[Kevin270]

My machine has the "CC" code as target. I'm leary at this point though. I can't wait to test it to see if it really does work this time.

Unfortunately I'm going away for a week on vacation Wednesday so I won't get to actually test this code out much before I leave.

 

[Kevin270]

If all goes well, it will be nice to show the 530 to friends and family without having to explain its flakey behavior.

It's funny you should mention that because I had friends over last night and we were watching a comedy show that I recorded. I pressed jump fwd twice to skip over some commercials, and the machine dropped out to the PLAY/DELETE menu. Pressing play at that point always starts the machine back and the very beginning of the recording. That was always very annoying. I had to explain to my company that there was a problem with the unit. It's definitely not good advertising for Star Choice when people who don't own the machine see this sort of thing.

This morning I woke up and my machine is now on CC too. I watched a recorded episode and it did not lock up during jumping. The pause seems to work better too. Backward slow motion works excellently, but forward slow motion seem to pixelate. The show I watched was an SD recording. HD may work differently. I can live with that if that's all that's wrong. When I get back from my trip I will be sure to fully test the machine.

 

[Kevin270]

I just got back from vacation and am pleased to say that the machine has not locked up. For a change I don't have to crawl under the TV to unplug the 530 every day or 2.

I'm a little disappointed at the speed though. It's a really slow machine. I was hoping that the DVR LIST would appear instantaneously, instead of taking the several seconds. I also noticed that the jump buttons are slower than they were with the BC code. I mentioned this a few times before, and I'll say it again. The DSR530 has some definite hardware problems. I don't think that the firmware fixes are going to address a lot of the problems that still exist. Some of you may be waiting for dual recording. Don't hold your breath! The DSR530 is working as hard as it can just keeping up with the mono recording.

The good thing is that the lock up situation seems to have been addressed. For me, that was the biggest problem. The only thing that happened last night was the machine appeared to be locking. Everything went black on my screen and there was dead silence. About 10 seconds later it all came back up. Not sure what that was all about.

 

[Kevin270]

I guess I see the glass as half full, while you see it as half empty.
But given the fact that new code has changed the behavior in ways we thought may have been hardware failures, strongly suggest you may be in error.

While it is true that the DSR530 no longer crashes, the speed at which the machine operates has remained unchanged since May 2005. That was my point. If you have a slow processor or a slow computer, there is no software that is going to speed up the CPU.

Once again, I'm pleased that they fixed the lock-up problems and at least the machine is now usable after waiting for 14 months.

It will be interesting to see if any of these new and improved functions that you speak of actually ever materialize seeing as the unit is already struggling with the current code. Adding more code is just going to throw what we have now out of wack.

 

[Kevin270]

I turned my TV and 530 on tonight and had to reboot the 530. Everything on the screen was bright pink. Even the graphics produced by the 530. I paniced at first thinking it might be my TV doing that. However after a reboot of the 530 everything was fine. This is the first time I've had to reboot since the new CC code. In all fairness it may have been because of the storm we had the other night, but it does seem odd.

 

[Kevin270]

I bought a really expensive UPS for my TV and DSR530. It's been connected since the day I bought my 50" HDTV. I still have had many problems with the 530, regardless of the UPS. I don't think the UPS is going to resolve all of the issues. We've had a couple of thunder storms here recently which really knocked my machine out of order, and it was not because of the power failures we had. This dish will also cause the machine to go wacky if there is an electrical storm. Both days I had to reboot the 530 due to a bright pink display that would not go away.

 

[Kevin270]

I agree with that. The UPS certainly does not hurt. If you are going to invest thousands of dollars into an HDTV television, a UPS is a MUST HAVE item. It protects your equipment from over and under voltage situations, as well as power outages. I have 3 of them in my home - one for my computer - one for my VoIP phone system - a more expensive and more robust one for my TV/DSR530.

If anyone is thinking of buying one, make sure that you check the amperage of the UPS and your equipment to ensure the UPS will support your equipment. The UPS's are built in a variety of ways. Some will have batteries that will support a longer "up time". Some will support a more demanding load. Prices will vary depending on the flavour you choose.

 

[Kevin270]

Friggin' piece of $h1t anyways!

OK, where is ARR and what have you done with him?

This is shocking.

 

[Kevin270]

I will tell you that I have been really disappointed all along with the 530. I never trusted that any firmware would fix the problems because the main problem appears to be a very SLOW CPU in the 530. It runs slower than my old 286 computer did years ago. For a machine that is dedicated to doing just one thing - this is unacceptable. I stopped getting my hopes up long ago. I'm not calling StarChoice to bitch any longer because they either don't care, or they cannot do anything about it as they have already sunk tons of money into the development of this poorly engineered machine.

So what now? Switch to Bell? I hate dealing with the Bell CSRs. I also hate the 2 to 3 year contract ordeal. However, my neighbours and friends who are currently with Bell don't have these problems that we have been facing for over the past year. I know some have already taken the plunge. The unfortunate thing is that some people like me, will have a difficult time justifying and coming up with another $800 to purchase a new PVR. This is really the only thing that is keeping me hanging on to StarChoice.

It really is a shame because I was hoping that *C would do something to fix this ongoing problem. Then again, no companies appear to be loyal to their clientelle anymore. So what was I thinking? What they really need to do is replace each and every one of these Motorola DSR530s with brand new equipment. Are they going to do this? Hardly. So we are stuck with what we've got, and the prospects of it getting any better are just out the window. If it could get better, it would be better right now! Enough time has been spent and wasted.

