Philips DVDR3455H/37 - Page 29

Yes. Transferring recordings to the hard drive does not use the DVD Drive laser so that's to be preferred. Then high-speed dub to DVDs if you like. The high-speed dub requires far less wear and tear on the DVD Drive's laser assembly than does a real-time dub directly to DVD.

Jason is the door on the DVD play close so you can't get it open? if so under the DVD drew there is a slop that has a white lever, if it's like mine it's all dusty, that you can push to the right to open the DVD drew. If your DVD player will not play any DVD after loading, I had the same problem, buy a DVD lens cleaner and it should work, that's all I had to do.
Good Luck

Inanthony,
I am having a similar problem. Just in the last couple of weeks the darn thing has numerous drop outs, completely losing all picture & audio for a few seconds. This is both in HDD playback AND when just passing the signal though to the TV. And it is happening more frequently as time goes on. Not sure yet, but a common scene may be vey high saturation (Think History channel and Universe series with quickly going to very bright, saturated screen). Not sure if cause & effect or just coincidence.
My 3536 is 1 year and 5 days old now.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks

No matter what DVDR you have, the digital transition is apparently still a "work in progress."

We get regular signal dropouts on LIVE TV all the time, esp. ABC HD, along with several other "artifacts" that suggest signal problems.

The fact that your unit is PASSING THRU a dropout signal indicates the problem is at the source more likely than the unit itself. The dropouts from HDD recordings could just be actual RECORDED dropouts in the signal.

You can test by connecting your coax directly to your TV and seeing if dropouts disappear or are still occurring?, which would prove one way or another?

Months ago someone named "Atomic Vole" suggested a source for replacing the drive belt on the DVD drawer on the 3455. My rubber band solution quit and last night after a new one was put in, the machine is working better, but not quite as good as last time.

I'm wondering if anyone else tried the source Vole suggested, and if so was the belt a match? I PM'd him, but in checking his member name, it seems that was the only post he's ever contributed on these forums, and he's yet to answer the PM.

He may not even visit here any more.

When I view live TV, the picture is much more bright, clear, and defined. Then I switch to "live" on the DVR and it's dark and looks more like an older TV set. Any idea on how to adjust the settings or inputs?

OK, so I read some of the posts on this thread and I think I have the answer I'm looking for and I apologize for not reading all 29 pages here.

I bought an RCA dvd+r recorder that has never worked properly since I bought it. At first I thought that I was just an idiot and was doing something wrong trying to copy tapes.

When new the unit would read prerecorded dvds and record dvds sporadically, now it won't read any disc. It displays a message saying that the blank dvd needs to be formatted or that there is no disc in the unit.

Anyway, I bought the thing in 2006 so it's not under warranty. I opened the unit and found all the dvd recorder (at least that's what it looks like) is a standard philips dvd recorder.

It looks like I should be able to replace it with almost any other dvd drive.

I emailed RCA and this was the response:
There is something wrong with the laser eye lens.
The unit is out of the warranty and if you send it in, they will replace it for $65. Provide me with your phone# if you want to send it in. Thanks.

I can buy an LG dvd+r/dvd-r unit for $50 from Best Buy.

Shouldn't I be able to just replace the drive like I would in my computer?

thanks

Most standalone DVD Recorders use proprietary DVD Drives, not computer-type DVD burners. The most likely answer to your question is NO.

Does a "standard philips dvd recorder" (DVD Drive) work in a RCA? I have no idea.

If you want your RCA DVD Recorder repaired $65 might be your best option.

Search the DVD Recorder threads for your model--set the date criteria back to "beginning" to find other RCA poster comments concerning DVD Drive replacement.

I've attached a photo showing the proprietary DVD Drive found in a October 2006 Funai-manufactured Magnavox MWR10D6 DVD Recorder. "Standard" Philips DVD Recorder DVD Drives are probably of similar design.

Wajo has posted several photos showing more detail of a DVD Drive found in a Philips DVD Recorder. He also compares the Philips DVD Recorder DVD Drive with a computer-type Lite On DVD "burner" that can not be modified for use with a standalone DVD Recorder. See this post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post12355769

Did you find a source for the belt?

The office-max solution has repeatedly failed me as well. I'm currently using an old lite-on dvd drive and it seems to work but looks klunky sitting on top.

