GEOSATpro My impression of the MicroHD

[Dee_Ann]

A few weeks have passed, or more, I promised Brian I would give an honest review of this little gem.
The past few weeks have been really tough, constant squabbles with my boyfriend and then the one year mark of my mother passing away.
I haven't gotten much done lately.

I have to admit that when I first heard of this unit I thought "Oh, here we go again, more pie in the sky." and I rolled my eyes.
I have gone through several STBs and none of them impressed me.
My first STB was a Coolsat 6000. Eh.. It worked but no S2, no MP4 and the audio on my primary channels (MeTV & ThisTV) was unsupported! Not very useful in this day and age.
Besides, I believe it was really designed to be a pirate machine and not a true FTA machine. I think they added minimal FTA capability to try and slip it under the radar at the time.
It gathers dust.

Then I bought an Openbox S9 for my parents. The first one was junk. It would quit powering the LNB and motor at random thus rendering it inoperable.
We sent it back and they exchanged it for another one. Unfortunately, my mother passed away before the replacement came in so she never got to enjoy satellite.
I was doing all that for her. I wanted to introduce her to the wonderful world of MeTV (which wasn't on local OTA yet) so she could watch all her old favorite shows like Bob Newhart and Columbo. Sigh...

So maybe like a month after my mom passed away I got the new S9 hooked up and working for my dad. It's problematic and finicky and Dad has trouble with it from time to time. We've come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is just unplug it for a few minutes and try again. What a pain in the a** !! The other thing that I HATE about the Openbox tuners is the remote control. White text on white buttons! What genius came up with that????
My mom was going blind and couldn't read the buttons. My dad was going blind but has had treatments that have mostly reversed the damage but his vision is still not what it once was. And I can not focus on anything closer than two feet without reading glasses. Those remotes SUCK...... BAD DESIGN!!!!!!

As for myself, I bought an Openbox S10 shortly after my folks got their first S9. Right out of the box it got HOT. Too hot to touch and so hot that I was very concerned it would set a fire to my house! And I also didn't need ANOTHER gadget adding to the heat problem in my house, it's bad enough as it is. So my dad helped me put a little fan in the top of the case which of course voided the warranty. Eh. I didn't care. Not to mention, the sticker that said not to open it because you would void the warranty, was printed in Russian! I read it but not many people over here do. REALLY Openbox???? And the power cord was a stupid Euro type with a cheap adapter that kept falling off. Terrible!!

I hate that machine. The timers are a joke. I couldn't record shows for one thing. And then there's the frequent problem of it not booting up. It more often than not would hang up and just say "ON" and never get to saying "BOOT". I would spend hours plugging and unplugging the stupid thing trying to get it to boot. Usually it would after a lot of effort. But I let it sit a few months, turned off, and when I tried to turn it on it would never boot. I have come to the conclusion that it's dead. I don't care. I unplugged it and chunked it in the junk pile with the other broken junk I've blown money on.

I do still have my HTPC and it has an S2 tuner and an ATSC tuner BUT, it's a real pain to operate it from my bedroom. It's in another room and the remote control doesn't work through walls.
Another very serious problem with the HTPC, it can not operate an HH motor. The Hauppage S2 tuner card doesn't have enough power to run a motor, no way, no how. THAT sucks.


So I went looking for something else. I saw the MicroHD had actually become a reality during my long absence (watching Dish Network like a zombie vegetable for most of the year).

I checked in this forum and I saw posts like "timer bla bla bla" and "problem with bla bla bla" and I thought "Yep. Too good to be true!"

So then I went to looking for an Azbox. I wanted one that had an ATSC tuner and S2 tuner and all the internet app thingies too. But I tried to catch that bus a little too late and it seems they don't make them anymore. Oh well..

I posted a WTB for an Azbox and made a comment to the effect that I wasn't impressed with the MicroHD because I had scanned over the message headers and made the assumption that it was no different or no better than all the others.

Brian with SatelliteAV contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in trying one out in exchange for posting an HONEST review of it. I said sure, why not!

