Hi all,

This is a problem I have been having for the last month or so and it is not tied to a single channel. We exclusively watch HD channels, so I can't speak for SD. I am in Ottawa and have upgraded the internal disk to a 500GB HDD following the instructions posted on this forum about a year ago. The disk is about 60% full and there are some recordings that haven't been deleted for quite a while.

Now here is the problem: if I am recording an HD channel and watching it at the same time, I can smoothly watch the recording. If it gets recorded and I watch it at a later time (or following the recording couple minutes or more/less behind) it freezes frequently for a 10-30 seconds at a time, short sections are skipped, subtitles don't show,etc. but no macroblocking (which I find very interesting)

Since there is no problem watching the channel realtime, it means the signal is good and properly decoded by the unit. When you read the data off the HDD (which happens when the recording is not watched realtime), there are problems which suggests the data is not written properly to the disk (or read from it)

any suggestions?
- can I defrag the disk? I read on this forum that defrag happens automatically. so I can't do anything about it.
- do you think the drive is going bad after a year?
- if so, how? :)

Here's a post on Tips for SA STBs. Check your signal strength, S/N ratio on the affected channel(s) and do a cold reboot.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17719

As the PVR is asked to do more, a borderline signal may affect the functionality of the PVR.

I had tried cold booting before, but I will definitely try again tonight.

As for the PVR doing more or the signal strength being low, it doesn't make sense to me too much because of the reasons I explained. Even if only a single tuner is running and just recording, the recordings are bad. if the signal strength were low, the realtime playback would also be bad.

On the other hand, the tuner's output, its decoding and its recording to the HDD are all seperate stages in the process. Tuner is a separate component on its own. We know its output is good because realtime watching is good.

My understanding is after the tuner spits out the digital data, it gets saved AND it gets decoded for display. Display path is good, saving path is not. (at least that's my view)

That's why I am leaning towards the HDD....

Before discarding the signal strength and S/N ratio as the culprit, make sure you check it. It has come into play many times in these sorts of instances. It certainly could be the HDD.

ok. done the cold boot.

now watching CIBC HNIC. Signal strength 37 dbm, level -4.
Watching realtime is fine, trying to go a few minutes back to replay is not ....

If you don't mind losing the information you have on your HDD, you could try the "last resort" HDD reformat outlined in the link provided in post 2...

Are the older recordings playing back fine, or do they have issues.

If you do mind losing the recordings and if the older recordings play fine, you could try cloning the drive and replacing it - outlined in the internal drive upgrade thread.

If you do mind losing the recordings and if the older recordings play fine, you could try cloning the drive and replacing it - outlined in the internal drive upgrade thread.
this is semi-offtopic, but I may be in a very similar situation. The difference is that I have both the original internal drive and an external drive. Until recently, the setup worked flawlessly.

How can I tell which one to clone and replace?

You could disconnect the external and see if you still have issues. So far, the only successful feedback of cloning in this forum is with the internal (see post 1 of the internal thread and the link there). We have heard of people cloning the external elsewhere, but not on this forum - no reason it shouldn't work, just no confirmations here.

Also, if you have the original internal, cloning to say a 640 GB HDD is an inexpensive proposition with a large increase in capacity.

You could also try a number of different recordings to see if the issue is with the internal or external, or both. Depending on the eHDD and enclosure, you can usually tell which drive is being accessed when you hit "play" - either by the activity light, or by sound from the drive.

Are the older recordings playing back fine, or do they have issues.
I had totally ignored this question until yesterday when I tried playing back a very old recording. It HAD the SAME problems.

I don't know how to interpret that.

Bad drive or bad processing. Probably the former, but no guarantees. What's the make/model of the drive?

it is a 50gb WD : similar to one of these : WD5000AAKB, althought the letters could potentially be different than this, I am not sure. It was the drive that was suggested in the "internal hdd upgrade" thread in this forum about a year ago.

Just to complete this thread :

I pulled the hard disk out and tested with WD diagnostic tool from a boot CD and it failed their test. Windows test (quick) passed but the extended was taking too long and i didn't wait for it to end. Extended would probably have failed.

So now the HDD is in RMA.

Thanks for keeping us up to date. Let us know the final result.