DRA-01601A: DVD Recorder with 160GB Hard Drive Info - Page 6

Same here I have done at least 10 timed recordings with 0 problems so far (clock is set manually).

I do some testing on the DRA-01601A.Below is the detail,

1) About the QAM cable signal,DRA-01601A could receive the cable signal strength between -55dBm and -20dBm,You could check with your cable company about the signal stength.If the signal is lower than -55dBm or higher than -20dBm,maybe DVR will dropout the picture and audio.

2)About the WideScreen issue,it does have this issue,but at present you could record the 16:9 signal from other STB box CVBS or S-VIDEO output,If you record the 16:9 with the ATSC tuner on the DRA-01601A,it will deal with 4:3 letterbox or 4:3 panscan,and 16:9 widescreen mode is not supported at present.

But I think PD will update the firmware on the website sooner or later.

Still testing about the back-to-back timer recording,maybe have detail later one day.

Anyone have problems about the SHUTDOWN.,doublecheck it,and I have one standard DRA-01601A and I think the SHUTDOWN will not happened.

Maybe you could exchange another one and have a try.

On the 2000 if you start a scheduled recording with the machine on it will stay on. If you start a scheduled recording with it off, it will turn off. My guess is this does the same. So whatever state it is in when it starts a scheduled recording is the state it will go to when the recording ends.

That is an interesting feature since it will turn off if you decide to watch a HD recording after it goes on.

If I wanted to do this, I would have bought a unit without a tuner.

I was so excited to finally find mine. I looked for weeks and weeks. But it goes back tonight, or maybe tomorrow. But it definitely goes back. The ATSC tuner is barely unwatchable. The QAM tuner is not really any better then the Panny units. Meaning, it just as well not have one, because it doesn't work.

I was nervous about buying from a no-name (at least in Home Theater) like Polaroid. It seems my concerns were well warranted. I paid a lot of money for my Pioneer TV with built in tuner. Now it looks like I should have bought a "monitor" and paid for a STB. Then I could output to a decent recorder and not dick around with these things.

Will wait for the Phillips, and more than likely, 2 more years until the 'good ones' come out.

I think more and more people will come to that conclusion in relatively short order. It's hard to believe how poorly these 1st Gen models perform. The defects being reported are not subtle flaws. It's as if the manufacturers QC criterion for product release was nothing more than "do the lights come on when the unit is plugged in".

I'm willing to accept that the inclusion of an ATSC tuner is non-trivial and requires a substantial redesign of electronics to cope with the new 18 modes of digital transmission. Given that, one cannot conclude otherwise than that the manufacturers have failed miserably with their gen-I designs.

I agree Kelson. The remote problems with the Polaroid alone show that no senior member of staff could have ever even tried to use this at home, never mind sign off on it before release.

I do not understand why, with the price of hard drives these days, no manufacturer has yet been able to offer a DVR with HDD only (no integrated DVD, just like the sat and cable co. DVRs) that just gets the basics right, even without a tuner. If they are going to use such bad tuners, they might as well just save the money and sell us a HDD that works but does not "pretend" to have a tuner. I just want the following:

- Basic time-shifting chase play
- Basic editing to create and hide chapters
- Basic timer functions (VCRs could do that 20 years ago!)
- A working remote (is that too much to ask in 2007?!)

Surely they can do this and still make money for themselves without having to charge an arm and a leg.

The big question is, how long should we wait, and should we just pay up for sat/cable models in the meantime, paying a monthly fee (which is no help to OTA viewers, of course).

I have a question about how this should best be set up... as i have tried a few ways, two of which work but suck!

One way is to put the polaroid on a basic channel (3 for example) using R-CSTV I then use my cable box remote to change channels so i can still see "whats playing and times" and what the channels are. the problem with this is i can only set it up to record the channel i have the cable box on.

the second way is using my cable that comes from the wall and putting it into the ATV on the polaroid which allows me to scan and recieve channels! I can then use my polaroid to flip through channels and also i can record to whichever channel i want using the timed recording. The downfall of this is that I can no longer see what channel i am on besides the ch#.

Also, maybe i am dumb, but does this unit replace the need for the cable box as a whole? (if i go the second route)

Thanks,
Klaman

When trying to view a copied Disc that was copied from the HDD, in the title area on other DVD players - it shows the titles but they will only play 10 secs then thats it.
The copying took 10 mins or so and it showed the % and all but they wont play on any DVD player.

