Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - Page 210

Go for it. I wish you luck, remember usb is much slower than esata.
USB interface: 480Mbps USB 2.0 high speed (USB 1.1 compatible)
eSATA interface: 3.0Gb/s SATA II high speed

USB2.0 to SATA I,II = USB 2.0 port rated at 60MB/s
eSATA to SATA I = SATA I port rated at up to 150MB/s
eSATA to SATA II = SATA II port rated at up to 300MB/s
My question what do you gain and what do you save by going usb? (if at all possible)

My question what do you gain and what do you save by going usb? (if at all possible)

Auskck; In post 6217 you clearly said esata to usb making the data store very usable. You said that you are using an esata to usb cable and sent me the url. Are you sharing this with a computer or does it only work on the Philips and not the Maggie?

Please clearify your usb statements. Thank You.



1. If the 2160A is just using a converter and Wajo is right about the firmware then the new firmware would have sata Drivers in the OS.

2. Auskck has already broken the theory about driver because he is using an ide to esata converter with a firmware without a sata driver in his esata hookups unless it was already written in the firmware for future use.

3. If you do not need a driver for sata why would the esata/usb cord NOT create the "sata" characteristics of the external USB data store.

4. If number 2. (above) has the esata written in why would it not have USB also or what really changed? Maybe they have added USB this time.



What would you gain? We are still talking IDE. USB 2.0 is faster than IDE.

Dah Ah
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822101132

Anymore guesses.
FW can be used to simulate what hardware does, if the hardware is doing it you don't need firmware.
A problem can be solved with either HW or FW or combination of both.
Like I said to wajo Go For It, build your own system and let us know all about it..

Those are very good points. For convenience, I like to use USB. Imagine you could record all the programs on USB drives, and hot swap them if they're full. Give one to each of your kids. And if anyone ever figure out how to read these HDD from a PC, I think people would agree that USB has a lot of added value?

I may be totally out in left field on this, but I believe the answer lies in the fact that the USB port on our DVDRs is ONE-WAY. The system can read files from a USB device but cannot WRITE TO the device [according to the manual] - so maybe that's why it wouldn't be able to format a USB-connected HDD.

Just a WAG.

Sorry no Hot Swap with these boxes (Mag/Phil)
You can cold swap now if it's connected esata.
What is the added value if you connect this drive usb vs esata
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822101132

You'll never know wish I have a refurb 3575/3576 to try. It'll be easy: Open the lid, disconnect the IDE cable, then reboot, plug in the USB flash drive. If it doesn't work, then reconnect the IDE cable. Any one with an out-of warranty 3575/3576?

Actually it's not too far fetch, since the USB driver might be in the 3575/3576 FW so the DVDR can read it... or an USB-IDE adapter that drives the USB port.

Interfaces consist of a physical transmission method and a means of connection plus a protocol.

ATA comes in two physically different versions: Parallel (PATA) and Serial (SATA). Serial data transfer is on a few wires not a bunch of wires, and the connectors are different. A solely hardware adapter can 'match' parallel to serial and vice versa. PATA is also referred to as IDE or EIDE.

The ATA protocol is the same for both physical interfaces, and device drivers are needed to manage the protocol. Think of the protocol as a language. Parallel and Serial can communicate in the same way as Americans and English-speaking Canadians can communicate.

The Philips/Magnavox have been designed to use the ATA interface. The drivers are ATA, and the motherboard has a PATA interface. That is why a PATA/SATA adapter lets us (and Funai) replace a PATA drive with a SATA drive.


USB is an interface which has both a different physical transport and a different protocol to ATA. It is like an American and a French-speaking Canadian trying to communicate while one is driving and the other is flying.

USB disk drives do not exist. What does exist are USB subsystems i.e. PATA/SATA drives in a case that has a logic board. The latter is a controller that talks USB to the system it is attached to and ATA to the drive. Think of the controller as an interpreter who speaks both French and English.

The Philips can in fact talk USB, but the level of functionality is severely crippled in our recorders.

DVR models sold by Funai overseas support USB with bidirectional transfers e.g. you can move Titles to/from HDD from a USB device (stick or disk). However, transfers of any size can take miserably long periods of time because not only are the achievable transfer rates significantly different, the efficiency (or otherwise) of the protocol translation can make things even worse.

USB was originally designed as a low-speed interface, but the ease of use expanded its role beyond servicing keyboards, mice, printers etc to high speed devices like disk drives. The next-generation USB will move into the realm of SATA-class performance.

Hey Wajo, interesting ideas!

Question though for Auskck or Wajo. Is this not for the most part what Auskck is already doing with his external eSATA drive enclosure with tray/sleeves that once installed with hard drives are very easy to pull out and swap? Looks like a pretty easy way to set this up, once you hook up the external enclosure to the recorder, especially in inconsideration to forgo any of the possible problems of getting a purely USB drive setup to work this way.

