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Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575 - Page 330

post #9871 of 23784
6/28/10 at 5:52pm
To answer Wajo and others, I have done the automatic analog/digital settings 4 times.

I can also see channels on the passthru via HDMI on the TV.

I also figured out the direct entry method of channel tuning on the remote control, but if I press the CHANNEL <<>> buttons on the front of the unit and on the remote it just switches to L1-L2-L3 inputs.

BUT STILL I see no Time-Warner cable channels on the DVR. I tell it to go to "channel 3", for example, and it says "scanning..." and nothings shows. Black screen and the "scanning" bit remains.

This is probably the second unit I've tried that doesn't function [the first one's DVD tray wouldn't open]. And this is probably my last attempt to make this technology work. It's just on the precipice of being a royal PIA.

Any lifesaving suggestions before I quit altogether?

Thanks to everyone


Quote:
Originally Posted by wajo View Post

You've got a good cable connection if you can see channels on your TV... that's the signal passing thru the coax in/out on the 2160, or the "raw" cable signal. If you have channels on your TV, then it's something in the 2160 keeping you from seeing them thru the separate HDMI connection.

Can you see channels thru your TV's tuner?

If your TV has channels, you might try another Setup > General Settings > Channel > Auto Channel Preset > Cable (Analog/Digital). I've needed several (3) of those with my cable TV system at times.
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post #9872 of 23784
6/28/10 at 6:04pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ujijin View Post

Any lifesaving suggestions before I quit altogether?

Did you press the DTV/TV button, 2nd button upper left area, to switch to other tuner?

Waitaminute! You can "see channels on the passthru via HDMI on the TV"?

The "passthru" is only thru the coax cable. If you're seeing channels via HDMI, those must be channels in the 2160?
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post #9873 of 23784
6/28/10 at 6:44pm
Thanks Wajo, that was wrong: I don't see channels tuning on the DVR via HDMI. I see channels on the passthru/coax. So I know I'm getting good signal from cable.

Now doing analog channel auto-set for the third time.

So I'm not seeing anything besides the "now scanning" bit on the TV screen when I instruct the DVR to tune to "channel 3," let's say, even on TV [not DTV]. This suggests that the DVR will record blank titles because it's just not tuning.




Quote:
Originally Posted by wajo View Post

Did you press the DTV/TV button, 2nd button upper left area, to switch to other tuner?

Waitaminute! You can "see channels on the passthru via HDMI on the TV"?

The "passthru" is only thru the coax cable. If you're seeing channels via HDMI, those must be channels in the 2160?
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post #9874 of 23784
6/28/10 at 7:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by stump69 View Post

Congrats!

Thanks man. July 30th is along ways off though.
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post #9875 of 23784
6/28/10 at 7:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wajo View Post

Two questions, please answer both:

1. Did you press the DTV/TV button to switch to the digital tuner... you'll see a DTV in upper right corner. Then surf thru all DTV channels with CH+/- button.

Your TV most likely has a diff. tuner, called "integrated" or "combo', that tunes all analog and digital channels in sequence. The 2160 has to be manually switched between analog and digital.

You may have NO ANALOG CHANNELS!

2. Did you really mean you were doing "analog channel auto-set for third time"?

Wajo--to your questions:

1. Yes, I pressed the DTV/TV button, switching from digital to analog. It shows up in the upper left side of the unit display. It also appear on the TV screen, upper right, as L1 (Rear)/DTV.

2. I've done both types of channel auto-sets, thinking that the cable service is either analog, analog/digital or all digital. After numerous run-throughs of auto-channel set under all of these options, the DVR still does not appear to tune channels, either in DTV mode after analog/digital auto-channel set, or in TV mode after analog auto-channel set. I think I'm trying all the options, but I'm getting the same result.

Anyway that's my shot at answering your questions. Thank you Wajo!
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post #9876 of 23784
6/29/10 at 7:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles_I View Post

I'm doing lots of dubbing from my old VHS tapes. If I record a title at SP speed onto my HD is there any quality difference between dubbing it to DVD at High SP or High HQ? There shouldn't be, since the original was recorded at SP, but I'm not sure if I can detect a slight difference with an HQ transfer. I've tried it both ways. Have you done any tests for this wajo?

Sorry wajo I think you misunderstood what I was asking - I shouldn't have mentioned the VHS part of it.

