Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - Page 741

thanks mr mazda... i must have missed that one somewhere...

it would still be interesting to know if they did any comparative testing or initial testing of the replacement tuner as to performance improvement, and what they found.

rgds,
ron g

+1

The signal between devices whether it be HDMI or OTA is of no, issue. It's either there or it's not there unlike component where lower signal may play into the mix.
1. Low levels out of the recorder or source,
2. A high cutoff, clipping lower levels of black, or a higher level needed so black detail is seen into the TV. (or something along that thinking)
3. Combination of the two.
4. The technology of the display used: DLP, LCD, Plasma. LCD's seem to clip more.

The best, most recent example is my favorite DVR the VRX. Black clipping (or crush if you prefer) is terrible on some content as posted in that thread.
BTW, analog material does not show this effect, simply because the addition of "setup" which ATSC does not have anymore brings the black level out of the 'mud'.

.
Edited by videobruce - 11/13/12 at 4:46am

Well, I finally got sometime to play around with the player. As I suspected its the TV doing the extra stretching. When I make a recording of a 16:9 program and burn it to disc, it comes up as 16:9 (embedded in 4:3) in my other player (oppo-bdp95) regardless of how trhe maggie and TV are displaying it . I can select full on the oppo zoom and voila, I have a full screen 16:9 image. Works great. I always use the oppo for playback and never use the maggie for playback.

I looked up the converters you provided links for. Is there any real advantage to a converter? The problem is if I run the component from the cable box through it, I'll get signal strength errors and drop outs with the HDMI also used to go to the TV. The SA8300 HD doesn't like both hooked up both component and HDMI. I tried having both hdmi and component hooked to it once. I don't see any real way to make it work with my set up. I'm pretty good with the setup I've got.

On another note, playing with the player, I'm impressed with its ease of use. Yea the editing may not be quite as good as a panny, but scene delete takes care of 99.9% of my editing. Ocasionally I'd like to be able to split a title for movies greater than 3 hours, but when those few come up, I may just use the panny and burn to a dual layer disc. (I'll edit on the maggie, then playback to the panny.

Wow, a big thanks to everyone in this thread. Because of the expertise and reviews posted here I would never have imagined buying a DVR such as this (std) and or frankly the name brand associated with it. Took the plunge and purchased the 535 and couldn't be happier. I bought one of the older Panny dvd recorders when the technology first came out and have used it sparingly over the years to copy old family movies onto discs and the occasional television program I didn't want to miss.

So of note on my first experience using the 535 last night for the first time..... I've got a blu-ray player, HD dvd player, and a Sony streaming player taking up all of the HDMI connections on the television. I'm using component outs for the Mag player and something different occurred (it's probably already been talked about on this thread) with the signal being sent to my television.

I've regular extended basic cable, no box, and just using the tv's internal tuner only. If you check the signal being sent to the tv all of the analog channels show 480i. When checking the upper channels in the digital range it shows the signal to be 480i though by site the picture is better. In the digital range where I am picking up actual HD signals it displays the signal as 720P or 1080. Now (not the pass through signal and live tv) when I play an HDD program I have recorded at HQ or SP from that same digital channel that previously said 480i the display now shows I'm getting a 480p signal. Somewhere something is converting that signal to 480 progressive scan. Just kind of surprised me and I apologize if this is one of those 'well no $h!+ Sherlock moments.

Bottom line..... man I've been missing out for a long time and wasting money on expensive throw away discs. Also just noticed I've haven't posted on AVS since Oct. 2010.

Wajo,

Here's a photo of the thin plastic film on the Magnavox 515 and 53x remote control:


Edited by DigaDo - 11/15/12 at 5:22pm

I love my Philips 3575 that I've been using for years. I haven't kept up with the models that have been released since then. Is there anything the newer ones do that's better or worse than my 3575 besides having larger hard drives?

Hi all,

Best Buy is advertising a WD 500GB 2.5" SATA drive for $60. Would that be suitable for upgrading a 2160A? I'm assuming a laptop drive wouldn't exceed power specs...

Also, external drive prices are finally nosediving again, e.g. Target has a Seagate 750 portable for $39. I'm thinking it may be time to start storing everything on hard drives instead of DVD, and would be interested in feedback on this...

Thanks,

CC

No, still on original FW. Maybe twice a year I forget to switch to L3 and have to redo a finalize, and pre-titling is nice on the 515 but I still have to edit in the episode number and name so it doesn't actually save me much time. I know the FW update is low-risk, but I would still want to offload the HDD, and that would take far too much time to be worthwhile. Now if I end up doing all the cleanup to replace the HDD anyway that seems like the logical time for FW update...

CC

The addition a name to a recording doesn't remove the time/date and channel. It does make one wish for a sort ability for the titles by name though.

Pretty much everything I record on the 515 gets edited and watched within a day or 2, so the generic pre-title doesn't buy me much there. Where it can be helpful is in the recording queue, where I usually have a few one-off setups that I don't readily recognize without consulting my Excel schedule...

I am having an issue with a digital channel on my 515. Channel 44.1 cannot be manually tuned. When I tune to it I get "Scrambled Program". When I CH UP from there it goes to 44.9 which is a shopping channel. When I go up from there it tries to tune the 57 range but goes back to 44.1 and the channel comes in. I record shows Mon-Fri on this channel. Everything was fine on Friday. I did a new auto scan and it had no effect.

Thanks Wajo, Using a higher up duplicate solved the problem.

Soft reset works!! Thank you.

We had a power outage the other day that "killed" our 515. My wife spoke to Magnavox support and the best they could offer was a repair site 30 miles away. I remembered this site from last year when we were researching the 515 so I came back to see what to try.

In the meantime we ordered a 537 from WalMart and plan to take the 315 to our vacation home. Figured if they might go away some day we want to have a spare.

Dishearteneng that Magnavox Support cannot direct how to "reset" these DVDR's either via soft reset or the internal reset button. Just my 2 cents worth.

av-n

Hi Wajo and others... will work an Hitachi or another SATA 3 HDD in my 513?

I read all the HDD Upgrade post but I don't find a definitive answer.

The spare model is CLA662 vs CLA332... Also, I can't find any SATA 2 in newegg...

As always, thanks.

Nice, since that also is a SATA do you know if this spare could work?

http://www.hdsentinel.com/storageinfo_details.php?lang=en&model=HITACHI%20HDS721050CLA662

It's a SATA 6.0Gb/s

Thanks again!

This is rather like motor oils. Where once SD was the highest rated, SE later became highest rated, and still later SF. SD & SE were no longer made, and SF was fully backward compatible to replace them. Another analogy is DVD speeds. If your burner is an old 8X, you can burn to 16X disks, but only at 8X speed.

The only significant differences between SATA1, SATA2 & SATA3 are the maximum theoretical I/O speeds. Replacing an SATA2 HD with an SATA3 HD means the replacement SATA3 HD will operate no faster than the speed supported by the host system, which may not even have been SATA2 to start with.

In our Funai cases, the host performs I/O at speeds much less than the SATA1 theoretical maximum, since that's all DVD video I/O requires to function, so any speed SATA HD will work. HD makers wouldn't make SATA3 HDs that couldn't work in systems with old SATA1 or SATA2 controllers.

It's really stupid, isn't it? I suspect that the failure to include the soft reset instruction in the manual and to not give out the instructions over the phone has cost Funai a ton of money. But it's been nice for those selling "refurbished" units.

AND for those buying them !!

And not an issue with even a small UPS.

$39.95 refurbished at Newegg?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145564&cm_mmc=BlkFri2012-_-14-_-N82E16822145564-_-na&nm_mc=BlkFri2012