I am going to try this setup (one day when I get around to it) because of the ease of it and it is similar to a pair of kingwin IDE drive enclosures with trays that I have been using to swap in and out about a dozen hard disk drives for a couple of years now with my computer. To change drives, turn off the enclosure, pull out the drive tray, pop another one in, turn the enclosure back on

By the way, the drives in the tray sleeves are pretty well protected when swapping them in an out of the enclosure. I just store them in a plastic all type media storage box I found at a Lowe's store that fits 10 drives in sleeves in it perfectly to keep the dust off them when not in the external enclosure.

I see what you are saying, but this is really no different than taking a DVD disk out of the machine and putting another one in, and now loaded with a bunch more movies/shows to watch. Also, as far as how it would look, if you get a single drive tray enclosure model it would look just like a typical USB external drive enclosure.

And, maybe I am wrong about this since I have not done it yet, but looks like the initial hookup of the enclosure to the recorders IDE/ESATA connection with the needed adapter would not be much harder then trying to pull of the recorders hard drive cable to see if a USB drive enclosure would then automatically work. Although that would be worth a try too, but somehow seems highly doubtful that it would work with the USB connectors seemly dumbed down in these recorders. But the possible USB connection is an interesting idea! Who is going to give it a try?

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Excellent exposition of the interfaces and protocols. It was some much needed information.

WAJO:

With this setup the "wires" would already be in place. You would have to initialize the drives. Once initialized, all you would have to do is turn off the "unit" unplug the pretty little box, plug in another pretty little box, and then turn the unit back on. It would not be hot swappable, but other than turning the unit off and back on, it should work fine.



Falco63:

Finding IDE enclosures is pretty gruesome these days.

Not that gruesome. Here is about fifty of them from 1 vendor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...07130&name=IDE

Are you going to build this system?

You are still talking USB!!



auskck:

(Yes or No) Are you using this cable: http://estore.circuitassembly.com/pr...Cable-1Ft.html ?

Thank You.

I answered a question about external ide enclosures
I use that cable if I want to connect from the data store to HTPC,PS3,Media Server it connects to the esata cable. Not the Mag/Phil that is sata/esata all the way to the data store not usb I repeat not usb.

All I want is a 2160A that finalizes with pending events still scheduled.

I'll worry about fancy ways of connecting extra/alternate drives later.

I recently got my H2160MW9 back from the shop (long story), and now want to treat it with kid gloves. I have it connected per Wajo's illustation, with the RF cable from the wall going to the top rear connector, and the coax passthru connected to my Comcussed STB. From the STB the RF signal goes to the TV, with the line out going back to the DVDR for recording.

Since the STB does not have a coax passthru, whatever channel the STB is tuned to is what the TV shows as its default input via channel 4 - I cannot use the TV's own tuner. One channel I want to record regularly can only be tuned via the STB, so I would like to keep it set to that channel, and not change channels using the STB remote. I could use the DVDR to control the channel via its line out to the TV, but would rather not - it seems unnecessary wear and tear on the precious unit.

I thought that if I place a signal splitter between the coax passthru and the STB, I could run the passthru signal directly to the TV RF input, allowing me to use the TV in native mode to set my channels, and keeping the STB on the channel I want to automatically record every week.

Does this make sense, or is there a better solution? If it's the best idea, is any generic signal splitter suitable, or should I look for something in particular?

Thanks, guys!

This makes sense as long as your TV has a clear QAM tuner. If your TV does have a clear QAM tuner you may want to rescan the channels from the RF pass through. Keep in mind that the clear QAM sub-channels as tuned by your TV may be on somewhat different sub-channels than those tuned by your 2160; and these may also be very different than the "locations" where the services may be "mapped" according to the cable company numbering scheme as implemented by the STB.

I thought that if I send the signal from the DVDR coax pass-thru to the TV, it is identical to the raw signal from the wall jack?

My TV does not have a clear-QAM tuner - it's a late model Panny LCD with a beautiful picture, but technically behind the times.

I use a splitter to separate the signal from wall to the STB and H2160 - so each gets the feed directly. - The Comcast STB RCA cables go the 2160 and the RF output to the TV. - But I have an old TV that can't tune digital channels directly. - One thing you might consider if you have the full size Motortal Comcast set top box (not the litle DTA) is setting it to turn on and switch to channel you want to record automatically. - To do this, click on guide - Then move to the show you are interested in and click on VCR recording at the bottom of the screen- You can set it record daily or weekly or once at the designated time. - Then set your DVR to record with line in at the same time.

How do you watch s-video on this unit?
I use line in recording off of my cable box. I used the s-video "in" to the
s-video "out" of the cable box. When I plug and unplug the s-video cable I notice no difference in the picture quality. Shouldn't the picture be a little sharper with the s-video cable?

Something just struck me...

Has anyone noticed that within just a couple days (or so it seemed) of J&R starting to send out "A" units, suddenly they're out of stock?

Could it be someone realized they'd been given still-defective refurbs to sell as good units, and the decision was made to not sell people something that's still broken?

I mean, the 2160s don't even seem to be listed there any more. It's not that they're listed as out of stock. They're just not listed at all. Hmmm....