Has anyone found a source for replacement belt for the 3455's drive?

http://www.electronix.com/catalog/ad...d+belt&x=0&y=0

Many different drive belts. Measure and order, maybe? Ooops, these jerks have a $10 minimum order. Glad I put one in the "Cart" to check on shipping cost before I typed this message.

This page may be helpful for measuring your belt.

http://www.kenselectronics.com/lists/belts.htm

Here is a suggestion from another webpage

"I had this problem. The drive belt that lifts the disc reader was too worn out to lift up to the disc. I replaced it by taking a regular sized baloon and cutting off the rolled up piece on the bottom. Worked great in place of a belt."

I also called radioshack. They will not order replacement belts here in my area. They want $20 to send product off for repair with zero guarantee of fixing the machine, or promise of final cost if they can fix it. Bleech. I will look around more later. take care....

You may be on to something. A balloon might be a step up from a rubber band - in terms of strength and resiliency.

I seem to have misplaced the original belt, so I'm not able to measure. I think the belt might be in one of the kits available from MCM Electronics, but I'm not sure of the original belt type or size.

I would not be surprised if you couldn't just buy a multi-pak and try just judging it by fit.

Hi All,

My DVDR3455H HD just died (that horrible HD clicking sound) so I decided to see if it was fixable. I replaced the HD (with a small 20G Caviar) and upgraded the firmware using the file I downloaded from Philips (dvdr3455h_37b_fus_eng.zip).

The upgrade seemed to proceed w/out problems, and after rebooting the unit as instructed, I set the date and time.

I can play a DVD, display images from a USB stick, but the tuner portion appears to be non-functioning.

Unfortunately, it now says "No Signal" when the unit is set to tuner. I've confirmed that it is getting a signal (run the coax from the wall outlet to the TV input, all works; connect the same coax from the wall to the DVR input and it says no signal).

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Have you rechecked all the Flat Ribbon Cables to make sure they are all connected?

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I ensured that the cables were back in place.

There was one cable (1112 on the Tuner board) that was taped to the dead drive, and I detached it to remove the drive. The board is well designed with notations such as "contact side" and I replaced the cable appropriately.

I checked all the others to ensure that I didn't accidentally dislodge anything else.

I used to do QA for electronics manufacturing companies so I know how much havoc an incorrectly inserted cable can cause!

Alas, no remedy there. Any other suggestions?

coop

(I think) Somewhere in this thread is info on how to do a hard reset of this unit. Forgive me, I do not remember where, or how. Something along the lines of unplugging the unit for a good while, then holding in the Power button as you plug it back in? I own 4 different brands of HDD based DVD recorders and all this stuff kind of runs together for me.

Additionally, for one unit (I think the Sylvania HDRV200F) it will not pass thru video by coax. It requires either S-Video or Composite connection to the monitoring device.

I'm Not saying the Philips requires this, but maybe try connecting to your monitor by a different output method and see what happens. Won't hurt, at any rate.

Best of luck to you.

Will it let you do the upgrade again?

timtofly,
I've been trying to clone my hard drive, I am using EZ GIG II. It does not see any thing on the hard drive to clone and so it comes up with can't clone empty drive. what are you using or any help you can give would be great.

Thanks

My Philips works great but I would love for it to have a bigger hard drive.
I have a 500 GB SATA drive available that I bought for my computer but never installed. I also have an older 250 GB IDE drive.

How could I replace the original with the 500?

I love this machine and do not want to foul it up.

Thanks.

If you are doing it through windows, it may not work. I burned a boot disk using Easeus disk copy software. When this disk boots up, it will let you do a sector by sector copy of your original drive to the new drive. The new drive needs to be a 160 gig drive. I usually set the original to slave and the new drive to master.

If you use the 500 sata, then you will need an ide to sata converter. You will need to burn a cd or dvd with the firmware upgrade. If the 500 sata is recognized by the Philips then it will ask for the upgrade disk and "initialize" the drive for you. I have only been able to get a 250 to work though. Seems there may be a size limit.

If you try the 250, just put it in. If it boots to ok and you can get the channels to tune, go to the hard drive menu and "format" the drive using the erase titles option. This should give you all of the 250 gig available. If this does not work, then you will need to have the above mentioned firmware disk to get it to "initialize" the drive. I was only successful with one 250 drive "taking". I had to clone that drive to another 250 and any 250 after that I had to clone from a "working" drive.