I gave him my info and I figured it would the next week before I would see it here. LOL! Was I wrong! It arrived like 2 days later.
I was sleeping late (I normally rise at the crack O'noon) when the alarms went off. I have cameras on my porch and a motion sensor. I have a monitor at the foot of my bed I sleep with it on so I can peek out of one eye and see everything going on outside. I saw the postman on my porch putting something on top of my mailbox. I couldn't tell what it was but it was small so I assumed it was a book from Amazon. I was thinking "What the heck did I order? I don't remember ordering a book lately!" I laid there about half an hour staring at the package on my porch trying to figure it out. Meh... So I finally decided to get up and go see what it was. I poked my hand through the door and grabbed the little package and was still dumbfounded as to what it could be. I didn't have my glasses on so I couldn't read the label yet. I go to the kitchen, poke the coffee pot button and find my glasses. OH! Surprise! A little gift from SatelliteAV !! Woo Hoo!!

I go get dressed and grab my camera, the package, my glasses and some coffee and head out to the patio to take photos.
To make it easy to understand how small this thing is, I put a standard size coffee cup and an iPhone next to it.
Seriously, this thing is crazy small!

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And of course being the curious one, I saw that there was no sticker on it that said "DO NOT OPEN!" so what did I do? Opened it of course.

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I do not believe that anyone can fix or monkey with anything in here! If this thing breaks it goes back to the factory!


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So then I bring it in the house and pull the dead Openbox out and put this little gem in it's place.
First up I had to go in and select the satellites I am interested in then configure it for the weird switch and motor combo I have.

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This is just too hard to explain but here's a go at it. The 1.8m dish will soon be a KU dish for Dish Network 129w (for my HD) There is a 1.2m for 119w and a 1m for 110w.
There is a 1m on an HH motor and that's for the MicroHD only. There are three KU Directway dishes connected to my HTPC through a 1x8 switch.
The 10' Cband dish is shared between my HTPC and the MicroHD with a dual output LNB. One side goes into the 1x8 for the HTPC, the other side goes into a switch so the MicroHD can select between the HH motor KU dish or the Cband dish. I usually leave the Cband dish parked on 101x for MeTV and ThisTV. I do have a Gbox that can move the dish but I operate it manually, I don't allow any tuner to move the dish.

At first I had a 1x4 switch between the KU HH and the C. I configured the MicroHD for that and it worked fine. I could move the KU dish all over the place and Me & This were coming in great on C.
Then I monkeyed with something and I had problems so I changed the switch out for an old 1x8 switch I found in the junk box. I don't understand how it works, it is labeled as a GOTO diseqc switch and it's really confusing.
I had it working for a day or two then it gave me trouble so I changed it out for a 22khz A/B switch. That has worked like a champ so I've left it alone.
Honestly, the problems I had with the other switches were because of me messing with them too much. If it ain't broke, don't fix it they say.

Do bear in mind that I decided I was going to do this the hard head way and wade into it without looking at the manual first. So, how'd that work out for ya honey?
Really, I was trying to see how hard it would be for someone with limited skills and knowledge such as myself to figure it out. I did pretty well, all things considered but I did have to look up one thing, how to get to the settings for the HH motor. I couldn't find where you put in your LON/LAT info so I caved in and looked at the manual.

And while I'm on the manual, believe it or not, it's written in readable English! No Engrish !!! Can you believe it?? +1 s for that!

(part one of several, I am saving this much right now because my pc crashes frequently! More to follow shortly)

 

[turbosat]

LOL I wouldn't call all that wiring and switches a product of 'someone with limited ability'. I understand what I need to do with switches and stuff ONE TIME-when I first install something. Then I just forget all about it because it clogs my memory!

 

[Dee_Ann]

Part two...


I also tried upgrading the software. Several times. That was fun.
I had no idea what I was doing but I was doing it!

I plugged in an really crummy old USB disc I had around and it worked.
But then I found the info button no longer gave me all the cool info I had seen earlier.

