DVR-1100c: Experience With Timers

[elder]

I ran a couple of tests with a flash drive tonight. First I recorded a two hour program which actually started to record about 22 seconds late due to "checking USB", actual length of the record was 1:59:45 but I can't tell if the start was only 15 seconds late or if there was also slop on the end. Next I tried sequential timers for 30 minutes each with a channel (and TP) change, the first timer was again about 22 seconds late and the second timer didn't record. I plan to try the sequential test again in case I goofed. A better test would be to wait for EPG and try sequential programs there. My suspicion is that the "saving data" delay may kill it.

I need to reformat my Maxtor OneTouch 4Plus hard drive before I can test it. I had reformatted it back to NTFS in attempt to use it for its original intent, but lost something in the transition and haven't gotten any response from Seagate yet (probably due to the holidays). I would like to partition it, but don't know if it's possible to have one partition formatted to FAT32 and the other to NTFS (but that's another story).

 

[Glorystar1]

So we can have a better understanding and qualify this test, please list the receiver's firmware and data version, the drive manufacturer, model, USB 1.0 or 2.0 and memory size. Also let us know if you formatted the USB flash drive with the receiver. Is the receiver set to manual or auto time? It might also be useful to specify the channels that you attempt to record, the timer number assigned for each event with the start and stop times.

How to test for drive Sleep / Hibernation: If the play button is pressed on the remote, does the Recorded Program List instantly appear or does it take 10 - 15 seconds? If there is a delay in displaying the Recorded Program List, the drive may actually be entering a sleep or hibernation mode. Once the Recorded Program List appears, press the exit button to remove the display then instantly press the record button. Does the receiver begin recording within 2 or 3 seconds? If so, the drive is staying online and instantly cueing for the recording because it is not going into hibernation. Most issues that we are seeing in timer recordings is related to the drive entering a power saving hibernation or sleep mode.

 

[elder]

Better News

I suspect many of my problems are of my own making. My flash drive is a Dane-Elec 4GB (DA-ZMP2-4096- R) and it consistently yields a 20-22 second delay. It was formatted by the DVR. The Maxtor seemed little better so my thought was to use the flash for recording and archive to the Maxtor after editing with VideoReDo TV Suite. Now I will discuss my Maxtor experience.

The Maxtor is the OneTouch4Plus, I originally formatted it to FAT32 with the DVR. When I wanted to edit videos I would carry the drive to the computer. If I pushed the OneTouch button with it connected to the computer I would get a dialog box saying the drive was formatted to FAT32. After using it in this manner for a while it became incompatible with VideoReDo and I could no longer burn DVDs. It turns out that I had missed a setting in VideoReDo that would have precluded the computer from selecting the drive with the most free space for VideoReDo Temp files and thus had corrupted the drive. I reformatted the drive to NTFS but could never get the OneTouch button to work again. My guess is that reformatting to NTFS wiped out the OneTouch S/W partition.

In preparing to perform timer testing I reformatted the Maxtor to FAT32 using the DVR and now it handily outperforms the flash drive. I tried sequential records with a channel change and only lost about 3-4 seconds total record time on each 30 minute record (Ch 108 then Ch 110). I use manual adjust on DVR time and set to forum clock as needed.

My system data is SW:GS03:15 (Nov 05) /Data Ver: 01:08