Consider this. I have a title recorded at SP on my HD (doesn't matter from where). I want to burn it to a disc. There is plenty of room on the disc to burn this title at High speed whether I use SP or HQ. Given that the original was recorded at SP is there any difference between:

HD to DVD - High speed - at SP on the recorder
or
HD to DVD - High speed - at HQ on the recorder

Not sure if I can detect a slight improvement using the HQ speed when dubbing - but it leaves less room left on the disc of course.
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post #9877 of 23784
6/29/10 at 7:07am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles_I View Post

Sorry wajo I think you misunderstood what I was asking - I shouldn't have mentioned the VHS part of it.

Consider this. I have a title recorded at SP on my HD (doesn't matter from where). I want to burn it to a disc. There is plenty of room on the disc to burn this title at High speed whether I use SP or HQ. Given that the original was recorded at SP is there any difference between:

HD to DVD - High speed - at SP on the recorder
or
HD to DVD - High speed - at HQ on the recorder

Not sure if I can detect a slight improvement using the HQ speed when dubbing - but it leaves less room left on the disc of course.

On the bolded part of your post, the source makes ALL the difference in recording strategy (plus encoder quality, of course).

On the HD/HSD thing, you can't High speed at another rec mode... the HIGH selection creates a mirror image of the HDD title, incl. the rec mode.

The links in my other post describe my results in "converting" a HDD title to another rec mode with a RTD, like an HQ title converted to SP or vice versa.
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post #9878 of 23784
6/29/10 at 7:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ujijin View Post

Thanks Wajo, that was wrong: I don't see channels tuning on the DVR via HDMI. I see channels on the passthru/coax. So I know I'm getting good signal from cable.

Now doing analog channel auto-set for the third time.

So I'm not seeing anything besides the "now scanning" bit on the TV screen when I instruct the DVR to tune to "channel 3," let's say, even on TV [not DTV]. This suggests that the DVR will record blank titles because it's just not tuning.

Have you tried the cable from the wall into a TV? If it works to the tv, have you made sure it is going into the IN connection and not the out? Just my two cents worth.
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post #9879 of 23784
6/29/10 at 7:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles_I View Post

I'm doing lots of dubbing from my old VHS tapes. If I record a title at SP speed onto my HD is there any quality difference between dubbing it to DVD at High SP or High HQ? There shouldn't be, since the original was recorded at SP, but I'm not sure if I can detect a slight difference with an HQ transfer. I've tried it both ways. Have you done any tests for this wajo?

When you record onto the DVDR it is converting analog into a digital format. It does not do any upconverting. While there may be a difference in the way it encodes to HQ and SP if anything, there may be a downgrade to SP. If you cannot tell that big of difference between the two and you are comfortable with SP and want to put more onto a DVD then stay with SP from VHS to the Hard Drive. If you record it on the Hard Drive as HQ it cannot high speed dub it to the DVD into SP. It has to re-encode it in real time. You then spent twice as much time as you needed to.

If you have good quality SP on your VHS going into the DVDR, then to keep them at HQ in a digital format record them at HQ. If the SP is fair on your VHS then record them in SP onto your DVDR and you will get more per DVD.

Recording from HQ on the Hard Drive to SP on the DVD will work just fine, however it will do it in real time instead of high speed dubbing and you still may get a slight downgrade in quality.
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post #9880 of 23784
6/29/10 at 8:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles_I View Post

I'm doing lots of dubbing from my old VHS tapes. If I record a title at SP speed onto my HD is there any quality difference between dubbing it to DVD at High SP or High HQ? There shouldn't be, since the original was recorded at SP, but I'm not sure if I can detect a slight difference with an HQ transfer. I've tried it both ways. Have you done any tests for this wajo?


I did a lot of VHS to DVD on a Philips HD720.

Personally, I though the SP looked the same as HD. The most interesting thing, I though the SP DVD from the VHS looked better than the original VHS. I suspect that it has something to to with the way MPEG compresses the video, I think it compressed a lot of the noise out of the picture but the detail appeared to be spared.

There is no way you would confuse the results with a commercial DVD but the results are watchable.
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post #9881 of 23784
6/29/10 at 9:07am
Quote:


you can't High speed at another rec mode

Seems to me you can. If you High Speed dub a half hour program recorded at SP to a DVD with the recorder set to HQ, you only have half an hour (roughly I know) left on the DVD - whereas if you have the recorder set at SP when you dub it at High Speed you have roughly 1 1/2 hours left on the DVD.

I've fallen into this trap a couple of times where I thought I had 1 1/2 hours left but because the recorder was set to HQ when I dubbed at High Quality - it actually transferred my SP recorded title at HQ speed.
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post #9882 of 23784
6/29/10 at 9:11am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles_I View Post

Seems to me you can. If you High Speed dub a half hour program recorded at SP to a DVD with the recorder set to HQ, you only have half an hour (roughly I know) left on the DVD - whereas if you have the recorder set at SP when you dub it at High Speed you have roughly 1 1/2 hours left on the DVD.

