Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - Page 770

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Yes you are quite correct that the buffer recording mode is independent in the absence of a record command. A discussion some time back between jjeff, citibear and myself indicated the auto record buffer defaults to SP mode. But the take home point of my post to martymoose was that nothing comes out of the tuner section at a higher resolution than SD=480i, so no native HD is passed through any of the outputs.

I succumbed to temptation! Easier than backing up to DVD! (glad I ignored the President's Day sale!) At least this price dip covers the tax (which I'm not sure how they can get away with charging, since there are no stores here). Hmmm?
Shipping certainly was cheap enough - under $4 , so I'm not whining. Thanks, Wajo!

Thanks for your feedback. That, plus the amazing amount of information on this forum helped me decide. I ordered the 535 and am hoping to receive it this weekend. I was debating between the Magnavox, the Channel Master, and the Simple.tv. Lots of complaints on the Channel Master models having to do with mostly overheating. I could not find enough user reviews on the Simple.tv, maybe because it is a newcomer in the market. It sounds promising, but some people believe it's not ready for primetime yet. It is mostly designed to work along with a Roku, which sounds perfect for cord-cutters like me.

I am just curious if some of you have had any experience with Simple.tv as an alternative DVR for Roku.

Thanks again!

No Walmart stores in your state? I thought they had stores in all 50.

After reading this: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/03/simple-tv-review/ I wonder. There is: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1406195/simple-tv-dvr/0_50 with no posts for a while. But keep watching. You never know.

Since you're getting the Magnavox instead of the simple.tv, you can rip your recorded DVDs to a PC and stream them to your Roku with Plex. You just need to set up a Plex server on the computer and install the Plex channel on the Roku. It's free, and it works pretty darn good.

As Kansas_Tom said, if you have a WM anywhere in your state you will be charged sales tax(assuming your state has a sales tax). I can't believe any of our 50 states wouldn't have at least one WM.....

Washington, DC. So far we are a "walmart free zone" but they are planning to open five or six (with the accompanying protests) -- the first one is still under construction and not due to open til late 2013.
I guess they are "doing business" here, even tho' there are no stores. Looking back at my old bill - as I bought another Maggie from them a few years ago -- they charged tax then, too...
and they weren't even "under construction" then! Takes the fun out of the last minute price drop, but still - it's not like we have much of a choice as to where to shop for our favorite recorders!

The Panasonic is still upscaling. 720p tv's are really 768, so the tv is having to create pixels. I personally would feed it 1080i and let the tv throw away some pixels.

Externalized drives - 51x and 53x SATA units - advice request ?


Externalized drive pioneers, I'd really appreciate comment on what's below before getting out the can opener… In other words have I digested all the prior posts correctly (bold below is a bigger question)?

For the 51x and 53x SATA units, either a powered eSATA dock/case, or an eSATAp enclosure.

So the sequence will be: open the Magnavox case, un-stick any ribbon cables adhered to the drive, pull the original drive away and out from its mated PCB.

1) Is that PCB securely held, or must the drive extraction be finessed?

Next step connect the PCB's SATA (F) connector to the new cable going out. Say either the 22-pin SATA (M) to Panel Mount eSATA cable (CPUStuff), or (after adding a gender changer in between) to the 22-pin SATA (F) to eSATAp cable (Koutech). Then somehow route the cable through to the outside world.

2) About default drive energy settings. Do all drive/enclosure combinations tried so far, spin down the drive after a period of disuse, and then spin up - fast enough for the Maggy to properly recognize it - when the DVR again powers up again for a new recording?

3a) An external eSATA dock or case would need to be always powered, or at least switched on before a recording is to begin (and at Noon and Midnight, if set for clock/time adjustments)?

3b) But for an eSATAp enclosure, the external drive will power up and down as would an internal drive? (As it's getting power and data from the same place.)

Thanks!

The "video out" signal of my 515 seems dead. Both audio signals are working well. I'm using the HDMI out to my TV. Anyone is aware of a setting that would explain why the video out is not working? Thanks

I just looked at my unit and there is tape on my PCB board. So it won't just pull off of the drive. I think you should unscrew the old hard drive, it looks like the tape is on the bottom side.

I recommend the PCB-Stuff CS5830.

I never touched the setting on the drive. It looks like the DVR at least on my 2160A, puts the drive into sleep mode when the DVR powers down. So I don't think you need to do anything with those settings.

I leave my external drive bay powered all the time. It is true, you can power it down when the DVR is not using it, but it should be in sleep mode anyway.

I guess that would depend on the eSATA enclosure. Mine has a external power source since it is a USB/eSATA external bay.

I found that the eSATA cable has to be going in straight or it might not make good contact. So I would look out for that.