I spent a day trying to figure that out and in the process I down graded the software and re-upgraded it several times.
I did it via a thumbdrive and a download and then I tried it by satellite and both worked.
Doing it by satellite is sort of tough though because it doesn't go to the right transponder by itself, you have to find the right transponder manually so you really have to have some idea of what's going on.
That was a bit daunting but I figured it out. Some other folks might find it more difficult if they have never messed with a satellite before. But, it does work as advertised.

After messing with that for a few days I started messing with the clock. Uh oh....
If you have it auto set the clocks from the satellites you WILL have problems. Every satellite service sends down whatever dorky time and date strikes their fancy.
And this of course messes up timer recordings. Brian however advised me to take the clock off the automatic update setting and set it manually then just leave the tuner powered up all the time.
Well, I did and problem solved!

One of the things I've been wanting to do for a long time is record the Harveytoons on PBJ.. I didn't have a dish aimed at 83w anymore for my HTPC so I just didn't get it anymore.
Besides, my HTPC doesn't like Luken stuff, they compress it and do other fonky things to the video and my PC gives me a really poor picture on any Luken channel.

So I set timers to record Harveytoons twice a day at 2pm and 10:30. I gave it a one minute pad at the start and a 2 minute pad at the end just to cover if the clock is off a little.
That's worked out really well. I had the USB disc on a A/B/C/D USB switch so I could switch the disc between the PC and the tuner without playing with wires.

I recorded several days toons to disc then copied them to my PC and ran Handbrake to convert them from mpeg2 to MKV files. I used a comb filter and weak noise reduction and the files come out looking great!
One of these days I will edit out the commercials but this is a great start! I am exceptionally happy to be able to do this now!

Well, about that time all sorts of nonsense started happening here and personal issues pulled my attention away from this project for awhile.
Then the other day I noticed that the tuner said no USB disc was connected so I looked and the blue light on the disc was blinking steady. Uh oh..
Turns out the disc is very flaky and unreliable. Again, this is no fault of the tuner, it's my fault for using antique junk. I need to buy a new 2tb USB disc soon. Real soon.

After messing with that for half a day I got it working again and it's now recording again.

Oh, and I also finally found out that the info screen doesn't display if you are using the timeshift feature. I don't understand the reason why but they say there is a good reason why so I'll leave it at that.
I disabled the timeshift option, I got the info screen back and the disc doesn't chug all the time and get hot. Really all I need to do with it is record cartoons. Other than that, I'll just watch stuff in real time.

So then there are a few other things I have been wanting for a long time. I wanted a One box to rule them all solution but that's not happening.
I had trouble with receiving the local OTA ATSC channels too. So I bought an HH motor for TV antennas. It looks just like my Gbox and the remotes are identical shy of a few buttons.
I tried it and the remotes are interchangeable between the Gbox and the antenna rotor. This could pose a problem but I think I have the solution but that's another thread for later.

I have been wanted a Bluray so I bought one. And it has a bevy of internet features in it and WIFI N.
I also bought another 1x3 HDMI switch with remote control. I need to buy some more HDMI wires though.

I wanted to be able to play all my files on my HTPC and my WDTV box does that but it's a little clumsy.

Then I discovered a new thing (new to me) called DLNA when I was reading the manual on my new Bluray player. So I installed PLEX server on my HTPC, set it up (took me DAYS because it was confusing) and I finally got my Bluray to see ALL my saved files and play them back on my flat screen! Woo hoo!

Then today, I made the big move. My goal all along has been to have this stuff in my bedroom because I have a big flat screen on the wall. I wanted to be able to watch anything I want without having to fight flaky remote repeaters.
I took the MicroHD and the Bluray and put them in my bedroom and spent HOURS getting everything shuffled and wired to work right.

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And now this is the nightmare I am left with!

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I WISH I could get a small tablet, like an iPad mini to replace all these bleeping things!

Oh well.....


So now I have a satellite tuner in my bedroom that is stand alone from the HTPC in the other room. I can still switch between any and all of them but I will be less likely to do that now that I have the Bluray and a DLNA server setup.