I've fallen into this trap a couple of times where I thought I had 1 1/2 hours left but because the recorder was set to HQ when I dubbed at High Quality - it actually transferred my SP recorded title at HQ speed.

You're mixing up what the recorder shows as time remaining on a DVD with the dubbing process.

If you dub a 30-min. show to a DVD, either HSD or RTD, with the recorder set for HQ, then look to see how much time is remaining on that DVD, it shows the time remaining AT THE RECORDER'S CURRENTLY SELECTED REC MODE.

If you check a DVD capacity and change the rec mode with the rec mode button, you'll see all the DIFFERENT times based on each rec mode... juist like it does if you've selected the HDD at the time.

P.S. I forgot to mention that doing a RTD from HDD to DVD sets the machine for whatever rec mode you selected for the RTD.
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post #9883 of 23784
6/29/10 at 10:19am
Oh, OK, so it's not the ACTUAL time left on the DVD? Are you saying then that it makes no difference what the recorder is set at if you choose High Speed? If the tile is recorded at SP it will always take up an SP amount of space at High Speed no matter what the recorder is set at?
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post #9884 of 23784
6/29/10 at 10:29am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles_I View Post

Oh, OK, so it's not the ACTUAL time left on the DVD? Are you saying then that it makes no difference what the recorder is set at if you choose High Speed? If the tile is recorded at SP it will always take up an SP amount of space at High Speed no matter what the recorder is set at?

Well, it IS the actual time but only at the selected rec mode, so it's "actual" for that mode only.

A HSD doesn't care what you've set the default rec mode for. Also, your default rec mode won't be changed as it is with a RTD.
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post #9885 of 23784
6/29/10 at 12:16pm
Thanks Wajo. So it doesn't matter what speed your recorder is set to when you dub into HS.

BTW I find that SP is good enough for 2hr speed VHS recorded tapes - the ones recorded at the 6hr speed will transfer at SPP without any noticeable difference (to me).
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post #9886 of 23784
6/29/10 at 12:29pm
ujijin 9881:
Have you ever gotten the tuner to do anything? I would give one last shot before sending it back whence it came. I would drag out a VCR and play a tape with the RF to Antenna In on the Maggie.
While the tape is playing, select to scan for analog TV channels.
The Mag should find either 3 or 4 after a while.

If it doesn't find a dang thing, its broke. Hope it is under warranty for you wallet's sake.
tom
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post #9887 of 23784
6/29/10 at 12:33pm
Has anyone tried using a CECB to get an analog time setting signal to a 2080? The CECB captures the SDTV signals, with an embedded time signal of some sort.. maybe not... and blurts them out on RF or composite. Wouldn't the 2080 be able to capture an analog time signal or is that information thrown in the bit bucket?
As an example, I have a CECB connected composite/r/l into a box that will output the signal on 13-17UHF or 60-6x UHF combined with antenna input. I have the output wired throughout the house for all to see. I have a 2080 that creeps its clock all the time, and wondered if I could set it to analog from a CECB.
Does anyone know if the CECBs keep or throw away time signals that one used to get from PBS, etc.?
tom
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post #9888 of 23784
6/29/10 at 1:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles_I View Post

Thanks Wajo. So it doesn't matter what speed your recorder is set to when you dub into HS.

BTW I find that SP is good enough for 2hr speed VHS recorded tapes - the ones recorded at the 6hr speed will transfer at SPP without any noticeable difference (to me).

You have to look at HQ, SP, and SPP as quality (or size) and not speed. It is the mode you are compressing the data in. The more you compress the data, the lower the quality gets. On a VHS tape the speed did slow down so you could get more on the tape but the condensing of the data caused the picture quality to go down, also the magnetic material on a "stretchy" surface did not help either.

A digital signal is a digital signal. When you encode the signal you have options of "leaving" out data to make the package smaller. Your dvd does not spin faster or slower. The content is already the size it will be. That is why you can jump around in a DVD because; as it is decoding the information, it also knows where that information is. Encoding and Decoding is done in real time. High speed dubbing is a way to make or "burn" the information faster than real time. The common speed of today's material is 16 speed. 16 times faster than real time. Di-hards here still like to get 8x or 4x material, because the older DVDR's burn at that speed and the material is optimized for that speed. Yes, the disk is spinning faster when making a copy, but that is why it is high speed dubbing. It is still just a copy.