Here I go again. Last week at this time I was going to return my brand new 537 because I was an idiot and turned off chapter marks (from the default 10 minutes) and I thought the >>| was broken. Fortunately, wajo saved me. But even before then I was suspicious about the picture on the 537 (the picture on its tuner and its first recording were a bit off). The color seemed weak, dull, and with less sharpness in comparison to my 515 (that I've had for a year and a half).

I finally had time to look into the picture problem further. All HDMI settings are the same between the units (1080P and progressive on, color RGB, and normal). I switched around HDMI cables about 5 times (and brought the HDMI cable for my 3575 into the mix). And I switched between the different input HDMI ports on my Samsung TV about 5 times. I also swapped the coax inputs to the 537 and the 515. This is what I found: None of the HDMI cables or the coax swap has anything to do with it. One of the HDMI in's on the TV yields a result that I can't make sense of. The 537 gets the substandard picture whenever it is connected to the #1 input on my TV - the one labeled HDMI/DVI (#1). But if I connect the 515 to this HDMI input port, it works perfect (which is just below quality of the TV tuner alone). Connect the 537 to another HDMI input on the TV - HDMI (#2) and it works much better. Almost (yes almost) as good as the 515. The difference is about the same amount as the difference between the TV tuner and the 515 tuner. The TV is best, then the 515, then the 537. The 537 is ok but with countless A - B tests, depending on what's being shown, I can tell a slight difference between its picture and the 515's picture. Some things show no difference, like supremely colored cartoons. But the Oscars (I wasn't going to watch any of it but it's perfect for this kind of test) has spots the reveal a difference. The color on the 537 is ever so slightly duller but nothing like what (as bad as) it is when it (the 537) is connected to the HMDI/DVI (#1) port (which the 515 works great with). Since none of this make any sense, I've spent HOURS shutting everything off, switching, reconnecting, and retesting, and the result is always the same.

Also, the 537 does not keep it's digital channel when shut off and restarted. It has been restarting on channel 24.1 which happens to be nothing. And when I enter 7.1, it goes to channel 7.0 (many times have I repeated this). So I have to go up a channel to get 7.1. If I enter 7.1 when it's on 7.1, it stays there. But if I'm on 8.1 (or anything else) and I enter 7.1, it goes to 7.0 (which is ABC but a lower quality picture). I haven't set the channels on the 515 lately and it doesn't have 7.0, so perhaps this 7.0 version of ABC is new.

So - I'm taking the 537 back to Walmart and ordering a new one online right now. Crazy.
Edited by dweezil is in - 2/24/13 at 10:17pm

It sounds to me like you have some channel memory conflicts.

I've never seen a digital x.0 subchannel. Does anyone else have these?

Isn't 7.0 just analog channel 7? Would explain why it's lower quality cuz it's analog.....

My cable feed has a scrambled 26.0 that causes my 2160A and 515H to move 26.1 - 26.10 up by one (26.2 to 26.11). I know my cable feed is strange. Just last year they made all my HD channels have one decimal place. The SD channels have four but the 515H only uses the important part. I get no PSIP or SCTE 127 data. With over 300 channels and 120 in clear QAM, I'm not interested in finding what channel is using 26.0. My Sony TV is where I see the 26.0 and it just ignores it.

I speculate that either the ABC station has a bad PSIP or some other station has a bad PSIP. We all know that a scan of channels can produce strange results. I never saw channel change during standby mode unless a recording is scheduled or after a short power cycle.

It's an easy test. The magnavox doesn't show signal strength on analog channels. I think you need to hit that TV/DTV button to tune an analog channel, but that may not be a good test.

Having the call letters of the ABC station would help diagnose the problem. But having a working 2160 and 515H does make it seem to be a 537H problem.
Edited by JoeKustra - 2/25/13 at 5:15am

Yes the 7.0 channel is very strange. I have Cox and there are some real oddities with channels (does Cox have anything to do with it?). The TV tuner loses and picks up channels continuously and channels move around. Fortunately the movement is slow enough I usually catch on before something bad happens. Recently USA and Discovery started coming across as digital in addition to the analog but the digital versions are 24 something instead 21 (Discovery) and 22 (USA). The 515 doesn't pick up all the digital channels and it lines many of them up in an odd way and not consistent with the TV tuner. My 3575 only gets a handful of digital channels - the super large majority it can't get.

I noticed that ABC 7.0 was aspect 4:3 (and I assume digital of course since I've never seen an analog channel when digital was selected) and of course ABC 7.1 was 16:9.

I did my comparisons between the 515 and 537 on many digital channels. I kept going back to the oscars only because that type of live broadcast reveals more things about the picture (the film highlights in it weren't useful though - and they change too quickly too).