I had the 2001G --- It did same thing so it went back. When I made a copy from HDD to DVD--- it only played like 10 secs though it shows the full time of a movie......ie 2 hrs.

Anyone else have this problem?

Also -- When a DVD is in it........(RW) and I want to erase it or overwrite it, there is no command to do so. It wont show up or in setup.......where it says--- erase optical disc........it is greyed out so cant use it.


Anyone have a clue why my copies (from HDD to DVD) always come out the way they do?
and........why I cant overwrite a RW disc or erase them on the DRA 01601A?

This is really annoying.

I tried BOTH RW- and RW+.

Same thing.

But most frustrating is sitting down to watch the copied DVD and it wont play more than 10 secs.(((

Tried 4 different stand alone players.......same thing.

thnx for any help!

This unit does same when I copy HDD---->DVD

I first tried DVD-R. They played back in the Polaroid but the DVD burner in my PC couldn't read them. I then tried DVD+R which were playable in both units. DVD+RW also worked fine. I don't have any DVD-RW.

I called Customer Service yesterday. No news on the remote.

Ok thnx.

If you call CS at Polaroid.......THE man who knows these units best (and the 2001G) is named Jason.
All the others seem to read from the "manual"....um if you can call it that

Here's the guts for the 01601A. Interesting. It's not the 2001G. There have been some hardware changes.



Samsung hard drive. Very different from the 2001G. A word of warning. A 2001G HDD will not work in the 01601A. When installed in the 01601A it is reformatted and all recorded material is lost. So the HDDs are not interchangeable.

More to follow.

Automatically reformats a new HDD eh? This is not good!

Yes it does.

I installed a 250GB Maxtor drive (with content from the 2001G) and it formatted it for the 01601A. This is good news for 01601A users because it means that the HDD can be easily replaced. But bad news for 2001G users because all recorded content is lost. When the 250GB Maxtor drive was reinstalled into the 2001G the original 2001G recordings were gone.

Did it format the 250GB Maxtor as a 250? Or, did it limit the size to 160.

It formatted to 250GB. I did not record beyond the OEM 160GB drive volume but my experience tells me that the 250GB should not be a problem.

If you'd like ,you could install a 400GB HDD on DVR.
I think it could work.
I have not try it,from my information I think it will work.

1)You must finalize the DVD+R/DVD-R/DVD-RW disk after dubbing,and DVD+RW iwll finalize automatic.If you do not finalize the disk,it could not be played back on the standard DVD-VIDEO player.

2)Maybe you could change another brands DVD+/-R or DVD+/-RW disk.

3)Make sure that your DVD player could support the DVD+/-R and DVD+/-RW disk playback.

DRA-01601A is different from the 2001G design.

Codec board include the ATSC decoder part and MPEG-2 codec part.The ATSC decoder is used for decode the digigal ATSC OTA program.the codec part is used for scan the analog OTA program and encode/record/playback the video/audio signal.

2001G does not have the ATSC decoder part,so they are not the same design,Someone will find that the OSD is similar with 2001G,the reason is they use the same codec part.

Totolly,this is not a upgrade DVR from the 2001G.2001G have not the ATSC part/HDMI part/SD card port.

Hi Michael
I did do the finalizing as you said on the discs you mentioned but they play but only 10 secs or so then they return to the root menu and it repeats same thing again if I press play.

If they werent finalized at all (properly on the Polaroid) , I dont think I would get the 10 secs of the film so it must be the #2 issue you mentioned. (Try other brands).
The DVD players my Dad has and I can play all media (so they say) so I think its as you say......a dvd brand issue perhaps.

But I find it very odd the 2001G did the exact same thing to me on 2 units.

thnx for your reply, appeciated--
boo


btw, great post above this about the insides and codec board

About the back-to-back timer recording,I have tried this operation with the HDD media and OPTICAL DISK media,below is test result.

I set the back-to-back timer HDD record at about AM8:30,and the first timer record is set on DTV source and start time is AM9:00 and end time is AM10:00,the second timer record is set on REAR CVBS source and start time is AM10:00 and end time is AM11:00.After setup,I standby the DVR and wait.

