am not "protected" from information and function like winblows users are.

I've never in memory purchased a new drive that had a partition table or a file system on it unless you count thumb drives which usually have FAT32 (VFAT) on them.

I took a drive that had been in use in my desktop computer, cleaned the data off of it, erased the partition table, and stuck it in my TViX. Worked fine...

And I'm not sure what you mean by "worked fine." Are you saying that the TViX offered to format the drive that you'd wiped? If so, we're saying essentially the same thing: drives that the TViX doesn't offer to format likely have some sort of formatting already, even though it may not be apparent or usable.

I got IONed. The TViX had already been on for several hours last night, and I turned it back to TV mode at around 12:05 this morning. I changed the channel to ION and opened the guide twice, and everything seemed normal. I opened it a third time, and I got the "No Channel" message. After trying a fourth time and seeing the same thing, I used the channel up key to go to qubo. As soon as I changed the channel (though I'm not sure if I got a chance to hit the guide button again), the TViX shut itself off.

It would seem the "No Channel" error isn't quite as benign as we at first thought, so be careful, especially if you're trying to record on ION: you might miss that program and everything else on your schedule that night if you get unlucky. As for me, I've removed the network from my lineup again. It isn't showing anything that I want to record right now, so it's better safe than sorry, I guess.

IONized? (Admittedly, it probably didn't seem very funny at the time)

To me that sounds more like the remote problem, I'm not sure if it's the contacts in the pad or just very poor design , but the remote sometimes has issues of doing random things when pressing buttons, up goes down , volume changes when press channle button and so on.
I have been ascared to touch my tvix lately as EVERY thing I touch this past week breaks, shattered my iPad screen, destroyed a $500 lapidary machine , destroyed phone and on and on, I will work on my mods more when this clutz phase has ended, lol

My remote doesn't do random things.

Lucky, mine on occasion does and reading various forums it seems to happen to quite afew people :-) I see it's usually said that's it's interference or some such but I have and many have tested and it's definatly in the remote. It is rare , I would say 30-50 times in 2 years, though it has never happened with web remote

Quote from the DVICO TViX M6620N Manual, page 10: Worked fine = Worked as advertised just like the manual says.

My experience over the last 20 or so hard drives and SSDs that I have purchased disagrees with your supposition that hard drives come from the factory with some sort of formatting (more correctly: a partition table and/or file system) already on them. In fact, if I did receive a new drive with a partition table and file system on it, I would return it because it was clearly used.

I have no opinion on whether or not the TViX will re-format an already formatted drive as I've never tried it. I read the above quoted line in the manual and removed formatting from my drive (since it was used) prior to installing it into the TViX. I don't recall if it offered to format it or just did so without asking.

Back to the source topic: Drive formatting and Advanced Format (AF) drives, etc.

Everything I've read says at this time there is very little difference in speed (transfer rates) using AF drives. The primary purpose is for AF is for down-the-road changes in platter drive access technology. The Western Digital (WD) ATTO testing that I've read shows a 10% increase in transfer rate using a worst-case configured WD AF drive (model with EARS in the model number) and the equivalent non-AF WD drive (EADS) and the best-case (proper alignment and so on) resulted in a 13-14% increase. The point being if you have an EARS drive, it will still perform at least 10% better than a EADS drive whether or not you take the time to align your filesystem.

Having said all that: In my opinion, whichever "Green" drive you buy, the TViX will not show any noticeable difference so spend your bucks as you wish. The cheaper EADS models will work fine and so will the EARS models. If you want better performance because you're getting stuttering during time-shifting or something similar don't buy a "Green" drive at all. When it comes to hard drives, energy savings and noise and heat reduction are the opposite of performance. WD has a Blue line that splits the heat/performance of the Green and Black lines and a new Red series which are recommended for NAS use.

I will say that if heat is a concern, my Red drives run only a few degrees hotter than my SSDs and are significantly better at throughput than the Green drives. My Blue drives are only a couple more degrees hotter than the Red, but the Blacks are quite a bit hotter. I don't own any Green drives mostly because early versions tended to go to "sleep" and stay there when used on some linux systems. My understanding is this has been resolved.

Even if remotes can malfunction and tell units to turn off unexpectedly, that can't be what happened to me. Pressing the power button causes the TViX to save and quit, whereas mine simply powered off without saving. When I turned it on again, it had forgotten the changes I had made to my timers that evening, which is a known symptom of the TViX shutting down improperly.