Hard Disk File System investigation for the Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 &... - Page 2

Tried all suggestions from RESET & SHUTOFF thread except #4 reformat HD, including overnight unplugged.

Haywire means totally useless. It can't find any channel on cable or OTA, digital or analog, regardless whether was already memorized or via setup search, including right after skip 1 2 3 OK. L1, L2 work normally. It worked fine for about a month after installing HD6A269715H1E.mot.

After all, I'm its owner, so reasonable use shouldn't cause exclusion. I explained why, that backing up to disks would delay sending it to them for repair for up to three weeks, and lack of high speed dub from DVD to HD meant restoration isn't actually restoration. He said breaking the seal prior to manufacturer's warranty expiration was another matter entirely, which wouldn't matter since they only do the service for post-OEM warranty work.

I didn't see a firmware download URL at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=6962

http://funaiservice.com/information/firmware.cfm apparently kept immediate redirecting to a page that had nothing I could see but a link to a Flash video & the standard menus, and it referred to a different model DP170MGXF. When I told the browser to ignore site styles the download links all became visible.

Flashing didn't change my channels problem. Anyone know what 269718 was supposed to fix?

You should post this in the main Philips/Mag thread

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=940657

Even though this thread is dated it seems like it hasn't been brought up elsewhere since... is anyone still working on the investigation of the Magnavox HDD format?

I'd like to offer some assistance if I can help out...I have a 513 with eight 500gb hard drives packed with stuff that I'd like to offload to my PC for reorg... I'd really rather not be fooling with this stuff through a remote, burning 103 hours of DVDs per hard drive, and systematically importing all these DVDs and importing DVDs to my PC to alter it again with a video editor... it's enough work without the technology standing in the way too!

It looked like Peter has the file structure worked out and identified the storage location for the video, that MPG file... but is that extractable so it can be saved to a standard PC file system?

I'm not concerned with anything other than getting the video/audio intact over to the PC in one big chunk... not looking for start/stop points, text data, order, nor anything else from ghe magnavox..just a big chunk of data with the audio/video intact would be perfect... Then I can figure out away to track down enough ram/disk space to work with it...

If this has been moved to another thread, I applogize..just didn't find anyone else talking about this out on the web, in this sort of detail...except this thread...

Pete

Hey, Pete, I can't believe your 8 HDDs, which I assume means you externalized the HDD, isn't mentioned in the help file for others to learn from.

Any chance you'd post in the main Sitcky thread (click #1 in my sig.) on the basics of what you did to externalize things?

This would certainly be the correct thread to post in regarding this topic.

I do remain completely baffled by such insistence on copying the files to a PC, in any form, at any cost, even if the files are completely friggin useless once on the PC. Your belief that "then I can figure out a way to track down enough ram/disk space to work with it..." makes sense only of you are a software savant with a lot of time on your hands (or you simply enjoy wrestling with difficult problems for the hell of it). The effort involved to read, salvage, and transfer recorder HDD files into a form you can work with on a PC would be far better applied to recording directly to a PC in the first place. Those here who have salvaged some of these recorder files found they need to be cleaned up before saving as standard MPGs, then imported to software that can "see" the fractured MPGs and perhaps convert them to a more convenient container format for media players or to DVD format to burn DVDs. This workflow entails so many workarounds and so much wasted time that I just don't get why anyone would bother unless the HDD contains the only surviving video of your wedding and your wife is pointing a rifle at your groin.

Standalone DVD recorders were intended to replace VCRs for those who wanted a video box dedicated to removable media archiving, not as adjuncts to a PC-internet-youTube-upload-media player system. One or two Microsoft-sponsored DVD recorders could transfer their files to a PC via ethernet, but they were about as popular as the Zune and quickly discontinued. Six years ago a few of the early DVD/HDD models from Pioneer had an undocumented two-way DV connection that could feed video to a PC. Over the last decade the only practical recorder-to-PC hookup to emerge has been the TiVO-HD, very very popular here with those who want the ease of a dedicated recorder but the option of transferring files to a PC for repurposing (some renegades prefer the similar Moxi recorders). True wireheads eschew any and all external recorders, and prefer to futz around with various video and tuner boards in their PC for direct encoding.

There are many alternatives, but none that include a practical Magnavox>PC digital interface. Rather than make yourself crazy, you might consider tracking down one of the older recorders that would be more compatible with your PC needs. The Pioneer DVR-510 turns up frequently on eBay at reasonable cost (under $100 if its DVD burner is dead), has an upgradeable HDD, and can feed the digital contents of its HDD to several PC applications in DV format via real-time FireWire connection. The LG/Microsoft recorders are newer, if a little more buggy, and include MicroSoft's free TiVO-like program guide (downloads its updates via ethernet connection, intentionally designed to share its HDD files at high speed with a PC). These old recorders don't have ATSC/QAM tuners, but your Magnavox can act as an external tuner/timer connected to their line inputs.