I'm tickled that I can record Harveytoons now! And you know, I'm amazed that the picture on the MicroHD for any of the Luken stuff looks far superior to the picture I get on my HTPC. The HTPC doesn't like the weird BS Luken does to their video but the MicroHD handles it like a boss! The timer thing is a bit of an annoyance but I can leave the tuner powered up all the time and it works just fine.
It doesn't get hot though it is slightly warm. I wouldn't say it alarms me at all though, I could put my hand on it for an hour and no harm.

It moves my HH motor like a boss too! The old Openbox would never swing the dish any further west than 113w. It would just sit there and simply not work. I don't think it had the power to operate the motor.
The MicroHD moves it all the way from 72w to 129w without a problem. There's no point it trying it over those points because of trees. That's my field of view, period.

I do wish it had Ethernet but that's not a big deal. If it could record to a common. network shared drive, that would be way awesome!
If it could do DLNA that would be awesome! But again, that's not a biggie because now days most things have it like modern TV's and Bluray players (which I now own.)
I am impressed that it worked fine with all the weird switch combos I have. This is the only STB I have tried yet that worked with little effort on my part.
I am impressed with how freaking TINY this thing is! Are you kidding me?!!
I am impressed that it has been running around the clock for weeks, reliably !! It hasn't puked out or crashed or anything. The only problems it's had are either problems I created by messing with things after they were working just fine or because of the antique Lacie disc that's unreliable.

One thing I do find annoying and would complain about is that the wire from the wall wart to the tuner is way too short. If it were say, 8 feet long, that would be perfect! I think it's about 3 feet long which in MY opinion is too short.


With that I ma going to call it a night, I fell asleep in my chair for the past two hours and that's not cool. I'll finish up with this later today when I get up and feel better. I'm just too tired to finish this now.
Nite nite..

 

[chaskuchar]

thanks for the remarks. my openbox is still working well but i just use it now to test if the microhd is doing it's stuff... glad you are up and going with all the equipment. charlie

 

[Blindowl1234]

Dee Thanks for the honest review. I enjoy mine and have recorded lots of stuff. I've got pieces of paper everywhere reminding me to record stuff. I knew you'd be amazed at the size...sooo small. I appreciate all the effort Brian has done with this unit too. Why folks are buying S16-S20? Openboxes now I don't know. IMO they are wasting their money on a unit with no support.

 

[KE4EST]

Nice Review Dee.

 

[SatelliteAV]

Thanks for your honest review and photos! Appreciate that you took my challenge and put the microHD to the test.

I am sure that the microHD will provide years of entertainment without hassles! I don't develop or sell anything that I wouldn't have as part of my own system.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Arrrrghh.... Let me get the cobwebs out, get a few coffees in me and try to finish up where I left off last night.
I was soooo tired, I fell asleep in my chair while I was writing and when I woke up I just bailed out before I finished.
There are a few things I left open I want to mention before I call it a wrap. Back in a bit with more..
Thanks guys..

And thank you Brian, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity..

BRB..

 

[Dee_Ann]

Ok, there are a few more things I wanted to say now that I'm awake. (I keep weird hours)..

There are a few features of this tuner I haven't tried out yet.
Supposedly it can record one channel or two channels while you watch another channel at the same time as long as they are on the same transponder.

I haven't figured this one out yet, I just haven't had the time to try it. And to be honest, I'm skeptical.
I was watching something on PBS in HD. The video began to stutter and I got some sort of error message on the screen about the disc not keeping up or something. I wish I had written it down at the time.
I wasn't recording but I did have the time shift option enabled. I wasn't time shifting however, I was watching in real time but it was still going to disc in case I wanted to pause or back up.
I changed channels then went back to the same channel and it seemed ok. But I was in discovery mode so I went looking at other channels and features.

Shortly after that I turned off the time shift.

The disc I have is an OLD Lacie Big Disc (or is it disk? I don't know.) with two 300gb 7200 prm PATA-133 drives in it, the size available is 600gb. There's a lot of stuff on it that I'm saving as overflow from my HTPC so I guess there's about 250gb available to the MicroHD.
It's supposed to be USB 2.0 but I am not sure of that. I know that if I unplug it I have a hard time getting it to work again. I think it's on its last leg.