1)8:57 00' DVR will startup and VFD display HELLO information.
2)8:57 35' DVR will power off and enter the HIGH-LEVEL-STANDBY MODE.
3)8:59 00' DVR will startup again and change to DTV source and select the channel number which going to record.
4)9:00 00' DVR will start recording the DTV signal.
5)9:59 55' DVR will stop recording the first timer schedule and change source input from DTV to REAR CVBS.
6)10:00 04' DVR will start recording the REAR CVBS signal
7)11:00 00' DVR will stop recording as the second timer schedule.
8)DVR will POWER OFF in 20 second automatic,if you do not choose "CANCEL" button to going on using DVR.

After back-to-back recording and you will get 2 titles,and first one is about 59m55s long and second one is about 59m55s long.


Then I change the time in setup menu and setup the OPTICAL DISK back-to-back timer recording as previous test,power off and wait.The result is ,

1)8:57 00' DVR will startup and VFD display HELLO information.
2)8:57 35' DVR will power off and enter the HIGH-LEVEL-STANDBY MODE.
3)8:59 00' DVR will startup again and change to DTV source and select the channel number which going to record.
4)9:00 00' DVR will start recording the DTV signal.
5)9:59 45' DVR will stop recording the first timer schedule and change source input from DTV to REAR CVBS.
6)10:00 15' DVR will start recording the REAR CVBS signal
7)11:00 00' DVR will stop recording as the second timer schedule.
8)DVR will POWER OFF in 20 second automatic,if you do not choose "CANCEL" button to going on using DVR.

After back-to-back recording and you will get 2 titles,and first one is about 59m45s long and second one is about 59m45s long.

So I think the back-to-back timer recording works well.Any one has problem ,Would you post the operation on the forum,and I will check it as your steps.

What is it like if you were to do both recordings off the DTV? I could see it needing to switch the channel and channel number at 9:59 like it did at 8:59. My theory doesn't quite line up with others problems of the 3 minute thing, but i would wonder if it would be the case.

Let us know what you think/find.
--Nick

Is that 2 fans in the back of the unit...looks like one in the upper left and right

They should put a 120 in the top LOL

right now I am using a 2001 and like it...sure its cheap junk for this day and age but it does what I want it to do..input is from dish so I have no need or gripes of the tuners.

None of the newer units found in my area yet but I am wanting to know in the segment section does it still use the darn arrow over the play bar so you can't see the segment unless its been going for about 2 minutes...stupid if you ask me


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THIS has to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen the front of the box is where its marking and covers your editing so you HOPE that it marked and with the crappy remote(yep I replaced the LCD) so it works but you don't know so you hope .

WHY didn't they do this?

=========================
............../\\


does anyone know of a wire rack that would hold this and a dish receiver ...just big enough to hold them and keep them seperated for heat dissipation and sit on a table beside the TV ?

My point is that the DVR works OK on the back-to-back recording.

However,I will try to record 2 ATSC program by back-to-back tomorrow and see if I could find the problem.Later I will post the test result.

Someone mentioned here that the DVR record 1st timer program with 57 min long and 2st timer program with 61 min long.I am verifying this problem if it is exist on the DRA-01601A model.

Is the remote included with a DRA-01601A the same as the one supplied with the DRM-2001G?
Has anyone tried the LED upgrade (to a Radio Shack 276-143) on a remote included with a DRA-01601A? If so, did it help significantly?

I've got an LED here, but the method for opening the remote without destroying it has eluded me. If anyone can let me know, I'll give it a go.

On the first Polaroid (DMR 2001g)-- all the timeshifts were saved to the HDD.

On this one, they are deleted when the timeshift is turned off.
I tried hitting record during timeshift to see if it save it but it didnt.

Anyone know how to save the timeshifted material?

Also, has anyone tried to use the edit functions on this?
I tried to use the "segment" thing to edit out commercials but it does nothing at all. Just plays the title.......thats it.

boo:-)

To record the buffer you have to rewind to the begining of where you want to start saving then push the record button. It will then save it for you.

TRY TO PRESS "SUBTITLE" key to copy the TIMESHIFT BUFFER to HDD.

m82a1pa on the bottom of the controller is a small slot...I used a large screwdriver to just insert the blade and twist..then I took another screwdriver and slide it up the sides one at at time. Yep it sucks to have to pry and pray but that is how I got mine open. On closing it I just insterted at the top and mashed it back down top to bottom and it snapped closed.

make sure and test your led before putting it back together. Not only on remotes but I don't know how many times this has been my downfall.