Because eventually the "coolness" of externalizing one's HDDs in lieu of burning archive disks wears off after you have filled up a couple-3-4 and you face the reality that you can't do anything with the content on them except play them on a like box. The thought of burning off 100 disks from a full 500GB drive is bad enough -- can you imagine being faced with having to do 3 or 4.

Well, part of the reason I see in investigating the file system is I know Magnavox didn't reinvent the wheel in putting a $150 DVR to market... I'm sure they didn't create a completely new recording codec or new file system OS for just this.... most likely its a combination of something that is already out there and its just a matter of reverse engineering it and figuring out what makes it tick. I saved a bunch of .TIVO files off my old SD TIVO and everyone said it was encrypted and that they were worthless and 5 years later, it was a 5 minute google search to find a tool to decrypt all the old files and view them. That was tivo with DRM folks hounding them and wads of cash to develop something restrictive.

In my case of figuring this out isnt just to have some useless files on the PC but to get those 800 hours of video to my PC so I can sort it out and not need the 513 for playback...I couldnt sort it out beforehand or I'd be manually scanning through 800 hours of unlabeled VHS mess just to get a log together so I could scan through it and somehow get it into the DVR in a logical order without it taking the next decade to accomplish

So now I'd like to move it into the PC so I can organize it and some day figure out what I want to backup/keep/toss/burn.

I didnt use the PC import directly from VHS because I've done that a couple times before and it's literally one of the biggest time consuming/expensive headaches I have ever had for a hobby activity. Tying up the PC for 800+ hours to capture with no other apps running to make the process hiccup, doing file conversion/cleanup processes after that and hoping that didnt hose up things more and hoping I wasnt making things worse in the conversion or getting audio offsync, etc... ugh the fun memories are coming back!

I may have to convert it in the end, but right now its so close to the format I need, I'll either be figuring this out or finding a hardware import combo to let me batch convert 103 hours in a row to my PC (or a dell server I can get ahold of) from the Magnavox! Anything but babysitting the VCR and cleaning tape heads anymore..heh!

Pete

Interestingly, found some discussion of this same file system on a Sharp VHS DV-HRW40 DVR...also uses HDDFS 00.07

My Japanese is somewhat rough...but from some rough translation apps, it seems like someone was mentioning JVC and Sony encrypting the content in their machines, but the 'Sharp being super easy'. They extracted the first 5mb of the video file and ran it through Windows Media Player and it worked with sound. Then ran it through MMname2 video file detection software and found this from the MPG file:

MMname2 v2.5.4 Jan 7, 2007 Edition (DB 20070711)-Windows XP Service Pack 2 (5.1.2600)
System Basics
　File:test.mpg
　Format: MPEG2/System-PS / size: 5, 120, 512 (4. 88 MB) duration: 4S
　File integrity: data length of the last packet is funny... is a file tail off or damaged files.
　1) No PROGRAM_END_CODE (0x000001B9)
System image information (stream number 1)
　1) Codec:MPEG2/Code: MPEG2 / abbreviations: 720 x 480 / 9300 Kbps 29.97 fps
System audio information (stream number 1)
　1) Codec: Dolby Digital AC-3/Code: AC3 / abbreviations: AC3/48 KHz 256Kbps ch 2 / 0 (l)
Relatedly subtitle information (stream 0)
Relatedly comment information (information 0)

Pete

Ok, so I basically pulled the video off the thing and it's running on my PC. I hooked up the SATA drive (stock Western digital WD3200AVVS that came with the Magnavox 513) to my PC with one of those generic 3 in 1 Hard drive to USB connectors..nothing special..and I didn't have an esata dock free at the moment.

The drive shows up in Win7 as unrecognized, but after looking at Peter's previous posts I also used the iBored hex editor and dumped the hard drive to a dimg file on my machine. I'm not sure if this is necessary for what I was needing to do, but it at least got the hard drive off the machine and safely out of the way...

Then I went to that block Peter mentioned as the start of the .MPG file, but when I looked I didn't see anything...went forward a bit and found the same beginning hex data string at block 2008037. I went to the end of the drive and did a backwards search for data and found the last block with data was 624993253. I then had iBored save 200803 to 624993253 (approx 300gb) to my machine as a MPG file.