I need to buy, but can't afford it this month, to get a new USB SATA disc like I have on my Dish EHD. I have this little docking station that you can drop drives in and pop out like a toaster.
Fill one up? No problem, pop it out, store it, drop a new one in, carry on..

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I need to get the same thing for this tuner. It's not very pretty to look at but it has no cooling problems since there is no case for it to retain heat. Dust is my enemy though..
I have serious dust problems here because my yard is mostly dirt about 10x finer than corn starch. It gets in EVERYTHING. My old house has more air leaks in it than a screened in porch.

Anyway.. I am sure getting a better disc/disk will take care of things. I wish the tuner had an eSATA connector but I realize it would cost more. Oh well. Maybe though in the next version they can consider USB 3.0 ??
I guess I need to get two of those docks so I can leave one on the tuner and one on the PC, I can eject the disc, carry it to the PC, dump it then return it to the tuner.

I never tried the stuff that I think is really only used on sports, seems like I've heard it called 4:2:2 or something like that? I don't watch sports so it simply does not matter to me.
Oh, I like that the light on the box turns red when it's recording, that's nice to be able to glance at it and know that it's working without having to turn the TV on. I record cartoons twice a day on PBJ.

It seems solid and well thought out. I appreciate that they took their time to bring it to market so they could work out all the common annoyances.

Oh. The DVR... I tried to play back some assorted videos I have from my PC, in different formats like avi, mkv, mp4, divx, xvid, etc.. It does not play them all and that's ok with me, I have a Bluray player and a WDTV and the HTPC. Between them I can play ANYTHING. I don't see me ever using the tuner to play back anything other than what I record on it. Others however may want to do more with it.
But I understand that it would cost money to license all the video codecs and it would make it more of a pain to support all the video codecs so keeping it simple makes more sense.
It does what it needs to do plus a little extra so that should be good enough. I can't complain about that.

The next thing I need to try are the channel editors. I want to edit out all the $pay channels so I don't have them cluttering things up. They are useless to me.
I hope to try that out soon. This week coming is going to be a bit crowded since I have to do the family thing. Maybe next week.

And my dad. That freakin Openbox he has is just a pain. The next time he complains about it I'm buying a MicroHD for him and replacing that clunker, period. He'll be happier, I know it.
The remote is easier to see the buttons, there's less clutter on the remote and the unit is reliable. I would feel 100% confident in putting one of these at my dad's house and kicking that Openbox to the curb.

Bottom line? I like it. I really do. I love that it's so tiny, it made putting it in my bedroom a no brainer. Now when the local OTA of MeTV goes out as it always does about 10pm I can switch to this thing and carry on!
I can now watch Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt, Mr Ed and Patty Duke in bed without the usual grief of trying to operate my HTPC from the other room. And when those are over I can push a button and switch back to my Dish tuner and watch whatever I want there. I finally have flexibility, variety and options that I've been wanting for several years. And honestly, I see myself buying a second one of these for my crafts/computer room where I spend most of my time. It would be super extremely handy to take outside to use when I'm trying to align dishes since it does S2 which none of my meters do. It's actually smaller than my most high tech (non S2) meter.

Yep. It's a cool tuner. I would definitely recommend one to anyone looking to get a new tuner. It's easy to use if you're new to satellites and if you're a power user I think it will work for you too. I think I'm more or less in the middle there.

I like it. It's my opinion that it's well worth the money.

And again, thank you very much Brian and SatelliteAV for the opportunity to try this thing out. You sold me..

 

[primestar31]

Dee, here's how you can test out that record multiple channels thing: pop over to 83w KU, to the PBJ, RTV, Tuff channels. They are all on the same transponder. Set a simultaneous recording on PBJ and Tuff, and watch something on RTV all at the same time!

It's awesome, and that will teach you how to lookout for simular channels such as that scenario...

 

[Dee_Ann]

Dee, here's how you can test out that record multiple channels thing: pop over to 83w KU, to the PBJ, RTV, Tuff channels. They are all on the same transponder. Set a simultaneous recording on PBJ and Tuff, and watch something on RTV all at the same time!

It's awesome, and that will teach you how to lookout for simular channels such as that scenario...