You now have to pay attention to what mode the DVDR is in HQ, SP, etc. While the quality may not change that much, you will see a big difference in how much material (how many shows) you can record onto the hard drive and the DVD. HQ on a DVD = 1 hour (4.5 gigs) on the hard Drive (160 gigs) = roughly 30hours. SP will double this amount. DVD = 2 hours. Hard Drive = 60 hours.
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post #9889 of 23784
6/29/10 at 3:47pm
Tom-great suggestion. It's intriguing. I will try it this evening.

Cheers


Quote:
Originally Posted by tmwalsh0 View Post

ujijin 9881:
Have you ever gotten the tuner to do anything? I would give one last shot before sending it back whence it came. I would drag out a VCR and play a tape with the RF to Antenna In on the Maggie.
While the tape is playing, select to scan for analog TV channels.
The Mag should find either 3 or 4 after a while.

If it doesn't find a dang thing, its broke. Hope it is under warranty for you wallet's sake.
tom
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post #9890 of 23784
6/29/10 at 5:55pm
Following Tom's Dr. Evil-quality* suggestion, I put a tape in the VCR, put the VCR on "play", connected the RF-out on the VCR to the ANT-IN jack on the 2160. I then went into "setup" on the 2160, and told it to auto-set analog channels. After completing the auto-set I tried to tune to channel 3. Nothing. Black screen. I did the auto-set several times. No joy.

I then manually added a few channels on the lower end [2-5]. Exiting setup, I tuned to channel 2, 3, 4 and 5. Nothing--still a blank screen.

I did hook the VCR through component cable to the TV, and upon selecting that input on the TV the videotape came through just fine.

So: in the end the 2160 can't even tune an analog channel 3 from an old but functional VCR. Back to Planet 73 it goes.

The truly disappointing thing about all of this is that this is the second unit in a row that's been DOA, from two different suppliers, one brand new and the second one refurbished. Not a good trend.

Thanks to everyone who patiently cycled through this misadventure with me.

Perhaps I'll get a replacement from the vendor and see what happens.

Cheers


*genius-level.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tmwalsh0 View Post

ujijin 9881:
Have you ever gotten the tuner to do anything? I would give one last shot before sending it back whence it came. I would drag out a VCR and play a tape with the RF to Antenna In on the Maggie.
While the tape is playing, select to scan for analog TV channels.
The Mag should find either 3 or 4 after a while.

If it doesn't find a dang thing, its broke. Hope it is under warranty for you wallet's sake.
tom
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post #9891 of 23784
6/29/10 at 6:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ujijin View Post

...

I did hook the VCR through component cable to the TV, and upon selecting that input on the TV the videotape came through just fine.

So: in the end the 2160 can't even tune an analog channel 3 from an old but functional VCR. Back to Planet 73 it goes

....

Did you mean "composite cable to the TV"? To complete the test , I think you also need to hook the VCR RF out to the TV directly, and tune it to channel 3, to verify that the same signal is good for the TV and bad for the H2160.
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post #9892 of 23784
6/29/10 at 6:45pm
Some VCRs don't send an RF signal unless the VCR or Monitor button is pressed...
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post #9893 of 23784
6/29/10 at 10:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ujijin View Post

Following Tom's Dr. Evil-quality* suggestion, I put a tape in the VCR, put the VCR on "play", connected the RF-out on the VCR to the ANT-IN jack on the 2160. I then went into "setup" on the 2160, and told it to auto-set analog channels. After completing the auto-set I tried to tune to channel 3. Nothing. Black screen. I did the auto-set several times. No joy.

The 2160's have 3 "Auto Channel Presets".
- Antenna
- Cable (Analog)
- Cable (Analog/Digital)

Did you scan using Antenna or one of the two Cable options? If you didn't use the Antenna option, try a rescan using that option. Keep the same RF in/out setup you described above, and have a tape playing during the scan.
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post #9894 of 23784
6/29/10 at 10:41pm
Did both..TV tunes just fine to VCR; VCR button pushed. Thanks to Bodhi and Chuck for your take. Still no joy.




Quote:
Originally Posted by bodhi78 View Post

Did you mean "composite cable to the TV"? To complete the test , I think you also need to hook the VCR RF out to the TV directly, and tune it to channel 3, to verify that the same signal is good for the TV and bad for the H2160.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck44 View Post

Some VCRs don't send an RF signal unless the VCR or Monitor button is pressed...
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post #9895 of 23784
6/29/10 at 10:44pm
Waldwolf, I did all three options on channel setting. Several times each. Good question, though.
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post #9896 of 23784
6/30/10 at 4:43am
Since it appears you are making it all the way thru the channel scan without a freeze up, your tuner does not appear to be bad.