 

[Kevin270]

It is a shame that you lost your machine ARR as I can imagine you've had some recordings on there that you will not see. It's really unbelievable. I guess I will keep my fingers crossed that mine does not fall into this dead machine syndrome.

I guess this is why *C is no longer releasing the CC code to people.

 

[Kevin270]

I've kinda lost the faith and have decided to look at other providers. I can't see me touching Bell with a six-foot pole, but that may change depending on how things shake-up with Shaw and the rumoured 'going digital' thing. Hopefully something will happen before my wife decides to toss another 530 remote across the room...

I started looking at other providers and noticed that Bell no longer sells their 9200, but they rent it. I don't like that idea very much. They used to do that with telephones, and after a 10 year period a person would pay thousands of dollars for a cheap phone with a rotary dial. Looking through their website reminded me of how good Bell is at finding ways of grabbing more money out of their customers pockets without the customers always realizing what is going on. Hopefully the younger generation will be smarter.

My only alternative would be to go back to Rogers Digital Cable. I like satellite because I can pick up stations from Vancouver to Halifax. Going back to cable means I would miss some of the programming available across the country, but the trade off is a stable machine. It's certainly something to think about.

Tonight, I was watching Channel 382. Suddenly, the picture disappeared and the bottom runner popped up. The channel/time listing on the left of the bar was missing, the CC and *Choice logo on the right was missing, and where it would have listed the name of the program, it said Front Panel. Looking at the DVR, everything looked normal, except that instead of a time or channel display, it said FP. I turned the player off and back on and everything seemed to resume to normal.

Yesterday I experienced another weird event with the 530. I was watching a live program and decided to use the channel up/down key to move up to the next channel. I pushed the key and my screen went black. The blue banner then popped up with the show name, however the red satellite icon was being displayed on the 530. It would not turn green no matter what! I powered the machine off/on, and the green satellite icon came on, but it was now on channel 200. I was then able to scroll through the channels again without a reboot. The bugs in this machine are unbelievable. Each day I seem to be finding a new one lately.

The 530 will never be properly fixed and if we don't take the "upgrade" offer *C will just phase out support (as if anyone will notice any practical difference seeing that support is so ineffectual already).

I do believe that you have hit the nail on the head. This is exactly what I foresee happening too. The 530 is a baked machine, and what we have with CC is pretty much all that can be expected. Each time I say that, people come back with, "No there will be more upgrades that will fix the problems." Each time the upgrade happens, disappointment sets in once more. It feels like driving a car with the wheels ready to fall off any minute.

 

[Kevin270]

The same thing happens if you press skip forward or back just as a new show is starting to record. The entire machine locks and needs to be reset. So it seems that whenever the 530 is busy starting or ending a recording, it loses its mind.

 

[Kevin270]

However, any conversation with a tech at *Choice begins with, "Everyone else is very happy with the code".

I noticed that myself. I guess we don't count quimbysjody because the tech told me that too. I guess you and me and the several others are not part of everyone else? It's their way of nicely saying, "Buzz off!"

 

[Kevin270]

Mine has never been in an enclosed space, and I seem to have experienced all of the problems mentioned above. I don't know if that has any more to do with the cruddy machine than slapping wooden spoons together before turning it on. Maybe I'll try standing on my head before turning the machine on to see if that helps.

 

[Kevin270]

Keep in mind that people who do have stable machines often come back to this forum to complain that their DSR530 is mysteriously no longer stable. It's like a light switch that goes off and on. You never know when the DSR530 will cooperate or not. The software is riddled with bugs and all of us with the CC code have identical versions of the CC code so it would only make sense that the same problems could potentially exist for all CC machines.

 

[Kevin270]

Keep away from that installer. Treat him as though he has a horrible disease.

 

[Kevin270]

More Timer Conflict Bugs in CC Code

It seems strange that after several software releases that the programmers of the DSR530 cannot comprehend the differences between the times and the days of the week. Gee whiz, there are 7 days in a week, and each day is made up of 24 hours. Given that fact, explain to me why I'm getting a timer conflict here:

The 1:03 AM on the first entry is for Sunday, not Saturday. However the program seems to think the end time is based on the same day as the start time. Nuts! It's not rocket science, but it is very poor testing, and very unstructured programming going on here.

 

[Kevin270]

If you take a look at the image I posted a few entries back, you'll see that there is no AM/PM problem. It's definitely more programming bugs. It makes no sense at all.

I generally add a couple of minutes onto the end of my shows so that they catch all of the show and not truncate prior to the real end of the show. This really frigs the machine up. It should not, but it does!

 

[Kevin270]

The image doesn't load for most of us... requires a membership to esnips i guess.

Oh, I didn't know that. Well if you go to esnips you can find it by keying DSR530 into the SEARCH field.

http://esnips.com

There is still something strange going on. Even if the DST kicks in, the times that are in conflict are almost 24 hours apart.

Saturday at 1:00 AM to Saturday at 2:00 AM
Saturday at 11:30 PM to Sunday at 1:03 AM

2 AM Saturday to 11:30 PM Saturday is quite a distance apart.

 

[Kevin270]

GAWD...some people have just got nothing else better to do excect..."Complain"

Hmm, I guess people who like to COMPLAIN about others complaining should not participate in threads entitled:

DSR530 Code CC Fixes, Features & Bugs