I'll see if I can do that this evening. Maybe I should read the manual a little?

 

[SatelliteAV]

Thanks again for the review!

When time shift is ON, the drive is buffering the video even when you have not paused or rewound. The message indicates that the dive is not allowing the signal to be processed and the throughput speed may be borderline or content fragmented. Maybe first try defragmenting the drive?

You can keep all the logged channels, but sort out the scrambled services to play only the Free.
Select Menu>>>System>>>Other>>>Play File Type (FREE).

 

[Dee_Ann]

Thanks again for the review!

When time shift is ON, the drive is buffering the video even when you have not paused or rewound. The message indicates that the dive is not allowing the signal to be processed and the throughput speed may be borderline or content fragmented. Maybe first try defragmenting the drive?

You can keep all the logged channels, but sort out the scrambled services to play only the Free.
Select Menu>>>System>>>Other>>>Play File Type (FREE).

Awesomesauce! Thank you for the tip (hiding pay channels) !!

I've turned off time shift because I don't feel there's a huge need for it in my case, I can live without it.
I'll try the defragment thing. I didn't think about that. I don't use the windows much, the one windows PC I have is just a HTPC for me, my main PC is a Mac and you don't defragment Macs.
What I'm really shooting for is a whole new disc & dock for the MicroHD like the one I have on my Dish tuner. I think those old discs in the one I have on it now are probably just too slow, it uses a USB to PATA adapter in it and from what I have seen, PATA discs are long ago a thing of the past.


2: 2:I like this tuner! 2: 2:

 

[Tron]

The PATA to USB bridge is probably the culprit. In my esperience, PATA to USB bridges are extremely slow compared to SATA to USB bridges. I recently copied ~300 gigs of data from an old PATA drive to a new drive using a PATA to USB bridge, and I was very disappointed with the slow speed of the copy. I had to leave the machine on for nearly 24 hours during the process.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Oh, another thing I forgot to mention.

When I first got this thing I hooked it up to a 24" 1080P screen I have on my desk.
The tuner initially came up in like the lowest common display, like 480i which is just miserable to suffer through.
I instantly went to setup and changed it to 1080p.

Another thing I changed was that it was trying to stretch old 4:3 stuff to fit my 16:9 screen and it looked just foul. I hate that and I prefer to have the black bands on the sides if that's the format they send.
I found that there is an option in there that you can set so that it always displays 16:9 as it should be and always forces 4:3 stuff to display with the black bands on the sides and no squishing or stretching.
I LIKE THAT OPTION!


After I moved the tuner to my bedroom it was now on a different screen. The TV in there is a 32" Vizio flat screen that only goes up to 1080i but also does 720p and lower.

I updated the software just before I moved it to the other room and of course it did a full reset on everything.

When I powered it up on the Vizio I tuned to RTV and the picture was horrible! Gaaaaaah!! Yuck!

I went into the settings and I saw that there was an option that I think sets the screen resolution to match what ever they are transmitting the video.
So if they are sending 480i then it will set your screen to 480i.

Well, that looks horrible on a 32" flat screen! Yuck!

I went ahead and locked it to 1080i because the TV can't do 1080p and as I understand it, no broadcaster transmits in 1080p. Everything is 1080i or less.
There is very little HD on FTA anyway.

But anyway, after I locked it to 1080i and set it to display 16:9 as it and 4:3 with vertical letter box the picture became really good.

I've had a horrible experience with Luken stuff since they butchered the resolution a few years back but I've only seen it before through my HTPC which apparently doesn't handle their weird video very well.
The MicroHD handles it just fine. RTV and PBJ look really decent now, very watchable. I may start recording Offbeat Cinema and Wolfman Mac now so I can watch them on Friday nights since there is never anything at all on any channels on Friday nights. Sunday days too.

This tuner has brought back to me two channels that I had literally abandoned because they looked so awful on my HTPC.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Just following up a little.

I finally got around to reading the manual (which was an easy read since it's in actual English and not Engrish) and I discovered that all the previous issues that I had a little trouble with were addressed in the manual.