Thanks timtofly,
The EZ GIG has a CD that I can boot from and I will try that.

I have a new 160 gig sata that I am going to use with the IDE to SATA adapter. I have the CD with the FW for the 3455. If the Philips 3455 will not see it I will clone it and see if that will work.

Thanks for the helpful info timtofly.

Since you suggest that 250GB is the workable max, I am not certain that I will take the risk to try and upgrade to a larger hard drive.

Nevertheless, your expertise is really appreciated.

Bumped

Hi Folks,

Following how to solve the BLOCKED problem at DVDR 3455H philips. I've posted some pictures about it.
Have fun.

lmonfa

 

DVDR3455H-english.pdf 462.3095703125k . file

Stellar work, lmonfa! Bravo, and Thank You!

After one frustrating weekend I am returning for more advice on the cloning of my Philips DVR 3455h. Timtofly if your out there I sure could use some information. The new HDD is a WD 160 SATA I have the converters for it.

I down loaded the boot disk from Easeus and booting to it but the Philips HDD showed up with no partitions and looks like an unformatted drive (unallocated). I can see all 3 HDD; my computer shows that it can be cloned and the new HDD show up unallocated same as the philips HDD. I looked at the bios on the computer to see if there might be something in there that I could change but I hate to start messing with that not knowing what I am doing. So if anyone has a suggestion I am open.

I even hooked the new HDD to the Philips DVR but it did not recognize it and the dvd drawer keep opening and closing I tried putting the FW disk in but it did not do anything but open up again. As far as I know there is no master and slave setting for SATA Drives. It is what it is unless you know how to make it master and be recognize by the Philips 3455. I think this is why it did not work in the DVR because it does not have a master setting.
Hope all of this is not the confusing.

Flash

If you have succesfully made a copy, then you need to get a converter that has a jumper that you can choose whether it is a slave or master. It needs to be the master. That may be your only hold up.

If it does not work with the converter set as master, then you will have to reclone the drive. Have you tried putting the original drive back in the 3455? Does it work?

If you have to reclone the drive, take out your original computer drive and put the sata with the converter set to master in its place. The original drive from the Philips should be re-jumpered as the slave. When you are in Easus make sure that your slave is the source drive and the master is the destination drive. The slave (original Philips drive) will show up as unallocated, that is why you need to be really carful since you do not want to make a copy of a blank drive over the existing information of the original drive.

I did not get a copy of the 3455 HDD. I only have a copy of the Easus boot disk.

On the Easus boot disk do you use the Clone function or the Disk copy function to copy the disk?

The new sata drive and the Philips 3455 drive both show up as unallocated with the 3455H set to slave or master. So do I use the disk copy function to copy the 3455 HDD to Sata? Because the clone function does not give me any part of the 3455h HDD to chioce to clone. Lots of question

Do I need to wipe the partition off the SATA drive first before I copy the 3455 HDD to the SATA or will the program take care of that for me?

I can still put the Philips drive in the 3455 and it still work, (it has a the bad sector that pauses the picture and the voice keeps going on. This does not happen very often though.)

Thanks for all your help. I am just one of those people that likes to learn.

You will not be able to "see" anything on either hard drive. They both will show up as unallocated. When I used Easus, it would only allow me to make a copy of the disk. The other options were greyed out. As long as you are sure which drive is which, you will be ok. You are making an exact copy of the original.

Are both disk western digital? Does Easus clearly define the new drive as a sata?

The most important thing is to make sure the drive from the 3455 is the source and the new sata is the destination. Be prepared to wait about 4 hours for it to finish once you start the copy.


The reason Easus shows them as Unallocated, is because these drives are formatted "probably" as some form of Linux. Unless you mount a linux drive you cannot see any information. All Easus is doing is making an exact duplicate which does not involve whether a drive is formatted or not. You do not need to Pre-format the new sata. The cloning part of easus involves drives that are formatted using dos/windows. Under this function, you can clone mutiple smaller drives or even Partitions of a single drive and either keep them intact or create a new single partition. That is why it is greyed out, because it cannot find those types of formatted partitions on the drive from the 3455 and the new sata. The cloning part of Easus is handy if someone has an older computer with multiple smaller drives and they want to put everything on one new larger drive in a newer computer.


When you do put the new sata in the 3455, you do need to make sure your converter, designates the drive as the Master. It will not work unless you do so.