Pace CableCARD HD Boxes (TDC779X, TDC778X and DC757X) - Page 16

Rebooted 2 times "by hand" and once from a hit by Mediacom yesterday after the 100% full nonsense, and 1 more time this AM 1 hr before taking the screen shots. Off to Mediacom when they open in the morning. thanks.

Just in case anyone is looking to expand the storage on their pace box, here is a great deal from Best Buy on the DVR expander:

My DVR Expander Sale

When combined with this 10% coupon:

10 Percent Off Coupon

I picked one up yesterday for $152.99 + tax. Now I just have to attach the unit later today to my TDC778X.

Robert


PS website say 2 days only, but I think that is only the free shipping offer. They are on sale all week in the stores.

Wow! Thanks for pointing this out! I just got one of those a week or so ago and Best Buy honored their price guarantee and is giving me $30 back!

Yay!

I had the lockup again last night 4/7/08 while recording a HD show. I don't know if this is significant but the show that was recording is listed in the content listing as "Video type : DIGICIPHER_II". Most shows are listed as MPEG2. Maybe the Cable Card's decoding of that video format is causing it to lockup.

NOTE: I was able to tune my SONY DVR to that channel when the PACE was flaking out and watch the program with no issues with its Mot. Cable card.

Any progress on this issue? This is a major bug in this DVR.

It as happened to me on 1/20, 3/15, 4/8 and probably on 3/8 (when I had the 700+ lock counts). This seems to be happening pretty frequently. This last time the box had only been up for 3 days since the last reboot.

The reason I feel the lock count issue was this same issue is that each time the unit loop back on itself it appears to bump the lock count. The show I was recording last night has a Lost Lock Count : 28 and Gain Lock Count 27. I was watching that show so I intervened and verified the issue was the same and stopped the recording and looked that the diagnostics before rebooting. Usually when a show has a real lost lock the show is split into another recording.

lindend,

I just added a WD MyDVR Expander to my TDC778X (Armstrong Cable Svc.) and everything seems to be working fine. I just have a quick question:

Should the external hard drive shut off when the Pace box is off. I have had the hard drive on for 2 days now and unlike my other WD MyBook Essential hard drives (connected via usb to computers) the hard drive has remained on since inititally plugged in.

Thank you,
Robert

I think it is a S-Card. Here is a photo of the card: CableCard



It happens on different channels, but I beleive it always happens on encrypted channels (and HD in my case because that is 99% of what I watch).

Lindend, thak you for the explanation. I was speaking about the Pace box being in "Standby" mode. It appears as though it is working as intended.

Thanks again,
Robert

Im baaaack anyways my PACE DVR has been working fairly well with the odd framerate issue since swapping out the first one. Just wondering if anyone knows where I can view a list of features I can program into the A,B,C,D buttons. The remote is UEI brand.

Hey Linden!

1. What are the commands to reformat the internal hard drive?
2. Can the internal drive be swapped for a 750GB and use an external 750GB at the same time?

Understood. But it would be worth the risk for the storage space. Our TDC775 only cost us $224 so there's not a really lot at stake.
Your diagnostics page says you are using the Seagate ST3160023AS drive which is just a stock Barracuda 7200.7 drive.

How would it be different to swap it for a 750GB or even a 1TB drive from the same family?

OTOH, we tried to connect a 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 series ST3500641AS in an external chassis to the eSATA port but the 775 could not see it at all?! What would be the problem there??

OK.

I had a different Cable card issue tonight. This time the Cable card task stayed running but the Validation State (was not VALID) and Card Ready == NO.

The unit would not allow me to watch any encrypted digitial channel. I could only watch the analog and Network HD digital feeds. The unit didn't get locked up like it has the other times when the Cable card task dissapears.

My other SONY DVR with the Single Stream Mot. cable card was working fine.

A reboot of the PACE cleared the issue.

Is this a known issue? Has it been addressed in firmware update since the 9.58 version that I have?

I don't recall any number. That is another thing to look for next time (I was going to take a picture, but you have never wanted them before and I was in a hurry, so I didn't.)

I am having same issue that some users have reported with HDMI and Surround. I have the psce 778x hooked up to a yamaha rx-v3800 reciever thru hdmi and the unit will not output surround sound. I hsve gone into disg screen and I am on firmware 09.02 and the av info states surround but it will output in any format except PCM PLII 2 channel stereo. Are there any resolves for this issue.