Once it finished I double clicked on the file and it started up in Windows Media Player with synced audio and all looked normal. I was able to jump around different parts of the file and it looked good and wasn't hanging or doing anything odd... Now it says it's about 10hrs...that seems short from what I put on there, but I'll have to verify with another drive... I know this was my test drive and I wiped a lot of stuff from it that I later re-recorded using a different TBC..

Here's what I found when I dumped the file into AVICodec...
File : 297 GB (0.00 B), duration: 0:00:00, type: MPG, 1 audio stream(s), quality: 83 %, ,
Video : 0.00 B, 9334 Kbps, 29.970 fps, 720*480 (16:9), MPG2 = MPEG 2 (SVCD/DVD), Supported
Audio : 0.00 B, 384 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, 0x2000 = AC3 DVM [0x80], , , Supported

Just to confirm: the original HDD in your 513 was a WD3200AVVS 320GB?

Yes. WD Green WD3200AVVS was the factory one I pulled out of the unit.

My other drives are all 500GB WD5000AADS...I believe it had the same performance spec, maybe a bit better on the power consumption... I'll see what those look like shortly...want to play with this a bit more and see what it's like to work with before I start messing with other drives and taking up more disk space

Pete

The file is 297 Gig = to about 320 Gig hard drive.

It looks like they just keep adding to one continuous file instead of creating individual files. That would explain while there is no file structure. There is probably a table somewhere that logs stop and start points and associates this to the individual titles. Running the file through a program that would allow you to cut and paste into individual files would take time, but would be faster than cutting and pasting a hexed file.

Sorry, one more ?

What is mfg date of your unit (on back tag). There are two versions of 513, early-mfg (w/BE: 718 FW) and late-mfg (w/BE:72A FW).

Manufacture date is June 2010

Maybe someone who's more knowledgeable about MPG might be able to tell how this would work...if I extracted the separate (non MPEG) file that contains the timestamps/location within the MPG file based on how I divided it up on the Magnavox, it would probably just be a matter of manipulating the file so it's in a format a third party app would take as an input, then process the single MPEG file through an app with a commandline splitter utility or something...

Right now I'm working with splitting the file up a bit with a MPEG utility without having to reencode the thing...this is actually usable for my needs since the way the shows are split on the Magnavox doesn't really matter to me... meaning, I didn't spend any time dividing stuff up on the Mag player at all...sometimes I have 6 hours recording in a row with 20 different things in that 6 hours, in 3 completely different areas...some music stuff then some show I want to keep and a personal video project of mine all in one..

What would be nice is to find an app that lets you open one big MPEG and mark multiple split points, then say 'export now''....give it a directory, and let it do it's thing for however long it takes. I'd rather not have to mark a start and end point to export, then export it, then select the next start/end point, export that, etc ...anyone work with anything like that?

A few thoughts:

• RE: 10 hrs, 297GB, etc...
  - Make a list of what's on the HDD BEFORE removing it from the 513. Then, see what you actually can access.
  - What 'Speed' are the recordings?
  .
• RE: Fragmentation
  - Instead of jumping around, how about checking to see if a title plays completely through? While all the blocks may contain MPG data, unless you started with a completely empty HDD and never erased anything, I doubt all the shows are contiguous. More than likely, each block contains a 'pointer' to the next block - this will be sequential on an empty-never-erased HDD, but can jump anywhere after a file has been deleted.

I understand the desire to get away from DVDs and move onto 'Mass Storage'. I just don't see using a DVDR as the best method.

Being familiar with the concept of MANUALLY (via disk sector editing tools) retrieving files off of a crashed / corrupt Windows HDD several years ago (mostly an experiment in futility - good for learning though), I subscribed to this thread back in Sept 2010 and have been following it.

I also experimented with MANUALLY (via someone's freeware) pulling shows off a Series 1 TiVo - again, years ago - until one day I read about Lifetime Replay 5040s selling for $150 at RadioShack. Although I initially wasn't impressed with Panasonic's Showstopper (ReplayTV's grandfather, so to speak), I had close to $1000, IIRC, invested in my Series 1 TiVo, with buying the Lifetime and upgrading from one 20GB HDD to two 80GB HDDs so $150 for a 40GB HDD network-able unit WITH LIFETIME was enticing. I bought one for me and one for my Dad. Unfortunately, once I tried it out, Dad never got his and over the years, I bought two more. Add the freeware of DVArchive or WiRNS to the mix, and MPGs appeared on my PC as fast as the under-powered ReplayTV's processor could send them. And, they were playable with VLC! AND, some kind soul modified VLC to skip commercials using the ReplayTV's .NDX file.