Had I read the manual from the get go, I could have saved myself from a few minor inconveniences and saved myself a little time. Ooooopsy!


That said, I now have a new problem that has me scratching my head.

Last night I went into my bedroom where the tuner is and I glanced at it. I noticed two green lights and not a red/green light. It was like 10:35pm and it should have been recording. Uh oh!
I powered up the TV and sure enough, it was not recording Harveytoons on PBJ as it was scheduled to do.

I grabbed the remote and pressed record and the red light went on. The cartoon recorded and when it was over I pressed stop. I now have it on disc.

Afterward I went to the timers screen and discovered that that timer I had created was turned off now.

This same thing happened yesterday. I tried to turn it back on but it kept giving me an error message that reads "Error: Invalid Entry. Continue Editing?" and the only button you can select says "Yes".
I tried several times to turn the timer on and it always gave me the error but then I did something, I have no idea what, and it allowed me to set the timer.

BUT, today, it did not execute the timer at 10:29 like I told it to do, like it has done for a few weeks. And today it's turned off again and nothing I do will allow me to turn it back on again.

I tried going to a blank, never before used time slot and create a new timer from scratch to record that cartoon and it gives me the same error.

I checked the clock and it's ok, I turned off the GMT auto-setting thing because every channel messes the clock and timers up so I set it manually by hand.

I had timers set for PBJ at 2pm and that one works fine. I have two timers set for RTV tomorrow night (Wolfman Mac and Offbeat Cinema) and so far they appear to be valid and alive. I created them yesterday so I won't know if they will execute or blow up until tomorrow.

I recorded a video of what is happening (with my crummy old iPhone).

[video]https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wmrnyi6a8c5ae85/n79LRJj_hc[/video]


Right now I'm baffled and stumped. I have no clue what's going on with this. I'm a little heart broken too because I was so happy to be recording my Harveytoons but now something took a poop on itself and I don't know what's going. I'm hoping you guys know what this is and that it's an easy fix.

Thanks!

 

[primestar31]

I can't see your video, it shows somebody else's. Anyway, make SURE you have no other timers overlapping the time on this one. For instance, since the MicroHD doesn't yet have a Monday-Friday timer setting, IF you set a .30 minute timer for say 10:30pm Daily, even though maybe what you want to record is only Monday through Friday, it will NOT let you set a ONCE timer during 10:30-11:00pm on Saturday and Sunday. It'll give the "invalid timer" deal.

So, my recommendation is first: Reboot the receiver in case there's a memory leak. Then, go through all your timers, and make sure none of them overlap. That can be hard to see, as I've had this hit me a bunch of times. Great receiver, but it's only 95% there in my opinion. A few more new firmwares, and it should be 99%. I'd like 100%, but there's usually always room for improvement..

 

[SatelliteAV]

Couldn't playback the video, but looking at the photos it looks like a third timer was attempted to be set during the duration of the the other two timers.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Couldn't playback the video, but looking at the photos it looks like a third timer was attempted to be set during the duration of the the other two timers.

Here's another attempt to paste the link for the video,

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/106899587/IMG_1434.MOV


I think I see what you are saying about the overlap.

But, what about the situation where the tuner is supposed to be able to record two things at once as long as they are on the same transponder?

PBJE and RTVE are both on the same transponder on 83W.

As for overlap, I had set the PBJ timers to run over the tuner clock is not precisely set, I was trying to give it some wiggle room.

I suppose I can set 6 timers with the wiggle room but on Saturday have a separate timer that does not overlap and just hope for the best on it.

Thanks!


Oh snap! Wait..... I just realized the potential problem on Saturday! I am set to record RTVE from 9pm Saturday to 11pm then again from 11pm to 1am Sunday. That's four hours there.
And I was trying to record PBJ on Saturday from 10:29pm to 11:01pm. If it can't record two channels at once then I guess I'll be losing the Saturday night PBJ recording.

Is this my problem?

 

[SatelliteAV]

At 11pm 1 timer is ending and a 2nd timer is starting. A 3rd timer event cannot be executed or in progress at 11pm. Offset start / stop timer settings by one minute to allow a second timer to record through.