I had 3 series recordings scheduled to record tonight at the same time.

The middle priority program recorded and the other two did not. The tuner 2 was tuned to the high priority show but the recording was not started. The lowest priority showed up in the guide with a record circle with a line through it.

I am sure this is TVGuide bug but some one has to send them this information. I am puzzled how people can enjoy using these PVR that you can't count on to record anything.

Having an external HDD is proving to be useless on this piece of junk. I had saved 3 concerts that I like watching on my DVR list and when I rebooted due to the Cable Card becoming invalid it toasted those recordings (try to play and it asks if you want to delete it). It left other recordings earlier and later. I am thinking that the recordings that you have stopped in the middle of before the reboot are the once that get screwed up.

PACE - please fix these bugs... I thought the screwed up recordings was supposed to be fixed in the 9.58 firmware I have. Maybe if PACE's employees were forced to use these boxes at home these issues would get resolved. I am sure they would contact TVGuide about the bugs if they missed show after show.

As far as I know, you can only record 2 programs at a time.

But TVGuide software has a very long way to go before it's considered really user-friendly.

Why did one program record then and not two??? That was the point of the post. The prioities are to determine which two record but only 1 of 3 recorded and it should have been two.......

Got a problem..

When Mediacom recently introed the 778 (when they started digital simulcasting) they had a lot of problems. In the last couple of weeks, they downloaded some new software and things got measurably better, but there is still one particularly irritating problem.

The problem occurs when fast forwarding past commercials in recorded shows. When you want to stop and hit play to resume normal operation, the box jumps back to the time when you originally started. This can occur repeatedly. Eventually, the set locks in and resumes playing following the commercials (or other program material being skipped).

One symptom that often occurs at the same time is that the picture stutters, jerks and jumps during the fast forward. It doesn't move through the program material smoothly. Often when it is doing this, the forwarding speed slows down dramatically.

Sometimes you can fake the 778 out by forwrding in shorter increments, hitting play every minute or so, letting it play for a few seconds, and then fast forwarding again.
This behavior seems to happen more often with HD content.

To speculate, it seems like a pointer doesn't reset to the new location when fast forwarding. Consequently the drive jumps back to the last position of the pointer, the beginning of the fast forward.

Mediacom doesn't have a clue what's happening with the 778. They're too busy trying to cram too much programming down their small pipe. (Their HD performance is marginal at best, and now compression and bandwidth problems have moved into the digital 2-78 channel content. You can't view anything with any action in those channels without tiling clearly visible. But that's another story.)

The viewing setup is Mediacom cable, TDC778x, HDMI to Sony 1080p SXRD. 778x software - SW (DENA) 09.66; HW 0x00000001; CableCard SW 02.65 (0x09010007); HW P=MCPOD v=01.00 r=07; Pace Reference 001-106-02-11-001-141-2-5: TVG version 240; Tandberg version 3_70

Anyone have any thoughts on this fast forward problem?

Thanks.

I think this was reported earlier (fast forward jumping back to where you started), but I have the same problem fairly often as well. I haven't noticed it being more prevalent with HD.

I'm on GCI in Anchorage.

Picture quality isn't too bad, but I have noticed it breaking up on the spinning NBC peacock logo which involves a lot of motion.

So far I can ignore these small problems. (knock on wood)

I have a question in regards to the RF bypass option..

In my setup now i currently have a 2 way splitter prior to the Pace box.
One going into the DVR the other going into the TV. I do this because the wife sometimes will have the DVR scheduled to record two shows at the same time, and then we will watch something else (in SD ) via the TV tuner.

My question is.. Can I eliminate the splitter and utilize the RF bypass to accomplish the same thing? If so does the RF bypass need to be toggled on and off or is it a "set it and forget it" option??

New glitch?

I was watching PBS tonight when the picture started to break up - then went black. It came back on within a minute. Then 10-20 minutes later the same thing happened, but the picture was off for over a minute. I haven't seen this behavior before.

Now my message light is blinking, but there are no messages.

Does a slowly-blinking message light mean something different? (I have a My DVR Expander hooked up to the external SATA port.)

Update...

Mediacom downloaded new software overnight. Now it's at 10.51.

Don't know if it will have any effect on jump back problem.

Re. 479

Even with new software, it's still jumping back, and forward occasionally, and driving us nuts.

lindend, is this a Pace software or a TVG issue? Who should I get a Voodoo doll of?

Help... Please...