So, if the current TiVo-HD works like the old ReplayTV w/freeware, that, IMHO, is the way to go. With my two 2160As, if I record something that I might want to put on 'Mass Storage' (i.e. NAS and/or portable, external HDDs), I can see burning a DVD-RW and then ripping the contents. 400 shows spanning 4 HDDs, no. Real-time copying them to a TiVo-HD HDD (and then downloading to PC) would be my choice if I HAD to have the content of multiple Magnavox HDDs. Then the Magnavox HDDs could be re-purposed (to a NAS) and the Magnavox DVDR could be sold since the TiVo-HD would take over. Add a couple of network-able Media Streamers and you can now watch your shows from multiple locations.

Recently, based on ~10 months of reading, and following Kelson's documented FAT+ personal experience, I bought a Seagate FAT+ ($40) and a Patriot PCMPBO25 ($50). Both are network-able and play a good number of video (and audio) files, including those created by my ReplayTVs stored on my DVArchive server.

Thanks for all of those details - definitely will be checking out some of those ideas/products...

Still working on this...basically I think what I have is a case of the MPG file with a corrupted time base index. I'm running it through a repair utility now to see if it can sort it out. I tried doing some trimming of the file as the end of the file was pretty much blank...so I wanted to chop off the end and bring the filesize down. Ran that process and it ended up being 20GB or something ridiculously small. I took another look and the file trimmed down but it cut off a ton of the stuff I wanted....meaning I knew the last thing before it went blank was a basketball game...but when I went back to view it the game hadn't even started yet.

After taking a real good at the time in windows media player and my trimming tool, I noticed I would blow through a couple hours of videos and only bump ahead 15 minutes in the counter. So...it was letting me jump around with ease but the time was just sort of madeup...sort of like my VCR counter! We'll see what happens after the timecode repair. If I let it play, however, it plays fine... it's not jumping in and out of tracks...

Interestingly, I loaded up this VideoReDo that's being praised everywhere, but it doesn't even load the file..or maybe i'm not patient enough to wait around 10+ minutes on an 8 core 16gb machine since every other tool loads it up in a couple seconds...or at least gets it going that quickly..not sure if VideoReDo is trying to physically load 300gb completely or something strange..

On the Magnavox, I record everything at HQ and it's pretty much sequential... load up the next time, hit record, maybe come back and trim the end of the recording on the magnavox if the tape ended up going 4 hours instead of 6, or whatever...then put in the next tape and repeat... I'm not recording a ton of stuff, then going back and trimming/dividing tracks up, then recording more with the leftover space... also was hoping that would keep me away from a fragmentation issue as well...

Pete

I'll pull that from a 500GB drive shortly...getting ready to be hit by the snow avalanche here in the Midwest, so I'll probably have some extra time on my hands...

Not having luck with the time reindex...the one app I ran it through turned the 300gb file into a 462gb 'fixed' file, so that didn't seem quite right... Since I can play it from beginning/end, i wonder why there isn't a more straightforward way to lay down a new time index... I don't even care if it takes the actual time of the actual video timeframe...

Pete

Peter so you're looking specifically at where the hard drive block pointer or mpeg timestamp is within one of the other files, right? I was confused about what you meant when you said "hoping the MAP file would tell me where the file lives in the MPG file"

I ran a 'fix' on my mpeg file export using a program called MPEG-Corrector. It's some old utility that's floating out there in freeware. Basicaly I gave it the 300gb mpeg file from the magnavox, set an output filename, and clicked on 'fix'... there's really not any options in there. That being said, what I got back seemed like a much more stable file. It was the same filelength, and when i scan back and forth in the file the times aren't floating around...meaning, if I see a commercial at 32 hours and 32 seconds, and jump to different points in the file, and then go back to that same 32 hours and 32 second timepoint, it's exactly the same thing. The only problem I see is that it's reporting 502 hours in my file.. which for a 300 gb file on a magnavox recording HQ mode isn't going to happen... I'll have to take a closer look, but at least I'm happy that the timestamp seems to be locked down so I could tell another app to split the file up into segments that I can more easily work with, without having to re-encode everything..

Pete

Good luck with that! Keep the project to the end!

Here you go...first 7 blocks from a WD5000AADS on a 513 Magnavox

Pete

 

WD5000AADS-7blocks.zip 0.4521484375k . file

Interesting, this time I exported the 462gb of data from my 500gb drive and it came across as a 59 second MPG video. Played fine in windows media player for 59 seconds, though! I ran it through MPEG-Corrector and it then became about 747 hours... but it's all viewable now... strange...the video is all there that I transferred...and the filesize is still the same after the repair (well, maybe a few bytes larger)...so I now I have to figure out if this is workable or is going to give me problems during the file splitup..

Pete