Trying to retrieve HDD recordings before RMAing old 622.

waltinvt

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Feb 16, 2004
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Dish got sick of reading my rants about my 622 and the 4xx debacle, so they contacted me a while ago (see other thread). To make a long story short, they "next-day-air'd" me a new (not refurbished) 622 which I authorized last night.

Naturally I had to disconnect the old one in the process. My plan was to hook an S-Vid connection from it (the old one) to my dvd recorder and transfer the contents of the HDD. Of course I got the "acquiring signal" message since it's no longer hooked to the dish, so I just menu'd over to "My Recordings". Now I find a bunch of the recordings are now labeled as "locked events". Mind you I'm trying to work all this with the front panel buttons to avoid remote interference.

Anyway, why would this happen to some of my recordings and not others?
 
No idea why some would lock and not others. I pulled an older 721 out of the stream when I got my 622, and all the programs there looked fine - had to skip the "Acquiring..." messages like you did, but none were locked. I was actually looking at them last night. If the events are locked, does that mean you can't view them to record? I did notice I can't delete any of the timers that were set up....

One suggestion - you could change the remote address on the old 622. If you use the IR remote, I think it's only address 1 or 2, but the RF remote can be 1-9 (I think). I changed ours last night to 5.

HTH
 
Walt :eureka:, why don't you just send the programs to your external HDD which naturally can be used on any receiver on your account?:devil:

If you don't want to reprogram the remote, just have the new 622 in standby while you use the old one.
 
Walt :eureka:, why don't you just send the programs to your external HDD which naturally can be used on any receiver on your account?:devil:
Now there's a thought.:)
BobaBird said:
If you don't want to reprogram the remote, just have the new 622 in standby while you use the old one.
I was trying to retrieve the recordings while we were watching the other receiver and had it working pretty good by using an IR only on the old unit and the UHF on the newer one and the antenna removed on the old one and blocked line of sight on the new one. But every once in a while it messed up. Just plain a pain in the butt.

Anyway, an update. I tried again last night and I tell you, this is very strange.

Other than locking out the porno channels, I had nothing else locked on my system when I disconnected it. Yet, out of about 30 events, at least a half dozen where listed as locked. No title listed and no info available.

I was finally able to unlock the system and get the programs to list out in the guide but before they would play, I still had to enter my password.

But here's the kicker, I could start to play but within a minute it stopped and asked for the password again. It would keep doing this every couple minutes, making it impossible to watch / record the show. This is with ALL locks removed on the unit too.

I've never had this problem with other receivers - even my first 622 (this one is my 3rd) was able to play off the HDD when unhooked from the satellite, as was my 501, 508, & 942.

I think Dish has added code that causes this - maybe something to do with the broadcast flag. I don't remember what all were listed as locked but I know there were the last 2 episodes of "Standoff" (new epipodes that just started up a few weeks ago) and the HD version of "Superman Returns" (on Max HD, I think). One that was not locked and I was able to get transferred to my dvd recorder HDD, was an HD version of "As Good As It Gets". Before anyone mentions it, I know I'm not getting HD on the recorded dvds but starting with an HD version makes for a really good dvd copy and maintains the wide-screen AR.
 
The more I check this out, the more I think Dish has done something that is causing some programs to not be retrievable from the HDD when the receiver is disconnected from the satellite.

I'd like the thead title changed to reflect that or maybe I'll start a new thread but before I start yet another "E" chastisement, I'd like to know if others have the same problem or is this just a glitch in mine.
 
The more I check this out, the more I think Dish has done something that is causing some programs to not be retrievable from the HDD when the receiver is disconnected from the satellite....
We recently had a 622 replaced due to a failing hard drive. Dish told me that I would have 10 days to return the old unit. We almost never watch TV live. So we had a lot of "My Recordings" on the old HDD. And, of course, most of them were HD. So we planned to just watch them before sending the old unit back.

I suspected that "My Recordings" would not be readable unless connected via satellite. And we were not prepared to spend ten very long evenings just watching TV. So when Dish provisioned the "new" 622 I asked them to add the old one as a 2nd receiver (for a small fee/mo). This allowed us to switch the cables between the receivers each day and watch content on the old 622 at a more reasonable pace. BUT... each time we switched back to the old 622 more of the content would have DISAPPEARED while not connected. In the end, the only content left was the programing that we had locked.

I really don't know why we progressively lost the content of "my recordings". Maybe it was just the result of the the failing HDD. But the whole episode reminded me that the content on the internal HDD is very vulnerable. And not just to normal software/hardware issues. No matter who owns the 622 hardware, Dish controls the contents and can block access to it or delete it at will. DVRs are not high tech VCRs.

Talon Dancer
 
Answered your own question

We recently had a 622 replaced due to a failing hard drive. Dish told me that I would have 10 days to return the old unit. We almost never watch TV live. So we had a lot of "My Recordings" on the old HDD. And, of course, most of them were HD. So we planned to just watch them before sending the old unit back.

I suspected that "My Recordings" would not be readable unless connected via satellite. And we were not prepared to spend ten very long evenings just watching TV. So when Dish provisioned the "new" 622 I asked them to add the old one as a 2nd receiver (for a small fee/mo). This allowed us to switch the cables between the receivers each day and watch content on the old 622 at a more reasonable pace. BUT... each time we switched back to the old 622 more of the content would have DISAPPEARED while not connected. In the end, the only content left was the programing that we had locked.

I really don't know why we progressively lost the content of "my recordings". Maybe it was just the result of the the failing HDD. But the whole episode reminded me that the content on the internal HDD is very vulnerable. And not just to normal software/hardware issues. No matter who owns the 622 hardware, Dish controls the contents and can block access to it or delete it at will. DVRs are not high tech VCRs.

Talon Dancer

Failing HDD was getting corrupted sections.
 
Would the history log of the recordings show the reason? What reasons does it give besides disk full or user 1 or 2 delete?

I would like to know the show's episode in the history after the full disk bumped quite a few so that I could go back and get those on repeat. Just didn't lock them because thought I would get to them before it filled.
-Ken
 
Failing HDD was getting corrupted sections.
That is certainly the most likely reason. But what I don't understand is how the 622 knew which programs were affected by bad sectors BEFORE I tried to view them.

In other words, does the 622 regularly and automagicaly scan the disk for bad sectors and remove affected programs? And the follow up question -- if the 622 is so smart that it can remove programs which are affected by bad disk sectors, why doesn't it have the decency to tell me that "OBTW I deleted xxx, yyy & zzz last night. Maybe you should call Dish tech support before you lose the rest of your recordings"? Or better yet, why doesn't it use the phone line (that I have to keep plugged in all the time) to call Dish tech support, report the bad disk and schedule a free replacement so I don't have too? :)

Talon Dancer
 
As part of the nightly process the 622 runs a check on the hard disk. I don't know if it's just a cursory file check or a more in depth filesystem check. The filesystem check should show any anomalies and then the 622 could alert accordingly.

A linux filesystem check can take upwards of 20 mins depending on how full the filesystem is, so overnight would be a good time to run it.
 
NO scan for bad sectors/clusters - just basic fsck(). TD raised right question - there is no way to make decision for delete movies based on bad sectors ! No such tests performing. Period.
 

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