I don't believe I've seen a .0 channel before on the Mag/Philips but the TV has plenty of them and I thought all analog.

I'll give it one more shot.
Call letters for ABC?
Signal level for 7.0?
signal level for 7.1?
Cox at fault? maybe. Is it passing PSIP data?

Sorry - I meant to say I'm at work, not at home now. I will give the info tonight - I'm on west coast and get home after 7pm.

What is PSIP data?

Thanks!

Cox (at least in my area, S California) does utilize "dynamic channel allocation" for some of the digital channels so that it does not have to broadcast them all, all of the time. This might cause some of the behavior you are seeing with the channels moving around.

http://www.engadget.com/topics/hd/2009/05/08/hd-101-what-is-atsc-psip-qam-and-8-vsb/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_and_System_Information_Protocol

Problems can happen when the cable company acts stupid to make you buy their STB or when one company owns two OTA stations and they mix their virtual channels and physical channels. As in:
Physical 25 has a virtual 4.2 and 4.3
Physical 30 has a virtual 4.1 and 4.4
Things can go bad when that happens.

Yuck. If it's KABC, that means it's both physical and virtual channel 7.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KABC-TV
Edited by JoeKustra - 2/25/13 at 11:06am

Orange County (in southern cal) - try phoning Cox to ask them what is going on if you want a good laugh. Actually it was a few months that E!, MTV, Cartoon, Discovery, and USA showed up with digital versions. Then they got shuffled after a month or so messing up my recordings of USA. But they've been stable since.

Yes once in a while digital channels go missing - and even for good. I wonder when there will be sanity to all this.

I'm bucking that trend. My disc recording is only a backup and a convenient painless method for creating menus and chaptered recordings. While it may be true that the physical disks themselves won't be watched more than once (if that), the content from those discs is stored on my NAS and is being actively watched through media streamers and my computer. There will come a time in the not too distant future when pay tv will be too prohibitively expensive and when that cord-cutting time comes, our family won't be lacking for content to watch.

I do that in a way. I record movies from HDNet and other sources then transfer them to a USB drive on my laptop. This is with a TiVo with a small HDD. There are times when nothing in on worth watching and, since I seldom watch movies, it's a library of content I may never have watched. True, most are class B or below, but it's better than nothing. I can understand archives, but having all the eggs in one basket is not safe.

Sorry it took so long Joe - it's been a busy day.

If my new 537 is shut off and it's on channel 7.1, when turn it back on I can see the display go from 7.1 to 7.0 to 24.1 which happens to be scrambled. 24.2 is MTV and 24.3 is USA. If I shut it off when it's on 50.1, it comes back on to 50.1. (KOCE I believe) So the quirk may only be with KABC.

Again, I enter 7.1 and the channel goes to "7." (7 period). Then I hit the display button and KABC 7.0 is shown and the signal strength bar comes up at a solid 85% strength. Again, the aspect ration of 4:3 is shown. When I hit the display button some more, it goes back to showing this channel as "7." (7 period)

7.1 is also KABC (and I can only get there by going up a channel from 7., or down a channel from 8.1) and 7.1's signal strength is 85% or less and wavers slightly. 16:9 is the aspect ratio.

I can't see any more info about these channels. Is there something else I should be able to read?

Thanks man!

I'd bet that it's an issue with KABC in combination with the inability of the 537 to not allow editing of subchannels. It's a fact that 7.1 is KABC but I don't know what makes a 7.0 even though I have a 26.0. I have a Sanyo TV that also has a similar tuner (TV/DTV button) yet it doesn't have a 26.0. According to the FCC, a x.0 channel is supposed to be analog.

My plan would be to ask Cox if they have any known issues with channels from KABC. Next I would email KABC, explain the problem, and see if they have an answer. I mean, your TV works. Right?

Since you have not mentioned 7.2 or 7.3 I bet your cable feed has moved them or scrambled them. Also, KOCE transmits on 48, so either Cox moves it or they pass the PSIP data. That could be determined if your TV diags show channel frequency.
Edited by JoeKustra - 2/26/13 at 4:53am

New guy here. I'm a recent cord cutter and this forum has been of great assistance in helping to select the DVR piece of my new viewing scheme. Walmart tells me my 535 has arrived and I will hook it up tonight. The purchase even received the enthusiastic support of my wife, which says a lot. She misses the FIOS DVR and when she found out there was no recurring monthly charge for the 535 it got two thumbs. It's usually tough to get her to budge on anything with a power cord or batteries. Thanks for the volumes of support information and constant updating.

Welcome. I'm sure you will enjoy the unit.

I guess you have already read post #1. You probably also know the 535 doesn't record HD. I have mine set to output 1080p and have no issues with PQ. I do miss the 5.1 audio, but it's not a major factor. Have fun.