I haven't seen anyone mention this, but have you swapped out the HDMI cable? It might be bad. Or, some TVs need to have the HDMI input source turned on before the TV is turned on in order to get the handshake done properly. Another thing, have you pressed the HDMI button on the Magnavox's remote to cycle thru the possible output types. You may have it set for one your TV does not recognize. That also goes for the progressive scan setting--it may be turned on and your TV does not support it.

You might also want to try using YWR RCA cables. Maybe the HDMI output is bad.
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post #9897 of 23784
6/30/10 at 10:22am
Listen to mreedelp, his advice is sound.

Whenever you have an issue with any electrical equipment, drop back to the simplest possible connection. That means nothing digital, use the oldest analog available and that means composite.

There are all sorts of opportunities for incompatibility issues between devices when HDMI or DVI or whatever are used.
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post #9898 of 23784
6/30/10 at 12:53pm
This may a bit OT, but as there have been discussions concerning what channels can be picked up, I was hoping someone could explain something to me.

I use TW digital cable and have two 2160s; all of sudden I couldn't' tune PBS & Fox QAM (15.1 & 69.1). I rescanned both units and they came back as 18.6 & 18.5. All is well, right? But here's the strange part; I have 6 TVs, 2 with a combo tuner. The four with a single tuner still work with the old numbers, but the two combos don't. I rescanned both; one came in with 18.1 & 18.4 and the other can't even find the new numbers (so no PBS & Fox on that one now).

Just wondering if anyone has encountered this type of thing and would be willing to explain it to me. I'm a bit confused.

Sorry is this has been covered before or is OT. The other thread I was using in now locked so have not been following this one.
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post #9899 of 23784
6/30/10 at 1:40pm
Thread Starter 
Joe and everyone else:

Your question on tuners caused me to look up a ref. I had found awhile ago re: "combo" and "hybrid" tuners (ours) that *might* explain things, not only in what you see, but also in what MANY Comcast or other cable subs are seeing today.

That ref. on tuners has a statement in it that hit me between the eyes and a small lightbulb blinked on for a sec or two:

"'Hybrid' tuners are not desirable as they force you to choose one or the other, what is more these cards are often less compatible with MCE 2005 which expects to see a dedicated analog tuner alongside the digital tuner, in a hybrid design the analog tuner suddenly disappears/is locked from use when a digital TV channel is tuned."

It's for a diff. system but please ignore for now. It also refers to analog channels disappearing if a digital channel is tuned, but A FEW have been seeing the opposite! They've reported a certain digital channel or channels missing, but on deleting corresponding analog channel(s), the digital(s) appeared.

I also noticed when trying to combine VHF analogs in an analog/digital cable-scanned unit, adding any analog channel above 13 CAN CAUSE ALL DIGITALS TO DISAPPEAR.

Without getting into theories or the details of tuning, I think it might be "interesting" if some of our users' with digital tuning problems... esp. those who said their Panasonics and TVs with their "combo" tuners had no problem tuning but their 2160 did (or whatever)... might do well if they DELETED any analog channels from CH+/- memory so they can't be tuned, turn off their machine, turn back on and see if anything changes on the digital tuner?

Brief procedure for Deleting channels:

Tune analog channel, open Manual Channel Prerset menu, surf from one analog to the next, arrow down and press OK to move the checkmark from "Add" to "Delete" for each channel. Make sure you see the checkmark move. Press the Back/Return button to activate your channel changes, then SETUP button to exit the menus.

Try surfing thru the analog tuner to see if anything shows up that you missed... should go directly to line inputs L1, L2 etc. and that's all.

If no change after turining machine off then back on, you can either re-enter analogs manually or do another Auto Channel Preset.
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post #9900 of 23784
6/30/10 at 2:13pm
Well, I'm thoroughly confused I probably misspoke in my post. The 2160 tuners are hybrid, correct? So the tuners in the two TVs that picked up different (or no) QAM stations are also hybrid I assume. The four good TVs then must be combos; if I understand this correctly.

I just re-scanned the bad TV to no avail. I will try playing with it some more as you suggested, but I think it's just not a quality tuner in this TV; good excuse to buy more toys .

Again, the 2160s are fine, but was just curious as to why the channel locations changed.

Thanks for all your input and help!!
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AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › DVD Recorders (Standard Def) › Magnavox 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575